Leadership: Lessons From My Father

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As Father’s Day approaches this weekend, I have been reflecting on my late father, Harlie, one of the first leaders in my life. He was a true mentor leader – even though I didn’t fully realize it when he was alive. Here’s some lessons I learned from him and hopefully you can relate them to your work as a leader.

  1. Give what you expect from others. Harlie engaged me by first being engaged himself. Leadership is about energy, and if you want energy on your team, you must bring energy to your team. Energy – whether it’s positive or negative – is contagious. Harlie was passionate about so many things. He was passionate about learning, about growing, and about life. As a former national gymnastics champion, he kept himself in great shape. He lived what he led. If you want engagement from others, you must be engaged. We cannot give what we do not have.
  2. Be motivated by love. Great leadership is largely a matter of love. If you are uncomfortable with that word, call it caring, because leadership involves caring about people, not manipulating them. Dad was tough on me when I needed it, but I never doubted his motive: he genuinely cared. He cared more about me than the results which were a means to a higher end. Harlie was motivated by love. You can’t fabricate love; people will see right through you. What you can do is decide to care about people. People don’t care how much you know until they know  how  much you care.
  3. Live your passion. Our basement was filled with evidence of Dad’s passion: exercise equipment, a tumbling mat, weights. Every morning Dad would exercise at the crack of dawn. Although he couldn’t always get me engaged, especially in my early years, he lived his passion. He preached the importance of exercise without saying a word. When I was in junior high, Dad took me to the YMCA to teach me how to exercise on the parallel bars. I didn’t have the strength to lift myself up, much less do any maneuvers on them. After several disappointing attempts, Dad soon got the message: I was just not meant to be a gymnast. Even though I have memories of him being disappointed that he couldn’t engage me in gymnastics, he kept his own passion alive.
  4. Tune in to what drives people. When I was 14, dad was teaching me to drive our old 1954 Chevy truck. When I pulled over into a farm yard a mile from our home, dad sensed that something was wrong. We sat in silence for a few moments and I opened up about an incident in physical education class. “We ran a mile  and I couldn’t finish it without walking… I came in last, but I want to be the best miler in our zone track meet next year.” Dad knew little about running, so we went to the library and found every book we could on running. Dad became my coach, and the next spring I won the mile race in our zone track meet. Everyone has a passion. Everyone is engaged about something. The key is to create the space to listen and tune in to what matters to people. When you are committed to helping people find and express their voice – their unique gifts and passion, you’ll get engagement.
  5. Have a vision of greatness. Greatness wasn’t an external thing for my father. His life was about making a difference, not making a buck. He never had a mission statement. But he had a mission and it was expressed in how he lived his life. When you have a vision, whether it’s expressed explicitly or implicitly by your actions, it inspires people. In his “I have dream speech,” Martin Luther King did not say, “I have a strategic plan.” While plans may be necessary, it is dreams that inspire, uplift, and engage us. “If you want to build a ship,” writes Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, “don’t herd people together to collect wood, and don’t assign them to tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.” Whatever your vision, live it well and you will inspire others to engage with you.
  6. Be a good gardener. Dad was a good gardener and he taught me a lot about leadership by the way he gardened. No plants ever grow better because you demand that they do so or because you threaten them. Plants grow only when they have the right conditions and are given proper care. Creating the space and providing the proper nourishment for plants – and people as well – is a matter of continual investigation and vigilance. But another reality about gardening is that you really don’t have much control over the harvest. Despite your best efforts, for a myriad of reasons, some plants simply won’t make it. You can’t engage everyone. It’s a reality we all live with.

Good Leadership Means Helping People Know They Make An Impact

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This past week our family buried our pet and companion, Freddie. After a long and good life, we laid him to rest in the field behind our home where he loved to chase squirrels and gophers and lie in the sun. As part of a little funeral for him we each told stories about what we loved and remembered about him, what he contributed to our family, and the impact he had on our lives.

What I’ve learned from dogs is that, like people, they give back what has been given to them. Good leadership – in families, communities, and workplaces – means ensuring that every person is given respect and a purpose so they will return the same to those around them. Having a meaningful role and a sense of contribution and significance gets people engaged in something worthwhile. By being needed, listened to, and taken seriously, individuals will feel validated and will want to contribute to the best of their ability. While it is up to every employee to understand how they make a difference, good leadership creates a place where people have chance to be their best, to realize their potential, and to be recognized for their achievements and for the impact that their contribution makes.

Three Ways Good Leadership Helps

Here are three ways you can help those you serve realize that they make an impact.

