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.

What’s The Difference Between Servant Leadership vs. Pleasing Leadership?

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I see many leaders trying too hard to make their direct reports happy under the auspices of “servant leadership.” Entitlement is bred in this kind of culture, thinking that we are obligated to give our employees everything they ask for. It’s like parenting, trying to do too much for our children, trying taking away all their stress. This doesn’t lead to responsible kids and it doesn’t lead to accountable employees. And it creates burned out leaders.

The servant leader’s job is to identify and do all you can to meet the needs of their staff to ensure their success. This is servant leadership. Pleasing leadership attempts to meet all the wants of their people. Pleasing leaders become their employee’s slaves  -by allowing their employees/kids to do whatever they want. We all need an environment where standards are set and people are held accountable. We may not want this, but we need it. We don’t do anybody favors by running undisciplined homes or departments. Don’t settle for mediocrity. People need to be pushed to be all they can be. Again, this may not be what we want, but it’s what we need.

Another example: If you pay people what they want, you’ll be out of business and won’t be able to give them what they need: stable, long-term employment.

When politicians make their policy decisions based on the most recent Gallup poll, they are giving people what they want, but probably not what they need.

How do you distinguish between wants and needs?

A want is a wish without regard to long-term consequences.

A need is a legitimate requirement for one’s survival or success.You have to know people (starting with yourself) very well to understand the difference.

Start by making a list of the needs of the people who depend on you. Make a list of what you need.

Thanks to Jim Hunter for your inspiration behind this blog. He wrote a good book called The Servant.

What’s your experience with the difference between serving and pleasing?

How Do You Know If You Are A Good Enough Leader?

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Recently I had tea with good friends who are parents of a beautiful and energetic eighteen-month-old boy. They are at a challenging stage, trying to build a business together, parent a toddler, keep their relationship strong, and get it all “right.” It brought me back to my early years of parenting.

At one point in the conversation I was asked, “How would you know if you are a ‘good enough’ parent?”

After parenting for more than thirty-two years, I’ve become less sure about more things, and more sure about less things. One of those things that I am more sure about is that the effect that parents have on children is not as great as what we are lead to believe. No doubt, parents do impact their children. But children also impact their parents. Children come into the world with their own temperament and spirit and destiny. Parenting is as much about teaching parents as it is about teaching our children. Our children are on their own journey. As Kahlil Gibran said, “…we may house their bodies, but we do not house their souls… Our children come through us but they belong not to us.” I love how parenting has helped me in so many ways: to develop the capacity to continually see things another way, to be more patient and compassionate, to be more courageous and clear about what I expect, to name a few.

The best test of whether you are a ‘good enough’ parent essentially comes down to one question: Are you enjoying yourself?”

I’m sure you could find exceptions to this simple rule. There may be a few incompetent parents who enjoy themselves, just as I’m sure you’d find very good parents who are quite stressed. But my advice, after thirty-two years of parenting, is don’t try to be a better parent by trying to be a better parent. Try to be a better parent by finding ways to enjoy parenting more. The outcome will be that you will be a better parent. Parents who set clear limits and stick to them and who love their kids and enjoy finding ways to connect with them through a listening heart and common interests and aren’t always trying to impose their will upon them, are parents who find ways to enjoy the experience of parenting – and naturally seem to be better at it.

Could this also be a test of competence in any leadership role? What if, as a leader, you stopped trying to be a “better” leader, and simply decided to find ways to enjoy leading? Take time to connect and listen to your staff. Have conversations about your expectations, your passions, your values, and your goals. Talk about how you can support each other to be the best you can be. Try just hanging out and learning together on the projects you are working on. Sure you have to be tough sometimes, and that’s part of the learning together too.

How do you know if you are a good enough leader? I’d love to hear your take on this question.

Where Does Commitment Come From? How To Inspire People

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Leadership is about creating cultures that inspire people, build commitment, and harness energy. As I sit on the plane returning from San Francisco this weekend, I reflect on some of the critical factors I have found in creating an engaging culture. Having just finished re-reading James Kouzes and Barry Posner’s book, Encouraging The Heart, I got inspired to write this blog. After you’ve read this blog, I’d love to hear how you inspire others.

Values

Years of consulting with organizations have taught me that clarity of values is the force that determines an individual’s commitment to an organization. Personal values matter most. To inspire people, you have to get to their core values. Living according to other people’s conditions virtually guarantees that we will not be giving our all.

