The most important leadership quality of all

The most active Leadership Freak discussions occurred around an interview with John Spence and the subsequent review of his book “Awesomely Simple.” Our discussion regarding the top three leadership qualities every leader should have resulted in Doc analyzing the conversation and sending a graph of the top vote getters.

Surprisingly, we left out the most important leadership quality of all, Believing You Matter

Leaders believe they can make a difference. Some people feel pushed around by circumstances. They feel circumstances are changing them. On the other hand, leaders have the sense that they can change circumstances. It’s the difference between feeling acted upon versus acting upon. Scholars call it Locus of Control.

“It is not a question of ‘Will I make a difference?’ Rather, it’s ‘What difference will I make?”
(Kouzes/Posner, The Truth about Leadership)

The conundrum of leadership

Once you’ve decided you matter, the next things leaders do is make others feel they matter. This is what I call the conundrum of leadership. You matter so that you can make others matter.

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Leadership begins with the conviction you can change something. In addition, all leadership development begins with helping others see they can make a difference.

The belief that you matter is the

most important leadership quality of all.

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I can think of a specific time when I came to believe I could, that I must, change things. It began with changing me and moved to changing the organization I lead.

Can you recall a moment when you came to believe that you could change something? Was that the genesis of your leadership?

What do you think? Is the belief that you matter the most important leadership quality of all? Does all leadership begin there?

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Community note: Thanks to Bob Sutton, author of Good Boss, Bad Boss for stopping in yesterday to leave a brief comment. In the near future, I’ll be posting an interview with Dr. Sutton followed by a review of his new book.

Correcting the boss

Recent emails and comments from Leadership Freak readers demonstrate that bad bosses are alive and well. This post is dedicated to those who have endured a bad boss and lived to tell about it.

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The Problem

Wouldn’t it be great if everyone had a great boss that appreciated and lifted them? Wouldn’t it be great if your board of directors loved you like you love you?

You’re unique if there haven’t been times you felt overworked and underappreciated. Sadly, few understand the extent of your efforts and the depth of your contribution. Additionally, you may serve sacrificially while others focus on serving themselves.

You may have a bad boss who pushes you down and lifts him/herself up by taking credit for your work. That’s always frustrating.

To make matters worse, bosses don’t understand how others perceive them. They don’t think of themselves as bad bosses. In addition, leaders seldom understand and appreciate the true impact of their words and behaviors on others. In other words bosses have blind-spots.

A Leadership Freak reader’s question

“If in the workplace, a person works very hard, is loyal, has contributed major suggestions and information to the business, and yet is treated disrespectfully and others take credit for his work, how would he approach the leadership?”

Question for the community

Since “abusive” bosses/leaders exist, how should their bad behavior be addressed?

Responding

Leadership Freak readers don’t know enough about the situation I mentioned to offer specific counsel. However, we can take this opportunity to offer general suggests and principles for dealing with bad bosses.

The LF reader who sent this question is watching and may interact with your responses.

Community Update – 8/28/2010

You make a difference.

The Leadership Freak (LF) blog continues growing. Thank you for reading, commenting, and sharing LF with others. August became a record month on August 25th.

Special thanks to John Spence author of Awesomely Simple. His interview and the book review generated a record number of comments. Along with that, thanks go to Doc for summarizing the top three leadership qualities and creating a graph illustrating the results. Character based or Behavior based leadership.

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Suggestions & Feedback

Some LF readers are making suggestions for extending the reach of Leadership Freak.  They suggest; creating videos, blog summaries, comment summaries, more book reviews, using LF blogs as a foundation for writing a book. I’m still learning and appreciate your suggestions.

Book Reviews

I continue receiving books from publishers. I’ll be reviewing at least two books a month.

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Blast from the past

If you haven’t read it, 4 Ways to spot backstabbers before its too late, is one of the most viewed LF posts.

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Leadership quote:

“Before you can lead you have to believe that you can have a positive impact on others.” Kouzes & Posner in The Truth about Leadership.

It’s striking that with all the LF conversations on John Spence on Life and Leadership about the top three leadership qualities that we didn’t include the #1 quality that  Kouzes & Posner suggest.

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Thanks for your support!

