Six keys to leading positive change: Rosabeth Moss Kanter at TEDxBeaconStreet

Summary

This inspiring talk shares six key leadership lessons for making a positive impact. The speaker emphasizes the importance of showing up, using your voice, aligning with values, forming partnerships, persevering through challenges, and uplifting others. Through powerful examples, including Barack Obama, Nelson Mandela, and social initiatives like the Clean Cookstoves Project, the talk illustrates how these principles can drive meaningful change. The message encourages everyone, regardless of age or position, to embrace leadership and contribute to a better world.

Takeaways

• 😀 Show up: Being present and available is the first step toward leadership and success.
• 🗣️ Speak up: Use the power of your voice to share ideas, frame issues, and shape discussions.
• 👀 Look up: Keep a focus on higher principles, values, and vision to inspire others and stay on course.
• 🤝 Team up: Collaboration and partnerships are essential to achieving big goals.
• 💪 Never give up: Persistence through challenges and obstacles is key to success.
• 🙌 Lift others up: Share credit and success to create a supportive environment and elevate others.
• 🌱 Leadership can start at any age: Examples like Katie's Krops show that even children can make a big impact.
• 💡 Influence through ideas: Thought leadership can be as powerful as formal authority in creating change.
• 🏗️ Build together: Successful ventures often come from bringing separate efforts into alignment through teamwork.
• 🙏 Resilience and forgiveness: Leaders like Nelson Mandela demonstrate the strength of perseverance, even after great adversity.

Q & A

What is the speaker's primary goal in their work?

The speaker's primary goal is to provide others with leadership skills to help them make the world a better place.

What does the speaker believe is the first universal leadership lesson?

The first universal leadership lesson is 'show up.' Being present and making oneself available is essential for leadership, as nothing happens if you don’t show up.

Why does the speaker emphasize the importance of 'speaking up' in leadership?

Speaking up is important because no one knows what you're thinking unless you express it. The power of voice helps shape the agenda, frame issues, and influence others' thinking.

How does the speaker define the concept of 'looking up' in leadership?

'Looking up' refers to focusing on higher principles, values, and a bigger vision. Leadership needs to be grounded in a sense of purpose and vision to elevate others beyond everyday challenges.

What role does 'teaming up' play in successful leadership?

Teaming up is crucial because partners make difficult tasks easier. The best projects and ventures thrive when there’s a strong sense of partnership and collaboration.

What is Kanter’s Law, and how does it apply to leadership?

Kanter’s Law states that 'everything can look like a failure in the middle.' This reflects the idea that leadership involves perseverance, as obstacles are inevitable, and success often requires overcoming mid-project difficulties.

Why is 'lifting others up' considered a key element of leadership?

Lifting others up is essential because it ensures that success is shared and recognized by the broader team. It builds support and creates an environment where success can be repeated.

How does the speaker connect Barack Obama’s leadership to the lesson of 'showing up'?

The speaker uses Barack Obama’s rise from a relatively obscure state senator to the U.S. presidency as an example of 'showing up.' Obama’s keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention was the moment he showed up and gained wider recognition.

Can anyone start a social venture, according to the speaker?

Yes, the speaker believes that anyone, regardless of age, can start a social venture. They give the example of Katie, who started Katie’s Krops to feed the homeless at just nine years old.

What example does the speaker give of 'teaming up' for social progress?

The speaker mentions the Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, a project spearheaded by Hillary Clinton, which brought together governments, businesses, and NGOs to solve the problem of unsafe cooking practices in developing countries.

Outlines

00:00

🌍 Providing Tools for Leadership and Positive Change

The speaker reflects on how they provide others with tools to make the world a better place by teaching leadership skills. They share the story of Katie, a young girl who was recognized by President Clinton for feeding the homeless at the age of nine. The speaker emphasizes that anyone, regardless of age, can start something meaningful. The key is showing up, as demonstrated by Barack Obama, who went from an obscure state senator to becoming the president of the United States after delivering a keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention.

05:03

🗣️ The Power of Voice in Leadership

The speaker discusses the importance of speaking up and using one's voice to express thoughts, shape agendas, and influence others. They share examples of leaders who used their voices to inspire action, such as a Brazilian journalist who transformed a neighborhood into a 'learning neighborhood' and Ellen Goodman, who started the Conversation Project to encourage end-of-life discussions. These examples highlight how individuals can lead through the power of their voice, even without formal authority.

