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"What's the Big Idea" is a new podcast featuring University of Manitoba President and Vice-Chancellor Michael Benarroch in conversation with some of today's big thinkers. Together, they’ll unpack “the big idea” their work explores. A series featuring an exciting and diverse array of voices from the UM community contributing to the cultural, social, and economic well-being of the people of Manitoba, Canada, and the world.
University of Manitoba: “What’s the Big Idea?”
Series 2, Episode 4- Susanne Gagnon
TITLE:
How leaders can remain relevant in the changing global context with Suzanne Gagnon
TRANSCRIPT
INTRODUCTION
Roselinde Torres:
What makes a great leader today? Many of us carry this image of this all knowing superhero who stands and commands and protects his followers. But that’s kind of an image from another time. What’s also outdated are the leadership development programs that are based on success models for a world that was, not a world that is, or a world that is coming.
Brene Brown:
When we think of a leader we think of pin stripes, shoulder pads and a C-Suite office. I’ve been in those offices and couldn’t find a leader to save my life. And I’ve been around everyday people that would never identify as a leader and then been surrounded by them. I recently asked John Meacham I said “what would you say to people who don’t think they’re leaders” and he said “then you don’t understand democracy, we all have to lead.
MAIN MUSIC STARTS
Hello, I’m Michael Benarroch, President of the University of Manitoba. Welcome to season two of my podcast, “What’s the Big Idea?” I’m excited to share more conversations with big thinkers from the UM community who are contributing to the cultural, social, and economic well-being of Manitoba, Canada, and the world. Together, we’ll unpack the “big idea” their work explores. With topics ranging from health research to climate science to social justice, there’s something for everyone.
MUSIC SWELLS
Michael:
Leadership is something a lot of people talk about, write books about and study. It's a hot topic because we are always in need of good leaders. And my guest today is someone who is exceptionally qualified to speak about leadership. Dr. Suzanne Gagnon is the Associate Dean of Professional graduate programs at UMS IH Asper School of Business, the inaugural director of the Burns Leadership Institute and the Canada Life Chair in Leadership Education. Her big idea will make you a better leader. Enjoy.
MUSIC SWELLS AND THEN ENDS
MAIN INTERVIEW:
Michael: To begin today it's a question I've been asking all of our guests. What is your big idea?
Suzanne:
Well, thank you for having me. It's wonderful to be on this side of the interview. And my big idea is that leaders whether they're executive leaders, tops of organizations, or even emerging developing leaders can no longer be focused on planning or even strategy or even how competitive they are with, other folks in their ecosystem. They have to lead from the outside in. So we developed this concept of leading from the outside in to respond to really what is, you know, increasing complexity, increasing interconnectedness among organizations, among countries, among different entities in the world. This is at a global level, and we really learned and developed this concept through some research during covid, which we can talk about a little bit further. But I see right now two applications of this idea of leading from the outside in.
So, senior leaders need to focus outward and are forced to respond in many cases, to things that are outside of their control. This is quite different from anything we've seen probably since, I don't know, maybe World War ii, on this level. And, you know, some theorists talk about poly crises. So we have wars in the world. We have lingering effects of the pandemic. We have mental health crises. All of these things impose themselves on leaders of all kinds of organizations. So that's the first application. And the second one is something I've been thinking about for a long time, which is about how do we develop our emerging leaders, our young leaders, to have this ability to lead from the outside in?
Michael:
Yeah. And you know, I think, I think we've just come through covid and the Covid pandemic changed so much of, of, of how we behave and how we work as organizations. Mm-Hmm. . And it was a, a crisis of a magnitude. I don't think any leader, maybe since the World War Yeah. Had seen. And, and during it you did some groundbreaking research, which you just spoke about, about in, and you interviewed various CEOs. Mm-Hmm. . So can you tell us, you know, what, what did Covid teach us about Mm-Hmm. staying relevant through change and leading, as you say, from the outside in.
Suzanne:
Thank you, Michael. Yes. It was a fascinating study. Really, really enjoyed it. These CEOs represented many different sectors, manufacturing, financial services and design different types of manufacturing, but also some arts and cultural organizations. We had executive directors, we had nonprofit CEOs. So it was very, very interesting. And what we found looking at all of this data from these very rich interviews, which was in the first year in the heat of the moment during COVID, was that, they shared not only this sense of uncertainty that they had never experienced before, but also that there were several kind of phenomena, that characterized what they were experiencing. So, you know, we write about this idea that they were having to deal with a number of high stakes issues simultaneously. Okay. So, you know, changing patterns of work, changing structure of work, increasing mental health issues in the community.
