Rose Patten brings her decades of expertise on leadership to the Rotman Visiting Experts studio, exploring the eight key competencies leaders of tomorrow need today, and how we can all be more intentional in our leadership styles.
Rose Patten brings her decades of expertise on leadership to the Rotman Visiting Experts studio, exploring the eight key competencies leaders of tomorrow need today, and how we can all be more intentional in our leadership styles.
Brett Hendrie: Rose Patten believes that leadership — just like any skill — is one that can be learned.
And Rose would know. Understanding leadership is her specialty.
Rose has held senior positions across the corporate, non-profit and academic sectors.
Today, she serves as a special advisor to the CEO at BMO where she focuses on leadership development and succession. She’s also Chancellor of the University of Toronto, and an adjunct professor here at the Rotman School where, she teaches on the topic.
Her recently released book, Intentional Leadership – The Big Eight Capabilities Setting Leaders Apart, captures her learnings from decades of executive experience.
The book dives into the eight competencies she sees as key for leading today and tomorrow:
In Rose’s view, leaders should be empathetic. They need to be able to communicate contextually — that is, able to explain why they are doing things they way they are.
They need to be personally adaptable, able to explore a problem from new angles and enter into unfamiliar territories with open minds.
Leaders must have strategic agility, able to seize new opportunities and let go of old strategies when they’re no longer relevant.
And they should be spirited collaborators, as working across organizations, boundaries, teams, even industries can lead to better business outcomes.
And Rose emphasizes self-renewal — the ability to continually learn and to be self-aware of your own limitations — as pivotal for leaders in times of change.
And in times of change there’s a need for certainty of character, leaders able to take personal responsibility and show courage, integrity, and forgiveness.
And finally, she highlights the need to develop the next batch of leaders, with thoughtful vision of succession.
If there’s a theme that emerges from these “big eight” capabilities, and from my conversation with Rose, I idea that it’s time to talk about the human side of leading.
Welcome to Visiting Experts, a Rotman School podcast featuring backstage conversations on business and society with influential scholars, thinkers and leaders, featured in our acclaimed speaker series. I’m your host Brett Hendrie, and Rose joins me now to talk about her new book and those big eight capabilities.
Welcome Rose to the podcast.
Rose Patten: Thank you, Brett.
BH: Rose, your career has been truly remarkable. It has spanned multiple industries, multiple continents, you've worked here in Canada and internationally, in corporate sectors, nonprofit academia. I'm hoping to kick things off, could you share with us a little bit more about your own leadership journey, how it led you to write this book, and what's the impact that you're hoping to have with it?
RP: Well, I think that's an important question, because it is very relevant to the book and why we're here today. So I won't go into a long bio, because I've been around for a while, and I've done lots of things. But a couple of relevant points about the general career bio, would be that it's been across sectors and across geographies. And my paid career has been in financial services, largely banking, but also across the various elements of banking.
It's been large, purposeful institutions in our society at large, that's always attracted me. I consider banking in that group. But I certainly consider academia and here at the University of Toronto, as well as health and public policy. That gave me both confidence, as well as I think, a great framework of speaking about leadership, in changing times, and in changing contexts. Because those are very different in many ways. But among them, there's a very great universal body of leadership that changes with time. It doesn't matter about the sector, and/or the nature of the organization.
I would say that my interest and my passion for leadership and my curiosity around it has been deepening for decades. As big change has happened, that kind of got my curiosity, and particularly in the financial services, global crisis. And this was in about 2008 when I moved out of my kind of more operational daily [responsibilities] as a senior executive on the Management Committee of the bank and went into an advisory role, which is what I'm doing now. But it was for the purpose of pursuing leadership in a very deliberate way and exploring what was changing about leadership. What would make leadership better in those very different times than even what I knew in my career?
