A Fresh Voice and Leadership and the Art of Apology
Filed under: Career, Fresh Voices, Leadership, Leadership Skills, Life and Business, Management Education, Middle Management, Product Management, Professional Growth, Project Management, Talent Management, Values
There’s an excellent post entitled, “Sorry is not the final word, just the beginning,” by guest author and Product/Project Management Consultant, Lisa Winter at one of my favorite blogs: The Art of Project Management. hosted by the UCSC-Extension in Silicon Valley.
Ms. Winter describes a situation where she inadvertently upset a valuable but delicate team member on a conference call, and then went to significant lengths to apologize and regain his support. In addition to the happy ending, this fine post prompted some thoughts on a topic that I confess I’ve not spent a lot of time thinking about: the role of the apology as a leadership tool.
I can’t help but feel a little guilty that I’ve not raised this topic in the past, and for that, I apologize. (OK, I had to work it in somewhere…)
I have written extensively here at this blog and in Practical Lessons in Leadership on the need for leaders to not mask their own faults and shortcomings. In the book, I suggest that the point in time where everyone on the team sees the leader’s mistake is a powerful moment of truth. The leader can run, hide, dodge and deflect or she can show the team that she is human and leverage the failure as a teaching tool. Of course, this only works if she practices this same technique in the other direction when groups or individuals face setbacks.
But what about the apology? How many times have you observed someone in a position of authority make a decision that turned out to be horribly wrong and come back with an apology?
What about the leader that responded to you in a curt or less than respectful manner?
Good thing you didn’t hold your breath, waiting.
At least one of our national leaders went to the opposite extreme, seizing the opportunity to apologize for all of the nation’s historic mistakes ad nauseum (in my opinion). Rumor has it however, that he might not have been quite so apologetic for his alleged personal mistakes. Frankly, it was hard to tell when he was being sincere and when he was selling. You can draw your own conclusion, but I think Bill would have been a powerful force on a used car lot. (Sorry to those that I offended and Bill, I’m sorry too! Hey, this is getting easier!)
OK, enough tongue-in-cheek. Here are some of my thoughts on the issue and use of the apology as a leader. I’m looking forward to hearing from you, and again, if I’ve offended…
Leadership and the Apology
- Learning how to say the words, “I’m sorry” or “I was wrong” should be mandatory training for all leaders. Part of gaining trust and building credibility is showing everyone that you are human. Knowing how and when to use the words is the art of apologizing.
- You can easily adopt “apologizing” as a tactic and that is as incorrect as avoiding the apology when you’ve erred. Abuse the tool and people will quickly see through your disingenuous approach. I’ve observed early-career and first-time leaders that would assert themselves (appropriately) and then apologize for having had to assert themselves. This destroys the leader’s credibility.
- As a leader, you have to make tough calls and often those calls result in some pain. There are many, and perhaps most circumstances where an apology is not needed and would horribly derail your credibility.
- In circumstances where you’ve slipped and truly offended someone, run, don’t walk to apologize to the individual.
- Too many apologies for program failures or not hitting your goals and targets, and you will find yourself apologizing to your significant other for losing your job. As a subordinate, you might get away with this once, but as soon as it becomes a pattern, your boss will see your apologies as a mask for incompetence.
The Bottom Line for Now
Does leadership mean never having to say you’re sorry? I don’t think so. Nonetheless, I suspect that most leaders rarely utter the words, more out of fear of showing weakness than due to their lack of remorse for their transgressions.
What are your thoughts? I’m interested and suspect many readers are as well on the role and use of the apology as a leader.
Fresh Voices: Perspectives on Change, Communication and Delegation
Filed under: Career, Current Affairs, Fresh Voices, Leadership, Leadership Skills, Leading Change, Management Education, Professional Growth, Your Professional Development "To Do" List
One of my favorite outcomes of blogging has been the opportunity to meet and learn from some really sharp people that share a passion for many of the same topics that I write about: leadership excellence, high performance and personal and professional development.
