THE SECRET TO LEADERSHIP SUCCESS
Helping individuals to determine and pursue their own, broader meanings of success can improve the outcome for society as a whole, says Harvard Business School alumnus Ed Haddon
workforce no longer wants to just earn money; now there is a desire for autonomy, a personal connection with a business’s purpose and an alignment between personal and corporate measures of success. Gaining definition MBA students learn about how businesses set key performance metrics (KPIs), design balanced scorecards and report on variances to plan. What is the equivalent of these for them as individuals, or us as a society? These students are at a critical point in their lives and careers. Helping them define and live their own version of success could improve outcomes for generations to come. When I won a place at Harvard Business School in 1998, I had climbed a very linear ladder of success. I graduated two years later with many new hard skills and a vague, generic sense of business and leadership as a force for good. I was still no closer to understanding my own unique definition of purpose or success. This is more important than discounted cash flows. Like the undergraduate happiness courses now available at most leading universities, MBA courses need time and teaching devoted to help students harness the energy that comes from defining and measuring their version of success. This will be
‘Success’ is a loaded word; ‘failure’ even more so. We are hard-coded to seek success and avoid failure at all costs. How we judge ourselves on these metrics has a huge impact on our state of mind and our mental health. However, we spend little time thinking about what success means for us, or how we measure it. The modern triumvirate of education, advertising and capitalism combine to convince us that success is making money to live a life of material consumerism. We learn from an early age that it is based on wealth, power, job titles, fame and now followers. Our parents, teachers, governments and workplaces shape our understanding of what ‘doing well’ looks like. With the world facing unprecedented geopolitical and environmental uncertainties, now is the time to redefine success. The GDP focus of the past 50 years needs updating. Continuing with a one-size-fits-all version of success disadvantages so many people – people with crucial skills and talents to help us ensure that we survive and increase our overall flourishing. Many of us are rethinking work and life. The pandemic was a wake-up call to reassess some of the beliefs that we have long assumed to be true. Movements such as B Corp and Better Business are responding to this. The
Ed Haddon is the founder of Haddon Coaching, a certiied B Corp, which focuses on helping founders and individuals build businesses and lives based on purpose and bespoke deinitions of success. He is also the author of The modern maverick (Bloomsbury Business, 2023) and is currently developing an MBA
module based on the book. Haddon holds a master’s in experimental psychology from
Oxford University and an MBA from Harvard Business School
34 | Ambition APRIL 2023
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