Archive for leadership
Follow the tree! A Lesson on Leadership
Posted by: | CommentsThis past weekend my mom came into town to help me decorate my house for the holidays. The visit has turned into a yearly ritual, full of “Chevy Chase-esque” bloopers. Saturday afternoon we made our way over to the Christmas tree lot. Not long after, we found the perfect tree. Not too tall and not too wide – perfect for my little apartment. During checkout, we asked about tree delivery. Tuesday was the earliest they could promise and, as my mom was leaving later Sunday evening, that would just not do. Our only other option? Tugging on our bootstraps and carrying it home ourselves. Luckily, I only live about four blocks away from the tree lot (although my mom still thinks I’m lying about that).
We started out on our journey home; my mom leading with the top of the tree and me following behind with the base of the tree in one hand and the tree stand in the other. Unfortunately, I made a poor wardrobe choice that morning. I was wearing an ear-warmer headband, and as we inched home the headband slipped lower and lower over my eyes. With about two more blocks to go, I couldn’t see anything and didn’t have a free hand to help myself. Since this was the first time my mom had visited me at my new place, it was the blind leading the blinder. I continued to whine about not being able to see and between all the laughter, my mom shouted, “Just follow the tree!” I’m sure we were quite the spectacle for passers-by, but we did eventually make it home.
Question: What makes for a good leader when we feel we are blindly walking into the future of these troubled economic times?
As humorous as my weekend excursion was, I feel it accurately represents the anxiety many employees are feeling within the current unstable economy. Most of us have to trust that our leaders will show us the way and get us through successfully. So what makes for a good leader when the future seems so unsure? Clear and consistent communication. Throughout our trek home, my mom was continually communicating where we were and how much farther we had to go. Organizational leaders need to do the same.
The tendency sometimes is to only disseminate the good news or to hide when there is no news at all, but that is one of the worst things a leader can do. It creates employee anxiety, which hinders productivity and performance. Frequent and realistic communication builds trust within employees and might even soften the blow if downsizing becomes the only option available. If employees feel they have a realistic picture of the state of the organization, they will feel less betrayed and more prepared if bad news arrives.
On a more positive note, clear and frequent communication steers the path of the organization. If the leader’s vision is clear and communicated throughout the entire organization, employees are more likely to feel engaged by it and espouse it into their own visions. It was with my mom’s guidance and clear vision (both literally and figuratively) that we made our way home.
Moral of the story here: Don’t go searching for a Christmas tree without a car, but if you do, make sure you have a good leader and no headbands.
Passion makes the difference
Posted by: | CommentsThe other day my colleague and I were doing an activity that asked us to fill in 5 different circles with the hopes that the combination of these would be able to describe who I am as a person. One was labeled “My Passion,” and I instinctively wrote down “work.” My co-worker looked at my answer and quickly responded, “Why does that not surprise me?” Her answer? Family. I started thinking, did I immediately jump to the wrong answer?
Work has always been a passion of mine, I truly enjoy what I do. I’m like a dog hearing the word “walk,” my whole body and mind becomes energized and I’m ready to go. I bring this passion with me to work everyday and I try my best to spread a little bit of that joyous feeling to those around me. Another person that does the same? My boss, the infamous Mike Monar. He plays to his strengths and the strengths of others, and is able to drive his own personal achievement while inspiring others to the same. He creates a place where together we know we can accomplish anything and do so with passion.
So I began to wonder, is having a passionate boss or passionate leader in an organization one of the key aspects of having dedicated employees?
Being curious by nature, I began to look at some articles online. I came across one on McKinsey’s site that was on a model of leadership called centered leadership. The model is based on five dimensions (see below). I immediately thought of Mike after seeing this model. I believe his passion for work has allowed him to tend to each of the five dimensions and each of the five dimensions create a leader that is able to inspire others — one of those people being myself.
The 5 Dimensions of Centered Leadership:
1. Meaning: finding your strengths and putting them to work to inspire a purpose and others.
2. Managing energy: knowing where your energy comes from, where it goes, and how to best manage it.
3. Positive framing: Adopting a more positive way to view the world around you, expanding your horizons, and being able to think positively even when there are bumps in the road.
