Which Costume To Wear???

Great leaders are able to adjust their style and presence to the realities of the situation.  This important competency is mistakenly looked down upon by some as inauthentic and disingenuous.  However, there is an important distinction between the values and beliefs that a leader embodies and the style/presence that they command in different situations.

Values and beliefs define the core boundaries of a leader and are what followers look for to understand the leader’s vision, ethics, and boundaries.  For example, Sam Walton’s core beliefs were:

1. Respect for the individual
2. Service to customers
3. Striving for excellence

Sam’s actions spoke volumes.  He treated his employees as partners, and empowered them to serve the customers.  He believed in making his employees owners through compensation programs much earlier than most other companies.

Leadership style and presence, on the other hand, are the manners in which a leader communicates and influences his followers.  Since the leader is faced with a variety of scenarios, situations, and constituencies, he must be able to adjust his presence and style.

A great example comes from the Research and Development (R&D) arena.  Early on, bench scientists and R&D specialists are trained and evaluated based on standards of accuracy and fact-based communication.  At this stage in their career, the R&D colleague often selects a low-key approach that favors analytics, sound logic, and a fact based/no-nonsense and non-emotional delivery.  In addition, for the emerging leader in R&D, it is important to respect hierarchy and seniority, as there are academic credentials, industry standing/reputations, and organizational power that are disproportionately assigned to the more senior R&D leaders.  However, as the R&D specialist makes the career turn to general management where they must manage and influence multiple disciplines and leaders, they are often ill prepared for the more extraverted communication style.  Many emerging leaders will confide to their coach that they feel ill at ease speaking up at senior level meetings without having all of the facts to back up their statements.  They go on to say that they are bewildered at the ease with which their colleagues, in areas such as sales and marketing, can state and stand strongly and confidently behind positions that are, in their view, still evolving and not completely supported by data.  They share their frustration at not speaking enough, not having the right level of visibility, and not being noticed for their contributions as leaders in the organization.  They see that colleagues in R&D who are not as competent at the science catapult over them to more senior positions in R&D and the organization simply because, relative to others in R&D, they have better communication, influencing, and political skills.  At this stage in their career, many such emerging R&D leaders decide that they will engage in work that will free them of some of the self-limiting assumptions they carry regarding the importance of having 100% reliability and validity of data prior to leading, and speaking and acting in an undemonstrative and understated manner that focuses purely on facts and logic.  The transition is often challenging, but by no means undoable.  Many have been able to develop a more creative, extraverted, and emotionally appealing persona when in a C-level board meeting than when they are with their R&D colleagues in the lab.

Perhaps the most important skill that a leader needs to develop is the ability to connect with all of their followers in ways they can understand, relate, and be inspired by.  In the words of the sixth president of United States, John Quincy Adams, “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, you are a leader.”

A great article to read in this regards is Leadership That Gets Results- by Daniel Goleman- March/April 2000
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Share your thoughts with the community… What has been your experience with situational leadership?  How have you or others that you know navigated the balance between authentic and situational leadership?  What are some of your observations regarding the challenges and techniques in making the change from the more consistent style of a specialist to the more versatile leadership style required of more senior enterprise leaders?

Risking Authenticity

Does this scenario seem familiar?

You find yourself in a situation where you have to speak up or risk living with a bad decision or no decision/action at all. However, you feel “if I say anything, it will go against the positions of others.” You sense that you might be labeled as not a team player, or too aggressive, or risk averse, or a negative person…

Great leaders have anchors that allow them to voice and stand behind their beliefs. However, they express their perspectives in a manner that is respectful of their audience, not personal, linked to their values, and in the service of their organizations. They seem to have a way of commanding respect, even when they voice an unpopular or a difficult message, because they have already done the pre-work of demonstrating their authenticity, ethics, servant leadership, and care to their organizations.  Importantly, they lead their lives and behave in ways that are consistent with their words. In short, they do what they say.

