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REPOST: Opposite of Victim

by Ron Potter May 25, 2023

A Note From the Editor:

As we recently mentioned, we are reposting popular blog posts while Ron is recovering from some health issues.

Some people I’ve worked with have what we might think of as that victim mentality. The Leadership Style instrument I use (LSI from Human Synergistics) measures two areas titled Dependent and Avoidance that collectively describe a style that starts with the assumption that they are the victim in most circumstances. Some of the descriptions include:

A tendency to be easily influenced, not taking independent action
A strong tendency to deny responsibility or accountability
A passive attitude
Feelings of helplessness and/or guilt over real or imagined mistakes
The presence of rapid change or traumatic setbacks
A lack of self-respect
Extreme fear of failure

Although my work is focused on leadership within corporations, the first thing that came to mind was our lawmakers. Start evaluating all of the bills that are coming through Congress (or ones that have been part of the landscape for many years) and begin to evaluate them in terms of “Do they create victims or do they instill creativity?” Many of the laws of this nation seem to start with the assumption that you are (or should be) a victim. And then they tend to perpetuate that belief. Our only opportunity in this rapidly changing global economy is to be creative and innovative. Shouldn’t we stop passing laws that push us toward or assume we are or should be victims?

But, closer to home, can you evaluate your or others’ leadership style on this victim-creativity balance beam? It’s always easiest to see it in others but the first step in great leadership is self-awareness, self-assessment, and humility. Have a discussion with your team. Maybe start by evaluating the group of people that work for you. Do they behave as victims or creators? What about our leadership style is causing that? How do we change the way we lead to increase the creative nature of our company?

My wife and I recently had the opportunity to listen to Condoleezza Rice when she made a speaking engagement in our hometown. During the question and answer period, one of the first questions was “How did a young person of color from Birmingham, Alabama make it all the way to Secretary of State?” The first words out of her mouth without hesitation were “We were never allowed to be victims!”

This post was originally posted here on June 1, 2011.

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Humility isn’t a Byproduct of Heroism, it’s a Precondition.

by Ron Potter January 20, 2022

I recently read an article by Sam Walker in the Wall Street Journal that had an amazing headline. That headline: “In a Life-or-Death Crisis, Humility is Everything”

In the article Walker writes about:

Alfred Haynes, the pilot that brought the DC-10 to a landing after the rear engine blew up and took out all three of the planes independent hydraulic lines
Chesley Sullenberger, who ditched a plane in the Hudson River without a single fatality after losing two engines. (Tom Hanks made the movie “Sully” based on the accident.)
Luis Urzua, the forman at the Chilean mine cave-in that helped his team survive 10 weeks before a rescue could happen.

Humility was the Common Denominator

The common denominator in each of the cases was the humility of the leaders.

In the first example, Captain Haynes was faced with a hydraulic failure that engineers pegged at roughly a billion to one chance of happening. When Haynes asked his flight engineer to look up the procedure for steering a DC-10 under these circumstances the flight engineer replied “There isn’t one.” Haynes didn’t get angry, he just went to the next possible solution. Capt. Haynes spoke calmly and clearly to ground controllers and even thanked them for their assistance.

Six days later, he was healthy enough to be wheeled not a press conference. “There is no hero,” he said, “There is just a group of four people who did their job.”

He never took any personal credit. He placed all the credit on his crew doing their job. He was humble.

In the second example, Sully, in his first public statement said that after losing both engines and ditching his plane in the Hudson River without a single fatality said, “We were simply doing the jobs we were paid to do.” He was humble.

In the last example of the Chilean mine cave-in, Luis Urzua, after being trapped below ground for ten weeks insisted on being the last man out when rescue finally came. He was humble.

Humble Business Leaders

Sam Walker suggests that many of these celebrated leaders have a remarkable mix of courage and humility. On the surface, these two words seem to be the opposite of each other. Can you be courageous and humble at the same time? Can you display courage while being humble? Yes, you can!

In fact, it’s important that you exhibit and live both. Most business leaders seldom face situations where they make life or death situations. At least not in those terms. But often leaders face situations where the work lives and livelihood of many of their employees lie in the balance. It takes courage to make and then stick with those kinds of decisions.

