Download your free copy of the latest Financial Technologist magazine here.
What does human leadership look and feel like to you? Is it Humility, Understanding, Mentorship, Ambition, and Navigating? Or perhaps Heart, Unflappability, Multiplying, Authenticity and Nurturing? I recently invited an old mentor and previous boss - well boss’s boss to be precise - to speak at the inaugural Leadership Development programme that we created for leaders at Curve last year. He reminded me of a simple yet powerful exercise we once did together: we took the five letters of the company’s name and used them to define our core strategic pillars. This made our key priorities easy for our teams to remember and align with.
So, I started my thoughts about Human Leadership with the letters H U M A and N, quickly realising the possibilities were endless. But rather than searching for the ‘perfect’ list, I turned inward—where had I first seen leadership in action? Remembering a great piece of advice I was given on a leadership retreat, my thoughts quickly centred on a quote from one of our facilitators - an incredible woman and teacher: “Be yourself. Everyone else is taken.”
Sometimes I’m asked, ‘Where did you first learn to lead? Who inspired you? Who taught you?’ I recently realised (in my fifties after nearly 35 years of leading teams and observing other leaders on a daily basis… so maybe a slow learner here!) that actually the first imprint of leadership at work was seeing both my parents at work. My Mum taught 5 year olds and my Dad was Operations Director at a printing press “in the olden days” as my kids would say! On the rare and exciting occasions I visited their workplaces, I quickly noticed they were exactly the same at work as they were at home. Exactly. And they treated everyone they worked with, with the same level of respect and kindness… whether it was the Managing Director or the Machine Operator (in the case of my Dad) or the Headmistress or Caretaker (in the case of my Mum). No one deserved more or less respect - that drilled into me the belief that at work and in life we are all equal because we are all human.
The best leaders I’ve worked for and with since have three things in common: deep self-awareness and self-knowledge; a desire to continually improve and be better every day; and the discipline to put into practice the effort and steps to get there. It all starts with knowing who we are - warts and all. “Knowing yourself is hard and learning to look at the parts you don’t like is even harder.” I read this on LinkedIn yesterday, wrote it down and can’t recall who wrote it so I just wanted to be clear that I can’t take the credit.
Humans crave connection. Connection is innately human - we all know this, more so now than ever before. We are only effective leaders when we inspire people to follow us. Few of us willingly follow without connection. And if I don’t know who I am, how I show up, what I do well, where my blind spots and biases are, why would anyone want to follow me? So, for me, the best advice I can give for leaders is this: Be yourself. Be Human. Be Better. Every Day. Take just five minutes each day to reflect: What did you learn about yourself as a leader today? What strengths uniquely define you? And how can you use them—just a little better—tomorrow? The impact you want starts with the leader you choose to be.
By Sarah Cox, SVP People at Curve
Download your free copy of the latest Financial Technologist magazine here.
