From Leadership Training To Leadership Development: The Duty To Care

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I just got off the phone with my friend and colleague, John Knapp, Retired Deputy Minister of Alberta Agriculture and author of The Leader’s Practice Guide: How to Achieve True Leadership Success. John is one of the old school leaders with true character. But John was not only a leader with class, he was one of those rare leaders who cared. He cared about his work. He cared about the citizens of this province. And he cared about the employees he served. In his more than thirty years with the public service, it was never a just a job to him. It was a career, an opportunity to contribute, a duty to care.

Today we spoke of the mistake that so many leadership development programs make regarding leadership training. There is still far too much emphasis on the technical components of leadership training: strategic planning, project management, budgeting, HR management, and product development efficiency, to name a few.

As important as these areas are, they still don’t speak to the core of leadership: learning how to connect with people, build trust, inspire a shared vision, communicate clearly, mentor and engage people, and hold people accountable in respectful ways. This is what John would call “the leader’s duty to care.”

Here is how to design leadership training programs that teach people how to care:

  1. Turn leadership training programs into leadership development programs that affirm caring as an important value in your organization.
  2. Identify and shine a light on leaders of strong character and leaders who care.
  3. Create space for mentoring by leaders that are respected.
  4. Weed out the bad bosses by removing them from leadership positions and help them find roles that may be more technical in nature. Most bad bosses – at least those worth keeping – will thank you for doing this.
  5. Create a workplace that operates on values rather than rules, ensuring that every leader is held to account for living the values that are espoused.

In short, you can’t ‘train’ leaders in the duty to care. But you can certainly develop the duty to care in the culture that you lead.

The Big Value Of Small

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According to the Greek storyteller Aesop, a little mouse ran up and down a sleeping lion who awoke, grabbed the poor helpless rodent and opened his big jaws to swallow him.

“Pardon, O King,” cried the little mouse, “Please forgive me. I promise never to climb on you again. And if you let me go, who knows what I may be able to do for you some day.”

The lion was so intrigued by the idea of a mouse being able to help him that he lifted up his paw and let the critter go. Some time later, the lion was caught in a trap, and the hunters tied him to a tree while they went in search of a wagon to transport him to the king. Just then the little Mouse happened to pass by, and seeing the lion’s sad plight, quickly jumped at the opportunity to help him. He gnawed away the ropes, setting the lion free.

We live in a society that values big. Big profits. Big paycheques. Big companies. Big titles. Big fame. Big offices. In this world of big it’s easy to get the crazy idea that you aren’t valuable if you are small, or perceive yourself to be small. But Aesop’s little tale of the lion and the mouse teaches a wise lesson. The tiny mouse is every bit as valuable as the lion. According to Aesop, importance is not based on size, but rather on the value you bring to others. It’s a simple matter of changing the context. The person who brings the most value is the most valuable.

I spoke with a good client the other day, a manager in a university, whose employees run the fitness centers, indoor tracks, pools, courts, and arenas for students. They drive the Zambonis, keep the pools clean and look after students when they come to work out or play in the facilities. And, in an institution where the academic mandate is the highest priority, these employees don’t feel valued. “All they do is keep the buildings clean, the rinks and the fitness centers maintained.”

“So that students have a chance to keep themselves renewed, refreshed, connected, and healthy amidst a busy academic life,” I concluded for her.

Who’s to say that those who provide for the health of a student and the health of the community in which that student lives are any less valuable than the professors who hand out the grades and grant the degrees. Without a healthy, well-rounded student, the degree doesn’t mean much. And without a great student experience, they are going to find other universities. Everyone is unique, and everyone has value. Everyone makes a contribution.

And each person’s unique contribution is vitally important.

Value isn’t measured by the size of your office, the size of your paycheque, or the size of your business. Value is measured by your contribution to others.

How are you making people around you feel valued? Here are five simple strategies.

