Fearless Creative Leadership

Edited highlights of our full conversation. How do you greet change? Evin Shutt is the Chief Executive Officer of 72andSunny, a role she took on in March of 2020. Taking on the senior leadership position of one of the world’s most creative and innovative companies, at the very moment the world is shutting down, will instantly reveal your relationship with change. Do you look for it and high five it? Or work to minimize it? During the months and years ahead, and across the entire spectrum of leadership, that difference in mindset will become more and more obvious. The leaders we remember will see change as opportunity and currency, and they will seek it out. They will recognize that they are living in a moment in which more is possible than at any point in human history, and they will quickly create new expectations that two years ago seemed unimaginable. They will open the door and invite change and all of its relatives, uncertainty, unpredictability, apprehension and yes, fear, to come in and sit down. They will offer it the best room in the house and the best seat at the table, and they will treat it like their oldest and dearest friend. For one simple reason. It is. The best friend any leader interested in leading could have. So, the next time your phone rings, your text chimes, or your email sings, hope against hope that change is calling. And then do everything you can to make it feel welcome.

Are you really here, in this moment? Lisa Kline is the Vice President of Communications for BreastCancer.org. They describe their mission as helping people make sense of the complex medical and personal information about breast health and breast cancer, so they can make the best decisions for their lives. Have we ever wanted more to be distracted? Distracted from the chaos, the unpredictability, the anxiety and fear of the last two years. Distracted from the relentless light of our computer screens. Distracted from barely understanding the questions any more, and rarely, all too rarely, having confidence in our answers. Faced by all that, it’s understandable and forgivable that our attention wanders, that our focus is shared, and that our interest often lies somewhere other than here, in this moment. Leadership has always been an absurd expectation to place on human beings. See further, believe harder, fear less, act faster, be right, be perfect. Lead. Happily, that view of leadership is dying by the hour in the world’s best businesses. But as a new definition of leadership rises from the disruption of the last two years, it’s worth pointing out that it contains one expectation that will accelerate the gap between the alright and the great leaders. The expectation that you are present. Leadership begins and ends with trust. When was the last time you trusted someone who wasn’t listening to you?

Edited highlights of our full conversation. Are you really here, in this moment? Lisa Kline is the Vice President of Communications for BreastCancer.org. They describe their mission as helping people make sense of the complex medical and personal information about breast health and breast cancer, so they can make the best decisions for their lives. Have we ever wanted more to be distracted? Distracted from the chaos, the unpredictability, the anxiety and fear of the last two years. Distracted from the relentless light of our computer screens. Distracted from barely understanding the questions any more, and rarely, all too rarely, having confidence in our answers. Faced by all that, it’s understandable and forgivable that our attention wanders, that our focus is shared, and that our interest often lies somewhere other than here, in this moment. Leadership has always been an absurd expectation to place on human beings. See further, believe harder, fear less, act faster, be right, be perfect. Lead. Happily, that view of leadership is dying by the hour in the world’s best businesses. But as a new definition of leadership rises from the disruption of the last two years, it’s worth pointing out that it contains one expectation that will accelerate the gap between the alright and the great leaders. The expectation that you are present. Leadership begins and ends with trust. When was the last time you trusted someone who wasn’t listening to you?

Edited highlights of our full conversation. Are you really here, in this moment? Lisa Kline is the Vice President of Communications for BreastCancer.org. They describe their mission as helping people make sense of the complex medical and personal information about breast health and breast cancer, so they can make the best decisions for their lives. Have we ever wanted more to be distracted? Distracted from the chaos, the unpredictability, the anxiety and fear of the last two years. Distracted from the relentless light of our computer screens. Distracted from barely understanding the questions any more, and rarely, all too rarely, having confidence in our answers. Faced by all that, it’s understandable and forgivable that our attention wanders, that our focus is shared, and that our interest often lies somewhere other than here, in this moment. Leadership has always been an absurd expectation to place on human beings. See further, believe harder, fear less, act faster, be right, be perfect. Lead. Happily, that view of leadership is dying by the hour in the world’s best businesses. But as a new definition of leadership rises from the disruption of the last two years, it’s worth pointing out that it contains one expectation that will accelerate the gap between the alright and the great leaders. The expectation that you are present. Leadership begins and ends with trust. When was the last time you trusted someone who wasn’t listening to you?