Leadership Freak

Dan Rockwell

Too much honor?

I’ve heard concern that too much honor may de-motivate volunteers and employees.  If you give people too much praise they’ll lose passion and get fat and lazy. They’ll settle into the notion your organization is lucky to have them. They’ll need to be served rather than serve.

Show honor that motivates.

You get what you honor. Saying, “great job,” celebrates a completion and allows recipients to define “great.” You may be more effective if you carefully choose what and how you honor others.

Honor behaviors.

Rather than saying you’re great, highlight the fact that they stayed late to help their team meet a deadline.

Honor behaviors connected to values, mission, and vision. Say, “When you stopped in the hall to help a bewildered customer you helped make us who we want to be.”

Honor and explain the impact of behaviors on other employees. Don’t say, “Great job.” Say, “Mary is encouraged and our safety record is preserved when you keep your area clean.”

“Giving people self-confidence is by far the most important thing that I can do. Because then they will act.” Jack Welch

Honor and explain the impact of their behaviors on the company. Say, “When you leave your station to help Bill it keeps the line moving and helps us surpass quota.”

Don’t honor completed tasks. Honor the energy and effort that got the task done.

If you’re concerned that “too” much appreciation makes people over confident and lazy, start honoring the right things.

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Have you seen “too” much honor de-motivate an employee?

How can managers and leaders show honor that motivates?

Top three mistakes leaders make

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The positive value of making mistakes.

Mistakes indicate you are trying new things. Einstein put it this way, “Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.”

Furthermore, embracing our mistakes enlightens us. James Joyce explained, “A man’s errors are his portals of discovery.”

Most importantly, our mistakes make us. While successes reiterate who we are, mistakes create and recreate us.

Top three mistakes leaders make.

Clinging to the command and control model of leadership is catastrophic when knowledge workers are involved. Knowledge workers frequently know more than the boss. Command and control leaders frustrate and de-motivate. However, setting knowledge workers free leverages their skills, enhances their effectiveness and allows companies to exceed the reach of management.

Losing the big picture in the details slows forward momentum, lowers productivity, creates unnecessary stress, and under-utilizes talented staff. Leaders reach higher and go further when they delegate rather than dive into details.

Neglecting the big Mo results in flat individuals and organizations. Untended organizations naturally cool down and become problem centric structures with negative attitudes. Leaders may forget the power of celebrating small wins to create and nurture momentum.

Today may be a good day for you to better leverage the skills of a knowledge worker, or refocus on the big picture, or fuel organizational momentum.

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In your opinion, what are the top mistakes leaders make?

Confident-humility

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In his new book, Good Boss, Bad Boss, Robert Sutton explains, “Wise bosses have the confidence to act on what they know and the humility to doubt their knowledge.”

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It’s a myth that leaders clearly see both the future and the path to it. Don’t let anyone convince you otherwise. I’ll go so far as to say confidence without doubt is usually foolhardy and occasionally dangerous.

I find leading is less about certainty and more about letting go, learning, and courage than you might expect.

Confident-humility is the courage to pull the trigger and set plans in motion even when doubts remain. It lets go of the arrogant illusion that perfection is possible.

Confident-humility opens the mind to learning from mistakes and successes so that the next event or project is better than the previous one.

Confident-humility lets go of current plans in order to make course adjustments. Course adjustment is the norm not the exception for growing organizations.

Special note: course adjustment is about method, process, and procedure. On the other hand, values, mission, and vision remain points of stability in organizations destabilized by constant innovation and improvement.

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If leaders “pull the trigger” even when doubts remain, how much certainty is enough?

What advice would you give leaders who struggle with pulling the trigger because they don’t have “enough” certainty?

How to disagree

I had a young, new member of the leadership team I lead ask me, “What do you want me to do when I disagree with you?” You should also know he reported to me.

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“If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking.” George S. Patton

Vitality, innovation, even passion are born in controversy, contradiction and discomfort. Doing something that stands out requires you or your organization to stand out. Standing out means you’re fighting the current, going against the status quo, in a word, disagreeing.

On paper it sounds simple. However, it’s challenging and the terrain perilous. For example, what if you are in the category of the new leader I mentioned. How do you disagree with the older, more experienced leader to whom you report?