Several years ago one of my clients faced that kind of decision. They were going to have to terminate the jobs of a large percentage of employees. It was a gut-wrenching decision. This company had facilities all over the country. The employees didn’t work in one location. Based on that dispersion of employees around the country that would be losing their jobs, they decided to rent jets so that they could visit every location over the span of two days.

In those two days, they sat with the employees that were going to be impacted and listened to their feelings and concerns. They didn’t explain why the decisions had to be made or the logic behind the decision. They just listened. After each meeting, the employees still felt bad about what they were facing but they also felt that had been listened to and understood. They had experienced humble leaders who were making courageous decisions. In the end, those employees moved on quicker and felt better about the culture of the company. They had experienced humble leaders.

Courageous and Humble

It takes both. Courageous decisions are often without the needed ingredient of humility. In this case, humility requires listening and empathizing. It also takes courage to provide both of those.

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Blog Myers Briggs Type Indicator Myers-Briggs

Myers Briggs Type Indicator: Diversity – Closing Thoughts

by Ron Potter April 22, 2021

Statistics Worth Noticing

There are a few statistics that I think are worth noticing. I have seen some interesting patterns in corporate leadership teams that are quite different from the US population as a whole.

Thinking

The first observation is that there are five dominant types when I look at corporate teams. They start with the types that end with the TJ combination. Remember that T (Thinking) is very logical in their decision-making. The opposite end of the scale is the F (Feeling).

The word feeling is misleading in Myers-Briggs types (MBTI). People often assume that you either work and think logically or your feelings tend to take over and may make rash decisions. A better descriptor might be values. People who have a preference for F (values) over T (logical) are not illogical. They’ll weigh all of the logical points of view but their final decisions will be driven by the values they believe the team (and themself) should live by.

Feeling Plays a Large Role (or Should)

As an example, I would often watch leadership teams prepare to make decisions based on the logic of one dimension or another. Once they have worked through all the logic, an answer might seem very obvious. Then, if there is a person on the team with the “F” preference, they may ask a question something like this: “I see the logic and I agree with the logic but how do you think our customer will react to that decision?” The question was not logically based but was value-based. I’ll notice the rest of the team being silent for a moment as they contemplate the question and then say something like “You’re right. The customer probably won’t like that at all and we may lose customers because of the decision.” This often leads to a rethinking of the decision, taking into account both logic and values.

Entrepreneur

Before I show you the interesting statistics, I want to throw in one further MBTI type. That type is the ENTP. It doesn’t end in TJ like the other four but it has been classically known as the “Entrepreneur Type”. I find that with leadership teams, the ENTP (Entrepreneur) type often comes up with a new or innovative approach to a topic but then the TJ’s take over for implementation (very logically based).

Together these five types INTJ, ENTJ, ISTJ, ESTJ + ENTP make up 71% of Leadership teams and 68% of Operations teams. Those numbers aren’t unexpected but in contrast to a general population where those five types are the preference of only 28%, it paints a very different picture of corporate leadership.

Don’t Misunderstand

It’s important that you don’t misunderstand me. I’m NOT saying that you should have a preference for one of those five types to be considered a good corporate leader. If you’ve learned to balance your own thinking on each of the four scales, regardless of your personal preference, you’ll make the best corporate leader. In fact, it is my belief that many teams and many individuals on teams fool themselves into thinking that the TJ+ENTP types are required and therefore “act” as if they are one of those types for fear that they’ll be “found out” to be one of the “inferior” types. There are no inferior types, only inferior balance of all types.

The Other Statistic Worth Noticing

The other statistical anomaly I’ve noticed on corporate leadership teams is in the NT/ST area. Notice that both types have the T component (logical) while some of them also have the N (iNtuitive) component and others have the S (Sensing) component. They are both logical in their decision-making but some are driven by their conceptual (N) view of the future while others are driven by the facts and details (S) of the present.

The US population, in general, is 10% NT and 30% ST. Leadership teams are 49% NT and 39% ST while Operations Teams are 32% NT and 50% ST.

Once again, this pushes corporate leadership teams in a much more logical approach to decision-making versus the general population.

Word of Caution

But here’s one word of caution. Madison Avenue learned a long time ago that we make decisions based on feeling (F) and then justify those decisions based on logic (T). Neuroscience has proved that to be true. This also holds true for ideas and thoughts. We “buy” based on feeling and then justify based on logic! Don’t kid yourself. Your feeling, value, emotional side comes into play in your decision-making much more than you think.

