Nurturing Leadership

I’m not one to pick the battle between whether leadership can be taught or is innate, but I do think leadership can be nurtured. The earlier the better.

The more natural leadership is as organic behaviour patterns than learned practical exercises, the better.

The concern I have is that leadership has been made into this mythological style that one needs to be either trained in or born with, when, realistically speaking, it’s not that hard of a concept to grasp.

Yes, for a guy that talks about leadership a lot, gets on the circuit and does talks on the subject, I'm telling you this isn't hard.

I find it ironic that leadership was about how a leader led his or her people and yet we believe there is a magical formula that we all need to learn that will make us natural born leaders. Leadership is unique to the individual, unique to the people you lead and unique to the environment you are in. It is not a strict set of guidelines that you follow or study that makes you a good or a bad leader.

At times I equate leadership to humanity and being a person above all else. Don't get me wrong, I'm not asking you to hug trees, I'm not that person, but I am the one who says being a Manager alone is not enough.

And I will also say that being a Leader is not always about making the easy calls that makes everyone happy. In fact some of our greatest leaders have had to make some of the toughest decisions, at times impacting the lives of those they lead.

Leadership is more than just softening Management and the traditional hierarchy. It’s about an approach, about how you believe you want to show up and work with people around you. It is about being tough yet human. It is about being inclusive, yet knowing when to make the decision. It is about having fun but getting the job done. It is about engendering thoughts, new ideas and creativity, all the while keeping an eye on your objectives.

Leadership is one of the biggest contradictions in organizational and personal styles one can have. Yet it works. Perhaps it is because we are contradictions in our own lives and in our own ways that this fits so well.

Find your own contradictions, find your own style. It will drive you further than you ever have. Challenges, opportunities, and all.

One of my best worst leadership mistakes

We have a recruitment process at WeUsThem that, for a small business, is rather arduous and lengthy.

Recruits have multiple levels of sorting and filtering they need to go through before they even walk through the door. After vetting their resumes, the candidates have an initial short meet and greet with the hiring manager followed immediately with a skills test. Should the candidate make it through the first round, it leads to a meeting with my business partner and I. If they are a potential candidate of choice at that point, they meet with rest of the team. If there’s a positive nod from the team, the candidate’s references are checked out and an offer is finally put forward.

Now, you must be thinking as to why a small business would put itself through such a lengthy process, and what the purpose may be. There are a few reasons for this, which are:

1- We want to make sure whoever we hire fits with the “je ne sais quoi” of our team. It's taken a long time for us to put together a team that just works and to maintain this is absolutely paramount. This harmony and chemistry, the ying and yang is unique to our team and we do what we can to maintain this.

2- We want the right sets of skills that are “beyond the paper”. We test not just for work-related skills—we also test for creativity. Thinking on your feet while applying your skill sets is an important asset for us.

3- We want each team member to take ownership for including others. Our potential hires will need to work and be comfortable with each other.

In the case of our most recent hire, we went through our typical process, step by step. Once they made it through the first round, it was time for them to meet with my business partner and I. After we met and the candidate left,  my partner and I found ourselves with two very different opinions. While she believed they would be a good addition to the team, I had my sincere doubts.

Together, we decided to let them progress to the next round to see what feedback we would receive from the team and, once again, he made it through.

I admit, I was worried. For the first time, after recruiting hundreds of people in my former careers I had an uneasy feeling on this particular hire. Although we have a probationary period in place, I did not want to invest in someone who just wouldn't work. But, due to our process, I was outvoted, outnumbered and outgunned.

Three months ago, this individual joined our small but mighty rag tag team and just completed their first review.

There is no other way to say it: I was wrong. The hire carved a unique place for themselves in our team, while also providing us much needed support.

I honestly had thought I made a mistake when letting my team outvote me to hire this individual. I’m proud to say that I’m glad I was wrong and that my partner and the team were there to catch me. This hire was my best worst mistake.