Through this, I had developed a model that actually was called "The Big Eight," and I began teaching it here at Rotman and also across the bank. So I began to explore two questions. The first question was: what would really compel leaders to think differently about leading, and to start focusing on the fact that leadership may not be timeless, that it does change with the context. This was the big question of what would compel leaders. The second question was: then what specifically, do they need to do differently? And so that became the focus of my exploration in my teaching with hundreds of leaders, in addition to my daily work at the bank, which was on leadership there as well. And it led, before I knew it into, my goodness, there's another big unprecedented crisis, the pandemic. And so that really, I guess, gave me a greater sense of urgency to do something that was more than bits and pieces of looking at leadership.
BH: And it's really comes through in the book that you're somebody who's very consciously and deliberately been exploring these questions of leadership that that you mentioned. And I want to I want to turn to some of those central messages that you bring forward in the book. You have a quote from Aristotle, which I found very powerful. It is, "Excellence is not a mere action, but a habit, what we choose to do repeatedly." And this really gets to the idea of intentionality. Can you share with us please your thoughts about why you feel intentionality is so important to leadership?
RP: I believe now, from all that I've done, that you cannot assume what you did yesterday is okay, for today. You cannot rely on it. It might be in some cases that it is. But you have to be deliberate about it, you have to make a habit of it. You just can't go by instinct alone. Because instinct can be wonderful. It can be that you're insightful. It can be that you've learned a lot, and you're relying on past learnings. So all of that is fine. But it's no longer reliable.
I would say particularly since the pandemic, because the kinds of demands on leaders broadened and deepened in ways that we'd never seen it before, you know, people's hardships, to care for many people, the well being of people, mental health of people. And of course, suddenly the people are working remotely and leading is tough when it's remote as working from home could be. So it brought with it both a welcome thing, but it brought with it a very challenging thing for both leaders and for the workforce. So that's where I go with that. This is not going to happen just by thinking the way you did yesterday. You know, one of my other favorite quotes in the book is Einstein. And you know, this is a long lived, quote, but it's as real today as ever, that "you can't solve problems today with the same level of thinking you had before they were created." Leadership is not timeless. This is what came out loud and clear in this eight to 10 months, hundreds of leaders exploration.
BH: You wrote the book through a period of profound upheaval – how did that influence your process, and did it shape any of the big eight capabilities?
RP: This was done over a period of [meetings with] hundreds of leaders. And over a period of years in a very big post-crisis environment, adapting, changing to this in the meantime, then we're hit with another one. And I think change is not just about when you're in a crisis. Change is all the time. But a crisis brings it to the front.
So we began to think about the change, you know, the concept, for example, of "personal adaptability." It just loomed high. And so as this was being challenged, both in the classroom as well as in my daily life with, with everyone from CEOs to emerging leaders, you could start to look for this, are we seeing enough adaptability. And we didn't always see this, the whole idea, another one of the big eight is "strategic agility." Strategies are so short lived, that you have to see around corners, and I had a strategy for the bank for years. And you know, I was at a time when you could put a strategy in place and assume it was there for five years, you don't five year strategy was not unusual. And you test with the board every year. But that would be like an update.
BH: And certainly things like digitization or external events, like the pandemic, have only re emphasize the importance of being able to be nimble with how you adapt and move your strategies-
RP: That's right, it's nimble, it's flexible, obviously, but it's also open minded. Probably one of the fully underpinning of the Big Eight is an "open mindset." So a mindset that's open to learning, to realizing that you don't have all the answers, to realize that your experience is very good, but it was in another time. I came up with three game changers. And one was the massive way in which we've moved from what really has been a single shareholder mindset to a major stakeholder mindset. And we got into a lot of this in our work, and you know, my studies on this with the real time leaders with real time, day to day examples and struggles. But the second big game changer after the stakeholder, was changing workforce. And my work started on that as early as when the bulk of the millennials began, that's when we saw expectations changing. We saw a more emboldened workplace, and we have a workplace that's made up of multi generational and multicultural. But you can start to see why the human side of leading emerged from this. We see it in general as companies adapt. But we see it from what is out there, this game changers no one is exempt from them.