The leaders that preached non-violent resistance such as Gandhi, Mandela, and Martin Luther King, did so in the face of resistance from many of their own constituencies who thought that violence should be answered with violence. They were able to create a positive dialogue. They appealed to their followers to travel the higher road in the longer-term interest of their countries. Through their actions, such as choosing imprisonment, they demonstrated the sacrifices they were willing to make for their cause while not deviating from their strategy of non-violent resistance

A great business example is John Reed, the former Chairman of Citibank. In the late 70’s and early 80’s when he was an emerging leader in the consumer bank, he became a staunch supporter of electronic banking and ATMs (Citibank invented the ATM). However, many of his colleagues, including some of his supervisors, were opposed to it. They felt that it was a stretch to think that people would trust machines to conduct their banking. Furthermore, they pointed to the current data and customer experience that showed that customers were indeed slow to adopt. However, John never abandoned his fervent beliefs. He knew that it was only a question of time before customers would shift their habits and adopt a faster, more convenient manner of banking. He literally bet his career on it. At the time, he even informed his wife that he may be fired over this. Rather than becoming defensive and belligerent, John generated an intelligent and passionate dialogue and backed up his words with tremendous energy and passion to make sure the operational glitches were addressed. His leadership style finally caught the attention of the then Chairman, Walter Wriston, who threw his support behind John. The rest is history.

Leaders who waver and do not demonstrate authentic beliefs and actions may win the short-term political battles. However, experience shows that the greatest and most successful leaders are the ones with a backbone and a leadership style that is clearly in the service of a bigger organization/world. People like Steve Jobs, Sam Walton, Henry Ford, and Candace Lightner (the founder of MADD – Mothers Against Drunk Driving) had innumerable obstacles in their way, but they anchored their words and actions to unshakable beliefs, combined with persistence and great communication, to win over important stakeholders. Imagine how hard it was for Steve Jobs to convince the music industry to shift to a business model where albums were broken apart and sold one song at a time on iTunes for approximately $1 per song. Or for Candace Lightner, a housewife with no organizational experience or sponsorship, to take on powerful groups such as the liquor lobby or states that benefited from the liquor tax. Or for Henry Ford to convince the world of the wisdom of mass produced automobiles/the assembly line.

What are examples of leadership with a backbone that you can think of?  What price did they have to pay? What outcome was achieved?  What are some lessons learned?

Judo Leadership

Judo Leadership—“Invite in the on-coming force, find the balance point, add your own power, and redirect it”

There is a powerful lesson from great leaders that borrows from the principles of Judo.  In Judo, as is true with some of the other martial arts, one does not shy away from the incoming force.  In fact, the incoming force is invited in to create purposeful energy.  Judo masters are adept at finding the “balance point” – or the exact moment when the opponent’s balance might be thrown off.  That is when they add their own force to that of their opponent to redirect them for a takedown.

Similarly, exceptional leaders seem to carry the ability to look at adversity and challenge as an opportunity to reach even greater heights in creativity and performance. They use it as a rallying cry to motivate their teams.  They learn the lessons that are always inherent in adversity rather than going into denial and other defensive maneuvers.  Great leaders are able to create clear and emotive visions by using the trials and tribulations of difficult events, failure, and even great personal pain as context and a source of energy.  Following are some powerful examples of this phenomenon.

A global healthcare organization was put under a Consent Decree by the FDA.  Those of you who know of and have had experience with Consent Decrees can appreciate the stress and anxiety that this scenario generates for the organization as a whole, and in particular, for the quality and manufacturing departments.  In one of the planning meetings, someone started to say “benchmark.”  The other members of the team were dumbfounded and asked the individual what he was referring to.  He said, “We have the full attention of the organization.  We have unlimited resources to fix this problem. We have consultants coming out of our ear.  Why should we stop at just meeting the FDA requirements for safety? Why don’t we shoot for becoming an industry safety benchmark?”  His leadership motivated others on the team to take up the rallying cry to transform the organization.  Clearly, this leader leveraged the organizational momentum generated through the adversity of the Consent Decree to achieve a bigger and bolder vision.

According to his own accounts, throughout his life and while in prison for 27 years at Robben Island, Nelson Mandela used the hate and anger that surrounded him as fuel to craft his vision of a South Africa made of a “rainbow coalition.”  Upon assuming power, and as vividly illustrated in the motion picture Invictus, Mandela preached and practiced the mindset of inclusiveness rather that of hate and divisiveness.  He would often say that while he was in prison, he made it a point to actually learn the culture and mindset of his captors to form a vision that would benefit from and include them in the future of South Africa.  He knew that for South Africa to remain economically viable and ultimately a great society, he needed not just the black support, but equally the support from the Afrikaners.  Ultimately, the course of history came down to the leadership and beliefs of one man, Nelson Mandela.   The choice was clear – one of the bloodiest civil wars in the history of mankind versus a peaceful, purposeful, and inclusive transition.  Nelson Mandela practiced “Judo Leadership” par excellence…

What are your favorite examples and stories on Judo Leadership??

