Leadership Trust Gap – Part 3 of 3

Prof Barbara Kellerman asks those in charge of leadership-development programs to question the assumptions the industry promotes:

·         Leadership can be learned by most—quickly and easily; over months, weeks or weekends.

·         Leaders matter more than anyone else.

·         Followers are secondary.

·         Context is tertiary.

She also suggests several important mindset shifts based on these assumptions:

We cannot stop or slow bad leadership by changing human nature. No amount of preaching or sermonizing—no exhortations to virtuous conduct, uplifting thoughts or wholesome habits—will obviate the fact that our nature is constant (even when our behaviors change).

We cannot stop or slow bad leadership without stopping and slowing bad followership. Leaders and followers are always interdependent.

We cannot stop or slow bad leadership by sticking our heads in the sand. Amnesia, wishful thinking, the lies we tell as individuals and organizations, and all of the other mind games we play to deny or distort reality get us nowhere. Avoidance insures us to the costs and casualties of bad leadership, allowing them to fester.

What Leaders Can Do

Leaders can become more effective and ethical by following these steps:

Remember the mission.

Limit tenure in positions of power; share power.

Establish checks and balances.

Avoid groupthink; ask the right kinds of questions.

Establish a culture of openness in which diversity and dissent are encouraged.

Don’t believe your own hype; get and stay real.

Compensate for your weaknesses by hiring and delegating well.

Develop a personal support system (mentor, advisor, coach, best friend).

Stay balanced and healthy.

Be creative, reflective and flexible.

Question assumptions; get reliable and complete information.

What Followers Can Do

If bad leaders are to be stopped or slowed, followers must play a bigger part.

But many followers consider the price of intervention to be too high. There are real benefits for going along, along with real costs and risks for not going along. We often choose to mind our own business. Nevertheless, incompetent and unethical leaders cannot function without followers.

Followers can strengthen their ability to resist bad leaders by observing these guidelines:

Empower yourself.

Hold leaders accountable; use checks and balances already in place.

Find allies; develop your own sources of information.

Be loyal to the whole, not to any one person.

Be a watchdog (especially if the board seems too compliant).

Be skeptical; leaders are not gods.

Take collective action (even on a modest scale, such as assembling a small group to talk to the boss).

Luckily, more followers are stepping up to the plate, demonstrating a willingness to share responsibilities, power, authority and influence. They know that once bad leaders are entrenched, they seldom change or quit of their own volition. It’s up to us to insist on change—or an early exit.

Leadership Trust Gap – Part 2 of 3

In a perfect organizational world, we would be blessed with transformational servant leaders who are intrinsically motivated to provide benefits to their followers. But, in the real world, corporate executives are rarely that accommodating. We nevertheless expect our leaders to make things better for both the business and our careers.

Corporate leadership is simultaneously envied and disdained. We are in awe of strong personalities who take charge and earn big compensation packages, bonuses and perks. At the same time, we cannot deny that the gap between the rich and poor has been steadily increasing for decades, and the middle class has declined.

Furthermore, the financial crisis—the worst since the Great Depression—has been slow to recover. Many blame executives at our top financial institutions for eroding trust in leadership. We are left with an impression of widespread corporate corruption that continues to be amply rewarded, even when CEOs are dismissed for poor performance.

A 2011 Gallup poll confirmed that corporate America’s reputation is in tatters, with 62% affirming they want major corporations to have less influence in the future—a figure that increased 10% in a decade. A whopping 67% of those polled said they resent big business’ influence.

A survey of Fox News’ right-of-center viewers found that most overwhelmingly believe (a 6:1 margin) that corporate leaders have done more to hurt than help the economy.

Income Disparities

Most of us expect our leaders to be paid more than we receive. We recognize that they work long and hard, are intelligent and experienced, and shoulder responsibilities and risks most of us wouldn’t want.

But, has the economic and lifestyle gap grown absurdly large?

