Toxic by Accident

Image source by George Hodan

My children used to say, “Stop yelling dad.” I’d say, “I’m not yelling.” My voice sounded calm to me.

Authority and power amplify actions and words.

Every behavior of respected leaders is magnified. Tell a team member, for example, “Your report is late.” They hear, “I’m getting fired.” Or, you ask, “What happened?” They feel picked on.

You think , “no big deal.” They think, “Big deal.” That’s what respect does.

Toxic:

Toxic environments develop when leaders don’t realize their power. Quiet is loud when you’re respected, powerful, and authoritative.

Yell the good. Whisper the bad.

Important:

Don’t forget you matter.

We have bigger bodies and different clothes but we’re thirteen on the inside. You look on the inside and see a kid; they look on the outside and see a leader.

You matter in wrong ways when you forget you matter.

Embrace your importance but reject self-importance.

Humility:

I’m not inflating your ego. Chances are you have plenty. I’m writing this to clarify the impact of your words and behaviors.

Arrogant leaders, who fear they don’t matter, throw their weight around like bullies. Humble leaders believe they matter. Additionally, they know they matter most when they make others matter.

C.S. Lewis said, “True humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less.”

Focus on others. You have power to make others powerful.

Amplify:

Imagine everything you do has more impact than you believe. You think your volume is a three. Their respect for you amplifies your three to an eight.

William James said, “Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.”

Leaders who don’t realize their own power accidentally damage people and create toxic environments.

How does believing you matter impact the way you think about leadership?

For All the Danny Downers

You want the people around you to feel up not down, hopeful not discouraged. All successful leaders energize others. But, what if you aren’t the energizing type?

Peter Senge said,

“Your primary influence is the environment you create.”

Leaders often neglect environments in favor of getting work done.

Tending personal environments:

Personal space has energy. Step in and it pulls down or lifts up. Danny Downer is a spiraling vortex of despair. An hour with him drains you. Hours later, you’re still climbing out of his dark hole. Or you’ve given up.

Edna  Energizer amps people. An hour with her boosts you. Hours later, you’re half way up the mountain with energy to spare.

We’re all climbers.

All leaders impact “the climb” of others by establishing starting places. Energizing leaders elevate starting points; low energy leaders lower them.

Successful leaders elevate starting points.

Danny Downer:

1. Fears offending others – lives to please everyone.
2. Imagines obstacles that can’t be solved.
3. Knows all the reasons nothing can change.
4. Questions abilities.
5. Focuses on resources rather than people.

Edna Energizer:

1. Builds and trusts the team. Danny feels alone.
2. Takes small steps without permission. She believes it’s better to get in trouble trying things than doing nothing and staying safe.
3. Sees obstacles but imagines progress.
4. Learns from failure.
5. Expects herself and others to step up.

The difference between Danny and Edna is courage.  Leadership requires courage. Danny’s a coward.

For all the Danny Downers:

1. Admit it. You are darkness with legs. (If you’re tempted to say it’s not that bad, it is.)
2. Confess it. Tell someone you’re a downer. Say, “I want to change.”
3. Get help. Run – don’t walk – to energizing leaders and learn.
4. Define energizing behaviors. Changing attitude helps but changing behaviors changes things.

Everyone feels the environment around you. Energize intentionally. The higher you start the further you’ll go.

How can leaders create personal space that energizes others?

Next week’s best leadership development opportunity is a free conference call with bestselling author, Doug Conant. Join me on March 27 at 1:00 p.m. EST.

The Secret and Power of Listening

Leaders often rise to leadership because they’re great talkers. Now it’s in the way.

You can’t connect, communicate or influence without listening. Bad bosses talk. Successful leaders listen.

Stop talking about listening.

Ouch:

I still remember the day I asked my wife if I was a good listener.

What’s worse than being told you aren’t good at something you think you’re great at?

When she said I wasn’t a good listener, I felt like talking not listening.

Roadblocks to listening:

1. Disinterest in connecting.
2. Long-talkers and explainers who never get to the point!
3. Knowledge. Talkers know.
4. Distraction by what’s next.
5. Multi-tasking.

See more on Facebook (3/20/13)

Go away if you’re physically present but not paying attention. Stop wasting time and insulting others.

Closed listeners ask:

1. How does this impact me?
2. When have I experienced this?
3. What would I do about this?
4. Where can I take this conversation?
5. What do I need to tell?

Adapted from: Coaching for Engagement.

