Leadership Lessons From A Gas Bar Manager

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While preparing a leadership development program for a retail company that owns several gas bars, I spoke to some of their gas bar managers. Instead of merely gathering data on the company operations, the connections were significant and the conversations were quite inspiring. Some of the managers have never been to a formal leadership course. Most started with pumping gas and were promoted because of their accountable attitude. Many are in their mid-twenties. They reminded me that leadership, at it’s core, is meant to be simple. While many of the managers I interviewed were switched on to great leadership, I was hired to help them get this leadership philosophy of the few into the actions of the many.

Leadership – whether it’s in an organization, your home, or in a classroom – is about remembering a few simple principles that you apply consistently. Here are some lessons I was reminded of after spending time with these amazing Gas Bar Managers:

  1. As a boss, employees are always watching you. Your attitude as a leader sets the tone for everyone. If you jump in and work with your team, if you are happy pumping gas and talking to the customer, if you bring a grateful approach to everything you do, you set the tone, not by what you say, but by who you are and what you do.
  2. You shouldn’t have to “hold” people accountable, or at least, it should be a tool of last resort. If you have to hold people accountable, you likely haven’t done your job up front to inspire them and earn their respect. When people trust you and respect you and know what you expect, they’ll generally do what they say they’ll do. It is respect and trust we are after, not accountability with a hammer.
  3. Good gas bar managers are not in the gas bar business. Instead, they are in the leadership development business. One manager, whose direct reports are mostly part-time employees between the ages of 17 and 20, put it this way: “I’m a mom, not a friend to these kids… I’m not running a gas station; I’m parenting 120 kids. Nothing gives me greater satisfaction than to have them come back years later, after they’ve become CEOs, engineers, doctors, or leaders in this company, and tell me that their work at my gas bar made a difference in their lives.” This leader understands that her ultimate goal is building leaders. You inspire others when you bring a higher purpose to what you do.
  4. Fire people quickly if you’ve made a mistake and have the wrong person in the job. When you get rid of a toxic person, it can help everyone breathe a little more freely. While you always want to support and guide people, don’t try to fix Focus instead on fitting them – helping them to either move somewhere else in the organization or somewhere outside the organization.
  5. While the numbers are important, you don’t get the numbers by focusing on them. You get the numbers by caring about people. It’s not just what you do, it’s how you do it as a leader that matters in the long run. Profits and people are both important, but they must be kept in balance.
  6. Make the workplace fun. If people don’t enjoy coming to work, if they aren’t among friends, if they aren’t listened to and valued, they won’t stick around. Be flexible. Have parties. Celebrate success. It usually doesn’t take a lot of additional resources to have fun – if you get creative and find the people that will help you. Genuinely listen to input. Make it a place they will refer their friends to.
  7. You can’t manage people by having a boss’s name-tag. You get employees to do the right thing because you inspire them. Just because you have a title doesn’t make you a leader.

In summary, what I learned – or was reminded of – from these gas bar managers was : Treat people like people. Give what you expect. Find something that inspires you every day so you have something to bring to work. Bring an attitude of gratitude to everything you do. Do what you say you are going to do. Have high expectations of yourself and others: no one takes pride in doing something easy. Don’t be afraid to roll your sleeves up and do some of the dirty work with employees (you don’t earn respect from the sidelines); if they make a mistake, take responsibility for your part of the screw-up.

Overall, pretty good advice from a group of hardworking, successful front-line leaders. Their wisdom and leadership principles are applicable to all generations, all organizations, and all families. It is a great reminder that I am very fortunate to have amazing clients that are a continual source of inspiration.

Fostering Initiative – How To Get Someone To Take Out The Trash

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As a young man, I learned a valuable lesson from my parents. Although it didn’t sink in until years after I left home and started assuming adult responsibilities, the importance of taking initiative was planted early in my life. Initiative is the willingness and ability to assess and take action on things independently. It’s the will to act or take charge before others do. Taking initiative is foundational to leadership. When you create a culture of initiative most of your work as a leader is done because you are inspiring others to be leaders. It’s considerably easier – and more enjoyable – to live and work in a place where people see work that needs doing and step up to the task, when they don’t wait for direction but take the initiative to create direction, and when people pick up after themselves instead of expecting someone else to do it for them. How to create an environment where people learn to take initiative has been a passion of mine for some time.

