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It has become increasingly evident that leadership plays a pivotal role in driving significant changes, both positively and negatively. This is evident in various contexts, including business and government, where effective leaders have the power to create either remarkable progress or hinder development.

A prime example lies in the impact of Brazil’s leadership on the Amazon rainforest. Under certain effective leaders, the Amazon was viewed merely as a lucrative asset, leading to its disrespect and exploitation to the detriment of the global community. Conversely, under different effective leadership, there are signs of the Amazon forest slowly being restored, with measures taken to curb abuse and protect this vital ecosystem.

Given these realities, the importance of cultivating effective leadership dedicated to positive impacts for both people and the planet cannot be overstated. The actions and decisions of leaders hold the key to shaping a better future, and it is crucial to prioritize leaders who are committed to sustainable practices and the well-being of our environment and communities.

The perennial problem of someone in my position with my title is the ability to move beyond the title and access a more fundamental level of communication. Often when I am in meetings with people, there is a subtle but significant power imbalance. The result of this is that the conversations that I’m privy to or the level of problem that lands on my table is limited–if I’m not deliberate, I only get to see the problems when they are already significant and costly.

I am on a constant mission to surface the issues before they need to be addressed by me. In my frustration with this dynamic, I stumbled on a very subtle but powerful tool–the Walk and Talk.

Essentially, I invite a person to go for a walk and I buy them a drink. This is typically a 20-minute investment and packs a mighty punch. It turns out this is a short journey that has an amazing impact–it breaks down any power imbalances, and we become two people on equal footing, developing a broader understanding of each other. We seldom talk about work unless there’s a really pressing issue, and rather get to know each other as people (as opposed to colleagues).

This works as well for remote teams, as long as there’s a conscious decision to not revert to work topics but to ‘shoot the breeze’ together for this defined period of time.

The results are really rewarding–since I stumbled across this tool, I have taken about half the company for a walk and talk. As a consequence, when I do meet up with the person again in a work situation, often when there are challenges on projects that I am helping resolve, there’s a level of trust and communication that was not previously there.

A recent example of where this bore fruit was when a project went off the rails and I needed to step in to assist the person course-correct. Because I’d been for an informal ‘walk and talk’ before this, I could start the conversation off on a lighter, more personal level. This reduced the level of tension, and we could start from a level of trust that I had made the effort to get to know her on a personal level, and thus she had the sense that I ‘had her back’ and my intention was support and resolution, not blame. It didn’t prevent a problem from happening (those always crop up if you’re doing difficult work). Still, it did enable a faster and more pleasant resolution and set this person up for better outcomes next time that issue surfaced.

What I have increasingly realized on this leadership journey is that the best tools I have at my disposal are the people I work with, and it’s my mission to unlock their skill set, commitment, and dedication to their particular role in our organization.

When I accepted the position of Chief Operations Officer for our global team, I didn’t appreciate the role deep listening would play in my and our team’s success.

Deep Listening involves listening, from a deep, receptive, and caring place in oneself, to deeper and often subtler levels of meaning and intention in the other person. It is listening that is generous, empathic, supportive, accurate, and trusting. (Rome, 2017)

Over time, however, deep listening has become a tool that is just as useful to me as financial acumen and strategic thinking. Like many C-Suite executives, my weekly schedule consists of back-to-back meetings. These meetings are often one-to-one sessions where we cover the following topics:

Well-being support

• Usually, taking the form of a ‘How are you?’ check in, but also trying to understand what issues are worrying them.

Work support

• I listen to their current challenges and blockers and how they are planning ahead. This time also provides an opportunity to find out about the well-being of their team.

Company information

• We share what we each need to know and share with others.

A few weeks ago, someone commented: “I feel like I need to be paying for these sessions.”, after I gave him a few valuable nuggets of advice that resonated with him and on which he could act.

It was only through deep listening to both what was not said and what he shared that I was able to help him unlock more of what he wanted and needed. These coaching conversations have become a critical part of my leadership style. As the COO, my role is to help people be the best version of themselves, enabling them to contribute the most to achieving the company goals in the best way possible.

Deep listening is paramount when it comes to our external stakeholders. By listening to and reading the global market, I’m able to analyze trends and understand the potential risks and opportunities in the Edtech industry.

Leadership can come with a formal title, or it can be below the radar and largely by stealth. How I have experienced and interacted with what it means to be a leader has changed over the course of my career. Initially, I assumed that the people in front and in public were leaders, and so there was an assumption that if I was out front and initiating actions then I was ‘a leader’. However, as I have moved through the ranks and find myself in a position with an official leadership title and role, the actions I am taking have shifted and developed.

As I do the doing of leadership, it’s become clear to me that the majority of what I do is not at all the public aspect of leadership. Some aspects of my role involves Leadership out Front such as hosting big team meetings and communicating company information to everyone, sending written communication that goes to the entire team, and in many ways being publicly out front of the team, as well as directly linking with clients in my formal role. However, increasingly the way I am most effective is by setting everyone else up to not need me. It is more subtle and not at all visible to most other people in the company.

Leadership by Stealth involves influencing, posing questions, pausing a speaker who glosses over a potential problem, probing, offering ideas, being silently present in meetings, and linking the right people to each other.

Much of this is done out of the public eye and the effects won’t be traced back to my involvement, but overall the system is smoother and more effective. While leadership is often thought of as ‘the glue that holds the team together’ and there is occasionally the need to take on that role, my experience is equally being ‘the oil that keeps the cogs turning smoothly’.

Leadership by Stealth is setting other people up with confidence and the sense of having the mandate to take risks knowing that they have our support if it doesn’t work out as intended. In this way they grow as leaders in their own right and have the self-belief to try. In this environment my attention can go to other areas of the business that need attention – a win for all.