If You Aren’t Dumb You’re Stupid

Fearful leaders keep people in their place with fear.

Fear leads with fear.

On the other hand, confident leaders build self-confident followers.

Build-up others – ask for advice.

Most leaders say they believe in hiring people smarter than they are. Well, if they’re so smart, why aren’t you seeking their advice?

Hiring people that is smarter than you is
means you is dumber than they is.

If they’re smarter than you, tap their expertise. What do you call someone who doesn’t listen to smart people?

Who’s the smartest:

Weak, arrogant, know-it-all leaders need to be the smartest, they can’t seek advice.

Leaders who don’t seek advice fear looking dumb or believe they already know. In both cases, it’s arrogance not intelligence.

Arrogance pushes others down, something wise leaders avoid.

It’s not how smart you are
but how smart you can help them become.

Make others powerful by making them advisers. Stop seeing yourself as the adviser, receive advice instead. Ask:

1. What options do we have?
2. How would you handle this?
3. What dangers are we facing?
4. What’s the next step?
5. What happens if we fail?
6. Who is essential for success?
7. What relationships fuel forward movment?

Leaders who don’t have all the answers
are smarter than those who do.

Benefits:

The up-side of asking for advice:

1. Humility – yours
2. Elevation – theirs.
3. Options and ideas.
4. Engagement.
5. Connection.
6. Respect.
7. Loyalty.

Dumb or stupid:

You, like everyone else on the team, excel in certain areas. Hopefully, your area is leadership. Wise leaders believe answers are found by working with others, seeking advice.

Being dumb makes you smart.

Be the dumbest person in the room, at least in some areas, or you’re stupid. The need to be the smartest person in the room, means people tell you what you want to hear, that’s dumb.

How can leaders build-up others?

What are the dangers of being an advice-seeking leader?

12 Ways to Find Your Confidence

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Lack of confidence is the dirty secret in top leaders. Insecure leaders often cover insecurities with strutting. Cocky is compensation for lack of confidence.

Cocky is phony confidence.

Puffing up, putting down, posturing, excuse making, and negative comparisons express – lack of confidence – cockiness.

The need to feel superior means you aren’t.

Confidence vs. Cocky

1. Invites in – Pushes away.
2. Inspires – Insults.
3. Relaxed – Stressed.
4. One of – One above.
5. Lifts up – Pushes down.
6. Accepts – Rejects.
7. Releases – Controls.
8. Belonging – Alone.
9. Joy – Fear.
10. Transparent – Phony.

See: The difference between arrogance and confidence is _______, on Facebook. (Great insights from readers)

Reason:

Relational impact is the reason you care about cockiness.

Effective leaders connect. Cocky leaders disconnect, close doors, and shut out.

Confident leaders explore, learn, develop,
and grow in the context of community.

Finding confidence:

1. Reflect on and embrace your beliefs.
2. Reject cocky behaviors. When you feel like pushing others away, pull in, for example.
3. Focus on giving more than getting.
4. Accept your strengths and weaknesses.
5. Develop experience.
6. Adopt a learners attitude.
7. Admit mistakes without excuse and commit to improve.
8. Hold your ground, kindly.
9. Separate performance from intrinsic value.
10. Smile.
11. Plan. Develop first responses to unanticipated questions. Say, “I’m not sure of the answer, let me get back to you,” for example.
12. Share insecurities with friends. Bringing insecurities into the light often weakens them.

Bonus article: “10 Powerful Strategies to Build Your Confidence“

How can leaders find confidence?

Twelve Ways to Spot Fools

Spotting and dealing with fools challenges leaders.

Foolishness has nothing to do with intelligence or talent. Smart, gifted people are prime candidates for foolishness.

Twelve ways to spot fools:

1. Believe they are right.
2. Hate accountability and practical strategies.
3. Love blaming and reject responsibility.
4. Pursue personal ease rather than challenge.
5. Expect you to adapt to them.
6. Reject instruction.
7. Can’t see their foolishness.
8. Express frustrations quickly and openly.
9. Gossip and cut down privately while complimenting publicly.
10. Act confidently.
11. Enjoy talking.
12. Despise listening.

