Don’t Go with Your Gut

Everyone has an inner voice, intuition, or feelings that something is right or wrong. Your gut could be wrong. Don’t trust it.

Ask the poker player who went all-in and lost. What about the manager who felt great about hiring a job applicant that didn’t work out. Have you ever felt you were driving in the right direction when you were lost?

One of the worst things the gut tells extroverts is keep talking.

Evaluate your gut when:

1. You feel like you’re contributing more than your teammates.
2. Topics are outside your expertise.
3. Assigning blame.
4. You haven’t taken time for self-reflection.

Right:

I talked with Heidi Grant Halvorson, Ph.D., about when to trust our gut. She said, for those who take time to self-reflect, listen to your gut when it comes to values and passions. She emphasized the importance of self-reflection.

Wrong:

“Where our intuitions fail us is actually on the opposite problem, that is, evaluating where we go wrong… In general we are way too hard on ourselves. We tend to think that we are the problem.”

Dr. Halvorson went on to say, “I’m a big advocate for people being much more self-compassionate than we are… The people who are not horribly self-critical are actually more successful… The lack of self-compassion comes from some of these bad intuitions we have about our failures.”

Failures:

You need more input when it comes to evaluating failures. Don’t go with your gut. Get feedback.

Evaluating your gut:

Explore issues that don’t feel right. Don’t assume something’s wrong. Say, “This doesn’t feel right to me. Tell me more.”

When something feels right ask, “Am I missing something? or What could go wrong?”

Dr. Halverson in her own words on intuition (3:57):

Check out Dr. Halverson’s new book: Focus (Highly recommended)

How do you know when to go with your gut?

When Teammates Collide

Forward-focused teammates clash with foot-draggers.  But, foot-draggers aren’t the problem.

My approach to an opportunity is grab it and go. Planning isn’t high on my list. I know it’s important but can’t we plan as we go. “Just do something” is my motto. Build the airplane in the air.

“Just do something people” drive planners crazy. But “just do something” isn’t the problem.

Example:

A planner on my team sent me an e-mail that included, “I don’t want to frustrate you.” I was pushing for a next step. He was explaining why we can’t move forward, at this time.

Every team experiences collisions between team members pushing for the next thing and those reluctant to move forward.

*Heidi Grant Halvorson and E. Tory Higgins explain motivational collisions in their new book, “Focus.” They explain how some tend to promote and others prevent.

Promoters play to win.
Preventers play not to lose.

Preventors prefer to say, “No! to an opportunity, rather than end up in hot water.” Halvorson and Higgins.

Over the years, I’ve seen the weakness of my promoter-focus. I don’t protect gains. Mistakes are no big deal. Planning takes too long. I’m willing to lose what I have – to gain what I don’t.

Promoters tend toward big ideas.
Preventers are great with details.

Motivation:

“For a promotion-focused person, what’s really “bad” is a nongain: a chance not taken, a reward unearned, a failure to advance… But for the prevention-focused, the ultimate “bad” is a loss you failed to stop; a mistake made, a punishment received, a danger you failed to avoid.”

Everyone:

Everyone, according to Halvorson and Higgins, has both motivations and, depending on the context, brings them out. The planner, I mentioned, who didn’t want to frustrate me is a fire-ball-promoter once he sees a path to success, for example.

How might leaders navigate tensions between promoters and preventors?

*Heidi Grant Halvorson and E. Tory Higgins lead the Motivational Science Center at Columbia Business School.

Bonus material: Heidi Grant Halvorson in her own words on characteristics of promotion and prevention focus. (4:17)

Books for Leadership Freaks

Leaders are learners.

When I’m asked for book recommendations, I always ask, “Have you read, “The Leadership Challenge,” by Kouzes and Posner.

New and recommended:

1. The Secret of Teams
2. Culture Secret
3. Focus
4. To Sell is Human
5. Leadership and the Art of the Struggle
6. The Outstanding Organization
7. Boundaries for Leaders

On the shelf and recommended:

1. Full Steam Ahead
2. The Go Giver
3. TouchPoints
4. Leadership is Dead
5. Yes to the Mess
6. Helping
7. Leapfrogging
8. StrengthsFinder 2.0
9. All Hands on Deck
10. StandOut
11. What Got You Here, Won’t Get You There
12. The Radical Leap
13. The War of Art
14. The Question Behind the Question

I’m not in my office so these books are “top of mind” books. When I actually look on the shelf, I’ll kick myself for not remembering more.

What leadership books do you recommend?

How to Break Destructive Patterns

Those who can’t or won’t see patterns are doomed to repeat the past. Ignore patterns and yesterday’s decisions become tomorrow’s destiny.

“Patterns, not problems, will ruin your business.”
Dr. Henry Cloud

Pattern recognition may be the least discussed and most neglected leadership skill. Yet, pattern recognition informs plans, enables innovation, and empowers decision making.

