Over the past couple of years, there were some characteristics of my personal leadership brand that manifested to the point of notice. I started to receive a lot of mentoring requests and speaking engagements based on these characteristics. Some of the time the requests are pretty generic and are general around developing others as leaders. But I would like to turn that on its head. My mentoring sessions might have started out understanding the general focus it takes to be a good leader. After the 2nd or 3rd month, it ends up honing and developing the great traits that a person already naturally has and building the confidence to test their brand in different scenarios. It became evident that...
Everyone has the capacity to be a great leader. It just takes discipline, self-awareness, and the ability to show up in order to serve, develop and inspire others for success.
I had a great life coach, Laurie Patton, that did that with me but it took some effort. She had to break me down out of the insecurities that really blocked me from success personally and professionally. Once I did that, it's not that it became less challenging. Not by any means. But I could acknowledge my fears and I had the tools and the armor to take on new challenges. Over time, I began to develop mechanisms for leadership that drove my thinking, my personality, and my work ethic. These mechanisms made every new decision a little bit easier, every challenge a little simpler to break down, and every new opportunity much easier to accept. After some encouragement by colleague and mentees, I've decided to write about the areas that seem to stand out.
The following 4 areas will be the focus of this 5-part series:
Fearlessness
Authenticity
Strategic Thinking
Sponsorship
For each of these areas, I will go into what the topic means to me, why it's important, what Amazonian leadership principle this ties to, how it manifests for myself and others, and how leaders can develop these traits.
You probably noticed that I said 5 parts when I only said I would go over 4 areas. There's one last topic that will complete the series:
Executive Presence
I will go more into detail in that respective blog post. However, to give a preview, I will discuss why the term and its enforcement should have no business in the leadership conversation in 2021. Of course, there are other topics that can be considered in the leadership conversation, but mine would not be complete without some elements of these on a consistent basis. I believe that every leader should at least address where they are on the spectrum of these elements.
Alright, places are taken, scene is set, let's start it off with Fearlessness!
What is My Definition of Fearlessness?
Fearlessness is the physical or verbal act, intention or ability to strive forward without one of two things:
1) Knowing the return on investment or
2)Acknowledging the repercussions that could occur.
Fearlessness can include making a bold choice without knowing for certain if it's going to pay off. There's a level of faith that you might have in the choice you're making. Or you might have faith in yourself. Either way you step out onto a ledge without a rope to hold you steady. An act of fearlessness can sometimes involve going against a status quo, tradition, or established process. It can also be speaking truth to power. Repercussions can include a negative individual perception, hurting someone's feelings, denial or rejection of an opportunity, risk to an organization's market share or external perception or, loss of job and/or career.
Let's be clear, however.
Fearlessness is NOT the same as recklessness.
I'm not talking about throwing caution to the wind or being the "wildcard" in a group. I've tried being the "wildcard" and it's absolutely fun. The look on people's faces, the butterflies as people try to guess what you're going to do or say next...*sigh*...I miss being that messy. But the fun wears off if you're now viewed as a gimmick like Charlie in "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia". As a leader, you still want to be taken seriously.
Additionally, let's ALSO be clear.
Fearlessness does not mean "reading" everyone in the room for the sake of being "honest".
For those that do not know what "reading" is, let me help you. "Reading" is the art of telling someone their negative truth in a witty but sometimes harsh or exaggerated way usually in public. Credit for this term goes to the black gay community in the ballroom scene in 1980s New York. Many people recognize this term from the documentary "Paris is Burning" with the iconic phrase "Reading is what? Fundamental!" There's a mini-segment on every season of RuPaul's Drag Race that's dedicated to this documentary and the art of "reading".
If you're in on the joke, it can by quite fun and cause some playful banter. If not, it can be embarrassing and demoralizing. Have you heard of "When Keeping it Real Goes Wrong?". The best way to explain it is this Dave Chappelle clip below (please note, it's Not Safe For Work, there's a LOT of cursing in it). If you are at work and just need the context, this clip is when a person named Vernon has the option of ignoring a mentor in a board room that makes an off-hand comment. Instead of brushing it aside, Vernon decided to read the person the riot act and take the person to task publicly in front of his colleagues. Let's just say it doesn't end well...
Why Is Fearlessness Important?
Let's break this down on a micro and macro level. On a micro level, have you ever heard someone say,
"Why didn't anyone tell me?"