10:06

👁️ Looking Up: Leadership Through Vision and Values

The speaker emphasizes the importance of having a vision and adhering to values in leadership. They highlight how leaders who remind their teams of a higher purpose inspire hope and progress. Examples include great companies like IBM and Procter & Gamble, which uphold values beyond just profit. The speaker shares a personal lesson from a Harvard project, where starting meetings by reminding the team of their mission lifted spirits and reinforced their purpose.

15:12

🤝 Teaming Up for Success

The speaker highlights the importance of partnerships in achieving great things. They discuss the role of collaboration in technology startups like Google and Facebook, as well as social enterprises such as City Year. A significant example is the Clean Cookstove Project, where Secretary Hillary Clinton teamed up with governments, businesses, and NGOs to address the health hazards of cooking on open fires in the developing world. The speaker underscores that teamwork is key to solving global challenges and achieving sustainable progress.

💪 Never Give Up: Overcoming Challenges

The speaker introduces 'Kanter's Law,' which states that everything can look like a failure in the middle. They explain that leaders often face obstacles and critics, but persistence is key to success. Examples include a colleague, Dr. Donald Berwick, who spent over 20 years advocating for healthcare quality improvements, and Nelson Mandela, who endured 27 years of imprisonment before becoming South Africa’s first democratically elected president. The speaker encourages perseverance, even when the journey is long and difficult.

🙌 Lifting Others Up Through Shared Success

In the final point, the speaker talks about the importance of lifting others up once success is achieved. Sharing credit, recognition, and the fruits of success fosters an environment where future success is possible. Leaders who elevate others create a positive cycle of support and collaboration, which helps sustain progress. The speaker concludes by summarizing the six leadership lessons: show up, speak up, look up, team up, never give up, and lift others up.

Keywords

💡Leadership

Leadership in the video is presented as the ability to influence and guide others toward a common goal. The speaker emphasizes that leadership involves showing up, speaking up, and providing tools for others to make the world a better place. Examples include figures like Barack Obama and Nelson Mandela, who led through their actions and inspired change.

💡Show up

This concept is about the importance of being present and making oneself available in situations where leadership is needed. The speaker cites the example of Barack Obama, who showed up and gave a keynote speech that elevated him to national prominence. Showing up is the first step in making a difference and becoming a leader.

💡Power of voice

The power of voice refers to the influence one can exert through communication. Speaking up means sharing ideas, shaping agendas, and framing issues. The video illustrates this with examples like Ellen Goodman, who started the Conversation Project, using her voice to encourage end-of-life conversations and create a broader impact.

💡Vision and values

Vision and values are crucial elements of effective leadership. Leaders must have a higher purpose or principle to guide their actions and inspire others. The speaker mentions that companies like IBM and Procter & Gamble embody these qualities, leading not just for profit but for a greater cause. This aligns with the idea that leadership should be driven by a mission.

💡Team up

Teaming up means partnering with others to achieve common goals. The video emphasizes that nearly all worthwhile endeavors are challenging to accomplish alone. It cites the example of the Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, where governments, businesses, and NGOs came together to solve a global problem, showcasing how collaboration can drive significant progress.

💡Never give up

Persistence is highlighted as a key trait of successful leaders. The speaker introduces 'Kanter's Law,' which states that everything can look like a failure in the middle. Examples like Nelson Mandela's perseverance through 27 years in prison illustrate the importance of not giving up, even when faced with significant obstacles.

💡Lift others up

This concept involves sharing success and giving credit to others, fostering an environment where more achievements are possible. The speaker suggests that by lifting others up, leaders can build support and ensure the continuation of positive outcomes. This is a vital part of creating a community where leadership and success are sustained.

💡Social venture

A social venture is an initiative aimed at addressing societal issues while also being sustainable. The speaker encourages viewers to consider starting social ventures, highlighting examples like Katie's Krops, a project started by a young girl to feed the homeless. Social ventures are portrayed as avenues for making a positive impact at any age.

💡Thought leadership

Thought leadership involves influencing others through ideas and intellectual contributions. The speaker talks about how framing issues and shaping agendas are forms of thought leadership. This type of leadership is crucial for driving change, as it helps guide the way others think about and approach problems.

