Linear vs Compound Leadership: Building Lasting Impact

Welcome to the Paul Vette podcast for those who refuse average. 100 percent ownership, primal power. I used to work in a call center and we got a new manager. This new manager, I thought wow, that's how a manager should be. Powerful looking, clear, communicating and direct. I thought I can learn from that. And in the months after, I found him direct and clear and I thought wow yes this is it. Until I heard from colleagues that they found him just a bit too direct. I thought yeah well then you should do your job properly. Stop whining. Just do it. But then, a while later, a colleague walked onto the floor and she was late. The manager came onto the floor at the same time and said, you're late again. And I thought holy shit, this is not okay. And from that moment, once you start seeing it then you see more, I noticed that several colleagues were less comfortable. There was a bit more sick leave. There were also 1 or 2 good colleagues who had left. But yeah, you don't just think, especially not when you're young. Yeah, that's the manager's fault, because he was so strong and powerful and I had such a good image of him that I thought, yeah he's just good. But in the months after, year after, more and more trouble. And the results were okay, it was just fine. We grew a little and not enough. We got some colleagues joining. And a year and a half after he started he said: guys, I have big news. I'm becoming my boss. He was going to work in a position higher up. That had been his whole goal all along, namely deliver good papers and move up. That's it. And later I found out, that's not at all how a powerful leader should be. Partly yes of course clear communication and being direct, certainly good qualities. But being a Tyrant which he literally was, of course not. Not long after that I left that company and led my own team. And then I thought okay I'm going to do it differently. But when you see a tyrant as a negative way of leadership, then the opposite of a tyrant is too soft, too soft and soft healers make deep wounds. Stinking wounds. So then I thought this doesn't work either. I went thinking about it and then I came up with the concept of linear leadership versus compounding leadership. And that Tyrant a perfectly fine linear leader for him then. Because what is a linear leader? Someone who steps into a position somewhere, who does that for 2 years. And what does he do? He takes a similar position or a higher position, just one level higher, where he can play exactly the same game for a maximum of 2 years. Because the disadvantage of linear leadership in this form is that you don't have to learn as a leader. You don't have to look at yourself in the mirror. You don't have to get better. So what happens? In the new position you just achieve the same thing. Because when you step in somewhere like a buffalo and just communicate very directly and clearly and set things out through structure and frameworks, you often do achieve something. Even some growth because bad apples also fall out. But then you build yourself in because now staff needs to be added and there's some trouble. And in large sluggish companies it's not quickly clear that it's the manager's fault, because there are just so many systems and so many structures and so many buttons that can be looked at to see where things go wrong. And by the time they think maybe it's the manager, he's already gone which is fine for that company. Because if they have the idea that it's the manager, fine that he leaves. Then they get a new one. Linear leadership. Compounding leadership works much better. When I started leading my team, then I learned, hey this is not easy at all either. It's quite difficult to do that. How do you get people on board with your story? How do you ensure that they feel seen and heard? That there's safety and trust in the team, while you also want to push them a bit? Because you want to grow. Those are all aspects to take into account. But what I did was okay, I make mistakes. Still do, back then too, make mistakes and I learn from them. And when I learn from them and admit to myself, I'm doing this wrong and I'm going to learn from it, that doesn't mean that as soon as I see a mistake and I learn from it, that how I do it afterward is immediately right. No, it's probably not directly the best way either. But I do grow as a person, as a leader. And the advantage of compounding leadership, the disadvantage is that you don't quickly grow into other positions. And because you also don't have that direct tyrannical way, there's also not that shock effect that makes something happen immediately. So you grow in a position and through that way of leadership, especially if you're still a junior leader, if you're more experienced, then you can achieve that shock effect, but then in a good way, in a deeply supported way. I'll do another video about that another time. But compounding leadership, when you learn from your mistakes and you apply that and you grow and you fall and you get up and you keep going, then you don't grow very quickly career-wise. And you also don't get to deal with better teams that you can lead. No, you go more in depth. But eventually, when you do learn from your mistakes and you compound that, and yes you know the principle of linear leadership, you rise a bit, because they'll probably learn too those linear leaders. But compounding leadership, after 10 years or 15 years you'll notice that you're suddenly making big steps. Or already standing much higher in terms of being a good leader compared to the linear leaders. And that's what I actually wish for every leader, that they're not the tyrant. Because look and I understand that sometimes it's also easier to be a tyrant because then you're going to order people what they should do. And because on paper you're their boss, they'll probably do it in the beginning because they're afraid of losing their job. But that's not the way. But I also understand that it's difficult, because you often deal with a lot of middle managers. I was that myself for a time too. Yeah, then you take hits from your team. They start talking to you, especially if you take them seriously about things that aren't going well. So you absorb those hits. But those hits you don't pass on to your manager. You don't do that either. Your manager, depends on what kind of manager you have and what kind of team you have, but they also give you a few punches and hits. You deal with that too. So the middle manager who gets crushed by the manager above you and the team you lead. And then it's necessary and difficult in the sense of a great burden to just keep standing and say yes I can handle that. Yes I absorb the hits from my team and I don't pass them through to my manager. Because conversely you also want to shield your team from your boss and vice versa too. You want to shield your boss from your team too. When you understand that principle you understand that you have a heavy burden as a middle manager. And that it's sometimes difficult to get things done, because your team deals with things. And your manager also deals with things. And then there's often also politics involved. A changing market that you probably deal with. And then all the people who also have something personal going on. Yeah, that's difficult. And then I understand that you can more easily fall into the role of the Tyrant. But I promise you if you apply compounding leadership, not only if you lead people, but also on your personal leadership, then you grow as a person and eventually after a number of years you'll reap significant rewards from that. Even if you're already at a certain point and you get the tendency to fall into that tyrannical behavior. Because you just already think yeah but I've been a manager for so long, I've been doing this work for so long, I know how this works, so I'll just tell people what they should do. Don't do it, because even then you still want to compound, because you keep growing as a leader and as a person. --- This transcript has been translated from Dutch.