Bonus: Fools don’t seek help. The wise love and seek wisdom. Fools seek their own way because others are wrong and they are right.

Dealing with fools:

Stop talking:

Fools reject responsibility. Stop talking, once you realize you’re dealing with a fool. Talking doesn’t help. They love talking and are usually good at it. Talking drags you into the fool’s world.

Set limits:

Say, “You haven’t delivered agreed upon results. When I bring it up, all I hear are excuses and blaming. You don’t take responsibility. I’m giving this project to Mary.”

They’ll be angry and blame you, but don’t back down. You become the problem when you hold their feet to the fire. Fools despise you when you correct them. They feel you don’t understand.

Set limits for their good and the organization’s. Talking won’t help; limits might.

Establish consequences:

1. Reassignments.
2. Remove responsibilities.
3. Demotions.
4. Unpaid leave.
5. Termination.

Fools undermine your leadership, destroy morale, and reject feedback. Deal quickly and firmly with fools, regardless of their talent.

Not fools:

Work with people who receive instruction and adapt behaviors. Express patience. Help them succeed. But, those who reject instruction, limits, and consequences are fools, reject them.

How do you deal with foolishness in yourself?

How can leaders deal with fools?

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?

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?

Popping the Self-Delusion Bubble

I woke up this morning disturbed at the subtlety of self-delusion. The trouble with delusion is illusion.

What do you call someone who believes they’re:

1. Supportive but demanding, instead.
2. Humble but in reality, arrogant.
3. Listening when they’re talking.
4. Able to do everything “right” while others fall short.
5. Informed when they don’t know.

You call them deluded leaders.

Deluded leaders falsely believe intentions automatically translate into behaviors. You intend to be supportive so you must be supportive, right?

Deluded leaders believe they’ve mastered the things they tell others to do. Consider the pursuit of excellence, for example. Are you always improving the work of others but doing things the same, yourself?

On excellence

How do you respond to:

1. Suggestions about your behavior?
2. Criticism about the way you handle tough conversations?
3. Improvements suggested by underlings that impact you personally?

Excellence is the gradual result of always striving for better. Can you name one thing you’re striving to improve in your leadership? Can you name three things you’re doing to improve it? Do those under you know and participate? Or, are you deceived by intention.

You pursue excellence for others but not for yourself. The discomfort others feel in telling you the truth says you aren’t approachable. When was the last time you invited someone to speak into your frailties?

Get real

Leaders serve.

You’re not special, better than, or more important. Thinking you are deludes you.

1. Conform to them rather than demanding they conform to you.
2. Focus on them; stop expecting them to focus on you.
3. Their success is your success.
4. Fuel their passions not yours.
5. Serve them; they don’t serve you.

Leaders who don’t serve rely on authority and coercion. They pressure rather than enable. Saying and telling aren’t serving.

I don’t know how you feel. But, I feel better. I needed that reminder and I bet you did, too.

How can leaders address the self-delusion issue?

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 Surprising Path to the Future

The real problem with problems is they draw you into the past. Fixing problems is focusing on something that already happened.

The power of leadership is creating something new
not fixing something old.

On the other hand, preventing problems is a problem. Teams never win if defense is all they play. Organizational success is about doing not preventing.

Get real:

Fixing and preventing are necessary components of leadership. Sadly, fixing and preventing dominate organizations because it’s useful, measurable, and necessary.

Trajectory:

Leadership always has trajectory. You move forward or backward but never stay the same.

Standing still is a fantasy for those oblivious to decline.

Additionally, balance is a myth. Effective leaders always tip toward the future.

Positive trajectory:

Anger, fear, frustration, disappointment, even resentment are part of leadership. But the path to the future is paved with gratitude.

Gratitude frees you to create your future.

Gratitude energizes leaders and organizations to release the past and create the future.

“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others,” Cicero.

The opposite:

The opposite of gratitude is arrogance, not ungratefulness. In addition, the companions of arrogance are anger, bitterness, and revenge.

