Maeda's SIMPLICITY

Three P's of Leadership

At a recent dinner party in London, I sat with Virginia Damtsa and we chatted about models of leadership. We both liked positive leaders, but in particular ones that were proactive and not just entirely passive. Because you can be a golly-gee positive person, but if you don't really do anything then you're sort of worthless to those that hope to follow you. On the other hand, if you're just doing a whole bunch of things proactively and you're terribly negative, all your good work becomes highly undervalued.

When presenting this model to my new team of one Becky Bermont, Becky offered another P of needing to be productive as a leader. And thus the three P's:

• Proactive: Deeply understand the situation. Acting without thought can seem very Jedi, but consensus trumps a light saber every time.
• Positive: Present the collective gains. There's a downside to every upside, and usually everyone knows the puddles by heart.
• Productive: Conclude with the win that works. Advance towards an important goal whenever possible, even if that takes you in an unpopular direction.

Now I go back to try and lead ...