Years ago my wife and I were in a Chevy dealership looking for a “sensible” car. While we were waiting, another salesman and I were drooling over the current Corvette. My wife finally said, “I see no logical reason to buy a Corvette.” The salesman and I looked at her as if she was from the moon. The salesman said, “No Corvette has ever been sold based on logic!” Guess which model makes the most money for Chevrolet.

Diversity of Thought

Diversity has been used and misused a lot recently. I think one cartoon recently summed up that misuse:

When we think about diversity from a leadership point of view, we should be celebrating and encouraging diversity of thought, history, perception, and preferences. This helps us build unity, engage everyone and in the end, make the best decisions.

Respecting team members and their ideas will be key to building unity. Dividing people into arbitrary groups doesn’t help. Building respect is what helps. I’ve built these thoughts around the Myers-Briggs Type Indication. But working with any valid assessment of personality will do the trick as long as you drop the arbitrary ethnic, racial, or gender division. Diversity of thought is independent of these arbitrary divisions.

RESPECT the people you work with!

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Blog Trust Me

Chaotic Order

by Ron Potter January 28, 2019

The world we live in is chaotic. A great leader learns how to leverage chaos into creativity, to bring a sense of tranquillity to a crazy world.

Dealing with new technology, profit expectations, continual new-product development, the fickle shopper, and global competitors requires perpetual change and lightning-fast reactions. Markets change, old competitors consolidate, new competitors emerge, and attempts at re-engineering threaten our daily bread. Both leaders and employees can soon feel under siege and at the mercy of chaos.

A creative, energy-filled calm is what we need. A word picture may aid our understanding of this. Imagine you are a surfer. There you are with your board, waiting for the “big one.” If you are in Hawaii, the waves you are playing in might rise to twenty feet. All around you is surging, frothy chaos. Currents, tides, and the weather have combined to create a uniquely unstable environment. Conditions are always changing; every moment the ocean is different. If you try to catch a wave exactly the way you did yesterday, you will take a hard fall. You must stay alert and react quickly to every nuance of water, tide, and wind.

Gutsy leaders confront chaos. No one who is content to just paddle a surfboard beyond where the waves break has ever caught a “big one.” Neither has such a person ever wiped out. If you want to ride a wave, you have to enter into the chaos. If you panic while riding a big wave, you are sure to wipe out. If you stay calm, you can have a wonderful ride while tons of water crash down around you.

Creating calm in the office requires a similar ability to assess the environment, to act quickly, and to stay calm. The economy, products, competitors, consumers, and employees all constantly change. Someone has to have answers; someone must be an independent thinker, able to calmly think things through.

I am familiar with a banker who had a client ready to sell a branch location of his business. The main location seemed to be prospering, but this particular branch appeared to be a drain on energy, time, and resources. The business owner was upset, but the banker remained calm. He took the time to analyze the underlying causes of the owner’s problems. He visited the location, recast the numbers, and advised the owner not to sell the branch but to move and resurrect it. In reality, the branch location was producing extra cash, and the owner, following the banker’s advice, turned his entire business around.

People will follow leaders who stay steady in the chaotic times and work with them to create new answers, new plans, and a new future.

Whatever you do, don’t slip into what I call the “arsonist’s response to chaos.”

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported that firefighters in Genoa, Texas, were accused of deliberately setting more than forty destructive fires. When caught, they stated, “We had nothing to do. We just wanted to get the red lights flashing and the bells clanging.”

Do you know any leaders who intentionally start “fires” so they can get the “red lights flashing and hear the sirens”?

Leaders in one of my client organizations proudly described themselves as “firefighters.” They were proud of the fact that they were good at hosing down crises. But when they were asked, “Is it possible you might also be arsonists?” it caused a great deal of reflection within the company.

The goal is a creative, steady productivity—not a chaotic environment that squanders energy and resources on crisis management.

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Being Genuine Blog Culture

Being Genuine – Part IV

by Ron Potter December 6, 2018

This series of blog posts is based on an article written by Travis Bradberry in Forbes titled “12 Habits of Genuine People.” You can read the previous post here.