Everyone has experience, wise leaders learn from it.
Learning from experience is the ability
to see and acknowledge patterns.

Constant frustration means you’re in patterns you can’t or won’t see. Blindness to patterns happens when you:

1. Define yourself by results. When I defined myself by results, I ignored the reason for disappointing results and tried faster and harder. Frustration!
2. Need another’s approval to bolster your worth. Think of those who remain in abusive relationships.
3. Misapply experiences from the past. Success in one context doesn’t guarantee success in another. Problems at JC Penny may illustrate this dangerous pattern.

The real problem is the pattern:

In, “Boundaries for Leaders,” Dr. Henry Cloud explains how successful leaders see repeated problems as the problem. “Problems aren’t the issue. Problems are the work.” The problem is repeated problems – patterns.

Breaking patterns:

In yesterday’s conference call, Dr. Cloud explained that breaking patterns often involves creating structure. The board may meet with you every month rather than quarterly, for example.

Secondly, pattern busting often requires bringing in the outside. Hire a coach, find a mentor, visit the competition, or interact with fresh leaders.

Thirdly, instigate vigorous debate. Gather frontline employees and have them explain the reasons your organization is stuck, for example.

“Patterns, when addressed as if they were only a problem to be solved, remain.” Dr. Henry Cloud

Bonus material:

My conversation with Dr. Cloud on the difference between problems and patterns (5:45). 

How can leaders get better at seeing and breaking negative patterns?

Isolated Leadership: Dangers and Solutions

Isolated leaders inevitably run down, grow ineffective, and become irrelevant. Closed systems die slow deaths.

Don’t wait for the energy fairy. She ain’t coming.

What happens when you place a frog in water that’s slowly being heated? They don’t jump out, they die.

The increasing heat of leadership subtly cooks isolated leaders.

Isolation feels safe but it kills.

You’re isolated and running down if you feel:

1. Disconnected.
2. Distrustful.
3. Unsupported.
4. Misunderstood.
5. Constantly guarded.

Warning: Leaders frequently lean toward isolation.

In his new book, “Boundaries for Leaders,” Dr. Henry Cloud says:

“Set boundaries on your tendency to be a ‘closed system,’ and open yourself to outside inputs that bring you energy and guidance.”

Solitude isn’t a leadership strategy.

Open yourself to influence, input, and support from outside your organization. Closed systems inevitably die. Dr. Cloud says the benefits of outside input includes:

1. Insight into new models of leading.
2. Motivation and development.
3. Help overcoming obstacles.
4. Support through valleys.
5. Protection from worst instincts.

“Leaders need outside voices to provide emotional and functional support…” Dr. Cloud.

You need reminders to get out of yourself and the organization you lead. Dr. Cloud suggests:

1. Know your personal kookiness. You aren’t perfectly rational 100% of the time.
2. Get coaching.
3. Join a leadership group.
4. Take courses and attend conferences.
5. Seek and listen to feedback. “To be the best you can be, you must develop a hunger for feedback…”

A note on kooky:

Acknowledging idiosyncrasies frees; hiding them confines.

All leaders have “special” built in over-reactions, biases in perception, and instinctual responses that don’t work. Acknowledging “special qualities” opens and strengthens leadership.

How can leaders overcome the tendency to isolate?

What behaviors help leaders connect?

How to Avoid Failing Successfully

If busy equals success, you’ve arrived. But, the busier you are the easier it is to forget what matters.

Hectic leaders are distracted leaders.

Leaders without focus succeed at what doesn’t matter.

Busy leaders get results but ruin relationships, for example. Achieving results without building relationships is the formula for short-term success and long-term disaster.

Failing successfully:

A person without priorities follows urgencies. A person with priorities pursues significance.

A leader without priorities is a follower.

In order to matter you must stop doing things that don’t matter. But there’s much more.

Boundaries:

Move beyond what you won’t do by establishing positive boundaries.

Dr. Henry Cloud, author of, “Boundaries for Leaders,” said, “Boundaries are made up of two essential things: what you create and what you allow.” Dr. Cloud explains that, among other things, boundaries enable focus.

Leaders without boundaries are leaders without focus.

Benefit:

Dr. Cloud explains that focus enables and enhances performances, both yours and theirs.

Enhance performance by clarifying focus.

Ask people in your organization, “What’s our focus?” How many answers will you get? It’s likely many have personal answers. That’s a hectic organization.

Clarification:

Dr. Cloud tells the story of a leader who has brief daily leadership huddles with his team to:

1. Celebrate yesterday’s victories.
2. Share helpful information. What new market information have you learned, for example?
3. Identify a present challenge. How can we solve this challenge?

The successful leader Dr. Cloud describes creates focus every day.

