Which authority type are you?

I was reminded this week of some leadership behavior that is destructive. It wasn’t even in my own life, but with a family member. I was extremely frustrated to hear the details around a conversation involving a high-level management person and a person on the front lines of getting work done. I had coached this person in how to approach a situation and much to my dismay, the high-level management person decided to minimize the intelligence and worth of someone I care deeply for.

It’s the age-old dilemma of positional versus moral authority. Those that lead well don’t allow their position to go to their head. People who lead based on their position on the organizational chart don’t understand one of the core components of leadership…influence. They lead with the mentality of being superior because of their position. They lead with intimidation. They ignore input, demand control and disparage people below them on that organizational chart. It pains me to even use the word lead when describing their behavior.

Moral authority is based more on your character and behavior than an organizational chart. It doesn’t matter what your title is. I’ve lead teams, groups and individuals on numerous occasions without a title. How? Developing my moral authority through influence. To earn the right to influence someone you must build trust. To build trust, you invest time with people and show you are dependable and competent. It also helps to show you care by showing genuine, authentic concern about them as people.

You can be both considerate and effective as a leader. Effectiveness doesn’t have to suffer just because you are a nice person. Sure, there are boundaries to set and difficult conversations to have. If you have developed moral authority along the way, those conversations are not only easier but often more constructive as well.

Teamwork

Teamwork makes the dream work. It’s a fun phrase we’ve all heard before. What does it mean? I believe there are layers of meaning under those 5 simply words that I want to spend a few posts writing about.

George Barna said, 

“A team always outperforms an individual. The more you are able to bring together leaders whose skills and training build upon what the others bring, the greater the ultimate outcome of their cooperative effort.”

There is value in building a solid team. As I mentioned, I am going to take my next few blog entries to write about the value of a common vision, community, roles, tools, communication, cooperation, commitment (man, that’s a lot of C’s) and motives. There is a lot that goes into developing a strong, cohesive and fully engaged team.

First is vision. While speaking to my son the other day, he called vision a “churchy” term. That surprised me, and while I understand the context and circumstances in his own life that brought him to that conclusion, vision is far from a “churchy” term. Vision is intended to be a unifier, regardless of the setting in which it is used. Think about it in terms of sports teams – the recent championships by the Golden State Warriors or the Pittsburg Penguins. A bunch of guys, focused – laser focused – on one goal, one vision. Neither was an individual win, it took teamwork. Without teamwork, we place a lid on the capacity of the team, the organization, the department or whatever context applies to you. It’s vision that directs the teams’ energy, effort and focus toward a single goal that matters most.

Vision also represents a better tomorrow that you can see in your mind’s eye today. One of my favorite leaders, Andy Stanley said,

“Too many times the routines of life begin to feel like shoveling dirt. But take those same routines, those same responsibilities, and view them through the lens of vision and everything looks different. Vision brings your world into focus. Vision brings order to chaos. A clear vision enables you to see everything differently.”

A key to building a strong team is to ensure the vision is clear and shared. A clear vision brings understanding. A shared vision brings buy-in. Both are critical. Vision is the compelling why that motivates what we do. In practical terms, we need to be able to apply value to what we do. What I do for a living as an IT professional may seem as far away from value as you can get. Delivering technology, can help organizations be more profitable by increasing revenue or decreasing cost. These are valuable business components, but they don’t instill what most would consider a motivation or a sense of value. However, if you think about my job this way – while all the above is true, the unique value that can be applied is that it creates opportunity for more people to be gainfully employed and pursue the American dream. I work for a staffing company that helps people find jobs. Looking at my work and considering how it impacts thousands of lives in a positive way is indeed motivating. When I can attach that kind of value to what is being done and cast that vision to others, it can become a motivating factor that allows us to unify our workforce.

It doesn’t matter if you are the CEO, work in accounting or are the maintenance supervisor – casting vision effectively will connect your role in the organization with the common purpose for the organization to exist. We all play a part, we all get to participate in a common vision that should be both compelling and worthy.

