LEADERSHIP IN ACTION

Yesterday was the day of exit for the church’s musical director.
A composer, master of many instruments,
Most of all a motivator of choirs and congregations.
Speeches of thanks by the priest, choir members, and the director:
Three standing ovations as the time to say adieu came closer:
The 1st ovation had an aura of victory . Like celebrating a winning touchdown.
The 2nd was more appreciative – hands clapping and body language of thanks.
The 3rd was unabashed sadness: Tears of farewell: bodies shaking with sad emotion.
Husbands, wives, children, holding each other as the moment of separation arrived.
Five hundred people overcome with loss – heads bowed: eye contact avoided:
big guys turned into jello.
What is the chemistry? The magic? The charisma that this stranger of 5 years ago
brought to this audience? Changed a moribund gathering into a group of bawling
children. There is no military command structure: or organization dictums which demand obligation to sing and participate
An aura created over time by the dynamism of his personality.

Knowledgeable, without a doubt Passionate about his faith

Energetic , obviously

Engaging , yes

Developer of mutual trust

Carrying the audience in his hands over and over again

Mesmerizing .
A prime example of “leadership” – taking people to places where they did not want to go: and didn’t think they had the talent or ability to take risks associated with musical cliffs.
Jeff believes in himself, his faith, AND the people to whom he is ministering. Most of whom he never met.. but all who feel they know him – and follow him: timidly then eventually without question.

In summary – a construct of mutual trust.
We know and treasure this rare combination when we have the privilege to experience this amazing
chemistry of superb leadership.

A case study in Leadership 101

HELPFUL HINTS IN SELECTING LEADERS

HELPFUL HINTS IN SELECTING LEADERS
Selecting employees for supervisory, management, and leadership positions is a fascinating journey.
The same holds true if you are considering forming a business partnership.
What characteristics do you look for?
• Personality Compatibility
• Technical Expertise
• Sharing the same vision.
• Ethics
• Morality
• Mutual friends
• Capability to get along with others
• Financial Stability.
Absolutely – each one of these characteristics is worthy of exploration. Some would say these are
essential..
But gee, an individual can also be a solid performing follower with the above characteristics.
What is left out of the above listing of essentials? A question which is overlooked primarily because of the 1st two items on the list (personality – we really get along well together) and (technical expertise – they bring a essential tool kit of knowledge)? In the evaluative minds of many interviewers this combo translates, sometimes erroneously, into – leadership. The person across the table has all the attributes of a “ natural leader”. It’s so obvious, I can tell in my gut that this person is a leader – I just know it.
Ok – how do you know it? Intuition? As the well worn bromide goes – “the proof is in the pudding”.
A pertinent question for the candidate ? What is a leader ?—no, here you might received an academic or “ down to earth” descriptor . Good information but not what is needed.
The onion which needs to be peeled – is this person a Leader??
• What type, size, organization have they led?
• What quantifiable successes can they cite?
• Their demonstrated philosophy of leadership.
• When did they 1st know they were a leader? How?
• Specific examples of team building.
• Types of employees with whom they work the best/least?
• Failures as a leader.
• What leadership skills do they bring to the table?
• What characteristics are they looking for in a leader?

With mentoring and coaching leadership skills can be honed and developed. It is true that abilities can
be developed wherein and individual with no previous leadership skills can transition into a position
requiring those talents. Many of these individuals have some prior formal or informal leadership
experience.
A caveat. In many ways, leadership is a type of natural selection. Followers gravitate to those who
lead. Whether on the playground, classroom, social club, identifiable leaders and followers emerge.
The risk of hiring someone into a leadership position without a proven record, is significant. The
nuances of successful leadership are complex. They are learned overtime. This is not like learning a
software program where the variables are identified and solutions finite. Empathy, communications,
trust , delegation involve skillful interpersonal skills.
Leadership experience is a valuable teacher which can be measured in the breadth , depth, complexity
and success of involvement . Years in the “job of life” is differentiated from chronological age. Quality
of leadership is a necessary ingredient as is quantity.

BELIEVABLE LEADERSHIP – WHAT CAN MONEY BUY?