I’ve walked the dingy path of ungratefulness that springs from arrogance. It’s a black-hole dragging you inward, downward, and backward.

Aggressive leadership:

Express gratitude aggressively. Benigni says, “It’s a sign of mediocrity when you demonstrate gratitude with moderation.”

What if you don’t feel grateful?

1. Consider gratefulness a behavior more than a feeling.
2. Look at life through the eyes of those contributing to the cause. Think of what they are contributing not what you wish they had contributed.
3. Don’t worry, gratefulness fuels excellence it doesn’t block it.
4. ???

Who can you thank, today?

How can leaders remain focused on the future in a world where they must deal with past mistakes and present urgencies?

6 Ways Successful Leaders Think

Only fools plan to fail. Leaders always plan to succeed.

Working on plans is working to anticipate
and nullify reasons for failure.

But, failure happens in spite of plans. There’s more to success than hard work.

The uncomfortable truth is sincere, smart,
hardworking people fail all the time.

Success demands hard work and right thinking.

Learning from failure helps you think right.

Lessons from failure:

Alan Wurtzel, former CEO of Circuit City, spent three years exploring the rise and fall of his company. He offers twelve habits of mind – ways of thinking – as a result. Read them in his new book, “Good to Great to Gone.”

Wurtzel writes: “Habits of Mind are not situation-specific, but ways of thinking about one’s organization in relation to the world in which it exists.” He brings inward thinking together with outward thinking. One without the other is unbalanced foolishness.

Right thinking makes hard work effective.

6 Habits of Mind:

1. Be Humble; Run Scared. Constantly doubt your understanding of things. Say, “I may not be right.”
2. Curiosity Sustains the Cat: Answers end curiosity. Keep curiosity alive by saying, “That’s a great answer are there other options?”
3. Confront the Brutal Facts: If you don’t confront the brutal facts now, they’ll confront you later.
4. Boldly Follow Through: Big ideas require bold leadership and attract loyal followers.
5. Mind the Culture: Create a caring and ethical culture where employees can make mistakes without fear of adverse consequences.
6. Encourage Debate: Encourage and learn from dissent.

There are six more Habits of Mind listed in Wurtzel’s book, “Good to Great to Gone.” Each chapter ends with habits of mind that apply to the rise or fall of Circuit City.

I’m thankful for the conversation I had with Alan and recommend his book.

Which of these habits of mind are your favorites? Why?

What other habits of mind help leaders and organizations succeed?

Mintzberg Rejects Macro-Leadership

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“Macro-leadership is just as bad
as micro-management.” Henry Mintzberg.

During our conversation, Mintzberg explained that, “It’s destructive to separate management from leadership. Leaders need to get their hands dirty.”

No buy in:

Mintzberg believes that leaders focused on setting strategy and vision but who are removed from the front lines eventually develop a vision for the organization so out of touch that the rest of the organization fails to buy in.

Frustrated buy in:

Mintzberg also believes there’s something worse than failure to buy in. There’s the problem of buying into a pie-in-the-sky vision but being incapable of taking any steps toward realization.

More devastating:

Disconnected strategy and vision is one problem with macro-leadership but there’s something more devastating.

“Arrogance comes from detachment.” Henry Mintzberg

When I asked Mintzberg to share the one piece of advice he most loves to share he said one word, “Connect.”

Humility:

Connecting expresses, creates, and nurtures humility. Withdrawal suggests independence; connecting requires interdependence.

Humility is always practice never theory. Talking humility without practicing humility results in arrogance. When Jesus said let the leader among you be as one who serves, he turned leadership on its head and explained the cure for arrogance.

“Humility is common sense… None of us is an expert at everything… Humility is holding power for the good of others.” John Dickson.

Sources of arrogance:

Facebook contributors suggest sources of arrogance include:

1. Fear.
2. Being surrounded by indulgent “yes” people.
3. Being a talker not a doer.
4. Prior success. You think you know how to make it work because it worked before.
5. Not being okay with saying I don’t know.

See more reader contributions on Facebook.

Mintzberg’s latest book: “Managing”

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How do leaders connect?

What prevents leaders from connecting?