Seven Immediate Development Needs for Remote Leaders

One outcome of the global pandemic we are experiencing is that knowledge workers have shown it is possible for most elements of their work to be done remotely. While the impact on organizational culture is being questioned by many, including some of the leaders in the world’s largest technology organizations, the question “Is it possible for leaders to work remotely on a large scale?” has been clearly answered with a resounding YES!

So, if it is possible, two questions come to my mind.

1. Is it sustainable?

2. What development needs do leaders have in order to become more effective leading in a remote world?

Sustainable

I remember reading a book on Virtual Culture a few years ago written by Bryan Miles, who is the entrepreneurial founder of a company called Belay. The book begins by telling a story that happened in 2012. Marissa Mayer had left Google to become the CEO at Yahoo. As you probably recall Yahoo at the time was in trouble as an organization and the new plan included a move to keep employees in the office for a longer period of time. The transformation was to make the corporate offices a place employees wanted to spend their time. According to Miles, "Mayer's act went against corporate culture...by enforcing everyone come back to the office, Mayer tried to apply old-school collaboration to a group of people that did not want that style any longer."

Employees were NOT happier. Employees were NOT more productive. Employees did NOT feel more engaged at work. Miles concludes that management fell prey to the idea, "If I can't see you, I can't control you...How do I know you are working?”

So if:

• Knowledge workers have shown it is possible to work remote

AND

• There are historical examples of forcing old paradigms having organizational backlash...

Does the question become "How do we develop our leaders to lead virtually?"

Before we dive too deeply in the area of developing virtual leaders, there is one really important thing to recognize. Some of you are locked into long-term leases with lots of office space. Others of you have built buildings very recently to house the future growth you saw in your organization over the next decade. Many of you are scratching your heads asking, "What are we going to do with all this space?" It is a good question. One that will take some intense and courageous conversations amongst the leadership teams. My only thought for all of you wrestling with this is to not lose sight of talent, and how your talent may want to work. Wrestle with questions like:

1. What will drive our business in the future? The talent we have on the team or where they sit?

2. How personally collaborative do we really need to be?

3. Are their other creative ways to use our space?

4. What does our leadership team need to be flexible on? (I saw recent quote from a Harvard Business Professor who says we need to be ready for a transition from traditional consecutive 8 hours to more of a 3-2-2 format with long breaks between working cycles.)

5. How do we help remote workers create boundaries for work? (vacation, sick leave, bereavement, etc.)

Development Needs

While the argument rages across all media platforms as to the future of remote work, one thing is for certain, some aspect of leading remotely is going to stay with us. The technology is just too good to ignore. The fact is, some leaders and some teams at some point are going to be working remote. While the ratio will likely become an individual organization decision, the fact remains that our leaders will need to improve their remote leadership skills.

Here are 7 things I am thinking about with some of my clients as they plan how to spend development dollars.

1. Creating Emotional Connections. When we are online together it is way too easy to just "get down to business.” I saw this myself this morning when I was working with a client. We jumped on the call together and the client pulled up their action plan and just wanted to get started.

2. Camera Presence. Many folks are really good in terms of how they show up. It is interesting however to put them on camera and they loose eye contact, or look like they have not combed their hair in days. I think we need to start thinking about things like presence if working from home is going to be more of a reality.

3. Delivering Negative Realities. Many of us do not like discussing performance issues in person and yet doing it virtually seems even harder. The camera brings a level of sterility, almost an antiseptic feeling. What is missing is that human element of compassion that just does not seem to translate over video. Some good "how too" training on delivering feedback virtually might be in order.

4. Working On Growth and Development Opportunities. Finding areas of growth for team members might be more difficult because networking in general is more difficult. We may have to be a lot more intentional about networking opportunities and about finding opportunities that fit individual development plans.

5. Linking Employee Work to the Bigger Mission of the Organization. While many of us have not noticed our number of meetings going down, what has changed is how people are feeling connected to the larger mission of the organization. Leaders are going to have to become intentional about connecting individuals to the broader organizational mission.

6. Celebrating Successes. Let's not forget that work can be fun. How can leaders be intentional with celebrating the success of the team or individuals?

7. Have some Fun. Adults want to learn, grow, self-actualize, and have fun. After all, if we are giving 8 or more hours a day to our work, having it be engaging is a good thing. Leaders will need to flex their creativity and have some fun so that people enjoy and want to be a part of the mission.

Finding ways to engage our employees virtually so that we retain and grow talent is key. The way we work is changing. We need to change along with it to ensure our talent is both happy and productive.

Let Them Eat Waffles

As the year winds down, our thoughts will often turn to evaluating the year that we have just experienced and what we want to try and accomplish in the year to come.

Even though 2020 has been a very unique year, this same exercise is happening all across organizations of every size and business structure.  

As you are evaluating your year and thinking about what you want to accomplish in the next one, here is an encouragement I have for you… 

Let Them Eat Waffles! 

Okay, so maybe that needs some explanation…

I was meeting virtually with someone a few months ago. As we talked he described his job in some detail. This guy is a plant manager for an organization that makes all kinds of electronic components. These gadgets go in hundreds of products, he said, everything from airplanes to automobiles to grocery store freezers. His job is to oversee the plant’s manufacturing of these things and to ensure they get to the right customer.  He finished with this…

“Pretty mundane stuff, nothing big.”

That really struck me and made me stop and ask, “Wait a minute…What do you mean nothing big?”

The way my brain works (which is quite odd at times, I admit), I added, “Did you say grocery store freezers?”  

I think you see where this is headed. 

I went on to tell him, “To me, that is a really big deal!” 

You see, the reason that is big to me is that I love frozen waffles. Every time we go to our local grocery store, I take a walk down the frozen waffle aisle to see what is on sale, what is new, and decide what I am going to buy. It is rare that I go to the store and do NOT pick up a box of those delicious frozen treats. 

Then it hit me - what had happened is this guy had lost his vision, his passion for what he does. 

Worse yet, his lack of vision could someday interrupt my breakfast...and I am not okay with that!

Self-Actualization

In the world of emotional intelligence, self-actualization is finding one's meaning and purpose in life. It is the willingness to persistently try to improve and engage in the pursuit of personally relevant and meaningful growth that will lead to a rich and enjoyable life. 

Someone who is self-actualizing acts on the idea that what they are pursuing and involved in actually adds meaning and purpose. For some, it is that they have a calling instead of a job. For others, what they do is an act of service that fulfills his or her destiny as a human being.  It is very much more than what they do, it is about the meaning and purpose they have in life and whom they serve.

I think the myth behind the struggle some folks have is they have lost the link (or maybe it never existed) between who they are and what they do.

If you deliver pizza for a living, what you are doing is feeding a hungry family or bringing joy to a group of people so that they can socially connect. But it is so easy to get lost in the idea that you are transporting a disc of dough with sauce and meat from a store front to a house; and you have to do 100 of them in a night to make any money.

It is really easy for us to lose sight of what we do and become defined by our tasks rather than the bigger vision of who we serve.

You are not delivering pizza, my friend, you are helping cement relational bonds with family and friends. 

You might be trying to discount me right now as being too pollyanna, but I sincerely hope not. I hope you will stay with me and really try to engage in what it is that you are doing with your life.

Who You Serve 

As you are reflecting on your 2020 and preparing for 2021, perhaps as a part of your review you should be asking yourself who it is that you serve and how well you have done that.  Let go of defining yourself by what you do and give some consideration to who you serve.  

The plant manager in my story above plays a critical role in getting component parts to people who need them. Without him and without his team, a poor schmuck like me living in Central Florida would not have waffles in the morning for breakfast...may it never be so. 

As a leader of people, have you lost sight of the vision and the passion for what you do? The people on your team can sense this. Sure, it has been a tough year, a very different year for sure. But you are a resilient person. You are committed to what you do.

Let's make sure the people on our teams and those around us have a clear vision of what they do and how it links to the people you serve.

Think differently as you set goals for next year

I’d like to share a story about an inexperienced leader named Charlie. He shows up to work early and stays late. He’s motivated to move from an individual contributor into his first front-line leader role, but he’s not sure how to make that happen. He’s getting grief from his wife for working weekends, and his heavy workload doesn’t ever seem to ease up. How can he move into a leadership role if he’s buried in his current role?

Charlie’s organization is offering a course on Leading with Emotional Intelligence and his boss is encouraging him to attend the class. Charlie feels conflicted. According to research, if Charlie puts this training in the form of a goal that has a useful future orientation, he is more likely to get the results he is looking for, rather than to put the goal in some prevention connotation.

Research published in the Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies (Sadler, T., Gibson, S., Reysen, S. (2017), reports the effect of a leadership training program on consideration of future consequences. (Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies, 10(4), 35-42.)

To operationalize this a bit, let’s say that you have a team of leaders who are all functional experts; Human Resources, Engineering, Information Technology, Sales, Manufacturing, Marketing, Finance and so on. This team, in the past, while getting along personally, has conformed to operating in silos. Each person does a great job of representing their own function to the face of the organization, but as a team, they struggled to get the synergy that would propel them to the next level.

The sales leader was always trying to maximize sales and didn’t understand why Marketing couldn’t supply the customer segmentation data fast enough. And why did it take Engineering so long to get the prototype built and delivered to the client?  Engineering, on the other hand, was frustrated with Supply Chain who just couldn’t get realistic estimates on how much materials were actually going to cost.

The president of the organization, realizing the leaders were all doing a great job of representing their individual role, needed to function better as a team. She was encouraged by a colleague to explore the idea of a training program that would focus on team building.  

