Leadership Caffeine: When Leading is an Unnatural Act

March 8, 2011 By 15 Comments

One of the interesting outcomes I’ve observed when engaging truly thoughtful people in the process of understanding the role of a leader and the commitment required for success, is that some people decide it’s not a good fit.

They decide to become great followers instead of great leaders.  And they feel relieved.

We Tend to Make Saying “No to Leadership” Difficult:

I’ve learned from a number of individuals who walked to the edge of the leadership path and then turned back, that we often make it difficult for them to say, “no.”

  • There’s pressure inside organizations to show growth and increase contribution by taking on formal leadership responsibilities.
  • Yes, there are still working environments where the only way to increased financial reward is through directly managing others.
  • In our zeal for the support and development of great leaders, we (existing leaders, leadership writers etc.) tend to mythologize the role of the leader and position it as an aspirational goal for everyone. Leadership is built up to be the noble end-goal, while the decision to not pursue a leadership life is to carry a negative connotation…a kind of Scarlett Letter that brands the individual for everyone to see.

Three Key Reminders for All of Us:

1. Not everyone should lead. Some people lack the skills and appropriate intelligences (social and emotional) to lead. Others simply want to cultivate their skills in an area they are passionate about, and a voluntary or forced decision to move away from that passion is like a prison sentence.  As a promoting manager, it’s your job to help assess all of these issues. Don’t force people into unnatural roles.

2. More money is a lousy motivation to lead. Do I really have to explain this one? For those of you working in firms where the compensations structure was defined in the 1950’s, it’s time to start pushing for something that eliminates the dollar need and greed as motivation to pursue a leadership role. Start with a dual-track system that supports professional and financial development for leaders and individual contributors.

3. Great leaders require great followers. You don’t win championships in sports without critical role players, and you don’t win in the business world without people committed to working and contributing according to their strengths.

The Bottom-Line for Now:

Perhaps it’s time to start offering “followership” training and mentoring along with all of our leadership offerings.  Kudos to those who decide that leading is not for them. No more unnatural acts, please.   It’s OK not to lead.

Filed Under: Career, Leadership Tagged With: , , , , ,

Leadership Caffeine: Time to Take out the 360-Degree Trash

February 22, 2011 By 14 Comments

Note from Art: this rave was prompted by one too many discussions with good people about the frustration they feel over their firm’s evaluation systems and the lack of good quality developmental feedback.

While I’m certain there’s a good 360-degree feedback program out there somewhere, the trash frequently heaped upon unwitting corporate victims by misguided management groups via their HR departments is….well, it’s trash. Please place it in a proper container and dispose of it before it starts to stink.

Vague input filled with gross generalizations provided by untrained (in delivering evaluations and providing feedback) and potentially politically motivated individuals is truly not worth the paper it’s printed on. In fact, these systems are often de-motivating, potentially destructive and often nothing more than a compliance game that distorts behaviors and keeps people from having the right discussions for fear of reprisal.

Talent development is a critical responsibility and the delivery of high quality, timely, behavioral, specific and business-oriented input is priceless. Priceless and all-too rare.

What’s a Manager to Do? 4 Ideas:

If you’re stuck with one of these turkeys…the kind that asks others to assess their opinion on the value of your role with questions such as: “Is this a valuable position?” I empathize with you. Perhaps the spirit of revolution sweeping parts of the world will translate to disgust at poor evaluation and feedback systems and cause managers and employees to rise up. Just in case that doesn’t happen, here are some suggestions:

1. Redouble your efforts. The existence of a 360-degree system does not allow you to abrogate your responsibility for constant evaluation and timely behavioral and business focused feedback.  In fact, the system creates so much FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) in the workplace, that your work here is essential for salvaging the working environment.  Seek developmental support, training, coaching/mentoring and study and practice delivering feedback until you develop both competence and comfort.

2. Encourage improvement in the system, but don’t expect much. Push to encourage organizational investment in teaching and training on how to offer input with some redeeming actionable value. Short of the overthrow of the 360-degree system, you’ve got an obligation within your organization to encourage improvements that might move the value meter for the process in the proper direction.

3. Build an effective feedback culture on your team. Encourage and reinforce the obligation people have to engage in constructive, open discussion about group and individual performance. I observe teams all of the time that don’t do this, and the results are always sub-par.