4. Connecting: identifying those who can help you grow, building relationships that help make you stronger, and increasing your sense of belonging
5. Engaging: finding your voice, becoming self-reliant and confident by accepting opportunities and knowing the risks they may bring, and continually collaborating with others.
They have found these characteristics in women more than men, but for those who know Mike (and for those who don’t) he tends to be a “feeler” — a characteristic many women are perceived as having — so I think its safe to say he would be welcomed with open arms to the group of centered leaders out there.
Bottom line is, passion makes a difference. You can find yours by being honest with yourself and asking, what do I truly enjoy doing? What am I good at doing? What makes me feel energized? If it’s hard for you to be truly passionate about your job, try to find aspects that you enjoy. Find your meaning, figure out how you manage your energy, how you can create a positive framing, who you can connect and build relationships with, and finally, how you can find your voice and become engaged.
How should we select our CEOs?
Posted by: | CommentsLast night we had an interesting debate on selection and CEO’s.
A statistic was presented to us that 50% of CEOs fail. With that said, you might as well just flip a coin, or if you are into astrology, read the sign for that day and make your decision based on that. With such an extreme statistic, I began to wonder, are CEOs put in positions where they are doomed to fail, or is it the selection process that sets the company up for failure? Whichever side you take, you have to wonder what can be done to increase the success of CEOs.
When selecting for a CEO, you may find yourself smothered with political and organizational constraints and just overwhelmed with the pressure for selecting the right person. You may look to a hiring firm for assistance; after all, they have tools and resources that are supposed to help with the selection of personnel. Sadly though, the research shows little evidence that they can increase your chances of selecting the right CEO. Don’t get me wrong, I am a strong believer that a proper selection system needs to be utilized when hiring a CEO, but the question is “What is the right selection system for CEOs?”
Many CEO’s are hired for their background and previous accomplishments, others for their potential and transformational style. However they end up there, we still do not know how to accurately predict CEO success in selection.
As the debate went on, we began to discuss what consistent aspects can be found across great CEOs. Doing so would help us understand what should be used as the selection criteria. If you look at many famous CEOs, the ones that are famous for being extraordinary and ask “What is it that makes them so successful?” you come up with people like Steve Jobs, Oprah Winfrey and Bill Gates who obviously all run very wealthy and thriving companies. Money wasn’t and isn’t the only factor to success. What they all have in common is a unique combination of leadership qualities. What we are missing in selection is a validated assessment or selection tool of some sort that measures and predicts this unique combination of leadership qualities.
What is the argument for why this miracle selection instrument hasn’t been created? Time, money and energy. Excuses such as “The time of CEOs is precious and they are not willing to be part of validating a test,” and “There just isn’t enough data” shot across the room at each other. I felt like these were weak excuses, but I still was unaware of the solution myself. Then a colleague said, “Why don’t you just start by focusing on the top 20 CEO’s of today? Study them, their characteristics, styles, and personalities. Simply begin by understanding what it takes to become a successful CEO.” I thought it was simple and insightful. As I always say, focus on success and strengths rather than weaknesses and failures.
So for now, or at least until a validated assessment becomes available, remember to know what it is that a CEO needs in order to be successful in your organization and ingrain that into your selection system.
To start, here is a quick exercise: What are your organization’s top competencies? Communication? Integrity? Customer-Focus? Which of your applicants models the competencies best? The CEO should be held to the same standards as your other employees if they are to be considered the figurehead of the organization. Then look to past or current leaders in the organization, what characteristics do they have? What qualities do they posses that makes them a high performing leader in your organization? Study these people, truly learn what it takes to be a successful player on your team.
Most CEO applicants have the business knowledge to help your organization succeed. The downfall often comes as a result of a disconnect between the character of the CEO and the character of the organization. Don’t let your organization fall victim to the 50% statistic.