The Challenges of the Accidental Leader

A segment of the leaders that I am currently working with have admitted privately that good fortune has as much to do with their ascent as any other factor.  Many found themselves in leadership vacuums. When opportunities presented themselves through events such as the sudden departure of an incumbent, reorganizations, and M&A activities that resulted in new positions that required immediate staffing, organizations placed their bets on them.  Needless to say, these leaders often find themselves in unfamiliar and confusing terrain, with few, if anyone, to guide them.  Some feel the pressure of appearing confident and competent and respond positively to the confidence that their organizations has placed in them.

In my experience, accidental leaders that have achieved longer term success are distinguished by the following five characteristics

• They quickly assess what they need for success.  These leaders surround themselves with the appropriate internal and external support systems that enable them, and they ask a lot of questions to learn critical components of their new positions to recognize landmines and other mistakes that could potentially derail them
• They are socially and emotionally intelligent.  These leaders are adept at building key alliances and coalitions, and they know how to influence important stakeholders whose backing and support is key to their success, especially in the early days when they are trying to gain their footing
• They are authentic and genuine.  Successful accidental leaders are not afraid to acknowledge areas where they require help and guidance, and are willing to ask for support without feeling they are somehow less of a leader for it
• They recognize and reward those who come to their side generously.  The word gets around the organization that they will ensure that those who work with them and help them to become successful will in turn be given opportunities for growth and development, and their contributions will be fairly rewarded
• They carry an insatiable passion for continuous learning and growth.  Every opportunity and challenge becomes a platform for learning and improvement.  The challenge of becoming an accidental leader only serves to incent them further and presents the opportunity to show the world that not only can they perform the requirements of their positions, but they can also exceed expectations

My favorite accidental leader is Christine Legarde, the current head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) who took over the position suddenly upon allegations of sexual misconduct by her predecessor Dominique Strauss-Kahn and his subsequent resignation.

Over the past four years, Lagarde has led her country through the financial crisis, implementation of austerity measures, and its chairmanship of the G-20 countries. She also corralled European support for numerous eurozone meltdowns, including the initial bailout of Greece – and in the past week, she was instrumental in forging a final bailout deal (in particular with Angela Merkel – the German Chancellor).  Edwin Truman, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics has met Lagarde on several occasions and says her style is politically forceful, but personally charming and likable.

The Financial Times conducted an interview with Christine Legarde in December of 2011. Outlined below are some excerpts.

“She has been praised by many western leaders for her cool head and persistent style. ‘Wherever she has worked, she has had a strong voice and impact,’ Robert Zoellick, president of the World Bank, observed earlier this year. Meanwhile, shortly after her appointment, Timothy Geithner, US treasury secretary, commended her ‘broad experience’ – and the fact that when she had been French finance minister, she had engaged successfully with the wider community while also defending French interests with a passion. George Osborne, the UK’s chancellor of the exchequer, has declared himself a fan, calling her appointment ‘good news for the global economy and Britain’, since she is ‘the best person for the job’.

“Colleagues at the IMF say Lagarde has already delivered a change of tone; whereas Strauss-Kahn used to issue orders and rely on a narrow coterie of advisers, Lagarde has taken pains to consult a wide group of people. ‘My management style is more inclusive. Perhaps you can say that is because I am a woman – I do think that women tend to be more inclusive. I am very decisive when it comes to organizing the team, but I do consult widely and hear many ideas before rushing in,’ she explains.

“However, she has also displayed some willingness to be a little bold: soon after assuming the role, she infuriated eurozone leaders by pointing out that European banks were urgently in need of more capital. And, she argues, an inclusive approach is now a strength, not a weakness; the days when anybody – or any single power – could dominate the agenda are long gone. Economists alone cannot solve disasters.

“As part of that ‘inclusion’ drive, Lagarde continues to try to get more women involved in senior positions. These days, she is trying to put the Strauss-Kahn scandal behind the IMF. ‘There was a healing process in the first couple of weeks [when I arrived] and a sense that we needed to turn the page with purpose. I think it was helpful being a woman for that,’ she says. However, she is now more focused on pushing the IMF to meet its target of 30 percent women in management positions. ‘My board doesn’t look good in terms of female participation, but my senior executive level does,’ she says. ‘Boards can be very deceptive – you see many companies today that have some women on the board, but the senior management is very male.’

