Thoughts on Leaders and Leadership:

• -  Leadership is not about personality but about providing direction and painting a positive picture of the future! People are not motivated by fear or reward but by ideas that capture their imagination.
• -   Leadership requires passion – leaders love their people. They unleash the passion of their followers by leading from the heart.
• -  Leaders over-communicate! It takes time for ideas to sink in. Leaders repeatedly communicate what is important.
• -  Leaders define success – leaders are explicit about what needs achieved. Your team can’t “do it all.” If everything is a priority, nothing is a priority. Leaders provide clarity and reduce complexity.
• -  Leaders hold people accountable – when commitments are made leaders have to show moral toughness and follow through. Nothing erodes a leader’s credibility like a lack of accountability.
• -  Leaders recognize and reward what’s great - they build on the strengths of their people and their organization.
• -  Lead the Way (Be the Change) Leaders exemplify the change they expect from others. People will believe not what they hear leaders say but what they see leaders consistently do.

How do you rate? Which area can you improve and enhance your leadership?

It’s been a decade since Love Is The Killer App by Tim Sanders was published. On Valentine’s Day it’s a great time to remind you that for every business problem you face, love is the answer!

I had the privilege of meeting Tim and thoroughly enjoyed his stories and his insights. The most impactful story was the one he told about a computer programmer who was planning to commit suicide. Because this programmer’s manager read Love is The Killer App and applied what he learned a life was saved! That’s a pretty dramatic outcome.

Tim defined Love-At-Work (BizLove), as the “intelligent sharing of your intangibles to promote growth and success in others.”  When you share your knowledge, your network and your compassion – you are a Lovecat.

 Have a Happy Valentine’s Day – go be a Lovecat!

If you intentionally focus on being and behaving in a trustworthy manner you will exponentially increase the quality of all your relationships.

Here are additional ideas (building on last week’s tip) about actions that build trust with others:

• - Be loyal. Maintain others confidences. Just because you can post something on Facebook doesn’t mean that you should. When someone hears you spilling another person’s secrets it makes him wonder whether you will share his secrets.
• - Admit mistakes and fix them. It’s important to admit when you are wrong. Don’t stop at saying you are sorry. A trustworthy person also makes an effort to right the wrong and fix their mistake.
• - Be consistent and congruent. What you mean (your intent) and your actions should match. When you say that you are on a diet and you eat dessert with your meal you are behaving inconsistently with your stated intent.
• - Set and manage expectations. There are explicit and implicit expectations. A lack of clarity regarding expectations can cause misunderstanding and break trust. When you agree to meet someone at a specific time and you are going to be late, what do you do? Call to let the other person know you will be late so you manage expectations.

Remember that trust comes from who you are and what you do. Be trustworthy, act trustworthy and you will become trustworthy.

Relationships are built on trust. They are sustained by trust. Are you trustworthy? Do you explicitly let others know that you want to build trust and that they can count on you to do what you say?

Trust comes from who you are and what you do. To grow in trust with others, the end never justifies the means. Trust will decrease and you will erode relationships when you achieve great results at the expense of others. In low-trust organizations leaders make decisions that achieve results but destroy their employees trust. This reduces productivity, performance and morale.

You can build trust by consistently telling the truth and showing respect. Additional ways to build trust with others:

• - Make and keep your agreements. This sounds simple but if you want to please everyone around you, there may be times that you agree to something to make someone else happy. Do not make an agreement unless you know you can keep it
• - Seek mutual benefit – want what’s best for everyone involved. Some people refer to this as finding a “win-win” outcome versus one side winning and the other side losing. When you are on conflict with another person ask yourself whether you want to be right or you want to maintain and build the relationship.

Any role you perform (leader, parent, spouse, friend, etc.) is a relationship. Trust is the glue of relationships. Relationships make the difference between success and failure, love or loss and a life well lived or a lonely life. Intentionally focus on being and behaving in a trustworthy manner and exponentially increase the quality of your relationships.

Have you ever thought about the difference between management and leadership? Do you use the words interchangeably? John Kotter makes a clear distinction in his book Force For Change: How Leadership Differs from Management.

