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Leadership

The two pillars of great leadership

by Ron Potter November 28, 2016

The temptation in leadership will always be to head toward the dominant preferences inside us and on every side in our environment.
Over the last several years, investors suddenly began looking for CEOs who could shake things up and put an end to what was perceived as a business-as-usual approach. A new breed of corporate leader emerged: the charismatic CEO. A fervent and often irrational faith in the power of dynamic leaders became part of our culture.
Rakesh Khurana writes,

Faith is an invaluable, even indispensable gift in human affairs.… In the sphere of business, the faith of entrepreneurs, leaders, and ordinary employees in a company, a product, or an idea can unleash tremendous amounts of innovation and productivity. Yet today’s extraordinary trust in the power of the charismatic CEO resembles less a mature faith than it does a belief in magic. If, however, we are willing to begin rethinking our ideas about leadership, the age of faith can be followed by an era of faith and reason.

The adventure of looking for the charismatic leader sometimes asked us to turn our backs on attributes such as honesty, integrity, sensitivity, commitment, achievement, nurturing, trustworthiness, peacemaking, and courage.
But as Jim Collins explained so convincingly in his best-selling book Good to Great, it is the non-charismatic leader who seems to endure and shine in the long run. Collins writes:

Compared to high-profile leaders with big personalities who make headlines and become celebrities, the good-to-great leaders [leaders who have taken companies to unprecedented long-term growth] seem to have come from Mars. Self-effacing, quiet, reserved, even shy—these leaders are a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will. They are more like Lincoln and Socrates than Patton or Caesar.

There are two pillars that support the attributes of a great leader: humility and endurance. Focusing on these two pillars is like so many things (golf included) that are both simple and complex. However, our experience tells us that great leaders allow these two attributes, whether natural or not, to strongly influence their leadership style. They learn how to overcome or “position” their natural tendencies. They let the two pillars “pull them through” their swing of everyday leadership and team building.
Great leaders seek to be humble people who lift up others and keep the spotlight on their companies, not themselves. They have a burning ambition to see tasks completed, and they balance that desire with a deep concern for the growth and development of people. They want to nurture relationships, help others flourish, and shove the fuss away from themselves.

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Leadership and Golf

by Ron Potter November 21, 2016

Let’s talk about golf!

Golf is an enigma. (Now there’s a classic understatement!) Former PGA tour member Gardner Dickinson once said, “They say golf is like life, but don’t believe them. It’s more complicated than that.”

The sport abounds with perplexity and paradox: fairway and rough, dry land and water, green and sand trap. And then there are all the complexities involving mind and body.

Most of us are born with an arm/hand preference. Some of us are right-handed; others are left-handed. Golf says, “Don’t use what comes naturally! Let your other hand (your out-of-preference side) pull the swing through the ball.” For example, for many players their right hand is dominant in all other aspects of their lives. But in golf, if they allow the right hand to control their golf swing, the ball hooks—hello rough. However, if they learn to use their left hand effectively—a new swing style—they will hit the ball straighter and have lower scores (which, of course, in golf is better).

Isn’t that just like leadership? If we allow our dominant preferences to always be in control, we will often not have complete success. However, we can learn to adjust our style away from a dominant (and in some cases damaging) preference and become better leaders if we are willing to make some changes.

When I work with preferences in teams, we do a little demonstration about natural preferences. I ask each team member to sign their name to a paper in front of them. Then I ask them to change hands and sign that paper again. The nervous laughter abounds. I then ask them to describe that first (dominant) signature. Words like quick, natural, easy, without thought are what I hear most often. When asked to describe the second experience I hear words like difficult, took more time, awkward, had to think through each letter. We then talk about how working from our dominant preference often means that we do it “without much thought” whereas using our non-dominant preference causes a great deal of thought. Wouldn’t it be better if we faced difficult decisions from a balanced approach (dominant and non-dominant) rather than reaching conclusions “without much thought”?

To be successful in golf, players need to learn how to overcome or “position” their natural tendencies (or preferences) in order to hit just the right shot.

This is also true with leadership. We look for and focus on our strengths, but we are better leaders when we also allow other qualities to develop and come to the forefront. For example, it is not natural for many of us to be humble team builders. It is much easier to strive for the attention of others and build a personal résumé, ignoring the team’s input and value. But by intentional effort we can learn to be humble and at the same time increase our success as a leader.