It could be something as small as lint on their shirt or it could be as big as not getting the promotion they were looking for, or hosting a disastrous meeting. For the person involved, they could take it one of three ways. Either they are 1) sad and personally hurt, 2) defensive and don't agree, or 3) grateful for the communication. People are oftentimes crippled by scenarios #1 and #2. However, what's clear is that when the shoe is on the other foot, most try to place themselves in #3. The reason why fearlessness is important on a personal level is that everyone wants to be told the truth. No one wants to be walking around with egg on their face when it could be avoided by a good Samaritan. In that same vein, fearlessness goes hand in hand with trust, openness and understanding. If someone is walking in their truth and boldly acting in spite of the repercussions, then it's clear that what they must be doing carries a level of weight.
On a macro level, fearlessness is instrumental to driving a strategy, pushing an unpopular opinion, and disrupting markets. Fearlessness breaks apart the dreaded "groupthink". The symbiotic relationship between personnel on a team and basic insecurities (wanting to get along with everyone, not wanting to be the odd person out, not wanting to look stupid in a public setting) develops groupthink. The proverbial nodding along to get along that occurs physically and virtually amongst teams especially when leadership is present or is the one bringing the idea.
Well what's the worst that can happen? It turns out symptoms of groupthink have been the cause of some of the most dramatic failures or crisis in our nation's history. Everyone knows about Enron, but diving into the analysis of this tragedy, law professor, Marleen Connor directly calls out groupthink as some of the behavioral defects of the personnel involved. This is probably an oversimplification of the issue, but instilling a culture of fearlessness for those around you can prevent a disaster. For this and several major points in history, if someone had the fearlessness to look around the corner, follow their gut, and speak up, things perhaps would've occurred a little differently.
A completely separate example. Have you ever heard someone say,
"Have you seen or heard of X? That was actually my idea back in the day."
I think we've all had a friend or two that has said that. We all have a friend that has all the ideas but does NOTHING with them. Always talking about their barriers and why they aren't successful now or criticizing the person or the company that "took their idea" and did it. It's not about having ideas. It's about pushing through all the barriers that exist in the world to get that idea from someone's mind to a piece of paper to a proof of concept to a reality. Embarking on that journey takes a level of fearlessness that most don't tap into easily. But the pay off? I mean, come on. We're talking brand, notoriety, money, and overall a sense of accomplishment. And for my petty self, bragging rights against the haters.
What Amazonian Leadership Principle Does Fearlessness Tie To?
For those in the know, the 16 Leadership Principles are the backbone and cultural northstar at operating within Amazon. We hire, fire, award, and provide feedback based on these principles. It's by operating based on the LPs that I've grown into the leader that I am today. I wouldn't be able to talk sufficiently about leadership without referencing them in some shape or form.
In my book, fearlessness ties closely to two Amazonian leadership principles: Have Backbone, Disagree and Commit and Insist on the Highest Standards.
Hack Backbone, Disagree and Commit: Leaders are obligated to respectfully challenge decisions when they disagree, even when doing so is uncomfortable or exhausting. Leaders have conviction and are tenacious. They do not compromise for the sake of social cohesion. Once a decision is determined, they commit wholly.
Insist on the Highest Standards: Leaders have relentlessly high standards — many people may think these standards are unreasonably high. Leaders are continually raising the bar and drive their teams to deliver high quality products, services, and processes. Leaders ensure that defects do not get sent down the line and that problems are fixed so they stay fixed.
For an Amazonian, every time they exercise these two LPs, you're engaging in the act of fearlessness. It's hard to step up in a room and have effective backbone to challenge others that might either be in authority or others that know more about a subject matter than you. It's hard to set standards that are inconvenient for others or a blocker to their own objectives and agenda. But if you're a true Amazonian, you know why you're doing it and you have faith that you're raising the standard for the right reason.
How Did Fearlessness Manifest For Me?
My fearlessness started not with me, but my grandmother, Ella Mae Williams. All credit for my boldness goes to her. She is a woman born on the wrong side of the tracks in Cleveland, TX, had my mother at the age of 17, and moved to Houston, TX by herself to make her way. She took nothing from anyone, carried a "piece" (which is a gun) in her purse and a box cutter in her pocket because she was a young woman alone. She is the kind of person that not only knows how to handle some trouble, but she "wishes someone would" give her trouble to have the opportunity to cut someone down to size. She's lived many lives and was a tailor, a maid, a phone operator, a dentist assistant, and a nurse. She got her GED equivalent at 30 and went to college at 50, graduating on time and with a degree for nursing. She found her gift as a hospice nurse taking care of people, sometimes younger than her, as they passed on to the other side for the next 20-something years.
She owned her own homes, owned her own cars, her own business, and her own life. But above all else, she owned her own dignity and respect. She taught me to keep my head up, look people in the eye, and know that I could...
"Give someone 99, and I could beat them to 100 any day of the week."
