Is your leadership symbolic enough?
Your personal brand matters. If you lead people or have to influence them, you should be purposeful about the symbols that exist around you, as they can have a huge effect on whether people choose to follow you.
Symbols are a visual representation of who you are, what you believe and what you ultimately stand for. People will infer many things about your character and values based on the artefacts that surround you on a day-to-day basis. And that includes the company you keep, to quote the old adage and proverb.
Symbols resonate with people in the same way that stories and mental images do.
They connect people to you at a visceral level, which makes the bond even more powerful than your words alone. You might say that a symbol is a visual metaphor that tells a story.
In the movie, Hidden Figures, NASA's director uses a sledge hammer to bash down the 'Coloured Ladies Bathroom' sign at their headquarters in 1961. As you can imagine, it would be a challenge to rally people together under a 'one team' banner when they have to use separate toilets based on their race.
After the director smashes the sign to bits, he says, "At NASA, we all pee the same colour."
That scene is a powerful example of how symbolism resonates viscerally: the sledge hammer breaking down a barrier that prevented the NASA team from feeling connected as one.
In 1992 when Nelson Mandela was elected president of South Africa, he chose to not change the colours in the national rugby team's uniforms from the traditional green & gold, which many blacks associated with the apartheid era.
Mandela's choice was a symbolic gesture to South Africans: those same two colours, when worn by a multi-racial team, could ignite passion rather than resentment. We saw the power of that passion in 1995, when blacks and whites all over South Africa wore their team's colours with tremendous pride.
Baby boomers in America will remember the iconic image of Rosie the Riveter, the woman adorned in a red head scarf, wearing jeans and flexing her muscle - to inspire women into traditional 'male' jobs during World War II, when the male workforce was depleted.
Fast forward 70 years and symbolism continues to convey how the world is changing for the better. On a recent Air New Zealand flight, we were greeted by a female pilot, who then introduced the head flight attendant, who was male. The symbolism behind the gender role reversal confirms how previous barriers are tumbling down.
We are hard-wired for symbols.
Carl Jung, the famous psychoanalyst, believed that symbols speak to archetypes that are embedded in our collective human psyche. Fire speaks to power and is associated with masculine energy. Water speaks to nourishment and is associated with feminine energy. Light loads on optimism and hope while darkness tends to provoke anxiety and despair.
The image of a brilliant rainbow demonstrates the power of a symbol. It seems almost impossible to stare at a rainbow without feeling optimistic. The symbolism behind the image is captivating to humans. The blend of those vibrant colours opens your thinking to endless possibilities. You 'feel' hope on the other side of that arch.
Your brain is hard-wired for connection - and you have to go deeper than logical persuasion to make those connections happen. In the business world, the tide has turned in favour of EQ, with stronger evidence showing that logic will only get you so far.
You know from experience that it is difficult to stimulate trust and passion for something through a rational argument. This is why leaders now tell more personal stories in their presentations. A story stimulates a connection between memory and emotion, which causes people to tell that story later as if they actually lived it themselves.
The limbic brain, which sits beneath your grey matter, is far more important if you want people to 'feel' your cause. For some things that truly matter, the connection has to be deeper than what you get from a factual slide deck.
People do not connect viscerally to workplace safety through compliance manuals. But watch what happens when you tell a story about a colleague or relative who was injured in a preventable accident. Unlike a safety manual, a personal story evokes empathy, which is fuelled by higher levels of the trust hormone, oxytocin. People 'feel' the connection.
Symbols work in the same way. They are visual images that represent an idea - which also spark empathy. Intuitively, people determine whether to trust you based on those images around you. Or in some cases, based on what they believe should be there, but isn't.
Like the NASA example, it may be about removing something that is impeding connection. You may actually strengthen the bond with your team if you take the neck tie off. Your teammates may respect you more if you stop copying your manager on every email you send them.
Whether the symbol represents something that you erect or tear down, the end result is the same: people feel a deeper connection to you -and the message that you are trying to get across.
Symbols tell your story.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, the symbols around you can speak volumes about who you are as a person. Or as a team. People determine whether to trust you based largely on the congruence between your words and actions. Symbols count as both, which is why you need to get them right.
An example of congruence: you tell people that you value open communication and they see this reflected in your daily interactions with them. You walk the floors often and have even removed the walls from around your former office, choosing instead to work in an open floor plan with the rest of the team.
An example of incongruence: You say that you value diversity, but you haven't done anything about your plant manager who routinely harasses his female staff. In this case, your failure to take action can be seen as 'symbolic' of your true feelings about diversity - all talk and no action. Remember - choosing to do nothing is a behaviour.
When your words differ from the symbols around you, it is only a matter of time before your credibility slips away. Without credibility, you cannot lead or influence successful outcomes. For this reason alone, you should be more purposeful with your leadership.
Symbols help you to lead with greater purpose. Here are four examples:
1. Projecting Confidence.
Reputedly, George Washington looked good on a horse, which is the iconic way he is portrayed in historical paintings. Already a tall man, Washington's stature was even more pronounced atop Nelson, his trusted horse -a visual image of strength and power that helped to bolster the new nation's confidence.
During periods of stress, what might people infer from your posture, pace and ability to remain focused? Do you focus enough on your own fortitude when you ask people to be strong? Your team will take their cues from you about how confident they should be.
So square those shoulders, look people in the eye and smile when you talk about the future. Your confident posture can become a symbol for employees who seek reassurance from your presence.
2. Leading Change.
If you want your team to embrace change rather than fear it, look for opportunities to disrupt something that you previously put into place. Let them see that you are not afraid to undo your own thinking in order to get a better result for the team.
When you have honest conversations with employees, rather than hiding behind a process, this can help symbolise change as healthy and necessary. Historically, many employees have watched their managers disappear during change initiatives, only to reappear on the other side - unscathed and unaffected.
Show your team that you have 'skin in the game' - the same as them. If you want people to be comfortable with vulnerability, then model what that looks like. You don't need to be perfect and everything doesn't have to be nailed down precisely. When you ask the team to help you think through options, they are far more likely to own the change with you.
3. One Team.
If you profess to be a united team, then work hard to show that unity through symbolism. Some leadership teams choose to sit together, rather than with their functional teams, to reinforce the visual image of being 'one.'
While this may seem superficial at first, the relationships among team members grow stronger because they do spend more time together. Similarly, you can end a historical feud between two teams - simply by having the two team leaders walk the floor together or selecting them to co-sponsor an important project.
The language you use is especially symbolic of harmony or dysfunction. A person who always leads with 'what I need' rather than 'what the team needs' sends a message to the team: my part is more important than the whole.
Do you need to be more purposeful about the symbols that exist around your team?
4. Authenticity.
People respect leaders who are genuine and real. This goes to the heart of your character - what Aristotle referred to as ethos. People are more likely to follow you if they see you as credible, which is ultimately about how believable you are.
You cannot be two-faced and seen as credible. You cannot influence people to follow you if they are confused about which person to follow. Be clear about the values you espouse and then be sure that your actions - and all the symbols around you - reinforce your words.
Be purposeful about your leadership. Pay attention to the symbols that either embellish or detract from the essence of who you are - and what you stand for. Who knows? You may just decide to buy a horse!
Originally written for, and published in the New Zealand Herald.
