From Tantrums to Leadership

Image source by by Piotr Siedlecki

Weak, fearful leaders are like unrully two year olds. They create messes and throw tantrums. Undeveloped, incompetent leaders are “takers” who believe followers exist to serve them

Weak leaders take:

1. Control. All micro-managers are fearful.
2. Power. Weak leaders fill their need for power by dis-empowering others.
3. Energy. Immature leaders suck energy rather than give it.

Danger:

Six foot, two hundred pound, two year olds are dangerous, destructive, and deadly. Imagine a full grown adult kicking and screaming like an angry toddler. Scary!

Your inner two year old:

When you’re stressed, insecure or exhausted, you’re inner two year old screams to get out. He cries, “Pay attention to me.” Wise leaders listen to their needy, selfish, inner two year old.

Never ignore a screaming two year old.

Screaming two year olds have unmet needs. It’s not pretty but scream gets the job done.

Feeding:

Unfed two year olds get grumpy. Nurture the “little person” inside before the little brat destroys you and others. Never ignore an agitated inner two year old. 

Ignored needs grow.

Constant giving creates empty cups. Take care of you so you can take care of others.

Rockabye baby:

1. Turn off electronic devices.
2. Let go of something.
3. Share inner secrets with someone you trust.
4. Walk with a friend.
5. Hold hands. Better yet, hug.
6. Read a book for pleasure.
7. Do what you want to do.
8. Say, “No.”
9. Write an “I’m thankful for _____.” list.
10. Take a nap.
11. Pray.
12. Complete several small tasks.

Exhausted leaders are fearful leaders. Vince Lombardi said, “Fatigue makes cowards of us all.” Re-energize you in order to energize them.

Recharge before you become totally dischared.

You aren’t the energizer bunny.

When do you know it’s time to re-charge?

How do you re-charge your batteries?

 

Success is Harder than Failure

This post began as an email. It’s my response to a person who shared their mixed feelings regarding unexpected success and opportunity.

***

I’ve been thinking about our conversation regarding the problem of success and opportunity.

Those who succeed in unexpected ways know that success is harder than failure. We are excited with opportunities but they also feel uncomfortable, like new shoes. We should feel more gratitude and less anxiety.

When views were in the hundreds, writing Leadership Freak was easier. Today, with views in the millions, writing Leadership Freak feels a bit like new shoes. Additionally, opportunities come my way that exceed my expectations.

Yesterday, the leader of a 2 billion dollar government agency shook my hand and said, “I’m a huge fan.” It felt great. I also felt like hiding under the table.

Trust:

Someone told me, when Leadership Freak started taking off, “Trust Yourself.” This morning, I share that with you. Trust yourself.

Know:

Don’t get lost in opportunites. Know yourself. Take time to reflect on who you are. Let who you are guide what you do.

Bring:

Bring yourself to challenges and opportunities. Don’t bring someone else. Just bring you. If you want stress, try being someone else.

Story:

The classic story of David and Goliath has important lessons for leaders who face challenges and opportunities. (I don’t care if you think the story is fiction or fact. The lessons relate.)

David, a young shepherd, saw the challenge, Goliath. Those around him tried to tell him how to face the challenge.

They said, “Put on armor; use this sword.” They wanted him to do it their way, even though they were unwilling to face the challenge themselves.

Ultimately David faced the challenge his way, with a sling and a stone. He brought himself.

Trust Yourself

Bring Yourself

Be Yourself 

I’m a man of faith so my personal lists begins, Trust God. Regardless of your faith, my suggests remain.

How can leaders face the challenges of unexpected success and opportunity?

Last chance to register:

Another way to face opportunities is develop yourself. Today’s best FREE leadership development opportunity is a LIVE conference call at 1:00 p.m. EST with the former CEO of Campbell Soup Co.

Don’t miss it!

Public Disclosure of Private Struggle

Struggle begins with your first gasp for breath and ends with your last. Leaders struggle.

Wise leaders expose struggle wisely.

Leaders struggle with:

1. Loneliness.
2. Humility.
3. Certainty.
4. Image.
5. Patience.
6. Serving and self-interest.
7. Authenticity and honesty.
8. Purpose and meaning.
9. Balance.
10. Decisions.
11. Priorities.
12. Pushing performance or supporting progress.

(That was one of the easiest lists I ever wrote.)

Go further by learning the art of the struggle rather than ignoring it.

Hiding struggle intensifies struggle.