These things were not necessarily in their control. Truisms of crisis leadership that may have guided leaders in decades previously just didn't hold anymore. So people couldn't foresee an end point to this crisis. I'll come back to the idea of control, you know, the crisis leadership toolkits that we used to teach our MBA students and we'll enhance those now given what we know from covid. But those toolkits often say it's the leader's job to get the message under control, but not only the message, try to control the direction of the organization through managing this, this, difficult situation. Right. But in Covid, what we found and what these leaders told us, is that even though they had to strive for control, it was really outside of their hands in many, many ways.
So this was , a whole new situation. And you know, what we found was that something called systems thinking which is closely related to complexity theory, which you are probably very aware of, gave some guidance and, and helped us to explain some of the things that the leaders , were experiencing. So seeing yourself as one player, one actor within a much broader system than you perhaps had ever foreseen before in terms of orientations to lead and manage in this situation, that idea of seeing yourself as what they call a fractal or one entity that is experiencing things that might be very, very similar to many other organizations who are similar and different from you, and the idea that you can and should learn from them becomes really, really important as well.
Michael:
Mm-Hmm. , you know,, that is interesting. And it's continued since covid. Yeah. Right. Well, just something that came to me that's interesting is Annette Trimbyformer president Yeah. Of University of Winnipeg and still a president.. .at a meeting I was at during Covid in which there were presidents like me who were just starting , but other leaders who had been there for a long time. She made the statement that given covid and what we're experiencing, we're all new presidents now. Right. Which talks to what you've said is that, you know, it was, is a new experience in a different way of looking at our organizations.
Suzanne:
Yes, absolutely. Yes. So I think that's very insightful. And however, I'm sure it was difficult to be a new newly in the position and then confronted with this
Michael:
And, and as I said, it's kind of continued from covid. in the sense that in order to stay relevant now, a leader needs to be able to lead through crisis. Yeah. So we know that, and I think that was always true.. . But now, you know, that crisis might not be of their own making. It's not an internal crisis with the organization or a crisis of reputation of the organization. And what strikes me today is that more crises are relevant to nearly every leader and organization.. as we're seeing now a war on the other side of the world. can create a crisis for a university in Canada or the US or any organization. and it's not just in universities, but in businesses.. and in government and in all leadership positions are facing growing demands to address sociopolitical and cultural issues. . So how do you think we're doing in this respect? And, and what's a way forward?
Suzanne:
Yes. I think one very important piece is to, listen very carefully and be very open to a range of perspectives, a range of voices that may be new to you, that you may not have attended to before, or you may not have had relationships with before. I think that becomes,increasingly important. So I think it's very tough for leaders, right. the stakes are high. and I think the challenges for leaders
Are acute., but doing things the same way as in the past and trying to impose that control and trying to have all the answers yourselves, leaders themselves won't work, right. Because these are multi-factored crises, and there's multiple perspectives on them in many cases. but one of the challenges for leaders is to stay very informedBut you don't have time to read everything., that would be impossible. You can't read about, you know, the history, of a region or an area of the world. Anytime there is a crisis that will impose itself invariably on your organization in some important way. So I think it's very important, to listen and reach out and hear multiple views, and have that network of colleagues and people who may not be colleagues, but who you can develop trust with through listening to them.
And then go forward and take your time. Don't be pressed by what's in the social media. I think that's it's always you know, a burden now on, on senior leaders during a crisis to react to what's being said. But I think it's very important to, be very deliberate and reflective and take into a lead from the outside in terms of taking into account those multiple voices and then go forward. I also think, Michael, that it's not necessary to respond to everything. Right?, it's not necessary. The questions to ask are what do the people in my organization and what do my stakeholders need to hear from me? What can I do? Maybe to bring reassurance, maybe to bring comfort, maybe to bring direction. Is it necessary for them to hear from me on this particular issue or crisis at this time? And think carefully about that question. And there may be internal communications that are important to have.
Michael:
Yeah. And I think, that makes a lot of sense as we go through this, right?so what's interesting about that to me as a, from a leader's perspective, is you've written about this concept of a hero leaders, right?, that the leader would have all the answers. But in fact,, you've just put in place a different paradigm. I have when it comes to this , very much so beyond just, the leader having all the answers and leading, it's in fact something very different. Do you wanna just talk about that a little bit again?
Suzanne:
Absolutely. so I think I've critiqued the hero leader,. And partly through a study on using improvisational theater as a tool to learn leadership, right? And in leadership theory, leadership thinking, we are more and more realizing that leadership is often collective and almost always collaborative. And it has to be of necessity. It has to be, no one person can have all the answers. so I think that, it's incumbent on those in the positions, the buck still stops with you. I fully recognize that this doesn't obviate or take away the need to have a vision to set a common purpose. But those things must and should be done always with others. And in taking into account the community's needs, right? So with our young students who, we develop, we very much think about leading from the outside in for them.