BH: But I'm so happy that you mentioned the multi-stakeholder environment, because that is so important today, whether you're in a corporate context or not for profit, is the understanding that we serve our clients, we serve our students, our customers, our shareholders. And that has to be top of mind for leaders to bring everybody to the table. You mentioned the pandemic, and I wanted to just turn our spotlight on that for a brief moment. Because it did seem like it was a trial by fire for many leaders, but there was a lot of great things that emerged very quickly when people were forced to innovate and deal with an emergency situation, I wanted you to reflect on it, and what were your thoughts in terms of, were there any positive leadership traits that we stumbled into because of the pandemic that we should try to retain?
RP: The human side of leading, as well as the innovative side of leading, probably were the two that were thrust on us. And people did adapt to them. Some was struggle some more readily. And so I think as we talk about the concepts of whether you call it compassion, or forms of empathy — which are in the Big Eight — these words weren't used as readily before, in the workplace. They were not considered intentionally or otherwise, or they weren't considered to be critical on the list of leader. Now they are in the profile of a leader.
So I feel that the concepts of empathy and listening and caring and being a little more open and not feeling you have all the answers, because you've earned it as being a leader. I mean, this is flawed thinking now. And I do think that those concepts are being adopted and coming out if you like, with a bit of a spotlight now as opposed to being in the shadows. And the other thing that people learned, I think in the pandemic about the concept of empathy, for example, it was always given to the HR side, or it was always expected to be done in a more kind of quiet way. That's not true anymore. it cannot be outsourced and it cannot be automated. I think that this has been aided quite a bit in the pandemic, because it's just been — not demanded, but so essential.
BH: Throughout the writing process you spoke with an impressive network of leaders, including Tiff Macklem — former dean here at Rotman and now the governor of the Bank of Canada — RBC chair Kathleen Taylor, University of Windsor chancellor Mary Jo Heddad, amongst many others. How did you go about choosing those you spoke with?
RP: Well, first, I'll say I didn't choose them by title. And I didn't choose them by the magnitude of their roles. What I wanted to look for were two things: one, executives that had accomplished a great deal, but maybe in a mixture of things — I wanted to mirror a little bit my own background. But I wanted to bring for some of these leading for now, leading after learning leading after setbacks, leading after big defining moments. What surprised me is that where they went, I mean, they all just shared their stories about what I call defining moments. There's a whole chapter in the book dedicated to their defining moments, and their stories about how it triggered them to renew and move to another way of thinking, but more importantly, another way for leading. So intentionality was so big in this. They very intentionally, you know, looked at their defining moments reflected on them, and immediately realized that failure was not an option. And so changing was the choice.
BH: And it really comes through in the interviews you have with them that, although they've had very different and diverse careers, there's a lot of parallels in those leadership journeys. And certainly the defining moments are, are important to that. And I'd love to actually maybe put the spotlight on you for a little bit and to talk about what defining moments have been for you in your career, are there moments of crisis or change that come to mind that have been particularly impactful in your own leadership journey?
RP: Oh, my gosh, how much time do we have?
BH: Take your time.
RP: Yea, well, I just happen to have such a varied journey that there's been a lot of learnings and a lot of defining moments. But at a younger time in my career, I started to spend time in those different geographies. Reaching out North America was a given. So the U.S. and Canada in its different parts. But then, Europe and Asia. And I was actually young when I started setting up operations in those in those countries. I had not had lots of experience with different cultures, different mindsets, different traditions. And don't know that I realized how important it was to understand that aspect of things. And so I had to, I was dumped in the pool kind of thing, and I better swim here.
BH: Right, dropped the deep end.
RP: Like really, failure has never been an option, you know, aren't acceptable, anything. So anyway, here I was having to have translators having to make decisions on setting up operations, which is very important from the point of view of what the organization will do or won't do. And I learned pretty quickly, but I learned it very consciously. Now I have a word for it was very intentionally, I didn't have those words at that time. And it was because I listened so much, because I consulted so much. Today, we call this the whole focus is on inclusion, and respect for differences, allowing dissent, explaining why this is the case. And so those were kind of rudimentary things.
BH: And that, of course, gets to one of the Big Eight in terms of a "strategic agility."
RP: Exactly right. And open to doing it a bit differently.
