Ep 181: Chris Hirst - In 15

Edited highlights of our full conversation.

Chris Hirst is the Global CEO of Havas Creative - they describe themselves as the world’s most integrated advertising and communications business.

He’s also the author of an award winning book, No Bullsh*t Leadership. Which means he’s given a lot of thought to the art of leading a creative business.

So much has been written and said about leadership. Libraries full of thinking and advice. Strategies and objectives and theories and case studies and oceans-full of best practices.

We humans are complex beings. Biological entities fueled by emotions and very often willing to make decisions and take actions which, even after a moment’s thought, work against our own best interests.

No wonder that the Doomsday Clock is set at 100 seconds to midnight.

Leadership requires you take people on a journey. From where we are today. To a better version of tomorrow.

A lot of attention gets paid to your definition of the destination. Justifiably so. After all, to slightly misquote Alice in Wonderland, if you don’t care where you’re going, any road will do.

But as Chris points out, the other end of the journey, the honest acknowledgement of where you are today, is often missing, for fear that someone will be upset or offended or will judge the progress so far as inadequate.

Honesty about the challenges you're trying to overcome is where leadership begins.

Without that honesty, at least two things become true.

First, every time you think you’re making a decision, you’re making it through a distorted lens. Which means it’s not a decision at all. It’s a guess.

And second, if you won’t trust yourself with the truth, why should anyone else trust you?

So, trust yourself and start with truth.