But would it be successful? Would the organization get synergy from the team development so that the return on the investment would be positive for shareholders?   

A good question. A fair question.

Turns out the data is a little mixed on what should be expected.

A Little Background

It is no secret that organizations spend billions of dollars every year on training people in their organizations. Everything from skill-based training, like how to weld two pieces of metal together, or how to write computer code. From more leadership-oriented topics like Leading with Emotional Intelligence or Writing Your Own Leadership Story, to team building events.

Whether the training is skill-based or cultivating leadership in our organizations, the question always surfaces as to what is the return on investment.  There is research that can help us determine if leadership type training is effective in helping leaders meet their goals. But it depends…

Goal Type

It turns out that when it comes to goals, leaders pursue attainment using one of two strategies:

1. Promotion: concentrating the efforts of achievement on positive proactive and productive results.

2. Prevention: targeting efforts on avoiding negative outcomes.

Let’s revisit our friend, Charlie. If his orientation is more to prevent something bad from happening or toward thwarting a negative future response, then his success in the training and as a future leader is in question.

How can Charlie (or his boss) orientate the training as to get a more successful outcome for him as a leader? If Charlie says to himself, “I want to take this leadership training because it will help me be a better coach and mentor to others in the organization someday,” then the aspect to his goal attainment has shifted.

Charlie is moving from individual contributor to organizational leader, and that is what is going to help him get what he wants.

How are you orienting the goals of folks in your organization?  Are you creating a positive, futuristic orientation of hope for the future, or are you trying to prevent failure?

The orientation of our thinking matters!

What to do when your business vision is stuck

Years ago, I worked with a business leader who had an incredible vision for his organization. He was a passionate leader with excellent communication skills and energy for his mission. He was intellectually and morally solid and cared deeply for the people in his organization.

But he was stuck.

His organization just couldn’t grow the business past a certain industry-standard metric. However, the stagnation issue became evident as we looked over some feedback provided by his peers. One of the interview questions I ask the peers of my clients (as a routine part of my data gathering) was, "What is the vision this leader has for the organization?" After several interviews, the collective response was, “The vision is very clear, but we have no idea what steps we need to take to get started. It is like he has been dreaming of this his entire life and we are catching it for the first time."

As I presented this feedback to the leader and we processed the data together, his knee-jerk reaction was “We don’t have time to wait for them to process this. The time is now! They need to get on board or get out of the way. We are going to miss our opportunity. The timing is just right!"

So I asked,“Is it their lack of urgency, or could it be something else?”

After processing with him for a while, we discovered there was not a lack of urgency on the part of the organization. There was, however, a lack of emotional connection between the leader and his team. The urgency that the leader was feeling for vision implementation and change was being offset by his lack of emotional connection competency of patience. People in the organization need the time to absorb, process, and own the vision themselves.

Patience is devoting the appropriate time and attention to others in ways that enhance meaningful interaction.

Patience is suspending your personal need for satisfaction and action.

Patience seeks to slow down those fast-paced exchanges with others in order to facilitate better decision-making.

Patience is not racing ahead in thought process while missing information that others are endeavoring to share.

Patience is not wasting the opportunities to encourage, inspire, and motivate others.

In leader development, it is always important to keep perspective on a leader who is not connecting emotionally with his team. Without this emotional connection, it is virtually impossible to have the social intelligence needed to achieve organizational effectiveness.

There are a number of reasons a follower may choose to align with a leader. Fully committing to the vision of the leader is a quintessential desire that followers have. What they receive in return for committing to the vision of the leader is an emotional connection with that leader.

In our case study above, the leader has a choice. He can either move forward with his urgency and risk losing his entire vision. Or he can proactively slow down and take the time to encourage, inspire, and motivate his people. By embracing patience and connecting emotionally with his team, he can catapult the vision to the next level with everyone on board.

How are you connecting emotionally with your team? I’d love to hear your comments.

Are There Meta Leadership Traits?

Have you ever had one of those days where everything you do, everything you hear, everything you read, and every interaction you have with others seem to point you in one direction?

I had a day like that the other day. Here is an account of what it looked like for me....

1. I will often start my day with a hot cup of coffee and some quiet reflection time. As a prompt for my reflection, I will often use the Bible as a meditation tool. I find a lot of wisdom and comfort in this as a start to my day. This particular day I am reading in 1 Corinthians and the 13th verse just stuck out to me: "No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone." As I am reflecting on this I turn to the study book I am reading for the 3rd time...A 40 day Journey With Parker Palmer and the lesson for the day Palmer writes, "...we must learn, ...that the ultimate therapy is to identify our pain with the pain of others, and then band together to resist the conditions that create our common malady."

2. After my quiet time of reading and reflection and before my first client, I was reading a financial newsletter I subscribe to and there is this quote by Warren Buffet reflecting on a March 2009 Forbes article about the huge losses he and Bill Gates took during the bear market downturn, noting that now 11 years after that time, Gates and Buffet have never had more wealth; "The most important quality for an investor is temperament, not intellect."

3. I had about an hour left before my first client so I did some prep work for a class I was leading in a couple of days. I was teaching an emotional intelligence certification course (see my website for more information if you are interested in becoming certified), and reviewing a pre-read book by Steve Stein and Howard Book called The EQ edge. I read this quote by George Vaillant "It is not stress that kills us. It is effective adaptation to stress that allows us to live."

4. Then I was on a video conference with a client who is working through some pretty tough organization feedback. There were some actions this guy took where his intentions were positive but the impact his actions had were perceived as negative; to the point where some had lost trust in him. We were reading an article together called The Enemies of Trust" published in Harvard Business Review. One of the main points in the article is "Don't be surprised when the things you say-including the most innocuous statements-are assigned deep, sinister meaning." The article goes on to comment that, "Under extreme stress, normally competent managers may fee! fragile, guilty, overwhelmed, and unable to cope." The authors then say sometimes, other than quit, all you can do is rebuild. All you can do is be resilient.

5. Then at lunch I am listening to one of my favorite podcasts, The Dave Ramsey Show. It is a call in show where people tell Dave their financial problems and he gives advice on how to get out of whatever mess they are in. This lady calls in and says she and her husband have $250,000 in debt not including their mortgage; 3 cars, a boat, student loans, consumer credit cards. Dave has this amazing way of just calming people down and giving them a plan to get out of the crisis. He says to this lady, "I know it seems bad right now, honey, I have been there myself. I am going to give you a plan and if you follow it you can be out of debt in under 3 years." Then he said the thing that really caught my ear, "You are going to be OK. I want you to take a deep breath and really hear what I am saying...I know it seems terrible right now, but you are going to be OK."

6. After lunch I am reading in Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and research an article by Robert Kaiser called Leading in an unprecedented global crisis: the heightened importance of versatility. One of the conclusions of the research is that during a crisis or disruptive change, versatility, the ability to read and respond to change with a wide repertoire of complementary perspectives and skills. The focus of versatile leadership is connecting the How one leads with What one leads ensuring there is synchronicity between them.

7. In the afternoon I led a group of people who have been certified in emotional intelligence as a way for them to continue their learning journey. One of the books we are reading together is Hardiness: Making stress work for you to achieve your life goals. There is a quote that just struck me as the group was talking about key learnings. A study of 186 million adults collected over a dozen years found that not all stress is necessarily bad. "Of the people who reported high stress levels, those that said the stress negatively affected their health had a 43% greater chance of premature death. In other words, people who interpret their stress as not having a negative impact on their lives have a better chance of living longer."

At the end of a long day, my wife and I will often sit on our back patio and reflect on our day together. With a glass of wine we will share what our day was like and even jot down some notes from time to time. It was during this light conversation that I noticed what I am writing about in this blog.

Let me recap:

1. Band together to resist the conditions that create our common malady.

2. The most important quality for an investor is temperament.

3. Effective adaptation to stress that allows us to live.

4. All you can do is be resilient.

5. I know it seems terrible right now, but you are going to be OK.

6. Versatility.

7. People who interpret their stress as not having a negative impact on their lives have a better chance of living longer.

There seems to be two common threads running through this for me and both of them have to do with emotional intelligence:

1. Empathy - Understanding and sharing and helping one another through tough times

2. Optimism - It is not if something bad will happen but when. What matters is how we respond.

Could it be that true caring for each other, and hope for the future, serve as meta competencies for leadership?

Which of these 3 mistakes do you make when reviewing talent on your team?

Back in the day when I was a young leader in a pretty big organization, one of my favorite meetings to attend was the yearly talent review session. This is the meeting where each manager would review the talent on their team and benchmark performance across a wider group.

What I loved about this meeting was the opportunity to see how my peers evaluated talent. This job is important for both the person being reviewed and the leader doing the reviewing.

For me, what was really interesting was observing the manager doing the reviewing. I didn't know much about the people they were talking about but oh you could tell a lot about how credible the manager doing the reviewing really was.

For the person being evaluated, their livelihood can depend upon how the leaders accesses their performance.

When it comes to this talent review, for some like my friends in sales, the evaluation can be pretty straight forward; did you hit your target goal or not? While some organizations will add other behavioral aspects to a sales professionals performance, what performance in this arena boils down to is; did the sales professional hit the number or not. For the most part, pretty clear.

For other organizational roles, performance can be a bit more nuanced. Often HOW the person goes about the work is as important as WHAT the person did. I have worked with a lot of really talented people over the years who got the WHAT they did exactly right and HOW they went about it exactly wrong.