Start small. Start with your own team – create an atmosphere that is positive and encouraging. Then, sit back and watch others notice your positive nature and adopt your vision.

Memories

It’s been way too long since I’ve written…again. A combination of job and personal items have created a perfect storm as of late that has kept me sidetracked for way too long. I haven’t even tweeted lately, but I did manage to tweet today: A gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a man perfected without trials. It’s true, friction has a way of shaping, molding, defining us. That applies to both our personal and professional lives. I usually write towards the career and professional side of life, but I know that this post will blend well into the personal side of my life and hopefully be a positive influence in your life as well.

I lost my dad 14 days ago. 10 days ago, I performed his memorial service. I have learned a lot from my dad, so I want to share some of what I shared at the memorial service. My only request is that you keep your mind open and take away something that will propel you forward that you can share with and pass along to others.

My dad was a gentle man; he became even more gentle as he got older. Even when he couldn’t remember my name, I would hug him whenever I left him and he would whisper sweet things to me. As with most parent/child relationships, we had our ups and downs. Maybe you have heard about a lot of the rules in my house as I was growing up. As an immature young man, I only saw those rules as "in my way", intending to “ruin my fun" or "control my life". The young man that I was couldn't see past his own desires for fun and freedom to understand the love my Dad was showing me by setting boundaries and doing his best to guide me in life.

I did not truly understand all of this until I had kids of my own and I began to institute rules, draw boundaries and impose guidelines in their lives as well. I had ups and downs with my own kids too, but that is just as natural as it is for parents to pass these types of things along to their own kids.

Some of the things my dad passed along were physiological and others were more traditional in nature:

• My two brothers and I want to personally thank him for the hair challenges he passed down to each one of us
• I can personally attest that he passed down his competitive nature to me – and just like he would never let us, as kids, beat him in anything, I did the same to my kids (I have lots of stories on this topic)
• I heard my entire life how important education and learning are from my dad and I have made it a passion, not only to read and learn constantly, but to teach as well

Some of the more important things my dad taught me:

• Dad taught me it was OK to cry
• Most fathers in the time I grew up were telling their sons not to cry
• Dad knew it was an important part of emotional health to experience and feel things, not just stuff them deep into your own self
• Dad instilled a good work ethic and an attitude of savings
• I never saw him take a single car to be worked on, call a plumber or electrician – he did it all himself
• He worked hard – extremely hard – his entire life
• When times were tough financially, he worked harder
• Dad taught me the importance of a relationship with God
• He treated others with the kind of biblical love and respect they deserved
• He served tirelessly at the church in many capacities
• He knew that part of loving God meant not just giving money, but also giving his time and talent to serve others and help those in need

In a nut shell, my dad always gave his love freely but I did not always receive or respect it well. He extended his love in my direction anyway:

• I remember dad reading with us every morning
• I remember him circling with us in prayer before we left every morning
• I remember him holding me…tight…telling me how much he loved me, and he wouldn’t let me go until I said it back to him

Take a minute today to show someone you care. It can be at work, at home, or wherever your important relationships are. Decide to love and respect the others around you. Take a minute to tell a memory or story that has impacted you in a positive way to others. Write a note to someone that may need to hear some encouraging words. Hug someone, tell them you love them and don’t let them go until they say it back!

Lastly – don’t mistake kind, gentle leadership as weakness. Leave your legacy by impacting others in a positive way daily.

Measuring Leadership Effectiveness

If I've said it once, I've said it one hundred times; everyone is a leader. You may not think you are, but there is someone looking at you for leadership. It may be it may be a spouse, a child, a friend, or it may be a team at work. It may even be a multi-million/billion-dollar project under your leadership. There are many forms and facets of leadership, all of which are important.