One particular blogger regularly points out that there are millions of blogs out there and most of them bad. I’m not quite as judgmental. I prefer to treat the blogosphere like I do a bookstore. There are many, many books that I have no interest in ever reading, but I know that somewhere on the shelves are a few works that will move and transform me.
Consistent with my desire to hunt for great new books, I’ve been seeking out new (to me) writers on topics that are relevant to anyone engaged in working with and leading others or focused on developing themselves. I plan on sharing these posts and authors with you from time to time, just like I would a great new book or a newly discovered writer. Oh, and don’t be surprised when some of the writers focus on topics outside of what you might find on the business bookshelf. Most of the best content for aspiring leaders is found elsewhere.
I’ll stop short of indicating that this will be a regular feature, because I’m wholly uninterested in maintaining a regular cycle on my blog, other than my Leadership Caffeine for the New Week posts on Mondays. I write about whatever strikes me as interesting at a point in time. Nonetheless, you can expect me to consistently feature some of the great new (to me) writers that have something important to say to us.
Enjoy, and remember to drop these bloggers a note or leave a comment if they say something that resonates. After all, the power of this medium is its ability to promote the exchange of ideas.
Enjoy this week’s features!
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The Top 10 Ways to Establish Change Without Discipline is from Mary Jaksch, author and proprietor of the site: Goodlife Zen. I discovered Mary’s thoughtful and motivational work through Twitter and am now a subscriber and regular reader.
There are many, many articles on change, which is of course a staple of the leadership, HR and Organizational Development set. This is a fresh perspective, with a theme focusing on using positive rituals to reinforce change in ourselves, instead of relying on our old standbys, will and discipline.
Research suggests that we may have a much more limited store of will and discipline than we would like to believe, and a better way to promote change in ourselves is to create positive rituals which become self-reinforcing.
Mary offers 10 suggestions for changing or establishing habits using positive rituals, and along the way, does a nice job of integrating ideas from her own teachings as well as the work of mainstream business nad change experts. The entire post is great, but the Top 10 tips are golden for anyone interested in making some very positive changes in their habits and routines.
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Gwyn Teatro writes a bit closer to my focus on Leadership in her wonderful blog, “You’re Not the Boss of Me.” Finding Gwyn and her blog is a lot like uncovering a great new author and series of books just when you had concluded that you knew everything out there. Her voice is fresh and her guidance excellent.
I originally intended on featuring her post, “Lack of Communication You Say,” a great piece about how we needlessly complicate the communication process in the workplace , when I was confronted with her most recent post: “Taking Charge, When Not to Delegate.” So why choose? Both are well worth your time.
In “Lack of Communication, You Say,” Gwyn reminds us of how easy it is to muck up the communication process with poor listening habits, our propensity to make assumptions and our over-reliance on confusing business jargon. Her suggestions and examples for eliminating the bad communication habits that bedevil us in the workplace and in life are great.
“Taking Charge, When Not to Delegate” offers some great examples and suggestions on a topic critical to leaders during tough times. So many leaders falsely assume that they can delegate away their responsibility for the tough tasks, when the reality is that just the opposite behavior is required. Gwyn offers four situations where leaders must “stand up and be counted.”
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Thanks to both Mary and Gwyn for sharing your thoughts and professional guidance with us.
Leadership Caffeine: Scouting for Talent in Unusual Places
Filed under: Career, Leadership, Leadership Caffeine, Leadership Skills, Management Education, Performance, Professional Growth, Talent Management, Your Professional Development "To Do" List
A friend on Twitter offered up this quote as an old Turkish proverb, apropos for the weekly Leadership Caffeine article: “Coffee should be black as hell, strong as death and sweet as love.”
If that doesn’t stimulate some senses, nothing will!
This week’s focus is on scouting talent, and like most of my posts, I’m encouraging you to break some established rules in pursuit of excellence.