Leadership is about the future; creating vision and strategy, communicating and setting direction and motivating and aligning people. Management is about the present; planning and budgeting, organizing and resourcing, controlling and problem solving.

Without leadership, organizations move too slowly, stagnate, and lose their way. Without management, organizations are inefficient, unproductive and out of control.

Leadership is about doing the right thing. Management is about doing things right.

Transformational change requires both great leadership and great management.

When you lead a change take the time to understand where you are on the continuum of leadership and management. Make sure that the right balance exists to achieve your objectives.

“Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision just passes the time. Vision with action can change the world.” ~ Joel A. Barker

There are many different leadership definitions. In our study of leadership we’ve identified four qualities that inspirational leaders exude.

• Passion – you can’t inspire unless you are inspired yourself.
• Inspirational leaders do not have an identical personality profile but what they do share in common is a deep, relentless well of passion. Passion compels, passion moves, passion inspires people.

• Purpose – this answers the question “why?”
• Purpose is something greater than you or your organization. Lead from a place of purpose and your people will dream the dreams, take the risks, and make the sacrifices that are necessary to go where you are leading.

• Participation – of you and your people.
• Inspirational leaders don’t ask their people to do anything they are unwilling to do. They model the behavior they want others to manifest. Inspirational leaders participate and they actively solicit the participation of their people. One executive sets office hours each day. Anyone can sign up for fifteen minutes and a chance to present an idea or share their perspective. People want to be part of the action, they want to create meaning. So invite them to participate.

• Potential - for the future and for those around you.
• Lead from a positive vision for the future. Paint a vivid picture of the potential future in way that people can see it, touch it, smell it, and taste it. Give people hope that things can be better, and that you have a plan to realize the potential of the future.
• Lead from a belief in others potential. Challenge others to do more. Help them see the potential in themselves.

Today’s world craves leadership that inspires. If you are in a place where you influence others, you are in leadership. Use passion, purpose, participation and potential to inspire others through your leadership.

Accountability is a crucial and often misunderstood concept within groups, teams and organizations. Accountability is recognizing and taking responsibility for your actions and their outcomes. The word itself can be transposed into “ability to account.” When you are accountable you are able to account for the commitments you make and the actions you take. Being accountable is the opposite of assigning fault, blame or excuses.

Assess your level of accountability with these three checkpoints:

1.  I keep my commitments and do what I say I will do; I proactively manage expectations if something prevents me from keeping my commitment.
2.  I am responsible for the performance of my organization and I regularly meet with my team (or group!) to review our progress.
3.  I do what needs to be done in order to achieve results without blame, excuses or fault.

 The result of accountability is increased self-confidence, organizational performance radically improves and the level of engagement is higher. Essentially accountability comes from taking ownership, following through and accepting the positive or negative consequences.

If you are not a fan of feedback you are not alone. 99 out of 100 people hate the feedback that is given annually as part of the performance review process. Feedback serves a useful purpose when it is given in real time with the intention of benefiting the other person and they are open to receive it.

When you are giving feedback here are some suggestions:

•  Decide the objective of your feedback. Do you want to encourage, share an improvement opportunity or give your opinion on something? Feedback is not the same thing as “getting it off your chest,” or sharing what is really on your mind. Focus on the recipient and the results that you want to accomplish in giving feedback.
• Determine the level of receptivity. Your approach to providing feedback and the recipients’ state of mind makes a big difference in whether you achieve the intended outcome.
• Focus on the facts. While you can share your opinion, it’s critical to share objective observation versus subjective conjecture. For example, instead of telling an employee that they are lazy (your opinion) you’d be better off explaining that taking a two hour lunch each day is not acceptable.

 To radically improve the quality of feedback, consider the outcome, choose your words wisely and make sure that the recipient of the feedback is open to your input. According to Ken Blanchard, “feedback is the breakfast of champions!”

Are you familiar with Tuckman’s theory of group development? In 1965, psychologist Bruce Tuckman defined “forming, storming, norming and performing” as the stages a group follows in order to become a high performing team. In 1977, Tuckman added a fifth stage, “adjourning” that involves completing the mission and breaking up the team.

