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    Who Makes A Leader, Not What
    Who Makes A Leader, Not What
    Who Makes A Leader, Not What
    Ebook128 pages1 hour

    Who Makes A Leader, Not What

    By Robert Andersson

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    About this ebook

    Do you ever feel that you are drowning in a never-ending to-do list? 


    Do you get a feeling of hopelessness when each task you tick off your list seems to be replaced by

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRobert Andersson
    Release dateMar 28, 2022
    ISBN9780645442410

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      Book preview

      Who Makes A Leader, Not What - Robert Andersson

      INTRODUCTION

      Do you ever feel that you are drowning in a never-ending to-do list? Do you get a feeling of hopelessness when each task you tick off your list seems to be replaced by two new ones? Are you concerned that if you keep on working at this relentless pace you could end up burning out?

      What if I told you that there is a way out of this abyss of doing-doing-doing, more-more-more?

      What if I told you that you have the power to break free from this never-ending cycle of demands and become the active choice architect of your own life?

      Would you be interested to know how?

      By following the advice of this book, you will have the tools to make an informed choice about your future as a leader.

      My role as a leadership mentor and coach is to guide and support leaders as they cultivate and enrich their professional practice and improve their wellbeing.

      The process I use with them follows the leadership framework I developed over a number of years to transform myself. This transformation took me from an unfulfilled, burnt-out leader who was driven only by external achievements and had no connection to my inner self or wellbeing, to a leader who is connected to my authentic self, values my own wellbeing and that of my team, and whose internal motivations and values drive my external achievements.

      For me, this shift from a purely external focus to a focus on internal and external leadership is the key to managing demands without risking burning out. Let me be clear and upfront about something here, I am not saying that external focus is bad and internal focus is good. It is perfectly okay to have a desire to be professionally successful in a particular industry or organisation. What I am suggesting is that the road to success looks very different depending on whether your values motivate your behaviours, or your behaviours drive your values. We will discuss the difference in a later chapter, but remember, balance is key.

      Success does not have to come at the cost of all else.

      This shift of focus changed my life, both personally and professionally. This is why I want to share it with you.

      If you feel enslaved by the ‘achieve-achieve-achieve’ mantra that our society tells us is the only pathway to success, if you feel you are never going to get on top of your workload no matter how many hours you work, I want to show you another way.

      Plenty of books describe this ‘doing-more-achieve’ merry-go-round model of leadership: the leadership status quo of the day. However, this book is about the road less travelled, it’s about what I call internal leadership. I would love for you to come on this journey with me and activate your own choice. Together we can change the lens of what ‘leadership’ is, and as a consequence, the world will be a much more welcoming, safe and inclusive place.

      My motivation for this book is to change the culture of workplaces and what is classified as leadership. I have three daughters and a wife and I am not going to leave the world looking the way it does. I want to purposefully drive the shift to enable women and vulnerable people to feel safe, be empowered and have the opportunity to blossom. A lot of my ideas align with my Swedish cultural heritage; Sweden is a place where women are empowered, supported by government policy and more equal than most. After all, 50% of Sweden’s cabinet ministers are women and four out of five Nordic countries have a female prime minister.

      My deep sense of the importance of valuing women stems from my mother. Not from the perspective of her being my mum, but for who she was in her professional career (she is now retired). She was a trailblazer for female leaders and her actions were motivated by her values. She was the first female mechanical engineer hired by her company, in the 1980s, and at most board meetings she ‘dressed down’ in a T-shirt with the slogan ‘Without Women, Sweden Stops!’. Instead of seeing this as tokenistic and being the sacrificial pawn in a game of chess played by men, she embraced the opportunity and become the queen of the board! A lot of other women were hired by her organisation because of her trailblazing efforts. While writing this book, I discussed this with her and asked her if she would have done it differently a second time around. She reflected on the question and replied that today her T-shirt would have had a different message ‘Without Women, the World Stops!’. My mother’s strong views on what it means to be a woman in a leadership position have now global reach. I hope her message of being the ‘queen’ will help women break the mould on what it means to be a leader. It most certainly had a profound effect on me.

      To support the validity of my leadership framework, I undertook extensive research while completing a Master of Change, Innovation and Leadership and an Undergraduate Certificate in Mental Health. Reading an extensive number of peer-reviewed papers and scrutinising tested models and frameworks has assisted me in writing this book. Academic research has added depth and breadth to my understanding and challenged my awareness of the many choices and drivers for human behaviours. This, coupled with my lived experience, has helped morph my leadership framework into what it is today.

      And now it’s time to share it with you so you can take back control and become the active choice architect of your life.

      Are you ready?

      PART 1

      Let’s start by looking at why achievement is not all it’s cracked up to be and the difference between an achievement-driven leader and a values-motivated leader.

      CHAPTER 1

      WHY ACHIEVEMENT DOESN’T MEASURE UP

      THE NORTH AND SOUTH OF LEADERSHIP

      I was once drowning in work and focused on external achievements, you may be feeling the same way too. I thought I was chasing the dream, but really I was just chasing my tail. I’d bought the line that successful leadership is equated with achievement at the cost of all else. It’s all externally focused. But even though I ticked all the achievement boxes – including reaching a childhood dream of becoming a millionaire – my so-called success wasn’t making me happy. My externally focused goals were depleting my energy reserves and I was drowning, professionally and personally. When all of your energy is channelled towards external goals, the long-term costs to your health, vitality and happiness are often ignored. This unbalanced approach often leads to burnout.

      In my quest to turn this around, I came to the conclusion that successful leadership is not what you do (external achievements), it’s about who you are (internal motivations).

      I define this as the north and south of leadership.

      At the south end is the externally driven leader whose actions and achievements alone tend to set the tone for their values.

      The actions and achievements at the south end of leadership stem from your external WHAT thinking; WHAT you are doing is the ultimate measuring stick. The south end of leadership cares more about a person’s actions, achievements and the number of followers they have than it cares about the person behind the doing.

      Through my reflections, I have come to conclude that the global system of measuring leaders is all too often driven by this all-consuming addiction to external growth via external achievement. I have also found that most organisations and governments are using external short-term, single bottom-line financial performance measures, rather than including the long-term environmental or social effects (triple-bottom-line). Similarly, the stock exchanges around the globe have created a culture where short-termism is treasured. This puts pressure on organisations and governments to perpetuate this short-term feedback loop, which in turn, translates into the expectations of leaders to do the same. Leaders in the short-termism model are often measured on their performance in

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