Can Leadership Save the World?

Can leadership keep up with today’s unprecedented pace of change? What kind of leadership is required to make change happen?

Those were among the questions put by Anne Morriss (Thinkers50 Ranking) to three inspiring leaders, two recently included in the inaugural Leaders50. 

Etienne Salborn is founder of the Social Innovation Academy (SINA), which is working to empower marginalised youth and African refugee communities as social entrepreneurs. Originally from Germany and now based in Uganda, Etienne explains how SINA is designed to be regenerative, whereby participants gradually take on roles and responsibilities to become leaders themselves and go on to build their own social enterprises. The goal of leadership, he says, is to become obsolete. Etienne is a member of the inaugural Leaders50.

Asheesh Advani is the CEO of Junior Achievement Worldwide and co-author of Modern Achievement (2024), which advocates for adaptability, continuous learning, and the importance of mentorship in leadership. One of the challenges of leadership, he says, is balancing the relationships between people who embrace change and those who are resistant to it. To make people feel that they are a part of executing the organisation’s vision, leaders must develop simple language and frameworks. Asheesh is a member of the inaugural Leaders50.

Bethany Coates is the founder and CEO of Breakline Education, a social venture helping high-performing women, people of colour, people with disabilities, and veterans pivot into top companies. Bethany sets out the clear business case for inclusion: If we contort ourselves to be someone else’s idea of who we should be, then we are expending energy that could have been invested in the work we do. So a business that encourages its people to be their authentic selves will be more productive. Inclusion, asserts Bethany, is a competitive advantage.

In this conversation with Anne, Etienne, Asheesh and Bethany discuss what leadership means to each of them today in the context of the work they do, how to foster leadership in others, and the importance of a high-tolerance-low-ego leadership framework.

Watch here:

Transcript

Anne Morriss:

Hello everyone. I want to welcome all of you to a conversation we’re having in honor of the launch of the New Leaders50 list. I’m Anne Morris, I’m your host today. I spend my time thinking and writing, and as my 17-year-old would say, “Yapping about leadership.” And I’m really thrilled to be a part of this conversation today. We have a fantastically ambitious agenda. We are asking the question, can leadership save the world?

Anne Morriss:

And I am confident that we actually have the right group to answer that question, who are all at the forefront of leading complex change in the world. So let me introduce our panelists one by one and then we’re really going to get into it. So let me start with Etienne Salborn. He is a social entrepreneur and founder of the Social Innovation Academy, also known as SINA based in Uganda. His work focuses on transforming the lives of marginalized youth and refugees through a very innovative social entrepreneurship model. Etienne, welcome. Is there anything else our audience should know about you as we engage in this topic of leadership today?

Etienne Salborn:

Thanks so much for having me. I’m originally from Germany, but been living and based in Uganda for 18 years, you could say. And have a Ugandan wife, two kids, nine months. Keeps us busy at the moment, the second one. So yeah, otherwise we’ll talk more.

Anne Morriss:

Welcome.

Etienne Salborn:

Yeah.

Anne Morriss:

Fantastic. Also joining us today is Asheesh Advani. He is the president and CEO of Junior Achievement Worldwide. It is a nonprofit organization with a truly massive reach and a mission to inspire and prepare young people for a future of work that’s increasingly digital, interconnected and global. Asheesh, welcome. Is there anything else our audience should know about you before we dive in?

Asheesh Advani:

Well, I’ll follow Etienne’s lead and share. I’ve got twins, two kids who are, I think Anne, I heard you say 17 for yours. I’ve got twin 19 year olds.

Anne Morriss:

Wow.

Asheesh Advani:

So they definitely think all I do is yap all the time, so we have something in common.

Anne Morriss:

Well, I love that we’re already focused on the next generation because that really is… I mean, they are at the heart of this conversation. And so finally, let me welcome Bethany Coates to this discussion, founder and CEO of BreakLine Education organization that is focusing on helping underrepresented groups, a wide range of underrepresented groups to transition into high impact industries.

Anne Morriss:

The break in BreakLine, I assume Bethany, refers to breaking down barriers of entry to these industries. And you have a particular focus on tech. Is that all accurate and what else would you like to add?

