David McQueen on the New Future of Leadership
In this episode of New Future, we speak to UK-based leadership coach David McQueen on the new future of leadership. David works with leaders and their teams to communicate with clarity and confidence. David is also an entrepreneur, professional speaker, and host of Leadership Decoded, a leadership communication podcast. He’s worked with fidelity investments, HSBC and InvesTec and has spoken on every continent.
Transcript
KRG (Kate Raynes-Goldie)
Welcome to the New Future podcast where we talk to business leaders, researchers and visionary thinkers about what happens next. I’m Kate Raynes-Goldie.
KR (Kate Razzivina)
And I’m Kate Razzivina.
KRG
On this week’s episode, we’re talking to UK based leadership coach and international man of mystery, David McQueen. David works with leaders and their teams to communicate with clarity and competence. David is also an entrepreneur, professional speaker and host of Leadership Decoded, a leadership communication podcast. He has worked with Fidelity Investments, HSBC, InvesTech and has spoken on every continent. I’m also a bit of a fan of David because it his outspoken hot takes on LinkedIn, and his penchant for bright red hightops. David, welcome to New Future.
DM (David McQueen)
Thank you very much for that introduction, Kate! I think I need to have you as my hype person wherever I go.
KRG
So can you tell us a bit more about what you’re doing right now, what you’re currently working on.
DM
So right now, there are two things that I am really passionate about. Number one, just making sure that leaders can communicate, full stop. So in terms of internal communication with their team, there’s a program I have called ‘Brave Leadership’. And I am developing even more of that, especially because of the challenging times we have. And because I’m home now I’m getting my ass kicked. And I’m writing a book around it which hopefully should come out sometime in the not too distant future. I’ve spoken it out there now. And the second thing is specifically, just as I always have done, is helping people to present better, to be able to speak better, with better stories, better narratives, and a lot more confidence – whether they’re doing it face to face or online. Those are the two things that my energy’s really been taken up with at the moment.
KR
David, what are you seeing now in this leadership space? Are you seeing major changes due to COVID-19?
DM
Interestingly enough, yes. There are a lot of individuals who I’m having conversations with who are actually quite terrified. And because they have no idea what’s actually happening, they think that they have to have a solution for everything going forward. Lots of people are getting quite terrified about it. But on the flip side, there are those who are just sitting in it and going, look, we don’t have the answers. We don’t know what’s going to actually happen. And so we’re just going to rely on the wisdom of advisory boards, we’re just going to rely on the wisdom of peers to see what can we do day by day to be able to get through this. But there is a sense with quite a few of not being quite confident about this and being quite terrified.
KR
And what do you personally think will happen next? Or rather, what would you like to see happen next?
DM
I was going to go with that one because I’ve got no idea what’s going to happen next. But what I’d like to see is – I would like to see people come out of this with an attitude where people ask themselves a question: “What’s the worst that can happen?” And in many respects, this is one of the worst that has happened for lots of people. And I believe that it would be really good for individuals to be able to reflect and say that right now we’ve really been through a bad time that’s affected us, economically and financially. But we’ve also seen a really good uptick in terms of how we’ve been able to treat the world and the environment. And what can we do that can make the new world or the new normal a better place? And that’s what I would really encourage leaders to be thinking about – how can we make sure that in this moment of common reflection – that we can actually ensure that our leadership practice and our leadership behaviors allow people to feel a lot more safe in a world that basically did have a real kick up it’s arse in 2020.
KRG
Do you think that we are ready for a new kind of leadership now, because of this kind of clearing out and people being sort of, as you say, being in the “what’s the worst that could happen” mode?
DM
My optimistic mind says yes, I do believe it. But then there are so many examples of where states, a number of states and a number of organizations have taken advantage of this. So for example, I was reading something this morning. I can’t remember exactly what the source was, but they were saying that a number of economies are relaxing the rules they had around fossil burning fuels, and other kinds of practices that can harm the environment around deforestation, etc. Because a number of these economies want to get themselves back on scale, they want to be productive, they want to get the economy going again at any cost. And so it scares me on the one hand that whilst we’ve had this blip, and people have had this point of reflection, there are lots who are planning to just basically get things back to normal again, even though they’re not going to be that normal. So I want to be optimistic and say that through a number of provocations, whether it’s my writing, talking to other people and having these conversations across the board that we can encourage people to think slightly different. But I’m also quite worried about those who are in positions of power and influence, who will just go back to what they’ve done before. So I’m trying to be a pragmatist, somewhere in the middle.
KRG
I’m seeing the same thing. But I’m also inspired by things like what’s happening in New Zealand with Jacinda Ardern. She’s been called the most effective leader in the world right now. Do you think that that’s potentially that we’re ready for – that idea of more women stepping up into leadership roles and there being more of a space for that or more of an acceptance of that? We need to have more recognition on that. We need to have more diversity.
