Elevating Customer Success: Leadership Principles for Growth and Collaboration

As a customer success leaders, many face the challenge of building and maintaining a broad scope of strong relationships. With customers, we seek to deliver value and satisfaction, and to grow loyalty. With team members, we work to foster great teamwork, collaboration, and trust to achieve team success. 

We know that traditional models of leadership, based on hierarchy, command and control, and rigid structures, are not effective in addressing these challenges and growing these dynamic relationships. Instead, I want to explore some insights and tips on growing your leadership skills based on the principles of agility, vulnerability, purpose, generosity, and creativity to foster innovation and adaptability.

Agility

One of the main principles of leadership is agility—the ability to respond quickly and effectively to changing situations and opportunities. This requires building a network of small, empowered, and interconnected teams that can share information, make decisions, and act quickly. By empowering your team members to make decisions and take actions that benefit the customer, you help build trust, alignment, and accountability within and across your teams. This requires a shift in leadership style from being directive and authoritative to being compassionate and enabling and working to lead your team based on a shared vision. Through this approach, you can be more receptive to and engaged in customer relationships, enabling you to deliver faster, better, and more personalized solutions to your customers. If you want to learn more about leading with Agility, I recommend reading Team of Teams by Stanley McChrystal.

Vulnerability

Another key principle of leadership is vulnerability, which I see as the willingness to show up and be seen, even when there is no guarantee of success or acceptance. This can set the stage for innovation, creativity, and change, as it allows you to experiment, learn and grow. It also creates a culture of psychological safety, where people can take risks, learn from failures, and speak up without fear of judgment or punishment. You can practice vulnerability, by acknowledging your mistakes and limitations, sharing lessons learned, asking for help and feedback, and showing empathy and compassion to your customers and team members. This will help you foster a culture of learning, growth, and innovation, where people can experiment, iterate, and improve their processes and outcomes, and where they can express their ideas, opinions and emotions without hesitation or fear.  For more on this topic, check out Brene Brown’s works including Dare To Lead.

Purpose

Purpose—the sense of meaning and direction that guides and motivates people—is what inspires you and others to do what you do and allows for a deeper human connection.

Leaders who communicate their purpose clearly and consistently build a culture of trust, loyalty, and engagement. Purposeful leadership energizes and empowers others and promotes the prioritization of important and aligned activities, allowing the team to accomplish great things together.  It also inspires a greater sense of mission, passion, and team commitment that, in turn, motivates teams to go above and beyond for their customers.  Check out Simon Sinek’s books and podcasts for more on this topic.

Generosity

A fourth principle of leadership that I want to share is generosity, or the willingness to give more than you receive, without expecting anything in return. This builds trust, reciprocity, and collaboration, and fosters a caring culture where people help each other and share their knowledge and resources. Leaders who practice generosity create a network of sustained support, influence, and goodwill. You can demonstrate generosity by going the extra mile for your customers, sharing best practices and insights, and mentoring and coaching your team members. There are many sources that discuss generosity.  Adam Grant’s book Give and Take addresses it within the work environment.  I highly recommend his podcast and books.  

Creativity

Finally, let’s discuss creativity. Creativity is not just about producing something new but also about being able to see things in a new way, embrace diversity, and take chances.  Leaders who practice creativity are better equipped to solve problems, lead more inclusive teams, and inspire others to do the same.  By maintaining a creative mindset, you can adapt, evolve, and foster a culture of innovation in your team.  A great source for exploring creativity is Rick Rubin’s book The Creative Act.

These principles of Leadership that I have shared, and the suggestions of authors and materials that I have made, are not meant to be comprehensive or final. If you have other Leadership principles or skills that you value or other podcasts, articles, or books that you enjoy, please do not hesitate to share.  

I am grateful to be a part of an organization of such an incredibly gifted and dynamic team of leaders.  We have a culture that fosters greater innovation, adaptability, and collaboration in our teams. 

Lead on and grow your impact.