I talked with the author of, “Leadership and the Art of the Struggle,” about:

Public vs. private disclosure.

Always:

Snyder said, “Always consider the group’s reaction to publicly disclosing struggle.”

Publicly disclose what serves, nothing more. Keep self-serving, self-affirming disclosure private. Public disclosure must enhance:

1. Individual relationships.
2. Organizational objectives.
3. Leadership effectiveness.
4. Conflict resolution.
5. Leadership development.

If this sounds inauthentic, too bad. Leadership positions aren’t for self-validation.

Outsider:

“Everyone needs someone they can be completely honest with.” Steven Snyder

Outside eyes guide public disclosure. Practice public disclosure privately.

Share your struggle with a mentor or coach and ask for their response. Their eyes expose anger or guilt, expand perspective, and anticipate reactions.

Progress:

Every disclosure of struggle must include illustrations of progress. Explain how you’re growing. Snyder said, “Don’t share struggles that are raw.” Share fresh struggle privately.

Growth:

Snyder said, “Sharing the struggle is the beginning of leadership growth.”

Leaders don’t grow until they disclose either privately or publicly.

Successful disclosure facilitates their growth, too. I often share my struggle where growth and development are the focus. Your struggle gives others permission and courage to grow.

Purchase: “Leadership and the Art of the Struggle: How Great Leaders Grow through Challenge and Adversity.”

Free chapter.

What does leadership struggle look like, from your point of view?

How can public disclosure go wrong or right?

Leading a Team for the First Time

Leading a team for the first time is exhilarating and stressful. If you aren’t nervous, you’re oblivious.

Confidence:

Real confidence is rooted in your ability to try, learn, persist, work hard, and deliver results. That’s what got you here. Believe it.

Fairy-tale confidence is saying its so, when it isn’t so, in order to make it so. “I’m confident, I can do this,” for example. You don’t need to pump yourself up. Others believe in you; believe in yourself.

Shift:

The challenge of leading a team for the fist time is giving assignments, not taking them.

Taking on challenges got you here;
giving them takes you there. 

Helpful honesty:

I always asked new instructors if they planned to tell their first class it was their first time. It was my way of discussing helpful honesty.

Indulgent honesty focuses on what’s best for you. Helpful honesty focuses on what’s best for them.

Leaders ultimately focus on what’s best for others.

Say you’re nervous but explain your preparation and enthusiasm, as well. You make me nervous if all you say is you’re nervous.

Helpful honesty always ends with optimism.

Bonus tip: Laugh at mistakes and move forward. “Boy I really screwed up,” is better than pretending you didn’t. Everyone knows anyway.

Extremes:

First time performers often
judge themselves too harshly.

Offset tendencies toward harshness or leniency with feedback from others. Invite insightful teammates and experienced leaders to speak into your performance.

Upward:

The path upward is working with and through others. Doing it yourself hobbles and eventually crushes. Working in isolation misses the point. Team leaders take jobs from the boss and give them to others. Master this and you’ll go far.

What are the essential skills for first time team leaders?

What did you learn the first time you led a team?

10 Ways to Spot Authentic Leaders

Talk isn’t always cheap. Words change lives and organizations. However, when it comes to authenticity, talk is nearly meaningless.

Authenticity, like trust, feedback, and empowerment are words tossed around in leadership circles likes nuts at a squirrel buffet.

Words apart from practice make you
feel you know when you don’t.

Using the term “authentic” doesn’t make you authentic any more than sleeping in a garage makes you a car.

10 practices of authenticity:

I’ve interviewed scores of high profile leaders. Authenticity appears quickly. Authentic leaders:

1. Talk comfortably about failure.
2. Say, “I hadn’t thought of that.”
3. Speak tough truths comfortably.
4. Share what they are learning. Fakers pretend they already knew.
5. Ask “dumb” questions.
6. Explore-with rather than conclude-for.
7. Invite feedback. You’d be amazed how many leaders fear feedback, even refuse it.
8. Honor others, profusely. Phony leaders need honor. Authentic leaders give it.
9. Know and acknowledge frailties and weaknesses. Fakers are omniscient and omni-compitent.
10. Empathize without compromise.

Bonus: Adapt, change, and grow. Phonies don’t grow they spiral inward like black-holes.

You change before you help others change.

The power of authenticity is influence rather than coercion. Fakers rely on position, authority, and manipulation. Authentic leaders influence through the power of their person.

Benefit:

Authenticity lowers stress; faking increases stress.

