“A good leader,” says Mark Jones, Chief Storyteller at the ImpactInstitute, “has a very clear picture of the future, a strong vision, and you’re able to bring people along on the journey.”
Mark has more than fifteen years of corporate leadership to his name and, in this Helping Hands panel discussion, speaks openly and candidly about what good leadership looks like.
To talk about what it means to lead well, Mark is joined by fellow experts on the subject; Joce Goto, Chief of Operations at Charitabl.; and Max Jeganathan, former advisor to Federal Government.
Put simply, Max offers, leading well in any context means applying yourself diligently to three things:
Virtues of character within leadership, such as empathy and humility, cannot be underestimated, Joce agrees. These are inseparable from the territory of good leadership because a good leader should always genuinely desire the success of others. It’s a concept which, she says, is absolutely worthwhile, but can be difficult to keep in focus when answerable to others with an expectation of success.
“Humility and empathy are really the things, I think, that can drive a lot of change … The people that we lead are people – they’re not just a product for us to try and get the most out of. I think one of the best postures we can have as a leader is to think, ‘How can I get the best out of this person?’ rather than (aiming to be) better than them.”
Expectations are an ever-present beast to manage, Mark adds. In the corporate world, good leadership means making consistent and clear decisions based around purpose, communication and innovation that your whole team can get on board with. But even with well-defined strategy in place, good leaders balance precariously on the see-saw between the desire for perfection and the humble reality of being imperfectly human.
“You need a very clear picture of where you’re going. And people’s ability to have you meet all of their expectations – it’s almost impossible … There’s no particular formula, but it is creating a space where people can get that balance right. Because you’re not perfect and they’re not perfect, and so we have to find that space that we can all move ahead together.”
In the world of politics, where Max has spent many years of his career advising leaders in federal government, leadership is something regarded more cynically than in possibly any other context.
What has Max learned from his years observing effective leadership there?
“It (good leadership) comes down to this balance between trust and accountability … In the political space, there’s actually a tonne of accountability, but it’s a very low trust environment. And by contrast, in other parts of our community … you have very high trust and low levels of accountability. But what you do find is that people mess up in all of these spaces … For healthy leadership and healthy organisations, and families, friendship groups … we need to understand we need high trust and high accountability.”
One thing our panellists all agree on is that good leaders learn how to put the needs and direction of the team first; to humbly sacrifice the pursuit of their own egos and personal accolades for the sake of those who depend on them.
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