I was thrust into the world of leadership very early on in
my professional career due to a pure chance event. When Verizon’s vice chairman
Lawrence T. Babbio promised Wall Street that Verizon was adding more than 10
million new lines to the 36 million now equipped
with digital subscriber line (DSL) service, a product called Golden Source was
funded to meet these objectives. I was one of the developers assigned to this
product for DSL loop qualification processing. I reported to a Project Lead who
reported to an Engineering Manager. In 2003 while monitoring the data migration
scripts at around 3:00 AM, I had a disagreement with my lead on how to handle a
technical issue and we ended up arguing over it. During this time, my lead
entered into disagreement with his manager for various reasons, and I and his
manager became very close. She appreciated my decisiveness and started relying on
me for critical tasks.
A few weeks later, she was promoted and was asked to head a
new critical initiative for Verizon at a new division. During the same time, my
lead had already resigned due to disagreements with his manager. Since the
project was almost complete, they decided to put me in charge of Golden Source
Product as a project lead, just 2 years into my professional career as a
software engineer. Ever since my childhood, I was always consistent in my
response to what I wanted to become when I grew up; “I want to do a PhD and
become a scientist” I would say. Turns out I ended up not perusing a PhD and becoming a scientist, and here I was
being asked to lead a team of 15 developers with many engineers a lot more experienced
than me. This was going exactly the opposite of how I thought my career will
go.
I was not trained as a manager, did not have any business
school training, and no mentor and no HR training. One fine morning during a
staff meeting with my Vice President, I came to find out that I was now the
Project Lead for one of the most important (even though almost complete) products
at Verizon. As my luck would have it, the Golden Source initiative took a surprising
turn with new goals and we were funded another few million dollars to embark on
new objectives, which ended up resulting in it becoming a more important and more
visible project. I had daily calls with the Group Chief Information Officer
(CIO) and visibility for this project was unlike any. Since the previous
engineering manager was already moved to another division, it was difficult to
move her back and hence I was promoted to the Manager role with multiple leads
reporting into me within a few months. I had gone from being a developer to
becoming a manager in less than 6 months in 2003 and within 2 years of my
professional career.
Both my product and I succeeded and went on to win three
awards in 2004 at a Verizon event in New York. In this blog I am going to write
about emotional courage. In future blogs, I will cover emotional intelligence,
courage, passion, manager vs. leader, and many other critical leadership
topics.
So what is Emotional Courage? Do you have what it takes to
be a leader? Leadership isn’t something you can learn in a book or in an
academic setting. It is part nature and part nurture. You can only nurture
leadership by practicing it in real life situations. Leadership at its heart is
the courage to take action in uncomfortable and difficult situations. This is called
Emotional Courage according Peter Bregman (CEO coach and regular contributor to
HBR blogs) who defines it as “standing apart from others without separating
yourself from them…speaking up when others are silent… [and] remaining
steadfast, grounded, and measured in the face of uncertainty.”
You cannot teach someone leadership in a classroom setting.
Leadership can only be learned by doing the actual work, giving people the
chance to practice and make difficult decisions in extraordinary circumstances.
Best way to give them this opportunity is by putting them in real-world
scenarios where they get to make real life difficult decisions where they feel
a sense of emotional risk. The only way to teach courage is to require it of
people.
Speaking up in difficult situations is another crucial skill
for emotional courage and leadership. As Rick Phillips, chief communication
officer at Nationwide Insurance says in an article in Communication World,
“[Communication] is not a spectator sport, and you have to stick your neck out.
You can’t always make the safe play.”
Every manager I have
worked for in my career has read innumerable books on leadership and attended
multiple training programs, but not all of them were great leaders. What
separates a leader from a follower? There is a massive difference between what
we know about leadership and what actual leaders do. I have never seen a leader
fail because he or she didn’t know enough about leadership. It’s not about
knowing what to say or do. It’s about whether you’re willing to experience the
discomfort, risk, and uncertainty of saying or doing what it takes. These are
the things that distinguish powerful leaders from the weak ones.
In the heat of the moment, when
the pressure is on, and your emotions are high, how will you react? Will you
let the emotions get better of you, or will you show emotional intelligence and
emotional courage. The only way to teach courage is to require it of people. To
offer them opportunities to draw from the courage they already have within them.
To give them opportunities to step into real situations that they find
uncomfortable. I recently met someone who I wanted to train to become a leader
and the best way I knew how to do that was to recommend that we do a startup together.
There is no better experience than co-founding a startup. The stress one goes through
as a startup CEO is unlike any other. The emotional roller coaster one goes
through within themselves and with their family and life partners due to
startup stress would train even the least experienced person on how to be a leader.
Whether the person will pursue it or not, whether the person succeeds as a
startup founder or not, he/she will truly learn the hard lessons of leadership,
such as remaining clam under pressure, handle stressful situations, show
emotional courage, and be decisive. It might be helpful to skim over my other
blog “Fear
of failure - A motivator for success?” as well.
