How to Be a Positive Autocratic Leader | Rejeev Peshawaria

0:00Did you know that driving under the influence of marijuana is illegal? Driving high will get you a DUI. And if you're wondering if law enforcement can tell you're driving high, well, everyone else can. Friends? I can tell you drove high. Parents? I can tell when you drive high. Relatives? I can tell. You drove here high, didn't you? So what makes you think law enforcement can't? I can tell. If you feel different, you drive different. Drive high, get a DUI. Paid for by NHTSA. Happy holidays! Want to give your host a gift? Consider subscribing, rating, and reviewing the show this holiday season.

0:38It really helps the show grow. From all of us at Believe, have a Merry Christmas, everyone, and a happy holiday.

0:48How do you actually drive breakthrough results? And clearly, if you ask anybody, you know, what kind of boss do you want? Everybody would say, I want a democratic, inclusive kind of boss. But we asked people in 28 countries, 16 ,000 people. In every country, the majority chose the autocratic behaviors. Let's go. Yeah, make it look, make it look, make it look. The Ryan Hanley Show shares the original ideas, habits, and mindsets of world-class original thinkers you can use to produce extraordinary results in your life and business. This is The Way. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the show. we have a tremendous episode for you today a conversation with rajiv peshavriya he is a two decade long executive in the fortune 100 he is now the ceo of stewardship asia center and he is the best-selling author of four books the most recent being sustainable sustainability and what we talk about today is leadership so if you are interested in leadership if leadership is a topic that you like to listen to, if you are developing as a leader, if you are trying to continually improve yourself and put yourself in the best position as a leader in order to grow a successful business in today's marketplace, this is an episode you wanna pull out your notebook.

2:14If you're listening while you're on the treadmill or you're driving, guys, you're gonna go back and hit stop and rewind some of these sections because this idea of positive autocratic leadership that Rajiv talks about. In my opinion, I may not phrase it this way, but 100 % agree with where he aligns on this positive autocratic leadership. This is the way to get your business to where it needs to be while integrating into the current marketplace, the current societal pressures, et cetera. And you are going to learn a lot. This is a highly tactical, highly strategic, in-depth episode on leadership.

2:52I know you're gonna enjoy it. if that's a topic that gets you lit up. If you are watching this show for the first time, subscribe, we would love for you to leave a comment on the show. If you're watching on YouTube, let us know what you think about this idea of positive autocratic leadership. What does it mean to be a steward leader? Where are we making mistakes? What are you seeing in the marketplace from a leadership perspective that drives you crazy? And how do we start to solve these issues? How do we start to get more great leaders into the marketplace? because there are plenty of people who have the ability and desire to be good leaders, yet so few actually hit their true potential.

3:33And I think the ideas outlined here can get them there. Would love your thoughts. If you're listening on iTunes or Spotify, leave your comment in a rating and review. Let us know what you're thinking. It's a great place to do that. I appreciate you and love you for listening to the show. Let's get on to Rajiv Peshavriya. Rajiv, incredibly excited to have you on the show. I have a ton of questions. Where I'd like to start, and I went all over the place when I was researching what I wanted to talk to you about, but there was one idea that you've talked a lot about recently, particularly on your X account, around autocratic leadership and the need for this.

4:12I think today just that word autocratic I think would at least throw people's antennas up. So I'm very interested in this concept, and I'd love to start here. Okay. So this takes me back several years. Back in 2017, I wrote a book called Open Source Leadership. But I was trying to understand that in the high-speed world, which is highly interconnected, and in the world of business, how do you actually drive breakthrough results? One of the questions we wanted to ask was, was it going to be through democratic, inclusive leadership or through autocratic leadership? And clearly, if you ask anybody, you know, what kind of boss do you want?

4:51Everybody would say, I want a democratic, inclusive kind of boss, not an autocratic boss. But we asked people in 28 countries, 16 ,000 people. We showed them pictures of leaders, of famous leaders like Mandela and Gandhi and Lee Kuan Yew and people like that, Steve Jobs, you know, and asked them, so what did they do that made them great leaders? And we gave them 11 attributes to choose from. Half of them were democratic, inclusive type of attributes. The other half were autocratic type, my way or the highway kind of attributes. 28 countries, 16 or 18 ,000 people in every country, the majority chose the autocratic behaviors in terms of what made them great leaders.

