Carla A. Harris - Lead to Win: How to Be a Powerful, Impactful, Influential Leader in Any Environment

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Copyright 2022 by Carla A. Harris

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Harris, Carla A., author.

Title: Lead to win: how to be a powerful, impactful, influential leader in any environment / Carla A. Harris.

Description: New York: Avery, [2022]

Identifiers: LCCN 2022005292 (print) | LCCN 2022005293 (ebook) | ISBN 9780593421680 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780593421697 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Leadership. | Executive ability. | Success in business.

Classification: LCC HD57.7 .H36936 2022 (print) | LCC HD57.7 (ebook) | DDC 658.4/092dc23/eng/20220202

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022005292

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022005293

Cover design: Linet Huamn Velsquez

Cover photograph: Scott McDermott

Book design by Patrice Sheridan, adapted for ebook by Estelle Malmed

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To my daughters, Dakota and McKinley

May you realize and become the great leader that is already inside of you

Introduction

During my three-plus decades as an investment banker on Wall Street, Ive worked side by side with colleagues, served on numerous boards, volunteered my time with countless nonprofits, and traveled the world coaching and speaking. In that time, Ive executed hundreds of deals and had the opportunity to work closely with and observe countless CEOs from a wide range of industries, including technology, retail, transportation, industrial, and healthcare, to name a few. As a result, in good economies and bad, I was exposed to and had the opportunity to study some great leaders... and some not-so-great leaders. I have also observed some very effective leadership styles as well as seen the results of some incredibly ineffective approaches, too.

In all Ive seen, there is one factor that stands out. Most of those leaders, CEOs and other executives, never received any extended formal training or coaching on how to be a great leader. Further, most lead in the same way they were led during their careers, often using the my way or the highway approach.

During the decades of the 1980s and 1990s, and frankly, for the thirty years before then, it was an organizations leaders who defined its agenda. They called the shots and decided what needed to happen and when. Further, every professional who worked for them was expected to do exactly as they dictated, no questions asked. In this paradigm, leaders often managed by fear and threats. If you didnt execute in the way defined by the leader or behave as the culture demanded, you could be demoted, left in a dead-end job, or worse, be fired. Under a leader like this, you would never have the opportunity to disagree or offer any input or constructive feedback. Essentially, you did as you were told.

For a time, this my way or the highway leadership style was considered impactful and effective. There was no war for talent in this period, and production and volume were valued over innovation, convenience, and price. Todays environment is different. Innovation is the dominant competitive parameter; speed to market of new products and the ability to directly engage consumers follow closely behind and are the table stakes for competition and survival in the marketplace.

Whats also different today is that, at the time of this writing, we find ourselves more than a year and a half into a global pandemic. Many workers have had the opportunity to work from home or from some other remote location of their choosing, instead of an office building. A challenging time for most people, the time in lockdown has also offered employees the opportunity to reflect on their lives and consider their career choices. They are asking themselves questions such as Am I in the right job? Am I pursuing a career that makes me happy? Does my employer or my boss treat me well?

This level of reflection without the reinforcement that comes from being close to colleagues and managers has some employees, at a minimum, considering why they are with a certain employer, and many others contemplating leaving their current jobs. I believe the consequence of this contemplation will be a great shift of employees from one employer to another, or from corporate or philanthropic work to entrepreneurship. As a result, employers are being forced to re-evaluate their value proposition for workers to engage with them and will have to market that proposition in the marketplace in a way that will help them retain their best talent and attract new workers.

In addition, I believe that companies will have to rethink how they reward and compensate people who are very effective at not only attracting great talent but retaining it, which is very different from the way companies have rewarded people heretofore. In most industries, especially financial services, if you are a great producer, generating millions of dollars of revenue, you are generally the highest-paid person, while people who are heralded as great managerswhose teams love them and who tend to be great developers of people, so their teams stay with the companyare not valued and rewarded in the same way. Well, in todays environment, with companies having the new awakening about its people, employers will have to value those who can lead and manage differently than in the past, more like the way they reward traditional producers.

Institutions are increasingly beginning to value and depend on collaborative alliances versus proprietary ideas and products. Technology has changed the game and taught other industries the value of open sourcing and partnerships. As a result, companies can no longer rely solely on their own internal talent to compete, let alone lead. To forge partnerships, attract collaborators and foster relationships, and, more important, attract and retain the best talent, you need to be a different kind of leader. If you are going to motivate and inspire talented professionals to choose to spend their time within the walls of your company, to have a muscle of innovation, you have to be able to engage, penetrate thought, teach, and inspire. To lead in todays business and philanthropic world requires you to have the courage to be authentic, build trust, focus on diversity, and be resilient and tenacious.

Past leaders, corporate leaders in particular, had three constituents to worry about: shareholders, customers, and employees. Now a fourth constituent has emerged and is a major focus... community. Armed with and emboldened by social media, the community can use this powerful tool to, in minutes, take down a brand franchise that took decades to build. With the ongoing pressure on organizations to constantly innovate, given geopolitical uncertainty, cybersecurity threats, social media, and the war for talent, the pressures on leaders seem endless. Even if an organization has developed a rock-solid competitive strategy and its balance sheet is solid, there are ongoing threats to its culture, such as the repercussions of a bad actor, a leadership scandal, or a lapse in judgment that results in threats from activist groups or damage to a customer relationship.