The importance of leaders with perspective

One of my favorite bloggers, The Mama Bee, writes

A few years ago in a board of directors meeting, the president of my company was in the middle of a presentation when her cell phone rang; she looked at the display and saw that her son was calling.  Concerned that there might be an emergency, she took the call, found out that there was nothing serious awry, and said good-bye quickly.

At the time I thought this might compromise her credibility as an executive with the directors, who had to sit around the table waiting for a minute or so while she spoke with her son.  But in retrospect, I realize that the result was just the opposite.  Why?  Taking the call showed that she had perspective.  She understood that there was something more important than this presentation — the safety of her child.

Companies want rational managers with perspective.  The ability to discern real crises from red herrings, big picture ideas from short-term fixes, and important activities from marginal is a critical skill.  The call from her son could have been an emergency; once she had determined that it wasn’t, the president had the information she needed to know that the meeting was a higher priority than the call.  She didn’t make the decision on instinct, she made it based on facts.

Perspective and prioritization go hand in hand, and both are sorely lacking in today’s work environments.  If they want to get ahead, women in particular are challenged every day to “prove” that their jobs mean as much or more than their families — a completely irrational premise.  A person who suggests that their work is paramount doesn’t have perspective, and that’s a red flag.  It suggests that they might be equally myopic in other areas.  Furthermore, a lack of clear priorities causes workers to put in longer hours for no greater gain.

Perspective is a powerful word. In her new book Mind in the Making, Ellen Galinsky writes about how important it is to teach our kids the critical skill of perspective taking. Part of this includes putting on another’s shoes and thinking, how does it feel to be them right now? In my mind, perspective as Mama Bee describes it above and the skill of taking another’s perspective are aligned. And both are essential qualities of leaders. If we are able to inform decisions by both the ability to really know what is important in the long-run, and the ability to truly be curious and empathize with others, we can only be more effective leaders.