After facilitating a three-day leadership workshop in Oklahoma, I was out for dinner with a technical sergeant from the US Air Force who had twenty years of experience in a variety of leadership roles. We agreed that taking initiative is vital to success in life and it is perhaps even more important in the military. We came up with five strategies for creating a culture of initiative:

  • Answer why. Show people that what they do has value to the organization. Every employee needs to know why his or her job is critical to the success of the team. Make sure you have this conversation. If you want someone to take out the trash on their own initiative, without having to be told, just telling them to “take out the trash” is far less likely to be successful than if you explain why taking out the trash benefits the entire unit. Even better than you telling them why, get them to tell you why it is important. They have to see the big picture, and how the job in front of them fits into that picture. We are much more likely to take initiative when we have our own skin in the game and understand how the work we do makes a contribution to the greater whole. While chores are always part of a good team, it’s having a sense of contribution that motivates people.
  • Make it safe. This is a critical leadership imperative that you have to continuously work on. Do people feel safe to ask questions? Do people feel safe to make mistakes? Do people feel safe to say, “I don’t know how to do this and I need help?” I have found, from observing leaders for more than thirty years, that there is a relationship between a leader’s stress level and how safe people feel around them. The best way to create a safe environment is for you to be at peace with yourself as a leader. If you are walking around tense and stressed, you create tension and it feels unsafe for people to open up. And people who are open are more apt to take initiative. If you want people around you to take initiative, find ways to lessen your own stress level.
  • Be Respectful. You will have an easier time fostering value in a culture when people know you genuinely care about them. If they sense your caring, they are more likely to respond in kind and offer caring in return. When you have earned their trust by investing honestly in their life – by genuine acts of listening, investing in the trust account, showing interest, and expressing concern, they are more willing to take initiative and step up for the good of the team.
  • Lead by example. As a leader, you have to model the way. People need to see that you expect nothing from others that you aren’t willing to do yourself. Do your people see you taking out the trash? Do they see you cleaning up after yourself? Do they see you taking initiative? Initiative is about taking ownership, and ownership starts with you.
  • Don’t over do it. Having said all this, we always have to be careful to not do too much for people. Any strength, taken too far, becomes a weakness. Initiative, my father would say, cannot be taught; it must be caught. We will inevitably take initiative when we are uncomfortable enough. Remember: making it safe, being respectful, leading by example, doesn’t mean we have to rescue people from their unhappiness. If you always take out the trash, why would others take the initiative? If you are always walking around making it safe, you want to check that you aren’t coddling your team members and making it too easy for them. Sometimes people have to smell the garbage before they’ll pack it up and take it out to the dumpster.

Balancing Accountability With Caring

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Any parent who has ever said no to a child understands that leadership is not about being popular. You have to be secure within yourself to do the right thing – for the benefit of the greater whole. A recent consulting project reminded me of this. A CEO was brought in to a failing company eighteen months previously to bring it out of the red and make it profitable. The former CEO was known throughout the organization as “Mr. Popular.” Everyone loved him. He was their “buddy.” Expense cheques were freely approved. There was no such thing as budgets. And, like the inattentive captain of the Costa Concordia, he was driving the company into the rocks of bankruptcy. While all the partying and love fest was going on, most of his employees had no idea where he was taking them. Thankfully the board caught it and dismissed him before disaster struck.

The new CEO, a brilliant, accountable, focused leader had to be “less than warm” in her approach to turning the company around. Many of her employees did not understand where she was coming from, and perceived her as cold, distant, and uncaring compared her to her predecessor. Like a courageous parent committed to accountability, I heard her say to her employees, in no uncertain terms, “Trust me. This is for the good of this company and the employees – in the long run.”

Now that the company has turned the corner through her leadership, it is obvious that many of these employees would not even be employed today under the former “popular” regime. Yet for sometime, the new CEO has been perceived by some of her direct reports and managers as “unapproachable,” “disconnected,” and “removed from her people.” They had no idea that, by saving the organization and the employees’ jobs along with it, she was actually very caring.

