I Am a Leader

I haven’t been posting much, on this site or on Shanghaiist, because I’ve actually been busy with work. I know that most of you may be pausing for a punchline, but there really isn’t one. Yes, I’ve actually been working, hunched over my laptop with my brows furrowed and rows and columns of numbers staring back at me from the cluttered mess of my pricing spreadsheet. Ah, the life of the corporate financial analysts: numbers and numbers and more numbers.

On top of that, we just concluded a 3-day finance management retreat at the Renaissance Hotel here in Shanghai. Yes, a retreat here in the town in which I’m living. Tons of our “senior finance leadership” flew out from around the world to do “coaching” and “mentoring” to senior finance folks across Asia. What this entailed was workshop after workshop of hearing white men who have been around for over a decade rehash old stories about what made them recognized as being successful leaders. I would have to say the highlights of the event were limited to the few precious moments when I was able to step out and get free dumplings and espresso from the spiky-haired Renaissance hotel staff.

This morning we closed out the event the way folks at our company always do: with a series of mind-numbing Powerpoint presentations. One of the slides, however, caught my eye and awoke me from my stupor. It was a quote from someone named Steve. I can’t remember his last name, but I’ll quote it here:

if you’re using all the buzzwords and reading all the latest leadership books, and holding forth at every meeting on the latest management fads, but you’re not experiencing that visceral churning in your gut, and you’re not scaring yourself every day, and you’re not feeling that OhShit!Moment as regularly as clockwork, then you are not doing anything significant-let alone changing the world-and you are certainly not leading anyone else.

I did a quick Google search and concluded that the Steve responsible for this quote is either leadership consultant Steve Farber or former strip club owner Steve Kaplan who pled guilty to fraud and prostitution and also watched live as Patrick Ewing received oral treatment at one of his clubs. I’m pretty sure it’s the 2nd one. Anyway, the reason this quote jumped out at me is because I’m AWESOME at using buzzwords. Just this afternoon, I was telling someone: “I don’t have the bandwidth right now to boldly engage or empower my team to resolve fundamental misalignments within the greater ecosystem.” Since it was the taxi driver I was telling this to, I didn’t get much of a verbal response, but I was absolutely convinced that he saw me as a highly intelligent and effective manager.

Regarding the “visceral churning” in my gut: that’s something I feel every day after gorging myself on crap cafeteria food downstairs in our building. Workdays almost always conclude with literal “Oh Shit” moments, as in “Oh that’s a lot of shit” as I watch it flush down the toilet. I thought to myself “Steve is speaking about me! I’m the perfect management role model!” Turns out I didn’t really need all those workshops after all.

So add that to the highlight list of the first half of this week: dumplings, espresso, and knowing that my stomach troubles and ridiculous use of English vocabulary are actually helping to change the world.