Our recruitment process may sound absurd for what we do, but we don't just add employees to our team—we add family members, as my partner would say. This multi-layered process brought us another member who adds to our strengths and works cohesively in a fashion we are comfortable with.

It's only been three months, but the teachable moment of looking back and relying on group think allowed us to gain an important cog in our WeUsThem machine.

Leadership inherently requires trusting your team and building in the capacity so that you can be caught by those that you surround yourself with. Build a team, one that takes ownership and voices their concerns when you may have missed something. This collaborative leadership style will bring about organic leadership training, growth and progression for your team while ensuring the ethos of the business continues to remain as you had envisioned.

I have always said that successful leadership needs to be about a bottom-up model than top-down and, clearly, this is another example of how this truly works. Building those conditions are important and, perhaps, you too will make a mistake you’ll eventually be proud of.

Nova Scotia Small Business - Good Business?

by Ashwin Kutty 

The Conference Board of Canada recent forecast (click here for a summery) indicates that Nova Scotia will lead in economic growth compared to the rest of the country.

Always good news when you read about economic growth in your region, but what I find interesting is that the jobs figures will continue to remain as poor as they are now. When we look at some of the larger investments highlighted in the article, we know that all of that FDI coming in as a good sign, but what about that jobs figure.

I wonder sometimes where the economic impact of small business is and how that is quantified, measured and shown as a sign of economic growth or not. Traditional reporting looks at the headlines and uses it to substantiate economic indicators, while not really looking at the deeper business environment we currently live in.

Small business is a good business driver for job growth, regardless of which sector or industry as small businesses span the gamut. When we consider big businesses that we want to attract to our shores, sure they bring in jobs, but what they also bring in are subsidies, grants and forgivable loans that we need to give out to ensure they come and hopefully they stay. I am not against this strategy as attracting big business is good news for us - they drive small business growth in return and make us attractive for talent, investment and innovation. This is where I believe we need to pay a bit more focus on the small business and look at a few key indicators of potential success that could both drive growth as well as sustainability:

1. Is it innovative? Are they unique and if so, what is their unique value proposition?
2. Is it feasible? Just because they are unique does not mean they can find financing in a heartbeat. This may require a rethink on the product/service if it can be made feasibly or if there are alternative funding sources that could help its feasibility.
3. Is it market appropriate? The definition of the market space it has been identified for needs to be in line with the market need thats out there. If it doesn't exist, investing in something to then educate the market on and convert individuals into consumers is no easy task. This is not a deal breaker, but is a cautionary note on furthering any small business.
4. Is it executable? A good idea is only as good as the team that will execute it. This requires not just the technical (and no not IT technical) but also a business member of the team that can potentially execute it. Track record is important, but we need to take chances on passion, fortitude and chutzpah - not many have it and a small business in a big business market requires every ounce of this mix of three they can muster.
5. Is it mentor’able? Its not a word, but it needs to be. We need to have mentors for any and all small business - godparents of business if you will to ensure that no matter how small or big the business is, it remains true to its original vision and stays on course to deliver, deliver, deliver. The second it does not, these mentors need to be able to strong enough in making tough decisions around whether proceeding further would benefit anyone. Good money after bad is never a good idea. 

We do not have a lack of creativity, nor do we lack business acumen, what we lack is the combination of the two. We need to build more sustainable businesses that do not close its doors in a blink of an eye, nor stay open with no running water or electricity.

Business is tough, small business more so, but its doable. If you need to, heed to the first piece of advice I received in business “Spend money to make money”. I would only change that to “Spend money wisely to make money”.

Small business is good business and it will drive jobs growth in our province and a multitude of others. I am not talking about building a hundred small companies to create jobs, I am talking about building 10 that will sustain careers for a long time. If we let small businesses be successful by being tough on them on the onset, imagine the impacts of the same when they grow to medium and large businesses in the future.