Category: No-Øs of Business

What are the initial steps to becoming an effective leader?

One of the first steps in becoming an effective leader and arguably the most important step is understanding why you want to be a leader. Having this conversation with yourself is an ongoing dialogue that will ebb and flow throughout your life as a leader. Ask yourself, “Why do I want to do this?” “What about leadership is attractive to me?” Many leaders that are changing from being a self-leader to team leaders or people transitioning from team leaders to organization leaders may initially think if they have more control of what is happening around them or whom they work with, they can get more done on a day-to-day basis.

I have learned that the most effective leaders of organizations are the ones that can let go of the steering wheel, much like a musical conductor must believe in the capabilities of their orchestra. Imagine what might happen if the conductor of the orchestra stepped off the podium, put down his baton, and grabbed a horn from somebody to show them how to play it. Of course, that wouldn’t work as an organizational leader, if you are focused on controlling the people you oversee, they will only be as good as their leader, if that. If a leader can let go of control, they can focus on bringing out the best in each of their subordinates, then the organization becomes better than just any one person.

Part of being A Leader Worth Following is the ability to diagnose yourself and others around you and the tasks being completed. As a leader, you must ask yourself if you can delegate with the confidence that others will complete tasks the right way. The beauty of a high-functioning team and a high-functioning organization is that everybody knows what they’re supposed to do, and the leadership is coaching and helping people understand their jobs. Much like the best athletes need coaches that can see the whole picture and make small changes that make a great impact.

If the leader assumes that everybody is fully competent and they’re an expert in what they’re doing, there will be so much friction on that team, and nothing will ever get done. Being an effective leader requires you to know your team and each person’s competency level with whatever task they are responsible for. This could be a widget task, a communication task, or a writing task. Knowing your team is vital to being the kind of leader you want to be. It also gives you the knowledge of how much support you should be giving each of the members of your team. Sometimes if you throw people in the deep end and expect them to figure it out and they are not proficient at whatever you are asking of them then you are giving them the wrong type of leadership for their needs. As a leader, you should be adaptive to your team, for example setting the groundwork for success by having them complete certain steps and then reviewing their progress with you. Diagnosing their competency level and setting them up for success will allow them to become self-leaders without getting discouraged or frustrated. Using phrases like “Did you have any trouble? Is there anything I can help you with?” Is a way for us to better understand the people we work with but also gives us opportunities to grow as leaders, and how we can better coach this person in the future. Being a leader that supports those around them versus telling them what to do will help keep the grit out of the gears and allow for a more high-functioning team.

What are the different forms of leadership and how are they related?

I believe leadership has many forms and it is possibly different from what most people view leadership as. Most people think of leaders as being within their profession or places they work. Oftentimes leadership is compartmentalized as having a starting and ending place within work. Leadership actually takes place in many facets of everyone’s lives. You can be a leader within your family, friend group, church, civic group, community, or social group. Leadership at work also has many different levels from traditional leadership, like leading teams or an organization. I believe that leadership starts out as leading yourself as a self-leader, which moves into leading others as a team leader and scaling that up to being a leader of multiple teams or an organizational leader.

When we start as a self-leader, we are more focused on building skills that will benefit us and help us to be more effective in our tasks. A self-leader may also be interested in enhancing different skill sets that are also valuable as a leader. These range from skill acquisition, competence and getting better at handling tasks, and learning how to work well with others. A self-leader may focus on making oneself the best at the job that they are doing right now.

Next, the self-leader may transition into a leader who is leading teams. This is typically based on one’s proficiency within a certain area and the more that one progresses and excels as an individual it becomes the easier transition to becoming a team leader and helping others grow and develop their skills. It is the hope that as a team leader, you will not only be able to complete tasks well but will also be expected to be aware of others and what skills or areas of growth they can accomplish to help the success of the team.

One example of this idea is ‘the grit and the gears’ when we are trying to get something done, whether it be a project or we have a deadline to meet, if grit goes into the gears, it stops or slows the progress from moving forward. Meaning as team leaders we must look at our team and see if someone or something, in particular, is impacting the performance of the whole team. This can be skills-based, personality-based, or even a conflict between people on a team. Figuring out a way for team members to work through problems is like greasing the gears for more optimal performance. A good team leader can and should be learning about their people and how they interact with what is going on around them and finding ways to help each of them perform at their best.

Lastly, we move up to an organizational leader. At this level of leadership, one is diagnosing and seeing how teams are working together to get things done. Each level of leadership creates a new form of complexity. The fundamentals are the same; each level will need to have the grit removed to function properly and perform at its best. It’s important that organizational leaders start to hone their people skills, are good communicators, and are good listeners. Which will make them more successful leaders.

In summary, as we progress along the continuum from self-leadership to team leadership, to organizational leadership our developmental focus moves from functional skills to people skills. We also learn how to handle increased levels of complexity and uncertainty along this continuum. Underpinning this transition is the need for self-awareness and empathy which are building blocks of our ability to communicate with others effectively and authentically.

Sympathy and empathy are two words that oftentimes are used synonymously but actually have very different meanings. Being empathetic is an attribute that will serve you well throughout your leadership journey, as opposed to just being sympathetic.

Empathy, along with being Self-Aware, are antidotes to the three No-Øs of Leadership, which are the focus of my new book. Empathy is so much more powerful than being sympathetic as it puts yourself in someone else’s shoes rather than just feeling sorry for someone’s situation.

Dr. Brene’ Brown, a New York Times best selling author and leading expert on courage, vulnerability, shame, and empathy gives this description: “Empathy fuels connection. Sympathy drives disconnection.”

