Boy, there are a lot of leadership lessons being drawn from the fiasco of the Oscars, aren’t there? I’ll spare you another one about the graciousness of the LA LA Land producers and how well they managed a whackadooodle moment. Instead, for one of the most profound lessons of leadership, let’s go back earlier into the night. No, not to the amazing acceptance speech of Viola Davis’s, or Asghar Farhadi’s brilliant stance of accepting from afar because of the immigration policies of the current administration.
Instead, I want to draw your attention to an even more powerful leadership lesson, delivered by Mark Rylance when he introduced Viola Davis as winner of the Best Female Supporting Actor. In honoring the achievements of one, he also held up the power of many. He named one of the ways women are often better leaders then men! He said,
“Something that women seem to be better at then men — opposing without hatred.”
Opposing without hatred. Let those words roll around on your tongue for a moment. Let them settle into your heart. Leadership doesn’t hate, or resist, or avoid, opposition — leadership embraces it.