Here is his list of 12:

They don’t try to make people like them.
They don’t pass judgment.
They forge their own paths.
They are generous.
They treat everyone with respect.
They aren’t motivated by material things.
They are Trustworthy.
They are thick-skinned.
They put away their phones.
They aren’t driven by ego.
They aren’t hypocrites.
They don’t brag.

In this blog, I would like to consolidate points 4 and 6.

Generous and not motivated by material things.

For several years I have been using Aristotle’s framework of the pursuit of happiness to talk about leadership and team building.

Aristotle concluded that what makes us uniquely human is our pursuit of happiness. No other animal gets up in the morning trying to figure out what will make them happy. Our forefathers thought this concept was so important that they included it in the opening paragraph of our Declaration of Independence.

We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable; that all men are created equal and independent, that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent and inalienable, among which are the preservation of life, & liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Psychology Today says that Aristotle was discovering “the best way to lead our lives and give it meaning.”

Aristotle defines four levels in our pursuit of happiness. While there is a progression from levels 1 to 4 in our pursuit of a meaningful life, it is also obvious that we’re constantly cycling through the levels, never leaving any one of them entirely behind. But, Aristotle does tell us that at any point in time, one of the four levels will identify our dominant pursuit of happiness at the moment.

Level One: Sensual, maximum pleasure, minimum pain. Searching for happiness through our senses; sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch.

Level Two: Ego and pride. Winning, achieving, producing, being the top dog.

Level Three: Beatitudes. Blessing others

Level four: Sublime Beatitudes. Accomplishing great things together.

Level Two, our ego and pride are the toughest one to overcome and move on to the Blessings. We’re hard-wired to function at the first two levels. It takes discipline, understanding and need for personal growth to move towards “the best way to lead our lives and give it meaning.”

Being generous and not being motivated by material things is the result of moving from level two to level three happiness.

Genuine people live predominately in pursuit of happiness at level 3.

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Blog Trust Me

Mentoring: An Exercise in Vulnerability

by Ron Potter August 7, 2017

We discussed last week that one of the hallmarks of a long-term mentoring relationship is the intentional vulnerability that develops between two people. This means they can easily strip away the outside masks and get down to the issues (both personal and business) that need attention. This kind of openness and willingness to share the truth is a quality found in effective leaders. They refuse to let pride get in the way of open communication that will encourage and assist others and advance the cause of the organization.

If the characteristics of a solid mentoring relationship remind you of a good friendship, you are right. Research data and our experience indicate that, more often than not, mentoring relationships grow over time into lasting friendships.

But if a mentoring relationship is to thrive, men in particular must overcome an issue that many of them struggle with: It’s hard for men to be vulnerable with one another, especially in the work environment. In his book The Friendless American Male, David Smith writes:

Men find it hard to accept that they need the fellowship of other men. The simple request, “Let’s have lunch together” is likely to be followed with the response, “Sure, what’s up?” The message is clear: the independent man doesn’t need the company of another man. In fact, the image of the independent man is that he has few if any emotional needs. Therefore, men must manufacture reasons for being together—a business deal must be discussed or a game must be played. Men often use drinking as an excuse to gather together. Rarely do men plan a meeting together simply because they have a need to enjoy each other’s company.

Even when men are frequently together their social interaction begins and remains at the superficial level. Just how long can conversations about politics and sports be nourishing to the human spirit? The same male employees can have lunch together for years and years and still limit their conversation to sports, politics, dirty jokes and comments about the sexual attractiveness of selected female workers in their office or plant. They do not know how to fellowship.

Getting beyond such superficiality takes effort, and at least in the early stages of their relationship, a mentor will have to model appropriate vulnerability to build trust with the protégé. Once the walls start coming down, the process will accelerate and the rewards will be great for both partners. Real issues will be addressed so that genuine personal and organizational growth and change may occur.

What about mentoring involving women? Are their needs and challenges different? Research from Bernice R. Sandler, senior scholar at the Women’s Research and Education Institute, says that “at least one study has shown that male mentors were more likely to direct their female protegees and therefore to be disappointed if they [the protegees] did not follow their advice. The study found, in contrast, that female mentors were more likely to encourage and affirm their protegees’ career choices; they apparently had less emotional investment in having their protegees follow in their footsteps. Also, male mentors may be largely work focused and ignore personal issues that affect those with whom they are working, while women mentors often show interest in both the personal and professional lives of their students.”