Take, for example, the operations leader who was told by an executive that a division in the company was not performing well and asked to "go in and fix it.” So what does the young leader do? He goes in and fixes it!

• He spent some time assessing the situation and talking to people.

• He started to reorganize the team to what was a much more efficient way of working.

• He changed the system that the team had been using to process orders and communicate with customers so that the entire purchasing process was more transparent.

• He brought in temporary workers to get all the billing caught up that was months behind.

Everything he did needed to be done. It needed to be fixed.

Then he got fired.

Not because WHAT he did was in any way wrong. It all needed to be done.

It was HOW he went about the work:

• As he assessed the situation, he did all the talking about what was wrong and no listening to what people on the ground thought.

• As he reorganized, he used the whiteboard in his office and then made changes without even asking anyone else what they thought.

• He announced over email that there would be a system change.

• One morning at 8am people from the "agency" were at the empty desk when the accounting people came in. No one in the department had any idea they were getting "help.”

I can just hear you right now...Come on, Scott...No way, that did not happen...

I am here to tell you I saw it with my own two eyes! And have seen it on multiple occasions.

Of course the story is more complex than I am telling, but when you step back from all the fog of the situation that is precisely what happened.

I can also hear you saying something like, "That would never be how I operate.” In our organization we would never treat top talent that way.

Before you go too fast and dismiss this topic,I want you to carefully consider that position. The young leader, considered a top talent or he would not have been sent in to remedy the situation, thought he had a clear mandate from the executive. Indeed he did! They had adequately discussed WHAT needed done. However, agreeing on a plan for HOW to accomplish this goal would have been better for everyone involved.

Interesting to me is how someone goes from top talent to "packaged out" of the organization in less than two years. Were they really top talent? Did they not have the proper "air cover"? WHAT really happened here, and HOW did we let this situation get out of control?

Could it be that the real mistake was in how the talent was reviewed in the first place? Are we setting people up for failure because we as leaders we are not being honest with ourselves about talent?

What is the biggest mistake leaders make when reviewing talent?

Here are some thoughts on things that I have observed with leaders as I have heard them discuss and evaluate their talent:

Leaders use non-specific language
"Go down there and fix it,” was the mandate. Rather than pausing and asking what that even means, the young leader hears:

1. You have done great things in your current role.

2. You’re a real superstar.

3. We trust you.

4. We believe in you.

5. Everyone knows things are a mess down there, what can go wrong.

6. We are giving you a raise and a promotion.

The error I see leaders make when it comes to the use of non-specific language is that they have thought about things for so long, in their mind what they want is very clear. The leader has scenario planned and worked out many fine details in their own mind so that when "go down there and fix it" gets communicated, the leader knows exactly what this means and the person receiving direction is left to fill in all the blanks.

Remedy
Spend time together. Quality and quantity time. Spend time talking not only about the WHAT and the HOW, but the WHY. Invest in your talent with your time. If you are feeling (like most leaders) that you do not have time for this, then you either need to delegate more or at least assess if you want to have these conversations on the front or the back end of the assignment. You are going to have this conversation either proactively, which is what I am suggesting, or retroactively in the person’s exit interview.

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Show empathetic concern
Things happen. Nothing is perfect. People make mistakes. People who make mistakes still want top raises and bonuses. As a leader, you really need to balance your power gradient assertiveness and empathy. Instead of picking a fight with the person on their performance, would it really be so hard to just sit down and try and understand their perspective? I know you think you have it all worked out and you understand the situation completely. Your biases are in full swing when you see an employee who didn't handle something quite right and rush in all quick to judge. As a leader, I realize you get paid to make judgements; it is part of your calling. But before you take off the gloves and start a fight, why not try and understand what it is like on their end? I am in no way saying you have to agree with everything people on your team are saying or bringing to you, but would it hurt to just listen to their perspective?

Remedy
Practice the gentle art of asking instead of telling. Get curious with the other person about what happened. Try to get a sense as to where they are coming from. Foster the relationship that leads to more open communication.

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Over-glow
I thought about putting this one first. When it comes to evaluating talent, especially if we are the manager or leader who hired the person, we can let the glow of our own self-worth radiate over others. We will actually position routine tasks the person is responsible for as outstanding achievements. The strategy is a good one, actually, and it goes something like this; I will say the person is great. Really they are average. And at the end of the talent assessment they are pretty good. So what the manager did was get an average person a pretty good performance rating.

Remedy
Make talent review about the talent and not the manager. Most managers come into talent review realizing this is as much about their performance and what they can get for their team as it is the actual talent. Organizations need to hold leaders accountable for accurate evaluation, not how hard they fought for the team.

5 Common Vision Mistakes and How to Fix Them

When most leaders think of vision they imagine the two-fold process of creating the vision and casting it to their team. These are important elements but the responsibility of vision implementation does not solely rest in the creation process. Rather than the actual vision getting the blame when it's not gaining traction, maybe we need to dig a little deeper into the question of why our vision is not working.

Listed below are some reflections on common vision-setting mistakes. I’ve either made these mistakes myself or been associated with leaders who could have received better results if they had paid closer attention to these elements.

Problem#1: Not describing where the vision originated.

Whether your vision comes to you from a mountaintop, or at your desk, or from team collaboration, you need to communicate it to those in your organization. Your team needs sufficient details in order to understand and have trust in where you are taking them. Some will follow blindly, but most will not. As you provide details on how you arrived at your vision, you will earn their trust.

The Fix: Spend time providing details around the vision to your team so they can catch your enthusiasm for where the organization is headed.

Problem #2: Lack of role clarity for inner circle followers.

Those in your inner circle must have clarity about what role they play in order to make the vision a reality. Your direct reports must be able to articulate and own the entire vision from the creation process to the communication and implementation. Accountability is vital within this inner circle. The leader should not bear sole responsibility for creation, ownership, and implementation. These elements must be an organizational process.

The Fix: Everyone in the inner circle must have specific accountability for their aspect of vision implementation.

Problem #3: Lack of personal belief in the vision.

Many of you do not have direct impact or influence on the vision for your organization, however, others in your organization need to know that you embrace the vision. You do not have to agree with every small detail around implementation, nonetheless, it is vital that you believe in the vision and overall direction of the organization. If not, you probably need to do some reflection on whether you are in the right place. If you do not like the vision, influence it. If you can not influence it and you don’t like it, then maybe your calling is elsewhere.

The Fix: Reflect on how you personally believe in the vision of your organization. Write out your thoughts. If you don’t believe in the vision, get out. You will only be a barrier to performance in the long run. If you need to leave the organization, this reflection will help you articulate your beliefs for the next group you associate with.

Problem #4: Abdication of the vision.

Here is one I heard recently: “This is Pastor Eric’s vision for our church!" May these words never be uttered in your organization where the masses have not bought in and owned the vision for themselves. If ownership of the vision does not get passed down, the likelihood of the vision becoming reality is slim.

The Fix: Everyone in the organization needs to be accountable for how they are implementing the vision in their department. As you interact with your team have conversations about what they are doing to own and make the vision a reality?

Problem #5: Devaluing encouragement.

People in the organization need to know that you believe they understand the vision. Far too many leaders cast a vision then move on to something else. The best way to build positive momentum around the vision is to articulate it and catch people carrying it out. When you look for those opportunities of catching the vision, celebrate and let everyone in the organization commend their achievement. Again, there is no better way to get the behavior you are looking for than to communicate success. Period.

The Fix: Catch people implementing the vision and celebrate it with the world!

Where do you see yourself in these 5 vision mistakes? Perhaps it would be helpful to write a 3 bullet point action plan for you to turn your mistake into learning, and eventually a success. If you try this, we would love to hear how it is working for you. Why not leave a comment below and share your thoughts?

5 Coaching Mistakes Every Leader Should Avoid

As an executive coach, a common question I have to work through at the beginning of a new coaching engagement is

“Am I working with the right person?”

There are two reasons I find myself asking this question:

1. The person I am working with seems to be just as talented as their supervisor.

2. The people I coach are really good at what they do. They are technical experts in their field.

It doesn’t take me long to answer my own question. Yes, I am working with the right person. The higher you go in organizations, everyone is talented (for the most part) and the people are experts in their field. However, this does not mean they are experts in leadership.

Most of my coaching is helping to groom people for higher levels of leadership. Often there is some tactical, behavioral development that needs to occur.

It is the idea that Marshall Goldsmith writes about in his book, What Got You Here Won’t Get You There.

I have had over 750 hours of coaching experience in the last 3 years and I have noticed something very interesting.

We all make mistakes.

Not a revelation, I know, but to me it is an interesting observation. Why? Because I wonder where organizations might be if not for the common mistakes I see them making in regard to coaching their leaders.

• Would turnover decrease?

• Would we unleash talent?

• Would customers have more delight?

• Would we ensure a solid foundation for future generations?

Enough Philosophy

Here are 5 coaching mistakes I observe. As you reflect on these mistakes, ask yourself what traps you might be falling into.

1. Confusing your needs with the needs of the person being coached
   
   Depending on your level of leadership, you are responsible for coaching your team to make one or more of the following connections:
   

   1. The mission of the organization to the vision

   2. The purpose of the organization to the mission

   3. The values you aspire to the purpose

   4. The guiding principles to the values

   5. The strategy to the guiding principles

   6. The tactics to the strategy

   7. Individual behaviors that implement tactics
      

   Let’s be honest, most of our coaching focuses on the last one. We are so in the weeds trying to control others that we often lose sight of what the person really needs.
   