“She also continues to promote the wider cause of women. Last year, Lagarde declared that she backed the controversial idea of introducing female quotas into the boards of European companies. ‘This is good for companies too. When I look what happens when you have more women on boards, there is a difference – the general tendency of women is to adopt a different risk profile, in terms of portfolio management, say.’ After all, she adds, most women tend to have a more holistic view of life, partly because they – like she – have spent so many years trying to maneuver family and work.”

Christine Legarde was also featured in a fascinating 60 Minutes segment.  I attach the link.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7389008n

Who are accidental leaders that come to mind for you?  Were they successful? Why or why not?  Share your story with us.

Second Wave Leadership

First a story.

Two waves in the ocean are heading towards a cliff.  The first wave speeds along, followed closely by the second wave.  Seeing the anxiety and the fear in the first wave, the second wave asks, “Why are you so worried?” The first wave replies, “Why should I not be worried?  Can’t you see that we are going to crash into that cliff? And when we do, I am going to vanish”.  The second wave was unfettered. Prompted by the calm and serene nature of the second wave, the first wave asks “ And why are you so calm at a time like this?” The second wave replies, “When we crash into that cliff, I am just going as part of  the ocean. Hopefully, under the right gravitational conditions, I will rise once again as a wave.”

I’ve seen many leaders struggle with the balance between leading from the front, as the first wave did, and leading from the back, a place to support and enable others, as the second wave did.

Leaders have been conditioned to believe that inspirational leadership requires them to be an omnipotent, charismatic force, catapulting their organizations towards great feats and transformational results. Ironically, in many organizations this myth is actually supported through recognition and rewards early on in their careers.  These leaders stand out. They are effective communicators and tend to get the attention of senior management.    While they may ride the golden ticket for a while, they’ll begin to experience difficulty as they begin to occupy bigger roles. These roles come with responsibilities that span across multiple businesses and geographical areas. As these  leaders begin to operate at fever pace with ever-growing complexity, their effectiveness starts to diminish.  At higher levels, leaders are required to steer the organization strategically and weather issues that can arise. These superstars, however, have not been properly trained nor have they the experience or a track record of success across multiple functional areas they come to lead.  They must  rely on the knowledge, experience, and cooperation of others in their organization.  In these settings, the leader’s job is to facilitate, orchestrate and create conditions for others to succeed. To go back to the story, they must employ the Second Wave mindset.

The rising star faces considerable challenges as his/her career turns. Post-promotion competency deficiencies present themselves fairly quickly, and usually organizations often do not prepare these rising stars adequately.  Leadership, at this level, must display the proper balance of humility and wisdom to manage egos in the service of the optimal organizational outcomes.  The leader must invite the collective intelligence of the organization with the clear understanding that great answers and creative solutions can come from anywhere in the organization.

I have witnessed many leaders derail their careers because they were not able to make this shift in their leadership style.  Exceptional organizations create cultures that encourage the Second Wave leadership competencies early in the development of their high potential talent.  There is no better example of this than the transformational change at Chrysler under the leadership of its current CEO, Sergio Marchionne.

In 2011, Chrysler revenues hit approximately $55 billion, which allowed them to pay off their government loans six years ahead of schedule and return from the brink of bankruptcy to profitability.  Upon assuming the leadership of the organization Marchionne quickly disbanded the executive tower and moved to be next to his engineers.  He then reached down in the organization and elevated the highest potential, best performing, and most creative employees to positions of leadership.  Most importantly, he kept out of their way to ensure that these leaders were enabled and had the resources, support, and conditions to utilize their energy, passion, and drive. Through this, Chrysler employees were able to deliver astonishing results. It is evident that Marchionne’s tacit yet supportive leadership style enabled his team to achieve and surpass projected results.

What are you and your organization doing to foster and enable “second wave leadership”???

The Role of Leadership Coaching

Leadership coaching is a one of the more powerful and useful ways to practice reflective leadership and circumvent the blind spots we have discussed in previous weeks.

Coaching instills a discipline for leaders to meet at least once, and usually twice, per month with their coach in order to slow down the pace and to reflect. A credible coach asks important and relevant questions that opens the way for transformational insights and “Aha” moments.

The coach will co-create with the leader new practices and ways of being that will reinforce and help hardwire new neural pathways in the brain and result in new leadership behaviors.

Coaching happens in a climate of total trust and confidentiality. Therefore, it is a rare opportunity for leaders to feel safe in making their fears, anxieties and vulnerabilities transparent. In so doing, and with the help of a skilled coach who poses timely and insightful questions and holds up a mirror, the leader is able to reflect on his or her thinking, emotions and behaviors and often come away with significant insights. These insights are then usually followed up with new practices that allow the leader to exercise new cognitive and emotional muscles, which in turn lead to better results.