While leading is fairly inclusive to all, leading well is another story.  A constant topic of concern to me is emotional intelligence and the accountability one must take for themselves. You are 100% accountable for the decisions you make, the actions you take (or at times the actions you don’t take) and the words you speak. You are 100% accountable for you, so don't try to blame others for them. Along with taking responsibility for oneself, you must also commit to understand and learning about others. In today’s culture, dealing with multiple generations of perspective and ideology, we have to learn to understand people like never before. That type of understanding isn't a gift everyone has, but it is something that can be learned by anyone willing to set their pride to the side, and learn that perspective, learning, hearing and many other aspects of life are different for everyone (read my previous posts on my blog [http://stevestrickland.blogspot.com/] titled “Perspective”, “Trust and “Developing an understanding attitude”).

Your ability to learn and adapt will help determine your effectiveness as a leader. It doesn't refer to your level of book smarts, but rather your ability to grow, learn and implement new ways to lead people effectively. I'd like to discuss a couple of areas leadership that will help you get the most out of your leadership potential.

Self–awareness

Self-awareness is a curiosity that begins with the courage to hear what works and does not work about your leadership style. It can be about anything leadership, including; the work culture, personality dynamics, etc. Being aware is the first level of knowledge that can equip you to take powerful corrective action. Self-awareness allows you to leverage your talent and intervene when and where necessary to remove any personality traits that are in the way of your true leadership potential.

The ability to develop culture and climate awareness opens the door for you to see what is really going on. With that additional level of knowledge, you can intervene in areas that negatively effecting engagement and innovation.

Self-Awareness is the doorway to emotional intelligence. It gives you access to real self-improvement. It's absolutely critical for personal and professional development. However, awareness for awareness sake is not enough.

As a leader, you must be courageous enough to take responsibility for your negative behaviors and the impact of those behaviors on others. You have to be willing to recognize and admit when you are wrong, then work to shift your behavior in a way that has a more positive impact. Be humble.

Bias for Action

This is a phrase that several of my best leaders have used to describe a consistent urgency toward doing (Both Mike Ettore and Martin Casado were leaders of mine that used this phrase and both had a military background). Many leaders prefer to stay on the strategic side of things, casting vision and focusing on the mission or strategic project of the day. I've got a lot of that in me too - but I have learned a valuable leadership lesson in this area. People love being led well, but if you always lead from the top you can lose credibility.  Sometimes you have to lead from the side and be willing to not just lead, but assist as well. Assisting can come in several forms, whether it's clearing roadblocks and impediments with other teams, providing resources or materials required, or actually jumping in to assist with work that needs to be done.

I can tell you that my most recent position change (just a few months ago) this has become a critical component of being able to lead well. I'm spending less than half of my time managing and leading in a strategic way. The majority of my time is spent writing code, building automation components, answering calls/tickets or whatever else needs to be done to assist the team.

Be willing to roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty in there with your team. It will go a long way toward gaining their respect and you teach them you are not willing to ask something of them you would be unwilling to do yourself. If you want to build your influence and develop loyalty between you and those you lead – be willing to help as much as you want to lead.

Adaptive Change

As mentioned above, most leaders are typically mission and task driven, focusing on the strategic side of things. This can cause blind spots when it comes to what is happening with your team.

Being able to respond to changes in an appropriate, controlled manner — regardless of the current stress – is part of a good leader. Flat line reaction is not always the answer but screaming and yelling is not appropriate for any situation. Anger and frustration might be needed at times, while curiosity and collaboration may be needed at other times.

Developing this type of response and reaction agility means that you have learned to think before reacting. When I teach this to my kids, there are a few phrases I have repeated to them enough times that they typically help me finish the sentence now whenever I use it:

·         You don’t have to say everything that comes into your head

·         Don’t allow your feelings to dictate your actions, you be in control of them

As an effective leader, you must constantly ask yourself, “What is needed now?” This has everything to do with situational awareness and appropriate reaction. When the work is stressful or a project is faltering, a leader needs to have a handle on how they respond, and can coach others in the same manner. That type of leader is one that positively contributes to a healthy company climate and culture.