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Blog Trust Me

Everlasting and Sanctified Bull-Doggedness

by Ron Potter November 14, 2016

A. B. Meldrum once said, “Bear in mind, if you are going to amount to anything, that your success does not depend upon the brilliancy and the impetuosity with which you take hold, but upon the everlasting and sanctified bull-doggedness with which you hang on after you have taken hold.”

Most of my clients would probably never hire me if I told them it was going to take five years to complete the major changes we talk about at the beginning of many of my consulting assignments. At one high-tech company, after three years of intensive effort to develop a new leadership style and corporate culture, the leadership team asked me to evaluate how they were doing. I asked them to rank their “completeness” in each of several major change categories. Overall, they ranked themselves at about 60 percent. I admitted that if they had asked me at the beginning of the process how long it was going to take, I would have estimated five years—so 60 percent after three years was just about right.

One strong leader whom I’m working with now took over an assignment three years ago in one of America’s largest corporations. When he was hired he was actually identified as the “change agent” that the company needed. Needed, maybe, but certainly not wanted. After three years of struggling with the internal practices of the company, he has finally assembled a leadership team that should be able to carry out the many changes that are needed to meet the firm’s looming challenges. I can recall many one-on-one conversations with him over the last three years when he wondered if he had the energy to keep going and whether it would be worth it in the end. But he has endured. I believe he will pick the fruit of an enduring company.

Throughout the history of man, the greatest achievements have been accomplished by leaders having an against-all-odds tenacity. The unshakable, enduring convictions of the rightness of their causes have kept adventurers, explorers, entrepreneurs, and visionaries going despite overwhelming difficulty and fierce competition. They were and continue to be persistent, holding fast to their beliefs and moving the idea or the organization forward.

That’s the path to building an enduring organization.

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The Maturity to Persevere

by Ron Potter November 7, 2016

A quote from the Bible says, “Whenever trouble comes your way, let it be an opportunity for joy. For when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be strong in character and ready for anything.”
When leaders develop endurance or perseverance, they also develop maturity—not only within themselves but also within their organizations and teams. Perseverance breeds character as we stick to the task, bring others along with us, and develop an enduring organization. According to Julien Phillips and Allan Kennedy,

Success in instilling values appears to have had little to do with charismatic personality. Rather it derives from obvious, sincere, sustained personal commitment to the values the leaders sought to implant, coupled with extraordinary persistence in reinforcing those values.

Persevering leaders understand the importance of bringing every part of the organization along with them. It is a time-consuming and focused activity that will eventually yield tremendous results in overall morale, productivity, and team/employee support.
A leader needs to understand that he or she may quite naturally have an easy time focusing on the future or on how the future will look when certain projects, tasks, or goals are completed. Others within their teams may not be able to clearly or easily see the future, or they may be naturally pessimistic about anything involving the future. A leader needs the persistence to bring these people along—they are valuable to the team’s overall balance. They may simply need the leader to either ask them questions to propel them into the future or help them visualize steps to the future outcome.
Bringing an organization along also involves being particularly effective during times of change. Many on the team will naturally resist change, so leaders need to humbly and calmly coax people along to the new direction or vision.

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Absurd!Blog In-Depth Book Reviews

Absurd!: The Person or Group that Presents the Problem

by Ron Potter October 10, 2016

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 posts about ABSURD! I think it will put each new one in great context.

I’ve had the opportunity to work with one of the better known “Turn Around” companies. A Turn Around company is not even invited to the table until things are in dire straits. The hiring company, in spite of their best efforts is facing bankruptcy or takeover in a relative short period of time. The Turn Around company is paid very well to turn things around is a relative short period of time to avoid the tragedy.

I asked the consultant to explain their process to me to see what they do differently than what the management has already tried. Here is the outline presented:

Start with the bottom of the organization, the people who are closest to the problem.

They ask the people who are closest to the problem to come up with the proposal to fix the problem and them give them the authority and accountability to fix it.

Teach the Leaders of the Organization how to say “yes”

While the people closest to the problem are preparing the proposal the consultant is teaching the leaders of the organization to nod their heads in affirmation and say yes to the proposal. They’re teaching them to grant authority and accountability to those who will accomplish the work

All of that made sense to me but then I asked what they did with middle management. His response was “We ignore them.” They felt that middle managers just got in the way of a quick turn around and they didn’t have the time or energy to deal with them, overcome their loss of control or educate them in good management practices. They simply ignored them.

