I am, innately, a leader. It is an intrinsic part of my personality, and one I cannot escape. And yet, when I first saw this writing prompt, I paused. I paused because I know I am a leader but I felt that in saying so, I was somehow being boastful. But it isn’t boastful to speak the truth.
When I was a child, I was the one who usually led the others into a game or an adventure. I would be the one who suggested we go to the park and play a particular game whereas the others would initially be shrugging their shoulders, not sure what to do. Too young to know about things like vision, goals and all the other aspects of leadership, I did know that we wanted to have some fun and that the park and games would provide that. At school, whenever we were put into groups to do some work, I would look around at the others and the silence that inevitably fell and say something along the lines of ‘well, this is what we need to do, and this is how I suggest we do it’. I was always the one to make that first move, to unknowingly set out the objective and a vision of how to get there. I was happy if that vision shifted and changed along the way with the input of others, but as long as the end result got us to where we needed to be. In playing with friends, if the shift in vision was to play ‘knock down ginger’ (where you knocked on people’s front doors and ran away before they could answer), I would ask how it was fun when half the people were out at work, and the other half were elderly and likely to tell our parents so we got told off when we got home. And in school groups, I was always the one bringing us back to the purpose of what we were there to do.
Those leadership tendencies continued in university and in the early days of my career. In the former, again I was always the one leading the study groups and being selected to stand up and speak – I never volunteered for that, always happy for someone else to stand up and talk about our work. And in my career, I was always the one in the team who would make suggestions, or ask how we were fulfilling the goal or objective we were there to execute. And I was the one who would challenge the status quo. I’ve always been of the opinion, if we can do something better, more efficiently by doing something differently – why don’t we? Something may not look broken on the surface, but that doesn’t mean it’s the best way of doing it. So, fix it. I’ve never been one who is afraid of change, in fact I used to revel in it a lot. I only saw opportunities in change, rarely ever threats. I will admit that approach did not always endear me to my colleagues who were happy to go along with the flow, and do things the way they’d always been done. But there’s no progress in that for me, no innovation. In that way I guess I am more of a revolutionary leader than one who is trying to keep things pickled in aspic.
I learned that I can sometimes be overwhelming for some people, especially when there is something I am very passionate about, and over the years I have learned to temper that a bit. I don’t roll my eyes so much at a ‘no, what’s the question’ approach to life. I recognise now, through experience and learning, that some people are hard-wired to resist change. I’ve learned to find those people and recognise the signs. There’s no judgement from me in that, we’re all wired differently. So, when someone doesn’t want to do things differently, something that needs a new approach, I’ve learned that rather than go in all guns blazing talking about change, it’s best to ask that person if there is anything they think would benefit from a new approach about the process they are doing. Very soon, you find that they would change the whole thing, they just don’t say those exact words. Because they’re scary for people. What happens then is you get a better idea of how you could implement things differently, and they accept the change because the how of it was their idea – and you haven’t caused uproar by talking about a change that was going to happen regardless. So, I guess I am a gentle revolutionary leader, something that emerged over time. As I say, when I was younger I was very gung ho about change and couldn’t understand why others didn’t see all the potential in it, but I do have a very different approach now.
I am also a leader at home. It is just innate in me, and I can’t be any other way. I have tried, truly I have. In all sorts of arenas, I have tried stepping back and letting others take the lead. I have given myself regular pep talks on not speaking, on remaining silent throughout whatever event it is. To, basically, dim my own light. It never lasts. I either get really frustrated at going round and round in circles or I can clearly see a way forward and in suggesting it, end up becoming the leader. It is so ingrained in my psyche I can’t behave any other way.
I have held senior leadership positions in the past, for the last 20 years of my previous career. I spent longer in leadership positions than I did in more junior roles. Partly that was because as well as being a leader, I am also innately a creative thinker. I can see the way through the morass most of the time and identify routes towards achieving the outcome the team or organisation most wants. I am a problem solver, I am able to come up with innovative projects, and I am a strong communicator. And I recognise that I alone don’t have all the answers, for that I need a team. Which was rewarded by promotions in the organisations I worked for.
When I was at university, on one of my courses we were having a debate and I remember coming up with an idea, a thought, that I voiced aloud and we all discussed with the lecturer in detail. The lecturer then went on to publish some research on that very idea, presenting it as though the entire thing was hers alone. While I hadn’t done the in-depth research she had, the kernel of the idea (well, more than that really) had been mine. And she had never admitted that. I wasn’t looking for glory but the appropriation of other people’s ideas and presenting them as your own is an anathema to me. I have always been the leader that has given full praise where it is due, and have publicly acknowledged people and their ideas, work, and successes. I have been berated by headhunters because I have always said ‘we’ rather than ‘I’ in interviews. A leader is only a good leader if they are supported by a strong team. A team they have chosen for their skills and talents, and the team that is behind them all the way, signed up to the vision that ultimately has been a co-creation, even if only by dint of the team’s agreement to it. As the old adage says, there is no ‘I’ in team. For me, if you’re a leader saying ‘I’ all the time, you’re not a leader. You’re a one-man band. I have no problem with acknowledging the efforts of my team in delivering the vision I have presented to them. Without them, I know it wouldn’t have been delivered because a leader who seeks to do everything is not a leader.