How do you become respected and liked and still hold others accountable? This is a question that every leader must grapple with. It is also a question that has application for every employee. Here are seven points to consider as you wrestle with this question:

  1. Being a leader is not for people who need to be liked or need to be popular. At times, you have to be willing to stand alone with the courage of your convictions.
  2. Even though you don’t need to be liked as a leader, if you aren’t liked by at least most of your people – you’ll have difficulty making impact in the long term.
  3. As an employee, some things are not as they appear. Few bosses come to work with a motive to mess up the place. While there certainly may be poor leadership at times, unless you are a psychopath, all behavior comes from a positive intent. Before judging, take time to discover the underlying motive of your boss’s behavior and be patient.
  4. Because leadership is a presence, not a position, everyone in an organization is a potential leader. You can be a leader today by deciding to be what you expect from others. If you want more compassion from others, start by being more compassionate to
  5. Leadership is ultimately about caring, but you can’t always count on it appearing as such. When you are fostering accountability by holding the line on a principle, you may come across as anything but compassionate. Accountable people accept this.
  6. You must be driven by a motive of caring even when you are holding others accountable – caring about people, caring about your work, and caring about the organization as a whole. While caring and accountability won’t always be in balance, you need to know when it’s out of balance and how to get it back.
  7. You don’t become liked by pleasing people and giving them what they want. That’s merely a fix that passes with the tides of popularity. You get to be liked by letting go of your need to be liked, serving people by being committed to giving them what they need, earning respect from living in alignment to your principles, and then by being humble and authentic.

 

Now that this CEO has begun to turn the company around, she’s concentrating on turning her relationship with her employees around. In order to accomplish what she did, she needed to be tough, and while her resolve remains firm, she can turn her attention to connecting with others and showing her caring side. She’s working at being vulnerable by communicating her intentions and exposing a little more of her humanness, both of which are vital to connecting with others. She’s reminding herself to be more kind and approachable, and lightening up a bit. As a result, people are actually starting to like her, and in the process, she is earning the trust and respect of her key people.

Mentor Leaders – Lessons From School Teachers

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I always love working with teachers. Like every profession, there are good teachers and bad teachers, but I have learned a lot over the years about leadership from having teachers in my leadership development programs. In Oprah’s final show, she introduced and praised her grade four teacher, an early “liberator” who made her feel valued. Think about your own teachers. There are those who just meet the curriculum requirements and help you get into the next grade, while others inspire you, build your character, and mentor you to be a better person, not just a better student. And think about the bosses you’ve had. Some merely help you get your work done, some get in your way, but some change your life. Some help you be a better employee, while others help you be a better person.

How is it that some teachers are merely teachers, but others are leaders, mentors, and life-changers? And how is it that some bosses are merely bosses, while others influence and build your moral fiber, model and teach new attitudes and behaviors, and create a constructive legacy for future generations? It is this distinction that makes a “mentor leader.”

While there are many leadership practices that amplify one’s impact on others, “mentor leaders” possess three qualities of leadership that exemplify their presence:

1) Leaders who make a difference are authentic. They are human, and humble, and present. They also aren’t perfect or attempt to create an illusion of perfection. To impact others, you can’t be phony. People will see right through it. By being who they are, they create a space where others are inspired to also be authentic. Authentic people love what they do and are open to learning about themselves. They are inspired by a purpose and a passion and as a result, they inspire others.

2) Leaders who make a difference are accountable. They can be counted on and don’t make promises they aren’t prepared to keep. They create a place where blame is viewed as a waste of time. They have high standards, both for themselves and those around them. It’s inspiring to be around people you can count on. You aren’t a leader until someone says you are, and you won’t earn the credibility to influence and be trusted if people can’t count on you.

3) Leaders who make a difference care. They care about their work and they care about the people around them. They understand that leading is largely a matter of caring about people, not manipulating or controlling them. Leaders who care measure their success by the trust they build and the value they bring to the lives of others. They are committed to serve. Mentor leaders know that their work is a means to a higher end and put people above products and processes. It’s about changing lives.

Great leadership goes well beyond merely “getting the job done,” and cannot be reduced to technique or position or power. Great leadership inspires others and comes from the strength of one’s identity and integrity – their presence. When teachers possess this presence and inspire it in their students, we are truly fortunate to have them in our lives. The same goes for the leaders in our life and in our work who can help us reach unimaginable potential.

