Supporting a new lead person

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Little League International headquarters is in the community where I live. Every year, the nonprofit organization I lead participates with Little League’s Kid’s Day. It’s held in the museum.

Our volunteers set up a table with giveaways for the parents. We hire a couple local clowns to tie balloons for the children and pass out candy. It’s an all-around feel good experience for everyone.

There’s a new lead person in charge.

Mehrdad Baghai, in his book As One says, “Volunteers choose to opt into campaigns case by case.” Don’t feel disappointed when an experienced volunteer opts out. Read my review of As One and leave a comment on that post for a chance to win a free copy. It’s a great book.

When choosing lead people, go with passion. Resist the temptation to pressure a more experienced but reluctant person to take the job, unless you enjoy pushing ropes. It’s much easier to pull a passionate person back than to push a reluctant person forward.

4 Ways to Support a new Lead Person

1. Persistently clarify the vision. If you don’t clarify the vision, a passionate person may take your places you don’t want to go. In this case the vision is easy, have fun.
2. Avoid hovering over and reject walking away.  A new lead person doesn’t need someone telling them how to do everything. On the other hand, be sure they have encouragement and support. The goal is managing emotion not detail.
3. Always perform an after action report. What went well? What did we accomplish? What could be better? Who performed well? What did we learn?
4. Focus on success. Mistakes blind many leaders to successes. You may be tempted to correct, instruct, or in other ways “add value.” Let the new leader describe mistakes and prescribe solutions. They may see better and suggest more than you.

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What do you do when a new lead-person is in charge?

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As One: Individual Action, Collective Power

Leadership is about productivity, people, and purpose; it’s about exceeding the impact of individuals by creating a “cohesive group of people working together effectively toward a common goal or purpose.”

On Amazon

Remarkable results demand clearly understood models with clearly defined rules that explain the ways people effectively work together. Essentially, collaborative endeavors require a language that both defines relationships and enables freedom within the rules of engagement.

Challenge: We don’t know enough about collaborative endeavors.

Enter: “As One: Individual Action, Collective Power,” by Mehrdad Baghai and James Quigley.  The title is brilliant just like every carefully crafted sentence printed between its covers.

Click for larger image

As One explodes narrow approaches to leadership by explaining, illustrating, and applying eight dynamic and distinct models of leadership behavior.

As One links situation with methodology. You’ll learn which of 8 models of behavior result in a cohesive group of individuals working as one. In addition, As One offers six key characteristics of each leadership model. For example, the Community Organizer & Volunteer includes:

1. Volunteers view themselves as highly independent decision makers.
2. Volunteers want frequent opportunities to express their opinions.
3. Volunteers choose to opt into campaigns case by case.
4. Community organizers often use narratives to motivate the volunteers
5. Volunteers are usually treated the same and have equal rights.
6. Community organizers’ power increases as the number of volunteers grows.

Effective leaders create an “As One Agenda” focused on critical “Who – What” information. Who needs to participate and what needs to be done.

Beyond determining the “As One Agenda,” the leader’s greater challenge is addressing diverse interpretations of what “working together” means.  Effective leaders equip themselves and their teams with unifying language that creates, establishes, and informs collaboration (the How).

As One informs and enables rich leadership in diverse situations. I recommend it.

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Summarizing the 8 models (Archetypes) of leadership behavior described in As One far exceeds my self imposed word limit. Go to 
http://leadershipfreak.wordpress.com/8-leadership-archetypes-from-as-one/
 for more.

As One website: 
https://www.asone.org/asone

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Mehrdad comes of Age

It was 1975 when the Baghai family fled Iran seeking religious freedom in Toronto, Canada. Mehrdad, their 9 year old son, landed in an English speaking classroom having learned English grammar and vocabulary but not slang.

Mehrdad Baghai

He was tricked into addressing his teacher by saying, “F*** you Miss.”

Before his first hour in class ended, 9 year old Mehrdad Baghai landed in detention.

When I asked, Mehrdad couldn’t identify any specific tipping points in his rich life. I waited and listened as he talked around tipping points until he landed on, “All the shaping events of my life center around injustice.”  Specifically, he’s troubled by humanities inability to unify around positive goals.

Fast forward 34 years. It’s 2009. 43 year old Mehrdad is coauthoring a book with one of the world’s most powerful CEO’s, James Quigley. Jim is CEO of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited, a global company with 170,000 professional employees.

As One on Amazon

Jump two years, its 2011 and their book, “As One” is done. Seasoned leader, “young” Mehrdad is pursuing his passions.

He had difficulty explaining his “career.” After circling the topic, he landed on, “I’m a silo breaker.”