Our author makes another profound observation in this section of the book when he says “Participative management depends on trusting the group. Most managers simply don’t have that confidence and can’t take the time to develop the trust.” To me, this was the key. If the leaders and managers of the company had taken the time and made the effort to develop trust in their groups, they would have avoided the need for a Turn Around company to save them.

Leaders that build trust and have trust in their organizations are very different from the top-down, management and control types of leaders. Which are you? Will you need that Turn Around company someday? I trust not.

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Blog Leadership

Defeating Doubt, Arresting Avoidance

by Ron Potter September 19, 2016

“Holding the hill” when under fire can be a terrifying and lonely experience. A leader will face a long list of challenges, which, if not faced and disarmed, can turn the most competent person into a faltering coward. We have grouped these pitfalls to courage into two categories: doubt and avoidance.

Defeating Doubt

This foe of courageous leadership comes in a variety of flavors.

First, there are the personal doubts. We may doubt our abilities, our judgment, our talents, and even our faith. We look at a problem and cannot find a solution. We attempt to fix it but cannot. Doubt oozes into our minds, and we are frozen into inactivity.

Then there are the doubts about our teams or others we depend upon. Have you ever worked with people who are overwhelmed, stressed out, resistant to change, burned out, not working together, complainers, rumor spreaders, backstabbers, noncommunicators, whiners, stubborn hardheads, blamers, or unmotivated negative thinkers? When encountering such bad attitudes and behaviors that stall the progress of our teams, we are tempted to slide into despair, and our backbones turn to mush.

Next is doubt in the organization. We may see the company sliding down a hill to mediocre performance, abandoning the right values and a vibrant vision. It’s one thing to maintain your own personal courage in the place where you have influence. But it’s overwhelming to stand strong when the larger organization is waffling on its mission and embracing plans that seem doomed in the face of aggressive market competition. Your knees start to knock.

Also doubts may surface when organizational outsiders, like stockholders, start questioning our forecasts and plans.

To endure as a leader, you will have to disarm doubt with gritty courage.

Arresting Avoidance

Another courage-crippler is refusing to confront reality and act. If we employ avoidance tactics when we are tested and struggle, we will end up with even more frustration and trouble. We have seen organizations take giant steps to avoid any kind of pain and suffering. But the result is a dysfunctional organization, not a great company.

To quote Winston Churchill, “One ought never to turn one’s back on a threatened danger.… If you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half.” Avoidance confuses the entire organization. It causes “mental illness” in the company and on your team.

Avoidance-oriented people tend to move away from things that threaten them in order to protect themselves. Why? There are a number of reasons. Often it is due to excessive concern about embarrassment. We just don’t want to be embarrassed or, more often, to embarrass someone else. We hold back—we don’t tell the truth—and poor organizational or personal behaviors are perpetuated.

Fear is another culprit. Sometimes it just seems easier to run and hide. Maybe the issue will somehow just go away? That’s classic avoidance—a sign of cowardly leadership.

Another reason for avoiding problems can be oversensitivity to the feelings or opinions of others. We just don’t want to hurt anybody. The other person is so nice; why should she have her parade rained upon? Issues are circumvented, and facts are ignored. We avoid the short-term pain and inflict a longer-term problem within the team and the organization.

And then there is the old standby character quality that causes so many problems: unhealthy pride. Some of the people who are most adept at avoidance are very proud, especially if exploring the gory details of an organizational issue might make them look bad.

Leaders who develop a humble heart and a willingness to confront concerns do not allow pride to interfere. They are open to opportunities for self-growth because they are secure in who they are and are not preoccupied with themselves.

Avoidance holds back an organization whereas a commitment to improvement will positively influence your own development as well as the development of interpersonal relationships, teams, and overall company effectiveness.

It takes great courage to change a pattern of avoidance and seek instead to make improvements and overcome the pain or difficulty in making decisions, confronting people, or being overwhelmed by circumstances or self-doubt. It is not easy, but the benefits you will experience from making this change are far greater than the “benefits” of avoidance.

Freedom from avoidance enables leaders to focus attention on determining when a situation needs action and improvement.

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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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Absurd!Blog In-Depth Book Reviews

Absurd!: PRAISE WILL GET YOU NOWHERE!

by Ron Potter August 18, 2016

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 posts about ABSURD! I think it will put each new one in great context.