What do you want more of in your life? Greg Hahn is the Co-Founder & CCO of Mischief USA. Two years ago he was fired by BBDO. When we spoke, eight days after he had lost his job, he was clear about the kind of future he wanted to create. Mischief, a company that didn’t exist 24 months ago, were just named Agency of the Year by the Ad Age A List Awards. As you’ll hear in our new conversation, the company has been built on the principles that Greg espoused two years ago. Life comes at us fast and in unexpected ways. What we do with every day that we get, is a choice, between hoping for a better version of yesterday or acting to create a better tomorrow. And the key to that is making sure we know what a better version of tomorrow will look like. So, what do you want more of in your life?

Edited highlights of our full conversation. What do you want more of in your life?

Edited highlights of our full conversation. What do you want more of in your life? Greg Hahn is the Co-Founder & CCO of Mischief USA. Two years ago he was fired by BBDO. When we spoke, eight days after he had lost his job, he was clear about the kind of future he wanted to create. Mischief, a company that didn’t exist 24 months ago, were just named Agency of the Year by the Ad Age A List Awards. As you’ll hear in our new conversation, the company has been built on the principles that Greg espoused two years ago. Life comes at us fast and in unexpected ways. What we do with every day that we get, is a choice, between hoping for a better version of yesterday or acting to create a better tomorrow. And the key to that is making sure we know what a better version of tomorrow will look like. So, what do you want more of in your life?

Where does work end and life begin? Tiffany Rolfe is the Global Chief Creative Officer at R/GA, a job she took on in the early stages of the pandemic as part of a new leadership team. Two years ago, the Ad Age A List recognized R/GA as the Comeback Agency of the Year. This year, they are now ranked second among all agencies. Tiffany’s email signature reads, Mom and Global Chief Creative Officer. I speak for myself when I say that before we all withdrew into our homes in early 2020, I was aware only conceptually of how women who are parents juggle that with their careers. But two years of working via Zoom has given many of us insights into people’s lives that were previously unimaginable for their candor and vulnerability. This conversation is a living example of the challenges and gifts that have emerged from the last two years. The line between work and home has been blurred beyond any reasonable hope of recognition. No matter how powerful a microscope you apply, it is almost impossible to see the separation any more between leader and human being. The destruction of this separation can be liberating if you’re willing to create your own definition of the work-life balance. If you’re not, it will be very hard as you try in vain to keep up with a dangerously out of date view of where work ends and life begins. The day is not only for work. The day is for living. What that means is entirely for you to decide.

Edited highlights of our full conversation. Where does work end and life begin? Tiffany Rolfe is the Global Chief Creative Officer at R/GA, a job she took on in the early stages of the pandemic as part of a new leadership team. Two years ago, the Ad Age A List recognized R/GA as the Comeback Agency of the Year. This year, they are now ranked second among all agencies. Tiffany’s email signature reads, Mom and Global Chief Creative Officer. I speak for myself when I say that before we all withdrew into our homes in early 2020, I was aware only conceptually of how women who are parents juggle that with their careers. But two years of working via Zoom has given many of us insights into people’s lives that were previously unimaginable for their candor and vulnerability. This conversation is a living example of the challenges and gifts that have emerged from the last two years. The line between work and home has been blurred beyond any reasonable hope of recognition. No matter how powerful a microscope you apply, it is almost impossible to see the separation any more between leader and human being. The destruction of this separation can be liberating if you’re willing to create your own definition of the work-life balance. If you’re not, it will be very hard as you try in vain to keep up with a dangerously out of date view of where work ends and life begins. The day is not only for work. The day is for living. What that means is entirely for you to decide.

Who takes care of you? Colleen DeCourcy has been named Creative Leader of the Decade. She led Wieden and Kennedy to three consecutive Agency of the Year wins and her contribution to creativity has just been recognized by Cannes Lions with the Lion of St Mark Lifetime Achievement Award. I met Colleen in April of 2015. And as I got to know her, I learned that she was humble, that she was generous, that she was vulnerable. That she was going to make it happen, even though, as you’ll hear, she was filled with self-doubt. Today, three months into her version of retirement, her impact is everywhere. And her sense of self has found a permanent home. At its heart, leadership is an act of generosity. It asks so much of us that to do it well, to have lasting impact, requires that we give much more of ourselves than we get back. At least in the short term. It’s one of the reasons why leadership is so lonely. But the longer that I do this, the more that I talk to leaders and try to understand them, the more I realize that there is a truth that shows up over and over again. That the generosity that the best leaders bring, generosity that exists even in the face of their own fears and doubts, generosity that exists even in the furnace of modern business, lifts the people around them to heights they never thought possible. And in the process of doing that for others, what these leaders end up creating, is themselves.