5:34So we tested this several ways. We said, is autocratic leadership needed to drive breakthrough results? and 75 % of our database said, yes, agreed, strongly agreed. So shocking results because, you know, on the one hand, people are very empowered today because everybody's got a supercomputer in their pockets. With connectivity, you can destroy anybody within seconds. Why would anybody want you to be or let you be autocratic, even if you wanted to be? But it was interesting data that came out. And with that, we came up with a way to resolve that dilemma. I'm happy to go there if you want me to.

6:09Yeah, I would love that. Yes, please. So the data said you need to be autocratic in today's high-speed interconnected world. But nobody's going to let you be autocratic because everybody is today holding a supercomputer in their pocket. So how do you resolve? What does this data mean anyway? And the answer was that you have to practice something called positive autocracy. And there are certain keys to positive autocracy. The first one is you've got to earn the right to be autocratic. How do you earn the right to be autocratic? by winning people's trust, by getting people to understand and believe that you will indeed create a better future, that you are a better future creator.

6:46Once they trust you that you're going to take them to a better place, they will let you be a tad bit autocratic. Second, you've got to be super clear about your values that you believe in and your purpose in life and consistently live those values every day. When people see you living those values every day consistently and and they feel that your purpose is a worthy purpose, they're going to let you be autocratic. Because it turns out from the data that people, while they say, I want inclusive type of people around me, I want democratic kind of people, people want somebody to show them the way.

7:18So those are some of the findings. Also, by the way, positive autocrats forgive more often. So it sounds a little bit contradictory, but there are five keys in the book of positive autocracy. I've just mentioned some of them. So would this be synonymous with like a benevolent dictator to a certain extent? A lot of people say that, yes. I choose the words positive autocracy. Similar, similar idea. I like your terminology better, but I do. Yeah, but the difference is that a dictator has absolute power. A positive autocrat, in my view, does not have absolute power. You are earning that right every day.

7:57And really what you're autocratic about is values and purpose. Everything else, you provide freedom within that framework. Yeah. So this, okay. I love this concept because it's exactly my value structure as a leader aligns with this 100%. And I've always struggled with this idea because I don't love, or I shouldn't say I don't love, that's the wrong way to position this. I struggle with DEI as a leader and embracing it because, one, I 100 % agree with diversity and inclusion and we need the right people in the right positions. And there should never be something that has to do with the way we look or where we're from, et cetera, that keeps us from a position that we've earned and kind of merit-based.

8:50But at the same time, there's so much pressure today on leaders to look – their company has to look like what people want them to look like and sound like what people want to sound like. And I think you've addressed this in some of your work, and I'd love for you to dig in here. Um, how do leaders today manage that, manage that, that, that desire for, to have the right person in the right spot who want to do the right things, who don't have a, a, a, a discriminatory or racist bone in their body, but maybe their company today doesn't look from the outside the way that it should. How do they start to address these things and just kind of, how do you marry those two concepts in your head?

9:33Well, so you're getting into the realm of ESG now, environment and social. And DEI is big on the S side of ESG, right? And so we see five kind of players. This is the subject of my latest book called Sustainable Sustainability, why ESG is not enough. So we see five kinds of corporate players in that space. Okay. Those who are greenwashing. They are willfully deceiving the market to say what's not true and actually profiting from today's existential challenges like climate change, socioeconomic inequality, etc.

10:31to close deals in just one call. No more, let me think about it. No more, I'll get back to you. Using the one call close system, we took new reps from 25 % close ratio to over 80 % in just three months. To grow fast, you must close deals faster at zero extra marketing cost. The one call close system allows you and your reps to build trust, address pain points, all while watching your revenue skyrocket. Ready to stop chasing leads and start closing? visit masteroftheclothes.com today. Close twice as many deals this time next week. Visit masteroftheclothes.com to learn how.