Bethany Coates:

That’s all accurate. And I would add that the other way that we think about the word BreakLine, it’s actually a term that runners use. It’s a point on a track where sprinters can change lanes. So you’re running hard and fast and you just want to take everything that you’ve got and move it in a slightly different direction.

Bethany Coates:

And like you, Etienne and Asheesh, I’ll just offer that I have four daughters. And as I think about leadership and I think about the impact, the long-term impact of the choices and the behaviors that we all exhibit, I certainly think about my daughters and role modeling leadership in a way that’s healthy and effective and productive for them as well. So delighted to be with all of you today. Thanks so much for the conversation.

Anne Morriss:

So I want to start this conversation by trying to define this term leadership, which is kind of an esoteric, know it when you see it idea. I’ll start with you, Etienne. What does leadership mean to you in the context of the work you’re doing? You might be muted, sir. There you go.

Etienne Salborn:

Leadership for us is less, maybe where it came from originally to guide and direct people and maybe take people and lead them into a battle. I think that’s kind of old-fashioned. For us it is more about first of all, leading yourself, finding who you are, your purpose in life, and then aligning everything to that. And then you’re naturally a leader and a follower at the same time, depending on what you do, you engage with others, you work together.

Etienne Salborn:

And that’s really leadership collectively to create a better world or to become the change that we all want to see. And I can be the change I want to see and everyone can be the change they want to see and that’s leadership for us.

Anne Morriss:

Etienne, your model emphasizes autonomy, freedom, self-management. Why did these themes become so prominent in your work?

Etienne Salborn:

Yeah, so we phrase the term free responsibility that encompasses all that. And that brings together freedom and responsibility in a way that it shouldn’t be separate. And so it’s one word. And that means that people take up responsibilities and through that they grow and gain more freedom over time. So we work with some of the most marginalized and disadvantaged young people in Africa. Many have gone through traumatic experiences, difficult experiences, life has been tough on them and many have maybe given up on life already or life had traumatic experiences and they don’t believe they can get out of them. So there’s a lot about mindset towards overcoming that.

Etienne Salborn:

And the way to do that is by actually taking up roles and responsibilities, and people then become the change they wish to see because they’re driving their communities forward. So that’s why it is important for us and leadership is a way that people in the end find the purpose, align to it, and create also social enterprises. Meaning not just a change that is on a small scale but can be impacting their whole communities, their whole environments and create also jobs and opportunities for themselves and for others.

Anne Morriss:

Beautiful, beautiful. Thank you. Asheesh, the future of work is kind of a moving target. It’s changing and evolving all the time. Have you also had to evolve the way you think about leadership?

Asheesh Advani:

Oh, absolutely. And I think one reason, Anne that leadership is hard to define is it is very situational. And what may have been true with a certain type of organization that you’re leading may no longer be true with the next organization that you lead. And the world of course is changing along the way. So even the skills and the aptitudes you bring to a particular leadership role might also have to change as the world around you changes.

Asheesh Advani:

In my own life, I’ve had three significant leadership experiences starting from being the founder of a company then to be the hired CEO of the next company, both technology companies. And now leading a very large global organization which really has a very different requirement of a leadership skill set. Because my job in my current role very much is about elevating the national leaders and regional leaders in this global organization.

Asheesh Advani:

It makes no sense for somebody sitting in Boston to be telling somebody in Indonesia for example, how to educate the youth of Indonesia. So my job is very much about enabling and empowering the local leader in Indonesia, for example, to be able to deliver programs with maximum impact. So I do think the situational leadership model is very relevant today.

Anne Morriss:

Beautiful. I could not agree more that that capability of adapting is really at the heart of effective leadership today. So Bethany, let me bring you into this. It seems from the outside, and I’m new to your model, which from the outside it looks extraordinary, but it seems like in some ways you are solving the problem of access to leadership. Is that how you think about your work?

Bethany Coates:

I think about it slightly differently, Anne, which is we at BreakLine are creating an accessible pathway to socioeconomic mobility for Americans. So Etienne and Asheesh may know this, the United States is the only country in the world that thinks it’s acceptable to charge a quarter of a million dollars for a degree, and then to require a degree as a prerequisite for high impact and high value careers.

Bethany Coates:

And I grew up in a middle-class community. I grew up in a place where people don’t necessarily go to college, ended up going to Princeton and then on to Stanford for a graduate degree and just had transformative experiences there that I also realized were completely inaccessible to my friends, my family members who needed to get to work, needed to support themselves.