Mehrdad loves helping high level leaders like Jim Quigley enhance their organizational impact. I asked him what, in specific, he offers leaders. It was obvious he’d already clarified his approach because he seamlessly outlined a methodology centered around three high level questions. He said, “I ask…”

1. What are you doing to make people feel like they belong?
2. What are you doing to help people realize they matter?
3. How are you helping people work together?

Nine year old Mehrdad has come of age and is shaping a world reflecting the image of his inner values. Values formed around the crucible of injustice.

Answer his questions, you’ll change the world!

Click here to read my review of “As One.”

What can leaders do to make people feel they belong, realize they matter, and help them work together?

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Don’t miss a single issue of Leadership Freak, subscribe today. It’s free.  It’s private.  Go to the main page of Leadership Freak by clicking the banner at the top of this page, look in the right-hand navigation bar, enter your email and click subscribe.  Your email address is always kept private.  Note:  if it doesn’t arrive, check your spam filter for a confirmation email.

Are you being Manipulated?

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How others manipulate you?

Flattery:

Flattery is an insincere compliment designed to manipulate you. Fall prey to it and you become vulnerable to another’s influence. People flatter you to get what they want from you.

The connections created with flattery aren’t connections. They are corruptions.

In my opinion, flattery destroys connections and creates emptiness in everyone involved. Fake relationships drain us they don’t sustain us.

Gifts:

Gifts that obligate aren’t gifts they are manipulations. In this case generosity is greed. The power of a gift is its expression of a connection not the obligation it creates.

Curiosity and Guilt:

Expressing insincere curiosity in your person or your activities is hypocritical manipulation.

Placing guilt and ascribing blame can be manipulation used to control your behavior for the benefit of others. These manipulative people want you to make it up to them.

Why manipulation works?

Needing approval, acceptance, and love makes you vulnerable to manipulation.

Fear based living may open the door to manipulation.

Arrogance creates vulnerability to manipulation.

Many years ago an experienced business man complimented the way I dressed. His compliment puffed up my arrogant spirit. I promptly began telling him how and why I chose my shoes and clothing. To this day, I want to run and hide when I recall my foolish behavior.

His compliment revealed and fed my arrogance. I don’t believe my friend manipulated me. However, his compliment created vulnerability to manipulation.

Overcoming and avoiding manipulation.

1. Manipulators want your goals to become their goals. Identify and tenaciously cling to your own noble goals.
2. Find harmony within yourself before looking for alignment with others.
3. Determine if gifts express gratitude, appreciation, love, or greed.
4. Identify your fears. They create vulnerability.

Don’t live life looking for a manipulator under every rock. However, be aware.

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How do you spot manipulators?

What suggestions for overcoming manipulation can you suggest?

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Don’t miss a single issue of Leadership Freak, subscribe today. It’s free.  It’s private.  Go to the main page of Leadership Freak by clicking the banner at the top of this page, look in the right-hand navigation bar, enter your email and click subscribe.  Your email address is always kept private.  Note:  if it doesn’t arrive, check your spam filter for a confirmation email.

Opening Windows

Image source: Architectural Digest

Wisdom is simple not complex.

Yesterday, Lolly Daskal called me to discuss one of her upcoming initiatives. During our conversation the slippery topic of my own plans for the future came up. I mentioned how easy it is to help others make plans and decisions and how hard it is to do it for myself. Her response became an open window.

“If you are a person who likes to help others…and you find it difficult to help yourself…then treat your work – your business- your problems like you are helping someone else. As you know it is always easier to help another than it is to help yourself.”

A window opener

I remember the first client I coached – a high potential manager that was stalled. Two conversations later she found herself in new ways and reconnected with her own possibilities.  Somehow it’s easy to help others. Lolly’s suggestion helps me talk with myself the same way I talk with others.

I still believe everyone needs an outside voice to reach their highest potential. However, finding our own voice is central to finding and embracing our highest path.

Everyone has emotional baggage that makes them reactive rather than proactive. Lolly’s suggestion helps me become impersonal with myself. Creating “client Dan” is my chance to create and examine options with greater freedom and objectivity.

It’s a simple idea. But for me, it was an open window.

In hope of open windows

Enter every conversation wondering if someone might say something that opens a window. You never know…

Opening the window for others

One way you can open windows for others is by listening and then saying back what you heard. When people hear what you think they said, it creates opportunities to more fully embrace, reject, or rethink their own thoughts.

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How can leaders help themselves and others find, embrace, and own their potential?

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Don’t miss a single issue of Leadership Freak, subscribe today. It’s free.  It’s private.  Go to the main page of Leadership Freak by clicking the banner at the top of this page, look in the right-hand navigation bar, enter your email and click subscribe.  Your email address is always kept private.  Note:  if it doesn’t arrive, check your spam filter for a confirmation email.

9 Ways to Help Others Make Decisions

Yogi Berra said, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”

Great leaders are decision makers. The down side of this is an ability to “know” what others should do; to make decisions for rather than with others.