BH: One of your other Big Eight focuses on the "importance of character," and values and empathy in a leader. And these are what some might call softer skills, they're certainly not technical skills. And they're, they're challenging to learn. And they require self awareness and self reflection. And I'm wondering, in the roles you've had, where you are a mentor to other people, or providing advice and counsel, how do you advise leaders to self reflect and become more self aware?
RP: Yes. So it is about this a wonderful, big question. In a sense, it's about self awareness. It's about reflection and learning about yourself, trying to measure yourself against something. But in particular, one of the big eight is called "certainty of character." We don't often talk about character. You know, in the aftermath of the financial crisis with all of the scandals and deceit, and the very obvious things that happened, it did point to trust. It even pointed to honesty, you know, because lying and stealing, which is sometimes thought of in this context, became, you know, quite evident.
BH: It wasn't just a technical problems. These were humans making decisions. They were value based
RP: That's exactly right. And so we did it, I was part of a big study at that time on "did leadership make a difference in that crisis? And if so, what were some of the areas?" That's where the concept of being explicit about character, rather than silent about it, came to me and I started to be explicit. When I look at leadership, I look at a character in the sense of who you are? What you stand for? And in your obligation to lead other people, what is it that you're expected to show? So it's not about the usual honesty elements. It is about who you are, how you lead and what you stand for. So I've actually identified in the book five, what I call, character indicators. And they are proven to be and what every stakeholder looks for, but particularly your employees, because they fundamentally are driven by trust. And I call it truth, trust and transparency. But there's five indicators every day, I'll give you only one example. Because we've all had it in our careers. And that is forgiveness. You know, that is an element of character. And yet how many times as we go through our careers do we hear, "Remember when...," and you bring up a mistake that you've made, you know, eight years ago? And it's like, where's this black book? And when is this going to stop? That's not forgiveness. That's that's not letting go.
BH: Rose, you brought up the importance of character and values, but also for people to reflect on the positive impact that they're having on those around them. And you write in the book, that one of the most important duties for leaders is to ensure that their team is empowered to become leaders themselves, that there's a pipeline within their organization so people can advance and achieve their own leadership potential. How do you advise managers to keep that in mind and what should they be focused on how they can develop and support the people who report to them to eventually become leaders themselves?
RP: You will hear me say that leadership starts with you. So the thing not to do is every time something happens, you know, look to someone else for the blame. Look to yourself first. So what could I have done differently? So this is what I call "self renewal and self awareness." Self awareness is very different from self image.
Because we're never asking you to change your personality. You couldn't anyway. We're asking you to change your behavior. And that's dictated by being worthy for whatever it is you're doing. And so it's in that context that I move people immediately to look in the mirror yourself. And then you start to be really qualified to look to others to see what it is that they could be better doing. I think we're far too general in the way in which we assess people — if and when we do, some people are never really assessed in terms of being given direct and actual feedback. But we're getting much better at this, I think, in our leadership world. But we're still not specific enough. You know, that's why I went to such specificity for what is needed now to lead well in this world. And I think that leaders in order to develop other leaders need to be bit more specific as that's how people learn. People know then what it is, and they know why they might be doing it. So there's a lot of motivation there for it.
BH: It's a great point. And I know that managers and leaders are sometimes shy about giving that feedback. But it's ironic, because people actually crave feedback, especially if it empowers them to do their job more effectively. Yeah.
RP: Yeah. Because that's what they want to, we all want the same thing. The other example that I would use, and that's in my book as well, is that we as leaders need to understand that we don't have all the answers. So it's okay to be a little vulnerable and admit to that. But you seek it from others. That's where you get this concept now of more distributed leadership, as opposed to, just all very hierarchical. And so I focused quite a bit on the whole idea of leaders really are no longer they shouldn't be any longer the heroes. They're the navigators. Right. And teams become the heroes, but that happens with your help.
BH: Right. Well, certainly one of the questions that leaders are really trying to navigate and understand right now is the notion of the great resignation. And so many companies and organizations over the past couple of years have had a lot of turnover and a lot of friction within the job market as people move into different positions, different industries, and really figure out what's next for them. I'm wondering what your observations have been about this phenomenon, and how can leaders utilize intentional leadership to respond to this trend?