   Rather than focusing always on whether or not they are “doing” things exactly as you want them, perhaps you need to go back and connect them to something that has more depth and meaning.
   
   I believe that most people get up in the morning and really want to do a good job for the company. Too many of us as leaders can not get out of our own way. We feel if we are not “doing,” we are not working.
   
   Before you coach someone, step back and ask yourself “What is really going on here? What does this person need from me today?"
   

2. You say it (or yell it) and they produce
   
   I wrote about this one in my book a few years back 7 Secrets of an Emotionally Intelligent Coach.
   
   We live in such a fast paced world that we lose our sense of time. We have instant access to so many things today that 10 or 20 years ago might have taken weeks or months. I no longer have to go through an administrative assistant or send a letter to see if someone can meet with me. I knock out an email or send a text and have a response, often 5 minutes after I sent it.
   
   I heard best selling author, John Townsend, (author of Boundaries, and other great books) give a great analogy the other day. He said it is like standing in front of an apple tree and yelling at the fruit to grow faster; all because the leader wants bigger or more fruit.
   
   Some things just don’t work this way. Some things take time to grow, develop, and mature, no matter how fast you want them.
   
   I recommend you spend some time doing what psychologists call “attuning” with your folks. The idea is to bring into harmony; to tune. The skill required is to connect with others at a deeper and more vulnerable level. This goes beyond being nice or friendly to really be able to listen well and understand the emotions and motivations that are the foundations for behavior.
   
   People will do amazing things for leaders they feel connected with.
   

3. This is their personality so they will always behave this way
   
   I have just about had it with personality profiling. All of them. From Myers-Briggs, to Insights, to the Enneagram, PDI, Horoscopes.
   
   What we are learning about human personality is that it is contextual. No one person is one way all the time.
   
   Those of you who love personality tests, especially those who are certified on them, will say that your model talks about how we need to be flexible and that this is an important aspect.
   
   Right. And if we need to flex, then we are not one way all the time.
   
   The problem is, as leaders, we put people in boxes. We create implicit biases around what people can and can not do based upon their level of introversion or extroversion. We judge, we label, we categorize, and way too often, we are dead wrong.

   
   According to Adam Grant, a leader in the psychology field out of the University of Pennsylvania, the statistical reliability and validity data around these assessments are just not strong enough to do with them the kinds of things organizations do.
   
   As coaches, we need to stop making judgments on personality and understand the context the person is. None of us is always a certain way. Let’s get in and coach people to understand more of what is at the root of what they are doing, not doing, or more likely doing, just not the way you want them too.
   

4. The person being coached is a robot
   
   Just because you run 24/7/365 and are always on, doesn’t mean everyone else is or that it is healthy. We have to start thinking more about corporate health, or better yet, the health of the people who work for us.
   
   How are you coaching your team to take better care of themselves?
   
   How are you modeling this behavior?
   
   If you give someone who already has a full place more to do, how are you helping them prioritize the work? They can not begin to know what is in your mind regarding how they should plan to deliver without your coaching and insights.
   
   Let’s remember that the people we are working with are just that: people.
   
   They have families and other communities outside of work. They have spouses, parents, and kids. They have all kinds of relationships they care about and care for. So, if someone on your team has a family member pass away, they are going to need time to mourn this loss. Just because they are back at work in 3 days (which is a travesty) doesn’t mean they are all the way back. If someone just got a diagnosis of liver cancer, for crying out loud, they are really not thinking about when they will have that report on your desk.
   
   Sure, you have a job to do. I get it. A lot of people are depending on you to drive results. But really, come on…just have a heart.
   

5. Your way is always the best way
   
   This one is a real mindset shift. It takes:
   

   1. Self-Awareness - Realize you don’t know what you don’t know. You might be really far removed from reality.

   2. Self-Regulation - Allow yourself the ability to think and not emotionally react.

   3. Humility - You don’t know everything so how can you get curious with others and develop a learn as we go frame of mind.

   4. Trust - Let them experiment with new and different ways and approaches.
      

   This really is about how you can create a learning organization, one that inspires people to creativity and innovation. At the very least, if there is a prescriptive way for them to work, be open to hearing other ideas on how the work could be done. People they will be more engaged if they know you want to hear their ideas.

As I reflect on this list, I realize it is very relationally focused.

That is because most of the time we hire smart, talented, skilled people who want to do a good job.

Therefore, it is the relationship with the leader that inhibits performance.

Humble thought.

I Just Had A Vacation And I Am Exhausted

If there is one thing I am known for as an executive coach, it is ensuring my clients hear this clear message: when you are on vacation, you are resting.

There has been a lot of work done to show that we are actually able to perform better when we are practicing good self care. Part of good self care is that we learn how to rest.

I really love how Parker Palmer puts it, “Self-care is never a selfish act - it is simply good stewardship of the only gift I have, the gift I was put on earth to offer others. Anytime we can listen to true self and give it the care it requires, we do it not only for ourselves, but for the many others whose lives we touch.”

OUCH.  That one hurts me personally. So much so that I think I need to apologize to all of you who trust me as a coach and in the work of developing the leaders in your organization.

Why?

Because I just had a “vacation” and instead of resting, I worked.

Usually when I am on vacation I will catch up on a lot of reading, reflecting, and journaling. Mostly how I rest is that I will have fun with my wife and my friends and family, we play golf, go out for dinner, play games.

This last vacation I took, I did the second thing; spent time with friends and family playing golf and board games.

What I did not do was spend any time reflecting or reading or journaling.

Instead, I had client calls, and planning meetings, and workshop preparation. 

DANG! Why did I do that?

In his book Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, Peter Scazzero calls this out as the importance of silence and solitude. He found in his own leadership journey how important this was, not only when taking chunks of time out, like a vacation, but integrating silence and solitude as part of his daily routine. Scazzero writes that he slowed the pace of his life down from working six days a week (about 70 hours) to five days and 40 hours. Over the years, this slowing down has given him time for solitude and reflection.  

The counter-intuitive aspect of this is not always obvious - that this slowing down is actually something that can help us go faster. It can clear our minds. It can refresh us. 

The parallel for me is sleep. When I get a good night’s sleep of 8 hours, I am ready to take on my day. If for some reason I only sleep 4 hours, I am groggy and sluggish the rest of the day. 

While that is an example of a 24 hour cycle; when we put our weeks and months together the logic is the same. 

Rest And Emotional Regulation

By now most of you know the story of the part of our brain called the amygdala. It is the sight of emotional learning and emotional memory. It is the part of the brain’s fear circuit and can trigger things like anger and aggression. When you do not rest enough, or well, this part of your brain doesn’t get the reset it needs from all the days activity.

Research has shown that sleep-deprived people show a 60 percent greater activation of the amygdala during waking hours over those who are not sleep deprived. In his book, Successful Aging, Daniel Levitin writes that “when your mom told you that you were crabby when you didn’t get enough sleep, she was probably right.” (As a side note, Levitin states that sleep deprivation is strongly associated with Alzheimer’s disease.)

The same kind of rest we need every night is needed in more of a yearly pattern as well. As leaders, we need to be able to disengage, to be silent, to think, to become distracted. There is energy in this when we reengage. It is like waking up from a goods night’s rest and having your Mom say, “Wow! Look at you! You sure on in a good mood. You must have had a good night’s sleep!”

Remedy

Edgar Schein, in his book Humble Inqury, makes a most salient point in this area when it comes to the real problem. All of this busyness affects our ability to regulate emotion and gets us into a state of mindless hurrying. Schein writes, “If I hurry I do not pay enough attention to what is going on, and that makes mistakes more likely.”

DANG!

Why didn’t I just take my vacation and disengage so I could be in a frame to reduce mistakes? It all seems so simple.

More importantly, perhaps, then not paying attention is that I may miss new opportunities that are right in front of me. Because I am not rested, I mindlessly hurry by them.

For me, I agree with Schein in that learning how to run faster is not where I need to be in my life, but that I need to slow down in order to make sure I have my full thinking and observational mind available to me and can take “full stock of reality.”

My next vacation is scheduled over Christmas holiday. Please know I will not be available. But also know that when I come back in January, you will get a better version of me. 

Is empathy part of your leadership development plan?

I was reading my newsfeed the other morning when a story about Mark Cuban caught my eye. 

He is my favorite shark on the TV show, Shark Tank, and the title really intreated me, so I clicked on the story.

The title of the article is “How Mark Cuban’s Compassion For An Ex Employee In Need Shows Remarkable Empathy And Leadership.”

Two things about the title really grabbed me:

1. Mark Cuban and the word Compassion. I have to tell you, that really stirred me. As you read the article you find out that Mark went out of his way to help a guy who suffers from mental illness. Keep in mind, this is a guy who he had employed as a player on his Dallas Maverick’s NBA team for only one year. He probably didn’t know him all that well, yet went out of his way to intentionally help.  That is what COMPASSION is. The word actually means “with someone in their suffering.” I think we all could use a little more of that trait today.

2. The second thing I noticed was that the editors had linked Empathy and Leadership in the title of the article. What gets linked with leadership these days when it comes to news is anything but leadership. In fact, I scrolled through the news just a few minutes ago and the only thing I saw was mean spirited vitriol that was more about furthering agendas than it was reporting the news. I guess that is what I found so refreshing about the story linking Empathy and Leadership. 

But these two things are not why I wanted to write this post. 