People need to trust you and their team members before they talk openly about key issues, and you own the responsibility for creating an environment of trust. It’s hard work, and requires you to “do as you say” in all matters, including soliciting, accepting and acting upon feedback on your performance from your team members.

4. Champion great people. Regardless of evaluation systems, top leaders are almost always interested in finding people who can do more. It’s OK to advocate for those with potential, and your advocacy can help to stand out in spite of the fog of the evaluation system.

The Bottom-Line for Now:

Don’t fall into the trap of letting internal systems and programs do your work as a developer of talent. I’ve witnessed good 360-Systems in cases where reviewers were vetted and selected based on evaluation of their ability to provide quality input…and then were active in a professionally administered program. Unfortunately, most people and most firms don’t take the time to move these programs beyond a compliance tool to this level.

You own the responsibility to deal with the good and bad of performance on your team, and no sheet of paper will substitute for your deliberate and relentless work observing, evaluating, and engaging with others to reinforce the good and help stomp out the bad.  And remember, this isn’t a game. It’s serious business with the goal of developing great people to grow your business.

Filed Under: "To Do" List, Leadership, Leadership Caffeine, Performance Tagged With: , , ,

How Not to Build a Better Leader!

December 8, 2009 By 4 Comments

Building Better LeadersI had a great conversation the other day with a talented twenty-something who just exudes confidence, competence and excitement about her career and her interest in professional development.  Her reviews are top flight, she has been managing a major client account to great results, and she is actively pursuing her M.B.A. degree.  This is one motivated young professional!

It’s too bad that her biggest dilemma is, “My job is fine, but I’m starting to get bored. I want some bigger challenges and I want to lead, and they keep telling me that they are working on a program for that. They also tell me that they are worried that any new projects will distract me from my main job.  But I have the time and energy to do more.”

First, let’s tackle the program issue. A program for what?  A program to figure out how to give an aggressive, capable person more responsibility?  A program to magically teach someone how to lead, when there are ample opportunities to begin learning in the workplace every day?

You don’t need a stinking program to sit down with your team members and talk about next steps and then work together to define some good developmental challenges. You as manager and leader must be interested in ensuring that people are challenged, learning and growing.  There’s no HR program in the world that replaces your responsibility to spend time challenging and coaching your team members.  You own this responsibility.

As a manager and developer of early career talent, here’s a newsflash.  Leadership and talent development is free. Your only cost is time and maybe a bit of creativity.

I like to apply Ram Charan’s “Apprenticeship” approach, where you as the manager are responsible for providing your employee with a series of increasingly ambiguous challenges. Over time as the individual confronts the challenges, they are gaining valuable and relatively risk-free experience learning to cope with the realities of more responsibility.  (Note: I guide participants through one of these programs in my course: Considering the Move to Leadership-What to Expect and How to Prepare.)

Often, the outcome of this program is that individuals begin to zero in on what they truly want to do next…manage others, manage projects or focus on developing their skills as an individual contributor.  Without the apprenticeship program to uncover interests and identify strengths and weaknesses, everyone is left guessing.

As for my conversation partner, I encouraged her to take the initiative to outline her own rough career plan and next general steps (she wants to lead) and then sit down with her managers and share this plan and ask for their help. She of course is responsible for convincing them that she is capable of executing here current role without missing a beat, and I encouraged her to position herself as someone both interested in contributing more and solving more problems as well as someone that welcomes coaching.

She will learn a lot about her managers if they continue to push her off, and she will learn a lot about herself if they appropriately support her.  Either way, it’s worth politely pushing the issue.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , ,

Want a Dream Team? Give a Visionary a Voice

December 4, 2009 By 5 Comments

Patterns in the SkyWho’s the Visionary on your team? Hint: chances are it’s not the leader.  Contrary to popular myth, “being a visionary” is neither a prerequisite for leading, nor is it bestowed upon the chosen few as they ascend to their lofty perches above us.

Many Visionaries labor in relative obscurity, often ignored or worse yet, mocked, because of their unique way of looking at the world and the issues in front of them.

If you are leading and are interested in building or creating something more than efficient machine with your team, you are well-served to seek out and cultivate those individuals who are capable of seeing patterns and pictures in the environment that the rest of us miss.

You know these people.  They are the ones that sit quietly in meetings while the inane debates rage over how to solve grossly tactical issues and they will occasionally look up and say, “Why don’t we?” or, “What if we did it this way?”  After a few moments of silence, someone will usually chime up and say, “Yeah, Mary has a point, what if we..?”  With a simple comment or observation, the entire direction of the conversation shifts…often for the better.

