Lambs or Lions

(Recently, I was talking with a younger colleague about management and leadership. He commented how it is often very hard to be vulnerable, because there are so many mixed messages sent: frequently, our leaders are expected to know and do everything. At the same time, we might not be giving a lot of support to our younger managers, whether it is about modelling behaviours or having the training or support systems to cement those behaviours.

Having been a Strat Planning Head in an older-generation EDB, I’ve had the privilege of managing and leading a wonderful and amazing team, working under the best boss I ever had in EDB, and also seeing how our senior management operated up-close. Drawing heavily on that, as well as other observations, I’ll be writing some thoughts on leadership and management, that hopefully serve as a resource for EDBians in leadership positions.

On that note, you don’t have to be a manager to be a leader.
I remember reading a vivid example of this, in an account of the US Ranger Regiment in Panama. The unit was tasked to capture and secure the airport runway, and they were pinned down by machine gun fire for some time.

Suddenly, this corporal stood up, shouted “fuck this shit!” and charged at the enemy across the runway. The rest of the unit followed him shouting, and they took about one thousand prisoners in about 20 mins. That corporal didn’t wait for orders.

Of course, the EDB context is completely different and less deadly. We arguably have MORE scope for individual acts of initiative and leadership. The Covid Appeals Process team, for instance, has done an incredible job with piecing the process together, and for training the many volunteers for the job. Another example would be Terence Tan, our Associate who solved our problem of coordinating our own calendars across the internet separation barrier using Power Automate.

My ex-boss Julian Ho always said that “in EDB, smarts are a given”, and one of the most common comments I hear from our alumni is how they miss the kind of discussions and debates they had in EDB. So clearly, we have the right smarts, and I think that still largely remains true. And from what I see, I think we also still hire and recruit people for potential, not just their ability to do the job.

Broadly, we don’t hire lambs but aim to hire lions. I think this is still broadly true.

The challenge is how to manage, grow and develop lions, instead of domesticating them into grasseaters that go “baaa baaa”.

And that’s what I hope to share that might be useful.

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Updated date 4 May 2020