How to Thrive in a World of Lying, Backstabbing & Dirty Tricks!!

Not so long ago I wrote about ‘Soft Leadership for a Global Market Place’. My riff was that whilst technical skills are always important, the edge in today’s competitive world would go to those who can combine these with more adaptive, softer-type skills.

A wee while ago, The Athena Doctrine: How Women (And The Men Who Think Like Them) Will Rule The Future, was №2 on the New York Times non-fiction best seller list. The authors, John Gerzema and Michael D’Antonio had surveyed over 60,000 people world-wide about attitudes to success at work and guess what they found?

Yes! Softer skills, or characteristics regarded as being more feminine — for example being a team player, being reliable, being popular and kind — came top again and again on respondent’s lists for being absolutely vital to business success.

Whilst behavioral traits and characteristics regarded as being overtly masculine — such as being dominant, arrogant and ambitious — were all given an unequivocal thumb downs.

The big data the authors collected from a sample balanced between men and women from diverse cultures and economies, spread across 13 countries, made a telling point: “Feminine values are the operating system of the 21 Century”.

Trust and collaboration, rather than conflict and confrontation, lead the way for how we work and do business together in the future!

I have recently written about ‘Collaborative Leadership’ on other platforms and how important this is to business success; particularly as we live in an increasingly interconnected world and Leaders need to be able to build relationships, handle conflict and share control.

Smart Leaders also accept their limitations and recruit others to complement their skills. They figure out what they do best and create the conditions where Leadership is embedded and distributed, so many people can lead the organisation bringing their particular strengths into play as needed.

Whilst we can all be or strive to be Super Performers, the simple truth is the Super-Hero as Leader doesn’t exist. In fact, as I have written before in another article, we tend today to expect too much from our Leaders. The pace of change makes it very difficult for corporate Leaders to have all the answers, yet we have an inflated sense of what Leadership can achieve in today’s world, &, this is another part of the paradox that surrounds Leadership that I have discussed in other recent Blogs & articles.

The best Leaders are authentic, humble and acutely self-aware. They both recognise and are quite open about their weaknesses. They are also fantastic communicators, great at nurturing and bringing people on, whilst providing an anchor and common purpose, with clearly defined and appropriately set boundaries.

All of which are positive, energising and distinctly “feminine” traits.

In Gerzema and D’Antonio’s book we find that 66% of those surveyed from across the globe thought the world would be a better place if “Men thought more like women”.

And it was the most macho-orientated societies that displayed the highest level of frustration with the dominance of male values — even among the male respondents?

In Japan for example, 79% of the males surveyed admitted to being dissatisfied with the conduct of men in their society.

The conclusion the book draws however, &, it’s one that does make most sense, is that things need to be more collaborative and inclusive; taking the best from men and the best from women. We need to combine and find a median point — a point of balance, which if we get right will ensure more productive, prosperous and happier businesses and employees.

Although some would still argue that whilst Organisations are by definition Sociopathic, having all the legal rights of an individual but with no natural conscience, to be a successful business leader you need to be equally cold and dissociative, as well as ruthless, able to think outside the box and have charisma to spare.

Oliver James in his book, Office Politics: How To Thrive In A World Of Lying, Backstabbing & Dirty Tricks, tells us that the scientific evidence suggests that a CEO is four times more likely to be Psychopathic than the general population and the ones most likely to succeed will have a mix of psychopathic tendencies, narcissism and a touch of the Machiavellian.

Perhaps what we are looking for is what John Gray & Barbara Annis call greater “gender intelligence” in their book, Work With Me: How Gender Can Help You Succeed At Work & In Life and describe as an open acknowledgement of the differences in thinking and approaches taken by men and women.

Being equal — finding a balance — doesn’t however mean, “acting the same”. Women and men don’t act the same and this goes beyond nurture and into the realms of neuroscience and how our brains have been hard-wired over millions of years.

The regular practice of Mindfulness in the workplace may be one way to begin to re-wire our neural pathways and I will be looking at this in greater detail in my forthcoming book on the subject.

Society however has changed and profoundly so in the modern age and along with it so have our expectations. Whilst we may expect too much from our Leaders, we resist or reject the command and control way of running things.

Generations’ C & Y now in the workforce are more naturally drawn to a collaborative, human based approach and the Leader who recognises and acts upon this through listening, nurturing, building a consensus, being collaborative, putting others to the fore to take credit when deserved and being decisive when the situation calls for it, will be the most successful in the 21 Century.

So, over to you and what do you think?

Paul Mudd is the author of ‘Uncovering Mindfulness: In Search Of A Life More Meaningful’ available on Amazon and www.bookboon.com; the ‘Coffee & A Cup of Mindfulness’ and the ‘Mindful Hacks For Mindful Living & Mindful Working’ series. He is also a Contributing Author to The Huffington Post and a Contributing Writer to Thrive Global. Through The Mudd Partnership he works with business leaders, organisations and individuals in support of change, leadership excellence, business growth, organistional and individual wellbeing and well doing, and introducing Mindfulness. He can be contacted at paul@themuddpartnership.co.uk and you can follow the continuing journey uncovering Mindfulness on Twitter @TheMindfulBook and at @Paul_Mudd