For the record, most leaders I interview practice authenticity. It’s refreshing and encouraging. Authenticity fills words with authority and power, without it, words are cheap.

How do you spot authenticity?

How does authenticity develop in a person?

The Five Powers of Permission

Old styles of leadership are about giving permission to supplicants. Followers seek permission. It’s an “I/you” rather than “we” dynamic. Leaders have power while followers ask.

I/you leadership is disengaging and disempowering.

Successful leaders do more than give permission, they get it. Permission answers the question, “Is it ok with you if we talk about something?”

Five Powers of Permission:

1.  “May I …” builds trust.
2. “Would it be ok if …” shares power.
3. “Do you mind if …” equalizes social status.
4. “Could we discuss…” prevents stagnation. Permission moves the agenda forward when topics are awkward.
5. “Is it ok with you, if…” engages.

Permission opens doors, protects relationships, and prevents stagnation.

Ask permission to:

1. Bring up uncomfortable topics. Set a date for the conversation.
2. Explore progress.
3. Correct. “May I …”
4. Challenge.
5. Give feedback.
6. Say what you see. “Is it ok if I share something I see …”

Four responses to NO:

When permission isn’t granted? Ask:

1. How business-critical is the topic?
2. Is there a deeper issue to address?
3. Can you let it go?
4. Must you address it, regardless?

When topics are mission critical, say, “We need to talk about this soon.”

Just a courtesy:

Isn’t asking permission just social courtesy? Yes, sometimes it is. But, social courtesies smooth and protect. Perhaps you prefer to be discourteous and abrasive?

Four reasons leaders don’t ask permission:

1. Arrogance. It’s too humbling to ask and too easy to tell.
2. Fear of seeming weak.
3. Fear of losing power.
4. Authoritarian rather than relational leadership styles.

What does permission-leadership look like in your world?

What are the pros and cons of permission-leadership?

Fearful Leaders are Followers

Image source

Every morning I put my fingers on the keyboard not knowing what will come out. An hour or two later, I post 300 word or less on this blog. (Technically its fewer not less.)

Writing is thinking and often I think differently when the hour’s over. Yesterday it happened again when I typed, “Fearful leaders are followers.” I hadn’t planned it. But, there it was in all its discomfort. It’s been on my mind since.

Fearful leaders follow because they:

1. Focus on protecting positions.
2. Let others take risks so they aren’t held responsible.
3. Love the security of the status quo. What is satisfies. What could be isn’t worth it.

Certainty:

Fearful leaders need too much certainty.

Josh Linkner, in “Disciplined Dreaming,” suggests entrepreneurial leaders pull the trigger with 70% certainty. Anything higher isn’t entrepreneurial.

Traditional leaders pull the trigger at 80% certainty. Anything higher is stagnation.

The uncomfortable 20%

What about the 20% uncertainty factor? Answer fear with trust. Believe in people. Let them rise to the challenge.

Once decisions are made, focus on supporting people, forget the decisions.

Fear and love:

Fear works for the short-term but exhausts in the end. Love works for the long-term. Love your organization, its mission, and its people. Build them up. Trust them. Love energizes.

Winners risk failure. Losers can’t fail. Furthermore, willingness to fail, frees. Protection mode hobbles you and those around you.

Leaders controlled by fear may have positions but they aren’t leading.

Yesterday’s post: “Igniting Change from the Middle.”

For the passionate middle: “Lead your Boss,” by John Baldoni.

Fill in the blank, “Fearful leaders _______.”

How can leaders overcome fear?

The 5 Positive Powers of Self-Doubt

Image source

If you grapple with self-doubt, keep reading. If you don’t grapple with it, you’re dangerous.

Experts sing, “Believe in yourself,” However, unquestioned self-belief produces self-serving leaders who won’t adapt.

Tom Petty captures the experience of many in, “Saving Grace,” when he sings, “You’re confident but not really sure.”

Confident but not sure is better than blind belief.

Self-doubt has its benefits. Robert Sutton in, Good Boss Bad Boss, says, “The best bosses dance on the edge of overconfidence, but a healthy dose of self-doubt and humility saves them from turning arrogant and pigheaded. Bosses who fail to strike this balance are incompetent, dangerous to follow, and downright demeaning.”

Move forward in spite of doubt.
Worry if you’re not worried.

Believe in yourself enough to bring self-doubt with you into decisions and commitments. “The relationship between commitment and doubt is by no means an antagonistic one. Commitment is healthiest when it’s not without doubt but in spite of doubt,” Rollo May.