Developing A Service Culture – The Power of Servant Leadership

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In 1938, while on ski trip in Switzerland, Nicholas Winton took a side trip to help the children of refugees. Nazi Germany had begun the Kristallnacht, a violent attack on Jews in Germany and Austria, and it had just reached Czechoslovakia. Winton set up a rescue operation for the children, filling out the required paperwork and raising money to fund foster homes for 669 children in Sweden and Great Britain. He managed to send all 669 of them away from Czechoslovakia on trains before the Nazis closed down the borders.

Winton told no one that he did this, not even his wife.

A person’s true wealth is what we give to others. The wealth of a culture is no different. A great organization is one that makes the world a better place because it exists, not simply because it outperforms the market by a certain percentage over a certain period of time. A great culture is defined by its capacity to bring value to all its stakeholders.

A culture of service is not created overnight. If you change yourself, you have already changed your workplace, so be happy with that until you become more skillful at manifesting service leadership and modeling it for others. Changing yourself is the first step to building a service culture.

  • A service culture starts with small, anonymous caring actions. Remembering to smile and say “please” and “thank you,” opening doors for people, offering encouragement instead of criticism, and practicing patience go a long way to inspire service around you. When it comes to building a service culture, the little things are the big things. While anonymously saving children’s lives is inspiring and noble, don’t neglect the small acts of caring.
  • Make service a decision. Service is an act, a verb, not a feeling, or a noun. Once you decide to serve, the quality of your life immediately begins to improve. Decide to be a giver rather than a taker, to choose service over self-interest. Caring about others is a decision.
  • Don’t mistake serving with pleasing. Serving is a commitment to identify and meet the needs of the people who depend on you. Pleasing attempts to meet the wants of others so they will be happy. There is a world of difference between the two. Pleasing breeds resentment, results in burnout, and turns you into a slave. Serving leads to freedom, self-respect, and wellbeing within you and around you.
  • Always do more than you get paid for. I learned this from my parents. Go the extra mile with a customer or with anyone that depends on you. In a world where we have come to expect a low standard of service, it’s easy to “wow” people by over-delivering on your promises. But the reward in extending yourself without pay is the inner satisfaction that comes by giving more than you expect back.
  • Like anything else involving effort, learning to serve takes practice. We have to get into the habit of standing with others in their challenges. Sometimes it is a simple matter that does not take us far out of our way – speaking a kind word to someone who is down, or spending a Saturday morning volunteering for a cause you believe in. At other times, helping involves some real sacrifice. “A bone to the dog is not charity,” Jack London observed. “Charity is the bone shared with the dog, when you are just as hungry as the dog.” If we practice with small opportunities to help others, we’ll be in shape for times requiring real, hard sacrifices.
  • Disconnect to connect. In the “tyranny of technology,” the more connected we are electronically, the less connected we seem to be personally. E-mails and text messages are great for sending information, but generally not good for making connections. Electronic communication will never compensate for a failure to get out from behind your desk and develop face-to-face relationships. When you can’t meet with people directly, then pick up the phone.
  • Listen before you speak. “A closed mouth gathers no feet,” said a participant in one of my workshops. When you are tempted to tell someone what to do, instead start with the question, “What do you think you (or we) should do now?”
  • Set difficult – but not impossible – standards for yourself and others. Pride and self-respect don’t come from doing something easy. Serving does not mean taking the path of least resistance. Sometimes the best way to help people is to hold them accountable and accept no excuses.
  • Like all efforts, keep a commitment to service in balance. If we spend all of our time trying to help everyone, we end up neglecting our accountability to ourselves, our families, and to those who matter most in our lives. Like all virtues, service must be tempered and informed by a good measure of conscience.

Everywhere I go I meet people who, in one way or another, seize opportunities to do good for their fellow travelers. It’s truly inspiring to be around people who are committed to service. These are the true leaders in our lives, with or without a title. And like Nicholas Winton, they don’t do it for a reward or for recognition, but because it is the right thing to do. Anonymous service coming from a place of contentment has its own reward that the world cannot give.

How are you creating a service culture where you live and work?

Are You Connecting?

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The other day a flight attendant asked me if I was connecting. This is a good question to ask yourself every so often. “Are you connecting?”

Life depends on connections, and the quality of your life depends on the quality of your connections. Every system depends on connections. Circulatory systems, nervous systems, organizational systems, ecosystems, family systems. Connection is to relationship what breathing is to life. If you can’t make a connection, not much else matters.