💡Global partnerships

Global partnerships refer to the collaborative efforts of various entities, such as governments, businesses, and NGOs, to address worldwide issues. An example given in the video is the Clean Cookstove Project, which brought together diverse partners to tackle the problem of women cooking on open fires, demonstrating the power of collective action in creating global solutions.

Highlights

The speaker shares their goal of providing leadership skills to help others make the world a better place.

The first universal lesson of leadership is 'showing up'—being present and available can make a significant difference.

Peter Sellers’ movie 'Being There' serves as an analogy for how showing up and being present can lead to unexpected leadership roles.

Using the power of voice to express thoughts and frame issues is the second key leadership lesson.

Women in leadership are encouraged to speak up, as their voices matter just as much as anyone else’s.

Framing the agenda and naming the problem can make one the most influential person in a meeting.

The Brazilian journalist transformed an entire neighborhood into a 'learning neighborhood' by using the power of voice.

The third leadership lesson is 'looking up'—leaders should focus on higher principles, values, and a bigger vision to inspire others.

Companies with strong values, such as IBM and Procter & Gamble, focus on achieving something beyond just making money.

The fourth leadership lesson is 'teaming up'—partners and collaboration make big goals achievable.

The Clean Cookstove Project is a global initiative led by Secretary Hillary Clinton to improve health by providing cleaner cooking options.

The fifth leadership lesson is 'never give up'—obstacles are part of the journey, and persistence is crucial for success.

The speaker introduces Kanter's Law: 'Everything can look like a failure in the middle.' Overcoming challenges leads to success.

Nelson Mandela’s perseverance during 27 years of imprisonment is highlighted as an iconic example of leadership resilience.

The sixth leadership lesson is 'lifting others up'—sharing success and credit builds future support and encourages collective achievement.

Transcripts

Translator: Tanya Cushman Reviewer: Peter van de Ven

A few years ago,

I ran into a colleague I hadn't seen for a long time,

who said, "What are you working on now?"

And I said - I was in that kind of mood -

I said, "Oh, making the world a better place."

And he said, "Could you pin that down just a little bit?"

Well, I realized that what I actually do

is I try to provide other people tools for making the world a better place

by giving them leadership skills.

So what's your goal?

Do you simply want to get things done and maybe improve them a little?

Do you want to start something, maybe a social venture?

You can be any age to do that.

I was amazed when Katie of Katie's Krops

got an award from President Bill Clinton

for a venture she started to feed the homeless

when she was nine years old.

So anybody can start something.

Do you want to start something?

Do you want to grow something?

Do you want to start a business? Do you want to lead a big business?

Or do you just want to make the world a better place?

The leadership lessons for being effective at doing that

are things that I have learned

from working with tens of thousands of leaders

in dozens and dozens of countries all over the world,

and I'd like to boil them down to six positive things

that help us keep things moving up

or in a positive direction of progress.

The first is the universal lesson of life,

which is show up.

If you don't show up, nothing really happens.

I remember a Peter Sellers' movie of a number of years ago

called "Being There."

And it was a very instructive story

because Peter Sellers played a fairly ignorant man,

Chance, the gardener.

And he was just hanging around the place where he did gardening

when a very important meeting was about to take place.

As people arrived for the meeting,

they didn't know that he was only helping at the house,

so they said, "Who are you?"

and he said, "Chance the gardener."

And immediately, people misunderstood and called him Chauncey Gardiner,

invited him into the meeting,

and he ended up solving their problems.

Well, it was a comedy, but I thought how real that is.

The very fact of showing up, of making oneself available,

of deciding that your presence makes a difference,

is the first key to leadership.

And I think about President Barack Obama of the United States.

He's been reelected,

but he started out, basically, by showing up.

He was a fairly obscure state senator from the State of Illinois

when asked to give the keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention.

He showed up, he gave the speech, and the rest is history.

Being there makes a difference, but that's only the starting point,

that you're in the situation.

The second lesson that I've learned is that it's important to speak up,

to use the power of voice.

No one knows what we're thinking if we don't express it.

I say this to my students at Harvard Business School all the time

because people get graded on class participation,

and you know, there are some people

who think they're entitled to have all the air time,

and so they often just talk and continue to talk

until finally they hit upon something they really have to say.