Between 2002 and 2007, the bottom 99% of American incomes grew only 1.3% a year, compared to a 10% bump in compensation for the top 1%.

Let’s look at a few examples of CEOs’ annual compensation:

·         In 2008, Oracle’s Larry Ellison received nearly $193 million

·         Countrywide Financial’s Anthony Mozilo: $102.84 million

·         Aflac’s Daniel Amos: $75 million

·         Safeway’s Steven Burd: $67 million

The median pay for top executives at 200 big companies in 2010 was $10.8 million, a 23% jump from 2009.

These examples contribute to our dislike and distrust of those at the helm. These leaders seem to grow excessively rich as the average American struggles to make ends meet.

Flawed Followers

Perhaps today’s leaders can get away with various and sundry peccadilloes because their followers fail to demand accountability.

“Leading in America has never been easy,” writes Barbara Kellerman in The End of Leadership. “But now it is more difficult than ever—not only because we have too many bad leaders, but because we have too many bad followers.”

Many of us are too timid, disengaged or alienated to speak up, making it easy for corporate leaders to do what they want—and what’s best for their bank accounts.

The leadership-development industry has become huge, with $50 billion a year spent on corporate training. Shouldn’t the curriculum include elements of followership? Everyone, including the CEO, has to answer to someone, be it a board, stockholders or a senior team.

Tomorrow, in the concluding Part 3; I'll examine some of the assumptions with the leadership development in the business world.

Leadership Trust Gap – Part 1 of 3

  

Leaders everywhere are taking a bad rap these days. Hardly a day goes by without news of corporate ethical violations, financial fudging and CEO failures. Yet, compensation packages and bonuses continue unabated, even when disgraced leaders are sent packing.

Corporate leaders are being pushed out in record numbers. In 2002, over a hundred CEOs from the world’s 2,500 largest companies were replaced—almost four times the number in 1995.

What is happening to our efforts to develop good leaders? In spite of the billions spent annually to train high-potential candidates, why do those promoted to positions of power, with critical responsibilities, continue to fail?

“Being a leader has become a mantra. It is a presumed path to money and power; a medium for achievement, both individual and institutional; and a mechanism for creating change sometimes—although hardly always—for the common good.”  ~ Barbara Kellerman, in her book - The End of Leadership

Harvard Business School Professor Barbara Kellerman criticizes the leadership-development industry in her book, The End of Leadership. She asserts:

·         Leaders at every level, across all industries, are failing the people who depend on them.

·         Leadership programs have done an inadequate job of producing effective and ethical leaders.

·         We don’t really know how to grow good leaders, and we know even less about how to stop or slow the bad ones.

·         Today’s business environment is rapidly changing in ways leaders are unable or unwilling to grasp.

·         Followers are disappointed and disillusioned, even though they are more empowered, emboldened and entitled than ever before.

Leadership’s Devolution

Until only recently, we presumed that leaders should dominate and followers must do as they are told. But after several revolutions, labor movements, human-rights legislation and the spread of democracy, the world has radically changed.

Power, authority and influence are in scarce supply for even the most charismatic CEOs, and continuing to devolve. Workers in the middle and at the bottom of the hierarchy have an expanded sense of entitlement, but they are demanding more and giving less. Technology has helped level the playing field.

Workers are often indifferent, disengaged or outright resistant. There are only two reasons they’ll follow a leader:

1.    They have to.

2.    They want to.

The end of the 20th century marked the demise of command-and-control leadership, although some bosses stubbornly insist on trying to make it work. In its place, leaders are advised to become more participatory—to lead by cooperation and collaboration.

Leadership success is judged on three criteria:

1.    Is the leader ethical?

2.    Is he/she effective?

3.    Does the business make money and provide jobs?

In the workplace, however, followers judge their leaders and ask:

·         Does my boss have my best interests in mind (and does he/she even know what they are)?

·         Is my boss looking out for the company’s best interests?

·         Why should I believe, follow and trust this person?