  1. Believe in yourself. In order to believe in others, you have to believe in yourself. Henry Ford once said, “Whether you believe you can or you believe you can’t, you are right.” Everyone is talented, unique, and has something to offer. If you don’t believe that applies to you, then start hanging around people that believe it and soon it will start sinking in.
  2. Get moving. Don’t wait to be appreciated or valued. My dad used to tell me that waiting is not a very good strategy. Instead of waiting, bring to others whatever you expect from others. Instead of waiting to be seen as being valuable, bring more value, every day, to the people in your life. If you want to be appreciated, get so busy appreciating others that you don’t have time to feel sorry for yourself.
  3. Stop to recognize beauty. Don’t take people for granted. Especially not your best people. We’re all busy. Like beauty, you don’t see the value others bring when you’re in a hurry. Slow down. The best way to recognize value is to stop and listen to what people have to say. Listen for their opinions. Listen for their input. Listen for their wisdom. Stop every so often to recognize the beauty and the value in the people around you. Express appreciation. You never know when you may be in need of their unique talents.
  4. Create space. Just as you have to recognize the value of others, you also have to pay attention to people or projects that aren’t adding value to your life or your business. When people or projects are sucking the energy out of you or your organization, it might be time to let go and move on.
  5. Choose quality over quantity. Don’t strive to be the biggest. Instead, strive to be the best. Don’t confuse the concept of doing big things with doing great things. It’s not about making the news; it’s about making a difference. Bigger is not the objective. Bigger is a side effect – when you are committed to bring value instead of size to whatever you do.

When it comes to bringing value to others, the little things are the big things. How do you bring value to those you serve? I’d love to hear from you.

Supervisory Skills: Make the Journey Worthwhile

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Do you ever worry that you do not have what it takes to be a good manager; that your supervisory skills fall short of your staff’s expectations? If you do worry about it, what are some of the things you can do to gain the skill and confidence to perform at a higher level? let’s discuss some very simple yet powerful supervisory skills you can employ immediately.

Fundamentally, if you focus on becoming a better you, then you can acquire and embody the skills that will give you a career edge and help you to reach your goals by leading your team to achieve theirs. You are responsible for your own success and ultimately the success of your team, so make the journey worthwhile.

Improving your leadership skills involves a plan of learning and doing, reacting and progressing – a journey that can inspire your team by example. Implement these positive steps into your skill set and enjoy the benefits!

Create a positive learning environment

  • Frequently take the time to focus on your people rather than the tasks at hand and find out what makes them tick. Provide people the opportunity to receive both High Task (technical, strategic, tactical) as well as High Touch ( attitude, behavioral, cultural) learning, and your employees will give you higher grades for your efforts.
  • Sometimes creating a positive learning environment can be as simple as keeping offices at a comfortable temperature, having a water cooler or coffee machine or letting your staff decorate their own space. Explore different avenues and implement solutions based on the needs of your team.

Allow people to make mistakes

  • This step is imperative to developing your supervisory skills and is often the biggest hurdle to jump. One can choose to see mistakes as failure, obstacles, or opportunities. The manner in which you view mistakes is entirely up to you. If you use these situations wisely, you can instill confidence in your employees.
  • Guide them to learn from mistakes. Offer them a vehicle to improvement and they become less likely to make the same mistake twice. In turn, they will appreciate you for how you handled the situation – turning them into the kind of people that will help you move up the organizational ladder.
  • By offering employees support and guidance when they make mistakes, you will garner goodwill and trust. They will see that you have their best interest at heart, which will improve employee morale and increase productivity. People will naturally work harder for someone who encourages and supports them. When mistakes are made, help your employees provide a solution. Their gratitude will be reflected in the increased quality of their work.

Evaluate variables that both increase and decrease performance

  • At the end of every week, evaluate when performance was good and when it was lacking. This can prove to be beneficial, as you will begin to identify patterns of behavior – both positive and negative and will prove to be a useful tool in your skills toolbox.
  • Once performance problems and successes are identified, you can begin introducing strategies to bring poor performance up to par, and allow good performance to grow even more. Try to understand what motivates employee behavior by evaluating your leadership style and adjusting it accordingly for the engagement style of each employee. Being open and honest with your staff members fosters a team relationship rather than a boss-employee relationship. Be a leader, not a boss.
  • The more time you spend with your employees, the better off you will understand them and their behavior patterns. This can provide you with the information needed in order to produce better results. Again, it’s a matter of growing your supervisory skills and enabling your team to function in a trust-based culture to produce to the maximum of their capacity and be recognized for their accomplishments.

