How Does a Leader Behave?

L for loneliness.

This is the first self-reflection and decision every leader faces. Major Dick Winters  (portrayed in “Band of Brothers”) reflected that he did not hang out with his men. He loved the men under his command, but maintained distance and detachment. Leadership can be an isolated and isolating role, so I always tell young and emerging leaders you can either be popular, or you can be a leader, but you can’t have both.

E for execution.

Sooner or later, action must be taken; plans must be executed. Leaders zero in on the deliverables, and how those can be achieved. Without this driving sense of execution, all you have is “panel discussion.”

A for acuity.

They’re visionary and intellectual; they like to see things evolve from one stage to the next. Leaders often see things others can’t; they maintain the proverbial “bigger picture” in their heads. Not everyone who “gets it” is a leader; but every effective leader I know is a person who “gets it.”

D for delegation.

Leaders understand delegation is for the greater good, not merely a mechanism of authority. Sure, it may be easier to just do the task yourself, but if you delegate, there’s substantial group learning to be gained. And it’s important to delegate tasks to the right individuals. Also, a strong leader understands that each of us needs time and space to use our imagination and creativity when asked to do a job, so once a task is delegated, they leave you alone to do it (which may be why my favorite leaders have not been micromanagers).

E (again) for ego.

Outsized egos may appear commanding, but egotistical leaders don’t last: sooner or later, their narcissism creates relationship failures. Seasoned leaders do not let power or authority go to their heads, and they don’t worry about who receives the credit. If they receive credit as an individual, they’ll quickly refer to the team effort.

R for respect, reflection, and resilience.

Again, I defer to Dick Winters, whose men often said they’d happily follow him into hell:

• You win respect not because of rank or position, but because you’re a leader of character.
• Look in the mirror every night and ask yourself if you did your best.
• Hang tough! Never, ever, give up.

What Defines a Leader?

Since challenging circumstances often need a variety of approaches, a leader is someone who sees and defines what has to be done, and then deploys the most suitable leadership approach so the goal of the mission is served, along with the needs of those who’ll be accountable for providing the solution.

A leader may not come up with the answer, but she’ll coach and support the collective search for it. A leader also tracks and observes group dynamics, to make sure people are assigned, included, and given safe forum to work out process problems.

A leader likes to execute, to take action, and to evaluate those actions so wasteful effort is eliminated, and successful actions studied for repetition and gain. 

The truly great leaders know to lead by example—perhaps in small acts of civility, such as making sure everyone gets heard, or intervening when tempers are starting to fray.

And, like literary heroes, any time a leader goes out on a limb to risk something, he takes what’s been learned back to the group so the lesson can be shared. Whatever benefits the group will not be jealously hoarded by a good leader as evidence of her own value. Great leaders share and spread credit as much as possible.

Typically our society has revered single-note leaders with that one winning formula, but as the world continues to change, we need as much versatility of thought and action from our leaders as we see in the diversity of humanity.

Leadership Series: Take Me to Your Leader

Within every workgroup, you have some staples: there’s the slacker, who can’t be counted on for anything except to show up when the job’s done, in an effort to soak up accolades…the willing but uninspired follower who’ll do whatever’s necessary, but has to be told what to do at every step…the constant critic, who knows how everything should be done, but isn’t crazy about assuming any real responsibilities because he’s already overcommitted to so many things requiring his brilliance.

And then there’s that mysterious, elusive character — the leader. Amid the flow of personalities and work, very few understand what it really means to be a leader.

Good leadership is often hard to define, but everyone knows when they’re working with a good leader just like they know when they’re operating in a leadership vacuum.

Some leaders are natural managers, which is the job of making sure processes are running efficiently and regularly improved.

Others are visionaries, less effective with day-to-day operations, but impressive innovators and new-thought pioneers.

There are contradictions as well: take-charge personalities don’t always make the best leaders, and folks who made straight A’s in school often become better specialists than generals of men and women.

Some group circumstances thrive from servant-leaders, those low-key people who bring up the rear rather than charge from the front, because that’s how they gather insight on what has to be done, and how it can be sustainably done. Individuals may have influence but few leadership skills, just as formal leaders may have authority but fail miserably at behaving responsibly.