My own experience has revealed that most women prefer a coach from outside their company. While they often would not mind having a male coach, the concerns about sexual overtones and misunderstood motives are often too high to make this a comfortable arrangement. Mentoring the opposite sex (either men mentoring women or women mentoring men) presents challenges, and certainly, if any sexual overtones develop, they need to be confronted and the relationship discontinued.

The right mentee paired with the right mentor leads to those in the relationship feeling appreciated, supported, empowered, and fully equipped to complete their tasks.

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Absurd!Blog In-Depth Book Reviews

Absurd!: Leaders Cannot Be Trained, but They Can Be Educated

by Ron Potter April 10, 2017

“Training leads to development of skills and techniques…Education on the other hand, leads not to technique but to information and knowledge, which in the right hands can lead to understanding, even to wisdom. And wisdom leads to humility, compassion, and respect—qualities that are fundamental to effective leadership.”

I like the word develop rather than education but I believe the principle is the same. Early in my consulting career, I wanted to teach leaders everything I had learned. I figured out very quickly that I couldn’t teach anyone anything, all I could do was to help them learn. The only thing they would learn was what they were ready to learn and what they wanted to learn. Beyond that, I couldn’t teach them anything.

New or prospective clients wanted me to provide an outline of my “training program.” I often had a hard time explaining that I didn’t have a program, we would figure out what the leader or team needed at that moment and would learn it together. Farson says is well: “Training makes people more alike. Education, because it involves an examination of one’s personal experience in the light of an encounter with great ideas, tends to make people different from each other. So, the first benefit of education is that the manager becomes unique, independent, the genuine article.” They develop integrity. They lead from who they are. Farson further says: “Managers can gain better self-understanding, learn about their own interpersonal selves, their reactions to and the impact on others, prejudices and blind spots, strengths and weaknesses. A better understanding of themselves and of their feelings gives all managers added trust in their perceptions, reactions, impulses, and instincts.

The following are words that appear in this blog. Go back and read them again with thought and reflection. There’s a lot of buried treasure in these words.

Wisdom leads to:

Examines:

Managers [Leaders] become:

Leaders are not alike. They are unique and whole.

I’m continuing my series on an in-depth look at a wonderful little book that’s twenty years old this year. The title is Management of the Absurd by Richard Farson. You may want to consider dropping back and reading the previous blog posts about ABSURD! I think it will put each new one in great context.

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Blog Trust Me

Holding Strong

by Ron Potter September 12, 2016

For two years scientists sequestered themselves in an artificial environment called Biosphere. Inside their self-sustaining community, the Biospherians created a number of mini-environments, including a desert, a rain forest, even an ocean. Nearly every weather condition could be simulated except one, wind.

Over time the effects of their windless environment became apparent. A number of acacia trees bent over and even snapped. Without the stress of wind to strengthen the wood, the trunks grew weak and could not hold up their own weight.

Holding strong and enduring as a leader requires some “wind.” Adversity gives leaders an opportunity to strengthen themselves, discover what they believe, and communicate their vision and values to other people. There will be difficult times, but the difficult times—the windy days—help leaders grow stronger in their roles and in their faith and trust.

Holding strong comes with the turf. If you are standing strong for values and vision and for being a better leader, you will experience persecution and times of discouragement, adversity, and frustration.

Holding strong is a process. This is when a mentor can be so helpful by coming alongside the leader and objectively pointing out ways and opportunities to hold strong over an extended period of time.

Holding strong is also a journey. Doing the right thing can be stressful, complicated, and time-consuming, but ultimately, it brings fulfillment. Leaders need to focus on the small victories gained along the way. The journey builds character and confidence. The journey is rewarded when a leader sees the growth of his or her people, the growth of the business, and the achievement of the task.

After a career working at several jobs (railroad fireman, insurance salesman, Ohio River steamboat operator, and tire salesman), a forty-year-old man began cooking for hungry travelers who came by his service station in Corbin, Kentucky. He didn’t have a restaurant, so he served his eager customers on his own dining table in the adjoining living quarters.

It wasn’t long before more and more people came by to sample his food, so he moved his business across the street to a motel and restaurant. There he spent nine years serving customers and perfecting his special recipe for fried chicken.

