HQ Asia: You are a female leader in a male-dominated industry, a Singaporean living in Beijing and an Asian working for a Western organisation. What were your success factors in leading across borders?

I am proud that I have able to succeed in the diverse environments that I have operated in. Whether I am a female, Singaporean or Asian must not be relevant. What is most important is that the business stakeholders and the organisation that I lead have confidence in my capabilities.

In leading across borders, a leader needs to demonstrate a consistency of purpose. When your organisation is spread across the globe, a sense of purpose becomes a guiding beacon. Simplicity of this message is key – the organisation must be able to articulate this purpose in repeatable sound bites. For instance, we want to be the largest contributor of financial growth to our business, and we do this by being the most competitive and innovative commercial business in the industry that we are in.  

I once learnt from a mentor, whom I have a tremendous amount of respect for, that a good leader must have a hard head and a soft heart. It made a lot of sense to me, and he encapsulated that into a memorable sound bite. A poignant example occurred five years ago. I had put forward a recommendation to outsource our global IT services, a decision that would impact about 3,000 people. A hard head is needed to drive tough business decisions which are necessary for long-term business sustainability. A soft heart is needed to treat individuals with care and respect in the course of doing business.

I chose to be transparent with our organisation, and was upfront in sharing that we would kick off a study on the feasibility of outsourcing a substantial part of our IT services. Right from the very start, people had been the centre of our consideration. In moment of turbulent change like this, we have to appeal not just to the head but to the heart as well.

I always believe that if you take care of your people, they will take care of your business. My first port of call was my direct reports. I asked them, “Do you believe in this journey? Can we do this? Do you want to do this?” Today, most of these individuals would refer to this period as one of the highlights of their professional experience despite the difficulties we had gone through.   

Can you provide an example of when you have had to adapt your management style, yet remained authentic?

The business environment we operate in is multi-faceted and heterogeneous. It would be a mistake to assume that we can lead with a single leadership style. I adapt and adjust my style to what is warranted in that particular environment. However, what I stand for does not waiver. My personal beliefs remain authentic: it is people that make a difference to the business. And, we must conduct business with honesty and integrity.

The business culture in China is often described as relationship-based. My natural working style is much more results and task-focused: I would expect people to share the same business goals if we are to work together. If not, I would work to engage my team on what those common goals are. At times, in operating our Joint Ventures in China, the goals of the various stakeholders are may not be well aligned. My natural results-focused style would not work in this context. So, I had to adapt and learn to put on a different hat in a Chinese context – I had to learn to build strong relationships first.

Sometimes, when you project different styles in different environments, you can come across as manipulative and inauthentic. A leader that can adapt their style and yet remain authentic throughout will be successful in leading across borders.  

We understand that ‘authentic leadership’ is part of Shell’s leadership framework. How do you measure and develop authenticity? How do you help others develop their authenticity?

Every leader at Shell is expected to demonstrate four behaviors that together constitute authentic leadership attributes. These are:

1. Having a personal leadership purpose and knowing how this aligns with the business agenda;

2. Possessing resiliency – especially in the face of leadership dilemmas;

3. Being open to the perspectives of others;

4. Consistently demonstrating personal integrity, transparency and humility.

The question of how I help others develop their authenticity is not easy to answer. I will tend to be ‘black and white’ with the fourth behavior trait mentioned above – There is no compromise when it comes to doing business with personal integrity. The other three behaviours can be developed as leaders grow and mature. For example, under personal leadership, the basic expectation would be that leaders communicate their leadership purpose and explain how they integrate this with the broader business agenda. I find that authentic leaders tend to be more self-aware – they often take time to reflect on the impact they have on people and businesses they lead.

This article was first published in HQ Asia (Print) Issue 05 (2013).