How can leaders create boundaries that clarify focus?

***

Join me for one of two Live – Complimentary – Conference call with Dr. Henry Cloud, author of, “Boundaries for Leaders: Results, Relationships, and Being Ridiculously in Charge.”

Wednesday, April 10
11:30 a.m. Eastern/8:30 a.m. Pacific
LINK: https://leadershipfreak.webex.com/leadershipfreak/onstage/g.php?t=a&d=299060725

Thursday, April 11
1:00 p.m. Eastern/10:00 a.m. Pacific
LINK: https://leadershipfreak.webex.com/leadershipfreak/onstage/g.php?t=a&d=298123582

PLEASE NOTE: The registration password is: LDRFRK 
Maximum number of registrants per call: 1,000

How to Become a Future-Maker

Make the future or it makes you. Stop reacting; start creating.

Urgency dominates where plans lack.

Yesterday’s future arrived today. Successful leaders plan. Planners make the future.

Planners live like tomorrow is today.

If you knew financial decline was in your future would you save money today?

“Planning is about preparing for the future, not predicting it.” Bill McBean

Planners see patterns.

Every spring the same thing happens in Pennsylvania. The whole State gets grumpy because we’re fed up with winter. Life is harder; tension easier. Organizational leaders should anticipate more conflict and stress.

If “grumpy” happens every spring it’s a pattern. Don’t react, plan.

Planners gather facts.

“Build factual foundations for decision making. For example:

1. What happened in the Market today?
2. What are the historical trends?
3. How large is the market?
4. Who are the major players?
5. Who are the winners and loser?”

Adapted from, “The Facts of Business Life,” by Bill McBean.

Planners look back and around, then anticipate the future.

Planners paint the future.

Leaders live with the future in mind by acting like tomorrow is today.

All successful leaders create the future now.

Plans are paths to the future.

Leaders without plans are dynamic wanderers.

Drucker said, “The best way to predict the future is to create it.”

8 Elements of successful future-making:

1. Destination or vision.
2. Mission statement. Describe purpose and conduct (values).
3. Goals. Explain expectations.
4. Analysis. Describe the present. (Both internal and external).
5. Strategies. Activities aligned with 1 through 4.
6. Objectives. Plans that are exact, measurable, have short timelines, and provide accountability.
7. Summary and communication. Share plans.
8. Implementation.
9. Review and revise. Keep goals in sight.

Adapted from: “The Facts of Business Life.”

What attitudes, skills, and behaviors enable future-making?

Next week’s best FREE leadership development opportunity. Join me for a conference call with Dr. Henry Cloud: Set Boundaries – Extend Results, on April 3 at 1:00 p.m. ET. INFO

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?

Creating Glorious Space for Reinvention

Baggage barricades your future.  Leadership baggage includes past:

1. Disappointment with others.
2. Unresolved conflict.
3. Broken relationships.
4. Personal failure.
5. Failed plans.
6. Financial frustrations and business setbacks.

Releasing baggage is like cutting sandbags from balloons. In, “Leadership and the art of the Struggle,” Steven Snyder explains how to see baggage clearly and expose it wisely.

Embracing the struggle enables reinvention.

Glorious space:

Clinging to baggage weighs down, clogs up, and produces victims of persistence.

Refusing to let go empowers baggage
and assures repetition of the past.

Embracing the struggle rather than rejecting it creates space for new opportunities. Listen to Steven and me talking about letting go of my personal baggage (1 min. 34 sec.): 

Positive Baggage:

Success seduces and convinces leaders that what worked in the past works today.

Leadership baggage includes success as well as failure.

Frustration over the changing workforce, for example, indicates baggage. The inability to adapt because past strategies don’t work today indicates you’re clinging to the past. Those who learn and adapt rise and reinvent themselves and their leadership.

Longing for the good ole days indicates baggage.

Frustration over the present suggests you’re hanging on to the past. Accepting “what is” enables transformation. Rejecting realities, frustrates.

Bill Gates and Baggage:

Steven Snyder personally watched Bill Gates reinvent his leadership. Early in Microsoft’s history every manager was more technically savvy than their direct reports. That approached worked for ten years.

As Microsoft grew, Bill adapted his leadership model. Microsoft began hiring managers with more management expertise than technical savvy.

Past success didn’t become baggage for Bill Gates.

Steven Snyder on Bill Gates and the inverted hierarchy (2 min. 32 sec.): 

Your approach to baggage, both positive and negative, is pivotal to leadership effectiveness, business success, and personal opportunity.

***

“Leadership and the Art of the Struggle,” by Steven Snyder is recommended reading.

Leave a comment on today’s post for a chance to win 1 of 25 copies of, “Leadership and the Art of the Struggle.” Selection on 3/18.

How can leaders release baggage?

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?