Bethany Coates:

So what we do at BreakLine is create access to that life-changing opportunity, but we do it in a way that’s affordable, accessible, and efficient in terms of the time that we’re asking people to commit to this experience.

Anne Morriss:

Beautiful. And do you use the word leadership in your work? I’m curious.

Bethany Coates:

All the time, and I think about it for myself all the time. And I actually think about leadership as a combination of vision, execution and character and vision is what is it that we are trying to achieve together and is it a compelling opportunity? Is it something that people are going to want to get behind? And that answer is really important for execution because that’s all about achieving something together as a team, and ensuring that those teammates know and feel that they can become the fullest expression of themselves.

Bethany Coates:

And then that final piece for me behind vision and execution is character, and that’s, how are we doing what we’re doing? And for me it’s really important to approach this with a sense of decency, a code of conduct that I’m proud to role model and would be proud to see replicated across my organization and the communities that we serve. And finally the piece for character for me is the knowledge and the expectation that it is a privilege to lead. It is not an entitlement and it is something that we earn every single day. And so that’s how I think about it, vision, execution and character.

Anne Morriss:

Yeah, I love that. We’ll often talk about it in our work as leadership as a… it’s fundamentally a relational practice. It requires more than one person and the simplest metric of your effectiveness is are other people willing to be guided by you?

Bethany Coates:

That’s right.

Anne Morriss:

Sometimes it’s that simple. And without vision, execution and character that the equation doesn’t work, it’s essentially impossible. All right, so let’s get into the question that we came together to answer, which is can leadership save us? I want to start here. So in your collective experiences, and this is for all of you, whoever wants to start us off, what do you think is hard about being a leader today? What’s hard about the gig in 2024? Asheesh, I’m going to put you on the spot in part-

Asheesh Advani:

Perfect.

Anne Morriss:

… you wrote a book about this, so give us some headlines.

Asheesh Advani:

Well, young people graduating from high school or even higher education today are going to have many jobs and many careers. There’s all sorts of data about how many jobs and how many careers. It’s hard to know which one to lean into, but let’s assume if we use World Economic Forum data of on average 20 jobs and on average seven different careers. Now of course there are going to be some fields-

Anne Morriss:

That’s astonishing data, just understanding that.

Asheesh Advani:

It is, really. It actually-

Anne Morriss:

So different.

Asheesh Advani:

If you reflect on a little bit or double-click on it, I think you can realize that some careers are always going to be very linear because they’re very, like for example, medicine where you have to study for many years and you’ve got a very narrow deep expertise. But there are also many different careers that are changing so rapidly that whether you use AI or really any other trend that’s impacting the skills that young people are going to need, we’re going to have to get used to a lot of change.

Asheesh Advani:

And I think to answer your question, Anne, one of the challenges of leadership at this very moment is enabling and empowering the people who work with you to be comfortable with that level of change. But yet, as Bethany said, having a very clear vision. Having a very clear vision that in a world of this much change really requires this adaptability skill set that some people are very well suited to and others are terrified of.

Asheesh Advani:

Even if they say they’re good at it, they’re very terrified of it. And I think one of the challenges of leadership in this very moment is balancing the relationships between people who are very good at change and embrace it and ones who are very resistant to it. And that ties to I think, Bethany’s second point about execution. Because truly effective execution requires I think balancing those two different types of people and really many other different learning styles and types of people to want to move in the same direction, to want to execute the same vision.

Asheesh Advani:

And I spend a lot of my time in our organization because it’s very global, trying to develop really simple language and frameworks to make people feel part of executing the vision. Even if they have fundamental differences in opinion about how to do it. So we have this framework at JA called Fixed-Flexible- Freestyle, and I write about it in the book as well. Simple language. Some things are globally fixed that don’t change very often, and many things are regionally flexible. What’s true in Africa might be different in Europe for example.

Asheesh Advani:

But most things are locally freestyle, determined based on the unique capabilities and strengths of local offices and local needs. And that gives us some common language to collaborate and move in the same direction.

Anne Morriss:

Beautiful. Etienne, let me ask you, what else would you put on this list of skills that are essential for leaders today?