·         Like most other animals, humans tend to look to strong males to provide what’s most important: safety and security. We are just like baboons, deferring to males whose strength and capacity to lead have been tested.

There is no leadership without followership. Good leadership requires good followers, who may be passive or active (depending on context). But followers have generally been slow to embrace empowerment and participate in the leader/follower tango.

Tomorrow, in Part 2; I'll examine the leadership reputation in corporate America and public perceptions.

Lots More to Leadership, Listening and Gaining Commitment

PART VI

I hope that these series of articles have aided your understanding of these elements of managing people. There is much more to them such as the actions to put these concepts into practice, the specific “How To's" of listening. I encourage you to think about values and projecting high standards of them to your workforce. I did and was able to create significant per person productivity gains and achieved true excellence through happy, industrious, turned-on people.

Servant Leaders persistently engage in active listening and servant leadership practices reflect an enduring philosophy of leadership rather than isolated or even connected actions. It is a different way of thinking about the purpose of leadership, the true role of the leader, and the potential of those being led. It is not something that you do, but rather something you are.

Therefore, the listening construct associated with servant leadership implies a persistent communicative posture derived from the leader's core character and marked by 

1) personal self-reflection, 

2) an attentive attitude towards others, and 

3) consequent attentive practices.

Such a leader is one who ventures and takes the risks of going out ahead to show the way and whom others follow voluntarily, because they are persuaded that the leader's path is the right one – for them, probably better than they could devise for themselves. Thus, in addition to listening, persuasion appears to be a critical element in the formulation of a servant leader relative to the leader's communicative patterns.

I'd like to hear your comments, remarks etc on any concepts that I tried to portray in these series of articles on 'Active listening as part of the effective communication strategies.' 

Namaste!

Gaining Commitment - Understanding the Process

PART V

To be committed, one must have ownership. To have ownership, one must be able to influence. And to influence, one must be heard and be reasonably answered. So when management does the "WHAT IFs", subordinates are in reasonable control or ownership of their workplace. When nothing is done without their knowledge and all useful knowledge is shared with them, applying their brainpower to every aspect of the workplace becomes a worthwhile effort. They are suddenly released to their own motivations, otherwise known as being turned-on! In this mode, control is rationally affected through the worker’s self-control and through commonly held value standards since they and only they are used as criteria to decide what is “right”.

The above is also a part of the answer to the question of trust. With protected rights to knowledge, reasons and planned outcomes before execution, subordinates own the outcomes and can freely trust all because they themselves did it. The question of trust becomes less important and peace of mind prevails. There may be threats of external competition, but with knowledge and rights of ownership everyone will get behind slaughtering the opposition.

Note that in this mode, the boss provides information and assistance in moving toward being highly motivated/committed so each subordinate can take charge and come to their own conclusions rather than sit around and follow. In this mode, the boss has faith that people will effectively resolve issues on their merits and believes that authoritative declarations are self-defeating.

But too often direction gets in the way of ownership and this preempts commitment. This is a "cart before the horse" error common to many management techniques and styles. The most basic reason may be that bosses have no faith or trust. They don’t trust juniors to arrive at reasonable conclusions and thus deny them information, rationales, value standards and listening. These bosses are greatly limiting their own success. Leadership is trusting your subordinates to provide valuable input and it is rewarded by their trust in you and their commitment to the job. It has significant positive bottom line implications to your company!

Please come back tomorrow for the final part of this mini-series.

So, How is Listening the Doorway to Gaining Subordinate Commitment?

PART IV

First off, problems and difficulties occur in any work group with a predetermined regularity dictated by the extent to which employees are motivated/committed and the difficulty of the work. The lower the extent and the higher the difficulty, the greater the number of problems and the longer each remains before resolution. Highly motivated and committed workers continually strive for excellence. The more committed they are, the more they act to find solutions to problems. The less committed the less energy and thought they devote to correction and the more time they spend causing problems.