RP: Yeah, well, you know, intentional leadership is not a big fancy panacea. Intentional leadership is a mindset. It's a mindset that says, "you are going to pause and focus on what is different about this problems in front of me." And find ways of learning what is different so as not to make the assumption of what it might have been like yesterday, because it's not very reliable and likely not the same. So this is the first point.
I think that the big issue I've mentioned is the changing work workplace, the changing workforce. And so that's where I think the great resignation that we talked about, you know, the mass exodus of people. I think that comes from the fact that it's been building for quite a few years. It didn't just come about. It just became more acute in the pandemic. And I think the kind of significant move to a hybrid models made it that much more brilliant in the spotlight. And of course, it's our biggest problem right now, because your talent is your greatest asset. And if you're losing them, it doesn't bode well for your success. So it's gotten attention in a big way.
But I think what we learn from it — and it's not all settled yet — what we learn from it is that employees workforces can be stakeholders as well. They just have different expectations than they did, you know, even two years ago. And so really, the onus is on leaders to understand that. And I think that leaders sometimes worry about it appearing that they have to do what's asked and or there's too much demand. Leaders still are leading, but they do need to understand what they're leading and how they're leading and it only comes from listening from, showing some care from, [and] empathizing. And people are happy if they know why you're doing things. They still might leave. But then that might be the best decision, because that's not for them. But I do think that everyone expects and is quite emboldened now, in wanting to know the why of things.
BH: Yeah, that that question of purpose seems more central than ever, and for leaders to really understand the context in which they're leading their teams. And as you said, the pandemic and changes in the workforce, they were game changers. And so the context is different. Now. It's very different than what it was before.
RP: I like your point about the fact that it this is another I think, new focal point, that's now getting a lot of attention — and rightly so it's not a fad — and that is companies are looking at their purpose, because this is a lot of questioning coming from the workforce about, they're looking for purpose. And that's not a well defined one yet, but it is now getting lots of attention. But one of my senior people that I conversed with in the book had a wonderful statement, which says it all I think, and he said, "Well, we're at a time where intention drives purpose, purpose, drives intention."
BH: Well, it's a great, it's a great note for us to think about. And it really gets at the heart of the message in your book. This has been so fabulous Rose. As we wrap up, I know our listeners are going to look forward to reading your book and understanding it more deeply. But if you had one piece of advice for all of us to take away to focus on today and tomorrow, about how we can be more intentional, what would it be?
RP: I think to be intentional; you need to be reflective. So reflection comes first. And people think of reflection, as you know, a big thing to do, or I don't have time to reflect and reasons for why they don't have time. All of this is understandable. It's human nature. But at the end of the day, it'll be about your pausing about your reflecting on how did that go? What could I have done better? And could I have made that better in some way as an outcome? That's simple question. If you're sincere with yourself, you won't have any trouble finding things that you might have done better. I mean, we're human, we all have improvements to make. But start there, start with yourself. And that's it. Take the intention, and then the action to do something about it. I say pick only one thing from you know, if you've read the book, or just looking at yourself as it is. And you don't do more than three people one or two or three. And you know, I would say pick. One is to be intentional, and start being intentional.
BH: Well, it's great advice to start with yourself, because that is ultimately what you can control in life and you can't control always the context or others but start with yourself.
Thank you Rose for this conversation. Thank you for your insights and we're delighted to have you as part of our speaker series here at Rotman.
Rose's book, again, is Intentional Leadership — The Big eight Capabilities Setting Leaders Apart, available at booksellers everywhere. It's full of powerful and practical ideas that really seem needed now more than ever.
This has been Rotman Visiting Experts, backstage discussions with world class thinkers and researchers from our acclaimed speaker series. To find out about upcoming speakers and events visiting us here at Canada's leading business school, please visit rotman.utoronto.ca/events This episode was produced by Megan Haynes, recorded by Dan Mazzotta and edited by Damian Kearns. For more innovative thinking head over to the Rotman Insights Hub, and please subscribe to this podcast on Spotify, Apple podcasts or Google podcasts.
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