One of the most common tripping points of both early-career and experienced leaders is assuming that people are looking at issues and drawing similar conclusions. Your goal as a leader must be to help create a common picture and to facilitate the development of creative solutions. This starts with recognizing that differences in perspective are the building blocks for creative solutions.
Fresh from a weekend of rediscovering the lawn and gardening muscles that clearly took the winter off, I found myself happy that I was able to quickly access freshly sharpened, well-oiled tools. As any good tradesman or craftsman (or weekend gardener) will tell you, there is no substitute for the right tool, properly maintained, when you need it. The same goes for leaders.
Consider these common refrains from two different leaders:Leader 1: “That’s great! Congratulations! How do we do more of that?” Leader 2: “That’s broken and we need to fix it right away.” We have all met both of these characters. One sees opportunity and achievement and building blocks everywhere she looks and the other sees flaws and problems that need fixing. And while you are free to accuse me of making a hasty generalization here, my “blink” assessment of the two is that I want to hire or work for Leader #1
What do peers and managers perceive is unique about you in the workplace? What do you do so well, so uniquely that makes people stop and take notice? What’s your personal positioning strategy that meaningfully differentiates you from others in the minds of your customers, managers and stakeholders? You’re to be excused if you need to reach for another cup of coffee while you contemplate these “brand called me” questions that you likely only think about once every two years when you update your resume.
My long list of life-goals includes a few that are underlined and even circled to connote priority. Write one book per year is one of those that is double-underlined, circled and highlighted for emphasis. It’s high time that I quit thinking about this personal and professional Big Hairy Audacious Goal, and started executing. So, after too much thought and not enough work, I am excited to make public my next project: Leadership Caffeine-The Book. (Expect the title to evolve a bit.)
While the phrase is most commonly referenced as attitude adjustment, I’ll go out on a limb and suggest that one of the abilities that leaders must develop to be effective is the ability to adjust their altitudes. Good leaders learn to scale institutional and intellectual heights with ease and comfort, quickly adapting to the audience and situation.
The paternal twins, Arrogance and Laziness are experts at biding their time and waiting for an opening to slip into your leadership party. Constant vigilance is the only way to keep these destructive gatecrashers from moving in and taking up residence as permanent parts of your leadership style.
Let’s face it, there’s much about the world of work for many that is monotonous or at least fairly routine. It’s easy in many roles to get lulled into the rhythms and routines of days, weeks and months. Wake-up, dress, get on the train, drink coffee, meet, talk, write, plan, meet some more and run to catch the express train home. Rinse and repeat. Monotony and routine are the natural born killers of creativity and innovation. Like weeds invading a spring lawn here in the Midwest, these twin killers quickly overwhelm the healthy pursuit of better, new and different.
While some argue that the natural order of life is towards entropy (a gradual decline into disorder), I would argue that the natural tendency of most humans is towards a kind of comfortable sameness and consistency in their daily lives. The pursuit of different requires more energy than the descent into routine. It is most definitely easier to not change. While comfortable and comforting, routine is the enemy of growth and progress and innovation
If you were to embark upon a rugged and lonely journey to the top of the mountain to ask for enlightenment from the Oracle of Management, I suspect that you would be left with the words “decision-making” to ponder on your long walk back to civilization. And in spite of the lack of a concrete answer from this journey, I’ll throw in my two-cents worth that decision-making is in fact the essence of management. It’s also darned hard to do, difficult to teach and challenging to get right more often than not.