5 reasons it’s easy to know what’s “best” for others.

1. We replace their life-purpose with our purpose for them.
2. We use our personal values to evaluate their behaviors.
3. We don’t bear responsibility for the consequences of life-decisions they make.
4. We haven’t thought deeply about available alternatives.
5. We don’t fully understand the complexity of the problem.

It may be easier to say, “You should,” and give others a decision than to engage them in a process that eventually enables them to function without us.

Give others decision-making tools rather than decisions.

9 Ways you can help others make great decisions.

1. Connect them with people that have experience and expertise.
2. Help them identify the real problem/challenge. Ask what the problem is and then say it back to them.
3. Explore risk tolerance. Ask what they are willing to lose. (Realize people tend to be overly optimistic.)
4. Inspire them to lean toward doing something. Bolster their confidence.
5. Help them explore, examine and then express their values. Ask what makes you tick.
6. Encourage them to examine expected outcomes. Ask what if …
7. Clarify and then connect their life-purpose with anticipated outcomes. Ask how this decision takes them where they want to go.
8. Explore pros and cons for each available option. Ask what could go wrong and what could go right.
9. Allow the significance   of each   decision to determine the time allotted to make it and then set decision-deadlines. Ask when they can pull the trigger.
10. ???

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Why does it seem easy to know what others should do?

What other decision-making tools can you suggest?

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Don’t miss a single issue of Leadership Freak, subscribe today. It’s free.  It’s private.  Go to the main page of Leadership Freak by clicking the banner at the top of this page, look in the right-hand navigation bar, enter your email and click subscribe.  Your email address is always kept private.  Note:  if it doesn’t arrive, check your spam filter for a confirmation email.

Leading yourself into Humility

I’ll never forget G.J. Hart’s observation about high potential leaders, “I can usually tell if they have the humility to make it.”

Humility yields success; arrogance blocks it. One source of arrogance is too much knowledge.  However, there’s something that matters more than knowing. It’s practicing what you know. Putting knowledge into practice tests, reveals, and establishes true knowledge. Practicing knowledge helps produce humility.

“Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.” Goethe

Leading yourself:

Thomas Watson said, “Nothing so conclusively proves a man’s ability to lead others as what he does from day to day to lead himself.”

What you think about what you know matters more than what you know. With that in mind it may be risky to give you more knowledge about humility. Hopefully you’ll add doing to knowing.

Eight practices of humble people -

Humble people:

1. Restore broken relationships.
2. Treat others better than they treat themselves.
3. Acknowledge weaknesses and embrace strengths.
4. Thank others for support and encouragement. Gratitude tempers arrogance.
5. Let others perform while they observe and encourage
6. Ask questions when they don’t know. A know-it-all is arrogant. Humility is openness; arrogance is blindness. The path to wisdom is paved with humility.
7. Enjoy honor. Arrogance blocks honor either by seeking it or by rejecting it.
8. Delight in rich sustaining relationships. Arrogance yields agonizing emptiness. Humility welcomes others.

Into humility:

No one can humble you. Only you can humble you. You’ve seen haughty people remain arrogant when they should act humbly. Forced humility actually breaks your spirit. On the other hand, embracing humility frees and energizes you.

Pursing humility is slippery and perilous. Acting humbly helps.

Accepting the conundrum that arrogance is weakness and humility is strength builds foundations for rich leadership.

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What other practices of humility can you add?

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Don’t miss a single issue of Leadership Freak, subscribe today. It’s free.  It’s private.  Go to the main page of Leadership Freak by clicking the banner at the top of this page, look in the right-hand navigation bar, enter your email and click subscribe.  Your email address is always kept private.  Note:  if it doesn’t arrive, check your spam filter for a confirmation email.

Are you becoming Irrelevant?

I met intriguing people when I visited the Dave Ramsey organization in Nashville. Yesterday while sitting in Starbucks I finally reconnected with Steve NeSmith their Senior Director of Online Content, Social Media and Email Marketing. I wanted to chat about leadership and social media.

Steve explained the number one reason leaders don’t use social media is they are time bankrupt. His response, “Ask yourself if it’s important to you. Do you find time to network at the Chamber of Commerce?”

While Steve talked, I jotted notes until a local student accidentally dumped coffee on their books and floor. Moments later, I lost Steve’s voice in a clanking mop and yellow bucket bumping along ceramic tiles. Priority – clean up.

Finding time?

Steve didn’t sugar coat the time problem when he said, “If social media is important, leaders find time for it by reprioritizing.”

Why reprioritize?

Every business leader acknowledges the value of the Internet. Steve explained that Facebook has become the Internet for many people. If the Internet is valuable then social media just gained value.

Your customers, employees, detractors, and constituents participate. If you aren’t there, you aren’t where everyone is. You’re becoming irrelevant.

