What Microfinance Leaders taught me about Leadership

After 20 years of working with leaders from multinational corporations in developed markets, I jumped at the opportunity to start up a new global Center for Microfinance Leaders (CML) in emerging markets.  Given that the world has become more global and that growth is coming from the emerging markets, I thought this experience would expand my horizons and my effectiveness as an executive coach.  The big question that has perplexed me for the last 20 years is how do you persuade leaders to expand their approach to include more empathy, intellectual curiosity, and humility which are the critical qualities needed to empower people in a fast changing world?Ronald Heifetz, the founder of the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard has been advocating there are no ready answers to the challenges faced by leaders today; rather the answers reside in people not in the executive suite. Mr. Heifetz’s approach - the adaptive leader - advocated by Harvard, Wharton and many other prestigious universities and corporations is what we were striving to achieve at the CML.  The interesting thing about this new approach is it focuses on the “soft” skills including empowering, delegating, and coaching others versus an authoritarian approach that is characterized by directing, unilateral decision making, and micromanaging.  CML is focused on cultivating principled, visionary leaders to run microfinance organizations that value diversity. The Center was conceived in response to critical changes underway in microfinance:  increased commercialization, decreased presence of women staff at all levels of microfinance organizations, and rapid growth that demand skilled, trained leaders and managers.  My role was to shape the curriculum with Wharton Executive Education and Creative Metier; pilot new programs, expand attendance of leaders from around the globe, and develop staff to run the program.  These leaders have many more challenges than the typical multinational executive as they lack sophisticated systems, an educated workforce, and resources.CML provided microfinance leaders with a week-long Advanced Leadership program run by Wharton and based on Mr. Heifetz’s approach to adaptive leadership.  This program was designed to build the following skills:  strategic thinking, innovation, teamwork, negotiation, change management, talent management, and succession planning.  This week-long program was followed up by a three-day Coaching Workshop facilitated by Creative Metier, experts in distance coaching, and then each delegate was given an executive coach for six-months.  The Coaching Workshop was run in Oxford, England and attended by around 15 microfinance leaders from India, Africa, Latin America, Middle East, and Southeast Asia.  The Coaching Workshop focused on defining what is meant by a coaching culture, developing practical coaching skills, and deepening understanding of gender and mission issues.  The Coaching workshop involved numerous role-plays to practice and experiment with new approaches.One of the workshop goals was to increase self-awareness and skill in becoming an adaptive leader. A simple model of situational leadership was presented and an assessment was taken to determine the leaders’ natural approach. A situational leader is one who can adopt different leadership styles depending on the situation.   In this model, there are four possible approaches including:  authoritative/directive, coaching, supporting, and delegating.  These four leadership styles vary according to how much direction and support the leader gives to his or her followers.  These styles range from authoritative/directive in which the leader makes all the decisions, to coaching in which the leader still defines the roles and tasks but seeks ideas and suggestions from the follower, to supporting in which the leader passes the day-to-day decisions to the follower and facilitates and takes part in decisions, and finally to delegating in which control is completely in the hands of the follower and the follower decides when and how the leader will be involved.  The coaching workshop was advocating adaptive leaders need to use a coaching approach to build an empowering environment.  The coaching style advocates that leaders still define roles and tasks, but they seek ideas and suggestions from the followers and the communication is two-way.Let me share a story of how one microfinance leader was able to adapt her approach.  This story is based on a real director of a microfinance organization but I will call her Anne to protect her privacy.  She came into the program as a former business leader who left a high paying job with a goal to be a strong role-model for her children to show them it is important to give back as she wanted to make life better for poor women and for her community.She began the workshop by completing the leadership styles self-assessment which revealed that her dominant style was authoritative/directive approach. This result surprised her as she viewed herself as a very empathic and caring person.  But she acknowledged that the dominant leadership style in her country was mostly directive/authoritative. And, we clarified that a dominant approach does not preclude being empathic.The rest of the day was spent in small group role-plays to practice having conversations using a coaching approach.  Anne received feedback that she was trying to solve others’ problems rather than listening and encouraging a collaborative approach to problem solving.  Anne was shocked at the feedback as it didn’t match her view of herself.  What happened next surprised Anne and it surprised me too.Anne was determined to improve and she participated in another role-play and struggled to listen and not solve people’s problems while making many mistakes in front of her colleagues.  Miraculously by the end of the second role-play she had made drastic changes in her approach and was listening more and asking many questions.  She literally adopted to a new approach almost on a dime.  In my 20 years of leadership work, rarely have I seen such a quick turnaround.Anne’s quick transformation intrigued me to want to discover what caused such a sudden shift.  She explained that she realized to help the poor women clients; she couldn’t single-handedly catalyze the organization and would have more impact by empowering others.  Anne stayed focused on her larger goal, which empowered her to remain humble and open to learning and resulted in her ability to quickly expand her leadership style to use more of a coaching approach.Here was an adaptive leader in action.  Anne demonstrated a flexibility to let go of a deeply embedded directive leadership approach because of her focus on a larger purpose. Anne’s drive to help poor women have better lives allowed her to let go of worrying about how she looked in front of peers.  This was refreshing!What I most admire about the microfinance leaders is their willingness to try new things, to make mistakes while experimenting, accept feedback, and learn from diverse views. Leadership is learning and needs to take place every day.  And, I had to ask myself was I as facile a learner as these microfinance leaders or had I become distracted by my own ambition and desire to make a name for myself?  As an executive coach, what am I trying to cause in the world?  It reminded me of the importance of understanding and aligning with a larger purpose. The purpose doesn’t have to be solving world peace. Rather there just needs to be clarity and alignment.  Why I was attracted to starting-up the CML was a strong desire to explore if Collaborative Competition™ could make a larger impact in the world.As the former competitive tennis player in me knows the person who is willing to try new things, keep learning and stay flexible will be in a better position to respond strategically rather than react defensively. In other words, none of us likes to lose, but if you want to win more often, than you need to be willing to learn new techniques, experiment, and lose sometimes.  What Anne and the many global leaders I worked with over the past year have taught me is the power of close alignment of purpose with your work.  I leave WWB feeling much more willing to take risks and make offers in the world.