Daring to take critique

Kari is the youngest and least experienced leader participating in my project. Kari highlights a similar perspective to that of Louise’s concerning the capability to contain criticism and feedback, based on a belief in the value of showing trust and self-trust. Where Louise holds decades of experience as a leader when she talks about taking feedback and accept criticism, Kari is just a few months into her role as a leader when we have our conversation. Still, the essence in the expressed experience of what trust and self-trust are is similar to that of Louise:

(..) First of all, one sees in a room if what one is saying goes through, that you can see, one feels that physical sensation in giving a presentation and then one feels, how many are with you and how many are not getting anything of this (..) And then of course, it is this about asking people; “What do you think about that, how does it sound, what do you think, is this going to work?” Simply this, to ask people, and to

always have people to provide feedback, and of course to have the stomach to take that feedback. Because it is obvious; if you ask people what they think, they often will say things that you don’t want to hear.

Here, Kari accounts for a leadership style in which her capacity for containing criticism is crucial.

I understand this reference to the importance of tolerating negative feedback as an expression of her self-trust; her notion of self-trust works as a resource for the project she as a leader has undertaken.

Kari elaborates further on her ideas about what I interpret as layers of self-trust related to notions about identity in her role as a leader when she describes boldness as a quality in her leadership:

I think that we must dare to stand for the choices and then we must dare to take critique and then we must dare to say “sorry, I was wrong about that”. (..) I have often said things before I have been thinking, because I have been feeling. So I don’t follow a recipe, I don’t follow any template, but I feel. “This is right, this is how we need to do it!”

In this quote, Kari highlights how she sees herself representing individuality in her style of leadership: ‘I don’t follow a recipe’. She clearly understands herself as an unorthodox leader driven by her self-trust as a capability. This is similar to Louise who describes her leadership as something different. Like Louise, Kari presents herself as an unorthodox leader who opposes the established norms of how a leader is expected to act. Trust and self-trust crystallise as influential aspects in her identity as a leader: they are the drivers that facilitate her individual agency in her role as a leader. I here read self-trust and daring as two sides of the same coin, as two mutually crucial components in her identity as a leader that are deployed as pillars in the construction of her leadership identity. Kari talks about daring to take choices as well as daring to receive critique for her choices as a leader. In her statement, a strong idea about trust and self-trust lingers as the basis for how she understands her role and work as a leader.

Another nuance of self-trust in Kari’s leadership identity evolves when she describes a highly explicit and strong physical sensation concerning her ‘feel of trust’ in the room with her employees. Kari refers to her state of feeling as a capability to interpret the atmosphere in a room, as a way of judging if she as a leader is reaching others. As she explains it, this type of felt trust helps her navigate her environment with a strong belief in doing the right thing. The way I read this, her self-trust is the facilitating driver for the trust she sees as at stake and that she strives to

foster in her leadership. In this case, the agency that trust gives her is strongly connected to her individual embodied capacity to read the atmosphere in a room of people.

In the stories of Louise and Kari, I find that to them trust and self-trust represent the capacity to be a different type of leader; trust and self-trust endow them with the agency to act according to what they perceive as a distinct style of leadership. They reveal strong notions about their identity as leaders by presenting themselves as leaders who are different in their leadership. I understand this difference as something they see as their primary asset in their leadership role.

As it emerges in both the stories of Louise and Kari, their descriptions of being courageous leaders who expose their own viewpoints to be challenged and critiqued by others build on a notion of vigorous self-trust. It signals a strong belief in their own sense of self as leaders. Thus, I see both Louise and Kari as displaying what they portray as a high degree of self-trust. They both implicitly reveal a notion of having strong faith in themselves and also convey a strong sense of self-trust in how they see themselves as leaders. In their roles as creators of trust, the capabilities they see themselves possessing in terms of building trust with their employees is to a great extent generated by their self-trust. In this manner, trust and self-trust are core pillars in their identity as leaders and provide them with the agency to perform the style of leadership they wish to promote.

The dimension of recognising the individual as a means for building the collective becomes apparent when Kari talks about how she sees herself leading through stars:

(..) What I have tried to do is to lead through stars (..) Because it is a risk with this job, that I end up standing alone in the wind (..) I am a leader for 250 people and my success dwells in getting them to follow me, simply, we need to own this together.

And then I have a belief that individuals in this organisation will be able to join in and pull it. These stars, - and they can be high and low in the organisation - they will be part of leading through examples (..). And it is this organism, that an organisation is, that needs to be facilitated (..) The mistake many do, is that one is managing everything alone or in that small group who is named the management team. They are like islands operating for themselves, and then the organization is here somewhere (..).

In this statement, Kari accentuates the image of herself as an unorthodox leader who leads differently. In contrast to leaders who mistakenly attempt to handle everything alone, she like Louise sees herself as a leader who works genuinely and with great concern to get the organisation

to follow her. According to her own account, trust and self-trust are what provide her with agency in her leadership in order to get her employees to follow her.