Leadership Talks: Kirstin Ferguson meets Stephen Bailey

Transcript

Stuart Crainer:

Hello, and welcome. I’m Stuart Crainer, co-founder of Thinkers50, and I’m delighted to be hosting what promises to be a fantastic webinar today on the subject of leadership, and probably much more. Many thanks for joining us. As always, please let us know where you are today, and send in your observations, queries, and questions at any time during the discussion. We have two wonderful guests, so the debate promises to be rich and fruitful. We’re joined by the recipient of the Thinkers50 Leadership Award in 2023, Kirstin Ferguson. Kirstin began her career as an officer in the Australian Air Force. She went on to become a lawyer and CEO of a successful global business. In 2017 she created the Celebrating Women campaign, which led to spin off campaigns around the world. In 2018 Kirstin was appointed acting chair and then deputy chair of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. She is an adjunct professor at the QUT Business School, and is the author of the award-winning book, Head & Heart: The Art of Modern Leadership, which featured on the 2023 Thinkers50 list of the best books of the year.

I’m delighted that along with Kirstin we have an equally interesting guest to join the conversation, and he is Stephen Bailey. Stephen is the co-founder and CEO of ExecOnline, which provides B2B leadership development solutions through its partnerships with top business schools. Prior to ExecOnline, Steven was the CEO of the Frontier Strategy Group, which he grew from an early stage startup to a company that served nearly half the Fortune 500. Previously Stephen was an associate in the venture capital and private equity group of WilmerHale. Thinkers50 is delighted to have ExecOnline as a partner for our Leadership Award, and we’re also partnering with ExecOnline in developing some brilliant programs along with some of the leading names in the Thinkers50 Community. Most recently ExecOnline has developed programs with Paul Polman and Andrew Winston, authors of Net Positive. Welcome, Kirstin and Stephen. Kirstin is in Boston, Stephen in New Orleans. Perhaps we can begin by assessing the leadership landscape. What is the state of our understanding and practice of leadership in 2024? Kirstin, do you want to have the first stab?

Kirstin Ferguson:

Hi, Stuart and hi, Stephen and thank you for having me. Yep, I’m coming from Boston this week, which I’m very excited about. Gosh, the state of leadership. I think it depends which sectors you look at. I think sometimes in politics we wonder where all the leaders have gone. In business I know leadership is something that’s constantly being discussed. What kind of leaders do we need? Have we got the right leaders? Are we training leaders in exactly what we need to be doing? I think there’s a recognition after COVID that we see leadership all through society, so it’s moving away from just needing formal leaders. I really feel that never before have we experienced so many people talking about what it means to be a leader. From the kitchen table right through the boardroom. It’s something that we now understand impacts our lives and that we perhaps can be doing a little bit better at as well.

Stephen Bailey:

Wonderful, and Kirstin, Stuart, pleasure to be with you both coming to you from New Orleans. As Stuart mentioned, my sister’s wedding is up this weekend, so it’s a great week. As we think about leadership, I couldn’t agree more with Kirstin, I think it’s a key moment. I think that leadership is being, what we think of as a leader is being reconsidered in a variety of different fora, from government to business to just how we think about personal leadership and how we lead our own lives. And I think COVID has played a big role in that. I think the leader as a top-down force that sets strategy and leads through top-down leadership is changing. I think there is still an open question around what the future of leadership fully looks like, both in terms of how leadership is delivered, is it in person, is it hybrid, is it online? And sort of fora like this. And also, what are the characteristics that make a leader future-ready for the challenges that we’re facing?

And I think to add to Kirstin’s point, it’s one of the reasons why we think we’re at this critical moment of what we call a learning economy, where increasingly what will define leadership is the ability to learn faster than the pace of change as a leader. And also build that capability amongst your team so that you’re staying ahead of the curve in a fast-changing environment.

Kirstin Ferguson:

And I love that, Stephen. And Stuart, if it’s okay to just jump in and riff a bit off what Stephen just said, because that’s music in my ear.

Stuart Crainer:

You jump in, Kirstin, I’m really happy for anybody to jump in.

Kirstin Ferguson:

I’m not going to hold back if I’ve got a thought, but that ability and willingness to learn requires leaders. And when I’m talking about leaders, it’s capital L leaders and little L leaders as well, because we all lead through the words we use, the choices we make, the behaviors we role model. But that need to learn requires us to accept we don’t know everything. And so, it requires a real intellectual humility on the part of leaders, which I don’t think we’ve always seen, particularly in a command and control environment where… if you think only as recently as pre-COVID, where there was a sense that those leaders at the top of the org chart really had to have the answers. Had to know how they were going to do things and have a ready response when they’re asked. Sometimes those leaders thought that it was a weakness to say, “Actually, I’ve got a lot to learn. I don’t know the answers to this.” And I think that is key for me about a real missing ingredient that we need every leader to accept, is that they need to learn.

And so Stephen, what you’re saying makes complete sense, and the more we can be doing to encourage leaders to understand that lifelong learning and saying, “I don’t know,” is actually something that’s going to build trust and build competence, as opposed to the opposite.