And what that means for them is don't start with a focus on you as maybe the hero who is recognized by your peers as having led in meaningful ways already in your community. You are a hero. There's that's fine, but we're not going to start, like, traditional leadership education would have us with you introspecting and thinking about your strengths and your weaknesses. No, we're going to start by having you look outward, focus on your external environment, lead from the outside and say, what does my community need? Where can I make a difference? What can I learn? Where can I build new relationships that I wouldn't have had otherwise? And how can I set common goals with others? That's very much taking what I used to call an external focus. 'cause I have thought about this for many years,, as you mentioned, but I think it's another form of leading from the outside in. So sometimes it's imposed on us from a crisis, from covid, from all kinds of terrible things that we may not have any control over. But sometimes it's something we can take and be proactive about and say, okay, what does this mean for my own development?
Michael:
And how did you get to that from improvisational acting, what's the connection?
Suzanne:
Improvisation is something that's very, very handy. When you can't plan, things are too uncertain in your environment.
We have to improvise. So what that means is doing your best with what you have and taking what's in your environment to create something new together, that's really what improvisation allows you to do. Yeah. So I think, and I firmly believe it's actually a key set of skills that can help a leader to engage in what we call whole listening.
What's in my environment? What's going on? What are others saying, right? And having that external focus. So really drawing your attention outward and through building ideas together in the moment, you are innovating, okay? So this could apply right in the boardroom, even as it could apply to a leadership development workshop for my students, right? It could apply. And in fact, boardrooms have engaged in these workshops, and they found it easier to build on one another's ideas. And you know, every voice counts., and it's a very flat situation, right? But of course, the position leader is the position leader. We're not taking that away. So the other part of the workshop that we do is what should the position leader do to enable all of these voices to be heard? So there's some skills and abilities connected to that too,
Michael:
Right? And I would think that, you know, if you were the positional leader yeah, you'd have to understand who you had in the room. Yeah. What their skills were.. what their talents were.. and how you would make best use of them. to overcome whatever situation you're facing.
Suzanne:
Right. And I think part of that is you know, creating that encouraging environment that compels people to, to speak and to contribute, right? So, you may not know all their skills, right? However, knowing people's skills is, is very, very important. Right? Oh, we have someone in this room who could actually take this piece and run with it. Right. That's very important as well.
Michael:
So, shifting pace a little. Yeah. It's something we've been talking about a lot in, in our podcasts. 'cause It's important to our university, but I think it's, it's very important in society. , and you've written a lot about it is diversity. . And,I think for organizations, we've heard on this podcast how diversity can enrich organizations and, you've talked about how to keep organizations relevant. through becoming more diverse. And, again,, let's think about it from the leader in the organization. How can a leader lead an organization to become more diverse? Right.
Suzanne:
Yeah. Very, very important question. I think you know, the messages from the leader are very, very important. Setting the tone, the valuing of diversity. Setting policies and practices for recruiting from the broadest possible pool, not arbitrarily leaving some people out of the running for positions at all levels. Simply because they're not necessarily from communities that you've drawn upon before. The leader can also really enact inclusion. in everything that you do, in all of your meetings and all of your relationships. You can speak out and set the tone and advocate for diversity and inclusion. I mean, diversity is critically important. Inclusion and belonging are also very, very important and not not to be taken for granted. So I think it starts, from really setting a tone and stating, giving yourself a mandate to take action and maybe some goals, maybe some firm measures Right. That your organization will work towards.
Michael:
And, and what have you seen from an organizational perspective, those organizations that have really advanced diversity and inclusion. what are you seeing, that really separates them from others?
Suzanne:
. Yes. I think what they do is they don't take diversity and inclusion, as only an HR issue, although they are HR issues, hiring and retaining people is very, very important. You won't have diversity if you don't build it into your hiring and retention. Right. But they look, right across the whole kind of supply chain of their organization and try to ensure that diversity is built into everything they do every step of the way. So, it's a strategic priority as well, right? So it becomes a strategic priority. It's right there in the mission. It helps to guide all of the practices that come up in the, you know, whatever they are. I keep thinking of a university context, because here we are. But, you know, other organizations, they would have they're setting a new policy or even developing a new product, and they set, and in making the strategic decision to actually go with that, they hold it against their diversity policy and say, does this measure up?
have we listened to the right people in developing this? do we have the right people working on this project? Does it do something to enhance our diversity goals at a different level? Right. So it's very much a strategic exercise. And, you know, some organizations do set very clear measures, right. That they hold themselves accountable to. So many years ago, I taught a case study about British Petroleum BP way back. this huge, you know, colonial organization which had offices all over the world, plants all over the world. And they had a CEO at that time who decided, I want us to become a diverse organization. I want us to be an inclusive meritocracy. He used that term. So what he did is he devolved responsibility for diversity to all of those business units and, told them to set their measures for representation, for hiring, for retention, for advancement in the organization of people, product development.
