How to Face the Challenges of Leadership

The purpose of leadership is to identify and create the future. If you want to lead, go somewhere and take someone with you.

The challenge of leadership is helping people keep up. You are ahead. If you aren’t ahead you aren’t leading.

10 ways to face the challenges of leadership:

1. Embrace dissatisfaction and discontent with optimism. Nothing gets done without optimism – the belief it can get done.
2. Define and explain the future in relevant language. Passion ignites when others own the future for themselves.
3. Find alignment of purpose between individuals and organizations.
4. Constantly explore change with openness and skepticism. “Will this advance the agenda?” Doug Conant.
5. Persistently push forward while celebrating past success – balance dissatisfaction with satisfaction. Many never move beyond dissatisfaction.
6. Leverage the power of simplicity and clarity. Change can be radical and dramatic but most change is a series of simple steps toward clear destinations. Break things down into bite-size pieces.
7. Develop individuals and teams. “The team with the best players wins,” Jack Welch.
8. Consult with others, constantly. The ability to suspend judgment takes you further than ruling things out quickly.
9. Go with the highest point of confidence even while doubting. Perfect answers are the result of lack of thought.
10. Start now. “Strong leaders don’t wait until they have it all together to lead. The more you learn the more you realize how much you need to learn. Act now and get better as you grow,” Harry Kramer.

If the purpose of leadership is to identify and create the future, what leadership skills are most useful?

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Post in a picture by Larry Coppenrath: Challenges of Leadership

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Tapping the Untapped Power of Power

Weak leaders struggle to gain power.

Insecure leaders fear losing it.

Power is good, it gets things done. Power is bad when it’s used to abuse and manipulate others for selfish ends.

Essential:

Who takes organizations further? You’ll go further with teams of powerful people. Those who never use power are doomed to be controlled by others.

Warren Bennis interviewed 90 individuals who were nominated by their peers as most influential leaders. They all shared one characteristic. They made others feel powerful. (Leaders: Strategies for Taking Charge, 2003)

Great leaders use power to make others feel powerful.

Those who give power gain it.

Technically, no one can make you feel powerful. We can, however, create empowering environments and engage in empowering activities. Help others by helping them help themselves.

12 ways to help others feel powerful:

1. Share information.
2. Change your mind.
3. Expect positive results.
4. Train to enhance expertise.
5. Ask don’t command. (unless you’re in a crisis)
6. Set goals together rather than independently assigning them.
7. Authorize to act and decide.
8. Establish mistake-making policies before mistakes happen. Your reaction to mistakes is central to freeing others for powerful action.
9. Expect people to solve their own problems, as much as possible.
10. Be an external cheerleader – most have internal critics.
11. Express enthusiasm for their projects.
12. Stay involved in ways that aren’t meddling. Ask, “What can I do for you or how can I help?”

Bonus: Support but don’t intervene.

Warning: Avoid giving power to people who haven’t demonstrated responsibility.

How can leaders help others feel powerful?

What makes people feel dis-empowered?

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On Unicorns and Fairy Dust

I’ve rejected the “savior-leader” model but still feel pressure to be one. Savior-leaders arrive on unicorns and solve problems by sprinkling fairy dust over people and organizations. Poof! Everything is magically fixed.

Internal:

Internal pressure to have answers presses me to give answers. I want to be the savior. Often I believe I have answers. Not having answers is usually better.

The “burden of knowing” – even if I don’t really know – makes it hard to keep my mouth shut.

Answers given are less useful
than answers discovered.

External:

Expectations of others press me to provide answers. Some still believe in the savior-leader. They’re waiting for me to reach into my secret fairy dust pouch and make everything right. When leaders succumb to this pressure they create dependent relationships that weaken.

Savior-leaders inevitably crash and burn
when the fairy dust runs out.

Techniques:

Share techniques – let others execute. I have a suit-case full of techniques I’ve learned over the years. For example, when you explain what to do, always lead with vision – give why’s before what’s. That’s not fair dust. That’s a real-world technique that others can run with, in their own way.

The difference between savior-leaders and leaders who share techniques is authority. Everyone wins when individuals are enabled and have authority.

Rise above the savior-leader syndrome:

1. Lead with more questions and fewer answers.
2. Answer with – not for.
3. Enable and authorize. Teach how and then release.
4. Praise the accomplishments of others.
5. Enable and encourage others to teach others.

How do you deal with the savior-leader syndrome?

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The Secret to Adaptive Cultures

Have you noticed this hypocrisy in yourself or people in your organization? Out of one side of our mouths we say, “We love new ideas.” Out of the other we say, “We hate change.”

New ideas change things.

Tendency:

Organizations tend to harden their methods, processes, and procedures as time passes; they resist change.  New ideas disrupt.

A new kind of consistency:

Everyone needs points of consistency and stability. What if one point of consistency is trying one new idea every week, big or small? The secret to adaptive cultures is consistently changing something.

Could change for the sake of change be useful?

The tradition of change:

This Monday morning ask, “What could we change this week?” Perhaps you could change the way the phone is answered. Could you create a “no email” hour? How about, the new default length of meetings this week is 45 minutes; be brave, try 30.

