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Leading through kindness

Putting on your senior-middle-management shoes to lead up and down the governance chain in a foreign country


Being a senior-middle-manager can be tricky. On the one hand, you are part of the management making the decisions, on the other hand you are also someone’s employee with them telling you what to do. This can feel like a pinch and takes a special skill set to navigate. On May 16th the professional network, The Gallery, had this topic in focus with Alina Daina, Country Talent Development Manager at IKEA Group in Seoul, Korea. She is herself a middle manager, and a very reflective one, with more than 15 years of experience working within HR. At her talk she shared her experience and advice on how to find your way through the pinch - even in a global context. In this article we share the key points of the talk and our own reflections. 


Knowing yourself is knowing your way

Because middle management can give you the feeling of being the stuffing in an uncomfortable sandwich, having deep self-understanding can be a determining factor in your success. Because, as a middle manager you have to lead both up and down the governance chain and that requires an ability to find your own ground. Knowing yourself and your own values is the key: What do you stand for? 


For some, values might seem like the flimsy part of the corporate world and leadership. For our speaker, it is the opposite. Being a part of IKEA’s corporate values is fundamental to their business. For Alina herself, personal values are the core of her leadership style. And, she is supported by literature because in times of pressure we will rely more on our instinct and our values - what we think, do and say without thinking and analyze. Of course being more aware of your skills and your compass makes it easier to find your way. This is particularly useful when people get annoyed with your choices and behavior.


Leading through kindness

For Alina, ‘kindness’ is a defining word in her leadership toolkit. In addition, ‘empathy’ is a secret weapon when dealing with complex environments and tasks. Empathy is also something she tries to encourage within her team.


Here it is important to understand that kindness is not the same as being nice. As a leader you have to be able to make uncomfortable and unpopular decisions. It is your job to ensure the success and the sustainability of the company, but, leading with kindness will surely help you. For example, giving feedback is kind leadership. This is an essential part of helping your employees grow or even to help you manager to lead you. But it might not always be nice, feedback can also be uncomfortable and difficult to hear for the recipient but it is through this we learn. For Alina being kind was operationalised through 3 key actions:

  • Keeping commitment

  • Showing consistency

  • Advocating for her team


Being kind also applies to showing kindness to yourself. If you are unable to do this as a leader you are not showing consistency. You have to lead by example -  we will get back to this below. However, it can often be easier to show kindness to others' mistakes than to your own.


You are the umbrella

For this Alina used the metaphor of being an umbrella. The metaphor was given to her by one of her employees and it is a beautiful image of the task of the middle manager. Because, as middle manager, you filter the many things that come from above. At times you protect your team from a change or task that is not ideal and sometimes you reschedule projects and make new plans before presenting it to the team. Often it is a matter of how it is to be presented in an - for the team - acceptable way. 


Managing upwards can mean standing firm towards your own boss, making them understand why something will not work, why there needs to be a re-prioritization or something else. It is very important to underline that this is not to be misunderstood as being insubordinate. At the end of the day your loyalty is to the company and if top-leadership needs something you will have to do it. It is a question of finding the best solution and the best way to get there. 


Being the umbrella means you protect your team from the heavy rain. Of course drops will hit the team and they know what the weather looks like. But having an umbrella makes it possible for the team to reach their destination with dry shoes.This makes the team feel safe to do their job, test different solutions and adjust accordingly whilst performing at their best.


Leading by example

Leading by example is relevant whether you are in the US Army (previous speaker of the Gallery) or working in Scandinavian IKEA. It goes to the classic saying of “walking the talk” which is why it is important to also show kindness to yourself. This entails that Alina does not sit at the office until midnight and also says no to some tasks. Setting these boundaries she shows her team that it is ok to have this balance in your life and that this is an IKEA value. She also gives her leader feedback as she wishes to get feedback from her team. This is not traditionally done in Korea so it is something everyone has to practice.


It also has practical implications and is shown through micro-actions. By finding out how to act herself, she can encourage her team to act similarly. So, for example, she always speaks last at meetings. This is to encourage listening and curiosity towards each other's perspectives. This is particularly important in Korea where the boss is understood to know everything, hence if she shares her opinion, no one will tend to disagree. 


Dare to raise your hand - this is not right

Leading by example also means to dare to say it out loud if something is not right, even though it might bring discomfort to the room in the moment. She does this for example when her team continuously switches to speaking Korean in meetings. Not of ill-will but because it is easier for them. Still, eventually she asked to organize the meetings so she could leave before the Korean part or they kept them in English, because it is not right for them to let her sit on the outside. This enables a real conversation and allows everyone’s needs to be met and eventually more English spoken.