Guest Blog! Chris Botti: Lessons in Innovation and Leadership
Posted by: | CommentsChris Botti: Lessons in Innovation and Leadership
By: Rich McLaughlin
Tuesday, November 9, 2010, Princeton, NJ.
There are lessons for all of us around innovation, teamwork and leadership if you watch good jazz musicians do their thing. Last night I got to see some wonderful creativity in action. I went with my oldest son and a friend to see Chris Botti, jazz trumpeter, and his band perform. I’ve been a fan of Jazz since grad school and been fascinated watching good jazz groups perform. Botti has a knack for recruiting great talent to play with him and bringing out their best, and if you pay close attention, you can pick up the subtle things he (and all the players) do to help make it a memorable performance. Including:
1) Surround yourself with people who have talents and strengths, you don’t. Each of the people up there with Botti are exemplary musicians in their own right. Many could headline their own shows and have Botti playing for them. In the corporate world, it takes a leader with a clear sense of him/herself to be courageous enough to surround themselves with people of equal talent – people who are not afraid to share their divergent views and ideas for making something meaningful come from their collaboration.
2) Be humble – Botti feels no need to make it clear “who’s in charge” up there. If anything, he’s gracious to a fault, constantly pointing out the individual player’s contributions while not even mentioning his own. This rubs off on the others as well. No one on the stage last night tried to hog the limelight. They were all quick to deflect attention from themselves and point to the others. Another way a leader shows the importance of the team (vs. him or herself) is by letting the others have their moment in the sun. While for most of the songs, Botti would start out and “set the tone”, he would quickly allow others have their own solo moments so they could showcase their unique talents. This would be the equivalent of a leader in a team meeting letting each of the members assembled a chance to express their complete thoughts on a topic/idea and take the time to make sure it is understood and considered.
3) Care - It was clear watching Botti and his band that there is genuine affection for each other. They all seem interested in each other’s success. When one member was doing a solo, you see the others show some very specific non-verbals. The members not playing will:
- move out of the spotlight, so it’s only on the player of the moment.
- look down or away from the audience to signal that the attention should be on the other member, and “not me”.
- stay “present” and pay attention often nodding along with the music as a way of saying “I’m listening.” They are not, to use a corporate analogy, checking their blackberries, starting distracting side conversations, tuning out, etc. In many ways it is a fundamental show of respect that is understood and reciprocated when it’s their turn to “speak.”
4) Encourage play – Botti encourages the others to play and experiment within the boundaries of the song. First and foremost by doing it himself, and by smiling and nodding when he sees his bandmates doing it. And like all good improv artists, one member’s experimentation leads to another picking up on it and expanding it, until they’ve created something new within the framework of the original.
It is out of this mutual experimenting (while staying within the confines of the song), that the listener gets a whole new experience – a song that is familiar yet, at the same time feels fresh and different. Much like what many of us try to do every day with our own customers – give them an experience with our product or service that is comfortably familiar AND at the same time different and unique.
Monar would like to thank Rich McLaughlin for letting us use his article as today’s blog. We share his vision and see innovation and leadership as working hand-in-hand in successful organizations. More on Rich here.
Do you accept the challenge?
Posted by: | CommentsLast Thursday I posed a question. “What traits do you look for most in a leader?” Did you come up with some answers? James Kouzes and Barry Posner have asked this question for over 25 years of research, and the results are astoundingly consistent across time and culture: Honest, Forward-Looking, Inspiring, and Competent. Are any on your list? I know I had a few.
Kouzes and Posner incorporated this data into their research on personal best leadership experiences. The result? An incredibly in-depth “how-to” for effective and positive leadership development. The Leadership Challenge is a field guide for leaders filled with stories, lessons, and exercises. The book is broken down into the Five Exemplary Practices and the Ten Commitments of Leadership.
