Recently, I facilitated a new series of mastermind meetings together with Magor Csibi. At the end, with no exception, everyone gave the same feedback. They all felt that the most valuable aspect for them was the people who joined. They felt safe to share their stories and were inspired by others’ experiences. It did not come as a surprise, but it highlighted the idea that sharing and togetherness create value and this applies to leadership roles as well.
The participants in our mastermind group are leaders from different fields, either entrepreneurs or executives. The format is mostly based on sharing, where participants are encouraged to contribute their own perspectives for the meeting topic or for the topics brought by other participants. After six or twelve meetings of discovering the challenges each one had, they finished this series with a feeling of admiration and appreciation for each other. All of them encountered moments of vulnerability and managed to come out of them stronger.
A long time ago, one of my unacknowledged beliefs was that excellence and performance come with a level of competition among similar individuals. One has to keep secret their best tactics and tools that helped them to succeed. Otherwise, their unique place of recognition was in danger. I also felt that moments of struggle should not be shared as they could create an impression of weakness. Hence, the solitude of a leader became something unavoidable in this story, which I experienced myself as well.
I was in my late twenties and had been an entrepreneur for almost ten years. I was absorbing knowledge and wisdom from many sources: from people I admired, mentors, role models, many courses, and books. I had built a team that was delivering great results, but without a culture of working together. Everyone was doing their job and had to find their own way to overcome challenges. Everyone looked strong in their role and addressed the pain points individually. And so did I. I did not have answers to all their questions or problems, but I was not allowing my team to be part of my process. The solution-finding process was mine to get to share only the solution with everyone. This became a daily behavior, resulting in my inability to be transparent when the stakes were high.
Around that time in my life, I had to take a few weeks off in my lowest days of burnout. Two of these weeks were spent in the hospital, as I was completely depleted of energy. I did not share my situation with my team for a long period of time because I was scared they would lose their trust in me or that they would leave the team. At that point, I did not share it even with my parents. From a medical perspective, it was easy: I had been diagnosed with an allergy crisis and anemia. No one was considering exhaustion a potential cause and I was not able to name it.
When I was back in the office, I knew for sure I had to do something differently. I started to encourage my team to make more important decisions and to check them with me only after the result was visible. I encouraged them to make mistakes. They were as anxious as I was to be wrong and have the rest of the team lose trust in them. My time spent in the hospital with restricted access to my phone made me realize how important it was to have an autonomous team. This created a culture between them to advise each other and to debate solutions. Later they told me that one of the decision-making stages was asking loudly, “What would Alex do?” and guessing my take on that situation.
Outside my team, I realized the importance of being surrounded by like-minded people. Not only mentors and role models that I looked up to but also people in similar stages of life and business to mine. I started to connect with young entrepreneurs, like my colleagues from the Empretec workshop, a specially designed worldwide programme for entrepreneurs in emerging countries. I also went to summer schools in Italy and Germany to expand my network and have the experience of sharing in safe environments. Ultimately, the most important decision along these lines was to go to INSEAD for an MBA. There was a real journey from feeling like an outlier and very lonely in my leadership position to where I stand today. All these experiences led me to a place where I feel I belong to a tribe of amazing like-minded people–very diverse, but not very different from myself.
Going back to the mastermind story, of course there are a lot of things behind the scenes, like creating the right format, selecting the participants, and facilitating the conversations. And these are all important aspects to build that safe space. Still, it’s primarily about the people. For me, it’s not only about learning from other professionals. It is also about learning that there is nothing wrong with being confused, struggling, and having difficulties in making a decision. It is about normalizing that performance comes with a complex process that is both difficult and challenging… and being transparent about it… and creating a culture of sharing and growing together.
What is your experience with spaces where you feel you grow with other like-minded people? What would you like to share about it?