11:14You have the window dressers. Oh, let me look good, the point that you're making, right? Let me do a little bit to dress up the window. I don't really believe in this stuff, but since everybody's talking about sustainability, let's do something about it. Let's look good. Then you have the in denial, what climate change, what socioeconomic inequality, and even if these things exist, they're not my problem. I don't break the law. I pay my taxes. I'm okay. Right? Then you have the box checkers, because now there's a lot of laws in many countries on these things. I'll do exactly what the law says and no more because I don't want to get into trouble with the law.

11:49And then there are the steward leaders. These people take it upon themselves to drive profitable shareholder returns by addressing the very challenges that are threatening humanity today, which are, again, climate change, socioeconomic inequality and cyber vulnerability as the biggest ones. So they create profitable solutions to today's challenges and they do so proactively. They see themselves as stewards of planet Earth and humanity. Hence, we call them steward leaders. And there's only about one or two out of 10 that actually are steward leaders. Maybe you could break down that topic a little further and describe exactly what a steward leader is.

12:28So steward leadership aims to create a collective better future for stakeholders, society, future generations, and the environment. A typical business leader is only concerned about himself and his company and his shareholder. A steward leader tries to create a collective better future for a much broader variety, including society at large and the environment, right? How do you practice steward leadership? We looked at 100 companies that have been doing well by doing good, meaning they've been making superior shareholder returns by addressing environmental or social concerns. We asked them two questions.

13:07Why do you do it? How do they do it? Turns out they do it because they want to, because they believe they are steward leaders. How do they do it? Three simple steps. One, you incorporate four specific values in your organization's value system. The first is interdependence, the belief that the more I give, the more I will get. Second is long-term view. If I do the right thing by environment and society, my business is going to live longer. I'm going to be more successful. Third is ownership mentality. I take ownership for today's existential challenges and will get my business to solve them. And I will make money doing that rather than making money with other ways.

13:45And the fourth most important is creative resilience, that we will not give up on innovation. Doing business this way is harder. We will continue to look for innovation, not give up. So step one, incorporate those four values within your value system. Step two, give yourself a stewardship purpose, that collective better future that you want to create. And third step, now apply those values and that purpose to every decision you make. That's steward leadership for you in a nutshell. I love it. I think so here in the States, one of the things that I've seen that makes me sad is a lack of your third bullet ownership.

14:24It feels to me like so many ascend to leadership positions and whatever that looks like, and then they play on one of the – they're either checking a box or they're passing the buck. And while they want to make the decisions, they don't want to take the responsibility. If we're inside an organization and say we see a leader below us or in our organization who is operating that way, how do we start to address that? If, say, we're the CEO or in the C-suite and we see maybe a vice president or a director kind of not taking ownership for their part of the business. Maybe they want to make the decisions, they want the title, but they don't want to have to deal with the blowback or the responsibility to actually own each decision that they make.

15:17Yeah, look, I mean, leadership cannot be – there's no pill, as you know very well. You can't hold it. There's no bullet. There's no pill. So for steward leadership, which is a higher form of leadership, which is making money in business by addressing challenges like climate change, socioeconomic inequality, etc., is a much higher form of leadership. And that can only come from within. Now, what can the board do if the CEO is not a steward leader? Very simple. If you believe that your company should address environmental and social sustainability and your CEO is not doing it, well, after talking to him multiple times or her, if he's still not doing it, then you've got to change the CEO.

15:55Now, if the CEO believes it and the people below him are not believing it, again, he has to be ready to make tough decisions because, you know, one or two bad eggs will spoil the whole culture. So I'll give you an example. You know, Paul Polman, the former CEO of Unilever, okay, in his 10 years tenure as CEO, provided 290 % return to shareholders as CEO. And he did that by creating a sustainability-based business plan. got out of business units and products that were harmful to the environment, replaced them with environmentally friendly stuff, so on and so forth. For the first two years, share price tanked, market share tanked, profitability tanked, 75 % of his top leadership team quit.