  1. Don’t wait for a funeral to give a eulogy. Be careful of the natural human tendency to take people – especially your best people – for granted. Make it a habit to express regularly what you appreciate and value about the people around you. It may feel awkward and phony at first, but keep at it until it becomes a part of who you are.
  2. Ask your employees what they know about the positive impact they make to the organization and team. They may need some coaching to come up with an answer, but know that if they can’t answer this, they are likely not engaged. Helping them affirm, for themselves, the difference they make, will always have a more lasting impact than simply being told.
  3. Discuss with your employees the difference between chores and contribution. Chores are the items on a job description. They are the daily duties that need doing to make an organization run. Contribution is what makes a difference. Contribution connects chores to the purpose of the organization. While chores provide you with a job, contribution provides a place where you belong.

Leadership only exists when people have the ability and the choice to not follow you. The art of good leadership is getting people to want to do what must be done. The path to get there is through helping people know the difference they make.

The Key To Organizational Leadership: Strong Character

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Hydro One, a Crown corporation that runs Ontario’s transmission system, fired an employee this past week who shouted obscenities at a Toronto television reporter after a soccer game. While the company’s code of conduct (which all employees sign) covers after work behavior, the decision to let the engineer go generated a heated debate online.

In an exclusive interview, Hydro One CEO Carmine Marcello gave his rationale for making the decision:

“…at the end of the day, it was a pretty simple decision. We [as a leadership team] looked at who we are, what our core values are, and we made a values based decision, and decided we couldn’t condone that kind of behaviour. We had to send a clear message to the employee, and quite frankly to our employee base, and made a decision to terminate him.

… I have yet to find a single person to say his behaviour was commendable. It just doesn’t exist. So, really what we’re saying is, hold yourself to a high standard at work, and quite frankly, hold yourself to a high standard within society.

…I’m sure he’s free to speak his mind. We all are. I think there’s also a level of common decency and decorum that we all expect, and not getting into a debate, I’m just going back to the first principles in Hydro One: the issues and the values that we hold dear around our people, our customers, and working collaboratively together. What’s important to us drives business success.

… it’s clear that this behaviour did not fit with who we are as a company and we took appropriate action.

… We have our own code of conduct, we’ve had it for many years. When I became the CEO a number of years ago, one of the things I really focused on was transforming our culture. Job one was to improve our customer service … but at the end of the day it’s about people and their ability to do great work. So I rolled out a process about identifying certain core values around our employees.”

It’s inspiring to witness a company and CEO stand for something. My father would say that these organizational leaders have an almost forgotten quality: character. Character is about choosing what’s right over choosing what’s popular or easy. Being a person or a company of character isn’t taking the comfortable road. But this is what business culture, organizational leadership, and employee accountability are all about. If you don’t stand for something, if you don’t have the courage to hold yourself and others accountable to what you say you stand for, then why have fancy value statements on your website and office walls in the first place?

I admire Mr. Marcello and his leadership team for having the courage to remain true to the foundational principles that Hydro One’s culture is built upon. The organizational leadership they exercised isn’t just good for their company; this kind of leadership is good for society.

Personal Leadership: Learning To Lead Without An Ego

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One of the ways you can be guided to your authentic self is to be attentive to stories that capture your attention. I’m drawn to stories that illustrate personal leadership – the capacity to inspire and influence others that comes from the identity and integrity of a person.

A few weeks ago, while reading the Globe and Mail, I was inspired by the story of one of Toronto Blue Jays’ pitchers, Daniel Norris. Norris spends the off-season living in a 35-year-old VW van he calls Shaggy. Though he’s a millionaire, he gets by on $800 (U.S.) a month. He cooks on a portable stove. He wears a miner’s headlamp at night to write in his “thought journal.”

He’s also a good baseball player. Maybe, according the to Globe’s Cathal Kelly, a special baseball player. In addition to his exceptional talent, Blue Jays’ general manager Alex Anthopoulos claims that when Norris is on, all the players perform above average.

When Toronto was considering drafting Norris from his high school in Tennessee, assistant GM Andrew Tinnish took him to Florida for medical testing. After, when they were driving to lunch Norris perked up and pointed. “He said, ‘Oh man, that’s the car I want. That’s what I’m going to buy if I get signed,’” Tinnish says. “I’m looking around for a Lexus or a Beemer. But, no. It’s one of those VW camper vans.”

Here’s what Daniel Norris can teach the rest of us about personal leadership: leading without an ego.

  • Norris doesn’t seek the limelight. He’s there to add value by simply being who he is. I’m drawn to people – and to leaders like this. From what I have read about him, he is authentic. He’s the real deal.
  • Norris’s desire isn’t to look good or be anything other than what he actually is. He doesn’t flaunt his position or need to look bigger than life. His focus is simple:  how he can be a better baseball pitcher.
  • I get a sense that Norris isn’t too attached to what people think of him. He appeals to me because he doesn’t seem to measure his worth by the opinions of others. There appears to be substance over flash, ability over appearance, results over image. His worth comes from within and from what he can do on the mound, not what he can look like in the media.