Stephen Bailey:

Yeah, I think that’s just a great point, particularly this question of leadership identity and what it means to show up as a leader. Do you need to show up with all the answers? Is it okay to say, “I’m showing up and we’re going to figure out the answers together and we’re going to get some things right and we’re going to get some things wrong, but we’re going to learn as we do it.” I think that’s a very different approach to leadership. I think there’s a generational change associated with that. One of the things that I did with Yahoo business was a round table discussion on the fact that there are five generations of leadership now, or five generations of employees in the workforce. And you could argue that all five of those are in different positions of leadership in different organizations. And so that generational change and what it means to show up as a leader and how you think about power becomes a really important ingredient to some of the things that we’re seeing evolve in real time in front of us.

Stuart Crainer:

Let’s go-

Kirstin Ferguson:

We can let Stuart jump in, otherwise Stephen and I’ll-

Stephen Bailey:

Let’s keep going. Keep us on track, Stuart, keep us on track.

Stuart Crainer:

Let’s talk about your leadership experiences, because Kirstin, I know you joined the Air Force age 17, so you must have been exposed to a – obviously it was only 10 years ago that you did that and you’ve done a lot in those intervening 10 years – but you joined age 17 into the Air Force; your first leadership experiences must have been very, very different from what you were talking about and Stephen’s talking about now?

Kirstin Ferguson:

Absolutely. And that was 33 years ago, but very kind of you to imagine it was 10. It was certainly command and control. And for good reason, in the military it has a very different cultural environment about how we were learning to lead at that time. But I must say, it’s very different to that now. And I think if you’d gone back in the mid-’90s to early ’90s to a lot of organisations, it would have been similar. A real command and control, leaders need to know the answers. “You do what I say and we’ll all move in my vision. We’ll create a vision for the organisation that I have written.” Over those 30 years, gosh, it’s changed, for the better in my opinion.

Stephen mentioned the generational change. To me, it’s not so much a matter of age, although I’m sure if a study was done there may be more older workers who find it harder to change. But I think it’s all about mindset. And there’s certainly plenty of GenX, Baby Boomers that understand in fact, in this workforce right now there’s so much I need to learn about AI, about ways of working that in fact, I feel like I know less than I’ve ever known. It’s a mindset that we can all adapt, which is around appreciating that our leadership doesn’t depend on authority and control. It depends on being able to build connection with others and being able to influence others in a positive way. And recognizing that every impact we have is an opportunity. And I think that comes by understanding we just don’t know everything. Knowing our limitations is key.

Stephen Bailey:

I think that’s right. And I want to emphasise one word you mentioned, Kirstin, above all else: mindset. Because I think that it is more of a mindset question than an age question. I think that if you just think about humans generally, no matter what age you are, humans don’t love change. To be in a world where – I often say to my team – we’re having a once in every 100-years event every year, seemingly. And the level of pressure that puts on individuals and organisations to think about how you stay ahead of that change and adapt to that change is a true leadership challenge. It’s little L leadership, it’s big L leadership and everything else in between.

I would just say personally, one of the things that I’ve seen in our organisation is over the last few years we’ve undergone a really exciting business model transformation. And I think many organisations are undergoing transformations that are internal at the same time that you have external variables that are impacting the business, and creating not this dislocation for your organisation, but also personal dislocation, right? As much as COVID created business dislocation, you were also connecting with individuals daily and checking in on them to see how they were doing personally and adapting to what was a really scary environment. It certainly caused me to have to flex my leadership and how I spend my time and how I think differently as a leader to bring our organisation along the change journey, both where it meets the business and also where it meets the personal elements.

Kirstin Ferguson:

And Steven, you’ve really captured something that I’m always talking to groups of leaders about. I’m here in Boston, I’m going to be speaking to a couple of hundred CEOs from around the world tomorrow. And the question I like to put to people is, is your leadership style that’s been so effective for you to get you to this point, you’re now the CEO, is it still fit for purpose? And it doesn’t matter what role you’re in. But often the way we have learned to lead and been rewarded and promoted and all of those sorts of things is a way that was effective then, but it’s not effective now. And COVID was just a classic example of exactly what you’re talking about. You were suddenly leading in a hybrid situation. And in fact, the way I’ve led isn’t going to work this time. I can’t just rely on seeing someone in the lunchroom or whatever. We had to ask ourselves, “Well, clearly the way I’m leading isn’t fit for purpose.”

Now that we’re out of COVID, I think we need to be doing the same things. And that’s relating to all of those one in 100-year events that are actually now daily events that are changing the way we work and the way the expectations of those we lead are changing as well. I think we need a lot of introspection from leaders to think about, “Is the way I am leading still fit for purpose for wherever I want to take the organisation?”

Stuart Crainer:

Well, people are joining from throughout the world and some questions have come in, please feel free to ask your questions anytime during the session. Here’s one from Indira Bunik. “What do you believe is the most significant barrier that leaders face in embracing vulnerability and authenticity in their leadership style? And how can they overcome this barrier to create more meaningful connections and drive organisational success?” I suppose the truth of it is that leaders tend not to be promoted on the basis of their vulnerability, historically.

Kirstin Ferguson:

But they are promoted on their emotional intelligence. And you need emotional intelligence to be vulnerable and to know when to be vulnerable. Sorry, Stuart I jumped in there because it’s just such a great question.

Stuart Crainer:

But you’re asking leaders to be themselves in a way that historically they haven’t been?

Kirstin Ferguson:

Do you want to jump in, Stephen, or are you happy for me to finish?

Stephen Bailey:

No, go ahead. Finish your thought. Yeah, absolutely.