Difficult:

1. Change is difficult because we don’t practice it regularly.
2. We usually think of change in big rather than small terms.
3. We don’t celebrate small changes; they’re not important enough.
4. We impose change rather than creating it together. Bottom-up is better than top-down.

Fun:

Creating an adaptive culture can be fun if we:

1. Learn as we go.
2. Laugh at mistakes.
3. Honor the spirit of trying new things.

We can’t say we love new ideas and hate change at the same time.

How can leaders create adaptive cultures?

Bad is Stronger than Good

If the world naturally drifted upward like hot-air balloons, leaders and leadership would be irrelevant.

People wore rose colored glasses  in the 60’s when they thought drugs and “free love” would create a New World. Apart from positive intervention chaos reigns. Call it pessimism if you like. Even hot-air balloons require burners to stay afloat.

The downward drift is leadership’s opportunity
for positive impact.

Doom and gloomers, nay sayers, and hand-wringers may firmly grasp the present but they seldom create desired outcomes.  20% of leadership is seeing the downward drift. 80% of leadership is firing the burners.

Research indicates there are “positive energizers” and “negative energizers” (Cameron).

Negative energizers:

1. Deplete.
2. Devalue.
3. Diminish.
4. Degrade.
5. De-motivate.

Negative energizers live in, focus on, talk about, and wallow on the dark side. Pulling down is easy. Negative energizers are critical, talk in dark tones, don’t engage, and are more self-centered. I know because I’m a natural negative.

Problems, apart from intervention, control our thinking. Bad is stronger than good.

Positive energizers:

1. Speak honestly.
2. Embrace transparency.
3. Support.
4. Build up.
5. Focus on others.
6. Find solutions.
7. Enable performance.
8. Give.
9. Listen.
10. Share.

Positive leadership:

Cameron suggests that positive leaders create:

1. Positive climates.
2. Positive relationships.
3. Positive communication.
4. Positive meaning.

Hope:

When I tell people I’m a natural negative they usually say, “I don’t see that in you.” If you see positivity in me, take hope for yourself. I’m a reformed hand-wringer.

1. Address problems with imperfect solutions.
2. Adopt positive behaviors that you can define, describe, and employ.
3. Pursue best opportunities more than fixing problems.
4. Say many more positives than negatives, many more.
5. Build positive teams by focusing on what can be done.

What does positive leadership look like to you?

How are you creating positive environments?

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Post in a picture by Larry Coppenrath: The Downward Drift Opportunity

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Secrets to Building Great Leaders

If you plan to achieve great things you must develop great leaders.

How to fail:

The break-fix model seldom develops greatness. The break-fix model is problem-centric and backward-facing. Break-fix works for systems and processes but not for people.

Fix organizations – develop people.

Closely related to the demoralizing break-fix approach is the ever faithful but always useless, blame-relief model. Blaming enables us to wash our hands – relieve ourselves – of responsibility. “Phew! It’s not my fault; it’s theirs.”

Experience shows fixing and blaming creates defeatist, problem-centric, demoralizing orientations. Blaming and fixing aren’t the path to greatness.

How to succeed:

When it comes to people, don’t fix the past.

6 Things you can do with the past:

1. See it.
2. Accept it.
3. Take responsibility.
4. Learn.
5. Let it go.
6. Begin where you are – stand on it.

The past can never be changed, improved, or ignored. Stay in the past briefly but don’t camp out. Everyone had good reasons or excuses for past choices. Proving they were dumb doesn’t motivate. Help them see their mistakes for themselves. You can’t learn for others.

Create success, quickly. People say, “I see what I was doing wrong,” in the light of current success. If you can’t help someone find fresh success, you’re just a pain in the ass. (when it comes to developing people)

Employ a start-step model. Developing leaders always starts in the same place, where they are not where you wish they were. An immediate step toward a preferred future always improves attitudes, enhances performance, and creates positive momentum. Start where they are and step toward their future.

Result: People radically improve in as few as two working sessions because we begin where they are and create success quickly.

What are key components to developing both yourself and others?

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Post in a picture by Larry Coppenrath: Building Great Leaders

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7 Ways to Identify Great Advice

Few things are more dissatisfying and unfulfilling as adapting your inner compass to others.

If you don’t know who you are
you’ll become someone else.

You’ve accepted your own inner compass when you lose the need to defend it. The demands of leadership, however, call leaders to find and listen to wise advice – to learn and adapt.

7 ways to identify great advice:

1. You must understand, articulate, and illustrate your top three core values. Decisions apart from values are whims. Warning! The path to destruction is paved by listening to advice from those who don’t share your values.
2. Is it actionable? Wise counsel comes to us in behavioral terms. If you can’t describe it you can’t do it. This is especially true for attitudes. If you can’t describe respect in action, you can’t do it, for example.
3. Does it address the right problem? Advice focused on “fixing” others is futile. The only person who “fixes” you is you.
4. Does it address deficiencies or self-destructive behaviors with simple behavioral alternatives? This type of advice produces quick, useful change.
5. Is it relational? Relationship advice is the best advice of all. Listen to people who explain how to build bridges, strengthen ties, and create collaborations.
6. Is it practical? Technical “how to” advice is the second best topic of advice. Open up to those who can explain how to give effective presentations, lead meetings, or solve conflicts, for example.
7. Do they have your best interests in mind? Selfless guides are precious. Self-serving advice, on the other hand, is dangerous, destructive, and agenda driven.

