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Now, Lead Others: author interview with Cillín Hearns

By Linda

WCL sits down with Wellington leadership and performance coach Cillín Hearns to talk about his new book Now, Lead Others.

Cillín Hearns, Director of Wellington-based Results Coaching, has just released his second book, Now, Lead Others. WCL recently chatted with Cillín to learn more about his new publication and running a consultancy business in Pōneke.

WCL: Beginning with background – tell us a bit about who you are and what you do?
CH: I’m a leadership and performance coach . I’ve been doing it for about 13 years. I partner with organisations, teams or individuals, and through coaching and facilitation I help to get them from where they are to where they want to be.

WCL: You’ve just published your second book Now, Lead Others. Why write a book about leadership?
CH: My book is an amalgamation of a lot of research done over the years around leadership. What I wanted to do was take potentially dry material and turn it into something that was really accessible. I wanted to do that through a fictional story whilst pulling in practical examples of how you can apply leadership skills whilst understanding the theory behind it. At the back of the book I show all the models that it relates to. So if someone is looking for a quick “Oh, yeah” summary of the model, it’s all there.

WCL: How would you summarise the story that runs through the book?
CH: It’s around a young man, Nathan Strife, who is living in New Zealand but originally from Ireland. He’s brand new to leadership and leadership is something he wants to do but he’s finding the new role very, very difficult. He gets called back to Ireland and he’s catching up with a friend, Fionn. Fionn is part of Mountain Rescue, gets a call and Nathan is swept up in that. Through that experience of being on a mountain rescue with Fionn, he gains a lot of insights into leadership and how to build a team from the ground up.

WCL: Is there a degree of autobiography in this book?
CH: There is a bit. Certainly my younger self would have been Nathan Strife. These are the hard learned lessons, and the scars on my back over the years and things I wish I’d done differently. Then hopefully my more mature self would be Fionn, the mentor and guide, able to distil all these lessons.

WCL: You’ve chosen a fiction style for this book rather than a more traditional non-fiction writing style. How difficult was it to pull all the components together into a cohesive narrative?
CH: The real difficulty for me was getting started because I didn’t have the right theme. I knew what I wanted to say in terms of the leadership lessons, but needed the right theme to make the story pop.

Two years ago I decided I was going to write a thousand words a day for the month of February and I got to 20,000 words. It ended up in the bin because it just wasn’t popping. So I put it aside for a while and eventually I was reminded of a time when one of my clients told me he had experienced the full gambut of leadership lessons we were covering in a training session all in one day. And I asked, “How did you do that”?

He said he was part of a mountain rescue team and he saw it in action. From the beginning, right through, all the ups and downs that occur in a situation like that.

I’d done a lot of hill walking back in Ireland so I know a little bit about what that’s like so I was able to incorporate it into a story. And it all just came together and started to flow.

WCL: Is this a follow on to your first book, First, Lead Youself or is it a standalone?
CH: It is a standalone. First, Lead Yourself is all about self-leadership. In my earlier years when I wanted to be a leader, I thought leadership was all about doing things and getting other people to do things but I fell short.

It wasn’t until I started looking inwards and understanding that I needed to grow as a person. To become a leader of myself first before becoming a leader of others.

Now, Lead Others is about, now you’ve got a team how do you set this team up from scratch? Or if you’ve inherited a problem team, how do you turn it around so they become more high performing, high functioning team.

WCL: Now, Lead Yourself is written from a male perspective. Are there gender differences in the way men and women lead?
CH: Yes. There’s definitely gender bias out there.

From working with female clients in those positions and seeing the struggles they’ve had to overcome and the prejudices; the things they’ve had to put up with from their male counterparts is quite shocking to me actually. I’ve never experienced it in terms of seeing it around the board table or anything like that, because I would address it. I wouldn’t put up with that. But I’ve never seen it so it’s difficult for me to relate.