How to open your ears:

Forget about advanced listening skills. Don’t jump to active, critical, or appreciative listening.

Open your ears by closing your mouth.

Look in their eyes and stop jabbering. Leaders are listeners.

Jumping from poor listening to advanced listening is like using a dragster for driving lessons. You’ll crash and burn. In addition, going from not listening to active listening creates paranoia in those around you. “What’s going on?”

One question:

What do they want me to know, feel, or believe?

Open listening:

Four more questions:

1. How are they measuring success?
2. What beliefs are they expressing?
3. What are they feeling?
4. What strengths, challenges, or opportunities can I affirm?

Adapted from: Coaching for Engagement.

Listening is connection.

Connecting is influencing.

Influencing is leading.

Leaders who don’t listen don’t connect.

What listening roadblocks prevent leaders from connecting?

What listening strategies enable connection?

How to Seize Your Greatest Opportunities

Opportunity is ugly.

Opportunity is a door that feels like a wall, an open window that feels shut, or a ceiling that feels too low.

Mud disguises, pain exposes, and fear illuminates opportunity.

Distinguish your leadership:

Great leaders face great challenges and solve great problems. Clear the mud. Solve the pain. Face the fear. Rise up and address issues others run from.

Leaders without obstacles are ships without wind.

Run toward rather than away. The giant you slay expands your influence.

Frustration is opportunity.

Enhanced influence and profound results wait beyond frustrations, complications, and disappointments.

Struggle:

Struggle transforms. Success, on the other hand, makes you more of who you were.

Power to seize opportunities comes from understanding and addressing your greatest struggle.

Greatest struggle:

The greatest battles lie within. On the other hand, inner struggle is leadership’s most profound opportunity. All leaders struggle with inner questions like:

1. Do I matter?
2. What do I believe?
3. What’s important?
4. What’s my greatest value?
5. How can I connect?
6. Can I do this?
7. What if I fail?

Greatest opportunity:

Your greatest opportunity is building structures that develop and strengthen your inner person.

You’re crushed from without when there’s nothing within.

Inner strength comes from things like:

1. Faith.
2. Quiet solitude.
3. Listening and self-reflection.
4. Deep, honest relationships.
5. Exposing struggle rather than ignoring it.
6. Honest, often painful, feedback.
7. Reading.
8. Prayer.
9. Humility.
10. Mentors. Every person of profound influence stands on the shoulders of others.

Every successful leader eventually understands the battle is within.

Others control you when you don’t.

The issue is you not them.

Changing the world:

Solve great problems by bringing yourself to challenges, obstacles, and frustrations.

Identity determines impact.

Who you are transcends what you do. But, before you bring yourself, you must know and nurture yourself; otherwise you’re an empty cup.

How can leaders strengthen their inner person in ways that enhance leadership?

Join me on March 27 for a free conference call with a leader who helps leaders develop personal leadership models.

How to Inspire Others

Drag others down and you’ll go down with them. The magnitude of your impact is determined by your ability to ignite passion in others.

You make a difference by
inspiring others to make a difference.

Those you inspire pull you forward. They don’t require pushing.

Five qualities of inspirational leaders:

Jeremy Kingsley, author of, “Inspired People Produce Results,” says inspirational leaders are:

1. Dedicated.
2. Loyal.
3. Visionary.
4. Planners.
5. Confident.

5 Questions:

Jeremy offers a series of questions to assess your inspiration quotient:

1. Do you absolutely believe in what your organization does and stands for?
2. Do you have a plan for tomorrow?
3. Do you enjoy planning your strategy?
4. Are you optimistic?
5. Do you motivate others easily?

I believe…

Leadership value is determined by the ability to inspire.

Don’t tell me what you can do. Tell me what you can inspire others to do.

Four surprising qualities of inspirational leaders:

1. Passion balanced with compassion. The pursuit of personal gain and glory doesn’t inspire, it threatens. Inspiration occurs when others believe you genuinely put them before yourself.
2. Strengths and frailties. The frailties you’re working through inspire others to work through theirs. Avoid whining. Focus on hope, progress, and benefit.
3. Belief. “The people who influence you are the people who believe in you,” Henry Drummond.
4. Optimism. Rise above the failures of others by believing in their future. Those who believe in others inspire others.

Lousy leaders push down. Successful leaders lift up.

“Keep away from those who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you believe that you too can become great,” Mark Twain.

Bonus:

I asked Jeremy how leaders inspire themselves. He talked about finding mentors. In his own words (2:35): 

Who has inspired you? How?