Praising People Does Not Motivate Them

Praise is very useful indeed as a lubricant to help keep our human relations in good working order. For one thing, people expect it. This is the one area where our author praises praise. People do enjoy being appreciated and it does improve relationships. But as a motivator, not so much.

One area in which we can really see and almost feel this principle at work is when the work of a high- status person is praised by a low-status person; it is often seen as presumptuous or even insulting. We’ve all been there and cringed at the moment, thinking of the person providing the praise as really sucking up or being completely unaware of how inappropriate their praise is coming across.

In the opposite direction giving praise establishes the fact that the giver is in a position to sit in judgment of the receiver. Receiving praise in this circumstance can feel very threatening or at a minimum very uncomfortable even if the praise is positive. We get uncomfortable when we’re being judged; good or bad.

So how do we motivate if praise doesn’t work? We take the time to get engaged. We learn, listen, understand, ask useful or sometimes naïve questions to stimulate our thinking. Our author says, “What really does release creativity and promote achievement is when a manager takes the time to get involved in the employee’s work – learning what direction the work is taking, the problems and possibilities it presents, the way the employee is dealing with the task. But involvement is demanding and time-consuming, which probably explains why many manager resort to praise as a substitute, hoping that it will accomplish the same results.”

Learning, listening and sharing. Dealing with the other person as a smart, whole, capable human being. Now that’s motivating. When someone cares enough to take the time to listen, learn and understand it really engages people.

Too many leaders are focused on “doing” rather than growing. If you only use praise and criticism, you’ll find yourself falling farther and farther behind because you’ve not taken the time to connect with your people on a real human level by getting engaged with them and their work. Don’t just praise, motivate!

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Blog Trust Me

Building Team Dynamics – Part II

by Ron Potter August 8, 2016

Last week, we began to unpack what builds up healthy team dynamics. You can read part I here. This week, we continue with part II.

Manage Conflict

In his book The Fellowship of the Ring, the first book in the series The Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien describes the camaraderie of a diverse group banded together by a common cause. Called “the fellowship of the ring,” their quest is to destroy the power of the Dark Lord by destroying the ring in which that power resides. Though they differ in nearly every way—racially, physically, temperamentally—the fellowship is united in its opposition of the Dark Lord. In a section omitted in the movie, a heated conflict breaks out among the crusaders. Axes are drawn. Bows are bent. Harsh words are spoken. Disaster nearly strikes the small band. When peace finally prevails, a wise counselor observes, “Indeed in nothing is the power of the Dark Lord more clearly shown than in the estrangement that divides all those who still oppose him.”

Conflict causes estrangement within teams, even the best teams. Therefore, managing conflict is at the heart of the dilemma of the leader who has good relations with individual team members but cannot get the group to work together.

Rivalry causes division. Debate causes hurt feelings or a sense of not being heard or understood. How does a leader keep an aggressive person and a person who easily withdraws engaged?

Kenneth W. Thomas and Ralph H. Kilmann created the Conflict Mode Instrument, which is “designed to assess an individual’s behavior in conflict situations.” It measures people’s behavior along two basic dimensions: “(1) assertiveness—the extent to which an individual attempts to satisfy his or her concerns, and (2) cooperativeness—the extent to which an individual attempts to satisfy the other person’s concerns. These two dimensions of behavior can be used to identify five specific methods of dealing with conflicts.”⁷ The methods are described as follows:

Avoiding—Low assertiveness and low cooperativeness. The goal is to delay.
Competing—High assertiveness and low cooperativeness. The goal is to win.
Accommodating—Low assertiveness and high cooperativeness. The goal is to yield.
Compromising—Moderate assertiveness and moderate cooperativeness. The goal is to find a middle ground.
Collaborating—High assertiveness and high cooperativeness. The goal is to find a win-win situation.⁸

Leaders need to use the peacemaking qualities defined by the two pillars of humility and endurance to bring conflict to the highest level of resolution: collaboration. The cooperative environment means “I need to be humble.” The assertive environment means “I need to endure.” The two pillars, taken together, cause people to listen, yet hold firm in solving conflict through collaboration. When collaborating, individuals seek to work with others to find a solution that satisfies all parties. It involves digging into hidden concerns, learning, and listening but not competing.

Treat Employees as Investors

It is interesting to watch privately held companies that seek to go public. They hire IPO (Initial Public Offerings) coaches who work hard with the CEO, CFO, and COO to train them to attract investors. They work with these leaders to help them say the right things in order to sell their companies. They teach them which messages work and which do not.