Secondly, I have heard many, many employees in the midst of a bad workplace say all they want is for someone to listen to them once in awhile. They state how great that would be even if little is ever done. That's real hunger! The obvious question is why should they turn on their brainpower in the morning if no one will listen? Why try to be creative to make improvements for the sake of productivity or quality, or make suggestions to reduce cost if NO ONE LISTENS? The answer is, it would be dumb to try if NO ONE WILL LISTEN. "To hell with them! Why make an effort if they don't care what I think?" Leave your brain at the door!

The sad thing is many bosses, high and low, are so busy giving orders and direction that subordinates do in fact decide to leave their brainpower at the door. This is very common. People with suggestions are viewed as troublemakers or whiners. "Shut up and get back to work." In this mode, no one can participate or be involved. They can only be a number or a pawn, and they know that no one Cares.

     WHAT IF people could put in their Two Cents any time they chose and management would always listen and get back to them with possible actions and/or answers?

      WHAT IF they were allowed to add their Two Cents again on this response and the process would continue until management had decided on a course which seemed reasonable to everyone?

      WHAT IF management only changed things after conducting this dialogue?

      WHAT IF in response to questions, our bosses were FORTHRIGHT and provided the real answers and their Whys?

      WHAT IF management took this one step further and went out of its way to provide information relevant to job, company and anything which might affect or be of interest to each employee?

      WHAT IF the working level could get in on the ground level with work plans and policies before they turned to cement, get in on what works and how it was to be done before starting? 

Would you like to be the boss of such a workplace?

Think what you could accomplish if suddenly your own brainpower was multiplied by the number of employees you have.

Please stay tuned in to tomorrow's article on 'Understanding the Process of Gaining Commitment.'

So, How is Listening the Gateway to Superior Leadership?

PART III

From the previous article, you may now realize that your leadership is sending some messages that need fixing. So, how can you improve your leadership? The solution is to go out and LISTEN, listen to complaints about your support, messages of low standards. Then correct that condition and do it to the receiver’s satisfaction. This corrects the problem thereby making the worker’s job easier, corrects your poor leadership from misleading others and provides living proof that you really care about your people. In addition, this process of detection and correction teaches workers how to solve problems, how to treat customers and how to use value standards in the workplace. One stone can kill more than one bird.

Luckily for you, these workers don’t use the value standards they got from you to judge what goes on around them. What they use are their own value standards and all of their values are good, for instance everyone believes in honesty. Since each worker has different standards compared to the next worker, each will be bothered more by one thing, and less by another. Taken collectively, they disclose most of the problems, if not all problems. And by the way, if most of them line up against one particular thing, rest assured that thing requires major fixing.

So, get out with your people, listen to their complaints and suggestions, and take corrective action. Corrective action may be just an explanation of certain details unknown by the worker. Whatever it is, corrective action must be timely, of unquestionably high quality and must include getting back to the originator to find out if your intended fix is acceptable (don’t put the fix into action before getting feedback). As I mentioned in the previous article on Leadership through Support, this is your leadership and you want it to reflect only the highest standards for every value. The values of significance are: honesty, industriousness, confidence, positive attitude, compassion, humility, admission of error, perseverance, fairness, forgiveness, forthrightness, trust, courtesy, grit, heroism, knowledge, integrity, quality, loyalty and selflessness.

Listening itself must be conducted in such a way as to reflect high standards of the above values. Your tone of voice and attitude are crucial. You must make clear that you know you are making the worker’s job more difficult than it should be, albeit without intending to do so, but that you are willing to make needed corrections. Let them know you are the supplier of support and they are your customers. Act like it, body language, facial expressions, smiles, etc! The customer is always right so, act that way and say it several times. In addition, you may have to ask questions to flesh out the problem or to get the worker to talk. Suffice it to say that bosses are scary people in general and you need to gain the worker’s trust before they can really open up. Making clear that you are their servant as concerns support issues is a big step in the right direction.

