By the Lionesses of Africa Operations Dept
“Dream with ambition, lead with conviction and see yourselves in a way that others may not, simply because they've never seen it before.”
…and so said the brilliant and inspirational Kamala Harris in a speech that many of us feared might not be possible as we saw the initial numbers coming out of the US Election on the night of the 3rd November 2020.
This mantra taken from her victory speech as the first ever woman Vice-President-elect of the United States could easily be the mission statement of the Lionesses of Africa, a battle cry to all our incredible >1.1 million membership. This fabulous membership that in turn takes inspiration not only from the greats such as Kamala Harris, but also from within itself as we see and celebrate the incredible work being done across Africa and the globe by our fellow Lionesses. Also from great female business entrepreneurs and leaders across the world such as Sara Blakely - as Melanie said in one of her morning newsletters this week:
“…Sara Blakely, founder of revolutionary underwear company Spanx. At the age of 27, she launched her business with an innovative new product idea, a big vision, and funded it using all $5,000 of her personal savings. She even wrote a patent application and filed it herself to save on legal fees. Today, Sara still owns 100 percent of Spanx, her products are sold in more than 50 countries, she was named the world's youngest, self-made female billionaire by Forbes Magazine in 2012, and hasn’t taken a penny from outside investors to get there. She is proof positive that it’s possible to bootstrap and go big!”
… and at this point the HoF leant over and passed us a Guardian article on Anne Boden, founder and ceo of Starling Bank. The article opens by saying: “Fed up with modern finance and Britain’s broken banking system, Anne Boden decided there was only one thing to do: set up a bank that ran in the way she wanted it to…” We read on and began to realise why the HoF is such a massive fan:
She’s well aware she doesn’t conform to any banking stereotype…she says, “I’m a woman. I’m 5ft tall. I’m Welsh. I’m middle-aged. I’m from a very ordinary background and I’m the sort of person who’ll chat to somebody in the ladies!” she says. “Fintech start-ups are all young white guys with goatees – usually with rich parents. People did think I was crazy, that no one ‘starts a bank’, especially people who looked like me, but I’d reached the stage where I was prepared to fail. I was 54 and confident enough not to care if somebody said I was stupid.””
This is perhaps exactly what Kamala Harris was thinking when she said:
“Dream with ambition, lead with conviction and see yourselves in a way that others may not, simply because they've never seen it before.”
Although we say so ourselves(!), this continues on perfectly from last week’s plea to encourage your mojo regrowth in a time when your dreams have started to become reality only to be overtaken by the daily grind of ever increasing responsibilities and paperwork. To protect employee ‘safe spaces’ to foster and encourage their innovation, creativity and blue sky thinking (which in turn will encourage your own ‘mojo’ regrowth). To ensure that you don’t wake up one morning to find that your business is in a spiral of ever increasing competition, lowering prices, increased costs and a feeling that the ‘Rats had started to desert the sinking ship’ (as was the case with Anne Boden whose Directors one day all left ‘en masse’ to start a different bank), leaving you with what seems to be the only option - to put your head back down, deep under the Duvet and pray it all goes away…
This spiral into doom and gloom happens very quickly if you are not careful.
There was a reason that Steve Jobs had to return to Apple. Leadership and direction had been lost, creativity had been destroyed. Steve instantly brought the ‘leadership with conviction’ which in turn allowed the dreaming to return.
In Anne’s case following the rush to the exit by her Directors “…an old friend and associate [who] turned up uninvited, handed her a coffee, quietly found a desk and got to work. He called someone else, who called someone else…” and together they formed a new team, older, wiser and got the job done. The entire team worked for nothing, but it would have been her ‘dreaming with ambition’ and ‘leadership with conviction’ that would have driven them on (incidentally, they got their UK banking licence one month before the old Directors got theirs - ‘You Go Girl!’)
So why is this ‘dreaming with ambition’ so essential?
Look back 20-30 years and there will be companies that were household names then that have since been swallowed up by competitors or have simply gone bust. So much of this will be because having reached a certain size and ‘maturity’ they stopped dreaming and lost their creativity and innovation. If this coincided with bad or poor leadership, the company would get into a spiral from which there were only three options:
a competitor taking it over,
a Steve Jobs arriving on a white horse…
or the Duvet.