And, very often, people with robust leadership abilities do not collaborate well with other strong leaders like themselves. Queen bees have been known to fight to the death.

So what’s a plausible working definition of a leader?

Over the next couple blogs, I’ll be discussing this.

Planning a Good Murder

This is one of my favorite stories, from a veteran high school teacher, Mr. R., who was covering an ethics unit for a senior [critical thinking] class.

After covering the fine points of ethical thought and behavior, the big assignment was to get into small workgroups to plan the perfect murder.

Students who’d been disengaged lit up and got involved. Individuals who hated group projects re-engaged with enthusiasm. Kids in other classes said, “Awww…I wish I had that class.” For a couple days, even Facebook was deserted in favor of this assignment.

By deadline, these bloodthirsty students had their Powerpointed schemes all worked out. That is, until Mr. R. asked the showstopper question:

“This is a unit on ethics. Did anyone at any point speak up against this?”

They stared at him the way a lab full of monkeys would stare when all the bananas are inexplicably removed.

 “But you sort of gave us permission,” argued one student, “when you made it a homework assignment.”

“And we all know it’s not for real,” said another. “No one really gets hurt.”

I know that in business many things can be forgiven if the right outcomes ($$$) are produced, and in recent years it’s become socially acceptable, even hip, to laugh over the “cleverness” of people who win profits by pulling off some ethical sleight-of-hand.

But here are the questions that teacher posed:

• If someone in a position of authority initiates or sanctions what you know to be wrongdoing, does that make it all right?

• If you’re told that it’s not for real, if you can’t see the victim, or are assured the wrongdoing is a victimless crime, does that then make it all right?

This teacher told me every once in a while he’d have a student who’d raise their hand and say, “Hey, Mr. R., I don’t get this. We’re studying ethics so why do you have us planning a murder? Isn’t that wrong?”

Bingo—automatic “A” for that unit.

The Role of Civility in Social Media

Recently I posted a movie trailer video to a favorite Facebook group page and, after several weeks, was delighted to see other fans had “liked” the posting. I posted a comment expressing delight that they did. Therefore I was startled to receive a bristling response from the page administrators who had mistaken my meaning for sarcasm.

false pretenses? Are we sensing you're annoyed with the lack of response to your post? If thats the reason being five percent of fans reguarly respond to posts to begin with and secondly we doubt it's due to them being more interested his other attributes and forgetting his acting abilities..If it's something they have seen or heard about before there is lest interest compared to new things popping up about [him]. Kind regards, [page] administrators.

Aside from the confusing syntax, what struck me was how much they had misunderstood my comment. Also stunning was

• How quickly the worst was assumed of my meaning, and their assumptions of my motives applied instead;

• How bristling their response was—to a “constituent”; and

• How much exhausting drama came with this (this is, after all, a Facebook page about a movie actor, not a debate about cancer research funding).

But I think this is how people do communicate these days, especially on social media—quick to anger, quick to call names, quick to misunderstand and kick down the wrong impression versus verifying for the correct one.

I can only reiterate what Linda Bishop and I discussed in our webinar last year:

• If you’re unsure about someone’s intent, give the benefit of the doubt until you can verify it;

• “Flaming” responses ultimately reflect more damagingly on you. Your remarks cannot be retracted although they can be used out of context; and

• Remember that human communications is a flawed process, so going ballistic over imagined insults is the human equivalent of shouting down someone an office meeting—without having taken the time to hear them out.

Finally: people always remember how they were treated. Adding stuff like “kind regards” when you’ve basically acted like a mindless bully does not change that. If your role is to administer, your job is to keep constituents engaged, and practicing civility is a stepping-stone to ensuring that.

Try a Little Seltzer for the Road Ahead

Recently I posted this on Facebook: “Today my local grocery had customers cracking up in the aisles when an employee on the PA system said: Welcome Publix shoppers to the best Friday deals ever (ever ever ever)...our deli just pulled rotisserie chicken from the oven and we got homemade bisque (bisque bisque)...As always, thank you for being with us today, where shopping is a pleasure (pleasure pleasure)....Gotta love a store with its own PA echo.”

To me that's great customer service. It was such a small, silly thing, but the smiles lingered on everyone's face, the employees were clapping and laughing, and they just proved their tagline.