What really caught my eye when reading the article was this quote, from an NBA scout: :

Talent isn't the question. It comes down to whether or not he's worth the potential off-court headache. 

The player the scout is referring to is Delonte West….but that really isn’t the point.

The thing that really struck me was that talent alone is not enough. Never has been. Never will be. 

I have known and worked with a lot of people over the years that had more talent in their little pinkie than most people totally embodied and yet they just never seemed to be able to get ahead. 

• They were disruptive in meetings

• They seem to only care about themselves and patting themselves on the back

• They only care about their agenda, their project

• The task they had to accomplish was more important than the people around them

In essence, they lack what Mark Cuban, at least in this one instance, seems to really understand. 

People matter!

Compassion and empathy are leadership traits that need to be honed and developed. 

I am asking myself these days if we have put way too much emphasis on management and productivity, and not enough on caring about the people who are doing the production.

I wonder what our world would be like if we all made Empathy part of our Leadership Development plans?

Metabolizing Negative Reality Like Defensiveness

Nobody likes bad news. Especially when the reality of what you are trying to process just does not line up with how you see things.

In my executive coaching practice, I am able to observe the above reality quite often through one of the tools that I use; the Interview 360.

When a new client signs up with me, one of the primary things they are trying to understand is how they are viewed in their organization by other folks. The second thing they are trying to gain awareness around is how the perceptions of others line up how they see themselves.

The Interview 360 is a tool that is meant to bring some clarity to the self-awareness of the leader.

The closer the leader’s self-awareness is to the perceptions of others, then we say there is a higher likelihood that how that leader thinks they show up is in fact what others are experiencing.

Leaders whose self-awareness is aligned with those in the organization have a pretty good idea of what their strengths are and they also have a keen idea of what their opportunities for growth might be.

Not all leaders I work with experience this level of alignment!

In collecting feedback for a leader, it becomes fairly easy to tell when a leader has made a mistake, or not treated others in a professional manner, or maybe they just don’t listen very well. The issues for misalignment can be vast and quite varied. Often they are contextual to certain types of organization relationships, like with direct reports or with peers.

When this misalignment occurs, the thing I hear most from the client I am working with is, “That was not my intention!”

This statement is then followed by some type of rationalization:

• I sure didn’t mean to react that way.

• I actually thought I had a mandate from leadership to do what I did.

• I am being penalized for my boss not showing up and leaving me exposed.

• My action was totally taken out of context, that is not who I am.

Defensiveness

Leaders often get charged with being defensive when situations like this occur. Defensiveness is a very typical immediate type of reaction. I never fault a client for being defensive initially.

The problem with a defensive posture in the long-run is that it inhibits the leader from being able to learn and grow from the precipitating event.

Likely, this defensiveness over the long term is a leader’s inability to metabolize negative reality.

At times, people struggle to completely understand the feedback they have received. Best selling author, John Townsend, says leaders who struggle in this area are really struggling with their ability to accept imperfection.

Leaders who maintain long-term defensives might be struggling with issues of embarrassment, shame, and even deep-seated narcissism. This defensiveness can wreak havoc with a leader’s self-confidence, their ability to tolerate stress, and even cause them to be much less trusting in previously trusted relationships.

Thermostat or Thermometer

As I am working with clients who are defensive in processing negative realities, an analogy that has worked for me is to challenge the leader to see themselves as a thermostat instead of a thermometer.

Leaders who act like thermometers allow their emotions to rise and fall based upon what they are feeling in the moment. When any of us receives feedback that creates a negative reality for us, this is a common occurrence. No one likes to be called out as an adult for behavior that is not valued by the organization, especially if this behavior has been rewarded in the past (If not overtly rewarded, at least not recognized and overlooked).

For most of us, these negative realities will fade a bit from our current memory, we become almost numb to the event. Compartmentalizing it as an isolated issue and covering it up with an “it really doesn’t bother me that much” band-aide.

Then, all of a sudden, out of nowhere something will happen and the entire experience of the negative reality will come back to light. Perhaps someone gets a promotion that you were in line for, until the negative reality event. Or maybe you get passed over for a bonus you otherwise would have fully deserved! Then it is like a fire-cracker has been lit off inside you and your emotional temperature just skyrockets.

A very high-risk place for a leader to be.

The coaching I do with leaders who have experienced negative realities is to help them see themselves more as a thermostat rather than a thermometer. The goal here is for them to take an accurate account of the entire environment around them and then control the environment.

Thermometers measure the temperature in only one place and are a reflection of their environment. A thermostat has a much broader perspective of what is going on and can see a much bigger picture and then be more in control of the narrative.

How About You

Have you experienced any negative realities lately? Something not go your way? Did you get some feedback that maybe you didn’t agree with or that really set you back?

You have a choice in terms of how you respond. I think initially we are all a bit like thermometers. So give yourself some grace here. Then, as time goes on, the real challenge for you is are you going to stay a thermometer or are you going to grow into a thermostat? What is the upside if you grow? Also, what is the downside if you stay a thermometer?

5 Questions Every Leader Needs To Be Asking Themselves in Reflection

How good are you at spending time in purposeful reflection?

This is a question I ask a lot of the leaders I coach. The reason I ask about purposeful reflection is that I think leaders are fairly good at reflecting, they are constantly seeing things in their own heads.

For example, I had a client who recently was working on a review of the talent in her organization. She spent a lot of time reflecting on the individuals that she was representing. However, she spent almost no time intentionally reflecting on her overall outcome or any of the biases she might have experienced when going through her talent review process. 

I think it is fair to say many of us are good at reflecting on the work in front of us…maybe not so good at critical reflection of the processes we went through to make the work happen.

There are not many of us who spend time on this. And I get it. 

Those of us in leadership development have spent way too much time working with leaders on obtaining good outcomes and not nearly enough time helping you think about your processes.  We have encouraged you to go from “good to great,” to be “innovative,” and to “work from your strengths.”

But what we haven’t given you are tools to purposefully reflect on how you are showing up as a leader.

A leadership guru, Gary Yulk, wrote that to facilitate favorable learning environments in organizations, leaders must act as a role model.

Have you thought much about that? Do you see yourself as a role model?  What does that even mean for you and how you are impacting those on your team? Are you one who encourages your team to have a good work/life balance but sends emails at 5pm on Saturday evening and 9am on Sunday morning?  

Role models set the tone and the pace for those they work with.

Some of you might be saying, “Well I want folks on my team to work hard! During COVID I need to make sure they are really engaged.”

Okay, just know that Dan Goleman, in his book Primal Leadership, calls out this “pacesetting” style as dissonant. The problem, according to Goldman, is that you will likely burn out people on your team.  If you don’t burn them out, you will run them down so much they will lose energy to be able to give you any kind of extra effort when it is needed. 

Here are five other biases that leaders can be influenced by and some questions you can spend some intentional time reflecting on:

1. Confirmation Bias -Seeking out proof that will confirm what you already think or believe.  Are you working on a project or with a team and unduly influencing them to show something you already believe is true? What do you need to do to eliminate this bias from a project you are currently working on?

2. Hindsight Bias - Belief that the past was more accurate and predictable than it really was. How old is the data you are using to form your opinions of people on your team? I have a client who made a mistake several years ago. Although he has had many successes since then, he is still in a “penalty box” for that error. Are there people in your organization you need to forgive because you are putting too much emphasis on things that happened a long time ago?

3. Gender Bias - A widely held set of implicit biases that discriminate against gender. Let's say a female in your organization (Sally) really gets intense in a meeting. You think about the situation and come to a private conclusion that “when under pressure, women get emotional.” Anytime we use all inclusive language about an individual we are showing a bias. Step back and think about what happened to Sally in the moment and consider why she got emotional. Then apply the same standard to one of the guys on your team (Dave). If he gets emotional, does he get credit because he is passionate? If they are both emotional, why is it a problem for Sally and not for Dave? How might you take gender bias out of your thinking as you work with talent on your team?

4. Anchoring Bias - Relying heavily on an initial piece of information or a data point that unduly influences your decisions and thought processes. “Do you remember that guy we hired from a competitor 5 years ago? He was a total wash out.” Do you use comments like this that unduly influence your thoughts and feelings today? Does this one situation anchor all your thoughts on hiring competitors? How could you look at each individual without labels and find the good in what they are brining no matter what their work history might be?

5. Available Thought Bias - Your decision is influenced by what springs first into your mind. I witness this one a lot in leaders. They tend to fall in love with the first thing out of their mouths. This comes from our pride, and feeling we need to defend an idea just because we said it. This one happened to me today in a meeting. I was asked my opinion and gave it, then felt like if I didn’t defend it I would be seen as not having a take on a topic. So I ended up defending something I was not that passionate about.  How might you overcome pride, admit you were wrong, and agree with someone who had a better idea than you?

I do hope you might take some time today or this week to pause and reflect on how these biases might be affecting your leadership.

As you reflect, I encourage you to forgive yourself. We all have biases - we can’t help it. Our brains are association making machines. They fill in blanks to make reality from things that may or may not be there. Realizing we all have biases is the first step to better team outcomes. 

Best hopes to you with your intentional reflection exercise.

4 Proven Ways to Get Out of a Rut

As a professional coach, I have been on the receiving end of many questions throughout the years. One that I’ve heard over, and over, and over, sounds something like this: “Scott, I am in such a rut right now. Any ideas on how to get out?"

The idea of being in a rut is an interesting one.

Wagon-Stuck-Road-Bad

What is a rut?

