Why the Best Leaders Think Like Mediators (Even When They’re Not)
By Leah Brown FRSA, Founder of The WayFinders Group, Lawyer-mediator, lecturer and writerHave power struggles in your business stopped paying off? Are you struggling to have your voice heard? Are you shying away from the spotlight? Forget everything you’ve ever read about leadership because the path to success is not proving yourself but making peace.
In The Devil Wears Prada, Miranda Priestly holds a coveted position as editor-in-chief of Runway Magazine. She’s the type of leader who makes snap judgments and premature decisions; her management style screams intimidation and evokes fear. Her solutions? Rarely is another person-centred.
We all feel pressure to be more like Miranda. But it’s a lie that effective leaders must have answers to every problem you have and will face in your career. Whether you’re feeling trapped in the boardroom or are overseeing rounds of redundancy, effective leaders must learn to ask the right questions and create space for those around them to be heard.
Get out of the way
As a mediator, you situate yourself between opposing views, personalities, and views. You have to leave your ego at the door. Great leaders resist the urge to jump to a quick fix when they know themselves well enough to get out of others’ way. When we insert our egos at the centre of every conversation as line managers or as leaders, we do those around us a disservice.
If you ever feel stuck in a loop, try listening to understand. Because there’s a difference between hearing something and truly listening.
The power of active listening
Mediators are always present. We use techniques like clarifying or summarising what we have heard to show that we are engaged and listening. The questions we ask are reflective and show that we have been listening to what has been communicated.
When people genuinely feel seen and heard, they feel lighter and start to consider that perhaps there is hope after all. In corporate settings, I have experienced board members realising, perhaps for the first time, that others have entirely different experiences of them, positive things to say about them, and no hard feelings, but for the situation in which they find themselves. If you’ve struggled to get out of your own way and find yourself in conflict, it is hard to get out of it without a willingness to see what part you might be playing in it. In practice, I have always found that separating the person from the problem holds the key to this.
Sometimes people stay in a job so that they can feed their family, trapped in a war zone, sometimes people are at the end of their tether. I have seen people desirous of safety, money, validation, apology, promotions or resignations. It would be impossible for a mediator to navigate these challenges without understanding what is essential to the person who has come to you for help.
Curious leaders create innovative solutions
If a tree is rotting, cutting off its branches is not going to solve the problem. The problem may lie deep underground, in its roots, which are challenging to access and time-consuming to address. Most people-related problems aren’t dissimilar. But curiosity goes a long way to uncovering root causes. When a space has been created to enable people to respond to genuine inquiry without fear or blame, solutions often emerge that weren’t immediately in contemplation when the conversation began.
In The Devil Wears Prada, Andy is the opposite of Miranda - she starts asking more profound questions about what it would look like to thrive in the fashion industry. Her curiosity leads her to reframe her feelings about Miranda’s world, stop trying to change it, and adopt a different approach to advancing her career. This didn’t happen in one conversation; it took the entire film for Andy to answer questions that would transform her performance, including getting curious about other people’s needs so that she could add value by anticipating them.
Breakthrough moments
Mediators create breakthrough moments all day, every day by getting out of their own way, suspending judgment, enquiring authentically, and asking difficult questions to get to the root of the issue. When leaders create space for people to conquer their deepest fears, they enable growth in the people around them. Others gain greater self-awareness through open dialogue and start to see their challenges differently. There is a ripple effect across communities and organisations - people become more cohesive and collaborative when it feels safe and rewarding to do so.
So, what would it feel like for you to think like a mediator, even if you’re not?
