Soft power – the haves and have nots
Mid-year, I tend to reflect on patterns I have come across in projects to date and I’ve made a habit of grouping those into haves and have nots. Or, if you speak Shakespeare – try the alternative to “have, or not to … have”. For now, they are all work in progress across professional circles.
- Soft power for resilient leadership styles
- The economy of restless tips
- Feed-back as a gift
- Soft power enhances resilient leadership styles
Q1: Did we learn in (management) school, or in real life, about leadership style?
Recent client conversations have revealed that not much has changed in the last three decades: the discourse on power and gender is more prevalent but, apart from that, the topics are almost intact – or at least unchanged in an academic setting. With just a few extra books to read around the subject, even a newly minted (E)MBA has it all covered.
But what about soft power – for women and men, alike?
In search of clues and relevant examples, I deep dived into my personal trove of cross-cultural experiences. In a previous article I wrote about my early intercultural happenings with a muse who taught us to have high tea (as 10 year olds) and to speak a foreign language while not forgetting who we were. Playing with a train set (carriages labelled nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, pronouns etc) was a smart way of getting the auxiliary verbs right – and the apostrophes as well. That’s where I can place the beginnings of the topic . . and the seeds of something which has evolved to become a skill.
You may wish to pause here and reflect for a minute: it’s worth diving back into your own ‘tapestry’ to look for patterns. These connect directly to our identity and the way we solve problems: this is culture.
Cross-cultural learnings have been for me – and for the people I have worked with most closely – the most exciting, and open for further exploration, research and insights. Cultural dilemmas always mattered as they helped a young entrepreneur address problems as opportunities. It was no mean feat to risk cultural breakthroughs in a society functioning on power and control at a time when ‘business’ was not a good word, and women were simply not allowed to solve the most complex business problems.
Moving to the present, and in a different geography, the cultural challenges still exist and learnings are still flowing fast. Or, how we would say in management jargon, culture is still the one that eats our strategy for breakfast on a daily basis. An entrepreneur – whether green or seasoned – faces a fair share of cultural challenges every single day!
Q2: How can one develop soft power?
Just a warning: this is not a gender-specific conversation and developing soft power is not a universal recipe. Soft power provides a nuanced, culturally and personally sensitive advantage – and it is a potential gold mine for anyone in business when it’s benefits are recognised.
A few years ago, I delivered a session for well over 200 high-powered Board directors (98% men, naturally) who could only talk about ‘how much cash there is in the business’. They knew everything about financial reporting, but had little clue about the external risks to the business; none was really the Resource Investigator type.
While on the stage, my plea to them was to sponsor and nurture key people in those organisations – those who could see outside and use data and insight to help differentiate and move ahead. Previously, I had first-hand experience of those who needed their voice to be heard; they had the potential seed of soft power, but it was buried deep and locked-up, so, they needed the hard-powered, highly visible types to do something about it. In the meanwhile, in some of the organisations I had met at that phase in my career, digital transformation was taking place and some new voices had developed into soft power. But, overall, there is so much more to be done – both from the top down and from the bottom-up – and it is gender-agnostic.
An erstwhile bank manager invited me to explain to wannabe entrepreneurs (MBA and more) how I managed a business through 300% inflation in a no-credit economy. They could not believe I was operating just from a spreadsheet, but with passion to create value while mitigating risk at a highly granular and cultural level. Communication and leadership style was paramount to influence and win in this brutal fiscal environment.
The learning: cultivating soft power is a skill to learn for all who want to do so.
2. The economy of restless tips
Unless one reads only the most established management journals, media of all types abounds where everybody is giving advice to anybody. This ‘tip communication’ style is highly transactional and all too prevalent. Tips are perfectly bulleted so that they go into the head easily – and, allegedly, once they get there they trigger impactful action.
Of course, I am culturally biased because, in my native language, a ‘tip’ is a bribe – and it is cheap (bacșiș). So, I can’t help but react badly to anything which chips at our integrity. Irrespective of how many years I lived in a culture of direct communication, please do not expect me to dispense tips.
Call them ‘learnings’ and I’ll happily share opinions, insights and even lessons; my clients know they will always get substance (and homework, of course!).
Too much bulleted communication is sterile and void of heart – and contrary to what one is tempted to believe, it is not a sign of confidence, or always being on top of things. Fluid conversational communication will always reveal the human behind the words. I know which one I prefer.
3. Feed-back is both a gift and a courtesy
Where have all the manners, values and norms gone? Those we learned in the first seven years at home (Romanian saying). Corporates carry out elaborate assessments throughout the year – but why do we allow these to become so mechanistic and keyword driven? A simple line in an email (‘write as you speak not as an AI robot’) can sometimes work wonders for motivation and engagement.
Humans have a need to be recognised but not necessarily liked. Answers can be a simple ‘thank you’, a ‘yes’,’ a ‘no’, or ‘not now’. Each of the options is a gift – to give and receive. There is no soft power in not doing it.
Drawing up mid-year
As a consultant to the C-suite I have come to the realisation that, unless we are ‘prescribing’ indirect communication for professional use, we will continue to repeat the unhealthy pattern of hard vs soft power. ‘Bigger and faster is better’ has detrimental effects on productivity and, indeed, the well-being of teams – and, in the long run, on the overall organisation.
Nobody on a board should be left out from learning to re-design their communication style to adopt and practise storytelling.
Indirect is nuanced and it is brave. Unsurprisingly, vagueness creates room for play and creativity. If we are here to help leaders become coaches, we need to go beyond only encouraging psychological safety, bulleted statements, buzz words and fully planned actions. We need to soften our words, our facial expressions, our ‘covers’ – and then we’ll be able to listen and do better.
There is no way in which direct communication can only achieve that. Soft power, as does cultural intelligence, comes with metaphors and value: once you welcome them into your life and work, they won’t eat your strategy for breakfast.
Where are you taking your soft-power next?