Kirstin Ferguson:

I think authenticity doesn’t necessarily mean you have to be exactly who you are when you’re at a football match with your mates on the weekend. I mean, you could try, but part of being a modern leader is reading the room and understanding the context you’re leading in. And so, authenticity means your values, what you believe in, the way you treat people and treat people with respect. Definitely you need to bring that through in every aspect of your life. Vulnerability though can be challenging, and I think the question comes back to, what’s the significant barrier? If you are fearful due to the environment that you work in, if you work for a leader who punishes people for showing weakness for saying, “I don’t know,” exactly all of the things that we want to reward, then you’re less likely to be vulnerable.

The irony is that the more vulnerable you can be at the right times and in the right context, so this isn’t a matter of bursting into tears when there’s a crisis, that is not helpful as a leader. But it might be being vulnerable in a team meeting, as we were saying before, going, “I haven’t actually come across this challenge before, but I know together we’re going to be able to answer this challenge and come up with a solution, et cetera.” That’s a version of vulnerability and authenticity that will build respect and build trust with your team. And in my view, that’s all emotional intelligence and that will see a leader promoted in time. You have to have the technical abilities, the head-based leadership that I write about, but you also have to be able to lead with the heart.

Stephen Bailey:

And I would emphasise one piece and then add another. I think the situational element is really important. I think the idea of obviously just coming into a room in the midst of massive amounts of change and, let’s say COVID, and saying, “I have no idea what we’re going to do. I’m super afraid. I don’t know.” That’s not going to be the type of leadership that people gravitate toward, but finding the right moments and the right context to express vulnerability, I think is really important. And to humanise yourself. Because there’s this tendency of the leaders over here and we’re over here as the team, and the more it can be we as opposed to leader and us, I think the better off you’re going to be as a leader.

I would say the second thing that facilitates that is just great listening. I don’t think there’s ever been a moment where it’s more imperative for leaders to spend time listening, both about business topics and personal topics. One of the things that I frankly stumbled upon during COVID that I now have carried through in my leadership is, rather than jumping on a Zoom call and you go right into, “What’s the agenda and what are we covering?” I try to reserve the first five minutes for just, how’s life? How’s the family, how are you feeling? What are you excited about? What are you afraid of? And sometimes that conversation will be three minutes, and sometimes it might end up being 10 minutes. And understanding what your people need at any given time and then understanding how to give them what they need as a leader based on that listening, whether it’s related to challenges they’re facing at work or personally becomes a huge part in the equation.

Stuart Crainer:

There’s a great book called Why Should Anyone Be Led by You? by Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones. And their kind of slogan was, “Be yourself more with skill.” So be yourself, be authentic, be more. You have to know when to turn the volume up or down. And with skill you have to use it appropriately. Seemed really good advice condensed, I think.

Kirstin Ferguson:

Yeah, and in the research I did for my last book, Head & Heart, I called this attribute leading with perspective, which is all about reading a room in layman’s terms. But I’ve now had something like 22,000 people from around the world do the Head & Heart Leader Scale, and we keep analysing the data. And the most important of the eight attributes is this one: leading with perspective, or being able to understand the context you’re leading in. And it correlates most highly with all the other attributes. It really does come down to definite data showing that this is a skill we need to develop in people. Often I’m asked, “How do you develop that?” What feels for some of us an innate skill that you can kind of just judge the situation? I’d be fascinated to hear, Stephen, whether there are development tools you use at ExecOnline to help read the room and lead in situations? But it’s definitely something we should all be working on all the time. We know, we can feel it when we don’t read the room well.

Stephen Bailey:

Yeah, that’s right. Absolutely.

Kirstin Ferguson:

Yeah.

Stephen Bailey:

Yeah, and I think it starts with personal leadership. At ExecOnline we have a range of different programs and coaching solutions that are designed to tackle different elements of this. And so a ‘leading self’ in many ways is at the root of this; understanding what is your leadership identity? And both what is it personally and then how does it project out? And where the implications are projects out on how other people perceive you and how other people perceive your leadership is a great place to start. I think perspective taking is really important and that ability to be empathetic, to listen, to meet people where they are is an important piece. And then another area that we see as a big area is communications. And so, particularly now that we’re communicating through a variety of different environments: it’s live, it’s virtual, it’s in-person, all of these different pieces. How do you make sure that your communication style conveys what you want to convey and brings people along with you?

And then maybe the final thing I would throw out is this idea of leader as coach. That ultimately we’re in a world now where more leaders are alongside their team members, coaching them in real time, working through problems, establishing that we don’t all know everything and that we’re going to figure it out together. Those models we see tend to be really effective.

Stuart Crainer:

And Stephen, you also talk of something, you’ve talked about leadership identity, which is really interesting, but you also talk about development equity, which I think is a really great idea. Can you talk a little bit about that and explain what you mean?

Stephen Bailey:

Yeah, absolutely. As I mentioned earlier, we’re in this learning economy where it’s more important than ever to learn fast in the pace of change. Both as leaders and as individuals, as organisations. And if you think about the opportunity that creates, it creates an opportunity for individuals that maybe traditionally have not been identified as leaders when we had this one conception of leadership to accelerate their careers and have more access if they can learn fast in the pace of change, if they can adapt to a lot of these trends that Kirsten and I are identifying. The risk however is that if organisations are not providing access to development in an equitable way, that we can actually fall further behind. Instead of taking advantage of the opportunity to diversify and create more inclusive leadership pipelines, we actually lack further behind.