“ Diamonds are a girl’s best friend”. Sound familiar? What do the diamonds buy? – a sense of – he cares for me? Admiration from others.? Eye candy? Perhaps they are a renewal of the loving mutual admiration society. Or a visible reminder of one person caring for another. This rock from the center of the earth has always signified wealth, affection, and loyalty. There may be a difference between signifying something and it actually being true.
A question – do diamonds, jewelry, and other “ valued things” act as unbreakable adhesives when the affection and loyalty attributes are violated or dissipate over a period of time? The glitz and glamour of diamonds, by themselves, rarely is the glue that holds a broken relationship intact.
Employers are sometimes confused by the currents of “ we want more money’? ( show me the diamonds). When asked to perform expanded duties, the refrain “ how much more are you going to pay me?” is heard from dissatisfied , skeptical, restless employees..
Assuming these employees are paid comparable to others ( same occupation, region, etc) why the hue and cry about money?
• Loyalty?
• Honesty?
• Leadership?
• Followership?
• Integrity?
• Trust?
• Innovation?
• Motivation?
• Empowerment
Will money buy these? Perhaps money buys retention and the ability to hold on to highly skilled employees before they bolt to the competition. A bidding war ensues. With money being equal – who will the employee choose? And why?
Well heeled employers who fairly pay employees, have a high rate of “ money driven malcontents” when there significant dysfunctional characteristics are present in the workplace.
Havighurst discussed the absence of… as a factor in human behavior. The absence of employee loyalty, honesty, commitment to quality, employee empowerment, esprit de corps. Money cannot buy these factors which are essential to employee satisfaction. Dysfunction is a generalized company climate. Created, promoted and sustained by inept management and leadership.
Employees generally want to enjoy their work: take pride in where they work and the functions they perform. The erosion of these positive characteristics can be avoided by “ believable leadership”. Leaders who command trust: care about their employees, and who act in concert with the belief systems they talk about. Transparency, honesty, and value driven are the 3 key words by which they live. These characteristics are priceless.
Personal relationships and businesses have transparency, honesty and values are their cores. While “money” may be a center of heated discussions , a question to be asked – How did we get here? What are we as a marital team willing to do to change the atmospherics?

What can diamonds buy?

FOLLOWERSHIP – A SUCCESSFUL TRANSITION FROM LEADERSHIP

Always #1 in her class: star athlete on the soccer team: class president, Then a meteoric rise up the corporate ladder of an international manufacturing firm. Hired as a financial analyst she soon was sitting with the suits in the board room. Travel abroad, An influential voice, she led others to buy into and implement the firm’s vision. Charismatic, verbose, she has been a recognized leader wherever the waves of career life have taken her.
The economic downturn crushed her upward climb. It’s not easy for a 35 year old with a base salary of $300,000 to land on her feet after being “downsized” by a firm which soon shuttered its doors forever.
With a rolodex of hundreds of contacts, networking her way into interviews was relatively easy. The employment offers were, to say the least, startling. Positions at the top of organizational pyramids are limited during a time of economic contraction.
Eventually a position as a vice president of this and that in a stable, family owned firm became available and she accepted.
She found herself posited in a nondescript office, no windows, no executive assistant . A minion in a company where change, out of the box thinking, and the aggressive charge to gain market share are anathema to the family decision makers.
The suits walk past her office on the way to the board room. Arms filled with binders, charts, and folders with power point slides. Determined, shoulders back, and air of confidence that she remembers well. The chit chat of decision makers fills the corridors.
Meetings end, the directors head off for an extended lunch . Fond memories of when she was a power broker.
Afternoon arrives, and it is time for the post board – 2 o’clock “ status meeting”. It is the time where an “overview is presented” – where she is expected to sit, listen, smile, and agree. Then it’s delegation time. Study this, get statistics on that, develop a strategy for program implementation. Oh yes, she has the opportunity for input, ideas and recommendations. But the real gutsy broad strokes of decision making are made in the board room.
She knows better strategies and more efficient ways of moving the company forward. Biting her tongue, suppressing her intellect are the challenges of the moment. Being a follower requires loyalty, patience, and caution. Three qualities that she expected of others on her way up the corporate ladder. A visionary, she is now expected to think in the immediate – the short term. The subtle permutations of decision making are not of her concern.
Can she suppress, until the next opportunity presents itself, her natural gifts of leadership and charismatic decision making?
Being a successful follower requires a somewhat different/ but complimentary skill set of a leader. For our former executive, the following are some characteristics of being a successful follower:
• Self management
• Commitment
• Focus
• Skill mastery
• Courage – credibility and honesty
• Critical thinking- leaning forward into the situation at hand while anticipating future requirements
• Highly participative
• Courageously dissents, shares credit, habitually exercises superior judgment
• Active (not passive) team member.
As a follower do you embody these characteristics?
As a leader – do you expect followers to embody these characteristics which ultimately serve as the foundational skills for leadership development? Perhaps you might want to consider them as part of your next leadership skills program.