The journey from “Unaware Incompetence” to “Unaware Competence” and the corresponding coaching techniques outlined below is a useful framework for thinking about the coaching experience. Coaching is most successful when the leader becomes aware of his or her blind spots or areas for development and actively practices new behaviors.

Blind Spot #5 – Just The Facts Please…

Many leaders are seen as unapproachable and inauthentic by their teams. In fact, these leaders may not really be as cold and distant as they seem. In coaching or getting to know them personally, one finds that they have the same anxieties, fears, hopes, and other emotions that their teams carry. However, they have been taught to hide these emotions from their teams based on a mistaken assumption that to show or to share these feelings they will be seen as weak and ineffective. In fact, time after time we have witnessed their teams coming to their support and embracing them once they let others in. In today’s complex and dizzying environment, it is nearly impossible for one leader to be able to effectively lead all of the critical initiatives in his or her area of responsibility. This means that the leader has to have the ability to ask for help, admit ignorance, be able to share risk, and provide encouragement and feedback as appropriate. Otherwise, team members will quickly assess the risk associated with being pro-active and may take a more passive role that inevitably lowers the quantity and quality of the collective intelligence of the entire team. This often leads to less than optimal and sometimes disastrous consequences. For example, the recent manufacturing safety issues across the J&J manufacturing operations were anticipated by some of the key employees. However, leaders in the organization created a culture that made it too risky for employees to speak up in a timely manner.

Blind Spot # 3 – Over Reliance On What Has Worked In The Past

Leaving behind what has worked in the past is a very difficult shift for most leaders to make. It is akin to saying goodbye to old friends and relationships that one has outgrown. It is not only cognitively difficult, because those “pathways” added value in the past, but also emotionally draining as one comes to rely on them, and feel a sense of loyalty closeness and familiarity towards them that is difficult to replace. Competencies required for the next-level leaders are new, unfamiliar and uncomfortable.  Practicing these competencies will initially make the leader feel less in control and less competent. However, the “learning mindset” calls for leaders to stretch themselves into new opportunities and exercise new skills that require patience and diligent practice before they become second nature. In her seminal book “Mindset- The New Psychology of Success,” Carol Dweck depicts the differences between the “fixed” and the “learning” mindsets. She describes how stretching into learning may mean that short term performance may temporarily deteriorate—like Tiger Woods changing his swing slightly. However, if one is patient and goes through the learning journey, performance is disproportionately improved. Next-level skills usually include higher levels of emotional and social intelligence and influencing skills. In addition, next-level leaders have to be increasingly more comfortable with ambiguity and relying on others to make decisions and lead. At higher levels in the organization, leaders are often asked to manage businesses that they are less familiar with and the abilities to trust, teach, and delegate are vital to success.  This implies that the leader allocates more of his or her focus to coaching and developing others.

Blind Spot # 2 – Unwillingness To Change Decisions With New Information

For many leaders it is difficult to change their public stance with new information. It turns out that these leaders also often carry with them an outdated philosophy that says, “To change a publicly stated point of view is to display weakness and indecision.”  This philosophy has unfortunately become a desirable trait of leadership in our culture. One only needs to reflect on how quickly leaders are labeled as “flip floppers” and indecisive if they change their stance regarding their publicly stated views. A powerful example of this concept is illustrated in this quote from Kodak’s corporate literature regarding digital photography, “The keys to Eastman’s success in making photography a popular leisure-time activity for the masses were his development of roll film and the inexpensive box camera. Although film and cameras are far more sophisticated and versatile today, the fundamental principles behind his inventions have not changed.” The rigidity of Kodak management in the face of the Japanese onslaught of digital photography is now a widely recognized example of leadership failure.

On the other hand, great leaders demonstrate flexibility in the face of new information and always put the interest of the larger organization ahead of their ego and public image. Leaders with a “learning mindset” not only change their points of view with new information, but they build a culture around them that encourages others to do the same. They understand that the cost of rigidity is too high for their organizations and for them. Lou Gerstner in his book, “Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance”  tells of how he spent a great deal of time listening to IBM customers and employees on issues ranging from future growth of core products, the shift to the PC, compensations schemes, corporate culture etc. and formulated a number of strategies and tactics based on his active listening and reflection.