LinkedIn’s Mindfulness Lead Branches Out To Cultivate Inside Out Leadership
After a career as a customer-facing executive, Scott Shute designed and took his dream job, as Head of Mindfulness and Compassion Programs at LinkedIn. On the eve of his departure from LinkedIn, we spoke about Scott’s approach to leadership, which he describes as inside-out. This approach, based in compassion, has never been more critical than now amid the Great Resignation and so much other stress and tumult for employees within and beyond the workplace.
Nell Derick Debevoise: You talk about Inside-Out leadership – what does that look like?
Scott Shute: One of my favorite quotes is from Rumi: “Yesterday I was clever, and I tried to change the world, and today I am wise, and I'm working on myself.”
These days, we can open the virtual newspaper, and think wow, the world is a messed up place, and I'm not even sure which world I live in, based on which browser I opened. In that context, I could spend energy trying to solve any of those problems, whether climate or social justice or race or education. But I want to spend my energy on consciousness. And compassion.
I've had two tracks in my career: a giant part of my life has been as a spiritual seeker and teacher, but I've also had a career as an executive. Now, I'm trying to blend these two things together. I want to bring lessons from these wisdom traditions that have been taught for thousands of years to the workplace, using language that is inclusive and familiar.
I believe the most important thing we can do as humans is work on our own development. If we focus on our own development, then everything else gets better. We become better at relationships, better at leading, more aware of our customers, of our employees as leaders. We're a way better version of ourselves. So for me, that's what it means to lead from the inside out.
Derick Debevoise: Why is this inside-out approach powerful now?
Shute: We live in a highly distracting environment, which is also increasingly polarized. We are bombarded with images and ideas that are divisive, on any issue, whether racial justice or climate. That barrage of inputs distracts us from the deepest part of ourselves.
And secondly, work has been part of the problem for a long time. Whereas I think work can be part of the solution. Companies have more power now at the individual level, societal level, and around the world. They can influence us in a way that governments and religions have been doing for millennia.
This influence that companies have presents an opportunity for individual employees to connect to impact and that is my sweet spot. If we can raise the consciousness of individuals in the workplace, and thereby also raise the consciousness of companies, that's how I want to change the world.
Derick Debevoise: As companies have increasing influence compared to the State or religion, you’ve also observed a shift in power away from the corporation to the employee. Say more about that.
Shute: Thousands of years ago, we had the Agrarian age, with kings and slaves. Workers were forced into action. Then, we had the Industrial age, with workers all making the exact same thing in a factory, like cogs in the machine. Workers were not highly valued in either of these scenarios.
Today, in the Information age, many companies no longer produce hard goods or have manufacturing lines. They only have data. This means that companies’ most important resource is people: their employees. The war for talent is real, and 56% of American workers are actively looking for their next job, far more than pre-quarantine times.
As workers, we've all had this global pause. We’re all asking ourselves, “Wait, if life is short, why am I doing this? Am I gonna put up with an hour and a half commute each way? Or this jerk boss?”
So we're facing what we call the Great Reshuffle. Companies are trying to figure out who they are, and more importantly, employees are trying to figure out who they are. We're reevaluating our values and moving towards companies and managers and leaders, who are more awake and will invest in us as workers, and care about the broader world.
Because if the senior-most leader is talking about the good that we're doing in the world, rather than just becoming the next $5 billion or $20 billion company, there’s something worth my time and effort. If I feel like just another cog in the big money machine, it’s not very motivating. But if my company is out to make the world a better place, my work matters. And that means my life matters, which is a powerful reason to keep showing up.
Derick Debevoise: Tell us more about how you see courage as part of compassion.
Shute: Well, companies that take care of all stakeholders – their customers, employees, and the shareholders – have been shown to be more profitable than companies that focus only on shareholders. And it starts with having compassion for all those stakeholders, which I define in three parts: being aware of others, wishing the best for them, and then having the courage to take action.
This financially advantageous stakeholder capitalism requires doing what might not be great for the company from a shareholder perspective in the short term, to support the needs of either the employees or customers, or both. Knowing that it will pay off over the long term.
To make those choices, you either need a leader with the personal conviction that is stronger than the organization, or an organization that creates the safety to operate like that. The CFO and the CEO have to be willing to tell shareholders, “We stand by we did, but this quarter may not be what you expected. But our long-term prospects are even better because of the actions we took this quarter,” and then stand in the fire of the questioning that comes.
Similarly, leaders might encourage a salesperson to focus on providing long term value vs selling something customers don’t need at the end of the quarter just to hit their quota. This requires a bit more thought in the motivation systems that we’ve typically relied on.
In both cases, it goes back to the personal strength to say, “If you want to penalize me for doing the wrong thing, I don't want to be here. I'll happily take my skills somewhere else where my values can align with the work I do.” And that is extraordinarily scary for many of us, especially when we feel like we don't have a choice. But for a growing number of people, it's a false trap. We actually have way more choices than we ever have as workers.
It's up to our personal courage to start challenging organizations to be more compassionate and do the right things for both employees and customers. And then if we can't change them, to vote with our feet. That's how we change the world from the inside out, is when we stand up and say, “No, I'm not living like that. Here's how I am living my best.”
Debevoise: Amen! So the research shows that taking this compassionate approach is better – for company performance and our own individual wellbeing. And yet, we still see so many non-compassionate choices being made by leaders and organizations - what is blocking our progress?
Shute: The truth is, it's harder to be a compassionate manager. It's so much easier to eat chips and wake up whenever I want as a human, and as a leader, it's so much easier to follow the flow and do what we’ve always done in those Agrarian and Industrial contexts. We're conditioned by the way that we have made money in the past. We get invested in by shareholders and then we feel like our purpose is to make money for the shareholders.
Considering all of us, all of the stakeholders, is harder. It requires the courage to shift and say, “Actually we exist for much more than shareholder profit.” And to stand up to the shareholders and ask, “First of all, don't you also want to be about more than this? Aren’t we better than this? AND by the way, if we also balance the needs of our customers and our employees, we will do better financially. But in some cases, it might take us a little longer, so hang in there with me.”
That takes courage, and the ability to inspire others. And getting there starts with the hard but powerful work of advancing our own development, from the inside out.
Learn more about my new book, Going First: Find the Courage to lead Purposefully and Inspire Action, here.
Nell Derick Debevoise - Follow me on LinkedIn. Check out my website or some of my other work here.
