Every leader likes to hear good news. We all want to be positive people who inspire others through our can do attitude. If we are not careful though we will surround ourselves with team members who will start to tell us what we want to hear and not what we need to know.
When you create a culture within your organization where the truth can be told you must not make the mistake of reacting every time you hear bad news or something negative. If you do, you are shutting yourself off from critical information that you must know and you have created an environment where your best people will eventually leave.
Jack Welch calls the lack of candor the biggest dirty secret in business. Avoiding conflict and hoping things will get better is the formula for failure especially in the realities of the new economy.
I am not talking about chronic negative whining people who never really want to solve the problem. They should not be tolerated within any organization because they are a cancer to your creativity and morale.
So the next time that person walks into your office who you know is drop dead loyal and they need to talk about a problem that must be addressed be grateful and listen they have got your back.
The one word that best describes the leadership model of the last century is positional. Most of the major decisions were made at the top and the role of the team was to merely execute the plan.
When you move to the new models of leadership today the one word that best describes these styles is participative. This simply means the team is involved in helping form the priorities and strategies in addition to execution.
When hiring a leader for the old model you found the best person that fit the job description. Then the team would adjust to the style of the new leader.
Today situation leadership is the key model in these highly participative team dynamics. It is now the responsibility of the leader to shift his or her style to the needs of each team member and the chemistry of the team as a whole.
The needs of the team members and the team as a whole will shift based on their competency and commitment levels. These levels will always change depending upon the task or project at hand and that is the whole point of validating the need for situational leadership.
If a person has very low competency based on lack of experience then a more hands on directive approach is needed. On the other hand if there is high commitment and high competency then the leader should shift to delegation.
The poor communication that is produced by misalignment between leaders and followers is the major factor in decreased productivity within our organizations.
Leaders have always been evaluated based on the two extremes of the tasks that must be done compared to the relationship skills involved in motivating the people who will actually do the work. The theory was some leaders are born project managers and others are great in customer service.
In the old industrial age model of the last century based these either high task or high touch leaders were placed in jobs that maximized their strengths and overlooked their weaknesses. So if someone could always hit their numbers but had higher rate of turnover they were viewed as someone who was not too good with people but they could always get the job done.
Today in the more highly participative style of leadership that is required to be successful in the 21st century it is an absolute necessity that all leaders prioritize their people skills so they can positively interact with wide range of constituencies.
Marshall Goldsmith is one of the top Executive Coaches in the market. His latest book What Got You Here Won’t Get You There is a great read for all leaders who want to reach their maximum potential. He identifies twenty habits that can completely destroy your influence as a leader.
The amazing thing that he confirms for all of us is that the most critical problems related to executive leadership have very little to do with core industry specific competency or even the expected qualities of productive leadership.
The overwhelming majority of smart, disciplined, experienced and passionate leaders are failing in the one major area of basic people skills. They do not relate well to their superiors, peers, subordinates and sometimes even customers.
They do not listen, make negative comments about people when they are not in the room, and always tend to punish the messenger when bad news is delivered just to list a few. Almost always these potential fatal flaws are obvious to everyone but the leader who does not even see them as an issue.
An absolute priority for any effective leader today is to establish a culture within their organization where the truth can be told and they will get the relational feedback they need or these extremely negative blind spots will never be revealed and the organization or team will fail.
When it is all said and done all potential employees will be evaluated under the two broad categories of character and competency. The more important of the two is character because you can help most people through training to improve their skill set but you may never be able to overcome who they are as a person.
Once you have narrowed the number of resumes down to the people that you may be interested in it is very helpful to conduct an initial phone interview. It is very important to learn how to ask open ended questions that will allow the person to talk beyond the typical scripted answers. As quickly as possible find out what they are passionate about and what they are capable of doing.
The next step is to send them a series of questions and assessment tools that will give you an even clearer understanding of the person’s strengths and personality tendencies. This should be compared to a very detailed reference resource form that looks for the not so obvious information. A good question might be if you were to see them in a totally different field of work what would it be and why?