How do you find good advice?

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Destroy Silos Before They Destroy You

I asked an elected official to share his impressions of the political process. Without hesitation he said, “It’s disappointing that the Democrats and Republicans are sitting in separate rooms figuring out how to make the other party look bad. Politicians live in silos.

Silos are great for storing things but destructive to organizations.

Effective leaders always destroy silos.

Organizational silos:

1. Grow inward like incestuous families.
2. Isolate talent.
3. Hoard resources.
4. Slow progress.
5. Dampen enthusiasm.
6. Create paranoia.
7. Act in self-protective ways that damage others.
8. Don’t network.
9. Focus on individual good rather than organizational good.
10. Win when others lose.

Bonus: Silos resist change.

Silo Breakers:

Silo-breaking is painful and slow but can be done.

1. Form a clear picture of your organization without silos.
2. Define specific behaviors that enhance collaboration and break silos.
3. Hold cross-department planning meetings. Let them see the “enemy.”
4. Embrace decision-making by participants not isolated bosses.
5. Tell stories that honor collaboration and illustrate silo-breaking.
6. Reward teams and teamwork.
7. Develop leadership skills and attitudes that enhance collaboration.
8. Measure performance in terms of teams.
9. Seek best solutions regardless of the source.
10. Establish inclusive rather than exclusive systems.

Bonus: Embrace maximum transparency and information sharing.

Silos are slow, cumbersome, and destructive. Organizations with silos may win battles but eventually they collapse inward and lose the war.

What are the symptoms of organizational silos?

How would you being silo-breaking in your organization?

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20 Ways to Disagree with your Boss

If you never disagree you’re irrelevant. Here’s how to disagree successfully:

1. Ask what to do if you disagree before disagreements emerge.
2. Watch and learn when others disagree.
3. Avoid win-lose situations, it’s likely you’ll lose.
4. Know and embrace the boss’ goals. If you don’t align with the big picture, find another job.
5. Come with solutions and options or don’t come at all.
6. Defend your option don’t make them defend theirs.
7. Don’t prove the boss wrong unless you have the facts. (See #9!)
8. Come with the facts. Your opinion isn’t more valuable than others unless you’re an expert.
9. Private is better than public.
10. Listen, listen, listen. Listening is respecting. Respect opens the heart.
11. Fill your relationship with agreements before expressing disagreements. Every agreement is a deposit in your relationship-account. Express agreements frequently and publically.
12. Approach from the side not the front. Lateral approaches sound like, “Could I make a suggestion?”
13. Offer alternatives rather than critiques. “What if” is better than “But” and “Why.”
14. Don’t waste your relationship collateral nitpicking.
15. Publicly and privately align with organizational mission and vision. If you aren’t clearly entrenched in making positive impact, keep your mouth shut.
16. Understand that sandwiching disagreements between two agreements never works like you expect. Effective bosses cut to the chase and ignore peripherals. (Refer to #11)
17. Express agreements even though they don’t work. It’s respectful.
18. Stay focused on the present. Bringing up past issues is picking scabs off old sores.
19. Ask if you can test your option to see how it works.
20. Drop it. After the decision is made, if you can’t grab an oar and row like heck, grab a life vest and jump overboard.

How do you express disagreements with the boss?

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How to Fill Your Team with Courage

Courage is the willingness and resolve to act when outcomes are uncertain. Everyone needs courage because we live in turbulent, changing times.

Nothing good gets done without courage.

Powerful leaders encourage – fill with courage – so that others can press through their fears. Fear pulls back; courage pushes forward.

“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.” Anais Nin

Leaders who fill others with courage always go further than those who don’t. Any fool can make others afraid. It takes real leadership to fill others with courage.

Model courage by:

1. Occasionally express concerns – frequently focus on opportunity, potential, and vision.
2. Expressing confidence in the team’s talents, abilities, and performance.
3. Standing with your team when it hits the fan.

Go beyond modeling courage to encouraging. Fill with courage by:

1. Speaking calmly and clearly during tension and stress.
2. Focusing on people before projects. Standing with not above encourages.
3. Lifting up after a failure rather than beating down. Stand behind.
4. Keeping the big picture front and center.

Developing your encouragement muscle by:

1. Making their team your team. No one trusts you when you’re in it for yourself.
2. Speaking to fears rather than symptoms. When others pull back – the symptom – look for root causes.
3. Correcting less and coaching more.
4. Stepping in when others pull back. Self-protective, cowardly leaders assign risks to others.

Bonus: Fill others with courage by having fun. Work-only-leaders don’t build up they drag down. Lift up by lightening up. Good humor powerfully expresses courage as long as it’s not perceived as being out of touch or hiding from the truth.

How can leaders fill others with courage?

What encourages you?

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