Authentic Leadership Lessons From The Dead Poets Society – What will your verse be?

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This past week I was in Ottawa visiting my daughter, Hayley, who is proudly starting her teaching career in a Montessori high school. She finished her dual degree in Education and Arts this past year and is a passionate, purpose-driven new teacher.

In our conversations I asked Hayley about her vision for herself as a new educator. She referred me to a scene in Peter Weir’s 1989 wonderful film, Dead Poets Society. Set in 1959 at the fictional elite conservative Vermont boarding school, Welton Academy, it tells the story of an English teacher who inspires his students through his teaching of poetry. Hayley was inspired by the movie when we watched it many years ago. In one scene, John Keating (played by Robin Williams) teaches his pupils the reason for reading and writing poetry by quoting Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass.

“We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute,” explains the teacher. “We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. Medicine, law, business, engineering; these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love; these are what we stay alive for.”

To paraphrase Whitman:

“O me! O life! of the questions of these recurring.

Of the endless trains of the faithless.

Of cities filled with the foolish…

What good amid these, O me! O life?

Answer: That you are here. That life exists and identity.

That the powerful play goes on, And you may contribute a verse.

That the powerful play goes on, And you may contribute a verse.”

The teacher then stopped and asked his students to reflect upon a life-changing question: “What will your verse be?”

The scene has applicability not only for high achieving high school students but also for those who are committed to live authentically. Authenticity asks us to look within our heart and soul, and to stop long enough to ask the tough questions:

  • What is it that you care most deeply about?
  • What in your life is calling you – beyond what others expect from you?
  • How aligned are you with the life you are meant to be living?
  • What’s the difference between living in the midst of the tyranny of the urgent, and living with a sense of purpose?
  • What do you most need to do in your life?
  • How are you supporting others to find their voice?

What will your verse be?

Stop Evaluating People and Start Holding Them Accountable

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In recent months, smart companies are finally seeing the futility of the old, outdated rule-based, bureaucratic “evaluation systems” of performance management. Many organizations I work with are abolishing their “rank and yank” systems that assign employees a performance score relative to their peers, while punishing or firing those with low grades. Other organizations are wisely rethinking their practices. Whether you agree or disagree with UCLA researcher Samuel Culbert’s assessment that performance reviews are “a curse on corporate America,” it’s nonetheless clear that performance reviews and evaluations are finally losing their appeal.

Why Performance Management Fails

First, the world has changed. Today’s employees want open communication and collaboration with their peers and with their bosses. They want partnerships, not parents. Today’s employees are also far more apt to want to know more immediately how they are doing and if they are meeting expectations and heading in the right direction. The world isn’t on an annual cycle any more for anything.

Second, being evaluated is demeaning. It’s based on an outdated parental, parent/child model of supervision that is founded on the belief that because a person is given a title they have authority over people. What right does anyone have to evaluate another person? No wonder performance reviews breed all kinds of unnecessary fear, resentment, and resistance. Leadership today is about service, not submission, supervision, and self-centeredness.

Third, if organizations want to develop highly engaged, contributing performers, managers must be equipped to coach and empower them. Today’s workers don’t see their managers as experts in specific subject areas the way their predecessors did. After all, the information they think they need is readily available to them online. Instead, they look to their managers for coaching and mentorship and find purpose through learning, contributing, and growing on the job.

The truth is that employees don’t need annual performance reviews to know how they stack up against their peers. Companies need to stop merely managing performance and start actually developing it.

The Alternative: Accountability Agreements

Instead of evaluating people, start holding them accountable. Here’s how:

Step 1. Build trust. Accountability without trust is compliance. Make the connection. Be trustworthy. Keep your promises. Be accountable. Genuinely invest in people lives. Be interested in what matters to them, what motivates them, and how you can support them to grow. People need to feel safe so they can be honest without fear of punishment. The key is not just walking around; it is opening up, paying attention, and being in touch. People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.

Step 2. Engage. Accountability without passion is drudgery. Do all you can to help and coach your employees to find their unique abilities, passion, and goals and how work fits into the context of their life. Be sure you have done everything you can to help them find a fit. Fit people; don’t fix people. Stay away from evaluating people and focus on how to support each other to grow and achieve clearly defined success.

Step 3. Clarify Expectations. Ambiguity breeds mediocrity. People need to be clear about what is expected and how success is defined. Clarify operational (competency) expectations, as well as describing in behavioral terms the kind attitude that is required and what results are promised. Before you make an agreement, be sure the willingness, the resources, and the capabilities are in place.

Step 4. Clarify Agreements. A request is not an agreement. If you want to hold someone accountable, you must get their full 100% agreement. If you don’t get an agreement to a required request, then go to Step 6.