In the same week, one of my clients said something very profound: “It’s not just that we should keep doing things better, but we need to do the same things differently. What’s more, we need to try and do different things.”

So what does that mean? I’ve put together a general list:

• Give your customers, your constituents, a different experience of you. To say you want to “re-engage” them means that some organizations will do what they’ve always done, only with greater frequency and intensity, but is that necessarily the best strategy? One client plans to go beyond sending thank-you form letters to their donors and instead start inviting them to pick-your-brain meals with national luminaries closely tied to their organization.

• Don’t just invest in transparency but aim for constant, porous dialog. New programming frequently fails because the targeted audience was never asked in the first place if such programs were even relevant, much less appealing or convenient. The best way to escape formulaic tactics is to ask your customer what they need most.

• Don’t forget to delight. One of the classic episodes of 1970s’ “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” was when the TV station crew struggled to maintain gravitas at the funeral of a clown whose credo was “A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants.”

How We Learn

           One of the most startling experiences I had as a trainer was the day a white supremacist attended one of my classes. In fact, it was the one about cross-cultural customer care, and dollars to doughnuts he wasn’t there by choice. Chances are good his boss he required him to be there.

            Nor did he come in wearing a badge that said, “White supremacist / misogynist,” but by his remarks and behaviors, it was a safe bet to assume he was made to be that way.

I had a feeling he’d linger after class, and sure enough he did, because by then it was obvious even to him that his attitudes were offensive to the others. No one sought him out for conversation; when he spoke you could hear the eyes rolling in the room.

            He was intrigued that my classroom rules included “Speak as an ally” and “There’s no such thing as a dumb question.”

He began our conversation by saying, “I know I come off as a conservative right wing nut, but my dad was much worst.”

His personal story was sad to me—made sadder by the conviction he felt his dad did what any good father should do: require his son learn to dominate women and children, learn to shoot guns because all masculine men should enjoy killing, and learn to assert his own value by denigrating others who appear different. Any challenge or disagreement was met with physical blows and derision by the old man.

He chuckled indulgently and derisively about gays and lesbians, shook his head over the failings of other races, and prided himself on having his wife “under control.” (He praised the Chinese, probably because I was the only other person in the room with him).

After 9/11, knowing himself to be too old, he called up his old Marine sargeant and begged to re-up: “Please let me kill some Muslims.”

When that was not possible, he cheerfully took a job with a local penitentiary as a guard, where he felt repurposed in protecting the rest of us against some of the “human faeces” under his watchful eye.

Finally there was a pause and he seemed to be asking, “So what do you think of that?”

I’d seen white supremacists mouthing off in TV documentaries but, set apart and alone, free to speak as an individual, I found him more pitiful than repellent.

“I know the jail must be chaotic,” I said, “but you must feel your life is so boring and closed off.”

He was silent so I got the feeling he was considering it.

“It must take a great deal of effort to maintain all the things you believe in,” I said, “and it must get in the way of any learning which for me is where all the fun is in life.”

“Aw yeah, lifelong learning, I got all that,” he waved his hand.

“That includes learning from other people.”

I broached the idea that each person is a walking collection of stories, and that learning should be like lighting small fires of imagination, versus filling a human vessel. If you think you can learn that way, no one is beneath or above you.

Not sure if he bought any of it.

We live in a period of impatience, incivility, and strife-ridden civil discourse, further enabled by social media and e-mail. Depending on who you’re with, if you don’t ape the attitudes of the prescribed Democrat or Republican, you risk social disapproval. I’m not sure when it became more important to “win” by converting or kicking down the next guy, than by simply taking the time to hear them out.

Under these conditions, learning becomes a risky venture because you have to first navigate the minefield of social ouster. Small wonder I’ve found most people speak most freely when with like-minded others, but we learn more in settings were differences abound. It’s just that no one’s making it safe to be in disagreement.

Our most gifted teachers use humor, laughter, and game-playing to engage children in learning something risky and new. In order to learn, we have to make ourselves vulnerable and demonstrate how much we don’t know, so of course our questions will seem dumb. By leavening the lump, these teachers are saying, “Who cares? Glad you asked.” Mistakes are made more freely, enabling more learning.

All I know is, it would not have increased my own humanity if I’d insulted that white supremacist for being what he is, at a point when he was asking to learn.