After you start hacking away at the forest of your bad or low quality leadership, workforce performance will improve almost in lockstep. Don’t be surprised, just keep at it. It makes no difference if you are a lower or higher level boss, the effect on the people for whom you are responsible is the same.

Listening has a large number of associated positive effects as well as opportunities for superior leadership not mentioned herein. The only additional effect I will discuss is commitment.

Please stay tuned to tomorrow's article on Gaining Subordinate Commitment.

Leadership through Support

PART II

We all know that every boss is responsible for providing support to the workforce. Support generally includes such elements as training, discipline, rewards, tools, parts and materials, technical advice, guidance and direction, planning information, documentation, procedures, rules and, last but not least, peace of mind.

Each element of support projects certain value standards. For example, tools can be of high, medium or low quality. They can be clean or dirty, easily available or hard to get, of the latest technology or the oldest, always or rarely there when needed, easy or too difficult to replace, complete with or lacking in adequate documentation, always or rarely operable, or somewhere in between these extremes. The same is true for every other element of support. Taken collectively, they constitute the boss’ leadership, actually the leadership of all bosses in the chain above the worker. This leadership stares in the face of every worker every day.

So, now that it’s out there for all to see, what does a worker do with all this leadership, these hundreds if not thousands of leadership messages? The vast majority of workers use these messages to determine how; industriously or lazily, safely or unsafely, courteously or discourteously, knowledgeably or ignorantly, expertly or sloppily, cleanly or uncleanly, openly or close to the vest (admit to errors?), caringly or uncaringly, honestly or dishonestly and so forth to do their work. 

Did I say caringly? Yes, the worker figures out from the quality of all this support whether or not the boss cares about the worker. In addition, whatever that standard for caring is, the worker turns around and uses it to treat the company’s customers and other people in the workplace. 

Did I say honestly? Yes, if the boss states that a particular tool or piece of equipment is adequate while the worker knows this is not true, the worker assumes that the boss knows better and thus concludes that the boss is being dishonest. The message is that a low standard for honesty is OK. "If you can do it so can I" takes over from there.

Please stay tuned to tomorrow's article on the Gateway to Superior Leadership.

Don't Leave Your Brain at the Door

PART I

Listening is not only the gateway to superior leadership but also the doorway to gaining the commitment of subordinates. Listening is the most important of all leadership skills. Leadership at its best is a coherent strategy to cause employees to utilize their full brainpower in performing their work; to be highly creative, productive, motivated and committed rather than turned off and poorly motivated as in "leaving their brain at the door." Although the full strategy is well beyond the scope of this blog, I'll attempt to present how leadership itself really works in a series of articles over the next few days.  [BTW, please note that these daily articles are NOT pushed out via email. You must visit this site (or subscribe to the RSS feed so that you will automatically be notified when new articles are posted) to access the remaining articles of this series that will be posted daily. ]

Deep in the set of normal human temperament is the tendency to broadcast rather than to receive. We would rather talk than listen; rather put out than to take in. Servant Leaders possess a temperament that values listening above talking. When one is leading with a purpose, this disposition causes one to be seen as a servant first. Thus, a leader's listening disposition encompasses getting in touch with one's own inner voice and seeking to understand what one's body, mind, and spirit are communicating. This type of active listening that undergirds the other qualities of servant leadership such as, awareness and empathy, requires listening not just to what others are saying, but also to our own internal voice.

To commit to being a servant leader, you must create time to reflect in order to understand who you are, and how you relate to staff, customers, and the larger community. The self-reflective listening is rooted in a genuine interest in the viewpoints and perspectives of those served. Attentive listening is basically an attitude – really wanting to understand. It is also a technique. But, the technique without the attitude is phony.  Servant leadership is all about taking the time to serve. In essence, a servant leader makes time for people to serve and support – even when there is not any time available.

Tomorrow's article will describe how that is done. Please stay tuned in.