Let's normalize expressive leaders already
Over the past few years, I’ve been surprised to hear from more and more people relieved to discover that expressive leaders not only exist — but can also be successful.
Why did this surprise me, you might ask?
I suppose it’s because I thought I was alone on the Expressive Leaders Island. (And no, ChatGPT did not write that sentence. I’m just that dorky.) But it turns out that the rising draw of expressive leaders reflects the rising diversity of our workforce. Yet, the workplace is anything but ready to embrace expressive leaders.
Why is this, and what can we do about it?
Let’s start with the notion of being authentic at work. Amidst the rising call to “be your authentic self,” I’ve observed that a license to authenticity is fine, so long as that authenticity stays within the bounds of norms — spoken and unspoken — of your organization. If your authentic self includes snuggling under a fluffy blanket laying down while working on your laptop, I’d venture to guess that part of you is not welcome at the office. But if your authentic self includes a healthy dose of witty sarcasm, the acceptability of that part of you will depend heavily on your organization’s culture.
In other words: be authentic, so long as it doesn’t challenge people’s expectations too much.
The pressure to at least moderately conform is particularly strong for organizational leaders. And for good reason: we need to believe a leader is effective in order to trust and follow them. Whether we like to admit it or not, most of us have deep biases around what constitutes an effective leader. For example, we tend to stereotype leaders as masculine, and associate effective leaders with stereotypically masculine traits. Unsurprisingly, we are more likely to trust and respect leaders who align with these stereotypes.
That doesn’t mean we can’t learn to trust and respect leaders who deviate, or those who defy stereotypes or even create new ones altogether. After all, for low talking male executives, “quiet leadership” is increasingly in fashion. (I’m looking at you, Tim Cook.) But for most of us, this does not come naturally. We all have biases (yes, even you!) that help our brains make assessments about situations and people more quickly. Working around our biases can be extremely difficult. Even Daniel Kahneman, the late Nobel Prize winning cognitive psychologist, thinks so!
For funsies, I’ll share one of my biases: I tend to think leaders who spend time on trivial matters, especially matters they should be delegating, are inept. Although this heuristic has typically proven accurate, it’s also pointed me in the wrong direction. In one instance, what seemed trivial to me was actually a marker for a major risk, and the leader in question had previous experience both spotting the marker and mitigating the risk. That case certainly didn’t “cure” my bias, but it did make me more aware of it and equipped me to confront it in the future.
So back to effective leaders: Since many of us are biased in favor of leaders who exhibit stereotypically masculine traits like self-confidence, stoicism, and gravitas — the prognosis isn’t great for the success of expressive leaders whose emotive range and exuberance are above-average.
As a result, many expressive leaders ultimately subdue their expressiveness at great personal cost. This “authenticity tax” involves “dimming your light a bit, maybe toning down an aspect of your identity, just to fit in and avoid people's unconscious (and sometimes conscious) biases.” Women tend to fall in a much higher authenticity tax bracket, and women of color in the highest, in part because we are primed to perceive women as emotional and fragile (remember when female hysteria was a thing?) — quite the opposite of stoical and steadfast. This in turn undermines the perceived ability of women to be effective leaders.
The resulting dynamics can sometimes border on the ridiculous. For example, the executive search firm Spencer Stuart explained, “Women can find themselves at a disadvantage in hiring or promotions when subjective measures such as ‘gravitas’ are used to evaluate candidates for senior roles — like the 5’2” female executive being compared to the 6’-plus male candidate on their ‘presence.’” As a result, women must generally work harder to exhibit, say, gravitas by consciously tempering their expressiveness.
But in the end, there isn’t much a woman can do to grow from 5’2” to 6’, and we all remember the controversy Elizabeth Holmes’ artificially deep timbre drew. Ironically, women who embrace and exhibit stereotypically masculine traits — whether physical, like boxy clothing or character-based, like ambition — often face backlash. And even when a woman thinks she may have gotten the balance of [insert category] just right, research shows that she will still be perceived as “not quite right.”
For clarity: This post is not exclusively about women. It’s about people with the ability to lead a team or organization to success, but who don’t necessarily fit the mold — a mold that happens to be stereotypically masculine. More specifically, this post is about expressive leaders who aren’t taken seriously because of their expressive nature.
As you can imagine, I probably wouldn’t be so attuned to this dynamic if I hadn’t had a peppering of fun encounters over the years with (usually well-meaning) people who have revealed to me their narrow understanding of what effective leaders look like:
As a young professional, a colleague criticized me for being "too smiley" and laughing too much to be seen as a credible leader — as if happiness was somehow incompatible with competence. To this person’s credit, they did follow-up with me later to admit they’d misjudged and congratulate me for a job well done.