Equally, I was never afraid to call out the people who weren’t performing. I was always watching, always trying to keep my finger on the pulse of how the teams beneath my senior managers were feeling. What their levels of morale looked like. And if there was a problem, I acted. I have removed people from their posts, I have gone through torturous HR processes, and I have worked with my senior managers to remove people from their teams who were not performing. I have always been prepared to take those difficult decisions. Do I like it? No, I don’t. But it’s part of the job – you have to take the rough with the smooth. When there were times where cutbacks had to be made which resulted in redundancies, I always stood up and faced the staff throughout the process, I took the final decisions. When popular services or projects had to be pulled, I stood in front of the ultimate decision-makers and took the flack. When you are the leader, the buck stops with you. Leadership is about making sure that everyone is pulling in the same direction with the same strength as the others, even in difficult times, that they are being managed appropriately, and they are not feeling in any way that they are either personally being poorly treated, or that they as a collective are being neglected.
I do not subscribe to the ‘alpha’ leadership model. It achieves nothing in my view but resentment and a form of passive resistance amongst teams. And burnout usually for the leader. It’s been proven not to work, yet it is still persisted with often. In order to be an alpha leader, essentially the main trait is someone who has no emotional intelligence, no empathy and usually mirrors the characteristics of a sociopath at best, psychopath at worst. Delivery through fear is no one’s idea of a good and sustainable model. No, it has been proven that the most efficient and product form of leadership is collaborative leadership headed up by someone with an awareness of their impact on others, and who can display both empathy when required and clear direction when required. A good leader can listen, not to respond but to hear what the other person is saying, but also can issue instructions when that is what is required. And understand at all times what impact they are having on their staff. Someone who is less interested in themselves, and more interested in the outcomes for the organisation and their staff.
I have had those alpha leaders, and I have inherited teams who were led by those alpha leaders. Both had the same thing in common – they underestimated me, often because I am a woman who shows empathy. Because I wasn’t prepared to demonstrate my alpha personality in the same way as they did. The teams I inherited, some of whom had managers who echoed the alpha leader they’d had previously, were restructured, shifted and changed and those managers either moved out of the organisation or moved on into different roles, roles which didn’t require people management. I don’t think collaborative leadership means you don’t have a core of steel, quite the opposite. It’s just how you go about demonstrating it.
So, why did I feel resistance in saying I am a leader? Because I am most certainly not a follower. I am not throwing any shade at followers here, I am just expressing that I am not one, though at times I have tried to be. I think I felt the resistance because it felt like I was saying ‘look at me’ which is something I don’t like to do, even as a leader. And I think because I am only now realising that being a leader is innate in me. When I was in those roles, I didn’t see it as being innate but as being necessary to perform the job. I’d often only applied for the job because the subject matter interested me and the money was good, and I think a part of me was looking for that round hole to fit the round peg that’s me into. It was never a deliberate choice to be a leader. And there was a part of me that thought ‘who do you think you are?’ in saying I am a leader. So, writing this has been about reinforcing to myself that, yes, I am a leader in every aspect of my life because it is who I was born to be. And it is about accepting that part of me.
I think I was also reticent because that perception of the alpha leader is still very prevalent today. When people think of a leader, they think of the Gordon Gekko’s of this world who are still very much alive and well unfortunately. Think Trump, Putin, Macron, Netenyahu (examples clearly of how it really doesn’t work). In my view, Zelensky is a collaborative leader posing as an alpha one because of the times he is in. Starmer is not a leader full stop. And I am not an alpha leader at all, even when I had to issue clear instructions. So, I was reticent because I didn’t want that perception of myself from others.
Because sometimes being the leader is exhausting, even when you’re a collaborative leader. The responsibility is always yours, and while I thrive on responsibility, there are times when you just want to hand it over to someone else for a moment so you can catch your breath. When you just want to step away for a minute and get some proverbial fresh air, especially when you’re leading through difficult times. I have led through terrorist attacks, through pandemics, through global financial meltdowns and all have played out in the organisations I worked for and so through my leadership. But you can’t hand it over. You have assumed the role, it’s yours. The same is also true when you’re the leader at home. Everyone turns to you to solve the problems, to sort things out, to make the decisions. It is exhausting. My way of dealing with that has been meditation and journaling. Because leadership is innate within me, I realise now I have always turned things over to my Higher Self and my spirit team to help me see the way through when I was tired and it was hard to be innovative and creative. Almost always, something came back. The germ of an idea started to take root, a possible solution to explore. And I got reinvigorated again. The same is true for me now.
So, yes I am a leader. And I am proud to be a leader, I am shedding my reticence around that an embracing it wholeheartedly. The world needs more collaborative leaders and less alpha ones, so I am happy to stand up and be counted as such.
Louisa Simpson 