(Laughter)

But there are others in the class,

and sometimes it's the women that I have to encourage,

that they can own that air space too.

Sometimes I'll say, "Why aren't you speaking?"

And they said, "I want to make sure that I really have something to say."

And I point out to them that the men didn't feel that way -

just do it, just talk.

However, the power of voice is not simply words.

The power of voice is shaping the agenda,

framing issues for other people,

helping them think about it in a different way.

This is why thought leaders can be leaders,

because they influence the thinking of other people.

Have you gone to meetings

where you've noticed that whoever is running the meeting,

the person who ends up as the most influential,

is the one who names the problem and gives people an idea for action,

and that gets things moving, that gets things started.

I think about a Brazilian I know whom I think the world of.

He's a journalist, and yet as a journalist,

he has managed -

through his columns

but also through suggesting to other people

actions that they could take -

he has managed to transform an entire neighborhood in Brazil

into what he calls "the learning neighborhood,"

where kids now not only learn in school,

the entire neighborhood is mobilized to help them learn.

And that learning neighborhood

has helped make this section of São Paulo considered an upscale section.

I just saw it in an airline magazine, so it must be true.

(Laughter)

But my journalist friend

did this entirely through encouraging many separate people.

He didn't have power; he was just a writer.

He is just a writer.

What he did was encourage many different people

through the power of his voice:

"Why don't you do this? Why don't you do that?

We have a problem. Let's fix education."

The power of voice is big,

and I'm thinking about another journalist I know,

using the power of voice in a very powerful way.

It's Ellen Goodman,

whom many people know, in the United States in particular,

as a former syndicated columnist,

who went through some things with her own family

and decided that it's time to have end-of-life conversations.

And as an individual using her power of voice,

she has created something called the Conversation Project,

which now has as a media partner ABC,

and they are spreading the idea

that one should just talk about preferences for end of life

so that people can have a humane ending of the kind they want.

But it's entirely the power of voice.

So speaking up is the second attribute of leadership.

The third is to look up.

Look up at some higher principle,

bigger issue, bigger vision,

values.

Without vision and values, leadership is hollow.

No matter what it is that you want to achieve,

it's always important to remember the principles.

And when I say "higher principles" and "looking up,"

I'm not thinking about spiritual matters,

but for some people, they would take it that way.

I'm simply thinking about how important it is

for any leader to know what they stand for

and to be able to elevate people's eyes from everyday problems,

which bog us down,

in the weeds,

difficult to deal with.

And we're in troubled times now, in the world,

and what we need is leaders who help us get above that,

to gain a sense of hope

but also to remember what's truly fundamental in our values,

and the best leaders do that.

In fact, one of my most recent books is about great companies.

I realize I say that advisedly,

that many people wonder if there are any great companies.

But there are some truly great companies:

IBM, for example, Procter & Gamble,

a bank in Brazil, a bank in Korea -

amazing that there can be good banks -

companies that I've seen all over the world

that stand for vision and values.

When their leaders lead,

they're constantly reminding people of a nobler purpose.

It isn't just making money;

we're trying to achieve something for the world.

That's what we get from looking up.

I've learned this in my own work in a project I manage at Harvard.

We can get bogged down in the details -

believe me, academic politics aren't fun.

There are always things that we have to work on.

It can really drag you down.

And a wise person,

who was one of the first people to work on this project with me,

said, "You know, we should remember

to start every meeting by reminding ourselves of our mission,

reminding ourselves of what we stand for."

And you know, that lifts the spirits like nothing else.

There's a purpose; there's a reason that we're doing this,

and that's going to stand us in good stead when I get a few skills down.

But the fourth skill -

and why vision and values matter, in part -

the fourth skill is team up.

Team up.

Everything goes better with partners.

Nearly anything worth doing is very difficult to do alone,

and the best enterprises, the best projects, the best ventures

are one where there's a sense of partnership from the beginning.

I did a study with a colleague about technology start-ups,

some of them very famous,

and in recent years, which ones came to dominant the industry?

Like Google in search, not AltaVista.

Like Facebook rather than Myspace.

And one of the things we discovered,

besides having a good value proposition,

was that they had more and better partners faster.

Partners matter.

For the best social enterprises that I see around the world

including one I'm very proud of -

I happen to be on the national board of this forever.

