Seize Your Most Powerful Leadership Moment

Image source

The most powerful leadership moment occurs when someone is vulnerable.

Leadership is influence.
Vulnerability is the channel of influence.

Vulnerability is the moment when others are crushed, lifted, inspired, or demotivated. Additionally, the more authority you have the greater your opportunity to use or abuse vulnerability.

Vulnerability is the greatest gift leaders receive.

When:

Vulnerable moments happen when others…

1. Are excited over results that you believe could be better.
2. Take initiative in the “wrong” area.
3. Disagree with you.
4. Are disrespected by high performers.
5. Share personal frustrations.
6. Speak from incomplete information.
7. Call you out when you dropped the ball.

Bonus: Vulnerable moments happen when others reveal insecurities and fears.

Manipulation is the only option
where vulnerability doesn’t exist.

Wise leaders respect and protect vulnerability.

How:

1. Explore intent. Look beyond externals and ask what’s important. Bring out the real person. Respect sincerity.
2. Separate affirmations from corrections. Affirmations followed by corrections negate affirmations.
3. Express belief when challenging. It’s easy to point out short falls. Powerful influence includes believing in them more than they believe in themselves.
4. Honor and affirm the courage of transparency. “Thanks for saying what you really think. Keep it up.”
5. Be vulnerable yourself.

Bonus: Thank, don’t excuse when you receive negative feedback.

Vulnerability or fear:

Leaders destroy positive influence when others feel the need to protect themselves. Relationships without vulnerability are driven by self-protective fear.

Respect includes voluntary vulnerability; fear expels it.

Connections of influence are built on the strength of vulnerability. Wise leaders make vulnerability safe.

How can leaders create environments where vulnerability is safe?

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?

Exposing god-like Advisers

There’s a long line of individuals who tell you how to lead. Nearly all do the same thing. They tell you how they would do it. But, they aren’t you.

Arrogant advisers believe they are gods molding people into their image, whether they admit it or not.

Many have given me advice, over the years. Nearly all told me how to improve by becoming more like them; its arrogance, perhaps unintentional, but arrogance none the less.

Additionally, I’ve watched older leaders advising young leaders. I’ve seen them puff up because advice-giving is heady for those molding the world into their image. It affirms their god complex. It’s disgusting.

I can count on one hand the number of humble advisers I’ve been privileged to learn from.

Humble advisers help mold you into your best self, not theirs.

One of my trusted advisers offered me some unrequested feedback yesterday. It was about the use of video in a presentation. I’d changed a technique and he noticed it right away. It was useful, not because he wants me to be like him, but because he knows and accepts who I want to be.

6 components of humble advice:

1. Explore your advisee’s person, intentions and goals. Arrogant advisers believe they know when they don’t.
2. Uncover gaps between intention and behavior. Powerful feedback begins with, “It looks like you’re trying to accomplish (insert goal) when you (insert behavior).”
3. Dig into attitudes and behaviors that hinder progress. “What isn’t working?”
4. Ask, “What would your best self, do?”
5. Apply strengths. “How can your strengths, passions, and skills more fully align with your intentions?”
6. Throw yourself into the mix. “Have you thought about (insert behavior)?”

What type of adviser best helps you?

What type of adviser do you want to be?

10 Remarkable Qualities of Wise Leaders

Wisdom is about behavior not intelligence.

Wisdom is practical not theoretical; skillful not academic. Wisdom gets things done. Fools sit and talk while the wise move out. I’m not suggestion it’s foolish to explore options and discuss plans. I’m saying wise leaders add more value than foolish.

On the other hand, foolish leaders don’t talk enough. If this seems contradictory with what I said before, it is.

You need wisdom and the ability to identify wisdom.

10 remarkable qualities of wise leaders

Wise leaders:

1. Energize others.
2. Choose character over talent.
3. Ask, “What are we learning?”
4. Enrich the leadership of others.
5. Speak well of others.
6. Honor effort and progress as well as results.
7. Wonder and doubt while moving forward at the same time.
8. Delegate decisions; retain responsibility.
9. Believe time is always short.
10. Say, “Teach me.” Wise leaders hang with wise people. They know the need to always appear wise isn’t wise.

Bonus: Wise leaders know talking isn’t doing.

10 disastrous marks of foolish leaders

Foolish leaders:

1. Assume.
2. Create turmoil.
3. Never finish and move on.
4. Love leading but reject following.
5. Choose sides in squabbles.
6. Voice frustrations immediately.
7. Exercise authority but won’t submit to authority.
8. Don’t make mistakes; they’re always right. (Sarcasm intended)
9. Concentrate on the present and neglect the future.
10. Grow arrogant with success. Past success never guarantees future success.

Today’s challenge: Intentionally practice one behavior of wise leaders and jettison one mark of foolish leaders.

What quality of wise leaders carries the most weight? Why?

What mark of foolish leaders is most damaging? Why?

What can you add to either list?

Top 15 Strategies for Leadership Success

The first thing you need to know is:

Success is a result not an end in itself.

Five organizational strategies:

1. Always create more harmony than discord.
2. Build up more than you tear down, much more.
3. Long-term views build stability.
4. Short-term views produce quick results.
5. Make life easier for those over you.

Three relationship strategies:

1. Friends represent who you will become.
2. Show respect.
3. Always act with kindness, especially when being tough.

Two personal development strategies:

1. Identify wise leaders and seek their counsel, often.
2. Read. If you don’t read, listen to books.

Five communication strategies:

1. Never pretend you know when you don’t.
2. Always speak clearly, directly, and honestly.
3. Talk less; listen more.
4. Stay in the moment in public.
5. Focus on and enjoy others.