Etienne Salborn:

First of all, it starts with ourselves. I strongly believe anyone can become a leader and if the environment is right, that will happen. But to foster others to become leaders, it also starts with ourselves. So many leaders maybe in the world don’t really know exactly why they’re doing what they’re doing. So asking ourselves that question, “Why am I here right now? Why am I here on this planet? Not just what do I want from the world, but what does the world want from me?”

Etienne Salborn:

And if I can answer that in any moment, my actions will be quite different than if I just follow a path. I’ve studied this, I should get into that, I should have a career. Of course I should move up the ladder under career and one day maybe I’m the boss, the CEO, whatever title it might have. And then I’m a leader, but maybe I don’t know exactly why I’m actually there.

Etienne Salborn:

And so if we start the other way around enabling people to find a purpose, first of all, they almost transform like caterpillars that don’t even know that they can transform and fly and become those leaders because they know why they’re there, what they want to do and achieve in life and have their purpose be fulfilled. And from there everything else becomes easy. And then we can also become simply obsolete as leaders because it’s not about ego, it’s not about power, status, money, it’s about something bigger than ourselves.

Etienne Salborn:

And if we know the why and something bigger than ourselves, we can often be in the way to achieve that. So that’s why we designed the Social Innovation Academy, SINA in a way that’s deeply embedded. It’s like a regenerative cycle that people are participants, but they then start taking up roles and responsibilities, they become the leaders. And then one day they leave with their own opportunities with their own social enterprises, a new one come up and the cycle continues. And with every cycle becomes stronger and better.

Etienne Salborn:

And so I’m the one that founded it, but in the main community that everything started 10 years ago, I have no active roles anymore and it has become much better because of that. So it has to be built in that we become obsolete and know why we’re actually doing it in the first place.

Anne Morriss:

I love that, Etienne in some ways that is the goal of leadership ultimately is to become obsolete. I think it’s beautiful framing. Bethany, let me ask you this, we are recording this in 2024 in the middle of an election cycle in America. Lots of things have become politicized. DEI is one of them. I’m curious, I have two questions for you, and feel free not to answer them, but one is, where do you see inclusion fitting into the model of effective leadership today?

Bethany Coates:

So inclusion to me is… The expression of inclusion is I can be my authentic self in this place and I can fill my space. And there’s one gentleman that we had the privilege of hosting on our own podcast and he was a Marine Corps general, his name was Vince Stewart. He emigrated as a young man from Jamaica to the United States, rose through the ranks of the Marine Corps, ended up running the Defense Intelligence Agency. And he passed away a few years ago, but we were lucky to have a conversation with him. And he was describing this incredible career, it’s incredible leadership.

Bethany Coates:

And he said, “There were phases in my career where I left myself in the parking lot when I reported to work.” And someone who had that much of a tremendously positive impact on our country he did that with a fraction of who he was and who he could be in the workplace. And I always wondered in that moment, and I’ve wondered so many times since, wow, what else could he have accomplished had he felt that he could bring his entire self into the office? And so when I think about inclusion, I think about authenticity.

Bethany Coates:

And so as a leader, when I say I’m really interested in you fulfilling the fullest expression of your potential, that means who you are. I’m not asking you to mimic me or mimic someone else. A mimic will never be as effective as the real thing. But we want you to be the fullest expression of who you are and that most authentic expression of who you are in the workplace. And I think it is really incumbent upon leaders to make sure that they’re setting the stage and setting the conditions for people to be able to show up that way.

Bethany Coates:

And when we think about it in terms of a cultural expression, it’s thinking about culture actually as a living, breathing organism. Almost like this amoebic organism that has flexible boundaries that can stretch and breathe and grow and change shape a little bit. There’s substance in this inside that stays the same, but those contours can change as people join our organization and help us improve and grow. So I think of inclusion very much as authenticity.

Bethany Coates:

And the impetus for our organizations to care about inclusion and authenticity. I could make a moral argument, I could make an ethical argument, I could make a patriotic argument. I’m just going to make a business argument. When you hire someone and invest in that person to join your team, you want them to be willing to give you their discretionary effort. That is the energy, that is the insight, that is the problem solving that gets us to the next level as an organization.

Bethany Coates:

And when we’re consumed with being less than who we are or with contorting into somebody else’s package of what we should look like, that siphons off energy that we should be investing into our work. And so just as a business related argument, really thinking about encouraging authenticity, making it possible, ensuring that folks feel that they are welcomed to be their full selves. It’s just from a business perspective, it is a very, very high value practice to make part of what you do as a leader every single day.

