Notes from Work: A Studious Leader
In a chat with a colleague, I confessed that there is one position I try to go to in case I have any doubt about my leadership abilities. I would rather be considered a humble learner than a know-it-all. Learning brings two things out — first, we create space for other’s opinions, and second, listen with an open mind.
Again, taking such a position is a luxury for most of us. Being the visionary and the lead player in the business, it might be on us to be at the front, making it difficult to become a student. If we were to stop and let the other go to the front, we could see how the organization would look without us at the helm. The first challenge of leading from the front is the ability to see the way ahead, at least till the path turns a corner. If somebody else could peek further down the road and give their views, we would have another pair of eyes seeing the same path ahead and concluding.
This leads to two questions: Would we accept a diverse view than us? Would we let somebody else lead, at least for a moment? It is hard to let go, especially if there is a disparity in intellectual levels, or the ability to envisage. Most people can’t handle abstract layers and therefore are uncomfortable taking the lead. Some may shun the spotlight because they would rather express but not explain and defend, others might just be uncomfortable with the abstract.
However, I have observed that three factors make a good student out of a leader.
First, curiosity — unbridled curiosity to learn from the smarter people around; Second, humility — the attribute that makes one willing to accept another’s excellence; third, gratitude — a sense of thankfulness that makes you acknowledge other’s contributions.
Let us examine these three closely. Before that, I would like to set the context of why I consider myself a student.
A Journey as a Student into Leadership:
As I transitioned from my corporate job into a self-employed phase, I embarked on projects that suited me. I was a natural in many subjects — content writing, website building, building sales funnels and teams, setting up operations for a foreign company, and business consulting. The list could go on. I was faced with a problem of plenty. I expanded my team to address a few projects, but I was mostly the face of my work, and I started feeling the stress of running sales, marketing, delivery, payment, and collection. I came to a point where I needed to start a different journey, albeit being successful as a solopreneur. If I could become part of a team, it would make me focus on my strengths, and let others bring their skills and experience that could complement mine.
My partners brought complementary strengths in finance and investment banking, while I added my strengths in strategy and organization building. We had a meeting of minds, chemistry, and zest to drive the business. It took some time for me to realize that I had learned a lot on the job, but more from my partners. I could take pride in being excellent academically, but it was more than that. It was an unsatiated curiosity to learn as we built our business. To achieve this, I listened to my partners, and their years of experience added to the collective wisdom that made our decisions more enduring.
My biggest learning was to be part of a team. It did not matter how smart I was, what mattered was the loyalty to the team. Even if I was doing the gruntwork of 80%, the balance of 20% could only be achieved with the team. If 100% of any desired result, the 80% would fall short without the 20%. So the 20% became more important than the 80% that I contributed. It brought me to the point of accepting that I was part of something, rather than being the only thing of nothing. A beautiful part of this journey was the acceptance of the interdependence. I felt humbler and grateful, and I was vindicated. During my bad days and poor patches, the team stood up for me and took things forward.
To distill the experience, I could say that I became a student, learning lessons about life, partnership, and teams. From an unequivocal leader in a corporate setup, I became part of a leadership team that balanced various aspects — skills, situations, decisions, and backing each other up. It turned out that being a student put me in places that I would not have been otherwise, but the results were amazing — easier conflict resolution, better decision-making, and faster execution.
This transformation has held me in good stead when I have worked with new teams. The new teams have relative newcomers, but they are specialists and experts in their own right. Here, I become the student as it enables me not only to understand their thoughts but also to listen to their perspectives. It is a ringside view of how ideas come to life.
Let us now examine the three important qualities of a studious leader.
a) Curiosity
Einstein describes curiosity as persistent interest and patience to chase a problem to its solution. For a startup founder or a leader, curiosity is the guiding force to propel forward. Whether it is about the vision or a smaller task, curiosity becomes the beacon of studentship. Curiosity brings genuine interest. But there is a caveat — a filter about understanding the relevance of any input that directly lies in the path of the subject in question. Many have considered curiosity as a serious, single-track attribute, but the fact is that curiosity is built on persistence, focus, and patience.