Manage differences between others

  • Recognize that people think and act differently. It is important to understand that people will have differing opinions. However that does not necessarily mean that something is wrong. There can be two totally different methods of achieving a desired outcome that are both equally effective.
  • Training your team to understand the concept of different methods of approach allows them to begin managing the differences between each other. This will definitely make your job easier. It takes knowledge of individualistic communication styles to know how to manage differences, especially in a situation of interpersonal conflict. Your coaching here will make all the difference in how people respond in kind.

These are some supervisory skills that can improve the chances of your teams’ success. Be aware of the potential rewards that you stand to gain from working with and supporting a positive atmosphere of good morale and teamwork.

By exercising your learned supervisory skills, you are providing your people with leadership and direction. Fostering a more effective team will help make the journey worthwhile. For additional information on management / supervisory skills, feel free to look at our website vantagepath.com.

Give the Gift of “Attending”

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It’s always nice to receive an unexpected gift, especially this time of year. This week I was genuinely surprised by one of those presents. The staff of the Southeast Regional College in Weyburn, Saskatchewan, sat with me for a day and gave me their presence as I led them through a workshop on building an accountable organization. They are a delightful organization whose byline reads:
“Where minds and possibilities meet.” Gracious, open, receptive, supportive, caring… just a few of the words I would use to describe this remarkable group of people.

I was particularly appreciative of their generous attentiveness under the circumstances as when I arrived, I was suffering from a head cold and throat infection that substantially diminished the quality and volume of my voice. My energy was so low that at times it was difficult to remain standing.

But they patiently hung in there with me the entire day. They willingly engaged in the learning experience. And they gave freely of themselves and to each other in the process. I was uplifted by their presence and by the end of the workshop I had more energy than when I began.

Since I’ve come home and recovered from the head cold, I have been attentive to a rather odd little word, a word that I’ve been mulling over the past few days that came as an unwrapped gift, given so sincerely to me by this humble learning community in Southeast Saskatchewan. The word is ‘attend.’ Merriam Webster describes attend as: “to pay attention to, to look after, to be present with, to apply oneself, to be listened to, to be valued…”

To be attended to is uplifting, heartening, and inspiring. It is a gift in the truest sense as it responds to a fundamental human need: the need to make an impact.

Here are five simple ways to offer the gift of ‘attending’ to others, especially at this time of year:

  1. Pay attention to people’s names. Cashiers, waitresses, and customer service representatives – they have a name-tag for a reason. Everyone is uplifted, even if ever so slightly, when they hear the sound of their own name. On the farm, my mother was adamant, “don’t name the chickens.” She understood that naming transforms your relationship. Naming someone changes them from an object or a number to a human being – with emotions, needs, and values. Naming someone turns a ‘transaction,’ into a ‘transformation.’
  2. Replace waiting with something more constructive. By simply attending to what’s going on inside and around you, you’ll soon discover that waiting is not a very healthy state of mind. It’s focused on the future. It breeds impatience. Waiting comes with expectations, which are premeditated resentments. Waiting leaves you empty and frustrated because it’s self-serving. Whether you are waiting for the red light to change or for a teller at the bank, practice choosing an alternative state of mind. Take a moment for some deep breaths and have some rest. Cheer up the person in front of you. Or let the person behind you, who is even  more impatient than you, in the line front of you.
  3. Practice small acts of generosity. Attending means taking the time to be present for both yourself and others. When you attend, even briefly, to your inner sense of well-being, you know that it takes the same effort to be generous as it does to be selfish, and the result is completely different. Just for one day this week, practice giving to others whatever you expect from others. When it comes to generosity, the small things are so often the big things. A smile. A message of encouragement. A pat on the back. A little patience. Doesn’t cost a thing and can make such a difference.
  4. Be present. It has been said that the best present you can ever give someone is to be fully present in the present. There aren’t many ways better to attend to someone than to be present with them; to tune in, to feel with, to listen without judging or a need to fix. The giving of advice can never take the place of giving of yourself. It is interesting how our fast-paced, crazy, demanding world has created a syndrome called ‘attention deficit disorder.’ Maybe our biology is simply asking our souls to s-l-o-w d-o-w-n and attend to ourselves and each other more simply and more deeply. There is more to life than increasing its speed.
  5. Practice gratitude. It appears to be human nature that the more we get the more we want. It is easy to become spoiled in the self-demanding, post-modern society we live in. Try living in a third world country for a few months and see how it changes your view. Entitlement, along with its accompanying self-centered expectation for self-gratification, is not taking us any closer to a more peaceful, contented world. What you attend to grows. What you appreciate appreciates.