The phrase "stuck in a rut" is said to have originated in the early 1800’s as settlers in America were moving west. The wooden wheels of the wagons they were pulling would get caught in holes or very deep grooves that were carved in the common path being traveled. If your wagon got stuck in a rut, I can only imagine how difficult it must have been to pull out and continue the journey.

Today the phrase “stuck in a rut” has a different meaning but similar feeling to it. The feeling of being buried, bored, not motivated, stagnant, or even monotony.  I would estimate that 25% of the coaching I do is with clients who feel like they are in this deep pit and cannot seem to find a way out.

How Do Leaders get Out of a Rut?

Here are four strategies you can use to get out of a rut. I would recommend picking one and see if it works for you. As with all the recommendations we make, there are no guarantees. If something is not working for you try a different approach or a new strategy.

Rest

It is possible for us to feel like we are in a rut when really what we are is tired. In our 24/7 world, where things are constantly coming at us, it is very easy to feel paralyzed and not know which direction to turn. It is like you have eight ropes tied around you and each one is pulling you a different direction. They all have the same amount of tension on them, so you cannot move. You are stuck and what really needs to happen is to release the tension.

Here are three things you can do to rest and relieve the tension so you can move again:

• Serious Play. Often times we think of play as being for children. However, research has shown that play for adults stimulates higher-order thinking. Play, in this sense, is a voluntary activity involving physical engagement of some type that is pleasurable for its own sake. Take a day and just go play. Do something you get a lot of pleasure out of. Resist feeling guilty or childish and just enjoy it. Reflect at the end of the day on how good you really feel. I find the feeling freeing, and a great way to release the tension.

• Sleep. You may flat out not be getting enough. Turn off the TV, iPad, Phone, or DVD player, and get 7 to 8 hours of sleep. If you are in a rut, track the amount of sleep you are getting. If you find you are not getting enough, take a nap. Close your door, schedule a meeting with yourself, and close your eyes for 20 or 30 minutes. It can be refreshing.

• Nature Walk. The walking part is relaxing in itself, and doing it in the woods, on a mountain, or on a beach can be an excellent way to relax. This practice will also help to use pent up energy and help you to sleep better at night.

Reflection

• Get Clear. Make a list of your priorities. Put them in order and start crossing them off. The physical aspect of seeing things crossed off will give you the sense that you are making progress out of the rut.

• Find a Friend. Support them. Focus on them. Don’t focus on yourself and your problem. I find that focusing on others and their problems, then trying to help them solve their issues, often helps me. Being an entrepreneur can at times be scary. Then I go serve a community meal at our local Care Center for people who literally don’t know where their next meal is coming from, and I realize that I really have nothing to fear.

• Start journaling. Then buy Shery Russ’s book The Journaling Life. Seriously, journaling is one of the single best things that leaders can do to keep themselves headed in the right direction. I would encourage you to not only journal what you think, and facts that have happened to you, but also to journal your feelings. Getting emotion out on the table is critical for releasing the stuck feeling.

Retreat

The idea of a retreat comes from an old French word meaning "a step backward."  The word took on a military connotation in the 14th century as an act of withdrawing from action. The reason for withdrawal was to regroup so you can re-engage the enemy again more powerfully than before. Many people I run into see retreat as weakness. Retreat is actually a way for the leader to regain their thoughts and engage their work again more powerfully.

• Personal Leadership Retreat. This idea is for you to get away by yourself for 2 to 4 hours to just think about where you have been, where you are now, and where you are heading in the future. I just took a Personal Leadership Retreat a week or so ago and have done a video chronicle of my experience and what I learned. You can view it here. If you don't know how to do a retreat this video will give you some ideas on how you could do your own Leadership Retreat.

• Read Your Bible. One way to retreat when you don't have time to get away for four hours is to take a 20- minute retreat with an inspiring book. The book I turn to most often for inspiration is the Bible. The Bible is, year in and year out, the best-selling book in the world. However, most people just do not spend enough time gleaning inspiration from this masterpiece. One of the verses I turn to most often is Colossians 3:23.

• Try Fiction. Reading or watching a TV series can be a great way to step back, relax, and prepare to re-engage. My wife and I are currently on a retreat of sorts. In the evenings, we are watching the series Alias on Netflix. The show stars Jennifer Garner and has a spy theme with interesting twists and turns. We call it "mindless", but it helps sometimes to just relax and be mindless so that the next day I am more prepared to engage my world.

Reprogram

You got into this rut by a certain path. If you are going to get out, you may need to do something different that will reposition your perspective. This reframing can be difficult for a couple of reasons: First, leaders may believe that the path they were traveling is right, ergo the rut is on the right path. Second, even when leaders acknowledge they are on the wrong path, being in the rut feels safer than any change they may need to make to get on the right path.

Here are three things you can do to reprogram yourself out of the rut:

• Get on a new path. Start innovating. Don’t worry about success or failure. Develop an attitude to let go of the outcome and just focus on the quality of the input.

• Stick your hand up. Let others help pull you out. Start collaborating. Collaboration is an intentional sharing of ideas, which requires give and take, and at times some real humility. Just talking about what path you want to be on can be of great value and begin to extract you from the hole. Walter Isaacson, in his excellent chronicle of how the digital age came to be, made this observation, “Brilliant individuals who could not collaborate tend to fail." Don’t fail. You are smart enough! Reach out, collaborate, and do it with some intentional frequency.

• Take a risk. Executive coach Marshall Goldsmith is famous for saying “fail forward fast." I recommend a book titled Fail Fast, Fail Often. In it the authors provide some very practical advice on how to break free from habitual behaviors that may have you in a rut, and to trust your enthusiasm for a new venture. I know I have said it before, but I do think it is worth repeating: as leaders, we need to let go of outcomes and focus on quality inputs.

Homework: Get out of your rut by trying one of the suggested methods of Rest, Reflection, Retreat, or Reprogram.  Let us know which one you try this week in the comments below.

What Do You Mean They Don’t Trust Me?

I doubt that too many leaders wake up in the morning saying to themselves, “Gee, I wonder how I can erode my team’s trust today?” If they did they would either be pure evil or would be trying to get people to quit their team. To me, it is almost unconscionable that a person who was able to rise to a level of leadership in an organization would stoop to such madness.

The thing I find interesting in my executive coaching practice are the calls I receive asking for suggestions on what can be done when a leader has lost their team’s trust. So, I did some research on organizational leaders regaining trust and here is a brief summary of what I found.

Steps to Regaining Trust

1. Discern the Error. Since most leaders do not get up in the morning hoping to erode the trust of the team, it is important to decipher what went wrong. How small or large is the impact? Did you go back on your word? Are you making changes that people do not understand? Were changes made that were thought to be temporary but now they seem permanent? If the violation of trust is two-sided then some type of conflict resolution will be needed.

2. Assess the Impact. If the violation of trust is localized between one, or two, individuals then move as fast as you can to rectify the situation. Realize that even if it’s just a misunderstanding, word travels quickly in organizations. Try and remedy this as fast as possible. If the transgression is more systemic, then a more formal, systematic plan may need to be put in place.

3. Admit Publicly The Error Of Your Way...Quickly. Once you’ve identified your error, be prepared to make it right. Perhaps one of the most common trust errors is the perception of the leader using inconsistent standards to evaluate contribution. When this happens a leader needs to apologize for any inconsistency and strive for clarity around the standards being set.

4. Listen to Each Other. No matter if the erosion is localized or systemic, good listening skills by both parties are needed. Avoid trying to justify behavior or explaining your intention. There can be time for that level of clarification later. The thing that is needed most at this point is to sit down, show good empathy and try to understand where the other person is coming from.

5. Be Prepared to Apologize. The leader must have a humble posture in order to grant someone else a higher position than they take for themselves. According to Edgar Schein, this can be difficult for a leader because of the formal power granted by the organization where the follower is just expected to implicitly comply.

6. Follow Up with Compassion. According to trust and communication expert, Irina Schultheiss Radu, leaders need to build cognitive trust by showing they are reliable and dependable to work whatever plan has been put into place. At the same time, the leader needs to build affective trust by showing true care and compassion. (Click here to refresh your memory on cognitive and affective trust.)

When a leader finds themselves in trust-issues situations immediate action is needed in order for organizational effectiveness and efficiency to be restored. Are you currently rebuilding trust with your team members? What actions are you putting in place to recover the path toward trust?

If you are a leader who thinks you have lost trust, or you are forwarding this article to someone you feel has lost trust, take heart. In most cases the trust is recoverable. The path is not easy, but if approached with sincerity, restoration is possible.

How Do You Solve This Leadership Problem?

A few years ago, I had a fascinating conversation with a client who had an unusual problem. His organization was hiring for an upcoming position and the internal candidate was confident, driven, and articulate during the interview process. However, when he asked her to explain different ways she’s handled “critical feedback,” she was silent. My client asked the same question in a different way and framed the query with how she’s handled “personal development opportunities.” Still no answer. He even used an example of something he had observed in their workplace interactions and it still didn’t induce an answer on her part.

He was puzzled, and I can see why. What’s the best practice, for a leader, on helping someone see their personal weaknesses and potential areas for development? 

Here are some ideas of what may be happening when your team member can’t see their own shortcomings:

1. Lack of self-awareness.  They don’t know themselves to receive feedback and how to process the information. A lack of self-awareness is actually quite common in leadership development. Self-awareness means understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the leader and the effect these have on others in different situations and contexts.

