Turn the Pyramid
You may have read about leadership, how you should lead by example, how to listen, how to communicate, etc… but one thing that stands out is the fact that no one or perhaps very few will tell you the naked truth: To Lead Is To Serve.
It does sound paradoxical right? Well, only if you take the word “Serve” in its superficial sense. Serving others does not mean submitting to others in any way, you can still serve and be a leader, or a better way to put it, is that you can lead by serving others.
You qualify to be first by putting other people first. — The Serving Leader by Ken Jennings
How it all hit me;
When I started building tech teams, for SMEs in a very challenging part of the world in terms of resources, funding and processes, the only way to get something up and running was to execute with minimal time to think or plan. This meant:
- Extreme pressure on hiring, training, developing people
- Setting up processes, understanding legacy code, producing new code, fixing inherited bugs and issues, releasing to production
- A workforce that is not well exposed to the latest trends in tech and product
Despite all that, I managed to build 3 teams of different sizes for 3 companies over the course of 6 years. We managed to do this in a short period of time and in uncertain business environments - yet we retained our talent and kept them happy and fulfilled.
The first team I built was at Careem in the UAE, Payments and Incentives we called it, we started this team at a time when Careem hit a continuously exponential growth — The Golf Stick we liked to call it, due to its shape on the chart — team of 7 engineers was built under heavy fire, members joining and being asked to deliver on bug fixes, detected fraud, slow payment responses, downtime(s) and fire fighting from every angle.
The second team, a team of 6 engineers, was for a new start-up I joined as the CTO, Designer-24. A fashion rental e-commerce business built on top of an outdated version of Magento, hacked to work as a rental engine instead of traditional e-commerce. We had to hire our team in Lebanon due to funding restrictions and we had to move fast on hiring, training, building new modern tech and deliver features for a running business.
The third team, is Washmen tech team also in Beirut, Lebanon. A team of 15 engineers and UX /UI experts to handle all Tech / Product developments of Washmen in the UAE. Washmen is an on demand laundry service powered with 2 in-house systematized laundry facilities. The new tech team had to deal with customer products, driver products, facility products and a lot of integrations ranging from marketing tools to facility machinery.
Looking back at it, I didn’t know how we did all that. When you are cruising in a speedboat, it is not easy to look at things holistically and understand it. Building teams while under fire can be very overwhelming. But in a recent meeting, with one of our senior engineers at Washmen, I was able to see it clearly. I understood what was the driving force behind all these experiences.
The conversation in that meeting was about how he can become a better leader, how he can be perceived in a better way by his fellow colleagues etc... I sat there wondering, how can I explain to him what I do and what I have been doing for all these years? Suddenly conversations I had with colleagues, friends, seniors, family members and my wife finally came together. The dots connected. I realized that the recurring theme of those conversations around my personality and leadership style/characteristics is that I genuinely believe that my job as leader, as a manager, is to serve!
If serving is below you, leadership is beyond you. — Anonymous
Know your Principles;
I think behavior and attitude are driven by principles carved deep down within us, developed over a long period of time. To be effective leaders, one needs to be in tune with these first principles. If you aren’t, you should work towards developing them by asking yourself certain questions:
- Do you believe every person, regardless of how junior or senior, deserves civility, trust and respect?
- Do you value people and relationships first, and results second?
- How important do you think you are?
- Do you believe in selflessness and humility?
- How patient, persistent yet tolerant are you?
- Are you a good listener? A good observer?
- Are you a hard worker and a constant learner?
- Are you in touch with the actual level of your qualifications? Are you the best that you can be at what you are teaching?
- Do you feel like you have to pretend in certain circumstances to be liked by others and team members?
Practice your principles;
In order for these principles to resonate they need to be applied in real life, real scenarios, they actually need to be applied all the time. You need to really believe in these principles or else you will slip and that’s not a favorable option for a leader. Here are some major applications of those principles:
- Never pretend to be anything but what you truly are, mirror your thoughts & feelings. Do not act by a principle you don’t really believe in. You will be caught on spot. Develop that principle instead so that it becomes natural and a part of you
- You don’t have to know it all, it is impossible that you know it all
- Make sure you equip your team with what and who they need to do their job. That’s top priority on your list. You need to keep a check on the goals to be achieved vis-a-vis the team’s needs. If you can provide the right motivation, training and tools to reach these goals at the speed and timeline needed then do it otherwise you seek immediate support from someone who can. It can be a more senior person in the org, a group of people a third-party or online resources!
- Don’t force commitments, establish a road-map and vision and let the team assume responsibility. If you hired the right people with the right mindset and gave them the autonomy they need, you will see them taking initiatives and proposing changes that actually align with your vision. You just need to mentor, guide and mature their ideas through the journey
- Allow constructive opposition and be at ease when you face it. Constructive Opposition to your thoughts or even counter offers and ideas are a natural part of the progress of any team, if you suppress or under value these things and not discuss them and come up with proper conclusions, you can say goodbye to any form of performance or motivations
- Promise what you surely can deliver. Deliver on your work, commitments & promises fully first, don’t expect people to fulfill their obligations before you are actually fulfilling yours to the maximum extent you can
- Solving any problem, require context and a fresh start. Put any discussion in context first. Don’t judge or prejudge based on previous experiences or prejudices
- Be a pro-active listener, observe for extended periods and act accordingly. This allows you to stay ahead of problems in your team, you will start connecting dots and addressing character issues and what not before having to deal with the consequences of it. Take thoughts, opinions, or any form of dissent very seriously and engage in seeking resolutions to those actively.
- Be fair in how you deal with team members, but personalize the experience as much as possible based on how you read each member
- Be the first to jump in and help and then also start encouraging members to have similar mindset, actually you need to encourage members to be all what we discussed here! Make sure when sh*t hits the fan to be that leader who creates order out of chaos, calm out of a storm, good vibes out of negative ones…
- Someone will break the trust or respect you gave him, but this does not mean you should or now allowed at any cost do the same. Stay true to your principles, focus with this person on his mistakes and how he can improve. And eventually if he did not, it means he/she can’t be part of this culture you are building
Begin your journey;
You might be saying well, all this is just so obvious, or you might be saying it is very tiring to be that kind of person. To be honest it is not easy at all and nothing is obvious when you are in your day to day. It takes a fraction of a second to lose your temper, say something hurtful to someone, put someone in a corner (metaphorically I hope) and it is easy to pretend, to take things personal, to say go figure, to pretend as if you are too busy now and you can’t mentor, help, fix, listen, etc…
This is a journey where at each step of each day you have to step-back and ask yourself, what do I believe in? what principles guide my life, thoughts, actions, words, etc…?
This is not a journey where you can live with one foot in and one foot out, people will notice that you are hesitant, untrue to your own-self. You must know that it is all about how OTHERS perceive your intent, purpose, behaviors, responses, and decisions … how others see you, feel about your leader style, and what beliefs they form about whether to trust and follow your leadership. It takes only few mistakes if not only one and it is game over!
Any leader is only as good as her or his team’s desire to be led by them. — Anonymous
Are you ready to turn the pyramid upside down and serve?