Anne Morriss:

I love the image of, “I left myself in the parking lot.” I think it really, it’s a beautiful metaphor for summing up what you just said. I believe we have lost the plot on this conversation in America. And a huge headline is that inclusion helps you win. When you get this right, it’s a huge competitive advantage. All right, let’s go to the future of leadership to get at the question of this panel a little bit of a different way.

Anne Morriss:

A question we think a lot about in our work is whether there is something fundamentally different about the challenge of leadership today. The pace of change is unprecedented. Someone gave me the example the other day of the typewriter, which there was a hundred-year lag between when the typewriter was invented and when it was in, not even wide use, but when it started to be used. That lag time now is for some software products you can measure it in minutes. So in some ways it does feel like a new environment.

Anne Morriss:

And my question is can the leadership keep up? Do we have to rethink the way that we’re doing it, the way that we’re teaching it, the way that we are cultivating new leaders? Do we have to blow up some of these models and start over or can we pull some of the threads from the past? Anyone? I’m going to throw this out to anyone.

Asheesh Advani:

I’ve got a view on this one.

Anne Morriss:

Let’s go.

Asheesh Advani:

One of the challenges with leadership is you’re managing expectations. You might be managing expectations of a board, of your team, of your peers, maybe your employees. And when you’re managing expectations, you’ve got to set some goals and you want to achieve the goals and you’re evaluated based on whether you achieve the goals or not. But we live in a world of so much change that you might have to change the goals along the way or for good reason you might have to say, “There’s a trade-off between quality and speed and we have to pick speed this time because the world is changing quickly and therefore we’re not going to hit the quality numbers that we all hoped.”

Asheesh Advani:

I think one of the reasons that leaders struggle and sometimes fail is they’ve set the expectations to be ones which are so finite or so unchangeable that it makes it feel like you’re failing as a person, which of course nobody likes to do if you’re letting other people down. So I think one of the ways that we can be better leaders, and I’ll speak for myself here, is learning to be much more flexible in expectation setting. And frankly, educating boards, educating peers, educating staff that not only is failure okay, but there’s a good reason why we may not want to hit a goal at a certain time and having to have the trust. And really it’s about trust like anything else in values that it’s okay to pivot and change.

Asheesh Advani:

And I think when we become better at that as an organization, as society an as individuals, I do think that leadership can be more of a solution for some of the world’s problems than it has been in the past.

Anne Morriss:

Yeah, great. Etienne, do you agree or do you have a different point view?

Etienne Salborn:

I agree, but also have a different point of view. In the sense that I think the future that we’re already seeing emerging is more and more distributed leadership, more and more distributed authority. Less power by one individual, but collectively an army of many that collectively hold the power. Some people see that and call it the TO movement, others self-organization. There’s systems like Holacracy, Sociocracy that allows a distribution of authority.

Etienne Salborn:

And in that case people all drive the change. It becomes very innovative because you don’t have to ask for permission. Anyone becomes a leader in any circumstance. The decisions are made much closer to where the action is happening, where the expertise lies because people work in that area and not kind of in an office or from someone that has to prove something but doesn’t really understand it. And in that sense, also a new generation has it easy to come up.

Etienne Salborn:

In SINA we ask our people on a regular basis, how does the work you’re doing contribute to your purpose, not the other way around? How do you contribute to the organization, not the other way around? And I think that hits it really well because the young generation is seeking more and more for the sense of meaning. They don’t just want a job, but they want to do something in the world that has actually a positive impact.

Etienne Salborn:

And if you allow people to then self-organize in the context of an organization, they can drive that meaning forward as long as it aligns still to the purpose of the organization. I don’t need to be… A purpose alignment of each individual and the organization and collectively and then really, truly magic happens, and new leaders will emerge.

Anne Morriss:

Yeah, beautiful. I want to believe, I love that Etienne. So beautifully articulated. Bethany, what do you think? Do we have to blow this thing up? Do we need new ways of leading in this insane operating environment?

Bethany Coates:

I always think of leadership as really bedrock. I like having a model of leadership that to me is flexible enough that it’s transferable and it’s relevant in whatever environment I find myself in. But I do agree in that I love the Jack Welch quote that, “If the rate of change in your organization is slower than the rate of change outside of your organization, the end is near.”

