Apr 29 2010

Leadership Training for the Born Leader

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Know anyone who is a “born leader?” It’s a common label to attach to someone who is especially effective as a leader. But is it accurate? What is a “born leader” and what should other leaders do when they think one of their subordinates is one?

There are certainly people who were born with the ability to make other people want to do things and that’s part of the leadership equation. These people usually possess some specific qualities that attract people to them, such as charisma, a quick mind, and often a sense of humor. With those tools, they can often attract “followers” who will do their bidding. Born leaders can become a great asset; but if untrained, they can also do a lot of damage. The problem is, these people are not always going the direction their bosses would want. Also, their ability to take people along with them sometimes makes it seem like they don’t need a lot of leadership training. As a result, they are more likely to find themselves in a bad situation, especially with people problems, that they don’t have the tools to deal with. That doesn’t mean someone who is thought of as a “born leader” should be discounted. Far from it. With good leadership training they probably will excel.

As should be the case with any potential leader, a boss who senses that a subordinate has these innate characteristics should take action to develop them. And also as with any potential leadership candidate, the boss should provide leadership training and give them an opportunity to prove themselves. In this case though, there are a couple of cautions to consider. This type of person has probably already experienced the ability to get people to do things so it’s important to keep a close eye on them to ensure they’re not heading off on their own. It is important to make sure all leaders understand the organization’s values and ensure they have a complimentary value set. In this case though it is even more important for the same reason: people will more readily follow him or her even if they’re leading in the wrong direction.

Before you begin providing your new protégé with opportunities to lead, make sure they have a firm grasp of the organization’s mission and goals and specifically what you want them to do. Most new leaders are a little unsure of themselves at first but this person has a lot more self-confidence, which could result in charging ahead when he or she might better have asked for clarification or guidance.

An odd thing to watch for is an inability for the “born leader” to bring up new leaders once they’ve reached a leadership position themselves. This is probably attributable to the fact that some people with the qualities that make them “born leaders” can also be a little insecure and they can see new potential leaders as a threat to their position. This should be uncommon though, especially if they have been well trained.

Bob Mason

www.planleadexcel.com

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Apr 27 2010

Four Leadership Traits That Are Not Situational

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What are the most important actions for a leader? Of course the answer to such a question is highly situational, but I got to thinking about some things good leaders do in general. These are things that should become a habit, things that good leaders do without giving it a lot of thought. These are things that can sometimes prevent the sort of situations that end up begging the question, “What should I do now?”

Here they are: four general actions for great leaders.

Be honest. Personal integrity is vital. It must also be constant. Most people know they shouldn’t lie to the boss, but incredibly, they don’t seem to understand that rule has to work in their relationship with subordinates. The people who rely on you for leadership will, sooner or later, figure out that you’re not being honest. Once that happens, there will be a wedge in your relationship. It is almost impossible to recover from a lack of integrity. So, be honest.

Know the mission and have a plan. People expect the leader to know where they’re going and have a plan to get there. Surprisingly, many don’t. How many leaders have you known who simply show up every day to fight whatever fire is brightest that day? People are better motivated by a leader who knows what direction they’re going, have a plan to get there, and tell the workers about it.

Be enthusiastic. This isn’t always easy but it really helps. You have a plan and know where you’re going and you should be enthusiastic about that. Let people know you believe in what you’re doing, and just as importantly, you believe in what they’re doing. Being enthusiastic also means keeping your problems with the boss, your family, the dog, the car, or whatever else to yourself.  Your workers only want to know you’re doing the best you can to support them and those other things are probably not of much concern. I don’t mean put on a false smile all the time. I once knew someone who always was bubbling over with enthusiasm. It was sickening! Your people will see through that and write you off as a fool. But when they see you’re handling your responsibilities, that you really believe in what you and they are doing, and even bad news doesn’t destroy your morale, they will be more enthusiastic as well.