The best leaders that I know are also the best talent scouts. They are acute observers of people and extraordinarily quick to identify individuals with potential. They are also great developers of talent, but that’s a separate topic for another day.
- There’s the sales manager who never visited a city without setting up meetings with prospective future reps. He was so good at building a pipeline of talented professionals interested in working for him, that whenever there was an opening in his region, the position was filled immediately. His region was number one in the company year after year.
- In another case, a corporate executive watched in fascination as a young retail employee in a cell phone store calmed angry customers while fixing their problems and simultaneously helping his less capable associates with their customer issues. He was not the manager, but clearly, he was the leader on the floor. The executive shared how impressed that he was with the young clerk, passed along a business card and asked him to call. Fast forward several years and this former cell store clerk is now a top partner relations director for one of the world’s largest tech firms.
- A marketing manager had an uncanny ability for identifying college interns with great potential. His batting average was 1,000 when he recommended that an intern be hired for a full-time position upon graduation. In all cases, those interns went on to become remarkable contributors.
What Great Talent Scouts Look For:
In my experience in working around and talking with individuals that have outstanding track records in finding and developing new talent, there are three core attributes that they look for:
1. Character: Top scouts recognize that they can teach and help hone skills, and teach industry and position particulars, but they cannot teach character. This is a deal breaker regardless of potential.
2. Passion: Similar to character, you cannot teach someone to be passionate about fielding angry customer issues with enthusiasm and pride. Talent scouts look for people that put their heart and souls into their work, regardless of how mundane or difficult it may be.
3. Raw Talent: The executive that shared the cell-phone clerk example above indicated that he is often able to envision someone several years down the road applying his or her natural skills to new problems in very different environments. “The ability to make angry people happy, while supporting colleagues and compensating for a week manager were all transferrable to managing complex partner relationships,” he indicated.
Develop Talent Scouting Habits:
- Accept that one of your most critical functions is to ensure a steady flow of great talent on to your team and into your organization.
- Listen and observe in meetings and company events. The next great product manager might be laboring in engineering testing or the next great sales representative might be working in customer support.
- Expand your talent scouting horizon. Move through the world with the idea that your server in a restaurant or the retail clerk helping you in the cell phone store might be a great future contributor.
- Learn to ask questions that allow people to showcase their character and passion. A key to this is learning to be quiet. Quit talking and listen hard.
- Develop your future vision. Are the habits and skills on display today transferrable to future challenges in different circumstances and settings?
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Who said that the best hires have to come through traditional means? I take pride in finding great talent in unusual places. Frankly, I would rather cultivate my high performance team by blending individuals from diverse backgrounds and experience sets.
Our traditional HR models teach us to hire clones or to reach out for people that don’t exist. We either hire from our competitors or we specify insanely detailed job descriptions that few fit and then fool ourselves into believing that because someone looks and feels like that job description, they will succeed. Baloney!
Hone your talent scouting skills, broaden your horizons and yes, take what will look to your firm’s hiring administrators as a few more risks. Ultimately, the only risk is whether or not you are up to supporting the development of your diverse and talented team members.
Read Art’s Latest Article: Leadership and the Millennials at CW Bulletin
Filed under: Career, Current Affairs, Leadership, Leadership Skills, Leading the Generations, Life and Business, Management Education, Professional Growth, Talent Management, Your Professional Development "To Do" List
For those of you that have followed this blog, heard me speak or have been a participant in one of my MBA classes or workshops, you know that I’ve opted for the dissenting opinion on this youngest generation in the workforce.
I am consistently wowed by the mix of passion, the earnest desire to make a difference and the wicked-smart common-sense and technological savviness of the Millennials. Unfortunately, a fair number of contemporaries (read: experienced leaders and managers) preoccupy on some of the quirks and differences of this group as compared to others in the workforce. In my opinion, they do so at their own peril.