2. Poor listener.  Even though my client asked the same question in different ways, it is possible that the woman didn't understand. In any dialogue, there are three conversations happening. The first is between the two participants, and the other two conversations are the ones that each participant is having with themselves. If the interior monologue has a “higher volume” than the verbal conversation, active listening is not happening. The conversation energy is going toward preparing what to say next when the other person stops talking.

3. Arrogance. It is common for the leadership literature to call this narcissism. Another common description is pride or being so self-absorbed that previous feedback rolled off her back. In this case, it seems like she heard the feedback, but rejected it.

4. Omniscience. A high level of knowledge is often seen as a positive quality in a leader, as knowledge and experience are valuable commodities. However, a leader who believes they are all knowing is on a slippery slope.

5. Lack of self-regard. Self-regard is an ability to be able to accept yourself for who you are. It is the appreciation for your positive attributes, and your perceived negative traits, while still feeling good about yourself. With my client’s interviewee, it’s possible her personal view of self was so low or distorted, that admitting fault would appear as weakness.

As leaders, it is vital we learn how to receive critical feedback and capitalize on personal growth opportunities. So, how are YOU doing on answering the question, “What is your personal development opportunity”?

Give this question full breadth and stretch yourself a bit? Get honest and ask, "What do I need to work on that will cause me to be a more effective leader?" Let me know what you find out about yourself and how I can encourage you on your journey.

Will These Three Ideas Help You Succeed?

What questions have you been asking yourself as you build your success story? Perhaps, it is, “As HR Vice President, what does leadership development look like?” Or, “As a sales leader, how can I balance work and family? Or even possibly, “As a Church Plant Pastor, what do I need to do to grow my congregation?”

These are tough, yet realistic problems that we face as professionals, but I think we need to reframe the questions.

Any coach (whether formal or informal, external or internal, paid or volunteer, executive or life or organizational) must have the skill of listening then reframing questions. Reframing a question provides a different perspective on the issue at hand.

As a coach, it’s my job to reframe the question to help you get to the heart of the matter. Rather than asking about leadership development, I would challenge you to ask the real question, “What do I need to do to get promoted in my next role in the company?”

Or if you’re the sales leader, what I really hear you asking is, “If I sacrifice time with my family, will it be worth it financially?”

Or to the pastor, I would reframe the question as, “What should I be doing to grow my church? I am doing everything the books say, but it isn’t working!”

Please don’t misunderstand my point. I do think that people want to know how you approach things, how you set goals, how you solve problems, how you prioritize resources, how you assess risk. But, the answers they want will direct back at themselves.

Enter the world of what psychologists call self-efficacy.

Research On Self-Efficacy

Self-Efficacy is a fancy term for belief in yourself; confidence in the capabilities and talents you have been given and developed. Studies have shown that the confidence you have in your capabilities affects your performance and is linked to happiness, satisfaction, and well-being. All of these attributes in one way or another link to success.

Research published in the December 2016 issue of the Consulting Psychology Journal outlines that you can help those you coach be more successful by following three simple ideas:

1. Invest the Time: The confidence of the person increased as the coaching relationship evolved over time. As you coach others over the course of your conversation, notice how their confidence increases toward the coaching objective. When it does, make them aware that you are seeing this increase in confidence.

2. Say it Out Loud: The more the client verbally articulates their confidence, the higher the achievement to the goal actually becomes. “I am going to do this” type statements show confidence in the client's ability. The more they make commitments out loud, the increased likelihood of belief in themselves.

3. Ask the Right Question at the Right Time: In this study, questions asked by coaches fell into three categories:

   • Open-ended - “What do you want to do?"

   • Proposing Solutions - “You could search for other companies that offer better possibilities.”

   • Provide Support - “That sounds like a great idea."

The research points to proposing solutions as the only effective method in triggering self-efficacy statements in the very first coaching session. While the other two methods are also valid, they merely enhanced the confidence of the other person throughout the coaching engagement.

As you work with and coach others on your team, especially if you have more of a long-term relationship, focus on asking open-ended questions and providing support for the ideas they bring. Too many of us fall into the trap of proposing solutions because it makes us feel better about ourselves like we added real value. I would argue that the value you bring is the investment of time and belief in the person you are coaching. The research says that the value of you proposing solutions beyond early in a coaching relationship does little to improve the confidence or belief in the mind of the person you are working with.

How would your work environment change if you focused on building the confidence of others in your organization? When you are coaching others, resist the temptation to make the coaching about you by offering advice and providing them solutions. Really focus on practicing open-ended questions and providing your client the support they need.

How to Maintain Emotional Balance When Things Go Bad

In every organization, there are sometimes big changes and it can be hard to maintain emotional balance through each situation. You may be thinking, “Sure, it is easy to use the tools you mention when things are going well, but what happens when things go bad?” Just because there are changes that may affect your position, it does NOT require that it affects your emotions in a negative way.

Several situations could be categorized as difficult for leaders to work through: downsizing, merging, restructuring, relocating, new leadership, project failure, ethical and moral failure, just to name a few. Basically, any situation involving a change that does not give you a positive feeling. These situations don't have to be awful, but they encompass any kind of change that takes you out of your normal routine, which can make them difficult.

When there has been a breakdown in your company, it doesn’t feel good. Tensions are high and people are on edge emotionally. Realizing the emotion exists and not allowing the negativity to drag you down is the skill. This is emotional resilience. Bad things are going to happen.

How can you as a leader work on your own resilience to be able to lead others to see a brighter day ahead?

The first step in being a resilient leader in times of tension and complexity is to be aware of and manage your emotion. In an issue of Leadership Quarterly, Laura Little, Janaki Gooty, and Michelle Williams take on the topic of "the role of leader emotional management." The authors studied 163 leaders and their followers and concluded that when followers perceive that the leader was managing emotion, focusing on meeting expectations, and creating a future, followers felt better about the leadership being provided. Conversely, when followers perceive that leaders modulate or suppress their emotion, there is a lack of leadership and job satisfaction on the part of the follower.

What can you do as a leader to create better leadership in times of tension and complexity? How can you focus on meeting expectations while creating hope and a future for your followers when times are tough?

Here is a simple acronym that can help you stay in CHECK during difficult situations:

Consider the Situation

Take note of what's going on and how it is affecting you, your relationships, and your team. Can you describe the situation clearly and objectively, then identify the emotion it brings up and why? Are your emotions creating false expectations that need to be managed?

Hear from Others

Who are two or three people you trust that can speak into the situation? Identify individuals inside and outside of what's going on that can help you think and act productively as you figure out what to do. Don't spend too much time doing this, or else you become subject to the opinions of too many people and fall into a pit of gossip and negativity, which brings us to our “E."

Eliminate Negativity

This is easier said than done but necessary. Pessimism indicates that there's absolutely no hope or no solution to what's going on, and that's just simply not true. Whether it's coming from yourself or from others, be sure that what you are hearing and thinking will be constructive and productive. Martin Seligman, past president of the American Psychological Association tells us we need to develop a “positive explanatory style." This is not “The Power of Positive Thinking” we all have heard about. It is much deeper than this. Seligman says, “What you think when you fail is crucial.“ How you explain things to yourself when they don’t go your way is the difference between helplessness and being energized.

Create a Plan - Organize and Carry Out

You've thought about it and talked about it, now it's time to decide what you will do about it. Start with the outcome you hope to have and work backward, documenting the steps you need to take to reach that outcome. The key here is to describe what success looks like to you before you implement the plan.

Keep Your Head Up - Stay Consistent, Present, and Motivated

We know it's not going to be easy, but no matter what happens you have the ability to take a deep breath, stay positive, and keep going. What are some things you can do to remove yourself from what's going on, clear your head, and rejuvenate yourself to stay in the game?

HOMEWORK

Think about this acronym and how you can apply to a difficult situation you are facing. Write CHECK on a note and stick it somewhere you can see it as a reminder of this process. When you see it, think about how you can apply it to the things causing tension for you and your organization.

Does this really have to be a 4 letter word?

C. O. N. F. L. I. C. T

Okay, so it isn’t literally a “4 letter word,” but in organizations sometimes it feels twice as bad as any four letter word ever would.

Conflict is one of those tension words that has such a negative connotation. So averse that we avoid it like we would someone in the grocery store not wearing a mask.

It is like the conversation you know you need to have with someone, but you go the other way because avoidance seems, at the time, to be much less painful than the interaction.

But is it? What is behind this avoidance? 

This is the generation of “when you see something, say something.” I think that mantra is pretty easy to articulate in isolation, like when you are hiding behind your Facebook. But put all the social pressures we feel in organizations on top of it and avoiding conflict can seem like a better route than addressing it.

What if the person I am in conflict with gets hurt? Worse yet, what if I get hurt?

Rather than face the hurt or the pain, our knee jerk response is often to avoid. Just like the person in the grocery store who is not wearing a mask and our first thought is not the fact that it is unlikely they have COVID (current respiratory specimen data at this writing is 7.0%) , rather, we choose to avoid them all together. There is over a 90% chance that all is well, but we become paralyzed by the prospect of the pain, so we avoid and miss all the great opportunities that could have been present if we just engaged.

Conflict and Emotional Intelligence

I was working with a team of folks a few years back whose senior leadership team was trying to address the fact that their business was being held back because everyone in the company was so nice to each other. 

I actually see this a lot with the organizations I work with. They are great people. Highly professional. And rightly so, in our organizations It has become the right thing to do to treat employees well, with respect.