It's an international national service organization

called City Year.

And City Year was founded by four partners.

Two of the co-founders continue to build it and grow it,

and there was a sense of teaming from the beginning.

Finding partners who believe is essential.

And when you find partners,

then you can do incredible things in the world.

Here's something that many people may not know

about Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Hillary Clinton is very interested in solving problems of the world

from her position at the State Department,

which has development, social progress on its agenda

and not only international diplomacy.

But she sees development as a part of diplomacy,

and she also wants to solve problems that disproportionately affect women.

And there's been a problem in the world,

known for a long time.

It's the problem of women cooking on open fires.

In fact, more women die from cooking on open fires

than from major diseases in the developing world.

That was something I didn't know

until I learned about the Clean Cookstove Project.

So Secretary Clinton and her office of global partnerships

picked this up and created a massive teaming up

of governments and businesses and NGOs all over the world,

and finally,

the Alliance for Clean Cookstoves is beginning to make progress

in building an industry in which households, women,

can have affordable access to clean cookstoves,

which means, by the way, no air pollution.

It means they can cook in their home without worrying about it burning up.

Otherwise, they had the cookstoves at a distance from the home.

A massive example of teaming up,

and that's how we're going to solve the problems of the world in the future,

by the way - make the world a better place -

is because we take lots of separate efforts

and we bring them together,

aligned in one big team.

So now I've had four skills, and I want to get to the fifth,

which is never give up -

because of something that I coined a while ago,

I call it Kanter's Law; I hope you do too.

Kanter's Law is that everything can look like a failure in the middle.

There's almost nothing we start

that doesn't hit an obstacle, a road block.

It takes longer than we imagined because we'd never done it before.

It may take longer just to convene the first meeting.

I sometimes have my MBA students do an action plan,

and they say, "Week One - change the strategy.

Week Two - implement."

Well, you know, that's not realistic.

I mean, middles are very, very difficult.

You hit a bump in the road you didn't know was there,

because you've never gone down the path before.

The critics surface; they start attacking.

It doesn't work the way it was envisioned -

true of all kinds of technology -

you have to go back to the drawing board.

And so never give up.

Because if you give up, by definition, it's a failure.

You've stopped prematurely.

If you keep going, persist and persevere,

find a way around the obstacles,

flexibly redesign,

often you can produce a success.

Sometimes it's not the success you first imagined.

A lot of technology

turns out to be applied in ways we had never thought of in the beginning.

But that ability to hang in there and not give up is a hallmark of leaders.

I mean, I think about a friend and colleague in my own area,

Dr. Donald Berwick, who was recently the chief administrator for Medicare,

the biggest health program in the United States.

Well, for 20 or more years,

he has been pursuing the idea of quality in healthcare,

he's been pursuing the idea

of innovation to raise quality and reduce costs.

And do you know that it sometimes takes 17 years

to get an innovation in healthcare

from the mind of those who dream it up into use?

That's an amazingly long time, but he never gave up.

And my iconic example of a leader that we should all aspire to emulate

is Nelson Mandela,

the first democratically elected president of South Africa.

He was in prison for 27 years

and didn't give up.

Finally, emerged from prison to be elected president,

first democratically elected president.

You know, sometimes my students say, "27 years in prison."

And he emerged without a feeling of revenge.

He emerged ready to get on with it, just interrupted in the middle -

get on with it and build a country.

They say, "I could never do that. I could never feel that much forgiveness."

Well, I think, we hope, that you're not in prison for 27 years,

we hope that your middles are shorter and sweeter,

but find your inner Mandela.

Find the strength to persist

even against the naysayers, the critics and the obstacles

because that's what makes a difference between success and failure.

And then when you get to the point

where it looks like what you're doing is working,

it's taking hold, you have the first pilot,

you have a little more support,

you do the sixth thing, which is lift others up.

Share success,

the credit, the recognition,

the idea of giving back once you have a success

because that's what creates an environment in which you can do it again,

you can do it the next time.

You build support rather than lose support.

You must feel positively about the achievement

but make sure other people feel elevated by what you do as well.

So that, quickly, are six secrets of success

if you want things to continue to be up:

Show up.

Speak up.

Look up.

Team up.

Never give up.

And lift others up.

Thank you.

(Applause)