Overall, I highly recommend The Leadership Challenge for readers who have a specific leadership role in mind. If you are looking for a quick read for general knowledge, this nearly 400-page book might be a bit much. However, it is very inspiring to read The Leadership Challenge if you are looking to rise into a leadership role. The stories are not from famous CEOs or historical leaders. The stories are from every day leaders – from executives to middle managers to Girl Scout troop leaders. The overall message of the book is that anyone can lead. Anyone can develop the skills. Yes, all leaders are born, but the best leaders can be made.
The Perennial Question: Are Leaders Born or Made?
Posted by: | Comments“Yes, of course, all leaders are born. We’ve never met a leader who wasn’t. We’re all born. What we do with what we have before we die is up to us.”
The Leadership Challenge by: Kouzes & Posner
We here at Monar tend to agree with Kouzes & Posner on this point. Some people may be apt to assume a leadership position more often than others, but everyone has the ability to develop into an effective and positive leader. Just how do you do that? More into that next week when I give a full review of The Leadership Challenge. As a preview, begin thinking about the traits you look for most in a leader. In your experiences, either as a leader or as a team member, what is it that has lead you to think, “Wow, I would follow this guy (or girl) anywhere. I give my full trust.”?
Ahhh! Performance Appraisal!
Posted by: | CommentsThe time of the year that every employee dreads, managers and subordinates alike. I have had jobs that either didn’t have a performance management system or did not take the system seriously. My most recent position fell into the latter category.
My performance appraisal meeting involved me and several other employees being handed our appraisal and told to sign it and let our supervisor know if we had any questions. We were also told that no one would get fives on the five point scale. “There is always room for improvement,” my supervisor informed all of us. So we all sat in the hallway outside her office, signed our appraisals, and gave them back to her. We later grumbled about our results. One employees was extremely surprised by receiving a 1 for professional appearance. “I wish someone would have told me they didn’t approve of how I dressed before my appraisal.”
This scenario is prevalent in many organizations. Nobody likes performance appraisals and nobody thinks that they are important. Employees view them as a way to get a raise. Managers view them as a tedious part of their job that human resources requires them to do.
The questions is: Why are performance appraisals important and how do we make them useful?
Performance appraisal systems are important to organizations for many reasons. They help organizations keep track of employee’s performance. They are useful for documentation. When used correctly, they can help employees to become more productive. They are also good for identifying high performers in succession planning. They are also an integral part of a good talent management system.
Making performance appraisal systems useful is much harder than just creating the system. Though it may be an excellent system, it may not be used in exactly the way that it was intended. Managers may use the system how they interpret it and not how it was intended to be used.
Many managers do not want to be the “reason” that employees don’t receive a raise. They may also think that by giving high ratings they will be viewed as a good manager. Or even if they give low ratings they will be viewed as a tough manager. They also may give everyone all 5′s and then when they get fed up with 1 under-performing employee want to fire them without any supporting documentation. Another common interpretation is that by giving a low performer a high rating will motivate them to perform higher and giving a high performer a low rating will do the same.
The key to improve performance appraisal systems’ effectivness is to make sure that all employees and managers are informed of the process. Managers will need some direction on what the performance appraisal does for them and the organization. Rater training is also beneficial in getting all managers to agree on what each rating means. Rater training will help with both accuracy and consistency in ratings.
Managers will need to understand that this is not a one time a year occurrence. The appraisal should be an accumulation of smaller meetings throughout the year. Employees should not be surprised by anything on their performance appraisal.
Employees need to know that the performance appraisal is for their development and not just administrative decisions. They should view it as a way to make improvements on weaknesses and highlight their strengths. They should be prepared for their appraisal with concrete examples of exceptional work. They also need to take responsibilty for eliciting feedback from supervisors.
Performance appraisals are not a perfect system. They can be useful and important to the organization, managers, and employees. Each benefits from a correctly executed performance management system.
Are you a manager, a leader, or both?
Posted by: | CommentsMonar Consulting has quite a few projects in the pipeline right now dealing with leadership development. A lot of our discussions in planning have circled around the difference between management and leadership. It seems that there are two schools of thought.