Be resilient. Closely related to being enthusiastic, being resilient means you have the ability to roll with the punches. I’ve seen leaders who react to stressful situations by folding up like a poorly pitched tent in a windstorm. They aren’t much good to anyone. A good leader must be able to shake it off and not let bad news affect relations with their workers. A good leader also won’t let those punches detract them from their plan.

I’m sure anyone can come up with a long list of things a good leader should do in various situations. But, these four behaviors transcend any specific situation and will help a good leader be a great leader!

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Apr 22 2010

Leadership Knowledge – Do You Know What You Know Not?

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Sometimes leaders feel they must present an air of ultimate knowledge and infallibility or they will lose the respect of their subordinates. There is a line from the book of Proverbs which states “He who knows not and knows not he knows not: he is a fool – shun him.” This is exactly what people will do to leaders who either do not realize they don’t know, or try to disguise the fact.

In fact, a leader who adopts this attitude will become ineffective because others will quickly see through the charade. The result will be subordinates who lose respect for the leader and even begin to see him or her as a joke. People are much more likely to respect and want to follow a leader who admits to not knowing.

In “Charmides”, Socrates, in discussing the word temperance with Charmides and his cousin Critias, comes to the conclusion that temperance is “a man to know what he knows, and what he does not know.” There’s a critical point there. A leader must clearly understand not only what he or she knows, but also what he or she doesn’t know. Indeed a leader can’t know everything.

So what should a leader know? That depends on what he or she is leading. I used to tell new leaders that the only thing I expected them to know was…everything! My point being that it was incumbent upon them as leaders to try to learn as much as possible about those areas for which they were responsible.

Is that reasonable? Of course, as I said, no one can know everything; but, I do think it’s reasonable to expect a leader to strive to continually expand their knowledge base. Since I had a much wider area of responsibility than they did, I had to work even harder to set the example. I made it a point to get out of the office and work with the people in the various areas to learn more about what they were doing because I wasn’t an expert in everything. Doing this actually provided three benefits.

First, I learned something new about a part of my area of responsibility. Second, I experienced firsthand, the conditions my people worked in and where I might be able to improve their lives a little. When they asked for help, I was able to better understand what they were saying. Third, they saw that I was willing to learn and take the risk of looking a little foolish as I attempted to learn what they were experts at.

As the Proverb said, the leader is a fool who doesn’t understand that he or she knows not. I once heard a comment that ignorance is being in the state of not knowing. Everyone is ignorant in some areas. Stupidity, on the other hand, is when one is in the state of ignorance and fails to fix that state before taking action. Ignorance is acceptable, but stupidity will get a leader into trouble.

You don’t know everything, but you must know what you know not.

www.planleadexcel.com

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Apr 20 2010

Crisis Leadership – Hack the Clock

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Years ago I was a crew member in an Air Force helicopter rescue unit. One of things we did a lot was study the procedures for handling emergencies. There were a few situations that required immediate action, which was trained and practiced so as to be second nature. Most situations though allowed time for at least some thought. An immediate action that was wrong could get us killed. Thought was certainly helpful!

Our written procedures contained three cardinal rules. First, maintain aircraft control. Second analyze the situation. Third, take the appropriate action. I haven’t been on a flight crew for a long time, but those three rules have stayed with me and they are a pretty good cornerstone for good leadership.

Maintain aircraft control. How many times have you observed a leader who lets an unusual or just bad situation overwhelm them to the point they forget what they are there for. There’s an old saying about how it’s hard to remember your mission is to drain the swamp when you’re up to your backside in alligators. That’s why it’s so critical to ensure leaders have a solid plan with mission, values, and goals clearly spelled out. Then, when the going gets a little difficult, there is a solid foundation which will help the leader remember what’s important and maintain control.

Analyze the situation. This is a step that many leaders miss. They take action without first analyzing the real problem. In the aircraft we had multiple sources of data to help us determine what the problem was: instruments, sound, the feel of the aircraft, even smell. We could put all that information together to come up with a pretty good idea what was wrong. Leaders also have a lot of data available. Various statistics, input from other trusted people, reports, and importantly, the leaders own personal experience, all provide data. A good leader will take all this input and use it to analyze the situation before taking action.