How do you inspire others?

What Leaders Get All Wrong About Leadership

I did leadership all wrong for years. I held leadership positions without understanding effective leadership practices. My early education was in theology. Tragically, I had no training in leadership.

My leadership journey includes powerful, sometimes painful, shifts in attitudes and practice.

The first shift:

Leaders hold spotlights rather than stand in them.

I thought leaders were stars. But, leaders aren’t actors on center stage. They play supporting roles and work backstage. Most importantly, leaders are the audience.

Too many leaders need the spot light, too few give it.

Shakespeare said, “All the world’s a stage.” Think of an organization as a stage. Team members and employees are actors. Leaders are the audience.

Everyone needs an audience.

Actors crave audience approval. Audiences praise effort, achievement, and excellence. Cheers and whistles make work worthwhile.

Actors fear audience disapproval. Boos and jeers sting.

The power of respect is the power to build up others.
The more respect you earn the more your approval matters.

An audience helps people see themselves. A few summers ago my wife and I had a rare exchange of words. We were yelling over something that we’ve long forgotten. In the process it dawned on us that our windows were opened and the neighbors could hear. Oooops!

In a flash we saw ourselves through the eyes of others. We still laugh at how foolish we must have sounded to our “audience” and how quickly we quieted our volume.

Respected leaders help others see themselves.

Actors whisper, “Did you see so-n-so is here tonight?” when dignitaries sit in the audience.

Actors feel important when someone important is watching.

In my youth, I thought leaders stood on center stage. Now I know leaders are the audience.

***

Read the growing list of leadership shifts on the Leadership Freak Facebook Page.

How can respected leaders fully embrace and express the power of being an audience?

What are the limits of the audience metaphor?

How to Become a Culture Building Leader

Lazy leaders blame. Arrogant leaders push down. Fearful leaders push away.

Facebook contributors said, “The worst leaders ______:”

1. Talk too much and think too little.
2. Believe collaboration shows weakness.
3. Fear risk.
4. Need power.
5. Never acknowledge weakness.
6. More (posted on 3/4/13)…

All leaders build organizational culture, worst included.

Negative impact:

Lousy leaders build lousy organizational culture. Anyone suggesting leadership is overrated hasn’t worked with lousy leaders. However…

Power to destroy suggests power to create.

Those who tear down have power to build up.

Culture building leaders:

Dr. Vik (Doc) explains the type of leaders who build empowering organizational cultures in, “The Culture Secret.” Leaders who empower:

1. Connect rather than withdraw. “Leaders can’t lead anything from the office.”
2. Build “chains of empowerment” not “chains of command.”
3. Concentrate on the success of others.
4. Exercise “power with,” not “power over.”
5. Tell people what needs to be done not what to do.
6. Focus on employee strengths.
7. Express gratitude.
8. Make people feel they matter.
9. Emphasize positives even when dealing with negatives.
10. Use “we,” “ours,” and, “us.”
11. Show interest.
12. Know names.

Becoming a culture builder:

1. Believe you matter in the face of obstacles, opposition, and negativity.
2. Choose creation over destruction.
3. Courageously dream and consistently talk about what could be.
4. Find and exploit points of alignment. Don’t push against, pull with.
5. Keep smiling.

I’m recommending, “The Culture Secret,” for any leaders looking to ramp up their culture building skills and activities.

Connect with Doc:

Linkedin

What behaviors do culture building leaders exhibit?

What activities build empowering cultures?

Mastering Leadership Relationships

People look to leaders when things aren’t working.

Not working:

In less than three years, nearly 300 of Campbell Soup Company’s 350 global leaders had either left on their own or were asked to leave. What kind of CEO leads a blood-bath like that?

You might picture a Genghis Khan character with blood dripping from his sword. But Doug Conant – quiet introvert – is the CEO who turned Campbell Soup Company around.

Working:

During one of our conversations, Doug told me, “Successful leaders are tough on issues and tender with people.” Every leader defaults to one.

“If you are out of balance, the solution is not to lower the volume where you are strong but to dial up in the area where you are less comfortable or feel less capable.” Doug Conant in “TouchPoints.”

Leaders who master the tension between tough and tender, master leadership relationships.