There are leaders and then there are followers

HUBRIS,KNOWLEDGE AND TRANSPARENCY – DO YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO BE A LEADER?

Broadly smiling, engagingly confident, you motivate audiences.
Stories of family triumphs, business victories, successful negotiations.
The ability to mesmerize audiences is legendary.
Week after week you shared more and more of your life story.
Growing up in the leafy suburbs of north shore Chicago
Privilege, wealth, highly educated in private schools.

Behind the closed doors there was the specter of alcoholism, An enabling father who provided cover for your mother to drink. Jameson on the rocks in crystal tumblers began at noon each day.

All the while the legendary mercantile business prospers on Michigan Avenue.
High end jewelry: a travel service to Europe: leased airplanes at O’Hare.

All business and personal hurdles were brushed aside as you became the
revered CEO at Hartsfield, Inc. A major player in the design and sales of u
upscale women’s fashion. Your loyal employees shared in the profits, the fame, and the riches.

Presiding over meetings in the cavernous auditorium, you shared a bit of history.
And motivated employees with tips recommendations, and self help suggestions as to how to become bigger than life, how to see the goodness in their soul.

Slowly and deliberately over months and years you tell of your mother’s failing health. Her struggle with dementia.Not a word about the dreaded illness known as “ the drink”
This family history was in the past, a harsh memory, but one consigned to the closet.

So dear reader, want to be a charismatic leader? A role model for your employees?
Someone to whom the public gravitates towards and looks to for strength and inspiration?

A New York Yankee fan, our CEO subject, remembers her mother talking about Lou Gehrig.
The slugger who stood on the grounds that Ruth built and said goodbye on July 4, 1939.
Knowing that he was succumbing to the death of what is now known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
An iconic hero, he is remembered for generations. Known as the Iron Horse for his durability, physically weak but staunchly resolute his courageous farewell speech before more than 61,000 follows.
“Fans, for the past two weeks you have been reading about the bad break I got. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth. I have been in ballparks for seventeen years and have never received anything but kindness and encouragement from you fans.
Look at these grand men. Which of you wouldn’t consider it the highlight of his career just to associate with them for even one day? Sure, I’m lucky. Who wouldn’t consider it an honor to have known Jacob Ruppert? Also, the builder of baseball’s greatest empire, Ed Barrow? To have spent six years with that wonderful little fellow, Miller Huggins? Then to have spent the next nine years with that outstanding leader, that smart student of psychology, the best manager in baseball today, Joe McCarthy? Sure, I’m lucky.
When the New York Giants, a team you would give your right arm to beat, and vice versa, sends you a gift — that’s something. When everybody down to the groundskeepers and those boys in white coats remember you with trophies — that’s something. When you have a wonderful mother-in-law who takes sides with you in squabbles with her own daughter — that’s something. When you have a father and a mother who work all their lives so that you can have an education and build your body — it’s a blessing. When you have a wife who has been a tower of strength and shown more courage than you dreamed existed — that’s the finest I know.
So I close in saying that I might have been given a bad break, but I’ve got an awful lot to live for. Thank you.”
— Lou Gehrig at Yankee Stadium, July 4, 1939[49]

Imagine the strength it took to deliver this farewell address!
Like Lou Gehrig, others follow you – almost a cult. They come to you with their secrets, their stories of success and personal distress. After all, you are perceived to have an endless capacity for empathy, and heartfelt understanding: two characteristics of successful leaders.
They look to you as the perfect leader: One whose speeches and writings are internalized, discussed, chatted about in high society and by the Red Hat ladies.

Through it all, you have been able to keep a bit aloof while protecting yourself. Maintaining that necessary tiny bit of space between you and the public, you and employees,.

Vulnerability has been part of what you shared. That openness which others see as trust. That incalculable chemical molecule with which most identify.
Your son, yes you have discussed the travails of your son from time to time. His autism. His struggles with other children. How you strive to keep him comfortable and happy. But his decline – only a hint here and there.