Step 5. Clarify Support Requirements. To be committed and engaged, people need to feel that they can talk openly about the support they require to achieve their accountabilities. They need to feel that you are committed to do all you can to help them find the resources and capabilities to do their job and grow in the process. What support is needed? Your employee’s negotiated support requirements will be your accountability to them. The support requirements of your employees will be their accountabilities to you.

Step 6. Clarify Consequences. With no consequences there will be no accountabilities. Always start with positive consequences (motivators). Motivators are the internal or external results of delivering on your accountabilities. Motivators are meant to inspire you to achieve your accountabilities. If these don’t get the job done, then go to negative consequences.

Step 7. Follow up. Follow up means a clear understanding of a plan for follow-through, including how often you need to meet and with whom to ensure that you hold yourself and each other accountable for honoring the promises you have made to each other.

What Authentic People Know About Winning

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I spent the past week with my two ten-year-old grandchildren, Ethan and Holland. One of the activities we love to do together is play monopoly. I have to admit, rather embarrassingly, that when I pick up the dice for the first move, I transform from a kindly grandfather into a ruthless competitor. I become a callous, merciless, heartless, power-grabbing capitalist, lusting for control of Boardwalk and Park Place and as many other properties that I can get my hands on. And I understand something that the minds of ten-year-olds have yet to grasp: that it isn’t about money. I know that it’s about property. It’s about investment. The name of the game is acquisition. While the kids are hanging on to their money, I am going into debt to acquire more real estate – until I become the master of the board. In this game I take great pride in winning every bit of cash from these ten-year olds and see them give their last dollar and quit in utter defeat. What a moment of victory – to beat two ten-year olds in monopoly!

And then Ethan dejectedly looked up and reminded me, what I learned from the author John Ortberg years ago that, “it all goes back in the box.” All the houses and hotels, all the railroads and utility companies, all that property and all that wonderful money goes back in the box. Honestly, I didn’t want it to put any of it away. I wanted to leave the board out as a memorial to my ability to defeat two children.

But the game always ends and it always goes back in the box. Everyday, for somebody, the game ends. Whether you are a powerful CEO, an aging grandmother in a convalescent home, a brother with a brain tumor, a wealthy entrepreneur, or a young teenager who thinks their life will go on forever. Eventually, it all goes back in the box – the houses and cars, the titles and clothes, the big portfolios, the accumulated jewelry, the inheritance, the precious china, and the toys. It all goes back in the box.

In the end, it doesn’t matter what gets accumulated. What matters is how we play the game. What matters are the connections, the efforts, the challenges, and the joys. What matters is the encouragement and value we bring to others and the relationships we build along the way. What matters is how we grow and what we give, what we learn and what we teach. It’s about the memories and meaning, significance and sacrifice. It’s about the quality of our life through the service we render and how our life was lived.

It’s fun to win, and it’s good to learn how to lose, as long as we keep it all in perspective. Authentic people are comfortable enough with themselves to let go of their attachment to winning and sometimes lose in order to win. Keeping a good relationship with your grandkids is more important than winning a game. I only hope I can remember this next time we play monopoly.

Is Leadership About Inspiration or Influence?

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I received a thoughtful response to my latest article from a client:
“You state:  “the true measure of a leader is their capacity to influence.
I do not disagree that successful leadership does include the ability to influence, but is the true measure of a leader in their capacity to influence?  Or is it in their ability to inspire?
Subtle difference but different none the less.  Influence (from my perspective) suggests that you know best what they need to do, and sometimes that is true.  However, if as leaders we inspire our people then through that inspiration we can unlock their ability to create something far greater.”

And my response?

So is it influence or inspiration?  Or is it a combination of the two?
Influence, unfortunately, has taken a bad rap, because we don’t fully understand what leadership is and are working from an outdated model. When it comes from an outdated leadership approach (command and control), then you are correct. As you say, “you know best what they need to do.” In this day and age, you won’t be successful – at least not for long – if this is your view of influence. That is an old way of looking at influence, based on a patriarchal paradigm.

Yes, I agree that inspiration is necessary, but it is not sufficient. Inspiration is the means. Influence is the end. The question arises, “inspire people to what end?”

Influence, in the partnership paradigm, is not unilateral. Yes, you inspire, but you have to influence toward the achievement of some kind of shared vision or result, or you can’t call it leadership. Just because I inspire you doesn’t make me a leader. I am inspired by all kinds of things, but I’m not necessarily influenced by that experience to move toward a result. I can, for example, be inspired by a youtube video, but you can’t call that video leadership unless it in some way influences me to take action toward a focused result that is important to both of us. A true leader might influence with the use of that video. To be a leader, I have to work with you, listen to you, collaborate with you, build trust, etc. (all of which is required to influence you to achieve something that is important to both of us). That is leadership. And maybe I can even get there without inspiration (although I wouldn’t count on it).