Whether it is towards her team or her boss, Alina uses her instinct to guide her. And leading by instinct is something she generally wants to advocate for. Of course, with 15 years of HR experience, she acknowledges the importance of data-driven management and KPI’s but also says we should never underestimate our instinct. You should always follow and test your actions but don’t necessarily wait to start or delay decisions. Very often you know something is a fit by sheer instinct and then proceedings can carry on without the need to analyze everything. 


Leading by instinct requires great listening skills, as you need to know what is going on to feed your instinct - also listening to the tacit knowledge. And in a global context this becomes increasingly important and difficult. Alina estimates that she spends 20% of her day ensuring that she understands what is going on, and only then can she listen to her instinct. 


Finding balance in life and work is the ambition

The final guiding star is balance. Balance between life and work. Balance between busy and calm. Balance between performance and learning. 


This again requires very thought through strategies. Alina has a mantra to “always pause before pressing send”. This of course applies to emails, pausing, reading them through and thinking them through before sending them into the world. But, also metaphorically thinking before talking and acting. Feedback is a key tool in all leadership. Thus it should be seen as a gift which should be wrapped nicely. With her many years experience she realizes that words have a major impact and therefore cannot be taken lightly. So she pauses. This also means she never multitasks. When she is in a meeting she is there, handling the rest after. This can be a nuisance to for example her management team who sometimes wish she could just quickly answer a question but for Alina that would mean being only half present at both tasks. This is a major  enabling factor allowing Alina to be “the umbrella” for her team. 


In general, preparation, planning and reflection seems to be a very big part of Alina's recipe for success and she makes sure she has the routines in her work-life to ensure that. It is not easy as she says “the many roles I have in my life can sometimes make it a bit crowded, but I make sure to prioritize quiet time and constantly checking-in with myself.”


Every mistake holds valuable knowledge 

Pausing and not acting too quickly also enables her to actually learn from mistakes instead of repeating them. Everyone makes mistakes. For Alina there are necessary mistakes and there are annoying mistakes. No matter which ones they are, you have to learn from them because they hold important lessons. This is also leading by example. If we want to encourage responsibility and innovation, we have to make it ok to fail. And if we want to encourage reflection we should not hide our mistakes but learn from them together. This requires trust, and leading with kindness promotes this trust and enables a language where we can also talk about the inexpedient matters.  


To keep her head clear Alina seeks mentorship and encourages all leaders to do the same. This will help you to keep to your path and it will help you move out of any negative feelings you may encounter. As a middle manager sometimes your frustrations can also be with your manager, so you need a safe space to discuss, even vent and then start to explore your options.


Using the company values as a compass

The corporate values of IKEA are

  • Togetherness. Togetherness is at the heart of the IKEA culture. ...

  • Caring for people and planet. We want to be a force for positive change. ...

  • Cost-consciousness. ...

  • Simplicity. ...

  • Renew and improve. ...

  • Different with a meaning. ...

  • Give and take responsibility. ...

  • Lead by example.

And working in IKEA these values are a general part of the corporate identity. Alina uses this very actively in her leadership and finds them very powerful. The values are a very specific way to open up a difficult conversation. For example, if we speak a language at a meeting one person does not understand, does that promote togetherness? In that context the corporate value provides an “objective” or at least for cooperation as a related reason to address this concern and not only Alina’s feelings. 


For many people corporate values are a nice thing to have, maybe you know them, maybe you don’t. Maybe you are unaware how they actually form the company and guide your own behavior. Maybe you have even rolled your eyes at yet another HR seminar when you “have real work to do”. Alina’s way of using them very actively in motivating, steering conversation and addressing problems is inspirational and a very concrete way for you as a middle manager to start looking at your own team, your manager’s expectations and behavior and your own leadership. And if you see something you want to change, the values give you a foundation to stand on so that you can start that potentially difficult conversation. 


None of the above came easy to Alina and she also experiences the pinch of middle management. However, we hope her hard earned learnings can make it easier for you to find your way leading with kindness, leading by example and balancing it all so you and the company can thrive. 


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The Gallery is a professional network for spouses living in Seoul with their working partner, who wish to maintain their professional identity. At The Gallery you will find inspirational talks, a network of clever peers and an opportunity to get to know Korea from a business angle although you are currently not working. 

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