And so think about development equity as effectively pay equity for development. How do we make sure that there’s equitable access to development so that at this critical moment in time when leadership is being redefined, we can also redefine the face of leadership by providing the ability for new leaders to step forward and bring skills that are going to be really valuable for their organisations and obviously also transform it for them personally.

Stuart Crainer:

Yeah, really interesting.

Kirstin Ferguson:

It is really interesting, and it’s so good to hear there’s some work being done in this space. Because I was shocked at a statistic that I, or some data I used in my research, that the average number of years after someone first has formal leadership experience – could be as a supervisor – before they get formal leadership development training, is 13 years. There’s this massive gap where all those mistakes are being made, bad habits are being learned, people are just feeling as they go. And often, Stephen, I’d love to know your experience, that’s because organisations have traditionally sensed, “Well, we only need to invest in the really senior leaders, all those other leaders, perhaps we just want them focused on delivering and on the tools.” Whereas they are the leaders that have the biggest impact. Well, often the biggest impact on a day-to-day level. And we really need to be giving leadership development to brand-new graduates as soon as they arrive in an organisation. Anticipating that they’re going to be leaders in the future.

Stephen Bailey:

That’s spot on, Kirstin. And what I would say is, in a learning economy continuous learning becomes really important. And so when we think about leadership development, two big trends in a learning economy. One is what you alluded to: democratisation. We have to go from just having a narrow range of leaders who have access to development to building broad-based leadership capability, so that we can both execute against our business now and also so we can future-proof our business. Because we’re going to need broader leadership pipelines to ensure that we have the capabilities that are continuing to evolve on our bench in order to execute into the future. And then the second piece is continuous learning. As you think about democratisation, it’s also important to start to think about leadership development not just as a moment in time. You get a program or coach for a few weeks or a few months and then you’re good for the next several years. As soon as you’ve experienced learning, the world is changing, and so can you provide ongoing access to development?

And when I mentioned the business model transformation that we’ve undergone over the last two to three years, it’s really been about that. How do we move our entire model from episodic leadership development to continuous development that allows leaders and organisations to stay ahead of the pace of change?

Stuart Crainer:

Let’s take some comments and questions. Somebody said, “Leadership is not defined by age, but by mindset. It’s about the willingness to learn, adapt, and lead with purpose and vision, regardless of one’s years of experience. True leaders inspire others through their actions, values and commitment to growth and excellence.” I think we’re all agreeing with that.

Kirstin Ferguson:

100%.

Stephen Bailey:

Couldn’t agree more.

Stuart Crainer:

Did you write that, Kirstin?

Kirstin Ferguson:

I could have, but I didn’t. I agree partly with the LinkedIn user there, but yeah, school kids can be leading. I mean, we are all leading in different ways. It’s irrelevant how old we are.

Stephen Bailey:

Kirsten, I’d love to hear your thoughts on one thing, because one of the things we’ve seen is that, I think you alluded to it earlier, is that leaders that are effective at galvanising in this environment are really effective at identifying and focusing on purpose. And I’m curious, in your work, when you think about Head & Heart, how purpose intersects?

Kirstin Ferguson:

Oh, I mean, it is essential. And I think Hubert Joly’s book, The Heart of Business, he talks about human magic and galvanising human magic around purpose. And without it, it’s very hard to get everyone enthused. That is a big change from when in the fifties the organisation man was making widgets and it didn’t really matter what the purpose of the widget was, that was their job. Now, and I’ve got daughters in their 20s, they actively want to understand, well, what does this organisation do that I’m going to go and work for? Now, it might not be a deciding factor for their whole career, but it’s important to them the purpose of that business. But within that, leaders need to understand that whatever the purpose of a business is, isn’t enough for an individual, we need to feel purpose in our role within that business. We have to be making sure that we individually feel a purpose to what we do every day and that we’re able to add value. Otherwise, as you know, we get disengaged employees. I think purpose for me works on a couple of different levels.

Stephen Bailey:

I think that’s a great point. And what’s really interesting is, is this idea of understanding the purpose of the organisation, but then also the purpose of my role. And I analogize it to strategy. Where we’ve known for a long time that the best leaders both set a strategic vision, but then also ensure that there’s strategic alignment up and down the organisation. In an ideal world, every CEO wants every employee to understand, “Okay, this is how I fit into the strategy.” I think purpose is in many ways the new challenge for a lot of leaders. How do you ensure that that same rigour that you take to strategy to ensure alignment, you’re also winning hearts, as well as minds, with the purpose of the organisation.

Kirstin Ferguson:

I mean, there are some organisations, sadly though, they understand they need a vision and purpose and values, yet as we all know, the euphemism, they’re just words on a wall. And so I think it’s really … again, it’s that mindset we’re talking about. You’re doing it not because your investors or someone expects you to do it, it’s because you actually believe in the purpose. And that’s where we need leaders who are truly galvanised behind it, not just able to recite whatever it says. And there’s a real difference. And again, we can sense it. We know when someone is just saying what’s needed to be said.

Stephen Bailey:

Absolutely.