Being adaptive takes discipline, awareness and commitment. It’s a core component of leadership intelligence. We have to learn to be:

1.       a mission-driven leader

2.       a leader who inspires people to give their best in service of a compelling vision

In summary, we must recognize that most people are not coming to work simply for a paycheck; we need a keen awareness that many people come to work to fulfill their individual purpose in a way that supports the organizational purpose. If you want to be an effective leader, you must understand how to inspire and how to leverage your communications with others to do the same. They utilize their people intelligence to tie work responsibilities and tasks not only to the overall intention for and strategy of the business, but to a real purpose they can get behind as well.

Unspoken Questions your team is likely asking

Work culture is on everyone’s radar these days. It's often the difference between a good team and a great one. Smart leaders pay attention to their team culture because they know it can create an atmosphere where people love to come to work and be a part of something that truly makes a difference. As teams change or evolve or as you onboard new team members, remember to consider these unspoken questions they are likely asking.

Can I trust you?

We all want to work for organizations and leaders that we trust; that is, those that live up to their promises. I've questioned candidates considering leaving their current work and I often hear about the old "bait and switch". Essentially they were told one thing about the organization, like expectations for the role or potential for growth as a leader, only to find out none of it, or very little of it was true. When a leader makes promises to their team but doesn't deliver, it creates opportunity that will likely equate to a lack of trust. It's understandable to paint your organization in the best possible light, however, when an unrealistic promise is made or an exaggerated view is painted without being honest about the real challenges the organization faces, team members will eventually see the reality and lose faith in leadership. Be relentlessly honest with your team about the challenges and opportunities. Honesty and fairness will build trust among your team which will create a healthy culture of trust and integrity.

Will you make my daily life better?

Increasingly, employees are looking for more than a job that simply provides a paycheck, they want to have their daily lives enriched and make an impact on others or on society. They want to be a part of a workplace environment that delivers the opportunity for fun and relationship as well as the opportunity for personal and professional growth. One of our core values here is FUN...so we need to look for ways to make the work we do more enjoyable. Whether we "game-ify" team/individual goals, celebrate special occasions or achievements or hold monthly meetings where we gather to spend time learning something new about work and have a party while doing it. This will help enrich the lives our our teams. Increasing the fun quotient will allow you to create a team that enjoys coming to work every day.

How will my work make a difference?

We are fortunate to work for a company that can really make a difference in the lives of people. Connecting people with job opportunities can be a very satisfying accomplishment. Unfortunately, we rarely take the time as leaders to equate value to the work we are performing. It's a powerful motivator. The key to motivation is not just to get someone to do something, but to get them to appreciate and agree with the "why" of the work we do.

Start asking these questions of yourself so you can answer them before you they become a problem. Create the work culture that is inviting enough to keep your best people wanting to show up every day.

How to eat an elephant...

You've all heard the old saying "How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time." That reminds me of new years and resolutions. When we look at what we want to do, sometimes we set overly ambitious goals and sometimes we set a lot of goals. Either way, we set ourselves up to fail. Most of us lack the ability to be successful at everything on our radar, all at the same time. There is a sense of optimism and renewed hope that comes with most new year resolutions. It causes the gym memberships to increase and the healthy aisles at the local market to be more crowded. Unfortunately, and somewhat inevitably for most, those resolutions become nothing more than good intentions within the first 6 weeks of the new year. 

As leaders, we can learn something from typical new year resolution failures. It involves the concepts of focus, simplicity and effective vision casting. We sometimes over complicate things or try to tackle too many things at once. It often leads to not completing work with quality in mind, missing deadlines or at worst, failure. For whatever reason, I have often found my role at work to be one that consists of multiple projects, multiple responsibilities and work that is of a critical nature. I can confess that recently, I found myself in the mental trap I just described. My new role involves so much work on a daily basis that it can overwhelm a seasoned employee quickly. As work came from all angles and in all magnitudes I found myself starring at what seemed to be a never ending list of things that need attention. In practical terms, in order to lighten the load and allow my team to be properly cross-trained while coming up for air, these things need to be done. Luckily for me, it only lasted a few weeks for me and I was able to recognize the volume of work and the sense of it being overwhelming was just me looking at the size of the elephant rather than which part I wanted to start with. 