I completely agree with you that inspiration can unlock our ability to create something far greater. But what exactly is that something? Leadership requires clarity about where we are going and more importantly why we are going there – even beyond our current imagination – along with deliberate, sustained, and collaborative attention toward that end (influence).

Maybe this is all semantics, and I stand to be corrected.

Let me give you a very concrete example in our relationship right now. First, I am grateful for your inquisitiveness and questions. It inspired me, without doubt. Now, the real challenge is: How will your inspiration influence me to be a better person or achieve a result that is important to both us? What are we going to do as a result of the inspiration? To what end will the inspiration lead us? If the goal is simply to learn, then we call that teaching, not leading. If teaching influences behavior, then teachers become leaders. Only when you answer that will I call you a leader in this context.

 

Is Your Boss A Bully? Or Just A Poor Communicator?

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In recent months the topic of bullying has surfaced in my leadership development programs. Although I haven’t thoroughly researched the topic, my observation is that there is an increase in abusive and bullying behavior in the workplace. Perhaps it is related to the economy, increased stress at work, or maybe people are getting more courageous, bringing it to the forefront and are no longer willing to be abused. Even if you are not experiencing bullying, I hope the following will help you to communicate in any of your relationships.

A coaching client shared a recent experience with her boss that went something like this:
“My boss asked me to come to her office. As soon as I sat down she laid into me about how unproductive I was, how my performance had slipped drastically in the past six months, and how I needed to step up my performance or in my next review she would start to document my work with ratings that would put my future career in jeopardy.”
While this behavior is obviously indicative of a controlling, bullying person, how do you determine if this is a bully or a boss that doesn’t handle stress well and is a bad communicator?
Following is a process that I suggest you can use to find out.
Step 1. Don’t communicate when you are in a high emotional state. As I learned from my colleague and friend, Valerie Cade, an expert in workplace bullying, “to be honorable, you have to meet dishonor with honor.” Getting angry or defensive in response to destructive communication is only throwing fuel on an already damaging fire. If you are hurt, angry, or in any way upset by this kind of feedback (and who wouldn’t be), take a few more moments to listen, then give yourself permission to say something like, “Thank you for the feedback. I want to get to the bottom of this, and in order to do so I need to step away and get some perspective. Let’s come back when we can problem solve this rationally and strategically.” Then politely excuse yourself.
Step 2. Get support from a confidant. Allies are trusted friends, colleagues, or coaches who provide perspective, wisdom, encouragement, support, and honesty. It is vital, in the work of leadership, to know we aren’t alone. The most important kind of allies are confidants: people in your life who create a safe space to be who you are, who will listen to your truth and will, in turn, tell you the truth and help hold you accountable. Confidants ask questions like, “What’s going on? What can be learned from the mistakes and failures? Can you learn something for the future? What are your options?”
Step 3. Once you let go of the emotional reaction, schedule a time to meet with your boss to problem solve a solution that responds to their concerns. When you meet next, bring a notepad and ask only one question, “What do you need from me to ensure that I get my performance right, so that you will never again accuse me of these things. I want to understand exactly what I need to do to turn this around.” Then sit and listen and make notes. You don’t have to agree or disagree. The goal is to understand what your boss is asking for. If they need more time to clarify this on their own, then of course, give them the time to do so.
Step 4. If your boss starts to attack you, stop and ask them to clarify what behaviors they are expecting. Reiterate that you are here to solve the problem, to be a part of the solution moving forward, not the problem going backwards. In any of these steps, do not allow yourself to be put into a situation where you are being criticized, demeaned, or bullied. Take charge of the conversation to shift it from criticism to identification of solutions or requests.
Step 5. Once you hear your boss out and list the behaviors they are asking you to change, then negotiate an agreement between you. Conflict comes from unmet needs. You don’t resolve conflict with more conflict. You resolve conflict by getting to the root of the problem. The negotiation process may take a few meetings. Give yourself and your boss the time and the space to carefully clarify the expectations, agreements, and needs for support from each other.
Step 6. Assess Intent. This is the step where the rubber hits the road, where you assess if your boss is a bully. Bullies have no intent to work toward a solution. Bullies have themselves been bullied. They have no interest in problem solving, in helping you find a solution, and in helping you succeed. They only have interest in criticizing, controlling, and manipulating with the intent to bully. You can assess their intent by giving them (with an open mind and a spirit of generosity) a few chances to move toward a solution. Give them the benefit of the doubt in the first meeting. Maybe they are just stressed and are communicating poorly. But if after a few tries they still have no interest in moving toward a solution and helping you understand and change your actions, take the appropriate action toward taking care of yourself. If they are, in fact, a bully, here are a few options to consider:
a.    Get support from a trusted outsider – either an HR manager inside your organization or an outsider who specializes in bullying. Don’t ever attempt to deal with a bully who has positional authority over you on your own.
b.    Take full responsibility for your willingness to work on a solution, and be honest about what you are up against.
c.     You may have to consider leaving your organization. Be sure you have  covered all your bases, documented all of your interactions and done everything possible on your end to resolve the issue.
Please note that these are very general points. If you need support with any of these steps, contact our office for a confidential and complimentary half hour consultation, and we’ll help you find the resources and support that you need.

