As a seasoned executive coach, Rebecca Morley works largely with business disruptors, and innovators who notice ways to do things differently and for the better in their industry. A typical example of such a disruptor can be seen in one of her clients, Swyft Home, which transformed the sofa business by pledging to deliver sofas in 24-48 hours from the online order, as opposed to the industry norm of about eight weeks. Rebecca explained she had found many similarities in these “disruptor” businesses. Their founders had exploited a gap in the market and were brilliant but at the same time, as they were mainly focused on innovation, and they became what she termed as accidental leaders.
This can go with the territory of doing something unique because if you are someone who takes on an industry so brazenly, you often assume that you might be the only person who understands that and can do what needs to be done. Thus, leading and empowering a team around your personal vision can become problematic. For one, you can inadvertently demonstrate a demotivating role model for your team, who believe they can never live up to the extremes of your workload or do their job to your expectations and standards.
Such accidental leaders find themselves having to organise and lead teams, which was never their primary focus or aspiration. Considering that, the team to a large degree, becomes and defines your business. Rebecca explained that this means it becomes vitally important that those leaders can make their team work effectively.
“For me, the shift from accidental leader to intentional leader is in first understanding what accidental leadership looks like. Accidental leaders share characteristics…for one they are still ‘doing’ when they should be ‘leading’.”
First-time CEOs commonly ask themselves questions, such as: ‘What am I actually doing?’, ‘How do I lead?’, ‘What are my leadership skills?’, ‘What sort of leader do I want to be?’ and importantly ‘Am I leading the business in the way that I should?’
Rebecca shared with the VarnFest audience that this searching attitude and uncertainty can mean that many first-time leaders suffer from an inconsistent approach, which can be damaging to the running of the business.
First-time leaders often believe they must fix every problem personally. They highlight an issue and deal with it themselves because they trust themselves the most, perhaps more than their team members. Similarly, there are lots of issues in the business that distract the CEO from effectively leading and tie them up in tasks that are more ‘firefighting’, rather than steering the company and those in it. Lastly, it’s hard to decide to change course with behaviour when that behaviour led you to the place you are, but for the long-term journey change may be key to progression.
Positive feedback loop
Rebecca revealed a common issue for those in leadership who are looking to think and spend time on the bigger picture and get out of the day-to-day work…
“often you do not receive that positive feedback loop that you are really good at your job – because everything is much more intangible and longer-term. This means it’s much more difficult to get those kicks that you get in the ‘doing’ – the ‘doing’ that got you to where you are.”
Whilst there are occasional scenarios where accidental leadership can work, Rebecca notes one of the big problems with it is when leaders hide from their team. When they get to a difficult juncture or problem they go into a ‘hiding mode’, remaining invisible when decisions and direction are most needed for momentum and to deal with the concerns and fears of staff. With remote working, which is commonplace today in business, it is easier to hide as a manager and remain unobtainable. Rebecca explained that this can demotivate, create confusion and chaos and with the uncertainty, it can breed high levels of stress for team members.
“In accidental leadership, it can appear like the focus is on you as the leader, how you are doing and how you are feeling and not how your team is doing and feeling. Without the relevant support, your team can feel a lack of psychological safety.”
Rebecca elaborated that leaders may in turn, mistake an apparent lack of creativity, cohesion and accountability in the team as the team’s fault, when the reality is there is a lack of a consistent leadership style and a lack of adequate support from the top, to enable their team to do what they can do best.