Take the appropriate action. This is the last step, not the first. The word appropriate is descriptive. Many leaders will take action just to be doing something or worse yet, to try to solve a problem quickly. That seldom works because they’ve missed the critical step of analyzing the situation. Only after as careful an analysis of the situation as time and resources permit should a leader pursue any action.

It may seem like I’m advocating a very slow approach to problem solving. I’m not. These steps can actually be performed quickly, though I strongly recommend using whatever time is available. I found the words of a high-time, very experienced instructor pilot in our unit enlightening. He said the first thing to do in an emergency is to “hack the clock.” Let me explain. Military aircraft have wind-up clock that was used (and still is) for a type of navigation called time, distance, heading. The clock has a button that when pushed, starts a timer to give accurate timing for a particular navigational leg. Pushing this button is called “hacking the clock.”

While that seems kind of silly advice when faced with an emergency, it’s really quite sound. This instructor’s logic was that pushing that button, though it had nothing to do with the situation at hand, gave you something to do to prevent an instant, but incorrect and possible deadly reaction. That simple action allowed the brain to recover from the initial surprise and concern.

So, next time you have a crisis, emergency, or some catastrophe happen, take a look at your watch, or take a deep breath, or do something that gives you a chance to recover. Then maintain control, analyze the situation, then and only then, take the appropriate action.

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Apr 15 2010

Levels of Leadership

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I’ve been following a thread of comments relating to a question about how to handle a boss who is a complete jerk. This boss is antagonizing, bullying, and generally manipulative. What surprised me about the comments was that most people seemed to think the answer was for the subordinate to just move on. Very few thought the subordinate should do much to try to improve this boss. Of those who did, most seemed to advocate a somewhat adversarial approach.

All these comments brought two questions to mind. First, what is the best way to deal with a boss who is a jerk? Second, how did that boss become a jerk in the first place?

It’s that second question that I believe really strikes to the heart of the matter. Granted, there are some people who are just jerks, and no amount of training, or intervention, or anything else is going to change them. But, I firmly believe those people are a small minority. The majority of bosses who fall in the jerk category are the victim of a poor training process. The root of that problem is that organizations tend to train entry and lower level leaders as managers, with little or no view towards their responsibility to lead. To illustrate, consider the example of a retail “manager,” something I’ve observed in more than one major retail company.

An employee is selected for promotion to a “management” position, such as a department manager or assistant store manager (key holder in some companies). The employee is trained in many aspects of the art and science of managing the store. They learn about inventory, stocking, store policies, the products, maybe customer service, and a host of other management tasks. They do not learn about human relations, needs and motivation, and effective communication; in a word, leadership.

As these new managers go forth with their new found knowledge, they find they have something else to manage, people. Unfortunately, no one told them how to do that. So, they manage the people in much the same way as they merchandise. Now, I realize this is a huge generalization and doesn’t take into account that many of these new managers have enough sense to treat people better than the stuff in aisle 4, but the lack of leadership training does put them at a disadvantage.

Since the company is looking at the bottom line, and many companies do not pay much attention to the effect of bad leadership on that bottom line, they reward managers who keep good inventory numbers and neat shelves with little regard for such skills as creating happy and effective workers, who by the way, are often the company’s face to the customer. The rewarded managers are promoted to even higher leadership positions and with those positions comes additional stress and without a good foundation of leadership training. Unfortunately, the leader doesn’t know how to handle it. He or she becomes a jerk.

What I found interesting in the comment thread mentioned previously is the large number of people who advised leaving the situation. That should be a significant wake up to companies who don’t want to spend time training young managers in leadership. Not too long ago, the employee who worked for a boss they considered a jerk, didn’t really feel they had much recourse. The whined to their spouse and friends about the situation, but that was about all they could do. A few might try to help the boss improve their skills, but that was usually ineffective. Now, employees who feel they’re in a bad situation will vote with their feet. Yes, the current economic situation may slow this down a little, but it won’t stop the trend in the long run.