In the 1950s “progress” caused the new highway to run around Corbin, and the man’s business ended. By this time he had retired and was living on his monthly $105 Social Security check. He began going from restaurant to restaurant, cooking his famous chicken. If the owners liked the recipe, a handshake agreement gave the restaurant the recipe in exchange for a nickel for every chicken dinner sold.

By 1964 this little endeavor had become a sizable business. The man, Colonel Harland Sanders, had licensed over six hundred franchises to cook his tasty chicken recipe. Ready to retire again, he sold his interest for two million dollars and became a spokesperson for the company. “In 1976, an independent survey ranked the Colonel as the world’s second most recognizable celebrity.”

Colonel Sanders did not allow himself to be defeated. He held strong and was not overcome by discouragement. How can we develop a similar attitude toward adversity?

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Blog Trust Me

Calming Chaos

by Ron Potter June 20, 2016

The world we live in is chaotic. A great leader learns how to leverage chaos into creativity, to bring a sense of tranquility to a crazy world.

Dealing with new technology, profit expectations, continual new-product development, the fickle shopper, and global competitors and global teams requires perpetual change and lightning-fast reactions. Markets change, old competitors consolidate, new competitors emerge, and attempts at re-engineering threaten our daily bread. Both leaders and employees can soon feel under siege and at the mercy of chaos.

Gutsy leaders confront chaos. No one who is content to just paddle a surfboard beyond where the waves break has ever caught a “big one.” Neither has such a person ever wiped out. If you want to ride a wave, you have to enter into the chaos. If you panic while riding a big wave, you are sure to wipe out. If you stay calm, you can have a wonderful ride while tons of water crash down around you.

I’m familiar with a banker who had a client ready to sell a branch location of his business. The main location seemed to be prospering, but this particular branch appeared to be a drain on energy, time, and resources. The business owner was upset, but the banker remained calm. He took the time to analyze the underlying causes of the owner’s problems. He visited the location, recast the numbers, and advised the owner not to sell the branch but to move and resurrect it. In reality, the branch location was producing extra cash, and the owner, following the banker’s advice, turned his entire business around.

People will follow leaders who stay steady in the turbulence and work with them to create new answers, new plans, and a new future.

Whatever you do, don’t slip into what we call the “arsonist’s response to chaos.”

Do you know any leaders who intentionally start “fires” so they can get the “red lights flashing and hear the sirens”?

Leaders in a client’s organization proudly described themselves as “firefighters.” They were proud of the fact that they were good at hosing down crises. But when they were asked, “Is it possible you might also be arsonists?” it caused a great deal of reflection within the company.

The goal is a creative, steady productivity—not an out-of-control environment that squanders energy and resources on crisis management.

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Blog Leadership

How to Raise An Adult

by Ron Potter October 15, 2015

Source: Norbert Reimer, Creative Commons

Danial Pink conducts a fun interview on his “irregular and irreverent newsletter”. A recent one was with Julie Lythcott-Haims, former Stanford University Dean of Freshmen. She has a new book coming out titled: How to Raise An Adult: Break Free of the Overparenting Trap and Prepare Your Kid for Success.

As I looked at her list of things to do as a parent, I thought it made a great list of things to do as a leader. In a sense, that’s what leaders are doing as well, raising adults. Let me share with you her list of what to do as a good parent and alongside that list, what we should be doing as good leaders:

Teach kids/leaders to fend for themselves:

Advice to Kids	Advice to Employees
wake themselves up	Be a self-starter
make a meal	Feed your own growth
keep track of their stuff	Be organized
do their own work	Don’t take credit for others work
meet deadlines	Meet deadlines
get places	Get around the organization
talk to others	Talk/listen to others
advocate for their needs	Advocate for their needs
bounce back from adversity	Bounce back from adversity

Julie goes on to say “Here’s an easy four step method for teaching kids any skill:

do it for them
do it with them
watch them do it
then they do it completely independently.

Great advice for kids and future leaders.

Pick up the book, Trust Me and learn all the great steps for being great leaders and creating great leaders.

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Blog Trust Me

No Soup for You! & Rigid Leadership

by Ron Potter January 26, 2015

One of the more popular episodes of the Seinfeld television series was the Soup Nazi. The story line centered on an aggressive man who owned a small restaurant where the locals stood outside in long lines to enjoy takeout orders of his delicious soup concoctions. However, these same customers were forced to tolerate this man’s rigid rules:
“Only one customer in the restaurant at a time.”
“Place your order immediately.”
“Do not point.”
“Do not ask questions.”
“Pay and leave immediately.”