Growing up, sometimes I thought she went a little overboard. Either cursing out a person that wasn't giving her money on time or even going in on family members that dared to make fun of me. As the young people pleaser that I was trained to be, I sometimes thought it was embarrassing to be so crass or so aggressive. Then I entered the real world where the gold stars and participation trophies went away. I would work hard and would either not be seen or oftentimes, taken for granted. It wasn't until I became a Manager at EY, that I started to look at the world differently and started to understand where my grandma was coming from. I had to fight for what I wanted, a seat at the table, and I was too damn smart and too talented not to at least fight for what I deserved. That's when I started to develop my fearlessness.
It started with me speaking up in rooms with people 3 levels above me, correcting them on a technical matter. It progressed to me explaining to leadership why a direction they were going in was problematic or how they were missing another opportunity that yielded a stronger or more sure benefit. I even started to challenge certain feedback that was I getting (please see more in the future installment of Executive Presence). I started asking for forgiveness more than permission because I had faith in myself due to my track record and my ability to see things that others just weren't able to see. As I got older and had a child, I tested boundaries and realized that I was truly and authentically me and it was paying off.
It wasn't until I came to Amazon that it really blossomed and manifested. Based on the leadership principles above, I was ENCOURAGED to challenge the status quo, make sure it's always a "Day 1" and to create, criticize and break mechanisms. When I see people on my team and others take a leap of faith, I start to encourage it. Go bigger, go farther! See how far you can go and take advantage of it in a different way! I absolutely adore it when I see others take a big step and challenge not only the mechanisms in place but even ME! I know I can be wrong and I have a strong voice so it can be intimidating, but I try to encourage it as much as possible because then I know we're moving away from groupthink and going in the right direction.
What Is An Example of Successful Fearlessness in Others?
The biggest example of fearlessness that I've seen in someone else was exemplified by our Security Assurance Engineering Leader, Paras Malhotra. We were in a meeting and reviewing the program of a team. There was a lot of data, a lot of facts and figures, a lot of progress made, and a lot documentation that this team was doing. In the middle of the conversation, Paras respectfully raises his hand as part of the feature in Amazon Chime. When he's called on, he asks, "So what's the purpose of this process? Why are we doing this?" The room goes quiet. The eyes of the people on video are darting around nervously. Someone gives an answer but it wasn't good enough. At the end, Paras says, "Let's roll this up and work backwards from a target. I need to understand the problem that we're trying to solve here and if there's a better way to go about this." The call ends. At first, I was a little gobsmacked. Did Paras disrupt this team's progress or did he see something that no one else did? I've seen Paras do this a couple of times. Over time, though, I've realized why.
If you can't explain what problem you're trying to solve, then what are you doing? A lot of people get distracted by the noise and the dance that is a program. There's a lot of metrics, data, facts, figures, but when you really get down to it, is the program really solving a fundamental problem or creating more work for work's sake? Is there a faster way to streamline something or is 4 FTEs, 6 Contractors and 10 Engineers really necessary? Now one can chalk it up to Paras being a good leader, but I specifically say that Paras has a special type of fearlessness. He's not swayed by all the work products which can sometimes be noise. He can cut through the mess to get directly at the source of a problem and diagnose it no matter if 100 people on a call disagree with him.
Another example of fearlessness is my girl, Crystal Brown Williams. She took a leap of faith and became a career coach full time right before the pandemic. Many speaking events, a podcast, a blog, and a Soul Ignition book later, the YOU Brand Academy is thriving and growing. She is truly an inspiration and she's building her own empire but it started with her being fearless.
How Do Leaders Develop Fearlessness?
There are many ways that leaders can develop fearlessness and here's a few that I was able to drum up specific to working within an organization:
1. Acknowledge What's At Risk By Not Being Bold or Speaking Up
Fearlessness can oftentimes be a CYA exercise. What do I mean by CYA? Cover Your Ass. That's right. I said it. Everyone in Corporate America has been in a situation where a bad thing happens and now we're all sitting at a table trying to figure out who's fault it was that caused this. Most things are actually preventable with either someone holding the organization to the highest standard or at least saying an option that no one else is thinking about. If all options are explored or all risks are laid out on the table, the organization has the best chance of making the right decision. Without that though, you are automatically at risk. Thus, when you're in the room and you sense that something is going left, think of the consequences of something bad happening because your idea or your suggestion was left unsaid. In my early days at Amazon and even to this day, this is my primary motivator.
What about the actions that are bold which can equal scary? We have countless examples of disruptors in our society that either 1) created a new revenue stream 2) develop a technology that never existed 3) made life better for society today. Don't you want to be a part of that? It starts by having a bold idea, developing it, getting buy-in, and executing it. Not taking that step leaves opportunity on the table or regret.