Consider this most famous of exchanges:

Lucy Van Pelt: Aren’t the clouds beautiful? They look like big balls of cotton. I could just lie here all day and watch them drift by. If you use your imagination, you can see lots of things in the cloud’s formations. What do you think you see, Linus?
Linus Van Pelt: Well, those clouds up there look to me look like the map of the British Honduras on the Caribbean.
[points up]
Linus Van Pelt: That cloud up there looks a little like the profile of Thomas Eakins, the famous painter and sculptor. And that group of clouds over there…
[points]
Linus Van Pelt: …gives me the impression of the Stoning of Stephen. I can see the Apostle Paul standing there to one side.
Lucy Van Pelt: Uh huh. That’s very good. What do you see in the clouds, Charlie Brown?
Charlie Brown: Well… I was going to say I saw a duckie and a horsie, but I changed my mind.

(from the site: The Internet Movie Database-memorable quotes from the movie, A Boy Named Charlie Brown.)

The Visionary in this situation is of course the blanket-toting Linus…the odd little kid that is operating on a different level than the rest of the gang.  When it comes to cloud gazing, I suspect that I am more like Charlie Brown in that exchange!

One of my favorite Visionaries reads this blog regularly. (I suspect he knows who he is, although I doubt anyone every offered him the label.)  This technologist propelled an entire organization on his ideas.  While his “visions” were not universally admired  by peers or instantly accepted, the fact was and is that his ideas solve technology conundrums for customers in remarkable ways.  (Note: visionaries often have detractors.)

Sometimes you need to look hard to find the Visionary on your team. In my own experience, they are not the classic “A” players that work circles around the rest of the team.  They aren’t the loudest…in fact quite the opposite.  They don’t tend to gravitate to the limelight.

Hints for Cultivating the Visionaries on Your Team:

  • Once you uncover someone that has more to offer than the transactional demands of the job, spend time to cultivate a relationship with the individual.  Take the time to carve out one on one time and to discuss vexing issues.  Ask for input  and listen carefully.
  • Don’t thrust them into the spotlight if they are uncomfortable with the visibility.
  • Place them on project teams where the challenges require new ways of doing things.  Choose a Project Manager that is good at drawing out alternative perspectives and managing the talent on the team.
  • Align Visionaries with doers.  My best teams have blended both in the right proportion to ensure both innovation and great execution.
  • And as a fair warning, be careful to not bestow a special label on the individual or you risk alienating him or her further and damaging your own credibility.  This isn’t an issue of playing favorites, it’s one of extracting the often quiet and potentially valuable voice on your team.

The Bottom-Line:

I’ll end where I started.  Want a dream team?  Give a visionary a voice and then listen hard and learn.

Filed Under: Leadership, Leading Change, Performance Tagged With: , , , ,

Leadership Caffeine: Taking Chances on the Talent Around You

August 8, 2009 By 10 Comments

It’s time to take some chances on the people around you. Too many leaders constrain and contain, but the very best leaders provide opportunities for their team members to achieve things that these individuals might never have believed they were capable of achieving.

You won’t find me gambling in a casino, but I have no qualms about going all-in on the right talent. I’ve been burned a few times and fault was my own for not properly judging talent.

However, the sting of disappointment is quickly replaced by the thrill of watching as someone rises to the occasion in a significant new challenge. The victory grows sweeter over time as you watch people flourish in careers that they might never have imagined without your little push.

It’s your job to create opportunities for success.

Your belief in an individual’s abilities is a powerful source of motivation. It takes a great deal of self-confidence in oneself to be comfortable passing along that belief to another person. And that self-confidence is sorely tested and greatly appreciated as the subject of your attention stumbles along the way to success.

Many leaders are motivated more by the fear of failure than the pursuit of success. You don’t develop great teams and great organizations by letting fear rule your actions.

The talent you need to change the face of your business and even your industry might be right in front you. However, you won’t know until you’ve provided the opportunity.

It’s time to take some chances.

It’s your move and it’s time to go all-in.

Do something this week to provide a new chance, a new challenge and a new opportunity for one or more of your colleagues. You’ll be doing your job as a leader.

Filed Under: "To Do" List, Career, Leadership, Leadership Caffeine Tagged With: , , , , ,
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