One view sees management and leadership as two separate entities. If you have the traits of a manager (more technical, supervisory, task-oriented) you do not have the traits of a leader (more relational, motivational, goal-oriented) and vice versa. The other view sees management and leadership as being more complementary. We here at Monar subscribe to this view. There are some people who can be managers and leaders. However, there are definitely great managers who do not have the skills to be a leader and a leader cannot be great without a base level of managerial skills.
Question: How do you see management vs. leadership? Have you ever worked with a manager who was a great leader or a leader who was a great manager?
The Best Leaders?
Posted by: | CommentsThe best executive is one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it.
-Theodore Roosevelt
Is this true? Do you believe managers should have a larger hand in the work their employees do?
Becoming a Thriller: A Leader’s Path to Success
Posted by: | CommentsThis past Friday marked the one-year anniversary of the death of one of music’s most influential artists. To dispel any doubt, I’m referring to Michael Jackson, the artist who truly embodied every hit he released; the song “Black or White,” for example, became less recognized as one of his gems and more as the token question everyone was asking themselves in the wake of his several plastic surgeries. Along with “Billie Jean” and “Bad,” “Thriller” was arguably one of the greatest hits he’d released, not just because of the song, but THE dance. It wasn’t until the Macarena that the music scene again saw a song inspire hoards of wedding crowds (and college students) to swing their arms above their head like a zombie.My roommate in Spain and I spent a good hour watching tutorial videos on YouTube trying to figure out how to perfect the blank-stared stagger, which was surprisingly well-received by the Spaniards we performed it for. MJ has international appeal.
It seems that, even with this in mind, the last thing that we would want to do as leaders would be to emulate Jackson. Despite his unarguable success, he became better known in recent years for his relative failures. Between baby-dropping, inappropriate slumber parties, and that awful video game he released for Sega, his accomplishments have been buried under a slew of screw-ups. No longer was Michael Jackson celebrated as the face of pop music; once knowledge of Neverland reached the public, the sight of his vinyl jacket all over the news replaced news of his vinyls. Like all famous artists, his posthumous memory became much fonder than the one the public had in his last few years–his album sales skyrocketed on iTunes.
The question is–is there any merit to walking the moonwalk? What can today’s leaders take away from MJ’s example? He must have done SOMETHING right to deserve the recognition. What was it? And what can we do to inspire others?
The first correct move he made (apart from the pelvic thrust) was his affinity for risk-taking. As we’ve figured out at Monar as well as in previous blog posts, people are generally change-averse, as change involves taking a risk. If leaders want to make a change within an organization, they have to be willing to take a leap toward thinking and acting in unconventional ways. Those in the box industry call it…well, they don’t really have a phrase for it, because it’s outside the realm of their thought. MJ was willing to take the risks necessary to launch his career and completely renovate the face of music in the process. Leaders must be okay with the knowledge that to achieve success, they will have to be innovative in their approaches. The “old way of doing things” is a phrase that will stagnate them.
Persistence is the second characteristic crucial to MJ’s success. Even in the face of public resistance, he continued to move forward with his ideas. Organizations that want to follow through with change need to expect push-back on the part of their employees, but not let it stop their forward momentum. Leaders need to be aware of “The Way [Change Makes Employees] Feel” while still creating and propagating new initiatives. We refer back to the idea of stickiness. It’s not enough to take a risk if you don’t follow through. Michael Jackson was committed to the risks he took, no matter how outlandish they may have been–that one glove thing, for example. An unapologetic approach to change is what is inspiring and impactful, and if leaders want to “make that change,” they’re going to have to start with the “Man in the Mirror.”
There will always be debate about whether the moral implications of Jackson’s actions make his musical contributions obsolete. But one thing is not debatable–he was a successful musician, and he transformed the musical landscape of his time. (I’m almost out of euphemisms for that phrase, so it may be about time to draw this to a close.) Through his risk taking and his persistence, MJ made an impact. Leaders would do well to follow (most) of his example.
As for mine and my roommate’s “thrilling” performance…call me over-confident, but I think it can thrill you more than any ghost would dare try.
To our readers–what do you think are keys to successful change?