Bethany Coates:

And I think just as leaders and as teammates being really comfortable setting a fast pace and then making sure that the way that we engage with each other keeps up with that pace. So one of the things that I think about a lot as we’re sprinting at BreakLine is around communication and how we make sure that we stay aligned with one another. And there are all kinds of tools of course to do that. But I think that there are practices that are extremely important in these faster paced environments.

Bethany Coates:

And one framework that I fall back on all the time is something that I call high tolerance, low ego for leaders, which I think is really, really important. Because you can only act and you can only make decisions when you know. And if it’s tough for people to tell you something, guess what? You’re going to find yourself on your back foot. So the idea behind this is, “Hey, there’s going to be an expectation within our organization of high tolerance. We’re going to annoy each other, we’re going to nag each other, we’re going to bug each other. Something that I say is just going irritate you mildly. And guess what? You’re going to give me a pass on all that stuff because an hour later you’re not thinking about it anymore.”

Bethany Coates:

But one out of a hundred times I’m going to say something that lands and sticks with you and you’re still thinking about it at dinnertime, you’re still thinking about it the next morning you might wake up in the middle of the night and find yourself noodling over it. And that’s the thing that you decide to bring to me. And when you bring that to me as a leader, my job is to be low ego. I want you to know that my barriers are down, I am open, I’m here. I’m ready to listen, learn, move, and act on what you tell me.

Bethany Coates:

And so it’s less that I think the leadership model has to change with the times. In the foundation that I have for myself I think of it as very transferable. But some of those techniques that we use to lead and to stay connected and to continue to inspire and also evolve, I think those are the things that we need to make sure are staying current and staying up with the times.

Anne Morriss:

Yeah, I love that. I also love your point about communication. I spend a lot of time working with new CEOs, first-time CEOs. And one of them said to me the other day, “Anne I had no idea this was a communications job.” And yeah, at least 50% of the gig is communications, which I think is one antidote to constant change. And then 50% of that 50% is repetition. So you kind of take the job thinking you’re going to be thinking the big thoughts and making the big strategic decisions, but a lot of your time is spent with these very tactical challenges around bringing the organization with you.

Bethany Coates:

That’s right. And Anne, just as you were saying this, I am naturally an introvert. And so for all introverts out there who move into positions of leadership where they have to be public facing and they have to be externally facing, I would say get ready for the challenge of that too. And it is a lens on the world that… You asked what’s uncomfortable about leadership? And I think as an introvert, thinking and speaking out loud way more frequently than I would in my sort of normal habitat is something that I’ve had to develop comfort with.

Bethany Coates:

And there are moments like that where you have to decide, is my personal discomfort is the stretching that I feel to meet the moment, is it worth the opportunity that I see in front of us? And in my case, the answer has been yes every time. But I think it’s worth being intentional about that because there are trade-offs, there are sacrifices, there are decisions that leaders need to make because it’s not a comfortable role. If you want to be comfortable, do not lead, would be one of my headlines for the conversation today.

Anne Morriss:

Yeah. Well, let me ask you about that and then I’m interested for Etienne and Asheesh, the same question for you. So for what does that intention look like if you were to give a little texture to it, and how do you take care of yourself as a leader of difficult change right now?

Bethany Coates:

Yeah. So for me, it’s becoming really comfortable with the reality that leadership is about humility. In a fast-paced environment where it’s a continuous learning curve. There is no plateau, there is no top of the mountain where you stop learning and you’re just an expert in all things, in all domains. It is a continuous learning curve, and that means you get it wrong sometimes. That means you fail, sometimes you fall flat on your face sometimes, and because you are the CEO or you are the leader that is going to be visible to other people.

Bethany Coates:

And so embracing that as a reality and as an element, it doesn’t mean that it’s ever comfortable, but it means it’s a passenger along the journey, along the way with you. And I am very proactive about taking care of myself because I do believe that my team expects me to be at my best, just the way that I expect them to be at my best. And I am going to deliver on that expectation. And that just pragmatically requires me to do things like get enough sleep, to do things that are therapeutic for me.