Our question: “Why don’t companies do the same thing with employees?”

If you do a quick study on employee relations over the last several decades, we think you will discover that how employees are viewed and described has moved along a continuum from workers to commodities to assets. We do not believe that referring to employees as “assets” is a satisfactory description because so many leaders look at assets as disposable or upgradable. Leaders and companies would be more successful in building organizations if they thought of their employees as “investors.”

Leaders need to give their people the same compelling we’re-a-great-company-and-here’s-why-and-where-we-are-going reasons for success that are promoted to IPO investors or current stockholders.

Leaders need to ask, “How can we get employees excited about what we are doing?” This approach is basic to team building and goes beyond vision and mission. It’s a way to engage the greatest resource of people—their energy!

Alan Loy McGinnis, in his book Bringing Out the Best in People, tells us, “Talk may be cheap, but the right use of words can generate in your followers a commodity impossible to buy…hearts on fire.”

Isn’t that what all leaders want—team members with hearts ablaze for the company’s vision and goals? The leaders certainly want investors who are loyal, happy, and motivated to give resources. Treating your employees as investors will produce similar results.

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Short Book Reviews

Presence

by Ron Potter August 2, 2016

Ron’s Short Review: This whole concept of presence is a powerful one. It relates to true humbleness, great listening, being who you are in all circumstances. Great leadership lessons.

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Short Book Reviews

Bo’s Lasting Lessons

by Ron Potter August 1, 2016

Ron’s Short Review: Yes, you will enjoy this more if you’re a Michigan fan but Bo Schembechler was a great coach and leader and his leadership lessons are timeless. Even if you’re green or scarlet I still think you’ll enjoy this one.

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Absurd!Blog In-Depth Book Reviews

Absurd!: Active Listening Doesn’t Work

by Ron Potter July 15, 2016

Here’s what does work

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 blogs about ABSURD! I think it will put each new one in great context.

Listening is More Difficult than Talking

I’ve never liked the concept of “Active Listening.” It seemed to me that people who were taught the technique simply repeated what they heard so that the speaker knew they had been understood. However, when you repeat back what you heard you sound like a parrot and aren’t really explaining how or what you heard based on what the speaker was trying to express.

One of Farson’s statements in this chapter really hit a cord with me: “Carl Rogers and I introduced the phrase “active listening” in 1955. I would not write such a piece today. The main reason is that I no longer believe that genuine listening should be reduced to a technique.” (Emphasis is mine)

I’ve always asked my clients (and myself): Are you listening with the intent to respond or are you listening with the intent to understand? If we’ll admit it, most of us listen with the intent to respond. I know I’m doing this most of the time. While the other person is speaking I’m creating my checklist:

I agree with that, I’ll reinforce it.
I don’t agree with that and here’s how I’ll counter it.
I can think of at least three points they haven’t even considered yet that I’ll point out as soon as they take a breath.
etc.

Rather than truly listening in an attempt to understand what the other person is trying to deeply express, we’re getting ready to either reinforce or counter in our own words, knowing that as soon as the other person hears our point of view, they’ll understand and agree with us.

Author Farson quickly counters that belief with “Research tells us that people are more likely to change when we reverse the flow of communication, that is, when people are not talked at but when they themselves have a chance to talk.” People are more likely to change when they have a chance to talk! Wow, there’s a paradigm shift for most of us. We don’t really convince other people, they convince themselves when we help them talk through the issue by listening and asking questions that demonstrate that we’re trying to understand!

Farson also points out that “Good listening is inordinately difficult, even for experienced listeners.” Listening takes a lot of energy. I don’t have the energy to stay in that mode all of the time, but when I do shift into my “listening to understand” mode it’s amazing how much people respond to that experience. I often spend several hours talking/listening one-on-one with my clients. If I’ve been in the right listening mode, many of them have said to me “You now know more about me than anyone.” That statement in itself is absurd but it’s amazing how different people feel when you actually listen to them.

While Farson makes many great points in this chapter, I want to close this blog on one particular thought that he put forth, “Listening to others means having to be alert to one’s own defensiveness, to one’s impulse to want to change others. That requires a level of self-awareness, even self-criticism that is often not easy to endure.” Listening requires humility. When we really listen we have to question our own understand and perspective on an issue. We may even begin to change our own mind. So while research says that people change when you give them a chance to talk, be aware that you yourself may change by being a better listener. Win-win.

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