This I Believe

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This past spring, in a year-long leadership program I help facilitate for the Department of Human Services in the State of Oklahoma, one of the participants introduced me to This I Believe, an international organization engaging people in writing and sharing essays describing the core values that guide their daily lives. Over 125,000 of these essays, written by people from all walks of life, have been archived on their website: www.thisibelieve.org – which is heard on public radio, chronicled through their books, and featured in weekly podcasts. The project is based on the popular 1950s radio series of the same name hosted by Edward R. Murrow.
Below is a list of my “This I Believe” principles that I hold to be important in navigating my own life and work. These are the underlying beliefs – my Personal Creed – that guide how I live and form a framework for the decisions I make. I found it to be a fascinating and inspiring exercise to reflect on what I believe – and I encourage you, as leaders, to do the same. As you read my list, take some to time to ask, “What would my personal creed be?”
  1. While I can influence and impact others, I believe that the only person I can change is me.
  2. I believe that maturity comes not with age but rather with acceptance of responsibility.
  3. I believe we are not just a product of our upbringing. We are also a product of our perceptions, our beliefs, and our choices.
  4. I believe that your life will change forever the day that you decide, once and for all, that all blame is a waste of time.
  5. I believe in taking the time to clarify, live, and preserve a sense of purpose – a reason for being. When your why gets stronger, the way gets easier.
  6. I believe in the power of a dream. The purpose of having a dream is not necessarily to achieve it, but rather to inspire yourself to become the kind of person it takes to achieve it.
  7. I believe that one of the most encouraging facts of life is that our weakness can become our greatest strength.
  8. I believe that every experience is a potential learning opportunity. Within our wounds lay our greatest gifts and our greatest opportunity for contribution.
  9. I believe in four fundamental laws:
    • The Law of the Echo: Whatever we give will come back to us – ten fold.
    • The Law of Focus: What you focus on is what grows. Focus on the problems and they will grow. Focus on the solutions and they will grow.
    • The Law of Gratitude: A key to a good life is to always make your gratitude bigger than your circumstances.
    • The Law of the Lens: Who we are determines how we see others. We don’t see people as they are; we see people as we are.
  10.  I believe that the best present we can ever give anyone is to be present in the present. Life is lived now.
  11.  I believe that entitlement – believing you deserve something just because you want it  – never leads to happiness.
  12.  I believe that happiness is not a destination. Happiness is a method of travel. You are about as happy as you make up your mind to be.
  13.  I believe that good health is a precious companion. When you have your health you have a thousand wishes, and when you don’t, you have one.
  14.  I believe that the quality of an individual life has nothing to do with how long you live and everything to do with how you live.
  15.  I believe that success is not something you pursue. Success is something you attract – by the person you are becoming.
  16.  Like Scott Peck, I believe in taking the road less travelled – by choosing contribution over consumerism, service over self interest, and character over comfort.
  17.  I believe that leadership – the capacity to influence others toward a shared and worthy goal – cannot be reduced to technique or title. Great leadership comes from the identity and integrity of the leader.
  18.  I believe that caring is everything. Caring makes workplaces worth working in, schools worth learning in, and the world worth living in – now and in the future.
  19.  I believe in a God of my understanding of whom I continue to seek. At the end of my life I hope I can confidently declare that I have done my best to leave this world better than I found it.
  20.  I believe that the ability to positively impact others comes from being an integrated human being. I agree with Gandhi when he said. “A person cannot do right in one department of life whilst he is occupied in doing wrong in any other department. Life is one indivisible whole.” Being a good leader means, first and foremost, being a good person.
 
If I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning.  – Mahatma Gandhi
The outer conditions of a person’s life will always be found to reflect their inner beliefs. – James Allen