I have seen more curious people. Their learning methods are deeper — taking notes, asking for clarifications, tagging open points, admitting a lack of understanding, requesting examples, etc., It is inspiring to build conversations about the subject, in the process of sharing, we learn. Such learnings make good building blocks for business.
b) Humility
Humility is the other side of the coin called curiosity. A student who is curious to learn should be willing to be humble.
“A great man is always willing to be little.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson
No teacher ever reveals the true wisdom to a haughty disciple — for the shedding of the ego is the first step in the path of wisdom. If we apply the same logic of curiosity, which makes us students and our fellow founders teachers, we need to be ready to listen. Listening comes with genuine empathetic focus and that comes with being humble.
I have found humility as the biggest challenge to handle — not because it is difficult, but because we forget that we are the students. If we are curious but not humble, we become intellectual show-offs(and I know this, because people use the word genius around me). Humility is the first lesson for a curious student.
c) Gratitude
We are curious. We are humble. Now, we have studied our lessons. The third quality — gratitude is the last piece of the tripod of leadership. Gratitude is the basic but the most genuine form of respect. Gratitude is also about seeing the goodness in others — we can be grateful that even thorns have roses ( or feel cursed that roses have thorns.)
A simple acknowledgment that the others have been our teachers is enough. When gratitude is the bond that binds the team, it makes the space for everybody to contribute better, as they are acknowledged and their inputs more meaningful. Gratitude is fundamental to the formation of tribes. African tribes have expressive ways of thanking their fellow tribespeople. In a team, if the stakeholders acknowledge each other’s contributions, it brings them together as a bonded force to achieve the milestones.
If we assume that these qualities could be cultivated, then we could consider a structured approach to becoming a studious leader.
The Feynmann approach to learning as a leader:
Being a student is beyond listening — it requires a lot of reading ( and watching videos these days) and thinking. The deeper one understands a subject, the better one can contribute to decision-making. Of course, there is the basic intellectual quotient. I would follow Feynmann’s technique ( which is counter-intuitive for me).
a) Select a subject to learn: The subject in question is about understanding incubators and academic institutions. It is important to crystallize the thoughts about them, mostly in context. The five Ws and H's approach helps to construct the basic understanding of cultivating entrepreneurship culture and supporting startups from these academic institutions to commercial success. The first step is to understand the lay of the land.
b) Simplify the subject: The deeper the understanding evolves, the more complex the learning becomes. But to transmit the learnings to other stakeholders, the same has to be distilled into simpler words. The simplicity comes in articulating the understanding in simple, succinct words. Using tables, bullets, and pictures — workflows, block diagrams, and mind maps, such understanding can be simplified. In the above example, understanding the gap and mapping the possible solutions could be constructed as a table.
c)Review and Refine: Capturing the essence in various documents, tables, and diagrams will allow the stakeholders to consume, comment, and convince ( or get convinced) about the idea. The revisions and refinements are to distill the idea to further simplicity. Simplicity is the ultimate goal — clarity of thoughts expressed shortly and succinctly to the finest possible understanding between the stakeholders, and finally to the external world.
d) Organize and Review: The idea is to unify opinions and address them — normally such decisions from the learnings above lead to unanimity in the way forward. When the decisions are at the topmost level, it is important to get stakeholder buy-in and track disagreements in a manner that does not impede the progress of business.
By applying a structured approach and adopting the qualities of curiosity, humility, and gratitude, one can become a studious leader.
In Summary
“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
If a person feels the thirst of curiosity to achieve the vision and they see in their tribe the same hunger, the yearning to chase the dream becomes the unifying factor, acknowledging the contributions of his tribe. In a sense, they become a leader in their own right.
~Ashok Subramanian © 2024