I was thrilled when the professionals at CW Bulletin, the on-line supplement to Communication World magazine invited me to share my thoughts on this new generation and to offer some guidance for leaders on how to harness the talents and fire of these young knowledge workers. The result is my latest article, aptly named: Leadership and the Millennials.
Along with the article, there are a number of additional resources and links to books or news segments that have been published on this topic. If you are a manager or leader looking to stay on the top of your game and looking for ideas on gaining an edge in an increasingly age-diverse workforce, you owe it to yourself, your team and your organization to spend some time on this topic.
Enjoy the article and feel free to open up the discussion here or at CW Bulletin and I will join in. Last and not least, thanks to Amanda at CW Bulletin for the article opportunity and encouragement on this topic.
Leadership Caffeine for the New Week: Are You Mentor Potential?
Filed under: Career, Leadership, Leadership Caffeine, Leadership Skills, Leading the Generations, Management Education, Middle Management, Organizational Transformation, Professional Growth, Surviving Lousy Leaders, Your Professional Development "To Do" List
It’s a stormy spring morning here in the greater Chicago-area and I confess to brewing my second pot of a dark Guatemalan roast to help spur some energy.
This week’s topic focuses on the plight of the first time leader and a call to action for experienced leaders everywhere to step up and do a better job mentoring and coaching.
For the past three years, I’ve been formally and informally polling leaders at all levels and in all industries on their first-time leadership experiences. The feedback is frightening.
- A majority of individuals indicate that they became a leader for the first time by accident not by design. There was a gap, someone left and the manager at the time made a battlefield promotion.
- A majority of the individuals that I’ve spoken with indicate that as a first-time leader they received little support or mentoring from their immediate manager. Many indicated that their best support and source of feedback came from a peer or another manager, but not from the person that they directly reported to.
- A surprising number of those that lived through this ad hoc promotion to leadership report engaging in the same practices of promoting upon need and leaving people to sink or swim. While no one comes out and says this directly, I get the impression that it is almost a rite of passage. “Hey, no one helped me out and I did OK.”
With practices like those described above, it’s no surprise that a fair number of first-time leaders fail and end up leaving their organizations. Imagine the collateral damage that they create in the process of failing.
As my teenager might say, “This is messed up.”
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Take Initiative-Don’t Wait for Senior Management to Figure this Out:
Instead of the traditional path of attack that I take on this issue—start at the top, convince management that creating a culture of leadership development will pay dividends for years to come etc., my suggestion is for those of us that have gained some experience in this experience-driven profession make the time to help out an early career leader.
While we’re all waiting for the message to sink in with top management, there are ample opportunities to make a difference now.
Become a mentor. Some suggestions and feel free to add your own:
- If there are new leaders on your own team, focus here first. Break the “sink or swim” cycle on your own team and focus on engaging with, observing and providing feedback to these first time leaders.
- Depending upon your organization’s dynamics, approach HR and ask for their help If you are working around an old-school HR function, you might get shot done, but I’m willing to bet that in the majority of the cases, you will find someone that would love to support this idea and even get involved.
- Some inexpensive but effective programs for first time leaders can include Book Clubs, moderated round tables and other forms of peer networking. If you/HR are taking a semi-formal role in the process, provide support for improvement ideas and suggestions emanating from the first-time leaders.
- If HR is not much help, talk with your peers and see if they are open to the idea of an informal mentoring program. Identify those in need and assign them to someone other than their manager to gain a slightly more objective view and level of support.
After a period of time, the individuals that once were first-timers become experienced. Introduce them into the mentoring process by having them take leadership roles in the various programs. Instead of perpetuating “sink or swim,” you perpetuate good practices in developing others.
The Bottom-Line for Now:
More often than not, we have the power and ability to solve many of the problems that we complain about. It’s time to step-up, reconfigure your calendar just a bit and put some effort forth in developing the next generation of leaders in your workplace.
If you don’t, chances are no one will. Start a mentoring revolution today!
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