Stuart Crainer:

I think we’ve covered some of this, but let’s get your specific responses to it. Sandra Poirier Smith says, “What are the specific traits we can identify in future leaders that will be the kind of leaders who can adapt, learn, and be the right people to develop, especially ones who may not be in the traditional path?”

Kirstin Ferguson:

Where to start? If I had to pick one, and okay, this is a challenge, Stephen. We have to pick one. One-

Stephen Bailey:

Okay, one. I like it, up in the box.

Kirstin Ferguson:

Otherwise, I mean, we could be here all day. I’m going to go with one, and because I believe with it everything changes. This idea of humility, intellectual humility.

Stephen Bailey:

You took mine. I’ll come up with another one while you’re talking. Don’t worry.

Kirstin Ferguson:

Yeah, yeah, come up with another one. I genuinely believe that is the next frontier. And you think of the leaders, just imagine in your mind those leaders who really drive you up the wall and generally think they’re the smartest person in the room, they have all the answers, yet obviously they don’t. The difference they could make if they were able to be just that little bit more humble. And to be able to bring people along with them by saying, even if they have the answer. They might have done it 20 times before. But that ability to become a coach and use that opportunity to say, “Well, what would you do in this situation, Stephen?” And being open to hearing actually it could be a better idea anyway. I’m hoping that especially along with AI, where we’re going to be working alongside tools like that, we need a huge amount of intellectual humility on our limitations. Sorry, Steven.

Stephen Bailey:

No, no, that was a good … obviously, I agree. That was a great one. And I would just add effective listening and communication skills to that. I think humility opens you up as a leader to the possibility that other perspectives are valuable and that you might not have all the answers and there’s still a lot for you to learn  – that was some of the conversation we’ve had earlier. And then the ability to listen to those perspectives and then communicate that effectively to folks in a way that engages them and meets them where they are. And recognizing that especially in a more diverse workforce communication styles need to flex and vary based on audience and based on modality. The leaders who can really do that. If we can combine that humility and communication and listening, I think you’re in great shape.

Stuart Crainer:

Yeah, I’m trying to think of examples of people I know who have become more humble. I know, and it’s an unlikely trajectory for most people, isn’t it?

Stephen Bailey:

Well, I mean, it’s special. Oh, go ahead.

Kirstin Ferguson:

No, you go, Stephen.

Stephen Bailey:

I was going to say, especially given our traditional characterization of leadership, this idea that you get anointed as a leader and now you’re the boss and whether you’re watching movies, or TV shows, or reading books, there’s that kind of reinforcement of the idea that now you’re the decision maker. And I think leader as top down decision maker versus leader as enabler is a huge shift. And I think you see some leaders that step into leadership roles, and particularly when you’re a new leader – maybe I’ll speak more to that new leadership demographic – what I’m about to say is you step into the role and you realise there’s a lot you don’t know. And there are two ways to handle that broadly. You can make out you know it and be the type of leader that isn’t humble. And so it says, okay, it’s going to be like this, and you’ve got to put on a persona. Or you can say, “We’re going to figure it out together.” And I think the figure-it-out-together leaders that embrace it as a moment for humility, I see a lot more success.

Kirstin Ferguson:

And you captured something I wanted to make a point about. Power definitely is an inhibitor to humility. There’s plenty of research that shows, the more power we get, the harder we find to be humble. However, the irony is, I think it becomes easier to be humble. The more powerful you are or the more you are, because you’re spot on, Stephen; when you’re a brand new leader and you’re a graduate or you’re in your start of your career, it’s much harder and not always appropriate to go, “Look, I don’t know the answer to this, but let’s do it together.” Because you are there to be technically skilled at whatever it is you are doing. And I think it’s only as you progress and become more confident in your abilities. And it’s all about that self-confidence of knowing, “As a more senior leader, I know the answer, I’ve actually done this 30 times.” You’re thinking that internally.

But I don’t need to prove that now. I don’t need to use this as an opportunity to show everyone how much I know. I know that this is much more about me coaching people along the way. And that’s where that humility comes in. And so I would just encourage leaders at any level, but particularly those middle to senior leaders, this is your chance now to really build that persona you have as a leader that people want to work with. And being humble and intellectually humble is something that will gravitate people towards you, not scare them off.

Stuart Crainer:

A few observations from the audience, “Intellectually honest leaders are not hired into the key leadership positions and yet they are usually the most effective.” Which is interesting in itself. Somebody else says, “Insufficient focus on communication is at the heart of the problem. Silos prevent purpose from being enacted.”

Stephen Bailey:

I would say that to the comment around who gets promoted in the roles. I think it varies a lot by company and company culture. I think there’s some organisations where if you’re intellectually honest, that’s highly prized and valued. And organisations spend a lot of time focused on this concept of psychological safety to allow people to be honest and straightforward. And those are the people who advance in the organisation. There are other organisations where absolutely it’s the case that it’s about politics and about not saying the wrong thing to the wrong person. And you end up with an organisation that spends very little time thinking about the end mission or vision or customer and spends a lot of time thinking about inside out considerations around how to manoeuvre for influence. And so as a leader, particularly as you not just become a leader of teams, but a leader of leaders and a leader of enterprises, your ability to build and maintain a culture that incentivizes the former and not the latter becomes really important.

Stuart Crainer:

A couple of the most recent comments say, “How can leaders cultivate an organisational culture that prioritises psychological safety, encourages innovation, and ensures a sustainable pace of work to support employee well-being and long-term success?” I think you’ve touched on that there, Stephen. Ruth Gotian, nice to hear from you Ruth.