For a minute, imagine that you have fallen into a well and you’re trapped at the bottom. The person who has sympathy looks over the top of the well and from afar, they let you know how sorry they are that you are in such a predicament. Whereas, the person who has empathy crawls down into the well to join you, providing support however needed and then helps you to get out of the well.

A Leader Worth Following meets people where they are and can relate to what they’re going through on a personal level. So when people come to you with problems or challenges, as a leader, you need to be able to feel what they’re feeling and join them in their struggle. Whether it’s a frustration at work or other issues happening outside of the office.

Having the ability to truly understand people’s emotions and where they’re coming from is the mark of an authentic leader who will go much further in leading successful teams.

My hope for you is that empathy will become a regular, genuine practice as you continue on your leadership journey.

I’d like to share an important story – one that can prevent ill feelings among co-workers, eliminate personal self-shame and embarrassment, and save a team’s progress.

Dan, Al and Helen had been working together for months, but there was always an underlying tension between them.

The project lead, Dan, was very deadline-focused while committed to making sure a job was done very well. To achieve both, he sometimes pushed Al and Helen, his team members, too hard for their comfort levels. While they too wanted to complete the project on time and to the best of their abilities, they were frustrated by Dan’s approach. (If you read my Blog on “Your Wake” you might visualize what Dan’s wake looked like behind him.)

Over the course of the project, Al and Helen had become friends, a bond largely formed due to Dan’s overly-pushy approach. As tensions were bubbling beneath the surface, they had started to share unkind dialogue back-and-forth over coffee or through a shared “chat” message.

During one particularly stressful phone meeting, Al sent Helen this message: “I feel like there is no point in us even being here. He may as well be talking to two mannequins.” Helen replied, “I know! I wonder what the point of having these meetings is when he’ll just go off and do what he wants anyway.”

Their comments continued. “Is it just me, or is his voice sounding even more annoying than usual today?” “I try to zone it out, treat it like white noise.” “Teach me how! This man has an uncanny ability to make me want to punch a wall!” “Or him?”… And so the exchange continued, becoming more and more personal.

Well, you may have already guessed what happens next. Al and Helen had mistakenly chatted on their team chat line and Dan was also receiving the correspondence. Yah, not cool.

Eventually, Dan paused and said, “Al, if you want to punch me, I’d prefer you came and talked to me about it rather than sending messages to Helen.” Dead silence met his comment at the other ends of the line.

As expected, Dan was hurt by their words. He was aware of his shortcomings, and unknown by Al and Helen, he was receiving coaching to be a better leader. The two colleagues were full of shame, the incident destroyed the team’s working relationship, and the project was delegated to a new taskforce.

As an organization, that may mean you lose high-performing, high-potential employees all due to a lack of self-awareness that creates dissension and dysfunction within a team.

We all struggle from time-to-time in meshing personalities, viewpoints, and working styles. But the way Al and Helen behaved was completely unprofessional and quite frankly, inexcusable.

I hope you will always take the high road, and never allow your behavior or words to hurt or adversely affect those you’re working with or leading. If you aren’t aware, you won’t realize there’s a problem that needs addressing until it’s too late.

Critical thinking is developed through experience, learning, and understanding the relationship between various things. It is essential in becoming a Leader Worth Following.

The “various things” or concepts that I believe are linked with critical thinking:

• Dependability – Showing up and being reliable and accountable.
• Responsibility – Taking ownership of challenges.
• Self-Awareness – Using your feelings to create positive outcomes.

As a process, critical thinking involves walking through the various options you have for a particular decision, and reaching the best conclusion possible, or rather “connecting the dots”.

I remember going through this process of critical thinking in the earlier years of my leadership career and I know it takes a lot of mental energy. There are so many ways you can line up all of your assumptions to reach a decision.

After about 10 years of serving as CEO, the rigor and discipline behind my thinking became much easier. When I was making decisions, I just knew what to do without having to go through the entire process. That was because I had practiced it and developed patterns in the way I think about problem solving and making good decisions.

Don’t let this concept and the timeframe it may take to “master” critical thinking overwhelm you. Each day, just continually choose what you believe is the best path forward – based on different scenarios and with different team players.

The more experiences you have, the more you’ll be able to see patterns in information and situations, and instinctively know what is the “most right” decision.

As leaders, I think we all know that being financially strong is important for any organization. But when someone makes a decision solely from a monetary perspective, especially one that “bends the rules” or in some cases “completely breaks them”, then it’s a bad decision.

Making decisions based on transparency, trust and honesty beats making money with an ulterior motive – every time.

In the No-Øs of Leadership, I share a story about Steve who runs a body shop and stumbles onto a way to make more money from his customers. He started an underhanded, less-than-honest practice of making a used item appear to be new. He would then put it back on the shelf and sell it again at full price. He didn’t stop to ask himself whether this decision was best for his customers. He only forged ahead based on the almighty dinero and how it could benefit his business and ultimately himself.

When Steve got away with that deception, he moved on to another. He figured out a way to make money by duping Joe, an employee, into cashing a check made out to his name. Joe then would give 80% of the money back to Steve, keeping 20% for himself. Seemed like a win-win proposition, until he realized that his boss was using him as a pawn to claim fictitious operating expenses.

Steve not only failed at being honest to his customers, but also failed by putting an employee in a difficult position. He was a very poor leader in both scenarios.

As you move along the path to becoming a respected leader, ask yourself a few questions:

1. Am I getting a personal reward from a situation?
2. Does a situation give me an unfair advantage from a monetary perspective?
3. Have I led myself with less than the highest of ethical standards?

Until that time when you can answer a profound “No, I have not” to all, then you still have a long way to go before becoming a Leader Worth Following.