The serving leader

One thing these last couple of years has taught us is to take nothing for granted, not to sweat the small stuff, focus on what you can control in your life, and know the limit of what you can control.

Another thing that is quite evident is that people have had a rough time across the world this past year. Having to deal with many new unique scenarios, lockdown, home-school, and some of your basic rights – or what we thought were basic rights – taken away or fundamentally changed. To make decisions regarding our teams, our departments in a faster, more agile way and to navigate through a landscape where we haven’t made these decisions before. This was not only new territory for us as leaders but also for our teams, our families, and societies in its entirety.

Many questions came up... Will this work? Is this the right decision to make? What if I fail, what if I am wrong? And through this chaos, we found that we can do this. We can succeed together, and if we as leaders are prepared to serve our teams and people, we will make it through.

That is why we believe in and support the Leadership principles of Metso Outotec: Put People First, Create Clarity and Simplify, Build Bridges, and Drive Growth They are inspirational and focused on what in our view true leadership must be. In all these Principles, there is an underlying message that we would like to highlight: you cannot be a leader if you are not prepared to serve.

Leadership comes with great responsibility and serving is at the center of it. Serving our People, our Company, our Customers, and our Communities as a whole.

A great Leader and writer of many Leadership Topics and Articles, Simon Sinek said: “Leadership is not about being in charge. Leadership is about taking care of those in your charge.” Leadership is a service to be given.

I know many will ask a service….? Isn’t leadership just an education, a job, just a title, or just a role?

For us, it has proven to be so much more than the above! Leadership is when we work together with our collective teams, and by teams, we don’t just mean direct reports. We stand together, we fight for what we believe in and we make decisions to the benefit of the entire team. We work with each other for each other.

Throughout history, leadership has developed and changed as everything in life does. Companies and in particular companies that are on the same road as us, to become a Tier 1 Organisation, went from having a very hierarchal, “I say you do” type of management style to a leadership style that is more transformational.

Leaders today must be authentic, put others first and have empathy for their people. This does not mean that leaders will never have to make tough decisions or never be wrong. As in life, leaders will face difficult situations, and yes some of these situations will affect the people in their organization or teams. I think what is important is the HOW. How do we approach these situations, how do we handle them and how do we always think about making the best decision for others, for the collective, and not for me?

To serve means that you see others succeed and you give them room to fail and encourage them to try again. To serve means that we listen to other’s ideas, opinions, and beliefs. We embrace the differences we have and encourage new ideas and opinions.

A method that works quite well in our market area is to keep things simple and by allowing each team member to focus on five actions to complete, in a specific timeframe, these are not actions that drive revenue but actions on how to get to the revenue. We measure these on a monthly, quarterly, and annual basis and when we are done, we implement new actions, this way we will achieve our goals. In the process of developing these actions, we have full team meetings and define them together with our teams. Our role as leaders is to support our teams and each other’s teams to get to complete the actions. By supporting our teams, we are also serving our teams seeing them succeed and, in the end, reaching our goals.

The bottom line is as leaders we need to build a great company for others, not for ourselves. Simon Sinek writes in his book “Together is Better” that there are always so many articles, books, podcasts, etc. about how to help yourself but very little about how to help others. The act of service, not our own selfish pursuit, helps us to solve problems we may face more effectively. He further says that the act of service not only changes the way our co-workers feel about their jobs but also changes the way we feel about ours.

The act of service is called Leadership

As a conclusion, let’s be serving leaders. Leaders that listen, show empathy, help our co-workers grow, and as a result let the organization grow, leaders that inspire others and, in the journey, find their own purpose.

We leave you with the last quote from one of our own inspirational servant leaders Nelson Mandela: “Lead from the back and let others believe they are in front”.