Tag: leadership

• Leadership is a great burden

  I went to bed last night watching President Biden’s address to the Canadian Parliament (full transcript, here.). And I woke up this morning to this Globe and Mail article about Canadian competitiveness. In it, Tony Keller talks about some of the things that are broken in this country (shockingly housing comes up), and compares Canada to Argentina (an example of too many bad decisions) and to South Korea (an example of many good decisions).

  All of this got me thinking about leadership.

  Leadership is a great burden. As a leader, people are looking to you for decisions, for direction, and for you to instil confidence. They are also scrutinizing your every word and action. And in today’s world, they are waiting to criticize you on social media and/or make a funny meme out of your most recent misspeak. As a developer, I get to interface with municipal politicians probably more than your average person, and I can tell you with confidence that it is a thankless job I would never want.

  I can only imagine having to constantly worry about your employment and what people are thinking. Given this incentive structure, I’m sure we’d all act accordingly. It is truly public, service. At the same time, I know that it is not only unproductive — but dangerous — to pander to just what is thought to be politically popular. And we have spoken many times before on this blog about housing and land use policies that may be popular, but aren’t at all effective — or worse, are counterproductive.

  What we should be demanding from our leaders are difficult decisions. These are the decisions that probably feel uncomfortable and that may require some personal sacrifice, but that are ultimately the right decisions for our collective long-term prosperity. It is about ambitiously deciding where we want to go and who we want to become, and then taking meaningful actions, however unpopular they may be, to get there.

  Don’t just tell me what I want to hear. Lead me. Push me. Be bold. In the end, we will respect you for your personal sacrifices and the difficult decisions you are making on our behalf. This is the great burden — but also the great opportunity — of leadership, and it behooves us to empower it. To borrow from Tony Keller, “there’s no reason we [Canada] can’t be the most prosperous and successful society on earth.”

  2023.03.25

• Visionary vs. operational

  Fred Wilson wrote a great post last month about leadership. In it, he compares what he calls visionary leadership to operational leadership. Here’s a snippet:

  I like to keep things simple and in my simple mind, leadership comes in two flavors, visionary leadership and operational leadership. Founders are almost always visionaries (if they aren’t, run in the opposite direction) and hired CEOs are almost always operators.

  The post goes on to explain the dynamics between these two types of leadership. Vision, he argues, needs to come from the top. You need someone setting direction at a high level. Operational leadership doesn’t have to be this way, and often isn’t. You can hire for it.

  In some special cases, you have leaders who are both. Another snippet:

  Leaders who can provide both operational and visionary leadership are a rare but special breed. When you find one, get on their bus and stay on it for as long as you can. It will be an incredible trip.

  I have seen all of this play out in the real estate development space.

  There are people who are great at identifying new sites (land) and coming up with fresh and innovative ideas, but it is clear that they need an operator or two around them. There’s nothing wrong with this pairing.

  Development is also a very long and slow game and you need people who can operate — deeply in the weeds — over extended periods of time. Persistence and tenacity are crucial. Patience I guess, too.

  If this topic is of interest to you, I recommend you check out the rest of Fred’s post.

  2021.05.12

• The price of leadership

  Like many of you, I have been watching The Last Dance. It is a powerful reminder of just how competitive, disciplined, and emotional Michael Jordan was, and still is, about winning at the game of basketball. But the most powerful moment so far has easily been his monologue on leadership at the end of episode 7. Here is that scene. If you can’t see it below, click here.

  https://twitter.com/ZekeHealy/status/1259884600769331205?s=20

  Watching this brought tears to my eyes. Over the years, I have had teachers, professors, and bosses who have subscribed to this philosophy of leadership. I’m sure many of you have as well. It’s never fun at the time. In fact, it sucks. But usually in hindsight it becomes clearer what that person was trying to accomplish. And you realize how they pushed you to grow.

  My own view is that there are ways to win without resorting to emotional bullying. But then it begs the question, if you’re not being extreme, does that reduce performance? Would it have been better for Jordan to be a bit nicer to his teammates, if it meant winning fewer championships? Depends on who you ask.

  When you’re determined to move a mountain, win a championship, or create something that has never been done before, it can be incredibly frustrating when you feel as if the team isn’t on the same level or that they don’t care as much as you. So you push. And that’s what Michael did. Winning has a price.

  We all need to be challenged. Some people, like Michael, are good at pushing themselves to be the best that they can be. Others need more external help. How best to do that is the great debate. But as Fred Wilson said on his blog earlier this week: “Leadership is not being liked. Leadership is being respected and followed.”

  2020.05.13

• “We” is the language of leadership

  Kawhi Leonard doesn’t say very much, but when he does, he tends to focus the discussion less on himself and more on the achievements of the Toronto Raptors as a whole. He has said many times before in interviews that he doesn’t aspire to be the best player on the team; he aspires to win championships. It’s not about him. It’s about the team. And it’s hard not to respect that kind of humility.

