Susie Cranston, president and COO of Cresset, a multi-family office and private investment firm, discusses the key elements of centered leadership, imposter syndrome and how women can become more authentic leaders.
In your book, How Remarkable Women Lead, you discuss the five elements of centered leadership. How can these principles help women navigate leadership challenges in today’s evolving business environment?
The ways women lead are rooted in being able to successfully navigate change, creating a superpower for most women in our dynamic business environment. In my book, How Remarkable Women Lead, we interviewed some of the leading women in the world, from the first female prime ministers of countries to female CEOs of Fortune 100 companies, to form the basis of the centered-leadership model. We used science and data to rigorously evaluate how the traits of these trailblazing women enabled them to successfully navigate their careers.
Having led large organizations through several seismic changes myself, I understand why this model is so critical for change leadership. Change is inherently hard, but not impossible.
It all starts with establishing meaning. Meaning is a shortcut to accessing change. Once people see how an event is meaningful, they quickly retool and shift contexts.
Framing is also critical because change understandably causes people to feel anxious and scared. These negative emotions cause our brains to go into “flight, fight or freeze” mode, which means we cannot focus on anything other than immediate survival. Framing teaches us how to quickly and effectively calm down that anxiety so we can move to more productive next steps.
Connecting and engaging are critical elements of how to make change happen day to day. For lasting change to take root, we need to build trust-based relationships with other people and a willingness to try new things and to fail.
Finally, energizing is essential in change management because change is hard work. Keeping your own energy up is a skill. If leaders cannot maintain their own levels of energy, the rest of the organization will have a much lower chance of successfully navigating change.
You’ve raised the idea that feminine leadership traits might be better suited for our fast-changing, hypercompetitive world. Can you elaborate on how they might give female leaders an edge?
One of the most striking differences between male and female leaders, which has been shown in research conducted across cultures and countries, is how men and women describe their primary motivation related to their work. Men consistently rank compensation as their primary motivation, while women rank the meaning they get from their work.
To be clear, the research does not show that men do not care about meaning or that women do not care about compensation. These are clearly important considerations for both men and women. However, there is a clear difference in the relative importance women put on meaning in the workplace.
There is also a significant amount of research that shows that men and women who find significant meaning in their jobs are more productive than their peers, sometimes up to two to three times more productive. It makes sense that people who feel passionate about what they do put more energy into their work. Clearly, there are countless male leaders who do an incredible job tapping into meaning. However, if this ability is more common in women, it represents an opportunity for women leaders to lean into this innate strength to help themselves, and their organizations, succeed.
Centered leadership emphasizes the importance of connecting and engaging with others. How do these elements play a role in fostering inclusive and diverse workplaces?
Bias takes root when a person generalizes about a population of people, often without knowing much about that population. The research is clear that diverse workplaces perform better over time in terms of shareholder return, sales growth and organizational longevity. Bias in the workplace, especially among leaders, hinders the ability to achieve those benefits.
One of the best antidotes to bias is developing a personal relationship with others different than ourselves. It is easier to think of a person who is part of a particular population in a negative light when that person is an abstraction. Getting to know that person in real life makes it more challenging to generalize.
The centered-leadership research on connecting starts with the premise that it’s important to truly understand your network and to make sure you are evaluating your network for its strengths and development areas, with an eye toward inclusivity of various demographics. There is no one best set of relationships or way to connect as a leader. Rather, it is important to build relationships with a broad array of people and organizations, with a variety of skill sets and experiences. The strategic evaluation of a leader’s network will foster personal relationships that combat bias. When done correctly, this work helps ensure that biases do not get in the way of successful business.
Imposter syndrome is often seen as a negative experience, but you suggest it can be beneficial. Why?
When I was a junior in college, I was the resident assistant (RA) in my freshman dorm. The RAs of the dorm took turns being on call each night of the weekend, so that if something happened, the freshmen had someone to go to for help. Typically, being “on call” entailed helping students reenter their rooms after accidentally locking themselves out. However, one night a student came to my door with alarming news: One of the residents was trying to commit suicide.
It was midnight on a Saturday, and there was no one else around. I remember thinking to myself: “I am a 20-year-old engineering major. I know nothing about mental health or suicide prevention. I am not qualified to handle this situation!” At the same time, there was no one else to provide help in that moment besides me. So I called 911, broke into the room and sat with the student, eventually getting the student to the hospital. I was scared and shaken, but I got the job done.
This scenario illustrates an important point: When your mind is telling you that you are not qualified to do something — when you are feeling like an imposter — that is the very moment that you are learning to do something new. It is impossible to learn unless you try new things and get outside your comfort zone. Great leaders are constantly learning; they have to be outside their comfort zones all the time.
For anyone who aspires to be a great leader, my advice is to reframe imposter syndrome as an opportunity to build your skill set. The moments that imposter syndrome kicks in are also the best training grounds for leadership. No one knows the right thing to do with complete certainty, and your guess is better than anyone else’s. Deciding and moving forward is always better than failure to act.
Given the evolving landscape of leadership, what advice would you offer to women striving to balance traditional leadership approaches with more contemporary, authentic ways of leading?
When people talk about traditional leadership, they are often referring to a command-and-control style of leadership, such as in military organizations. There are clear leaders who call the shots, and there are order takers who implement those orders without question.
However, effective leadership is more nuanced than that. Different kinds of leadership are needed depending on the situation. For example, command-and-control leadership is helpful when there are few unknowns or real-time communication is difficult. For women who are looking to balance the leadership needs of their organization with their authentic style, start with understanding what kind of leadership is best suited to achieving organizational goals.
For example, in fast-moving and growing organizations, high communication and alignment around shared values is critical to ensuring everyone stays coordinated. For a mature business, cultivating a sense of meaning for the work and providing clear direction may be more important.
Once a leader understands what the organization needs, they should take stock of how that compares to their own skill set. Self-awareness is critical to making sure that any “problem” areas where there is misalignment between innate skill sets and situational requirements are addressed. Leaders should lean into their strengths where there is alignment with business need and proactively put in place strategies to close any gaps. A team does not all have the same strengths; the art of leadership is assembling a team that together represents the complete picture necessary for success.