So, is leadership training for those low level managers necessary? You be the judge. Are your employee’s bosses jerks?

RLM Planning and Leadership
www.planleadexcel.com

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Apr 13 2010

Effective Leadership Communication: 9 Tips for Writing

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Effective communication is vital for leadership success. In today’s world of instant message, texting, and email, it’s easy to forget some common rules that still apply in most situations. There is a dichotomy here though that leaders must understand and accept, even if it doesn’t seem fair. While a leader should strive for excellence, he or she must also accept the fact that subordinates may not have the same motivation. I’ve learned that insisting on perfection in written communication from a shop foreman, or shift leader was at once an exercise in futility and a waste of their time. Often, in the search for perfection, the message is either lost, or becomes irrelevant.

Here are some tips I’ve found useful for written communication.

1. Unless you’re writing for an academic assignment, don’t write like you’re doing an academic assignment. Your reader will not be impressed.

2. Use active voice as much as possible, but remember that every sentence does not need to begin with “I.”

3. Don’t pad your writing. Write like you’d talk. Using a lot of extra words clouds your message.

4. When you’re finished, read it to yourself. Out loud. See how it sounds.

5. You are not social networking. Capitalize, use punctuation, and avoid undefined acronyms.

Email presents a couple of unique issues to be aware of.

1. Remember that once sent, an email can live forever and you don’t control where it goes. Don’t say anything you don’t want the world to know. This rule applies even when writing to friends.

2. Always, always review the names in the To: box before you send. Make sure it will actually go to the right person. I once received an email from the leader of another part of the large organization I was part of. (He was a level above me and had considerable authority) He explained there was yet another delay in their support for a project I was responsible for. I was tired of the delays and what I saw as constant excuses for putting us off. I immediately forwarded the email to my boss with a rather scathing, and I must admit, unprofessional diatribe outlining my dissatisfaction with the perceived lack of service. Satisfied that I had made my position clear, I hit the send button. A short while later, I had calmed down a little and decided to pick up the phone and talk to the boss about the problem. I asked him if he had seen my email. He said he hadn’t so I looked to make sure it had sent. To my horror, I saw that the email had been sent, but not to my boss. In my haste I had hit reply instead of forward. Since then, I’ve always been careful about checking my emails a little more closely before hitting the send button.

3. Be careful using the blind copy (bcc) feature. This can get you in trouble if the recipient who was blind copied forwards the email. Also, some people are offended when they find out you sent a blind copy to someone else.

4. Emails at work should present the same professional image as your other written and spoken communication. Take the time to review before sending.

Good communication is a skill that will greatly increase your effectiveness as a leader. It’s worth doing right!

These steps are taken from my course Preparing to Lead which is designed to help new leaders quickly adapt to leadership responsibilities. Learn more.

RLM Planning and Leadership
www.planleadexcel.com

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Apr 08 2010

Leadership vs. Management: Leaders Manage, Do Managers Lead?

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Leadership vs. Management. After many years of debate, one might assume this issue is settled. Apparently not. There are still articles written and books published by authors who want to tell us the difference, and I too have offered my opinions on the subject. I’ve developed the somewhat unpopular opinion that leadership and management are really subsets of each other. Let me explain.

A manager makes decisions about resources. They are trained to know those resources and understand how best to utilize, allocate, and gain the most efficiency from them.

Leadership is a little more difficult to effectively define. A leader is responsible for, well, leading. There are all sorts of definitions of leading, but for our purposes we’ll say leading is causing people to do things. Many of you are probably saying, but wait, leading is much more than that, leading is seeing the future, developing people, getting the best out of them, etc, etc. And, you would be correct. All those things describe leadership. However, the basic job of a leader is to take people somewhere; to effectively take care of the human resource.

That’s right, people are a resource.  It’s sometimes considered a little tactless to say that, but it is a hard reality. That’s why I say leaders and managers are subsets of each other. In order to accomplish their goals, leaders must manage the human resource. Leaders must be managers. On the other hand, in order to properly manage the human resource, managers must know how to lead people. In that regard, managers must be leaders.