I hope that you will make a little room over the upcoming holidays to practice attending. It will go along way. And, when you make more room for attending it will improve the quality of your life and all the relationships in it.

I view the world as a big pot. We all contribute and remove what we need from the ‘community pot.’ Every time you need something, you dip in and take it out of the pot. When you don’t need anything from the pot, you put a little something back in: a little attention, support, comfort, kindness, love, and so on. If we all throw a little in every day, then when we need it, the pot will have just what we need.

Leading Authentically With An Ego

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Realities in recent times have demanded a new approach to leadership. I recently had a very stimulating dialogue with a group of CEO’s about the difference between the ego and the soul and what it all has to do with being an influential leader. In an age of spiritual awakening and consciousness, leaders driven by their ego will soon become obsolete.

The ego, that mental image of yourself formed from your personal and cultural conditioning, attempts to provide you with a sense of security, safety, and worth. Your ego demands recognition and wastes energy in resentment if it doesn’t get enough attention. But the ego, by it’s very nature, is empty. It’s like a hole inside of us that is in a continual state of dissatisfaction and restlessness, constantly pursuing “more” to fill itself up. To the ego, the present moment hardly exists. Only the past and future are important to the ego, for these are what it depends on for its survival.

While the ego is essentially dysfunctional, there are times when it can be a positive, necessary force, such as when growing into adulthood or pursuing certain goals. Then the ego can be helpful, providing you can observe it and not get attached.

There also resides in each of us, to a lesser or greater degree, an authentic self, a soul, an essence of who we really are. Your soul doesn’t care about rejection, titles, possessions, successes, failures, or how scared you are. The soul cares only about expanding and expressing itself. It is your guide, and your true source of power.

This inner source of strength comes from developing your capacity to delay gratification, learning to courageously face the demands of reality without escaping, developing the capability to see the long-term effects of actions, and achieving quietness of mind. Such cultivation requires a lifetime of dedicated personal work, guided by masters. A cultivated, integrated authentic self is, in today’s world, a leader’s greatest tool. Cultivation, or becoming more fully human, is the primary leadership issue of our time and lies at the core of our work.

Deciding to embark on this arduous journey called leadership requires a decision to go inside yourself and learn to discern the impulse of the ego from the voice of the soul. If a decision comes from the ego, you’ll never be satisfied. You’ll always want more. Authentic leaders channel their ego needs away from themselves and into the larger goal of building a great organization. It’s not that authentic leaders have no ego or self-interest. Indeed, they are incredibly ambitious—but their ambition is first and foremost for the greater good, not themselves.

I end this with a wonderful poem attributed to a Chinese sage, Wu Wei Wu:

Why are you so unhappy? Because ninety-nine percent of what you think, and everything you do, is for yourself, and there isn’t one.”
How are you leading authentically?

Two Minutes On Leadership

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A participant in one of my recent leadership programs was challenged with preparing a two minute talk to a group of high level leaders from across Canada. She asked me what I think is the most important thing or habit leaders need in order to be successful.

What would your answer be if someone asked you for a two minute summary of your philosophy on leadership?

Here’s my response:

  1. Leadership is the capacity of human beings to shape and create a new future – by inspiring and engaging others.
  2. Leadership is about presence, not position. Great leadership cannot be reduced to technique or title. Great leadership comes from the identity and the integrity of the leader. Leadership is the way you live your life. Your power as a leader comes from being an integrated and real human being. This makes every person a potential leader.
  3. You aren’t a leader until someone says you are. You have to earn the right to be called a leader. While you may get promoted to being a boss, you don’t get promoted to leadership. You have to earn the right to be a leader.

In this high tech world, leadership needs to be about high touch (thanks John Nesbitt). Leadership, in today’s world, is ultimately about connection. Connection to: (1) Your authentic self: your values, your unique talents, your aspirations, your dreams, your passion. Take time for reflection, for clarity about what matters most in your life, to listen to the voice inside of you.  Connection to: (2) Those you serve, your stakeholders: those who depend on you and those to whom you depend. Get out of your office, away from your computers, and make contact with people. Find out what inspires the people you serve, what matters to them, how you can support them. Leadership can probably be summed up with one word: conversation. You can assess the level of impact you are having by the depth and honesty of the conversations you are creating.