There is a rumor that his health is rapidly deteriorating to the point of no return. That his continuing illness is causing a rift in your “perfect” marriage. But you have been stalwart, and strong, and just led the board of directors through the sterling financials for the last quarter. Profits are up 18%.
The Wall Street Journal sings your praises. Stockholders are in awe. To the world life is perfect.
So you want to be a charismatic leader? Leadership requires “ speaking to the truth as Neale Walsch writes in “ Conversations with God”.

Here they sit. Three Hundred Fifty expectant men and women. Eager for your quarterly message
of hope, inspiration, and life-sustaining theories. Knowing you have brought the firm through the recession. Knowing you will provide for them in many ways, large and small.
Be strong , you say to yourself. You got where you are through hubris, knowledge, and superior self
control. Strong on the outside: stronger on the inside.
You’ve spoken with Elizabeth Edwards. Hilary Clinton, Geraldine Ferraro. All who overcame the impossible – and retained their public integrity. Here you are – with an expectant audience.
Lou Gehrig walked away.. so weak he could not hold the goodbye gift presented by fans and teammates..
Where is my inner strength whispers the voice inside of your head.
The introductions are over: the crowd comes to their feet as one large wave. Cheering as you reach the
podium. Waiting for good news. Waiting for that magic they have seen in you for 15 years.
Deep breath: knees knocking: shoulders back: eyes focused on your loyal assistant in the front row- only she has seen the struggle behind the curtain and knows something is rotten in Denmark.

You thank the team for their loyalty: how they have made the Company great and then share Power
Point graphs illustrating the successful 1st quarter. You have stalled, procrastinated, bobbed and weaved. It is time to tell them. Alex, your son died last night, Timothy your husband left town on a
business trip – and was seen in West Palm Beach with another woman, and yes you have cervical cancer.

The imperfect tri fact a. A leave of absence- yes you are leaving for an indefinite period of time.
There is an audible gasp: Silence: Tears: employees reluctant to look at each other – so uncomfortable.
You have gone where many have failed. You stayed faithful to your implicit promise to employees which is to tell the truth .. always. To trust them .. and for them to trust you.
Leadership is about raising expectations. This includes the honesty of transparency and the risk of being vulnerable.
Hubris and knowledge catapulted you to the corner office. Do you have that something extra of transparency and vulnerability which sets you apart.? Leadership has its rewards and risks.

My question to all of you leaders – are you willing to walk the walk ? To share who you are, what you value, and embrace employees when they care about you and your life?

TRUST AND TEAM LEADERSHIP

A well accepted principle of effective leadership is that of trust. Without unconditional trust the relationship between team members and management is held together by only the very thin filament of organizational control “ Me boss – You Employee”.
The term “servant leadership” is much in vogue. For many leaders there is a religious attachment to the phrase. With good reason.
There is a significant connection between trust , servant leadership, and the success of a team.
By definition, one of the purposes of a “team”, is the collaborative sharing of ideas, knowledge, and resources in order to enact best practices solutions. Team members are perceived as equals with the senior management person there providing a listening ear and acting as a informative shepherd.
When the chemistry of “trust” is present a very interesting group->leader interaction takes place. There may be expectations for the senior person to carry out certain actions. The group may have decided, for example, on a reconfiguration of a work cell. This involves the need for a discussion by the manager with a long term employee and a reassignment of them. This will be a very difficult meeting. At the time of commitment with the group, there is every expectation that the manager will move forward.
Follow through is essential. Trust is in the balance. Future behavior modeling by team members will only occur if the leader carries out what he/she has promised. The team leader has become the servant of the team. This means no waffling, or procrastination, or significantly modifying the agreed upon action. Returning to the team and saying “ I had second thoughts” usually is a trust breaker.
Obviously if there is VERY VERY significantly new information or a change in circumstances that prevents the action from taking place then all bets are off. However, this should be a rare exception.
With the example of a “proof is in the pudding” in hand, teams take on a new mantle. Members begin to trust each other more and more. They also now have more trust in the leader.
The result – Discussions are more open and candid. Problem solving is attacked with greater vigor and turf wars recede into the background. Any fear of retribution by team members when areas of disagreement are laid on the table is muted and dissolves over time.
In addition, the esprit de corps of the team grows into commitment and loyalty to the team and the organization. As with other human experiences such as happiness, these positive characteristics are passed along to fellow employees, customers and vendors

Trust - An integral part of team success