I had some time off between Christmas and New Year's and instead of resolutions this year, my wife challenged me to find a word or a theme that would define my year. My word this year is refine – but I don't have time in this post to go into that yet, maybe another post in the near future! I am choosing to apply the word to every aspect of my life - including work. So I thought about how the team could keep it simple and how we could refine the work that was starring us in the face. The first week back in 2017 at our team meeting, I introduced a concept I am calling "one thing". Each team member, including myself, finds one thing that will provide some sort of relief to our team, our department or our customers in some way. Each person lets me know when their one thing is and owns it until it is successfully implemented. It's not over though, when the first "one thing" is done, each person is to pick their next "one thing" and the concept continues. Nearly every member of the team seems excited to identify and deliver their first "one thing", even myself. In fact, I had a chance to write some code for the first time in a while that will in effect save my team at least 8 hours per week. My code goes into production later this evening J. 

When you focus on the size of the work in front of you, sometimes it can be overwhelming. Keep it simple, grab the low hanging fruit that will provide as much value as possible and start moving forward. Some things will have to wait. Lead your people with clear, concise and simple strategies that will keep everyone moving in the right direction - toward the larger and more strategic goals.

It's personal

The great philosopher Charlie Brown once said “Humanity I love. It’s the people I can’t stand.” How do you feel about people? When frustrated, I myself have been known to mutter the phrase “work would be awesome if you didn’t have to deal with people.” Of course, that’s neither realistic nor feasible. It comes out when I am frustrated because I know that dealing with people is incredibly difficult, but it is just as incredibly important.

Leadership and relationship often are seen as two things that cannot co-exist. I can see both sides of the argument for and against the concept. I land on the side that believes the two can not only co-exist, but must exist in order to get the most from your team. I’ve written before about trust – something that is only built over time with consistent behavior. I’ve also written about influence – which is a byproduct of trust, but requires a level of personal investment to really be effective. The best leaders understand that a healthy work environment and a productive team are the result of good leaders that have spent time investing in their people. I can personally attest to meeting regularly with each of my employees. I try my best to never cancel that one-on-one time with any of them. There are times I have to reschedule, but I try to never miss one. It is in those meetings that I get to know each and every one of my people and hear about as much of their personal life as they want to disclose as well as hear their desires for involvement in certain systems or to be part of a particular project or where they want to be in their career in the near future. Those are important conversations that let them know that I care about them as people. As a leader you cannot be so task focused that you are only getting in touch with someone when you need something! We should not use our position to build our own career, but rather use our position to build our people. Think about it, would you rather work for someone that only cares about what you do or someone that cares about who you are?

I’m not saying that we sacrifice tasks or productivity so we can just be nice to each other. There are people I have worked with for over a decade that I have had to have difficult work related conversations with. If they know you care, those conversations (although never easy) aren’t so difficult because the other party ultimately knows that it’s not personal, it’s about accountability and responsibility. We all deserve corrective criticism when it is necessary, so we all have to be willing to give it and take it! There is a difference in telling someone they are doing something wrong and inspiring them to do right.

I’ve already told you that everyone is a leader. It may be at work, it may be at home, it may be somewhere else, but everyone has some level of leadership in their life. There is a quote form one of my favorite leadership authors (Andy Stanley) that speaks to the responsibility we have as leaders. It goes like this, “Leadership is a stewardship, it’s temporary and you are accountable.” As a leader, you are entrusted to the responsibility that comes with leading others. You will not always have the same level of leadership or responsibility – it may increase or decrease over time. In terms of accountability, follow through is one of the most important aspects of leadership. If you sit and listen to someone express their desires but do nothing to help them get to where they want to go, you lose credibility as a leader. We have to follow through and see our leadership opportunity for what it is – something we have been temporarily entrusted with and are responsible to ensure we do the right thing. The right thing to do and the hard thing to do are usually the same thing.