16:37This guy is going to take this company to the ground. But the board supported his strategy because he told them, he showed them a long-term strategy. This is going to make more money if we listen to the pain points of our people. Sure enough, after the second year, it started turning around. And by the end of 10 years, shareholder got a 290 % gain. The board supported him. The same playbook the CEO of Denon tried around the same time, and the board fired him after two years. So the board has a role to play. The CEO has a role to play. It has to be top-down. And you've got to create a culture where then the rank and file starts believing in it.

17:13And so the key that I've heard you say multiple times now is taking that long-term view. When we are judged so much by a quarterly report and whatever is being said on CNBC and our board members are watching that and they're getting pressure from whoever their influences are or other large investors in the company, how do we manage both the short-term nature of needing to produce results for realistic reasons versus taking a long-term view? How was Paul Pomerantz, how is he able to navigate that? Like, what is that just the skill of leadership? That's just the skill he has that he's developed over his career?

17:53Or is there a methodology to managing both to the short term and to the long term? So let me give you another example, and then I'll answer your question. Do you know there is a company, if you were a shareholder, you would be a very rich person by now for the last 20 years. But for 20 years, for the first 20 years, they did not provide a cent of dividend. And it's one of the largest companies in the world today. they did not provide a cent of dividend to the first 20, but no shareholder, no investor deserted them. And today, if you still own them, you are sitting pretty. Do you know who I'm talking about?

18:28No. Amazon. Amazon. Yeah. Okay. Now, Jeff Bezos, how did he not pay dividend for 20 years and still held on to the shareholders and said, investors stay with me because he showed them a strategy that would make them 60x returns if they stuck with him. I'm not going to pay you anything for now because we're going to keep putting money back. But then once we get to a certain size, nobody will be able to touch us. And investors bought into that strategy. Now, an investor buying Amazon was as short term as anybody who wants, you know, quick returns on their money. They stuck by it because they saw the strategy.

19:05Similarly, Paul Polman showed them a sustainability-based long-term strategy. And I can give you examples of hundreds of companies. In fact, companies like the Tata Group in India, Patagonia in the United States, Faber-Castell in Germany, these are companies that have lived for hundreds of years, not decades, and providing profitable returns because they've always thought environment first and society first. So point is, steward leadership is not just about a good heart. It's also about a good head, meaning good strategy. Show investors a strategy that, look, if you don't take, you can take one marshmallow now and you can have two if you take it tomorrow, you know, rational people, at least many of them will buy into that strategy.

19:47That's how you balance it. It doesn't mean that you don't take advantages of short-term opportunities, but you don't pursue short-term opportunities that actually hinder long-term growth. Yeah, I read a story the other day breaking down Amazon that I thought was really interesting. Their stock price rose to over$100 during the dot-com bubble, and Post dropped to$5. And they only they lost less than 10 percent of their investors when it dropped to five dollars. And so I guess when I think about that and we think about Jeff Bezos and, you know, today he's held up on a pedestal. Is that his force of will, the power of his character?

20:31Is that his storytelling ability? I mean, he obviously had a long term vision, so that that was there. where the actual leadership skills that I see lacking most often, and a lot of times I deal with early-stage startups and stuff tends to be more the place that I play in, is they know the mission, they know the vision, but they do not share it often enough, or at least in my opinion they don't share it often enough, and often they don't share it broadly enough either. It stays in the C-suite or it stays with the founding team. What are the mix of skills that allow you to navigate this type of, you know, I think I call this the gray space, right?

21:11And when I'm coaching someone, especially early stage leader, I talk about we have to live in that gray. We're given stories. We're given stats that put us either in black or white. But there's all this gray in the middle, and that's where success comes out of being able to navigate that space that's kind of cloudy and gray and sometimes skews one way or the other. When you're in that space, which is what I'm hearing you describe is this ability to manage multiple directives at once. What are the core tenets of that leader that they may need to develop? So someone's listening to this and they're going, geez, I'm right with what Rajiv's saying.