When I was still working as a lawyer, a client consistently disregarded my input and talked over me. My style is pretty informal, and I was my happy self, so I can only guess what the client thought of me. One day during a call, the client narrated as he reviewed my LinkedIn profile. As soon as he noted my credentials, he presumably decided I was competent after all, and his attitude toward me suddenly shifted. He showed great deference to my advice going forward, even though I had changed nothing on my end. If the whole thing hadn’t been so distasteful, it would have been quite funny!
More recently, I was told after an interview loop for a senior role that my perceived lack of gravitas would make it difficult to earn respect from the C-suite. I ultimately accepted a lower-level role at this company. Unsurprisingly, the feedback about gravitas turned out to be a red flag for a culture mismatch between the org’s and my understandings around what strong leadership, communication, and diversity look like.
So… what’s a girl to take from these experiences?
The learning-oriented side of me appreciates these situations as opportunities to enhance my interpersonal skills, understand others’ expectations, and improve my ability to foster trust. My more skeptical side sees these experiences as evidence that we desperately need to reshape “effective leader” stereotypes.
In fact, these stereotypes aren’t universal. I frequently reference Erin Meyer’s The Culture Map as a reminder that different cultures hold different views on what good communication, disagreement, persuasion, and even leadership look like — and that not one is objectively right or wrong. In addition, the very meaning of leadership, and therefore what constitutes an effective leader, has been anything but static throughout history.
So the question is: Do we really want a world where leaders must suppress perfectly human elements of their personality and communication style to be taken seriously? Is it really the case that laughter, enthusiasm, and passion are fine when coming from a colleague but unprofessional liabilities when coming from a leader? In a world where we are in dire need of effective leaders, how many phenomenal people are we counting out because they don’t fit a particular mold with characteristics that have little to do with the ability to lead?
Or can we choose to evolve our view of what constitutes an effective leader?
People are inspired and motivated by different leadership styles. Presumably, this includes expressive leadership styles. What may come across as unprofessional giggling to one person may evoke engagement and trust to someone else. And hey, expressive people need role models too! In fact, I recently received unsolicited feedback (which inspired this post in the first place): “Your enthusiastic approach to what is often perceived as dry and ‘any other business’ has given me tools to bring [data, digital, and all things privacy] to life…. You are a great role model for women in leadership, especially those of us who are colourful and expressive as well as thoroughly intelligent. I could see your authenticity in every encounter.”
Now, I get that feeling frustrated about leader stereotypes and unconscious bias is a little like shaking your fist at the sky and yelling out that life isn’t fair.
But let’s admit that the call to bring your authentic self to work isn’t completely honest. There are standards and norms, after all — and this is mostly a good thing. We may not all have to wear suits and ties to the office anymore, but we can’t show up like we’ve been living in the woods for a year. Companies implicitly and explicitly establish norms by publishing values statements, cultivating organizational cultures, and subjectively evaluating employees’ so-called soft skills. This veneer of propriety — however thin it may be — is what many philosophers argue enables our ordered and civilized way of living (and working).
So my call to action is not to do away with standards and norms, but it does involve better understanding their limitations.
First, let’s try harder to be aware of our own biases around people’s behavior, character, and appearance. This can be difficult, but trying will get you farther than not! Then couple this with a “sister” call to action, which is to commit to thinking critically and charitably about the leadership aptitude and capability of people who don’t fit your mold.
So if you discover you prefer polished, stoical leaders, challenge yourself to explore whether your less-refined, effusive young team member might nevertheless be a fantastic lead for that new cross-functional project. Or if you learn you’re a judgy judgerson when it comes to casual appearances at work, challenge yourself to engage primarily with the substantive contributions of that jeans-wearing team member who nevertheless demonstrates promising people management skills.
Successful leaders don't fit a monolithic mold.
As we all nod in agreement with this sentence like good people, we should also acknowledge we still have preferences and biases that lead our minds to automatically — and perhaps even subconsciously — categorize a perfectly capable person as an ineffective leader. And these preferences and biases tend to place expressive people into that category.
So let’s do better and (at least try to) judge leaders by their skills, experience, and results — not how smiley or serious they appear. Let’s embrace those leaders who model the authenticity we claim to value. While stoical leaders may bring a sense of stability and authority to the workplace, expressive leaders may bring a sense of excitement, engagement, and approachability. It’s all good.
Though I will say: this world could use more people who don't take themselves too seriously. ;-)
Postscript. Speaking of authenticity, writing this post helped me come to terms with something about myself. In a world that apparently exists only inside my own mind, I am this super witty person who can take serious ideas and wrap them up in pithy little packages. As it turns out, however — and I’m apparently the last to know — I’m actually an earnest nerd with a sense of humor that, if we’re being generous, could be categorized as ‘quirky’. Sigh.