DM
Yeah, okay, so let me give you my two answers. Let me give you the one where I don’t care. So the one where I don’t care, and I’ll say it from my chest, I do believe we need more women leaders. There are individuals who will say to me, oh, leadership is not, it’s not gendered, and anybody can do it. But they then do nothing to create space, or to create an environment that allows women who could go into those spaces to feel like they belong, to feel that they’re safe and feel that they’re treated as an equal. That’s me just kind of saying it from the heart. But then I also think that in order to be able to sell the message, I’d want more existing leaders to tap into those non alpha male or those non alpha masculine roles around leadership so as to tap into the more feminine side of empathy, of listening, of understanding, of taking calculated, not silly risks, in being able to achieve what it is that they’re going to do. So again, you mentioned Jacinda Ardern and I think of Angela Merkel, and the leaders of many Scandinavian countries, and Taiwan, and Singapore, who have all had a sense of good measure, and have had a sense of ‘Let me think this through’, not just for the short term. But what is the mid to long term impact look like for this? And I’m hoping that there are a lot of leaders across the board, from state to corporate, to community to third sector, who will look at people like Jacinta Arden and go: look, I really loved the way that she communicated this. I really loved the way that she didn’t panic. I really loved the way that she was able to get buy-in from a whole tribe, from a whole nation, and say – how can I do that for the people who I lead and so that they can buy into what I’m doing without me having to force them. So that’s kind of my my take on it. I do have I do have harsher terms, but for the purpose of this podcast, I’ll just leave it to those two!
KRG
Fair enough! And also I know you’ve done some work as a board advisor for women-founded companies and so do you have some tips on how, if you’re thinking that you need more diversity and more women – do you have some tips from that work?
DM
Yes. So again, as you mentioned, I go out of my way to sit on the boards of a number of startups that were founded by women. And what it is, is I found as a coach, there were a lot of women who weren’t giving themselves permission to just take or make decisions or to not second guess. And it’s understandable when you are living in a predominantly male-dominated world around business and especially in the startup space. That’s to try and do something that looks like all the people who are constantly highlighted in Forbes and all the, you know, tech or startup publications – to realize that that doesn’t have to be the modus operandi of the way that you have to work – it can be quite a bit of a challenge. But what I always love about working with women founders is that they are quite measured. So they will really think about the financial, they will really think about the operational, if there are changes in staff, whether it be furloughed or whether you’re going to have to let go of staff or what have you, there’s a real sense of empathy as to how we make sure that these people land softly. We still are direct, but how do they land softly. And so I always encourage women founders, just to speak your truth, to keep that level of empathy that you will show about being able to care for individuals, that they’re not just human capital, but they’re actually humans, full stop. But also having that sense of bravery to go out there and still want to build a business, still want to scale, not necessarily in this huge, ginormous ways that Silicon Valley thing where we need to go from zero to 100 in two days and burn everything along the way. But just being able to be okay with who you are. And get a lot of people who don’t understand the power or the influence that a lot of women leaders have to wake up and say, okay, maybe I should be able to do it that way as well. I always encourage people to stand in your own strengths, and lean on those individuals around you who can encourage you and tell you if you’re going in the right way, keep going. And you if you do need a little bit of guidance, if you’re kind of like slightly going off track, to encourage you to stay on track.
KRG
That really resonates with a lot of conversations that Kate and I have been having around the tech space. And it’s often like, women almost have to be men and women need to change who they are. And the problem is with women. And I think that really resonates – that idea of actually, even if it’s not a woman leader, but that idea of bringing more feminine and bringing more balance into leadership. I think there’s stuff to be learned on both sides. I think that’s a very powerful and important message. And so it sounds like you’re kind of saying that the new future of leadership, it’s almost bringing in the feminine back – bringing it back.
DM
Yes.
KR
The caring, the vulnerability. I guess everyone has that in them, right? It’s just bringing it into the leadership.
DM
Definitely.
KRG
So to change gears a little bit – are there any unexpected or surprising impacts of COVID-19 that you think will have a long term impact in the leadership space?
DM
In terms of a good long term impact, I’m hoping that there will be a lot more empathy to individuals who have always said that they wanted to work from home because of the nature of the way that they live. So whether that’s parents, mothers or fathers, whether it’s individuals who have either visible or invisible disabilities who sometimes need to be able to just retract in order to be able to do some stuff – I’m hoping that this has been a wake up call for a number of organizations that there can be flexibility around the way that individuals work. I remember a number of years ago when the boss of Yahoo! at the time wanted everybody to come in and work in the office while the company was slowly imploding anyway. And I felt that it was very short sighted. And I thought it was a very bad message to send out to individuals. You can manage, many organizations have been able to do that with remote working. And so I’m hoping in terms of a long term effect that there are many leaders who can see that there may be elements, obviously not all, but there may be elements of the way that work can be delivered, and that can be done remotely. On the flip side, I also think it’s a question of recognizing for organizations, how fragile the actual business ecosystem is. There are a number of organizations who will go through this and they will thrive because they have got massive amounts of cash that they can fall back on. And I know there’s a maxim where a lot of startups that I’ve spoken to, I’ve said to them: “make sure that you have at least, ideally, three to six months’ worth of cash sitting around, and not just sitting around not doing anything. But just in case times get a bit tough, there can be something that you can fall on”. And now we’ve had this situation where a number of organizations have had to furlough staff, have had to depend on government handouts. There are a number who are going through this going well, look, we listened to that kind of advice of making sure that we had a bit of a cash buffer. And we have got a number of months that we can work on in order to pay our staff and then come back. So I think in terms of planning, and in terms of cash flow, I’m hoping that people will come out of this, a lot of leaders will come out of this going: “I must make it a priority to have a bit of cash that I have sitting around with me instead of just loading up my company with a lot of debt”. So those are two things I think immediately spring to mind. Number one – the remote work for the longer term, and number two – a lot of companies spending a lot more focus on how much cash flow they have just in case things do go a bit sideways.