Customers were forced to do what this man said, or they were told, “No soup for you! Come back in three months!”

Image Credit: Seinfeld, Season 7, Episode 6, Shapiro/West Productions, Castle Rock Entertainment

Leaders with a Soup-Nazi style have one way of doing things—their way. Their focus is totally on themselves. They do not want (nor do they take) any suggestions. They “know” what is best for the organization and everyone in it. They “allow” people to “help,” but only under their carefully prepared set of rigid rules. They are a proud leader.

An “unhumble” leader is notoriously self-focused. Writer and scholar Henri Nouwen once said,

“It seems easier to be God than to love God, easier to control people than to love people.”

Isn’t that the perception most people have? It is far easier (and seemingly satisfying) to be focused entirely on ourselves and not on the needs of others or the opportunities presented by others.

A proud leader seems to “know” the truth and are usually its source. They take every measure to protect their point of view; they deny any effort to clarify the thought process; they do not encourage debate; they resist building a community of advisers.

A proud leader is critical. Such leaders develop self-centered standards and then tend to criticize anyone who does not follow their rules or who shows creativity and independence.

Yet, in today’s fast changing environment we need creativity and independent thinking and ideas more than ever.

Why are so many leaders resistant to change and innovation?

They only want self-initiated change. Leaders who lack humility seek to develop only their own ideas. They have no interest in others’ opinions.
They fear failure. We have seen so many potential leaders paralyzed by fear of failure. They fail to reach out for new territory because they are so afraid of losing. They do not understand the positive or learning side of failure.
Baseball stars strike out more often than they hit home runs. However, they keep swinging for the fences. The best golfers in the world hit the green in regulation (two strokes under par) only about 75 percent of the time. One-fourth of the time they miss the mark. These golfers accept their failures, however, and give it their best to get back on track.
They are too comfortable. Many times present realities give us hope that we do not need to change. We sit in our current situations, do the same thing every day, and hold on for dear life to past achievements.

A leader willing to change brings about change in the organization. Embracing change fosters an attitude of success and can deliver us from the quagmire of sameness.

Have you demonstrated willingness to:
Change?
Be open and seek new, maybe novel ideas?
Help your teams understand and experience experimentation?

Check your need for control or your fear of failure. It’s a great barometer of future success.

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Blog Leadership

Opposite of Victim

by Ron Potter June 1, 2011

$Image Source: /\ \/\/ /\, Creative Commons$

Image Source: /\ \/\/ /\, Creative Commons

A tendency to be easily influenced, not taking independent action
A strong tendency to deny responsibility or accountability
A passive attitude
Feelings of helplessness and/or guilt over real or imagined mistakes
The presence of rapid change or traumatic set-backs
A lack of self-respect
Extreme fear of failure

Someone asked me the other day what was the opposite of the victim mentality. That ignited a lively dialogue which came to the conclusion that Creativity is the opposite of victim mentality. Isn’t that a great picture? If we eliminate policies, procedures, governance, or leadership styles that create or assume a victim mentality, we unleash creativity. Although my work is focused on leadership within corporations, the first thing that came to mind was our law makers. Start evaluating all of the bills that are coming through congress (or ones that have been part of the landscape for many years) and begin to evaluate them in terms of “Do they create victims or do they instill creativity?” Many of the laws of this nation seem to start with the assumption that you are (or should be) a victim. And then they tend to perpetuate that belief. Our only opportunity in this rapidly changing global economy is to be creative and innovative. Shouldn’t we stop passing laws that push us toward or assume we are or should be victims?

But, closer to home, can you evaluate your or others leadership style on this victim-creativity balance beam? It’s always easiest to see it in others but the first step in great leadership is self-awareness, self-assessment, and humility. Have a discussion with your team. Maybe start by evaluating the group of people that work for you. Do they behave as victims or creators? What about our leadership style is causing that? How do we change the way we lead to increase the creative nature of our company?

My wife and I recently had the opportunity to listen to Condoleezza Rice when she made a speaking engagement in our home town. During the question and answer period one of the first question was “How did a young person of color from Birmingham, Alabama make it all the way to Secretary of State?” The first words out of her mouth without hesitation were “We were never allowed to be victims!”

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