  One the things that I try to be aware of in business and in life is how I use first-person singular pronouns (such as “I”) and first-person plural pronouns (such as “we”). The subtleties of language are important and there’s lots of research out there on this topic. Some have even tracked Jeff Bezos’ use of “I” and “we” in Amazon’s annual shareholder letters over time.

  Harvard Business Review also argued a few years ago that “we” is the language of leadership because it tells you where someone is focusing their attention. Studies suggest that when people are self-aware or insecure they naturally tend to use more first-person singular pronouns — they turn inward. Conversely, using pronouns such as “we”, “us”, or “you” suggest an outward focus or a focus on other people’s thoughts, opinions, and contributions.

  Of course, when you write a personal blog like this one, you naturally end up with a lot of “I.” But when I write about broader topics, such as city building or the housing market, I do try and shift the focus. These are our cities. These are our buildings, streets, and public spaces. We’re in this together. And I aspire to get even better at “we.”

  Oh, and go Raptors!

  2019.06.06

• On leadership

  Venture capitalist Mark Suster has a great post on his blog called: Lead, Follow or Get the Fuck Out of the Way. It’s a relevant read no matter what kind of organization you happen to be a part of. I think the lessons are universally applicable.

  Here are two paragraphs on leadership that I really liked:

  The problem with hard decisions is that you can never make everybody happy. There is always somebody impacted or somebody who thought “plan B” was better. Leadership is about listening to multiple opinions but in the end trusting your instincts and deciding. Leadership is about not worrying about how people will think about you for hard calls. It is about being willing to be wrong.
  

  Leaders have well-formed opinions that go against the grain, the temerity to sell their vision to skeptics, the tenacity to stick to their ideas when they are inevitably criticized, the resiliency to wake every day when they’re being kicked by everybody for their beliefs but also the willingness to look at data and re-chart their course when they got it wrong.

  In business school they teach you to privilege decisiveness over inaction. They teach you that no decision is actually a decision and that you shouldn’t wait around for the perfect solution. It’s rare to have all of the information. So make a decision and go. Sometimes, of course, this can cause problems. Mistakes will happen. But I generally subscribe to this approach. 

  One of the ways I am trying to develop these skills – which may not be obvious to some of you – is by writing on this blog every day. I’m not always happy with result. Sometimes it really pains me to hit “Post now” when I’ve run out of time and I have to get to the office. But in the grand scheme of things, that’s okay. It’s more about the discipline of putting myself out there every single day.

  Hopefully this approach creates as much value for you as it does for me.

  2016.05.23

• But what about integrative thinking?

  After yesterday’s post about speed, price, and quality, a friend of mine from Rotman emailed me and said: but what about integrative thinking?

  When I was doing my MBA at Rotman and Roger Martin was the dean, integrative thinking was a significant part of the curriculum and the messaging for the school. 

  Here’s how Roger explains it:

  Over the past six years, I have interviewed more than 50 such leaders, some for as long as eight hours, and found that most of them share a somewhat unusual trait: They have the predisposition and the capacity to hold in their heads two opposing ideas at once. And then, without panicking or simply settling for one alternative or the other, they’re able to creatively resolve the tension between those two ideas by generating a new one that contains elements of the others but is superior to both. This process of consideration and synthesis can be termed integrative thinking. It is this discipline—not superior strategy or faultless execution—that is a defining characteristic of most exceptional businesses and the people who run them.

  So what my friend was getting at is why – when it comes to speed, price, and quality – do you only get to “pick any two?” Doesn’t that go against the rules of integrative thinking? Isn’t that a failure to look for a more holistic and integrated solution?

  It’s a great point. And it’s a thought that crossed my mind while I was writing yesterday’s post. The fact that “something had to give” made me second guess myself.

  In general, I’m a believer in integrative thinking. I think there are lots of opportunities to create new hybrid solutions and models that are superior to what might exist today.

  But what I was getting at yesterday was perhaps a bit more low level in thinking.

  Let’s say for instance you’re a developer constructing a new building and you and your construction manager are in the process of tendering for curtain wall. You receive 3 bids back and 2 of them are roughly the same, but one them is $5 million cheaper.

  My immediate thoughts would be: Why is that one bid so much lower? Did they bid on the same scope? Are they missing something? Will the curtain wall arrive on-site on time? And if it does, is it going to leak like a sieve?

  I’ll be the first to admit that the construction process is fraught with inefficiencies and ready for integrated solutions. I’m certain that the trade-offs between speed, price, and quality could be better managed.

  But more often than not, a rock bottom price usually means that something did in fact give. After all, great integrative thinking is a pretty rare trait.

  2015.04.05