Steve and I grappled to find terms that expressed the meaning of relevance. I tossed out the idea that social media humanized leaders. He didn’t like the suggestion they aren’t already human. Good point.

Accessible

Your presence and participation lets people know you’re engaged and listening. It’s like walking into a coffee shop and seeing someone you know. Their presence, even if all you do is nod, makes you feel you belong.

Participation in social media removes perceived distance without intruding into real space and makes you seem accessible and relevant.

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Connect with Steve NeSmith on twitter: 
http://twitter.com/SteveNeSmith
.

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Are the benefits of perceived accessibility and relevance sufficient for leaders to reprioritize? Why or why not?

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DISCLAIMER: As usual I’ve written with a direct style. You may perceive this post as a jab at some of my friends that don’t see social media as important as I do. You’d be wrong.

3 Reasons people resist your leadership

Don’t expect people to automatically follow you because you have a leadership title. If you sign their pay check they may conform but won’t necessarily follow.

Resistance isn’t always bad; it may reflect healthy skepticism. Healthy resistance creates environments where individuals, initiatives, and innovations prove their worth to people with brains. However, resistance may signal deeper issues and larger matters.

People resist your leadership because you’re irrelevant to them. The hard truth is you aren’t adding value or providing channels that enhance their contribution and worth. You aren’t helping them matter. Here’s a simple challenge, ask yourself and those close to you what value you offer? How do you enrich, enable, and encourage the people around you?

Leadership is helping others matter.

People resist your leadership because they aren’t convinced you understand them and their concerns. Feeling understood enables people to personally open up and become open to your ideas.

Leaders understand before being understood.

People resist your leadership because you’re going somewhere they don’t want to go. Purpose, values, and vision determine direction. If your organization doesn’t want to go where you want to go, find a new organization.

In addition, people may agree with your direction but disagree with the methods you employ for getting there. I’d like to minimize this source of resistance but can’t. Methods are where the rubber hits the road; they touch us where we live. Even if you agree on larger goals and targets, if you don’t agree on methodologies you aren’t aligned; persistent resistance is inevitable.

Facing Resistance

When resistance is an expression of healthy skepticism, deepen alignment through information, engagement, improvement, and adaptation.

On the other hand, resistance due to colliding purpose, values, and vision is a train wreck waiting to happen.

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What reasons for resistance to leadership can you offer?

How can leaders effectively face resistance?

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Don’t miss a single issue of Leadership Freak, subscribe today. It’s free.  It’s private.  Go to the main page of Leadership Freak by clicking the banner at the top of this page, look in the right-hand navigation bar, enter your email and click subscribe.  Your email address is always kept private.  Note:  if it doesn’t arrive, check your spam filter for a confirmation email.

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The question at the Leadership Freak Coffee Shop, “Is big change easier than small change…?”

5 Cures for Leadership-loneliness

All leaders experience the loneliness of leadership.

Leading is strenuous work. You test yourself and others. Relationship boundaries stretch and occasionally break. In addition, change, innovation, or new initiatives may cause past loyalties to evaporate.

If you’ve never experienced the loneliness of leadership I wonder if you’ve ever led. Having said that, persistent leadership-loneliness is self-inflicted.

12 Reasons you’re a lonely leader

1. Going too far too fast
2. Waiting for people to appreciate you
3. Faking who you are
4. Shutting others out
5. Sharing conclusions rather than processes
6. Not building a support network
7. Expecting agreement and rejecting dissent
8. Believing leaders are omniscient and omnipotent
9. Emotionally investing in unexamined ideas
10. Using people for selfish reasons
11. Not building a culture of ownership
12. Investing more in projects and programs than people

Personally

Beyond the list of 12, I feel leadership-loneliness when I feel out of step with others. I find I care about things it seems others don’t care about. I feel most isolated when people I care about make negative assumptions about my motives.

Legitimate reasons

There are legitimate reasons leaders feel lonely.  Suffering because you’re keeping a confidence feels lonely. Following a dream that others don’t understand creates distance.

Top 5 cures for leadership-loneliness

Looking over the list of reasons leaders are lonely helps me uncover some cures.

1. Be who you are – take time to reflect. Faking drains you.
2. Listen to dissent and examining your passions early in the process.
3. Build a support network.
4. Create a culture of ownership.
5. Engage others in the process.

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Why are leaders lonely?

How can leaders deal with loneliness?

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Thanks to the folks that shared their insights on loneliness in the Leadership Freak Coffee Shop on Facebook. You added value to this post.

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Don’t miss a single issue of Leadership Freak, subscribe today. It’s free.  It’s private.  Go to the main page of Leadership Freak by clicking the banner at the top of this page, look in the right-hand navigation bar, enter your email and click subscribe.  Your email address is always kept private.  Note:  if it doesn’t arrive, check your spam filter for a confirmation email.