Stephen Bailey:

Hello, Ruth.

Stuart Crainer:

Kirstin, can you touch on the issue that women leaders can be too humble, often using the ‘we’ term when they did the work themselves? Any tips for women leaders? I’m sure you have many tips for women leaders.

Kirstin Ferguson:

I love-

Stuart Crainer:

Is it that , well, women are more susceptible to be humble, therefore they’re better equipped to be great leaders?

Kirstin Ferguson:

Well, there’s a few, Ruth, that is an awesome question because I’m actually doing research around this right now. Minorities and humility are actually an interesting sort of side note to what we’re talking about, because often those in power can use be more humble as a way to control minorities. And that’s been something that’s been shown throughout the history of workplaces. For women in particular it’s a message that they’ve been given for some time that you need to be a bit more humble, not so aggressive, all of those sorts of terms. Whether it’s true is a whole different point altogether. And I think for women, yes, we often might, and this is such a stereotype, because it’s not all women, but might be more team-based in our language. Yes, we have done this when it was you.

I think there is an element for women in particular to be really aware of what confident humility looks like. It’s that sweet spot between being too self-deprecating, “Oh, I didn’t do any of this and it was all someone else doing it,” to hubris and arrogance at the other end, which we don’t want either. There’s confident humility, which is really being aware of that point in the middle where you might be someone who recognizes your team. And I think that’s a fabulous trait. Yet, if someone in your team then says, “Well, actually Kirsten, you were the one who came up with this idea,” a simple thank you. I think there’s a point at which we need to recognize where we all fall into self-deprecating, but men can do that as well. But women I think historically have been given the language that they tend to be more humble. Whether we believe that ourselves perhaps.

Stephen Bailey:

Well, I must say, it’s wonderful to hear from Ruth who’s a great second-line faculty member. And I would just add one piece, Kirstin, I’ll tell a brief story. One of my employees, his daughter was at an internship. And she was experiencing for the first time this exact dynamic of someone on her team, a male on her team who was claiming credit, “I did this, I completed that. I was successful in X, Y, Z way.” And she was a huge contributor. And probably a bigger contributor and didn’t quite know how to deal with this dynamic of, “I don’t want to come across as saying, ‘Me, me, me,’ but at the same time I want to take credit for my work.” And it leads me into a conversation that’s a little bit adjacent, which is this idea of mentorship in organisations. And whether it’s gender, whether it’s race, whether it’s other forms of identity, where individuals have gone through a series of experiences in progressing through the organisation that are unique in some ways to their identity in terms of the challenges they face.

And one of the things we see is that when you think about mentorship, when you think about sponsorship, finding individuals that have been on that path before becomes really important. Because I can mentor a young woman, but she’s going to have experienced different things than I have. And so me giving her the advice that worked perfectly for me might not work for her. And so finding those connections, and as we think about development paths, it puts an extra premium making sure that people do progress and you have representation at leadership. Because if you don’t, then you can’t form those relationships and it just builds on itself in terms of really being able to provide that type of advice.

Kirstin Ferguson:

I couldn’t agree more. I mentioned earlier, I’ve got daughters in my 20s and they won’t be watching because they’re fast asleep in the middle of the night in Australia, but I’ll listen to that. They’ve both got male bosses who have given them professional feedback and counselling on areas to work on all the things you would expect, but often it’s around their communication style or their personal style. And it’s very much that man’s experience of how he may operate in that environment and counselling them that they might need to do the same. And they’ll repeat it to me and I’m like, “Oh, I don’t agree with that feedback.” Obviously, I’m biassed, I’m their mother. But I think that kind of issue that you’re talking about happens every single day. And that’s this recognition that the lived experience of the three of us is all very different and we will read a room differently. We’ll approach a leadership situation differently, and that doesn’t mean that it’s incorrect. It’s just a different way of needing to help people become effective in their areas of strength.

Stuart Crainer:

As somebody’s posed a follow-up question. “Would you say cultural background has a role in this?” I suppose there’s got to be cultural meaning between different societies and nations. Because the way you read a room, you would read a room in Japan is very different from Australia and so on. And okay, we can say that leadership is universal across all mankind, but our interpretations of it are very, very different culturally.

Stephen Bailey:

I think that’s exactly right. I mean, being in New Orleans now, I’ve got my Cafe du Monde coffee mug here. I think even if you think about within the United States, the cultural differences by geography. Every morning I go for a walk, whether it’s in New York, whether it’s in New Orleans, and when I walk in New York in the morning, I pass by many people and I say hi to none of them. In New Orleans, on my walk this morning I said hi to every single person I passed by, and it would have been considered rude for me not to. And so I give that little vignette, you put that in the context of leadership, how you run a meeting, how you establish relationships, what you’re looking for in a room, how people value your communication, how they value your interactions with them, even within the same country has tremendous variance. And then when you extrapolate that globally, when you extrapolate it across different races and cultural backgrounds, that really brings home the challenge that leaders face to make all people feel included.

Kirstin Ferguson:

Yeah, I can only agree, and one of the experiences I’ve had is I think we should extend this. It’s not just culture, or race, or gender, but neurodivergence as well. In my book I write a lot about reading a room and leading with perspective, and I’ve had a number of people who are neurodivergent say, “Well, I find reading a room really difficult.” Because they don’t have the same skills we might have to pick up on body language and different aspects like that. This is why leading with empathy is so critical that we as leaders understand that not everyone will lead in the same way, but they can be incredibly effective in the way that they lead, depending on the context.