Before you disagree learn and align

Publically and privately express your alignment with organizational values, mission, and vision. Ask the experienced leaders to explain their understanding of these three essentials. Ask follow up questions that let others know you understand core values. Clearly, explicitly, express alignment.

Disagree early, clearly, politely, and specifically.

Don’t wait till the last moment. Offer your alternative perspective early in the debate. Clearly connect with the desired outcomes and be prepared to defend your position without becoming defensive.

Once the decision is made, grab an oar and start rowing.

It doesn’t matter whose option or which combination of options is chosen. Once the final decision is made, the entire team is all-in.

Warning

Young leaders may feel a need to hang on to their positions even when they are rejected. In my opinion arrogance usually drives this attitude. Rather than hanging on, let it go. Humble yourself, grab an oar and row for the good of the team. You’ll earn respect by respecting the decision you didn’t agree with.

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What other suggestions can you offer someone who disagrees with their boss or with a decision the leadership team has made?

A Monday reminder

I was a catcher when I played Little League (LL).

I knew the founder of Little League, Carl Stotz (Feb. 20, 1919 – June 4, 1992).

I live in Williamsport, PA – the home of Little League.

The Little League World Series is in town this week.

TV coverage of the Little League World Series reveals an intentional focus.

What I don’t see. I don’t see a focus on paid staff and organizational leaders.

What I do see. I see video shorts of LL players, fans, coaches, and volunteers. Specifically, the players are consistently front and center.

Little League (LL), knows that turning the spot light on players lifts the LL organization as a whole.

Leadership Lessons from Little League.

Focus on that which expresses your organizational mission not your structure, processes, or procedures. Organizations naturally turn inward and focus on themselves. It’s easy to think about things you are doing and lose sight of ultimate ends. When this happens organizations begin serving themselves and eventually die. LL knows it’s all about players and volunteers.

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What can organizations do to maintain mission focus?

Golden oldie-The window anger opens

Repost of the third Leadership Freak article.

Anger exposes you

Vein popping, face reddening, voice raising moments are potent opportunities for leaders.  I’m talking about that employee, son or daughter, neighbor, co-worker, boss, or spouse that just popped a cork and is sharing a piece of their mind they can’t afford to lose.

Angry people are transparent people.

I love to watch angry people.  Angry people are transparent people.  Angry people tell others how they really feel.  More importantly, angry people’s values and priorities are crystal clear to anyone who cares to observe.  I see the real you when you’re angry.  Churchill put it this way, “A man is about as big as the things that make him angry.”

On the good side, anger demonstrates noble virtues like fairness, truth, and compassion.  On the ignoble side, anger uncovers jealousy, envy, laziness, dishonesty, and so much more.

Behind passion is the real person

Even if they are overreacting, angry people open a window to their soul.  Behind passion is the real person.  Leaders, parents, and, spouses reach higher by peeking through the window that anger opens.

Leadership Freak,

Dan Rockwell

Character based or behavior based leadership

On August 5th the Leadership Freak community generated a record number of comments when they answered the question, “What top three leadership qualities should every leader have?” Check out the post, “John Spence on life and leadership,” to review everyone’s comments.

Thanks to J.S. ‘Doc’ Campbell, C.P.H.Q., a featured contributor on Leadership Freak, for cataloging all 223 references to qualities/behaviors and creating a graph of the top 8 vote getters.

If you are having trouble reading the labels along the bottom of the graph, from left to right; character, communication, courage, empathy, humility, integrity, listening, and vision.

Your comments and the graph above are anecdotal not scientific.

You should notice character and integrity are top vote getters with 18 each. It looks to me like courage, empathy, humility, and integrity are character based. While communication, listening, and vision are behavior based.

If this is true, the Leadership Freak community clearly believes that leadership is founded in who you are not in what you do.

In addition, I believe, courage, empathy, humility, and integrity are all components of character. Furthermore, the top four vote-getting components of character are:

1. Integrity – 18

2. Empathy – 10

3. Courage – 8

4. Humility – 8

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Do you agree with the assessment I suggest that the Leadership Freak community believes leadership is character based?

Do you agree with the the top four components of character? If not, what are the top four components of character?