Jacinda Ardern really changed the game in terms of women in leadership. She brought a lot of empathy. And that’s really important in leadership, a lot of empathy and the ability to build trusting relationships because without trust there is nothing else.

It’s something I focus a lot on in the book. You have to build that trust first. I think women tend to be naturally more affiliative type leaders. They build trust easier whereas men, tend to be more, get the task done.

I’m stereotyping now but as a general rule.

WCL: In the book you touch on leadership styles for the Millennials vs Gen Z. With multiple generations in the workplace are there generational leadership differences?
CH: Definitely. The philosophy of leadership has changed a lot over the years from a very commanding style which came from the military initially. Whereas now we have moved into a knowledge age of thinking.

What’s required is a very different style. Even the military itself has moved away from the command and control style. I’ve worked with colonels in the New Zealand Defence Force and their leadership skills are exceptional.

Leadership is largely about giving people space to do to their best work. Creating an environment in which they can thrive.

When you talk about Millennials there is a shift in values between generations.

Research tells us our generation very much has a stronger work ethic. There’s an expectation to work hard, whereas the Millennials values tend to be around recreation and enjoying life. There’s no right or wrong to these things. It’s just how will we, as a society, help balance the need to ensure the work gets done, because we must deliver to be a viable business, with the need for recreation? Because at the end of the day we are paid to deliver.

As leaders its up to us to create an environment in which people can thrive, regardless of intergenerational values.


WCL: The step up from team member to leading a team can be a big one. A recent report found that one in four managers in New Zealand feel like an imposter in their role with a lack of training and support. What can companies do to support new/incoming leaders better?
CH: That’s a really good question. Imposter syndrome as its known, is really prevalent out there at the moment. Really what it is, is that people feel stretched. It might be a lack of confidence in some area, and that’s fine. I often share with people “If you didn’t feel this stretch you’d probably feel bored”. And people agree. They take on these new roles to stretch, to grow. And so it’s an important part of it. There are absolutely ways we can remove that emotion, those doubts, those fears from people to help them see it see it for what it really is. It’s a huge part of what I do when I’m working one on one with people.

What organisations can do is they can set up induction programmes where they might bring in a coach, for example, to talk about it. To reframe what it is you’re experiencing. Sometimes it might be a skill based thing or simply “I don’t know how to do this task”. And that’s another way organisations can help - by bringing in a coach or a facilitator to give people the tools to set up a team from scratch.

I’m sure you’ve experienced it in the past where people are promoted into positions without any training and left to their own devices and they struggle and they make mistakes.

Looking at myself in my early years, it can be pretty painful. Not only for the individual, because they’ve been doubting themselves but also because of the impact on a team. What I talk about in First, Lead Yourself is that it all comes down to awareness. How am I impacting on others by little things that I say and do, that I might be blind to, but that have detrimental effects on people.


WCL: What, if any trends, are you seeing in how companies approach leadership in their organisations?
CH: There’s definitely a shift. A recognition that management and leadership are different. Both are important and both are needed.

Leadership is more looking up and out of the team. Setting strategy and direction and creating that environment. Management is more about getting the stuff done. Putting structures in place, putting processes in place. Both are necessary.

What we do see is a division of these things. This is what a manager does, this is what a leader does. It’s often that leadership is held up on a pedestal and the managers are told “Don’t be a manager, be a leader”. Both are absolutely essential. Both are important skills to have. There’s different context. When do you turn one on as opposed to the other.

Stephen Covey has a great phrase “We lead people but we manage things”. I always keep that in mind.

There is a recognition that leadership is important and a lot of organisations have invested quite heavily in leadership training. The challenge that a lot of organisations have is, and this isn’t true for all, they would send people on a training course for one or two days and then “They’re a leader. They’ve done the course”.

But leadership is much more complicated because you are dealing with people and any time I design a programme I like to have a long tail to it so that we can deep dive into the material but then we have an opportunity to go out and practice it in the real world.


