Insights with Wendy Clark, CEO of Dentsu International
Rethinking Tension, Parenting as Leading, and Radical Transparency
Everybody has a Superpower. Do you know what yours is? And how will the world be different if you know what yours are? And if we help one another discover theirs?
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Leadership Playbook Insights from Wendy Clark
I sat down --virtually--with Wendy Clark, the CEO of Dentsu International, the multimedia marketing company based in London, to talk about superpowers in the context of her experiences. Before Dentsu, Wendy was CEO for DDB Worldwide, as President, Sparkling Brands & Strategic Marketing for Coca-Cola North America and as Senior Vice President, Advertising for AT&T. Wendy is also one of the most authentic, creative, and inspiring human beings on this planet!
She is one of the most well-respected executives in the marking world and has a reputation for being fearless--something we all need to learn how to harness during the pandemic. Especially as we are all trying to bridge gaps--both physical and figurative--in our teams, Wendy was able to speak into this gap, offering three key insights for effective leadership today.
Good Tension
“Tension makes for a great story and great leadership.” - Wendy Clark
Tension is what so many of us are feeling right now. Maybe we’re feeling the tension in our teams if you’re working remotely. Maybe you’re feeling tension at home, trying to integrate your kids’ virtual schooling with your own Zoom calls. I’m sure that for a lot of us, this tension feels like something to simply be endured, or maybe even avoided.
But Wendy offers a new take. Tension, she says, is, from a marketing perspective, the heart of every great story. Only conflicts can prompt resolutions. Similarly, in interpersonal team dynamics, tension can be instructive. Homogenous teams lack the friction necessary to create a spark. Tension comes down to different perspectives interacting in close confines.
But, Wendy reminds us, that this is a good thing if we can remember the difference between good tension and bad tension. Bad tension makes us combative. We think it’s us against the world. But good tension makes us advocates seeking resolution.
Parenting as an Act of Leadership
“Talk less. Listen more.” - Wendy Clark
Wendy is a mother of three. Her parenting, she says, has shaped her leadership just as much as her leadership has shaped her parenting. At their core, both share three common characteristics.
Vision. Effective leaders and parents set clear goals and expectations. Wendy calls this “visualizing the mountain.” Everyone needs to know, in great specificity, what outcome they’re working toward. This is the first and most important step in ensuring that the outcome occurs.
Support. Effective leaders and parents can help their teams and kids visualize the mountain, but they can’t climb it for them. They can climb ahead or beside, being an encourager and making sure everyone has the resources they need, but ultimately, everyone has to make it to the top on their own two feet.
Accountability. Did we climb the mountain? Leaders and parents are crucial spaces for reflection. If everyone made it to the top of the mountain, the leader’s job is to praise, celebrate, and determine why the climb was successful. If the mountain didn’t get climbed, the leader’s job is to determine the locus of the failure. Were team members not adequately supported? Were resources scarce? Was it the wrong mountain to be climbing? The leader must assess.
Radical Transparency
“Making sure people are seen for who they are--fully--is so, so important.” - Wendy Clark
Wendy values trust in her company. She trusts her employees and team members, and she wants them to trust her. Trust is the willingness to be vulnerable in the face of uncertainty, and Wendy has demonstrated at Dentus the willingness to be a vulnerable time and again.
When she became CEO in April, right as the pandemic was starting to boil, she welcomed 45,000 employees into her home with a video of herself that her daughter helped her make. She now regularly invites feedback through engagement surveys--the last of which had 39,000 comments that she is slowly working her way through.
Early on, she holds live Q and A sessions via Zoom to demonstrate her commitment to total transparency with her staff. Acknowledging that she will probably never meet everyone on her 45,000-member team, she still seeks to find ways to communicate directly and authentically.
When I asked Wendy why this was so important to her, she drew on her marketing experience. “What a gift as a leader,” she said, “to know what your audience is thinking.” This is critical because knowing your audience is the only way to craft a meaningful message, inviting others into a shared team journey.
“This,” Wendy said, “is what marketing is: identifying an audience, engaging the audience with a message in a way they can hear that message, and creating a journey for that audience. For that to be true, you have to meet the audience where they are, not where you are. I’m always thinking about how I can bring my team together on a common journey.” Wendy is committed to setting the example. Knowing your audience starts with your audience knowing you.
What’s Next?
Thank you for reading this issue of Leadership Playbook: Unleashing Your Superpowers! The next issue - out April 20 - examines the abundance mindset and how we can evade dichotomies. Become a paid subscriber to receive an a special issue each month and chapters from my audiobook of The Launch Book: Motivational Stories to Launch Your New Idea, Business, and Next Career.
Got a leadership, career, or superpowers question? Let me know via comments or email and I hope to answer them in a future issue.
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