By the time you get to a face to face interview the issue is more about character and chemistry than it is competency. I have found it very beneficial to involve other team members in this process to see how they read the fit for our organizational culture.
I would never hire anyone for any kind of significant role without first meeting their spouse. Seeing a couple interact with each other can tell you a lot about the person. Probably one of the most important things to do is get the person in several casual settings where they will not have their game face on and you can listen and observe how they interact with other people.
This entire process could take several months but remember the only thing worse than not having a position filled is to have it filled with the wrong person. When in doubt move on to the next person because as a leader your gut is probably right.
We have all had good and bad experiences with this wonderful but sometimes problematic annual rite of passage in corporate America. It is always helpful to know what is expected of you and to hear from your superiors how they think you are doing.
As Christians we must never forget that ultimately our real employer is our heavenly Father. Because of the price He paid for our redemption we should have a passion to live our lives in reckless abandonment to His will.
His expectations are very clear as we are going about our everyday lives we are to be spreading the aroma of His grace to all of the people we come in contact with in every situation. Our lives should be living epistles to be known and read by all at home, at work and in the normal patterns of life.
As we unconditionally minister grace to other people we are earning the trust and opportunity to share with them the reason of the hope that lies within us. Our conviction is that stuff and success don’t really matter in the end but what we have done to move others toward knowing Christ does.
Jesus said it so clearly that it cannot be missed as the Father has sent Him into world He now sends us. We are to be storytellers of His personal grace and compassion in our lives and hope givers for all the broken people who live in utter despair.
During my final performance review I only want to hear one comment, “Well done my good and faithful servant.”
Most leaders understand there are powerful forces in place to maintain the status quo both on a personal level and with an organizational culture as well. Therefore choosing the timing of when to start a change process that you want to be successful is critical.
If you don’t have any of the following priorities in place then do not light the fuse because it will blow up in your face:
1. Problem to be solved—at the very basic level of motivation for any change is the reality that something is clearly wrong and you know it needs to be fixed. I am overweight and if I do not start an exercise program and change my diet I am going to be in serious trouble.
2. Opportunity to be taken—sometimes doors seem to open that we were not expecting and the benefits gained far outweigh the risks involved. A good friend offers to pay my membership in the health club for a year if I will commit to go.
3. Crisis to be avoided—in this situation you recognize the perfect storm is brewing and if you don’t act immediately the consequences of my inaction could be catastrophic. I have now had a heart attack and my doctor says without major change I will have another one and it will probably be fatal.
4. Need to be met—this moves the motivation point high up on the scale because there are hurting people involved and the change process will directly benefit them. If I am not willing to act based on what I need surely because of the people I love the most I will do whatever is necessary to be there for them.
5. Calling to be followed—as a Christian I am called to represent Christ to the world in all that I do with my life. If I do not take care of the body He has given me to be used in His service then I can lose my testimony and damage my effectiveness in helping other people.
These priorities also apply in our professional lives as we seek to lead the change process in the context of a company culture that tends to react after it is too late rather than respond to what should be obvious. Leaders must be willing to cast a clear vision that the benefits of leaving the current reality behind far outweigh any pain involved in moving to a new and better place for all involved.
According to John Kotter there are many reasons change initiatives fail especially in large organizations. The number one reason is there is not a clear sense of urgency for change that makes everyone willing to pay the short term price of pain due to change to gain the long term benefit of progress.
Many times the communications part of the process breaks down and the implementers do not get enough information to really buy in. The importance of creating short term wins for establishing credibility for the entire process cannot be overstated.
When the new of change becomes the norm there are several key factors that let you know it is now firmly in the D.N.A. of your organizational culture:
1. More change, not less: The guiding coalition uses the credibility afforded by short-term wins to tackle additional and bigger change projects.
2. More help: Additional people are brought in, promoted, and developed to help with all the changes.
3. Leadership from senior management: Senior people focus on maintaining clarity of shared purpose for the overall effort and keeping urgency levels up.
4. Project management and leadership from below: Lower ranks in the hierarchy both provide leadership and specific projects and manage those projects.