Many of the definitions of leadership center on good leadership towards good goals. There is also bad leadership, which while bad, is still leadership. Let’s look at everyone’s favorite example. In the mid to late 1930’s Adolph Hitler was a pretty good leader. He was a despicable human perhaps, and certainly leading towards bad goals, but still a good leader if one measures his effectiveness. By the early 1940s, Hitler, while still a despicable human, and still leading toward bad goals, began to become a bad leader. But, he was no less a leader.

So what’s the point of all this? Simply this. People don’t like to think of themselves as something to be managed. Also, unlike the small appliances over in aisle 3, people can communicate and interact with those who are managing them. They want those managers to make some attempt to understand their needs and motivations. In many cases they want those managers to take them to new heights. As a rule, the human resource likes to succeed. While a manager can take care of a person’s needs and even their motivations, getting the best from them takes someone who not only knows how to lead, but how to lead well.

Which brings me to my favorite part of this subject: leadership training. For some reason, many companies go to a lot of trouble to train new managers in the various resources they are expected to manage. The training includes everything except the human resource. Somehow, managers are expected to pick that up through some sort of osmotic process.

Chances are your managers are leading people. Have they received any training in managing the human resource? You probably trained them to manage things, have you trained them to lead people?

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Apr 06 2010

Leadership Experts: Are They Really?

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In a recent blog by Greg Satell at Digital Tonto, he writes about how so many people hold themselves out as experts when in fact, they really aren’t. He complains that too many of these people don’t have the experience and haven’t done the work to truly be experts. Though he is talking about the social media market, his comments apply to leadership training as well. There are a lot of “experts” out there who really aren’t.

Why? What leads people to hang out their shingle and begin distributing whatever snake oil they may have to sell? Quite frankly, it’s us! The market decides whether people stay in business or not. Experts only become known when people buy what they selling. And people want to buy what is new.

I once had an article rejected by a publisher who stated that I was offering nothing new. He considered himself an expert because he read extensively on the subject of leadership. Now to be fair, his biography indicated that he had some practical experience as well, but it was the comment about reading that really struck me. Because he was familiar with all the sources concerning leadership and leadership development, he completely missed the point that there are lots of people in leadership positions out there who aren’t even familiar with the basics. But, no one wants to be bothered with such mundane stuff. Instead they want something shiny and new that hasn’t been seen before. So, in order to sell books, experts in all fields think they need to constantly invent new stuff that is ever more complex, and quite often worthless.

I’ve seen a lot of management and leadership fads come and go. They all had good points, some better than others. What they all had in common though is that they sold books. Lots of books. You can find those books today in yard sales and on the deep discount clearance table at the book store. You see, most of these went way beyond the basic leadership concepts that most readers didn’t know. Ironically, many of them were really plain common sense bundled in new words, clever formulas, and not a little bit of hyperbole.

Also, interestingly, many of these new ideas and theories were proposed by people who did a lot of observing, but not a lot of doing. I can tell you from experience that observing and studying is critical. Without a little practice to learn when and where what you studied works and doesn’t work though, you’ve only got half the equation.

As Satell says, there are a lot of folks out there offering stuff they are not really experts on. And they will continue to because there are other folks out there who think nothing is worth looking at unless it has a recent date and lots of information that sounds pleasing, yet sufficiently complicated. By all means, continue searching, there is good stuff out there and certainly lots to learn. Use caution though. Check out the person who claims to be an expert. Does he or she have the credentials to back it up. “I wrote a book” is not sufficient. “I have XX years of experience and wrote a book about YYY is better. Do a little due diligence and spare your organization the pain of jumping on the next bandwagon.

If you’d like to read Satell’s post, it’s at http://www.digitaltonto.com/2010/6-ways-to-spot-false-gurus/. And yes, I did a little checking on his credentials.