I like for people to put the theory into practice and see what works what hasn’t worked and then come back to discuss those things that didn’t go as well as expected or hoped, make some tweaks around it and send them off again. It becomes a very practical approach to developing new skills as opposed to “Off you go, you’ve got the theory”. Again, the intent is there but it can be setting people up to fail if there’s strong expectations that you’ve been on a course now go and be a great leader.


WCL: And there’s not a one size approach to all is there? As Fionn outlines to Nathan there are many different styles of leadership and you require different ones at different times don’t you?
CH: Absolutely right. Once you put people into the mix, all bets are off. You can have the same conversation with 99 different people and it goes really, really well. You have that same conversation with the 100th person and all of a sudden you’ve got a personal grievance on your hands. It’s way too complex to say this will work every single time.


WCL: Tell us about the Wellington leadership group you’ve set up
CH: The Wellington Leadership Group has been running for many years. It’s grown to over 2,000 members. Not all attend at the same time! Every month we run an event on leadership. Every second month I would do a presentation on something topical, every other month I bring in a guest speaker such as a CEO or another coach who is doing something in the industry that is quite relevant.


The reason I set up the group is that I wanted to give back in some way. I recognise there are organisations out there that are tight on funds, that don’t get an opportunity to provide training for their people and so these people are crying out for this training or exposure but they don’t get the opportunities.

So I wanted to create something where people could come along. Anyone who is interested in leadership can join; from when you’re in your first role all the way up to a seasoned leader with many years of experience – we get quite a mix of people. It’s the different viewpoints and the conversations that really make it such an awesome event every month.

Mostly it’s after work and in person. The leadership group is free and lately I’ve been putting on events that have been supporting people who might find themselves looking for a new role or facing redundancy Just to share some skills to help them get through.

For example we have just had one around LinkedIn and how to set yourself up on LinkedIn to show potential employers your strengths.

I have another business called Leaders are made. It’s a whole suite of online videos, very similar to LinkedIn learning.

WCL: In 2020 you wrote an op-ed piece for Stuff How to remain positive as a sole trader during turbulent times. Four years on it feels like Wellington hasn’t quite finished with turbulent times. What advice do you have for business people finding it hard going right now?
CH: There’s an element of truth in the phrase Survive until 25 but there can also be opportunity.

I’m often reminded of the Chinese character for crisis. It’s exactly the same character for opportunity. It just depends on how you look at it.

Peter Drucker once said the “All business is marketing and Innovation” and we have to innovate. Sometimes we’re forced to innovate and now is one of those times.

For example, when Covid hit, a lot of retailers went online. They’ve never looked back. It’s added a new string to their bow and it’s a new revenue stream to develop.

So what I’d say is absolutely protect your downside as much as you possibly can. Ensure you can pay your mortgage and put food on the table and then look for ways to innovate, to do something different. There’s always something different we can do. Then go hard at it and turn it into a reality.

WCL: You’ve been running a business in Wellington for over ten years. What’s great about being based in Wellington?
CH: I love Wellington and especially the people. It’s just such a friendly city. I love the coffee culture where if you want to meet up with someone they say “Yeah sure, let’s grab a coffee”. It’s so easy to meet new people. There’s a supportive sense around Wellington. It’s very relationship based, not as transactional based which you might expect in some larger cities. I think Wellingtonians intuitively recognise the importance of relationships in business.

WCL: What advice would you give someone wanting to go into business?
CH: Over the years people have asked “How do you get into consulting, how do you set up?” and that type of thing.

The first piece of advice I give them is protect your downside. Ensure you have a little bit of money stashed away to get you through any quiet patches. You don’t know what the future might hold. You won’t have a pipeline laid out as much as you would if you’ve been in business for a few years. Have some money set aside you can fall back on. Have a plan B but then go hard.

Follow your passion. Follow Drucker’s advice. Innovate and market yourself. What’s your current business doing and how can you do it just a little bit differently and set yourself apart from the rest of the industry? And work hard. There are no shortcuts.

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