Bethany Coates:

And so in my life, I live in Park City, Utah, I hike. That is a very, very therapeutic activity that I make a regular part of my life and my schedule. And I think really requiring that of yourself and not even thinking about it as self-care, but just, “This is a requirement for my life for me to be at my best, which is where I want to be.” That is the echelon that I want to inhabit, and I’m going to do whatever it takes to get there and making sure that I’m healthy and body, spirit and mind is an important component of that.

Anne Morriss:

Yeah. Etienne, you have also not chosen a low stress leadership path, so how do you create a context for yourself where you can show up and do this work every day?

Etienne Salborn:

Yeah, so we are also self-organized, and that means also we have very flexible kind of ways to do it. So I can choose to work early morning, late night, middle of the night, during the day, and anyone else as well. Of course there’s some restrictions to that when you have meetings with others or the beneficiaries that become the most part of the team. Of course you shouldn’t do that in the middle of the night. But that allows me also to find enough time to work for myself, the things that give me joy like my children, but also keep balance literally.

Etienne Salborn:

I enjoy activities that are in balance. So I started during COVID times in a lockdown in Uganda mountain unicycling, which literally keeps me in balance, up and down the mountains on just one wheel. And that-

Anne Morriss:

That’s an awesome image, Etienne. Yes, I love it.

Etienne Salborn:

Yes, that’s really helped to keep the balance. And then I want to underwrite what Bethany said on the humility. I think that’s key. But also add to that, that I think you’re doing well as a leader, if you’re kind of together with people that you are the dumbest in the room. You’re the one that knows the least. Then you also don’t have to stress so much because you have people around you that are the experts in their domains and their roles in whatever they’re doing. And maybe you help people to do that even better, but you don’t have to be the expert and definitely not be the one that tells people what is right and wrong. And then also it becomes less stressful because it’s a collective action, a collective leadership.

Anne Morriss:

Beautiful. Asheesh, are you also unicycling through the mountains?

Asheesh Advani:

I’m not athletic enough and I don’t have the balance to do either. But I will tell you the way I take care of myself is maybe a little bit different. I actually like to read the same books I’ve read before and watch the same TV shows I’ve watched before. It brings me incredible comfort. I do not know why. In fact, I talk about it in the book because I think when I watch something or read something that I’ve read, say 10 years before, I’ve realized how far my perspective has changed, it’s actually incredibly powerful introspection. But maybe how the world has changed and how I’ve changed.

Asheesh Advani:

So I’m Ted Lasso right now, which is such a wonderful TV show. I’m getting totally different things out of it than when I first watched it, which is kind of interesting. But to answer your question about intentionality, one of the things I’m struggling with, to be honest, is how do I enable people to have the space on our teams to be able to take care of themselves, when they come at it with such different personal perspectives?

Asheesh Advani:

And even geographically, we have staff in 118 countries and even in my headquarters team at JA Worldwide, we’ve got staff all over the world. And the expectations of vacation time, the expectations of how much time people are willing to give for themselves and their families is so different around the world. I’ve come to realize that consistency is the enemy of progress.

Anne Morriss:

So real.

Asheesh Advani:

That trying to force guidelines and standards, it actually… The only people that makes happy are people at the top or the board. It looks good on a slide, but it adds no value to the organization. So I’ve come to really embrace the need for diversity of, well, really everything, but particularly even the way people take care of themselves.

Anne Morriss:

I love both of those hacks, which I’m going to call… Okay, let’s try to land the plane on the question that we came together to answer. If we agree that leadership can save the world, what is one thing you think that leaders should start doing differently today that flows from that premise?

Bethany Coates:

I have a perspective on this, and it might be the moment that we’re in the United States right now. But I think it is incumbent upon leaders across every sector, across every industry to turn the temperature down on the rhetoric. And one thing I think about every day is how do I create a big tent for this vision that we have at BreakLine? And I don’t need to agree on 100% of everything with someone to be able to agree on a couple of really important things and make progress on those things.

Bethany Coates:

But what can get in the way is if we become so polarized and so heated that we’re passing really harsh judgments on each other because we disagree about something. Disagreement is part of life and it’s actually enriching and enlightening, and it can also be hilarious and entertaining. And so I would like particularly in the United States right now, for leaders to take on the responsibility of turning down the temperature on rhetoric, turning down the temperature on passing judgment, and look hard for many opportunities to collaborate with folks who are experiencing the world in a different way than you do, have something to add to your perspective and to your lens, and really think about creating that big tent.

