New leadership: Be vulnerable and courageous

Let’s Talk – Kevin Cashman

I'm Kevin Cashman. I've been with Korn Ferry for about fourteen years. I've been in this industry for more years than I want to quote.

The new leadership for the new world.

We just finished a three-year research study on what's the new leadership for the new world and there's many components to it, but the most important thing is being able to go across, influence across, motivate across, think across, innovate across, be inclusive across our enterprise and ecosystems.

Creating value by moving laterally.

So, today, it's about creating value by moving laterally. We're like new athletes that have been very well trained in going up and down vertically within a hierarchy. But now we have to go across to serve those in our enterprise but also serve everyone in all the ecosystems that we touch.

Vulnerability and courage is critical.

Vulnerability and courage is critical for you to have now because even though it's counterintuitive, the more vulnerable and open and courageous you can be, the more credibility and connection you'll have with others. So, we have to have the courage to be real and open and vulnerable and maybe alone at times, but we also have to be deeply connected. So, for you to really have an impact, we have to be courageous enough to be open so that we have deep connections with people. So, you want to take the seeming risk and do that and you'll have a big impact.