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Apr 01 2010

Leadership Questions and Answers

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Leadership Questions and Answers

Like all businesses that expect to succeed on the internet, I pay attention to the search terms people use to find my sites. At the risk of being accused of trying to pack this with keywords, I want to address a few questions that are obviously on people’s minds.

I get a lot of visits from people who link leadership and strategic planning. There seems to be a large number of people who are trying to understand the connection. So, let me address the issue. Strategic planning is a subset of good leadership. Good leaders take planning seriously. More than that though, they must communicate the plan and make sure subordinates understand it and know how they contribute to its success. Without a good plan, leaders don’t know where to lead.

I also see a large number of people looking for ideas on how to create vision statements, mission statements, and the difference between the two. My advice on vision statements is to describe what you really want. This is where the leader describes their ultimate desire for the organization. When you present a vision statement to your leadership team they should say “Wow!” If they don’t, you might not be dreaming big enough. On the other hand, the mission statement is a short succinct statement of what the organization is there to do. It should not include anything about how you’re going to do it. These two statements are critical in telling the organization why it’s there.

Some people are apparently looking for my leadership model. Well, I don’t have one. For years I’ve tried to figure out how to solidify what I know to be good leadership techniques into a neat model that would sell books. I decided it couldn’t be done, mainly because there are just too many potential branches into the various aspects of leadership. I will say though that there are a few things that transcend any leadership challenge. They are, know your mission, know your values, know your goals, and most importantly, know your people. Oversimplified? Certainly. And that’s why I don’t have a model.

I’ve found that a lot of people are looking for information on Generation X, and Generation Y (Millennials). That interest has even resulted in my next book. For those looking for answers on this complex subject though, I offer this. I’ve learned that the generations are different. Often though, generations aren’t as different as they like to think; with one exception. The Millennial Generation really is different; but not in a bad way. They’ve grown up differently. They grew up with the technology the rest of us have just learned to use (some more than others). They actually process information differently because of that early influence.

So how does a leader deal with the different generations? First, refer to the previous paragraph. Those rules apply to all situations. Then, learn to embrace the differences and leverage them to help your organization succeed. Generation X, for example, isn’t lazy as a rule, but they do subscribe to a little different set of priorities than Boomers. They don’t intend to spend their life “working for the man” like many Boomers have. Guess what? They’re no less dedicated to success, everyone likes to win, they just want to do it a little more efficiently. So, help them do that. Millennials are masters at moving information. But they’re rude and can’t communicate, right? Not really, and with a little guidance, they can really accelerate the process.

So those are some short answers to what I see people looking for. Leadership is a continuous learning process. So, keep searching!

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Mar 30 2010

Leadership Cultures and Their Effect on the Organization – Finale

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For the last five posts, I’ve detailed six different leadership cultures. You may have seen yourself or your organization in one of these cultures. Unfortunately, many leaders don’t understand that they are in a particular situation. But, it falls to the organization’s leader to determine the type of leadership culture that exists. Unlike the overall organizational culture which can be driven by different influences, the leadership culture is usually a direct result of the senior leader’s style. Therefore, it should be easier to change.

Leaders should:

1. Look at the organization and ask these questions. Some of these may be difficult to answer, or the answer may be difficult to accept, but the leader must be brutally honest.

a. Do people in the organization effectively interact?

b. Are people looking for ways to improve their jobs and the                              organization?

c. Do subordinates feel free to bring problems to their leaders?

d. Do leaders hear of problems from subordinates or do those subordinates make an effort to keep problems quiet?

e. Is it clear who the leaders are in my organization?

f. If the senior leader died tomorrow, who would lead the organization and would the transition be smooth?

2. Compare the answers with the descriptions of the various types of leadership cultures to see what culture exists in their organization.

3. Discuss the results with the leadership team. This is probably one of the most difficult steps because it may mean admitting that you need to change your leadership style. But a sign of a good leader is the ability to make course corrections when they are required.

This post is taken from the mini-book Leadership Culture and Its Effect on Strategic Planning and Leadership Development. Learn more at http://www.planleadexcel.com/Products/copypreptolead.html.

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