Bizlife Smarts

Leadership lessons from Mourinho, Zuckerberg and Keenan Ivory Wayans

In the 3rd week of December 2018, I heard and observed a lot relating to these three men, that have given me food for thought regarding leadership. 

Style and structure

What leadership lessons do we get from Mourinho, Zuckerberg and Keenan Ivory Wayans? In most organisations, the leader gains most of the focus and attention and thereby; how goes the leader, goes the organisation. There are organisations where nobody but the leader gets featured at all. Then there are organisations where the leadership team gets exposure according to their respective roles.

You are probably trying to figure out which of these am I pointing out as the right leadership approach? Well neither of them is. That is what has misled us about leadership. It’s neither about leadership “style” nor leadership structure. Many so-called “leaders” will read all types of books on leadership and management and then try and imitate the style, yet remain far from being leaders. Similarly, many companies say, ‘If we just put the right leadership structure in place, we will be successful!’

http://www.hraljournal.com/Page/6%20Sea-Shon%20Chen.pdf

Let’s look at some leadership lessons from José Mourinho, Mark Zuckerberg and Keenan Ivory Wayans to gain more insight

Leader at risk or sacrifice the troops

So, the leadership lessons from Mourinho, Zuckerberg and Keenan Ivory Wayans, in the context of the two forementioned leadership models, can be viewed from a chess perspective.  The former model is akin to the two opposing kings facing off at the centre of the chessboard, with their troops all lined up behind them. If you and your opponent were to make a move of such bravado, one of you is bound to be annhilated. In the case of the latter model, the standard chess board has a solid structural setup with the leaders, protected from all sides. You use the specialist pieces as sacrificial lambs simply to defend and preserve their leader, the king. This structural solidity doesn’t guarantee success. These two examples epitomise the fact that true leadership is neither about “leading from the front” nor a solid structure. In other words, it’s not about the chickens being led by the lion.

José Mário dos Santos Mourinho Félix – Singular strong leader

https://www.sportskeeda.com/football/why-jose-mourinho-most-successful-manager-21st-century

Over a period of 15 years from Portugal to England to Italy to Spain, Mourinho’s teams were dominant, with him as the leader getting all the glory. We even saw him chest-thump and say, ‘I am the “Special One”‘ and the moniker stuck. We viewed him as a coaching genius, who could uplift any calibre of team into championship dominance. As the featured leader, he claimed all  the credit.

We branded him a genius, an innovator, a great manager and possessing a relentless ambition to make his teams win! And we all said that he was a great leader.

And then he met United

Remember that as one of the world’s leading brands, United is a behemoth. Despite their full name being Manchester United, they hate being called that. Their brand is so strong that when ‘United’ is mentioned, we can never mistake this as referring to another team. Just like Jordan, Madonna or Iman, you don’t need mention of their full names to know who is being referred to.

https://www.futaa.com/article/169654/jose-mourinho-s-most-controversial-moments-as-manchester-united-coach

At United all of a sudden, we saw a man who once his position as singular leader who could claim all the glory was challenged, began to break down. I saw him become petulant, petty, personal more than professional and moreover planless! I saw instransigence and a finger-pointer: not adapting his coaching style or game plan, but simply blaming his players.

For Mourinho’s sake, I hope that this was simply temporary and he will abandon these poor qualities, that are the antithesis to leadership, to recapture his greatness. But he will need to humble himself for that to happen.

Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg – Structured leadership team

By classical definition, the key participant in a social network is the anchor, or center individual. From this anchor, our ties of varying strengths radiate outwards to other people with whom we are directly linked. These people are represented by points of contact. If we think of why we allow people into our circle in our social networks offline or online, it is built on attributes such as affinity and trust.  I would ask Mark Zuckerberg, as our Facebook anchor, if he was ever aware of the mandatory attributes of his role.

Zuckerberg has said that his philosophy is to surround himself with a team stronger than himself, thus the hiring of Sandberg and others. However, I’ve kept track of so many gaffes that this “strong” team has committed that you wonder if this commitment is solely to structure and not to effective leadership. From poor anticipation of news feed changes, to Cambridge Analytica, to both Zuckerberg’s and Sandberg’s bumbling Congressional appearances, to the massive security breaches and ultimately to the deliberate violation of member privacy data, you wonder.

Leadership is not just about structure. As I observed the exodus of top executives at Facebook; including the founders of WhatsApp, Instagram and more, I became convinced that this was just a structure of roles and not true leadership at the top echelons of the company. You can be sure that if there is this much dysfunction at the top, it trickles down throughout the organisation. I have seen so many so-called blue-chip companies afflicted by this very same malady.

Keenan Ivory Wayans – True Leadership

For us Gen Xers, we remember Keenan Ivory Wayans breaking onto the scene with ‘In Living Colour’ in 1990. As the creator and writer of the show, he starred in it at debut. ‘In Living Colour’ broke barriers for comedy on broadcast TV, opening up a whole new audience and comedy has never been the same.

I see the greatness of Ivory’s leadership in much of what is not seen. As the show grew, he gradually faded away from starring in it, to mainly directing and producing. He continues to be a prolific writer, producer and director, but you would hardly know it. This is because he lets his actors in his productions be front and centre, and gives them opportunity and air to breathe. He never takes the credit.

But not many words are needed when the evidence of his great leadership is there for all to see. I’ve heard the actors who have worked with him say that, he builds them up and gives them everything they need to be successful. That he truly allows their light to shine.

The actors that I know of that can attribute becoming stars by virtue of his leadership and because Ivory gave them the opportunity are his siblings Damon, Shawn and Marlon; David Alan Grier; Tommy Davidson; Rosie Perez; Jim Carrey; Jennifer Lopez and Jamie Foxx.

So, ’nuff said! Leadership is not about the lion standing out front to protect and head the chicken troops behind and below. Neither is it about a “leadership” structure. Leadership is to serve those you lead so as to maximise their efforts to achieve real success.