How many executives go on a retreat, create a corporate values statement, print it on posters, publish it in the annual report, hold training classes to orient people to it, post it beautifully in the headquarters’ lobby, and then wonder why commitment isn’t skyrocketing?

These efforts are a huge waste of time unless there is an equally concerted endeavor to help individuals understand, through dialogue and discovery, their own values and examine the fit between their values and the organizations’. I’m not saying that organizational values are not important, but they are only one side of the commitment equation. Commitment is a matter of fit between the personal and the organizational values.

Personal Vision

The vision of reaching the top of the mountain gives energy to the climber and makes the experience of climbing worthwhile. With no summit in mind, we are aimlessly wandering through rocks and trees, irritable and discontented. Vision keeps us on track. It helps us prioritize the demands, clarifies what we need to say “no” to, and gives us purposeful action. Vision gives us focus, energy, perspective, power, and significance, especially during moments of discouragement.

Alignment

Human beings simply don’t put their hearts into something they don’t believe in. Energy, passion, commitment comes when there’s a fit, when there’s alignment between personal and organizational values. Employees are much more likely to be engaged when they know their positional leaders are committed to them. Loyalty begets loyalty. This can only be accomplished with careful and meaningful dialogue. Here are three useful questions to ask employees to help move you toward alignment:

  1. What matters most to you? Where does work fit into the broader context of your life?
  2. How does this organization ensure that you bring your values to work?
  3. What do you need from me as a leader to ensure that there is alignment between your values and ours?

Tragedy As A Gift In Disguise

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Over the years, I have learned that every life circumstance, even a tragedy, provides an opportunity to grow. A friend recently told me of how she had lost her farm and her home that she loved so much in a horrible fire. Everything she owned and collected for more than sixty years was destroyed.

“At moments like this,” she said, “you stand at a fork in the road. If you take the familiar path, you collapse, give up, and feel hopeless, resentful, and defeated. You focus on the negative and lose yourself in the ‘problem,’ pointing to your misery to rationalize your pessimism. It takes little effort to be a victim and to stay a victim. It’s the easy way out.”

“You can, however, take the other path, You can view your tragedy as an opportunity for a new beginning. If you decide to keep your perspective, you can look for growth opportunities, and find inner reserve of strength. By deciding to focus on the possibilities rather than the pain, I was able to come through the loss of every material thing I owned with more strength and contentment than I had before the fire. When I sat and reflected on the whole experience, I soon realized that the things I had collected over my lifetime were just that – things, and things that I no longer needed, things that were actually becoming an anchor to keep me on the shore of new growth. After considerable suffering from the loss, I began to realize that the important things in life are not things at all. No longer attached to my house, I moved closer to my grandchildren. This was a move I had been procrastinating for sometime.”

“As I adjusted to my new environment, I was invigorated. It felt as if I were starting the second half of my adulthood. Had I taken the path of misery, I would have remained resentful and depressed, and would have missed the opportunity to set sail to new possibilities.”

What gifts have been given to you that are disguised as tragedies? What is calling you to deepen your authentic presence? What are you waiting for?

Acceptance Of Our Darker Self: A Key To Leadership

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I was coaching an executive recently who was sent to work with me by her CEO. The presenting problem was an extremely low score on a recent 360 survey. The results of her feedback were that she was a competent professional but had very poor interpersonal skills. When I tried to get the executive’s perspective of herself, all I got was a positive presentation. She was, indeed, very difficult to reach to and to connect with, just as her scores indicated. Soon after this initial interview started I pointed out the discrepancy between her “polished presentation” of herself and the reality of how others were perceiving her. Her response was that she was always taught to be optimistic and positive, and with a smile on her face, she explained that she just couldn’t understand why the feedback scores were so low.

Her perceived “inauthenticity” was distancing her from those she was most interdependent upon. It’s hard to trust people that won’t be honest with themselves. In reality, she wasn’t phony; it’s just that she was only expressing a small spectrum of herself.

A lack of acceptance of the darker side of herself (e.g. insecurity, fears, resentments, worries, inadequacies) was preventing her from being perceived as “real,” and resulting in people distancing themselves from her. She was also incapable of assessing the full spectrum of what was happening in her culture because she couldn’t see it in herself.

Authenticity is compelling. It also enables you to lead with greater wisdom and resourcefulness. This is our work together: to face and accept some of the darker parts of our nature, the parts we avoid. Connecting with and accepting a fuller spectrum of oneself – especially the darker self – enables us to better connect with others.