21:50What are some of the core tenets they need to look into themselves for in order to be able to navigate situations of this nature? I lost you a little bit in between, but anyway, I think I got the gist of your question. Look, I mean, when it comes to the kind of leaders that we are talking about, these are people that are constantly challenging conventional wisdom. You know, the old Steve Jobs thing about think different. They are the personification of that. These are people who are looking to create a different future, the collective better future. And they are innovators. They are always asking the question, so what's conventional wisdom?

22:22Why is that not correct? And what can I turn upside down and give people a better situation and also make money with it? Now, they have seen a picture of a better future that most people haven't seen in their minds yet. So communication is hugely important. You have to continuously keep people on the same page in terms of, okay, this is the future we are building. Guys, this is the belief. This is the strategy. This is going to get us there. the thing with communication is you tell people once and you think you've told them after one week or two weeks they lose it again and you got to keep telling them again and again so number one be an innovator strategy strategy strategy number two uh you sorry actually number one is the intentionality that i want to be a steward leader number two i am an out of the box thinker number three communicate communicate communicate again and again because people get confused when and and to create a better future the way i'm talking about is very difficult innovation fails eight out of 10 times.

23:21So when people below you fail, they feel that the strategy is wrong and you've got to be there for them. You've got to be there and keep telling them as to why it's still working and, you know, take them along. There's no easy way there, I think. Yeah. Well, I think that's the crux of leadership in general that I think most people who fail in the position have is this idea that somehow they're going to move from maybe a day-to-day tactical or, you know, stamping TPS reports to go very, very lowbrow. And then all of a sudden, they're going to ascend to this position and life becomes easier, right?

23:57They get their cup of coffee and they meander to their desk and they make a couple of decisions and that's the day. And, you know, when they get hit in the face with that sack, they're usually, you know, it's usually an eye-opening experience. So I'm interested in managing. So having founded my own company and exited from that, like, right, like you, you start with this vision, as you described, right? You have this clear vision for a new way of doing business and you bring it to market and you start adding team members. And if you're, I believe hiring in the right way, you're hiring for both your weaknesses and people that are smarter than you in areas.

24:30And, and now you have your vision and it starts to get poked at by new ideas. How do we manage this, this vision that we have with what could be very positive, very growth-focused iterations or customer satisfaction iterations, whatever, product improvements that maybe take us a little away from that original vision? How do we navigate those waters of sticking to what we believe the change that we need to make and new pieces of information, new ideas from, say, team members or just experience over time? That is the biggest dilemma of innovative leaders. Because when you say, I want to do this, most people tell you why it cannot be done.

25:17And they tell you feedback is a gift. Listen to feedback and things like that. But if you listen to every piece of feedback, you'll never be able to innovate anything. Many of the things that we take for granted today, the innovators were told this will never work, right? So on the one hand, you've got to stick to your vision and say, I believe in this. And the reason I am the kind of leader is because others haven't seen that future. On the other hand, if compelling information says that your vision is wrong and could be wrong, you've got to be open to it. So that balance, that sweet spot of staying firm with your idea versus listening is really a matter of judgment.

25:56So you've got to keep your eyes and your ears open. You've got to be able to analyze every situation, every new piece of information that's coming out, which is where people are challenging your vision and your strategy. Don't react immediately. Go home. Think about it carefully. Then come back and react. Because what a lot of visionary leaders end up doing is they're saying, oh, no, you're wrong. Let me tell you why I'm right. I've done this before. Blah, blah, blah. No, no, no. So my advice to them is just take it in, go home, come back and talk tomorrow. Maybe they might be right and they might be strengthening your idea, if anything.

26:30So that's a problem that visionary leaders have and they're not very good at it. Yeah, the number of companies that I've seen either fail or have large downturns for a period of time is often related to this is the way it's always been done. right yeah i've done i had three startups in the past and here's how we got there blah blah blah which is great but if your first startup was in the early 90s and now it's 2024 the marketplace is a little different and what you did then there may be core tenants of what you did then that apply today but to think that you're going to run that same game plan to me feels like ego taking over and not being this type of student or student leader that you uh that you talk about um Um, you know, one of the things, and I know we're just getting to know each other, but one of the things from my own career that, that I had was, uh, my, my vision for the company that I was actually in the insurance industry.