2. Understand Your Leader's Appetite for Disagreement
The way your management or your leadership accommodates disagreement is an important factor in gauging how fearless you can be. There are many ways you can test your organization or your leader's appetite for disagreement. You can blatantly ask your leader what they prefer or specific to a use case or scenario, you can ask how they feel if you wanted to go in a different direction. The other thing you want to understand is exactly how, or the mechanisms, for showcasing disagreement or fearlessness. Do they prefer that you speak up in the meeting at the point in time? Do they prefer that you brief them beforehand on what you disagree with so they can help navigate the situation? Do they prefer you sending an email or writing down a counter argument? How hard should you push? These are questions you can ask explicitly but you have to put yourself in more and more challenging situations with your leadership to really gauge this in action. Avoiding these scenarios doesn't give you the experiences with fearlessness that you need to further develop it. Additionally, those experiences will also shape your leadership style as well.
3. Learn How to Challenge Respectfully Using Your Organization's Mechanisms
Okay, you know what's at risk, you know how your direct level management's appetite for disagreement is, now where do you go from here? You have to look at how your organization encourages or doesn't encourage fearlessness. Sometimes it's a suggestion box, sometimes there's an "Innovation Challenge", it can be going to a governing board, a survey, a feedback session, or working with a leadership group. You have to understand how your organization deals with challenges to existing processes. I'll give an example.
Amazon has something called Document Reviews. If you want to make change, you better have a doc ready for people to read the first 15 - 20 minutes of a meeting. People are often intimidated by doc reviews because of the potential for criticism and because you're putting your idea out there when you're most vulnerable. Additionally, people are really afraid of someone else saying "No" or that the idea is not good enough. Many times, I encounter people that are disheartened by the process recovering from, what they deem, an unsuccessful doc review. After doing 100+ doc reviews (either as a participant or as a reviewer with varying degrees of success), I'm going to share the advice that I share with them. There are multiple types of No's in a doc review process. Part of fearlessness is understanding what kind of No you're getting and navigate around it. It's either the following:
You're not presenting enough information to thoroughly explain your solution.
You didn't get buy-in from the right stakeholders to fully shape your solution.
Someone's already doing this and they've already started.
The person that you're presenting it to doesn't have the right context to understand your problem.
The person that you're presenting it to doesn't have the right resources or bandwidth to accommodate your request.
The person that you're presenting it to is actually not the right person or doesn't have the authority to make the decision.
Most "No's" fall into one of these categories. Once you are able to categorize the specific kind of "No" and put your ego aside, it's not hard to understand what you must do next. Once you've addressed that specific brand of "No", you have successfully and respectfully challenged using all the best mechanisms Amazon has to offer.
Now, of course, Amazon is a very different place than most. You have to learn your own way of challenging appropriately within your organization's leadership structure or if you're in charge, develop the structure from those that are supporting you. You have to know it REALLY well. You can't simply know what exists. You have to experience it, know people that have done it successfully, and...
4. Practice
There's nothing better than diving in and shaking things up. But your first time shouldn't be on the idea that you care about the most. You want to go through the process multiple times. For an Amazonian, I always encourage people to have a doc or two in the first 6 months. Just to go through the process. Successfully doing it builds up your confidence and over time, your brand. You get invited to participate about a lot of hard conversations. You become trusted to understand the process more diligently.
5. Have a Personal Mantra (Optional)
Even though I've exercised fearlessness countless of times, I'm still nervous each time. Why? Because I'm human. Because I still care what others think of me regardless of the tough exterior. But I know that my thoughts and opinions are important and at times have saved situations from disaster. When I get nervous to speak out or to step up to take on a new challenge that I've never done before, I use a personal mantra. Here's my personal mantra that I share with myself when I'm taking a bold leap. Feel free to use it, it's come in handy over the years:
"What are they going to do, fire me?"
Seriously, use it. Wear it out! Whenever you're in a situation and all the anxieties are bubbling up in your head, think about if what you're about to say is to the point of you getting fired. Most of the time, it's not! 9 times out of 10 the thing that you're about to say is not something that's going to get you fired. You're battling your inner-saboteur more than your leadership's opinion of you.
In conclusion, fearlessness is something that every leader should start to work on and manifest diligently. It has come up countless times and is essential to organizations doing things the right way and for the right reasons. Personally, fearlessness can set you free. It allows you think more broadly, breaks down limitations, and allows you to be a better and inspirational leader for others to achieve with your direction and encouragement. And just for fun, please take the following reads from RuPaul's Drag Race for the road.
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