Leadership isn’t measured by the size of your office or the title behind your name. It’s measured by competence, character, and the ability to connect. May we all be inspired by Daniel Norris to be a little more humble, a little more authentic, and a little more human. This is what the world badly needs.

I don’t how Daniel Norris came to have this kind of confidence in himself, to believe in himself so that he doesn’t have to mask insecurity by being an egomaniac. Too many highly paid athletes – as well as executives – could learn a lesson about leaving their ego at the door. What I do know is that self-awareness is the most important capability for leaders to develop.

Be a Good Leader By Being A Good Person

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John Coltrane, the great American jazz saxophonist and composer, once said that to be a better artist you have to be a better person. He could easily have been talking about leadership. My research and observation of leaders during the past couple of decades has demonstrated clearly that great leadership can’t be reduced to techniques or a title. Great leadership comes from the integrity and character of the leader.

Here’s some of what I’ve learned about leadership:

  • There’s a difference between a boss and a leader. You can get promoted to “boss”, but you can’t be promoted to “leader”. You have to earn the right to be called a leader.
  • You aren’t a leader until someone says you are. Leadership is defined by those around you, not by size of your office or the title behind your name.
  • Leadership is a decision. If you have decided to make the world better through others, you are on your way to earning the right to be called a leader.
  • To be called a leader, you need followers. Not followers in the traditional sense who blindly obey because they have to, but followers who have a choice, and they choose to follow you. Leadership is the art getting people to want to do what must be done.
  • Leadership is about creating results through others – without the use of positional power. It’s about presence, not position. The question is: Where does that sense of presence come from? How does one develop that presence?

After years of research and observation, I’ve come to understand that sense of presence comes, essentially, from being a good person. It’s that easy, and it’s that difficult. Here are a few ways to develop your leadership presence by being a good person:

  1. Character. We’ve all met people in our work experience who are bright, talented, competent, good at making deals, but something about who they are as a person got in the way of all their ability. Character is about moral integrity, acting honestly and ethically. It’s also about relational integrity, being accountable – having the ability to be counted on. It’s earning the trust of others by being trustworthy. It’s about earning the respect of others through self-respect. People of strong character are integrated human beings.
  2. Caring. In a recent coaching session with an executive, we were discussing possible reasons for the lack of results from his team. When I asked him, “Do you care?” he kept going on about his frustration for the lack of accountability on the team and the poor attitude of his employees. I pushed further, “I know you care about results, but do you care about the people around you? Do you care about what matters to them, about their families and their values and their unique gifts?” After a long pause he shrugged his shoulders and said, “No, not really.” I then suggested he do his organization and himself a favor and step down from the responsibility of management. To lead you have to connect. To connect, you have to care. You can’t fake caring, just like you can’t fake character. People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. Leadership is a largely a matter of caring about people, not manipulating them.
  3. Centered. Centered leaders know their worth, strength, and security comes from within. Because they don’t define themselves by their external environment, they are able to maintain calmness in the midst of the storms, security in the midst of failure, and perspective in the midst of success. Centered leaders are guided by an internal compass based on their own values and their own approach to life rather than on the fleeting opinions of others or comparisons to others. They are focused on what matters and are able to go within and find inner strength, wisdom, and stability, even in the midst of a demanding external world.
  4. Contribution. Bill Gates and his wife, Melinda, have devoted much of their energy to global development philanthropy. While in Ottawa to discuss overseas aid with the Canadian government, he said, in part, “In countries such as the U.S. and Canada, where a lot of people are doing quite well, the question is: Can you take your loyalty and your values and go further than yourself and your family, even beyond your region and your country? Can you have, as a member of the human race, the idea that you would volunteer time or your voice, or whatever means you have to give? You’re connecting yourself with the improvements needed around the world: eradicating polio, for example, or making sure there’s enough food for poor children. I think that … people want to be associated with more than their own success – they want to have knowledge and a sense of progress that they contributed to [something beyond themselves]… We call that our ‘global citizenship’ movement.” Bill Gates understands that being a good person means allowing your success to overflow into making life better for others.  This commitment to contribute beyond yourself, whether it’s across the world or across the corridor outside your office door, is what makes a great leader.

Being a good leader by being a good person cannot be taught in a leadership course or textbook. But it can be learned. It can be developed. My dad would say that it can be caught even though it can’t be taught. It’s means your motive is to do good by being good. And it amounts to leading well by living well.

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.