A goal in developing organizations is to try and understand what the people need and to try and meet those needs. We hear a lot these days about how to engage employees; making sure they are enjoying their work has become a metric for performance. That is all well and good, except if we are not careful we can over index on the relationships to the extent that problems will go unsolved.

It is interesting to me the relationship between Interpersonal Relationships and Decision-Making, specifically the problem-solving aspect of a decision-making process. 

First, let me define my terms.

Interpersonal Relationships between people are mutually satisfying relationships that are characterized by trust and compassion. 

Problem-Solving is the ability to find solutions for problems where emotions are involved (which is every problem) and how the emotions impact the decision.

Here is what it looked like at the client I mentioned above:

The organization had a culture of caring about people. The experience was very much like being in a family. By-in-large, they all are really nice people. They trust each other and show a tremendous amount of care and compassion. Strong Interpersonal Relationships. 

So when a deadline came…(and went)… for a project to be delivered, it created a problem. Other teams would be waiting for the work that was now missing. What ensued is what I called tension-smiles.

You can feel the tension of the missed deadline, all the while smiling as if nothing was wrong. 

The emotion of the problem was high. The relationships were trusting.

The issue became that the folks in the organization saw the choice they had as either stressing the relationship OR solving the problem. What I heard was, “If I confront Sam for missing the deadline, then I will lose trust with him.”  

From their perspective, the choice was between preserving relationship OR the solving problem - not both.

This is common when it comes to conflict. The tension and the emotion affects our ability to see things clearly. We fall into fear based thinking that blinds us. Instead of seeing the full picture, fear causes us to see very few options in front of us.

The Strategy 

A simple hack when you feel you are facing this dichotomy is to change your OR to AND.

How can the manager in the above scenario have both strong interpersonal relationships and solve the problem at hand?

Understanding where Sam is coming from AND holding him accountable for missing the deadline are both possible by flexing your Empathy muscle; empathy for Sam as well as for the people impacted by his missing the deadline. 

Our emotions will, at times, not tell us the truth.

It will feel like I must pick one option over the other; such as the relationship over solving the problem. This is the “false” in false dichotomy.  

Your emotion, your fear, your anxiety is telling you something, but what it is telling you gets misinterpreted.  

Your emotion is telling you that there is tension. The question your emotion is asking you is “What do you want to do about this?”  

Emotions can’t decide. All they can do is inform.

It is up to your more rational, thinking brain to make the decision. In order to do this, it is key when you feel the fear or the anxiety in the false dichotomy of choice to take a deep breath. Step back for a moment and see if you can find a way to solve the problem AND maintain the relationship.

Change your OR to AND.

Hold Sam accountable AND maintain the relationship.  

Best Hopes to you on this journey.  It is worth the ride.

7 Steps to Creating Followership

With all the crazy in our world these days, most leaders I speak with barely have enough time to get their jobs done, let alone spend any significant time catching up on things they enjoy reading. I know for me it has been that way, I am about 3 books behind in my own reading schedule. The other thing I really enjoy that I just have not taken as much time for is keeping up with my journal reading. The journal Leadership is one of my favorites. 

I had a client who needed to reschedule the other day and I jumped on the journal Leadership’s website to see what was current and I was really intrigued by the framework of  the  August 2020 issue. The entire journal is dedicated to the shift being seen in how effective leadership is being practiced. Here are a couple of the articles:

1. The price of wearing (or not wearing) the crown: The effects of loneliness on leaders and followers.

2. Barriers to leadership development: Why is it so difficult to abandon the hero

3. Toward a methodology of studying leadership-as-practice

I find it very interesting to think about the leader not being the hero. For too long, we have been sucked into thinking that the leader will rush in and save us. That the leader is some sort of mystical figure who is smarter, more engaging, or has more energy.

As I watch organizations and spend time reading and thinking about this, I am becoming convinced nothing could be further from the truth.

Even certain personality construct like Myers-Briggs give homage to types that they say are natural leaders like the ENTJ (see Myers-Briggs for more details). There are so many implicit and explicit biases in this kind of nonsense that the idea is almost laughable.  

Since leadership has such a strong relational component, I am becoming convinced that true leadership is really about whether others will follow. There will always be a consideration given that in certain circumstances people might have to follow. There is some power gradient in play where a person feels they have to tolerate the leader. But this is a leader in name only, or maybe a better term is boss or supervisor. 

True leadership has followership; not because they have to, but because they choose to.

Those following the leader do so because they buy in to the vision. They find the work they contribute toward the vision to be interesting and worthy to spend their lives doing. Those in followership  have heightened levels of accountability. They feel responsible for the vision and they understand their role in making it happen.

There are very significant trends (all being accelerated by COVID) in the direction of followership models replacing traditional heroic, leader-centric models. These follower-centric models are replacing what many are now calling the “heroic” leader. The leader is no longer the center of the work flow to create leadership, rather, as Barbara Kellerman writes in her book, Followership, “Followership implies a relationship between subordinates and superiors and a response of the former to the later.”   

I really like the idea of followership as it brings into balance the task and the relationship side of the leadership equation. Followership is about empowering teams to higher levels of performance where the leader is setting the vision, building a safe environment, fostering learning, recognizing contributions, and maybe most of all is not the focus of the attention.

Are You Creating Followership?

The above question is a good one for leaders in organizations to sit back and ask themselves. Really spend some time reflecting on your ability to create an environment where people choose to follow your vision, and not because they have to for some organization hierarchy or power gradient reason.  

Here is a little checklist of 7 things to reflect on your own ability to create followership:

1. Clearly describing the vision - In a few words can I articulate our purpose?

2. Repeatedly giving the vision - How many times a day do I bring the work people do back to the vision?

3. Reciprocal Trust - Do followers feel psychologically safe to be themselves so they can contribute? Do you really understand their relational needs that unlock their true potential?

4. Learning - Do we encourage learning including: asking questions, giving and receiving feedback, even making mistakes?

5. Expectations - Are they as clear to followers as they are in your own head?

6. Coaching - Do you really want to win; or do you just want to be seen as a good coach?

7. Two Tier Feedback - Are you willing to examine original assumptions made or do you just give feedback on observed behavior?

I give you these 7 ideas and questions not really as a model for followership, but more of a checklist to ask yourself or others around you how you are really doing at fostering the relational side of leadership.

I would love to have your perspective on Followership. If you have a comment, please put it below. Love hearing from you.

How Can Being Instead of Doing Affect Your Organizational Culture?

Years ago I worked at an organization that had a cultural norm of “respect for people." This norm was carried out in many positive ways such as compassion with the loss of an employee's family member, care with paternity and maternity leaves, and even performance-reflected pay-base in this respectful culture.

In one department, a leader swooped in with an agenda. He would make changes in performance standards but only select favorites would be told of these new rules. Low-performance ratings were given to people who had traditionally been top performers. The culture shifted dramatically and the organization became chaotic and fragmented. The previous cultural norms were no longer reliable. All anyone knew was to "please the leader or you are out."

Six months later the entire department had been decimated. The leader had to be replaced. What was once a high-performing organization had been completely and utterly destroyed by the actions of one person. One really loud voice was able to take down an entire team, exiting many top performers from the company in the process.

The culture you define as an organizational leader impacts the development of your team members. If they don't feel safe, they definitely won't feel valued as a team member. And if they don't feel valued, then they won't be motivated. When you have unmotivated team members you run the risk of losing them or leaving untapped potential on the table.

So, how do you create a culture that allows your newest team members to feel safe as well as your current colleagues to be motivated? Perhaps it's not something that you DO, but instead what you can BE.

Focus on developing your Emotional Intelligence. This effort on your part will impact the culture you want to create. As you create this positive culture, the desired behaviors will become part of who you are and not just something that you do occasionally. Think deeply about the kind of culture you are shaping as you lead your team.

Here are five things you can become that will positively impact the culture of your organization:

Be Self Aware

Know yourself and be confident in your abilities. Understand how you handle your emotions and how they impact your company. Your team is watching to see how you will react. In fact, they may be able to predict your behaviors. Become just as aware of yourself and how you can choose your emotional responses.

Be Assertive

Communicate your what, how, and why in a simple, clear, and even repetitive way so that your team understands.

Be Empathetic

When I teach seminars on Emotional Intelligence, I often ask the group for a common definition of empathy. The response I get back more than any other is “walking a mile in the other person’s shoes.” I love this definition, but to take it one step further (pun intended),I would add that empathy is “walking a mile in the other person’s shoes, even when the shoe doesn’t fit." Being empathetic is about being compassionate, caring, listening, and being flexible as needed. I strongly believe we should not neglect the impact empathy has on shaping the culture of your company. Showing regular empathy will instantly invoke safety and value in your teammates.

Be in Control

Don’t waver or change things based on emotional reactions. When something comes up that causes an emotional response, remind yourself of the company’s mission and your principles to ensure your decisions align with your mission. This way, your team can feel confident that you won't make changes at the drop of a hat. As they trust you, they can focus on the work they need to do.

Be Optimistic

Positive people are magnetic. Their energy makes others want to be around them. In order to be optimistic, you have to change the way you talk to yourself. Begin to see the best in yourself, recognize setbacks as learning opportunities, and realize obstacles are unique, temporary events that you'll get through.

How are you doing with these five things? Look back over the list and fill in the rest of these phrases:

I want to be more…

So that my team can feel …

And we'll create a culture that is ...

Share what you wrote with a mentor or coach and have them help you with this development. If you can't think of who to share this with, write it in our comments below or contact me directly. I'd love to hear what you have to say and find out how we can help you!