5. Reduction of unnecessary interdependencies: To make change easier in both the short and long term, managers identify unnecessary interdependencies and eliminate them.
When everyone in the organization starts to articulate the new vision in their own words as if it were their idea then you know they own the process. It is time to start looking for what needs to be changed next, the process never stops.
There are many leaders today that want to move beyond just making a profit to really making a difference. They want to be successful and that’s great but they also want the significance that only comes from adding value to other people.
When leadership is approached from a Christian perspective a new model starts to develop where the leader becomes more of a shepherd to their people than a boss to their employees. They do care about performance and productivity but they also feel responsible for developing alignment around core values and creating the right culture for work-life balance for their people.
They also see life beyond the immediate pressures of planning, project management, staffing, goal setting and execution. The legacy they want to create for their life and organization includes eternal metrics that must be included when talking about the ultimate bottom line.
The clear plan for every Christian is to use your professional life as a platform for ministry because we are all in full time Christian service. Our lives should no longer be seen as segmented into faith, family, friends, recreation and entertainment but become totally integrated into being one life on mission for God. The various roles that we fulfill are no longer competing with each other but complimenting the calling God has for our lives.
In the end there is only one performance review that really matters. The evaluation criteria is simple, How faithful were you with all that I entrusted to your care? Thinking about that moment should overwhelm us with gratitude and give us a renewed sense of passion to hear well done my good and faithful servant.
In a day when markets and shareholders demand short term rewards for their financial investment it is extremely difficult for leaders to have the courage to lead with the long term as a priority. The temptation to make easy decisions that will make the leaders bottom line look good today are setting up good companies for failure down the road.
This mentality usually results in a strong almost dictatorial leadership style that builds the business around the charisma and determination of the celebrity type leader. There is very little delegation and certainly no succession planning taking place because that does not serve the crisis of the moment mentality.
The real test of any leader’s success must not be simply measured by the timeframe when they are working but by what happens to the organization when they leave. If everything seems to fall apart and all positive momentum is lost then you cannot believe the leader set the team up for future success.
John Maxwell makes the point when he writes, “Achievement comes to someone when he is able to do great things for himself. Success comes when he empowers followers to do great things with him. Significance comes when he develops leaders to do great things for him. But a legacy is created only when a person puts his organization into a position to do great things without him.”
When we value the success of others over the long haul over any short term success we may have for ourselves then we are leading with integrity. Anything less than that is nothing more than selfish ambition and that is not true leadership.
In Jim Collins latest book How The Mighty Fall he talks about companies that start on a systematic downward spiral that leads ultimately to total failure as an organization. One common problem he found is that when they finally realize they are in serious trouble rather than dealing with real problems they search for the quick fix approach of finding the right silver bullet.
When full blown panic sets in there is a frantic search for several silver bullets that can be dramatic big moves such as game changing acquisitions or a risky new strategy or an exciting innovation or new leadership, anything that can save us. The following is list of several silver bullets observed:
1. Grasping for a Leader as Savior: The board responds to threats and setbacks by searching for a charismatic leader and an outside savior.
2. Panic and Haste: Instead of being calm, deliberate, and disciplined, people exhibit hasty, reactive behavior, bordering on panic.
3. Radical Change and Revolution with Fanfare: The language of revolution and radical change characterizes the new era: New Programs! New cultures! New Strategies!
4. Hype Precedes Results: Instead of setting expectations low—underscoring the duration and difficulty of the turnaround—leaders hype their visions initiating a pattern of overpromising and under delivering.
5. Initial Upswing Followed by Disappointments: There is an initial burst of positive results, but they do not last; dashed hope follows dashed hope; the organization achieves no buildup, no cumulative momentum.
6. Confusion and Cynicism: People cannot easily articulate what the organization stands for; core values have eroded to the point of irrelevance; the organization has become just another place to work.
There are no quick fixes or silver bullets for organizations that have complex long term problems that have built up for decades. The new realities of the global economy did not create these problems it merely acted as a catalyst to reveal them.