While we all, at some level, understand the importance of connection in our lives, what exactly does it mean to be connected? Like beauty, it’s hard to describe, but you know when it’s there. There’s a difference between communicating and being connected. “Everyone communicates,” writes the leadership guru John Maxwell, “but very few people connect.” Today, with all of the high-tech tools such as email, text messaging, Linkedin, Facebook, and Twitter, we are certainly in better contact with each other, but are we better connected? High tech requires an equal high touch. With all this capacity to be in contact are we actually making contact? In this high tech, so-called “connected” world, do we feel more loved; more supported; or more at peace with others and ourselves? Do we live with a stronger sense of community? You can’t fully connect without looking a person in the eyes, hearing their voice, reaching their hearts, and knowing them as unique people with needs, values, and dreams. Technology is a great tool to stay connected; it’s not such a good tool to get connected.

Connections have a life of their own. You can actually stifle connections like you can a living organism, or you can breathe life into them.

Here are some conditions for connections to flourish:

  • Focus: Identify the ‘significant seven’ stakeholders in your personal and professional life. A stakeholder is a person who depends on you or upon whom you depend. You will have a list of ‘significant seven’ in both your personal and your professional life. Take an honest inventory of how connected you are with these people and how much personal investment is needed at this time. Don’t confuse peripheral relationships with significant relationships. Think about who will be with you at your deathbed.
  • Understanding: Your goal in connecting is understanding, not necessarily agreement. Connection isn’t the same as agreement. You can agree without connecting, just as you can connect without agreement. What are you doing to really listen to the people in your life? Empathy is a critically important aspect in connecting. To see a quick review of empathy take a few moments to look at a three minute video with the words of Brené Brown: www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Evwgu369Jw
  • Accountability: Take accountability for your own emotions, reactions, and needs – in all your relationships. See all blame as a waste of time.  Ownership breeds openness. Take a careful inventory of yourself: Are you a person who can be counted on? Do people experience you as accountable? Do you take 100% responsibility for your life? Have you stopped hiding behind such statements as, “They need to listen better”? No, they don’t have to listen better; you need to communicate better. Nobody but you cares about the reason you let someone down.
  • Disconnect: You have to disconnect to connect. Turn off your devices at times during the day. Leave your cell phone in a drawer when you are with the important people in your life. Disconnect to connect. Create time and space to be together without interruptions. I find it interesting that in our society, the value of pets – who cannot use technology yet are completely present -is increasing along with the value we place on technology.
  • Rituals: Regularly scheduled dates, breakfasts, teas, and uninterrupted, unstructured time to hang out and just be with the important people in your life all allow connections to grow. Don’t worry about making it “quality” time. Sometimes it’s quality; sometimes it isn’t. Just be sure it is time. Connection is a four-letter word: t-i-m-e. If you want to know how your connections are, look at what is scheduled in your planner.
  • Be Vulnerable: Develop a habit of sharing your challenges, your fears, your dreams, or your insecurities with the important people in your life. Connections strengthen with vulnerability by sharing what is going on in your life. Conversations are the path to connection. But remember, connection doesn’t have to be big or dramatic. It simply has to be consistent and honest.
  • Presence: Listen carefully as you feel with people. What are their dreams? What matters to them? Don’t just deal with people. Feel with people. Before you can touch a person’s heart, you have to know what’s in it. The best present you can ever give another person is to be present in the present.
  • Slow down: Slow down in order to focus on the people you meet. Practice walking through crowds slowly. Whether clients, customers, or colleagues, take a few minutes to stop and listen. Everyone has needs, values, and dreams, and people generally like to talk about themselves. Focus on being interested rather than being interesting. I learned from my daughter who taking a course in agriculture that the most valuable tool on a farm is a five-gallon pail. Turn it upside down, sit on it, and observe the animals.
  • Tune in. Listen for messages that people send without talking. Words aren’t the only way to connect. We communicate with our eyes, our body language, our unspoken messages. Practice tuning in by spending time in nature or with animals. Once again, you have to slow down to tune in.
  • Authenticity: Make time to reflect and connect with the voice inside of you. You can’t connect fully unless you have a good sense of self-worth that comes from being true to yourself – in the service of others. As you live in accord with your values, your self-respect grows, and connections with others strengthens. Connection with others begins with a connection to yourself.