Both:

Doug explains that tough leaders:

1. Keep things simple.
2. Tackle issues head on.
3. Speak directly.
4. Move quickly.
5. Act decisively.

“… You may cross the line between not tolerating poor performance … and not tolerating mistakes…”

Tender leaders:

1. Place people first.
2. Set direction.
3. Provide few guidelines.
4. Leverage talent.
5. Get out of the way.

“… You may forget that it is more important to be trusted (which sometimes involves making tough calls) than to be liked.

Practice:

Doug’s TouchPoint leadership model is both tough and tender. Every interaction provides opportunity to move agendas forward through relational contact. Interruptions aren’t frustrations. Doug believes, “The action is the interaction.”

A favorite Conant quote:

“You don’t have to go all the way to bright – just make it better today.”

Opportunity:

Leadership Freak readers have the unique opportunity to spend time on the phone with Doug Conant. Learn more and register for this FREE opportunity. Space is limited.

How can leaders navigate tensions between tough and tender?

The Real Secrets to Creating Ownership

Image source by George Hodan

No one cares like you when you own it. But, the more you own the less they own.

No one wants to own what you own too.

Individuals take ownership, you can’t give it. When someone gives you something you don’t want, you protest. “No thanks.” If it’s forced on you, you take possession but not ownership.

Possession is assigned; ownership is taken.

Ownership factors:

1. Owners desire what they own. I worked and saved for the first bike I bought as a kid. I wanted that bike. Ownership is about desire not assignment.
2. Control expresses ownership; those who own, control. If you control everything, they own nothing, regardless of roles or assignments.
3. Owners sit at the table. If direct reports never attend meetings, you still own what they only possess.
4. Owners speak for themselves. Bosses who report for you are the real owners. Bosses who won’t let you speak usually take credit in the end because they owned it all the time.
5. Reward reflects ownership. The people receiving recognition and reward are real owners. Who gets the pat on the back?

Inspiring ownership:

Ownership is about them, first. Individual desire motivates ownership. You own what you want.

1. What personal or career goals pull them forward?
2. What aptitudes and passions drive them?
3. Where do they best align organizational mission and vision? Alignment is found never forced.
4. What organizational future most fuels their fire?
5. What makes them proud?
6. Why are they still with the organization?

Focus more on people and less on projects to inspire ownership. Are you spending most of your time explaining projects and little time understanding people? You’re still the owner.

What blocks ownership?

How are you creating ownership?

Finding Real Leadership Power

Humility is real power, arrogance façade.

15 Ways to be an arrogant leader:

1. Rush. “Important” people don’t have enough time.
2. Look serious. The more important you are the more serious you look.
3. Detach. “Arrogance comes from detachment.” Henry Mintzberg.
4. Take calls or text during meetings. Now we know you’re important. Ooooo!
5. Know. Act like you know when you don’t. Arrogance makes learning difficult.
6. Delegate dirty work.
7. Isolate. Be too good for the “little” people.
8. Insulate. Create protective environments.
9. Interrupt.
10. Blow up. Anger and arrogance are relatives.
11. Gossip.
12. Tell don’t ask.
13. Speak don’t listen.
14. Complain and blame rather than solve and support.
15. Surround yourself with groveling yes-men.

Power:

Humility requires more confidence than arrogance. Fear makes us pretend we know, when we don’t, for example.

Humility is found, expressed, and nurtured in connecting. Arrogance pushes off; humility invites in. Withdrawal suggests independence; connecting expresses interdependence.

Humility builds trust. Trust fuels leadership. But you can’t trust arrogant people. They reject what’s right for what makes them look good, when necessary.

How to be a powerful humble leader:

1. Stand your ground where values are concerned. Humble leaders submit to noble values.
2. Realize you aren’t your title.
3. Demand excellence from yourself, first.
4. Call for, and enable excellence. (Emphasis on enable.)
5. Don’t believe your own press. People aren’t telling you the full truth.
6. Serve.
7. Sit at the side not the head.
8. Brag about others. Fools make others feel they don’t matter.
9. Say thanks. Gratitude softens arrogance.
10. Invite feedback.
11. Ask as well as tell. Curiosity reflects humility. Warning: questions may be control-tools. I confess that I use questions to control conversations and divert attention from myself.
12. Do the opposite of the arrogant leader list.

Bonus:

Teamwork requires humility. Dennis Perkins wrote: “Into the Storm: Lessons in Teamwork from the Treacherous Sydney to Hobart Ocean Race.” He became a crew member on one of the racing boats. During our conversations, he shared lessons in humility. (6 min. 30 sec.)

How do arrogant leaders behave?

How can leaders develop and/or express humility?