Stuart Crainer:

I read some research, a lot of leaders have experience of sales early in their careers, and there was one guy who was a CEO of a major corporation and he’d started life as a tour guide. Which is a really good test of how you read a room. You’re the person leading. And I think a lot of them have that similar sort of experience. There’s a really nice point on a LinkedIn comment, which I’ll read in its entirety, because I think it’s important, “The experience of being a minority can often instil a deeper sense of humility in leaders as they navigate challenges, embrace diversity, and champion inclusivity. This humility not only fosters empathy and understanding, but also cultivates a culture of respect, collaboration, and empowerment within the organisation, ultimately driving positive change and innovation.” Really nicely put. Thank you for that point.

Another point somebody else had raised is about AI and technology. Of course, we’re all talking about, what we’re talking about here, is a lot of the things we’ve talked about, is about the very humanity of people, about their humility, about their egos, which is all very personal. Where does AI fit into this? Stephen, you’ve written about leading in the age of generative AI, but it totally undermines our understanding of leadership, doesn’t it?

Stephen Bailey:

Yeah, well, I think it presents both tremendous opportunity and tremendous risk. Because I always like to end on the positive, I’ll start with the negative, which is to say that when you think about bias and when you think about some of the practices, particularly in the context of inclusion diversity that we’re looking to move away from, when you think about generative AI, just AI more broadly, you have a real responsibility to ensure that the algorithms that you develop have removed bias. Because the ability to scale bias in an AI world is greater than we’ve ever had before. And so if you get it wrong the implications are much more broad than we could ever contemplate in a world where bias is human to human only.

Now, the tremendous opportunity, however, is that if you do think about with intention, about how to remove bias from decision making and opportunity, there’s a great democratisation moment here that we can take advantage of. And what I mean by that is, if you think about the things that are most complex in your life, and I’ll use an education analogy, choosing a college. How many people start researching where to go to college and are immediately intimidated by just the overwhelming amount of information that’s in front of them? And it makes it very difficult for them to process. In a world of generative AI, having an interface that’s engaging that can take tremendous amounts of data and simplify it, put it at your fingertips and democratise complex decision-making to make it easier for people to access resources, that can make their lives better.

We’re thinking a lot about that in the context of learning. How do we make it easier for leaders to figure out what capabilities they need to build in real time, build those capabilities and then come back in that continuous learning journey and take all the friction and intimidation out of having to make those decisions themselves. Tremendous risk, also tremendous opportunity, I think particularly in the educational context.

Stuart Crainer:

Kirstin?

Kirstin Ferguson:

Yeah, well, look, I’m excited. I’m a pro-AI, excited about the opportunities. But I do think bad leaders will become even worse and good leaders will stand out. And the example I use for that is, you can get AI now to do your annual development plans and performance reviews for your teams. Really bad, lazy leaders will ask AI to do it, flick it off to Stephen and go, “There you go, Stephen, there’s your annual review.” And it’ll be obvious to Stephen that I haven’t written it at all and it’s just wrote whatever. Really good leaders will use that tool to save time, because it will start pre-populating things, but then they’re obviously going to add in their own finesse and go and sit with you, Stephen, and rather than spending all the time on preparing the document, they can use it to coach and to work with you.

I think AI is really exciting and it’s an opportunity for all of us to work alongside a tool that’s obviously brand new and will save us from things that leaders waste time on now. And allow us to really be doing the human things that our AI is never going to replace. But we’re going to have an awful lot of terrible leaders who are hopefully going to be found out pretty early on, but are going to use it as a way to be lazier frankly, as the kind of leader we need.

Stuart Crainer:

People can check out … we’ve just published, at Thinkers50 we’ve just published, a report with Capgemini called ManagementGPT, which is about the involvement of AI as a co-thinker rather than a co-pilot with managers. It’s an interesting … well, it’s a revolution, isn’t it? The way-

Stephen Bailey:

It’s absolutely a revolution.

Kirstin Ferguson:

Oh, you only need to spend a bit of time on Gemini or ChatGPT, and it is mind blowing. I feel like the people when the telephone first came around, well, the internet back in the day, it’s a bit like that.

Stuart Crainer:

Where does this leave leadership of the future, in 2050? We’ve been talking about one of the things we said, one of you said that very early on in our conversation was, “Command and control is dying. Or command and control is dead.” But it’s been dying for quite a long time and it hasn’t quite disappeared. By 2050 or by 2040, do you anticipate a true revolution in leadership, because these things have moved quite slowly?

Stephen Bailey:

Well, my view is that by 2040 we’ll be talking about probably multiple iterations of the next set of leadership challenges. But what I will say is that I think in 2040, to the extent that any of us have a crystal ball, a lot of what we’re talking about right now is the cutting edge of leadership and what the best leaders do will just be assumed to have the basic set of capabilities that make you a leader. And so it won’t be leaders who are empathetic or leaders who learn fast in the pace of change, it will be synonymous with leadership in a way that if you’re not doing those things effectively, you’re not going to be a leader that has any level of success in 2040. That’s what my crystal ball says, but we’ll see. Hopefully we’ll all be around to talk about it again in 2040.