As we are all fully aware, the only thing any of us can 100% rely on is the Duvet!
In the 21st Century, one of the other things we can always rely upon is that supply of products and services will continue to ever increase. This increase in supply drives prices only one way. As our old Economics Teacher used to say, “Economics is all about supply and demand”. Increased supply drives prices down (if there is not an equal or higher increase in demand of course, which with declining populations in many developed markets is getting more and more unlikely) which means that all of us, unless we concentrate, risk being sucked into the race to the bottom of pricing from which (as we always say) there are the Chinese and of course Walmart waiting to welcome us with open arms at the bottom. They have mastered ‘pile ‘em high, sell ‘em low’ consumerism. There is absolutely nothing that anyone can teach them more on this. It’s why in order to avoid being sucked into the whirlpool of ever increasing supply of your product or service and lowering prices AND evaporating customers, you simply have to re-find your inner mojo, grab that creativity and innovate!
Constantly and consistently find new products, new services and new markets.
This is so easy to say and er…yes - so hard to do.
So there you are on a Monday morning, in a spiral of ever increasing competition, lowering prices, increased costs and a horrible feeling that your loyal employees are starting to pack their bags - oh, and the mountain of paperwork grows ever higher and continues to sap your energy every time you glance at it… (no one ever said this was easy!).
Of course it is easy to think of this as your ‘bad leadership’, but sometimes it is as simple as having walked out into the beautiful sea, suddenly realising you are out of your depth. As you stretch your legs and point your toes you occasionally find the sand, but less and less with each wave. A small but ever growing panic rises up in you that you try and fail to push back down.
It’s the same in business. A few stumbles, failed projects, a structure that is not fit for the new purpose or new growth stage, the third call from the bank and we all start to doubt ourselves - the light starts to dim and if we are not careful, the walls come tumbling down.
“When the blame opens up the window
You can't keep holding on ~ it’s got your soul.
When you're facing your darkest shadow
You choose your side in battle, blow by blow.
You can’t fight the feeling
The pain is too deceiving
You just can’t believe in
But nothing's really wrong.
Don't be scared of your darkness…
…When your view is just of the ceiling
It's time to start the healing ~ let it go.
If your fears are making your decisions
You're always gonna struggle on your own.”
(from the haunting and beautiful song ‘Forgive Yourself’ by the amazing Inna Modja of Mali). Take a moment to listen to this beautiful song and concentrate on the words. If they apply to you and your business, you are not alone…
As leaders we always think we can do everything, indeed we believe that this is expected of us. What rubbish! No one expects you to do it all. To ask for help is not a failure, this is not a weakness. All businesses are having to change the way they work and with that comes questions of our own leadership.
Productivity has apparently stayed the same or even increased with work from home. The flip side of that sadly is that innovation has dropped. The water-cooler chats, the fun and laughter that an office brings (always assuming you are doing it right, not micro-managing or installing fear through mistrust in your employees of course), the friendships made, the energy shared, all add to innovation and creativity. You, as a Leader, have to find that button and somehow turn it back on again.
This is where true leadership comes in and especially ‘Leadership with conviction’. The ability to recognise that you are only human, mistakes happen, but now having recognised that, you know what to do. Take inspiration from all of the greats who have gone before you. They too had ups and downs. Sara Blakely (now a US$Billionaire) could not get any finance - now where have we heard that before? Anne Boden lost her management team, yet her spirit drove others to jump in and help.
So - if you are looking into the abyss, if that song resonated with where you are currently in your business - Forgive yourself; call up some friends; walk barefoot in the grass; pick yourself up; dust yourself down; ‘lead with conviction’; rally the troops; put some fun back into the team; and together -
go ‘kick ass’ once more!
…And you’d better believe that we at the Lionesses of Africa and all our inspirational membership…
‘WILL APPLAUD YOU ALL OF THE WAY!’
Stay safe and stay strong, we are with you.