Fear of making mistakes is healthy when it raises intensity, motivates preparation, and inspires vigilance. It’s unhealthy when it paralyzes you.

Press into doubt with deadlines.
An effective deadline is a mini-crisis.

Give yourself reasonable time to explore options and then pull the trigger. “When in doubt, have a man come through the door with a gun in his hand,” Raymond Chandler.

Focus more on the process – what’s next – and less on final outcomes.

The 5 positive powers of healthy self-doubt:

1. Motivates preparation. Useful self-doubt doesn’t paralyze it motivates.
2. Humbles the heart.
3. Opens the mind.
4. Invites others in.
5. Builds confidence in others. You’re trustworthy if challenges give you pause.

Why are those who sing the song of self-belief so popular? Because everyone has self-doubt. Don’t lose it, use it.

How can leaders use self-doubt as a tool rather than an obstacle to their leadership?

When has self-doubt gone too far?

8 Powerful Ways to Inspire Courage in Others

The past is the future, apart from courage and perseverance. Success is persistently taking the next step. Taking the next step takes courage.

“You will never do anything in this world without courage” Aristotle

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“In the realm of ideas everything depends on enthusiasm… in the real world all rests on perseverance.” Goethe

***

The real power of courage and perseverance is they inspire courage and perseverance.

Inspiring courage:

1. Explain that courage and fear always dwell together. Courage doesn’t eliminate fear, it answers it. Acknowledge the fears of others.
2. Elevate courage by acknowledging your own fears. An occasional acknowledgement of your fear opens a window on your courage. Danger, too much acknowledgment makes others fearful.
3. Focus fear effectively. “If people are more afraid of the boss than they are of the competition, the competition is certain to win.” Joe Tye.
4. Give fear a name and it becomes just a problem; it’s easier to solve problems than it is to conquer fear. Joe Tye.
5. Prepare for what you fear. Hurricane Sandy is on it’s way to our home in Central Pennsylvania. We’ve been preparing. I purchased gasoline and tested our generator, for example. Courage transforms fear into preparation.
6. Create points of certainty. “People are not afraid of change, they are afraid of uncertainty…” Joe Tye. During change, for example, highlight things that aren’t changing.
7. Focus on purpose. Why must you move forward? Facing uncertainty without purpose makes chickens of us all.
8. “Lighten up and laugh – it is physiologically impossible to be frightened when you are laughing.” Joe Tye.

This post is a collaboration with my friend Joe Tye. Learn how to develop Perseverance and Courage in his webinar on October 31. More information.

Added resource: 1.5 minutes of my interview with Joe Tye: Changing Your Metaphors.

How do you face your fears?

How do you inspire courage in others?

10 Essentials for Dynamic Candor

Inept leaders block uncomfortable topics from the discussion. It’s pathetic. Weak, fearful leaders need agreement to confirmation their leadership.

On the other hand, I recently spent time with five members of an executive team who displayed the power of candor. They brought themselves and their perspective to the discussion. In some organizations it would have been dangerous. I found it invigorating.

Weak executives say what their CEO expects them to say.

Power:

Candor used well ignites useful stress and productive conflict.

Candor enables excellence by propelling tough issues into leadership conversations. Apart from candor, organizations enjoy imagined unity based on conspiracies of silence. “I won’t tell if you won’t.”

Lack of candor is the path to mediocrity and eventual crisis.

Candor, however, isn’t an answer on its own.

Danger:

The context of candor is tough issues, short-comings, failures, and the pursuit of excellence. Candor on its own creates negative, oppressive, dark environments.

10 Behaviors effective candor requires:

1. Willingness to adapt or change. If you can’t say, “I was wrong,” candor becomes adversity.
2. Gossip free secrecy. Candor ends when you publicly share private disagreements.
3. Respect. Withholding candor is manipulative disrespect. It suggests that others believe you can’t handle or don’t want the truth.
4. Courtesy. If anger fuels your candor, keep quiet until anger abates.
5. Passion with emotional steadiness.
6. Trust that others won’t use your words against you. Lack of candor expresses lack of trust. Candor creates vulnerability. Candor says, “I trust you enough to speak the hard truth.”
7. Apologies.
8. Taking responsibility.
9. Staying focused on issues, outcomes, processes, and procedures.
10. Affirmation.

Candor apart from affirmation builds negative relationships.

Bonus: Everyone rows together once decisions are made.

How have you seen candor go wrong?

What makes candor work?