The forming stage occurs when the team first comes together. Team members are learning about each other and the opportunities and challenges of the mission ahead of them. This is the team leader’s opportunity to start well and set the stage for success. Have a conversation with your team and discuss the following:

• Purpose – why does the team exist?
   
• Results – what are the expected outcomes and success criteria?
   
• Boundaries – how big is the sand box the team is playing in?

• Norms – what are the rules of engagement for describing how the team will work together?

Creating the charter with the team at the forming stage builds a shared understanding of why the team exists and what it is trying to accomplish. If your team has been in existence without a charter you can still discuss these topics and develop a charter.

For more details about the various sections, check out our sample Team Charter.

Building a team does not mean holding an offsite meeting with food and fun activities. Real teams have a clearly defined mission for which they hold themselves mutually accountable and produce a collective work product. To achieve a high performing team there are a number of elements that are necessary for the creation of a team.

Before you embark on team building decide whether you really need to build a team or if a group can get the job done. Once that decision is made there are three critical areas that require thought and clear definition:

• What needs done – define “what success looks like” and ensure that there is a shared understanding of the common purpose, goals, and working approach
   
• Who is going to do it – clearly define team members role and responsibilities; build on their strengths to maximize performance and engagement
   
• Guiding principles – define the decision processes, issue resolution processes, team norms and communication expectations so that each team member is operationally aligned

Take the time to clearly define each of these critical areas and align the entire team around the definition of success, their roles and responsibilities, and the team’s guiding principles.

As you grew up you probably learned that some behavior was “good or right” and other behavior was “bad or wrong.” You were molded by someone else’s framework for ethical decisions. Have you ever reflected on your own framework for making decisions of right versus wrong?

The time to construct your framework for decision making is before you are faced with an ethical dilemma. Consciously choosing the principles that will govern the appropriate conduct for you in advance ensures a more rapid decision with less angst or regret. To create your ethical decision making model there are two steps:
 

1. Define your personal values which serve as the basis for your ethics. The Institute for Global Ethics has done a lot of research and found that common global values include honesty, respect, responsibility, compassion and fairness. What are your values?
2. Intentionally create your framework for making an ethical decision based upon the values you outlined. Some of the “tests” you could subject your decision to include:

• Law – is it legal or not? The law says that insider trading is wrong. Whether or not other people are doing it, trading insider information is still wrong.
• Gut – how do you feel inside about the decision? Usually there is an intuitive reaction in your gut. Did Bernie Madoff really feel good about stealing pensions or squandering people’s life savings?
• Front Page – what if the result of your decision appeared on the front page or a newspaper or popular website? Would Arnold Schwarzenegger have made a different decision if he considered the headlines of the front page stories he would appear in?

Is there really right and wrong? Or, are there shades of gray where the right or wrong decision depends on variable criteria? How will you decide and will you feel good about the front page story that has your name in it?

Decide how you will decide when faced with an ethical decision.

An overwhelming amount of information has been written about leadership. What about followership?  If you don’t have followers are you really a leader?  As a leader it is your responsibility to create conditions to increase the  commitment of your followers. 

Here are three ways that you as a leader can create these conditions:
 

• Take time - to understand and help your followers apply their strengths. Research shows that  strengths based leadership significantly increases engagement which leads to greater follower commitment.

• Create connections - through community. Provide intentional opportunities for your team to develop connections in the workplace. The world of social media has demonstrated that a chorus of many voices often drowns out a single voice. Building strong communities within your followers provides a platform to lead from.

• Be a leader - that others want to follow. Model integrity, authenticity and competence to inspire followers to respect and trust in you.

The opposite of followership is desertion. Studies show that one of the most frequently cited reasons for leaving a job is a problem with the employees manager. This is clear evidence of failed leadership and a result of not providing conditions to increase the commitment of your followers. Build on strengths, create communities and model the critical leadership competencies to enhance your leadership through followership.

Focus on honing your leadership skills so that when you look behind you people will be following you.