KR
Fantastic. I completely agree about remote working. My thinking around this is that in order to allow staff to work remotely, a lot of the roles can easily be redesigned as well – some more easily than others. But I just think a lot of the roles that we’re assuming, for example, the role of a CEO or say a CFO – I, myself work as a CFO. And my view is there is no reason whatsoever why this role needs to be done by one individual, this one hero who knows everything about everything and can work 24/7. I actually think it is the responsibility of leaders to really look at at work and at their roles and say – well, can we actually have two CEOs, we have one successful tech company here in Australia, called Atlassian. And they’ve got two CEOs for example. And they’ve had those same two founders from the start and it’s working out quite well for them. And I really believe that the same can apply to most roles within an organization. So if you can actually split out the roles, then it means the roles can be much more flexible. It means many more people can actually take on these roles – parents, people with caring responsibilities, you know, people who normally can’t do that full time role. I think it’s really important for leaders to do that. And David, probably to wrap things up a little bit, what are the top three things that you believe leaders need to know about this new future?
DM
I think the first one that comes to mind is that a situation like this doesn’t create – I’m going to sound really cliche now, I’m not sure will come out of this – but it’s when you have times of adversity – it’s a revelation of character rather than character just being formed. All of a sudden when you have a tough time, you’re not just going to immediately go – oh my god, I’m a resilient person, this is how I’m going to be. I think it’s an opportunity for people to realize where their strengths and weaknesses lie, and then being able to build on that so they can be resilient regardless of what actually happens. To me that resilience piece is going to be a big a huge piece that people have to think about going forward as to how they are resilient for themselves and how they’re resilient for their teams and how they would create an environment that is resilient for everybody – to have everybody who’s in that specific team or under that leadership – to have a sense of resilience. The second thing for me is around empathy. And I think that’s been missing so often, that individuals are so focused on the bottom line and so focused on being able to be profitable, to be winning awards, to be profiling on LinkedIn or on whatever publication. But I think to roll it back a bit and just think about how we are treating each other, and how we treat each other, especially in terms of not just being led, but how we respond to those who are leading us as well. And to have a sense of empathy – that sometimes when people are making decisions or dealing with problems that we need to give them a bit of bandwidth that they may get something’s wrong, but be able to have empathy to not only listen, but to be able to challenge people in a nice way as well. And for me, that spirit of empathy is very important. And then the third one for me is just around agility. The way that things are changing, and changing quite quickly – I’ve seen a number of organizations totally pivot. I haven’t pivoted – there are going to be certain parts of what I do, that I may need to, especially in these times – may need to be a bit more online. But I know that the core of what it is that I do, that I want to deliver to my customers, has got to be the same. But that agility allows you to be able to go – right, rather than ‘the sky’s falling on my head’, what is it that I can do that can reassure those who I work with, and allows us to be able to build scenarios and build situations that we can go and explore which won’t harm the company and won’t harm the individuals that are working in the in the organization – but we can go right, this is the process that we have to do, we can be a bit flexible around that. So for me, resilience, empathy, and agility are going to be three key things that a number of leaders will definitely benefit from having in their leadership toolkit.
KRG
Thank you, David. Those are definitely some meme-worthy, juicy tips!
DM
Thank you!
KRG
And so if people want to find out more about you and your work or get in touch – what’s the best way to find you, David?
DM
So the the best way to just find out what I specifically offer is to go to davidmcqueen.co.uk. I will say, if you type in David McQueen on Google, I should come up in the top three results. I don’t know if that’s the case – I’ve been working hard to make sure that’s the case! But otherwise if people want to kind of get a sense of the pulse of my thinking, and my provocations, as you said in the introduction, around how I think and how I really want to be challenged, as well as challenge people – I do put quite a bit of content on LinkedIn, which is a reflection of my thinking around leadership and communication. So it’s just David McQueen. I think on LinkedIn it’s LinkedIn – UK – Mr. David McQueen.
KRG
Excellent. Well, we’ll put a link to your website as well in the show notes. Thank you so much for being on our show!
DM
Real pleasure!
KRG
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