‘Use the elevator’: Leadership advice from a life in business

Being an effective leader is partly instinctual and partly learnt. What do effective leaders do, and perhaps more importantly, what do they avoid?

Drawing from a career spent coaching the world’s leading business executives, Larry Robertson, adviser, speaker, and author of WHY listen to, work with and follow YOU?, spilled what he’s learnt from decades on the frontlines of business leadership.

Even natural-born leaders can sharpen their tools.

Leadership is relationship

“This has been my core philosophy for 30 years,” said Mr Robertson, “leadership is relationship”. The hardened among us might take this as a hollow epithet, or else a given. However, according to Mr Robertson, the phrase is more useful than it might first appear.

“I’m not talking about being happy families and going for a walk in the park or whatever. What I’m talking about are the core fundamentals of relationships, which, to me, are the same core fundamentals, or core qualities, of true leadership,” he said.

Every relationship is built on three things: mutual trust, mutual respect, and mutual purpose. These three principles are also the core qualities of effective leadership (hence: leadership is relationship). Without one, the house collapses. But with all three, a relationship – be it with a sibling, a romantic interest, a boss, or an employee – can serve both parties.

The purpose can vary, said Mr Robertson. Parties to a business transaction hardly want the same thing from one another as two close friends, but the purpose must be there, and it must be mutual.

Mutual trust is all about authenticity. More specifically, it’s about what Mr Robertson refers to as “appropriate authenticity”. Being authentic, or true to ourselves, depends on context. The authentic Mr Robertson in a crisis is very different, albeit still authentic, from the authentic Mr Robertson at the café on a Sunday morning. “We need to be appropriate, we need to be aware, self-aware and aware of the expectations of those around us,” said Mr Robertson.

Above all, relationships, and therefore leadership, are about respect: “Relationships will only survive if they are built on trust,” said Mr Robertson, “when we feel respected, they flourish.”

Invest in a shared goal

“In business, we’re going to find people that aren’t necessarily ‘our type’,” said Mr Robertson. “Perhaps they come from a different background, they have a different skill set, they’re of a different age, or they have a different view of the world.”

The beauty of business relationships, however, is that it’s clear when a common purpose exists. In ordinary social life, it can be difficult to justify spending time and energy building a relationship when the pay-off is unclear. While the fundamental purpose of a business relationship is easily understood, it’s up to leadership to clarify it, to make it explicit, and to orient towards it.

“Part of the leader’s job is to define, create, and promote that purpose of why we’re all here. What are we really doing here? What difference are we really here to make? What does success look like, what vision, what light on the hill are we pursuing?” explained Mr Roberston.

Use the elevator

“It sounds slightly arrogant,” said Mr Robertson, “but many people in leadership roles don’t recognise that 80 per cent of their job is actually communication. If no one is listening to them, then no one is following them. If no one is following them, then they’re not leading.”

There are many kinds of communication, but most of it is incidental. It’s the unplanned 30-second regroup in the office kitchen or the unhurried tete-a-tete in the yet-unfilled meeting room. However, just because these conversations are unplanned does not mean they are any less valuable as a leader.

“I tell [senior leaders] to the lift in their office building as a vehicle, literally, to demonstrate simple leadership. I work with people who, although [they are] under huge pressure, are able to engage with people in the lift, with people outside of the lift, walking through the office, et cetera,” said Mr Robertson.

“Equally, others get in that lift and ignore everybody. They’re the chief executive but they ignore everybody and look at their iPhone or just stare into space and everyone shuts up and doesn’t dare say anything.”

Part of the job of being a leader is demonstrating what it looks like to function as an effective part of the business. When a leader makes the effort to communicate, others will follow suit. This touches on another rule Mr Robertson shared with us: as a leader, it’s crucial not to play favourites. He teaches leaders that part of their job is taking the time to recognise their employees, to “put a smile on somebody’s face”.

“Everyone needs to be valued and appreciated … I’ve had chief executives go around at the end of the day and thank the cleaners who are coming in overnight to clean the buildings and they know their names because they’re doing an important job,” he said.

Presentation skills: Don’t converse, be conversational

Even calling it a “presentation” is wrong somehow, said Mr Robertson. “A presentation is more of a one-way process; it’s one [person] delivering a message,” he added.

This is the wrong approach. Instead of thinking of it as a presentation, leaders should try to make their public speaking more dynamic. It’s about relating to the audience in demonstrating that their words are not simply read off a page or learnt by rote.

“It’s not a two-way conversation so much as it is [about] being conversational. It’s as much about the way we share our thoughts and our feelings as about sharing the facts and the information,” said Mr Robertson.

The transcript of this podcast episode was slightly edited for publishing purposes. To listen to the full conversation with Larry Robertson, click below: