"I don't know a single human being that doesn't care about clean air, eating food that is good for you and doesn't kill you, living in communities that are united and not divided, or leaving a better world for our kids. I actually think as human beings, we're far more united than the news media and most of the conversations we're having in this world make us think we are."
Those are the inspiring words from the awesomely inspiring Halla Tómasdóttir, CEO of The B Team and former candidate for the presidency of Iceland. In my conversation with her, produced for my Fintech.TV global series, “Dangerous Women: Leading Onward,” we explore the many innovative ways that she is applying her leadership position to identify and implement just and sustainable solutions to the climate crisis.
As leader of The B Team, a nonprofit co-founded by Sir Richard Branson and Jochen Zeitz to bring together global leaders from business and from civil society, Halla is leading the effort to redefine the culture of accountability in business by "creating and cascading new norms of corporate leadership that can build a better world."
The B Team believes that if we are to successfully navigate challenges like climate change and inequality in our systems, a new formula for leadership is needed; and they are working to redefine what that bold, brave leadership should look like in the 21st century.
"I think we need to rethink leadership and reset leadership," Halla told me. "Leadership needs to be unlocked in all of us. We need to think about leadership as behaviors that are inside of ourselves. We need to drop from our heads to our hearts. That's where our courage sits. That's where what we care about sits."
"We're at this really interesting moment where it is actually in everybody's interest to understand that we have to deal with this crisis in front of us and that we have to deal with it together."
"We also need to shift the system," she says. "We can't ask leaders to be brave in a broken system that has the wrong incentives." The current economic system, she says, "has left us with this narrow definition of success, of financial profit only, and no ways to capture the actual things that matter to us."
She and The B Team want to redefine "success" with global environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) standards that measure companies not only in terms of profits, but also in terms of sustainability and the societal impact that corporations and businesses have locally, nationally and globally.
The New Leadership Playbook
The B Team's New Leadership Playbook, a collection of stories, insights and resources, is a primer for 21st-century leadership. There's also a podcast, hosted by Halla, called "10x Bolder" that you can download wherever you get your podcasts.
We hope to "start uplifting more powerfully the stories of transformation," Halla says, "because we believe that when we come together, we can design and discover answers."
"Leadership is no longer about delivering short-term financial profit for shareholders. Leadership has to be about — not only in your own organization, but in your sector and in your communities — bringing people together to tackle these existential climate and environmental breakdowns, [and] doing it in an equitable, inclusive, and just way."
I can't think of anyone better than Halla to lead this movement because, as you'll see in our conversation, she makes the argument so clearly that we just cannot do business the way we've been doing it.
I first met Halla over a decade ago at the Omega Women & Power Conference. At the time, Halla was executive chairman of Audur Capital, an Icelandic financial firm she co-founded in 2007. In her 2010 TED talk at the very first TEDWomen, Halla talked about how she managed to successfully take her company through the eye of the financial crisis without any direct losses to her company's equity or to the funds of her clients by applying five traditionally "feminine" values to financial services. (Learn more about the five values in her TED talk.)
She was already redefining leadership and success at that time. Audur Capital "raised quite a few eyebrows in Iceland," she said. "It was not about women being better than men. It is actually about women being different from men, bringing different values and different ways to the table. So what do you get?
You get better decision-making, and you get less herd behavior, and both of those things hit your bottom line with very positive results."
In 2016, Halla ran for president of Iceland. Although she came in second, she went from polling at just one percent at the beginning of her campaign to winning a third of the vote, and beating the polls by an unprecedented margin, on Election Day. In her 2016 TED Talk, Halla explained why she ran and why she wants to see more women run for office everywhere, be it the office of the CEO or the office of the president.
"It's critical that we close the gender, racial, and ethnic gaps in leadership rooms everywhere by 2025, because that is the transformational lever to help us deliver the results we need by 2030. I think that for the longest time, as I worked on women empowerment — and I'm still so passionate about it — but I'm even more passionate about gender balance, because gender balance to me is also about shifting the values that underpin organizational culture, business culture and our economy. And I think we need a good balance of both the masculine and feminine qualities and traits and metrics. We need capitalism that cares about people and the planet."
In closing, Halla said that "there's a leader inside of each and every one of us. I have suffered plenty of doubts and even imposter thoughts throughout my life before taking on challenges. But I have learned that when I drop from my head to my heart and really fight for what I care about, I am just like everyone [reading this], capable of being part of the solution. And I think that's a critical message right now."
I do, too. Thank you, Halla, for showing up as you do in so many extraordinary and transformational ways! She's given us a playbook of how we can create a future and a place we love to live in — and one we want our children and grandchildren to live in.
Onward!
-Pat
