Leaders must have high self-awareness

Interview by
Jolanda Bouman
The
greatest
energy
loss
can
potentially
come
from
simply
struggling
with
your
own
self-confidence
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INTERVIEW KNUT FROSTAD
Leaders must
have high selfawareness
Knut Frostad CEO of the Volvo Ocean Race
According to Knut Frostad,
having high self-awareness is
crucial for any leader, in
business and on board. A good
understanding of your strengths
and weaknesses and being open
about them improves your
collaboration with others,
increases your confidence and
helps you perform better overall.
SELF-AWARENESS
Corinna Halloran
‘In my days at business school,
I learnt a long list of characteristics
that a good leader has to possess.
And all I thought was: how can I
ever meet all those demands? In my
opinion, the most important skill of
all for a leader is self-awareness.
Knowing yourself - who you are,
what you’re good at and what you’re
not good at, how you communicate,
how you affect other people and
how others affect you.
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It’s impossible to pretend to be
someone else when you’re a leader,
especially on a boat where everyone
is close to you all the time. You’re
kind of naked. You all wear the
same clothes, nobody knows how
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INTERVIEW KNUT FROSTAD
much you earn, what car you drive,
how neat your office is, you have no
privileges. There’s nothing to hide
behind. The only thing that’s left is
you, your personality. What you’re
doing right now. If you make a
mistake, everyone sees it. If you’re
happy, sad or irritated, people
notice immediately.
But when you’re aware of yourself
and open about it, this improves a
working relationship enormously.
For example, I once had to team
up with a successful leader of a big
company who had the reputation of
being quite arrogant. During our
first meeting, he said: “We have to
work together and I know I can
come across as arrogant, but I’m
working on it. Tell me when I cross
the line.” He was self-aware! I never
had any trouble with him after he
told me that. Problems arise when
you are arrogant and unaware of it.
I tend to quantify my day in energy
levels. You start the morning fully
charged and throughout the day you
use energy. Ideally, all of it is spent
on achieving the company’s goals.
However, in reality some of the
energy will be lost on misunderstandings, personal agendas, lack
of listening, alignments and other
interpersonal issues that all come
from lacking self awareness.
The greatest energy loss can potentially come from simply struggling
with your own self-confidence.
I believe that being more self-aware
and accepting and even liking ‘what
you see in the mirror’ can make a
huge difference to any manager.
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I’d also always recommend selfawareness training and coaching.
This is a never-ending journey we
can all only get better at. It’s the
best way to build real and lasting
self-confidence.’
THE RIGHT DECISIONS
AT THE RIGHT TIME
‘Ultimately, successful management
teams can be identified as those
which are able to make good
decisions quickly and that normally
comes from self-confidence.
The job of the skipper on board is
to make responsible decisions at
the right time and this can happen
any time during the day. Sometimes
once a day, sometimes twenty times
a day. When you’re winning, such
decisions are easier because
winning builds your confidence. But
it’s good decision making when you
are losing and in high stress
situations that separates the best
from the rest. You need a leader
who knows how to manage stress
in dangerous situations. A good
skipper keeps calm and isn’t affected even in dangerous and really
stressful situations.
The worst you can do is not make a
decision at all or take too much time
over it. That definitely affects the
faith people have in you as their
leader, both offshore and onshore,
and it certainly affects the results.
On a boat the effect of not making a
decision is very measureable. Every
six hours we get position reports
telling us how well we are doing.
In normal business, we don’t get
measured that often, so you can
survive longer without making
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decisions until they are really forced
on you.
Again being self-aware also helps
you obtain better support to make
good decisions quickly. The more
you know about yourself, the better
you can complement yourself by
including the right people in
decision making. For example, my
right hand, Tom Touber (COO), and
I are quite different in some specific
areas we’ve identified. He’s great at
planning, while I’m more creative
and strategic. Without him, I would
definitely struggle with my timelines.
With him, I can make sure we keep
on track for the overall strategic
objectives. Self-awareness in that
situation ensures that I appreciate
this difference rather than being
frustrated by it.
Another side of self-awareness is
motivation. Knowing what motivates
you and your teammates. Nine
months is an incredibly long time
to stay 100% motivated and deliver
a high performance. Certainly
there’s nothing in the boat itself that
will drive your motivation when you
need it. The only thing left is the
result. But you need something
other than just the result to drive you
and the team through difficult times.
There’s hardly time to recover
between the legs and we need to
know as much as we can about
what drives us so you can surround
yourself with things that give you
energy, whatever that is. It can be
anything, but if you’re not aware of
it, it’s nothing. As an example, for
me, being able to be outdoors for
just a short while every day is
critical to my motivation and I focus
and plan to make sure that happens
as much as possible. Also knowing
what drives and motivates others on
board is equally important.
CONFIDENCE
‘The first time I was skipper in
the Volvo Ocean Race, I was very
young, 29 years old. It was my
biggest school ever. You’re being
tested, you make mistakes and
there’s a lot of pressure. Everybody
looks at you and expects results.
Naturally we didn’t win all the time.
When you lose, there are two
possibilities for a leader: you
become stronger or weaker.
When you look in the mirror and
see your strengths and weaknesses, you have to like the package.
But are you still able to like what
you see when your boat ranks 7th
place? If you start to doubt yourself
at that point, you lose confidence
and grow weaker. It’s impossible to
grow if you start questioning yourself and start focusing on what
went wrong. What can I improve?
That’s what you have to ask yourself. As long as you make progress
on that journey, you will make
changes. Not changing will not
help you survive for long unless
you’re winning straight out of the
blocks.
The
worst
you
can
do
is
not
make
a
decision
at
all
or
take
too
much
time
to
make
a
decision
During the race, the reality is that
you have to compete with exceptionally good teams and leaders
who can all deliver a world-class
performance. You can easily
establish a parallel with markets on
which all companies perform well.
Except for the fact that the
improving teams
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INTERVIEW KNUT FROSTAD
difference in results is often
less clear because no ranking is
published every six hours.
Let me illustrate that. Once during
the Volvo Ocean Race, three boats
finished within two minutes of each
other after crossing the Southern
Ocean all the way from New
Zealand. One boat went from fourth
to second place, just a few hundred
metres from the finish line. Another
went from second to fourth place.
Does that make the skipper that
ended up in 4th place a bad leader
or a poor professional sailor? The
reality is that all the teams were just
exceptionally good, but one of them
had to finish in fourth place and if
you’re good enough, it will be down
to very, very small details. Obviously,
the team that went from second to
fourth place had a very tough
debriefing the morning after.
Then you need to keep things in
perspective. If you don’t, your
self-confidence takes a big hit for
the wrong reasons and you only
have ten days to recover before you
start the next leg.
Often I get asked: “What is the
toughest part of the Volvo Ocean
Race?” For me, that’s an easy
question to answer. The constant
pressure to perform combined with
being constantly measured, the
world-class competitors and then
the enormous number of challenges
you have to overcome such as
storms, potential breakages and
sleep deprivation. It’s a tough
leader’s cocktail, but you normally
emerge with a self-awareness that
will help you in any decision making
and any relationship later on in life.’
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Amory Ross
Yann Riou
Corinna Halloran
Brian Carlin
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