Kirstin Ferguson:

Gosh, I don’t know about that. I’m hoping I’ll be enjoying life somewhere … !

Stephen Bailey:

I thought you were having fun, Kirstin.

Kirstin Ferguson:

I am having fun. But I will have to progress by then. But you’ll have a hologram. We’ll have holograms of ourselves.

Stephen Bailey:

There you go. Send your hologram, I’ll send mine. We’ll do that. That sounds perfect.

Kirstin Ferguson:

I’ll be on a beach somewhere. Look, I don’t disagree with anything you just said. I don’t think there will be a revolutionary change. And in terms of command and control, I think it will always have a place. In a crisis in certain situations, this is all back to reading a room, you do need a leader that’s prepared to say, “This is what we’re doing. I need everyone to get behind us now and off we go.” And that’s what people in your organisation are looking for. Those situations though have gone from being 100% of the time in the 1950s to rare occasions when there is a genuine emergency. For me, 2050, all the things that Stephen said, but we’ll have truly human leaders that put people at the centre, that have the tools around them, the holograms and the AI or whatever it is that enable them to deliver whatever the purpose of their organisation is, but they’re still leading from the head and the heart all the time.

Stuart Crainer:

It strikes me looking in our conversation, both of you have a broad range of knowledge and inputs on leadership. Stephen as an entrepreneur, investor ExecOnline, CEO, and you’re the chair of the Truman Center for National Policy, a member of the Board of Prospect Schools. You’re looking at the leadership world from a variety of different perspectives. And same with Kirstin’s experience in the Air Force and elsewhere. Is one of the issues that in the corporate world leaders are still blinkered, they’re unwilling to learn from the education world or elsewhere?

Stephen Bailey:

Yeah, I have noticed that it is very surprising the lack of cross pollination that you see between different really important contexts of both leadership and society more broadly. As you mentioned, I’m the chair of the board of the Truman Center for National Policy based in Washington, D.C., focused on progressive national security, lots of military representation, so lots of great leadership in the organisation. It’s a membership-based organisation, so lots of former and current military that are members. I’ve spent a lot of time in New York on boards, and what’s interesting is how much those two worlds don’t overlap. And there’s a tremendous opportunity. People in D.C., “What’s going on in New York?” New York people, “What’s going on in D.C.?” Interested, but not necessarily overlapping and engaging. I think leaders that can span different contexts that are connectors that can bring best practices from different areas of our society are particularly valuable in the world we live in now.

Stuart Crainer:

Kirstin, where does your work go next? What can we look out for?

Kirstin Ferguson:

Well, I’m currently working on my next book, so you’ll certainly hear about that when it’s out next year. But I’m loving doing a lot more work in the States, so I’m here for two weeks. I’m in Boston and off to Washington, D.C. at the end of the week, and then onto New York. And then back again in two weeks doing more events in Vegas and also up in Montreal. So, I’m loving life and keeping busy.

Stuart Crainer:

And your scale, can you tell us briefly about the Head & Heart Scale?

Kirstin Ferguson:

Yeah, so anyone can go and do it. Just visit headheartleader.com, and Thinkers50 might like to put that in the chat, just headheartleader.com. Totally free. It takes about five minutes if that, and you’ll get a personalised report. And as I mentioned, I’ve been overwhelmed by the number of people that have done it, I think we’re up to about 140 countries. And it’ll show how you tend, whether you tend to be more of a head or a heart-based leader and how you go on the eight attributes of head and heart leadership. I’ll be interested to hear how you go. Let me know.

Stuart Crainer:

Yeah, the link’s in the chat for everyone. Please join in and check out more about Kirsten’s work as well. Stephen, what’s next for ExecOnline?

Stephen Bailey:

What’s next for ExecOnline is, as I mentioned earlier, we are really excited about what we’ve done over the past few years to completely shift our business model to a continuous learning model. Our organisations, instead of buying individual programs or coaching sessions, buy annual licences for development for their leaders. And we’re really focused on in phase one of ExecOnline it was about democratising access to leadership development. In this next phase, it’s about combining democratisation and continuous learning to allow organisations and individuals to stay ahead in the new learning economy.

Stuart Crainer:

Yeah, I mean, I think that’s a big message from this session. What we’re anticipating and experiencing is the democratisation of leadership enabled by technology and also enabled by changing attitudes within society and within different generations. We’re out of time. Stephen, really appreciate your time and your insights. Kirstin, a pleasure as always. Thank you everyone from around the world who’s joined this session, and I’m sure Kirstin’s daughters will be tuning in to look at the recording of the session and it’ll be available-

Kirstin Ferguson:

Very optimistic, Stuart, very optimistic.

Stephen Bailey:

We’ll go ahead and pencil in 2040 for the next one with Kirstin’s avatar.

Kirstin Ferguson:

I might send my daughters to that one, I think.

Stuart Crainer:

Well, thank you to everyone for joining us. We’ll see you all in 2040. And for those who can’t get enough of Thinkers50, we’ll be back for another LinkedIn live session tomorrow with a member of the Thinkers50 Radar for 2024. Thank you very much, Kirstin. Thank you, Stephen. Thank you everyone for joining us.

Stephen Bailey:

Thank you, Stuart.

Kirstin Ferguson:

Thanks.

Stephen Bailey:

Take care, bye.