Bethany Coates:

It is such a wonderful place to be under a big tent, and I would love to see people who are in positions of leadership take that very seriously and do the work involved to get there.

Anne Morriss:

Let me push on that a little bit. I couldn’t agree more. If I’m listening today, I’m a leader that agrees with you, and I’m just looking for tactical places to start in my organization to bring the temperature down. Do I shut down the Slack channel? Do I have multicultural days of celebration? What are you seeing that is working today to help lower the volume?

Bethany Coates:

Yeah, so there’s a truism that we’ve created at BreakLine, which is, “Agreement is overrated. Go for understanding instead.” So when we approach a conversation with the perspective that, “I either have to agree with you or you have to agree with me, or we both go back to our respective corners.” It puts a lot of pressure on the people in that interaction. And instead if it’s, “Hey, I just want to be heard and I want to hear you.” It opens up a channel for ongoing communication and engagement without applying this pressure cooker sensation to it.

Bethany Coates:

And so I would just have folks keep that in mind. Agreeing with each other is overrated, let’s go for understanding instead.

Anne Morriss:

Beautiful. Etienne, what’s one thing leaders could start doing differently tomorrow to increase the probability that leadership will save us?

Etienne Salborn:

Yeah, continuing on that thought. I also agree that agreement is actually not really what is needed. There’s alternative ways to make decisions, which can be based not on what one person dictates or what the majority feels or what everyone agrees to, but actually what is the path of least resistance? What can everyone somehow feel comfortable with? And with this also overall creating an enabling environment that allows everyone to flourish, a nurturing environment.

Etienne Salborn:

If a flower doesn’t grow, you don’t fix the flower, but you fix the environment. Something is not [inaudible 00:40:33] to grow. So in that sense, we need to create enabling environments. And from there then, yeah, everyone can become a leader. I strongly believe that. And that’s also why we sometimes refer to ourselves as change-makers, we make other change-makers. And everyone can be a change-maker, everyone can be a leader, but sometimes the environment people are in is not allowing them to do that. But we can change the environment to make it very nurturing and enabling.

Anne Morriss:

In your experience, Etienne, what is the biggest barrier in that enabling environment? If I’m going to try to indulge your metaphor. What’s the weed in the enabling environment that we most have to remove in order to increase the probability that we’re growing more leaders? What gets in the way?

Etienne Salborn:

The thing what we have learned over the years, what gets in the way sometimes and the context we’re in many places in Africa, there’s one leader that has been in place for decades that leads the country. So also an organization sometimes when someone has a specific status power, not everyone wants everyone else to come up because they can be a threat, they can take away the power. But we need to change that mindset and see power is not something finer, but actually we can increase it together and we can all become interdependent. We can achieve things together that no one could achieve alone. And it’s not something that I have to give up my power and power someone else, but we can all be powerful.

Anne Morriss:

Beautiful. It’s not a fixed pie as we like to say in America. All right, Asheesh, we’re giving you the last word. I’m biased here, but I think we’re concluding that leadership can indeed save the world. And so if I’m a leader watching this, what should I do differently to increase the chance that we’re concluding the correct answer here?

Asheesh Advani:

Well, I’ll try to be very concrete. I’d like leaders to find one person at least in their life who’s younger than them. Could be a teenager, could be a 20-something, could be an aspiring leader in their 30s, and say something nice to them, mentor them, be a role model, pay it forward, have them do a job shadow. It costs nothing. It will give them incredible satisfaction. It’ll obviously help the young person and the future leader, but most importantly, it’ll give leaders a perspective on the future and it’ll make them be much more future-minded when they spend time with young people. So that’s my very concrete ask.

Anne Morriss:

I love it. One thing we find in our work is that positive feedback is wildly underrated and underused. And so I love that challenge. I will accept it personally. Thank you guys. You’re all awesome. On behalf of Leaders50, I want to thank you for being here and sharing your insight and wisdom and values with all of us, which you all lead with. I feel smarter and better by just having witnessed this conversation. So thank you so much for sharing your precious time.

Asheesh Advani:

Thank you.

Etienne Salborn:

Thank you for having us.

Bethany Coates:

What a pleasure, Anne. Thank you so much for having us.