And then he held them accountable. It was in their performance plans, right? The heads of those business units. So they would not get their bonus or ,, their actual performance was dependent on this. there was a lot of buy-in.
So you need the buy-in from people. You need participation in the decision making. And by devolving those decisions, this is what the CEO did. So, it's an old case, but it's a good one. Right?
Michael:
Yeah. And it brings us back to a point you made earlier about having different voices, right? Listening to different voices, right? If you're just listening to one voice within an organization you're missing out on so much, right? On the richness of the organization, is hurt by that.
Suzanne:
And, you know just one last point on that, on that particular case, in a large international corporation, and we teach many case studies in our MBA program and elsewhere, as you know if people no matter where they're from or what their original cultural or ethnic group is, can't see themselves advancing to the senior leadership then it's not real inclusion, is it? Right. It just isn't. So are you going to promote the person from Chile to the VP position in London, right? Or are you going to just arbitrarily leave that out and engage in what we call just like me bias? Right?. So the best organizations really work hard on being aware of and setting aside just like me bias.
Michael:
Right? I like that. I'm gonna use that.. Okay. Let's shift a little bit now and, and talk about some of the work you're doing around leadership training.. especially, you have young students. So, I mean, you've talked a lot here And I'm always interested in the idea of how we teach leadership. Yeah. How do you teach someone to be a leader? Yeah. And, but among your many titles, at the University of Manitoba, you lead our flagship president students leadership program.Which is really unique in Canada. And it turns five years old. And, we've spoken about this before,, we're really big believers in this initiative.. You've got a lot more in this than I do, but, but I, I'd love to hear you speak to the how and the why it is preparing students to graduate with the relevant leadership skills and experience that we need today.
Suzanne:
Yeah. Thank you so much. It is a unique program in Canada, and it's been a huge honor and pleasure to develop it. And, you know, thank you for your inputs, over time., as we have worked on that program. Next spring, we'll be graduating our fifth cohort. That means we'll have around 120 alumni of the President's student leadership program. So the how and the why part of the how is, you know,, being deliberate and very thoughtful about selection,, who puts themselves forward for this program, and, being very clear in our criteria of what we're looking for. So we're looking for a lot of curiosity about the world. We're looking at, you know, an ability to learn from others. We're looking for leadership experience whether formal or informal, and the ability to learn from that experience.
Then we have a great jumping off ramp with those folks to really bring them to the next level of, of skills, confidence, collaborative ability networking together in a way that will allow them to bring great change in the future. So I'm confident that we're choosing the right students. The other thing, right in the design of the program Michael, as you know, it's interdisciplinary..
So each year we have from 20 to 25 students from virtually every discipline at U of M. And they would not have this opportunity to work together. Otherwise I don't think on that kind of level. We also have students from the other post-secondaries in Manitoba. So University College of the North, Brandon, U of W, and Red River are our big partners. And we always have a couple of students from those institutions as well. So right now we're opening windows into different perspectives, different walks of life, different backgrounds, and putting people together in an environment where they share and they learn from one another. And then you know, I could talk about this for a long time, , but the other piece that I think is really important is we bring in leaders like yourself and others who represent many different sectors who've had, you know, led through many different challenges.
And they speak very genuinely, with our students. And they take questions from our students, and, they share things with us, that probably they wouldn't share otherwise. This is a private space, and the students learn an immense amount from that. So it also gives the students a window into, wow, I could be a deputy minister and, you know, this is what a deputy minister faces and this is what their leadership journey was. Or I could be the CEO of you know, a major manufacturer. And this is, this is what their path looked like. And I can see myself there. And then in addition, of course, we do have many different kinds of workshops, including improv.
Michael:
So one final question on that. , when you were describing the students Yes. And the ones that are successful. Yes. Curiosity learning. Yes. Ability to adapt. Yes. So all of those focused around continual learning. Yes. Can you tell me one lesson that they learned from the time they enter the program to when they leave? one key lesson that they leave with.
Suzanne:
I could tell you I think many. So one that comes to mind is I can do this, I can lead and I should lead. If not me, who, but it's not about me, it's about us. And not only some of us, but all of us.
Michael:
That's a great note. Thank you Dr. Suzanne G.
Suzanne:
Thank You.
OUTRO
OUTRO MUSIC FADES IN
Michael:
Thanks for listening to another episode of What's the big idea? Suzanne's approach to leadership Education gives me great hope for the caliber of leaders we're graduating here at UM. Leaders who will help us create a more peaceful world.
Join me next time when I speak with President-elect of the Canadian Medical Association and alum Dr. Joss Reimer. Joss is one of Canada's most accomplished public health professionals, and she is working to combat the ongoing stigma around mental health. She shares her own journey with depression and how we need better mental health supports for both physicians and patients.
For more information about the university and its global impact, visit umanitoba.ca. See you next time!
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