Bonus: Define success.

What top strategies for leadership success can you add?

Making the First Move

If you don’t move first you aren’t leading. But, don’t move first every time.

Passion, vision, and compassion propel leadership-action. Leaders step in where others step back.

All leaders move toward:

1. Opportunity.
2. Challenge.
3. Change.
4. Achievement.

Wise leaders move toward:

1. People over opportunities. People are leadership’s greatest opportunity, period.
2. Failure. Failure isn’t sought it’s leveraged. Fools run from failure. Leaders fail well because failure is progress. Leaders peel the scab off, learn and go.
3. Conflict. Clarity is the child of conflict used well.
4. Listening.
5. Collaboration.
6. Apology.

Bonus: Move first toward those who offend you.

“Wise” applies best to the second list because it’s not intuitive.

Foolish leaders prefer telling to listening, for example. Additionally, wise leaders learn apologizing first is strength not weakness.

About the first list:

Focus is the hardest part of passion.

Unfocused passion, vision, and compassion are the enemies of success. Selective wisdom is the mother of success. Unfocused passion is the father of destruction. Inexperienced leaders act like squirrels on steroids when new opportunities emerge.

My problem is I’ve never seen an opportunity I didn’t like.

Danger:

Your inclination to move first invites resistance because it destabilizes, disturbs, and disrupts. You may wrongly view resistance as the enemy. Move toward resistance. Pushing through resistance is the pursuit of alignment.

The twist:

All leaders move first but wise leaders learn the power of moving second. It’s not natural, but, wise leaders learn to be first at letting others go first. View moving second as leadership development – enhancing capacity – not passive resignation.

What are the dangers or frustrations of moving first?

How can leaders move first in ways that bring others with them?

The Danger of Aspirations

Foolish leaders permit aspirations to minimize affirmations.

Affirmations encourage and motivate by pointing to progress and success. On the other hand, aspirations say we aren’t there yet.

Aspirations set targets;
affirmations celebrate achievement.

Aspiration:

My aspirations include building an organization where everyone supports the success of others. “Let’s build environments where we help others get where they want to go.”

Affirmation:

“I’m proud to be part of an organization where we help others achieve their goals.”

When:

Organizations never arrive at perfection. I’ll never lead an organization where everyone fully supports the success of others. There will always be, inadequacies, laggards, and room for improvement.

Do we have people dedicated to helping others succeed? Yes! Do we have laggards? Yes. Must I wait for perfection before I can affirm?

Constraint:

Exclusive focus on aspirations deters affirmations.

Future goals prevent me from appreciating present attainments. “We have so far to go.”

Danger:

Aspirations invite me to focus on deficiencies while neglecting successes. I don’t want anyone to think we’ve arrived. If I’m not careful, aspirations minimize dedicated efforts and hard-fought successes.

Combine:

Wise leaders bring aspirations and affirmations together, but not at the same time.

“I’m thankful to lead an organization where people help others achieve their dreams,” is a powerful affirmation. I’m learning to let that statement stand on its own! Are we there yet? We’ll never be there.

Never let how far you have to go
be the reason you don’t celebrate how far you’ve come.

Lazy:

Will frequent affirmations make us lazy? Absolutely not.

Affirmations are wind to sails.

Experience suggests that aspirational leaders affirm too little and aspire too much. Ramp up your affirmations, you’ll get further faster.

How do you see aspirations getting in the way of affirmations?

What do great affirmations focus on or sound like?

Subscribe to Leadership Freak today. It’s free, practical, and brief. The subscribe button is in the upper right of the home page. I’ll never sell your email address, promise.

How to Stop Drifting and Find Focus

*****

Life is a journey but you’re drifting unless you define your destination. The same is true for organizations. The first step toward success is defining it.

Too eager to do:

Activity seduces. Leaders easily fall into the “Let’s just go do something” trap. Activity without destination is futility.

Eager to do:

The choice between sleeping horses and running horses is easy. Choose running horses. Foot draggers may safely arrive, eventually. Impatient racehorses aren’t safe but in our turbulent world, impatience keeps you in the race.

The ultimate destination:

The ultimate destination is who not what. Before you do, ask who; ask who you want to become. The same goes for organizations. Who we want to become always precedes and guides what we want to do.

Impatient leaders say let’s do something. Wise leaders say, “Let’s become something.”

Warren Bennis put it this way, “Leadership is synonymous with becoming yourself.”

When you don’t know where:

Crystal balls exist in fairytales. In other words, you can’t determine what to do by looking into next year, next week, or tomorrow. Future circumstances can’t guide you today. You can, however, determine who you want to become, regardless of tomorrow (both individually and organizationally).

Decision making:

Some think decisions determine destinations but that’s reactive not proactive living. Leaders navigate toward predetermined destinations. Compelling destinations determine today’s decisions. Application: once you determine who you want to become, you can decide what you want to do.

Bullets then cannon balls:

Once you define who you want to become, Jim Collins insightful suggestion applies. “Shoot bullets before cannon balls.” When the best course isn’t obvious, test the waters. Don’t waste your ammo. Learn enough to begin, and then let your impatient race horses run.

**********

I find these ideas both freeing and challenging.

Who do you want to be (individually or organizationally)?

What can you do to become it?

**********