Category Archives: Leadership Styles

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Wit & Wisdom from Midland County, TX

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Gary Painter on Fox News

I love living in Texas.  I usually tell people that I was born in way extreme far east Texas. [better known as Alexandria, Louisiana].  And you get wit & wisdom out of folks in Texas that you don’t seem to find in or around the Capital Beltway.  I know, because I lived in that area for quite a while also.

I don’t often tackle politics in my writing.  And I really am not trying to tackle politics right now. Instead I think there is a leadership lesson to be learned here.  Consider if you will for just a moment Sheriff Gary Painter from Midland County in Texas.  Recently he was interviewed on Fox News about the ISIS threat to the United States.  Consistent with what he has been saying for at least 8 years he made the following statement.  I am providing it below with advance apologies for some of his language as I never want to offend our readers. But here is his quote:

“If they show their ugly head in our area, we’ll send them to hell.
I think the United States needs to get busy and they need to bomb them.
They need to take them out. I would like for them to hit them so hard and so often that every time they hear a propeller on a plane or a jet aircraft engine that they urinate down both legs.”

Contrast that with our President who calls them the “JV squad” and who doesn’t have a plan to deal with them.  And ask yourself for a moment,

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Four Characteristics of Good Crisis Leaders

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Four Characteristics of Crisis Leaders - 1

Thirteen years ago today, on September 11, 2001, we witnessed both the destructive power of evil leadership and the resilient power of heroic leadership.   We saw heroic leadership in the first responders and private citizens who ran toward the burning towers, cornfield and the Pentagon.  But among those heroes, one figure stands tall as an example of effective leadership during the crisis as it unfolded and in the days following.  That person is former New York City Mayor, Rudy Giuliani.   Regardless of your current political leanings, his confident leadership during the 9/11 tragedies is something that you and I and leaders from all walks of life can learn from.

Rudy GiulianiGiuliani writes the following in his book, Leadership, published in 2002, “It is in times of crisis that good leaders emerge.”

Giuliani goes on to write in his book that during these times of crisis, good leaders must do certain things to be effective during those trying times.   He writes that good leaders in crisis situations must be highly visible, they must be composed, they must be vocal, and they must be resilient.

Good Leaders are Visible in a Crisis — Giuliani writes, “I made it my policy to see every crisis so I could evaluate it firsthand.”

During a crisis, leaders must be out front rather than running and hiding. They must go to the disaster and stand front and center, to assess the situation as well as show their concern, while also demonstrating confidence that the group will persevere.  Rather than hide from the chaos and confusion, be sure to step in to sort things out and find a solution.

Four Characteristics of Crisis Leaders - 3Again, political preferences aside, the importance of being visible during a crisis can also be learned from George W. Bush’s presidency. Like Giuliani, Americans rallied around President Bush when he went to Ground Zero and grabbed a bullhorn amid the rubble to reassure the nation.  Contrast that with President Bush’s lack of a timely response to Hurricane Katrina. Bush was noticeably absent during the first days of the crisis and his poll numbers took a big hit.

What is the leadership lesson? Step up during a crisis to survey the scene and be there for your people.

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Evaluating Leadership Talent

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Evaluating Leadership Talent - 1From the C-Suite to the first level supervisor, all leaders supervise someone. That is, all leaders are called upon to perform some sort of oversight function. And, in so doing, they need to ensure that their subordinates have the right resources, the opportunities, the capabilities, and the support necessary to have a fighting chance to do a good job.

But how do you measure whether someone is an effective leader when it comes to supervising others? Here are five supervisory skills you can use:

Ability to Analyze Strengths and Weaknesses: Have you had a situation where the leader was faced with a challenge and you were able to observe them close up? What about assigning tasks to subordinates? Consider how effective the leader was in these instances.

Effectiveness at Identifying and Providing Leadership Development for Their Team: Whether the job is highly technical or not, there will most likely be instances where all employees need some training. So consider whether the leader gives everyone an opportunity to participate in training.  Do they just offer training to the chosen few, the high-potentials, or do they offer training opportunities to all who are wanting to learn and grow?

Opportunities to Exercise and Enhance Skills: It is one thing to provide training. It is quite another to

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Through What Scope Is Leadership Seen?

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Leading Small - 1Which is better, leaders that have a huge following or the men and women that take the time to invest in those they come in constant contact with in everyday life?

This question has always troubled me until recently. I just finished a book that was given to me to help give me guidance on to how to lead in a small group setting called Lead Small by Reggie Joiner and Tom Shefchunas. The book posed this question as well. I want to start by saying I think that we all need those leaders that gather large groups of people together and unite us. However, I believe that just because we are called to be leaders does not mean that the only way to be one is to gain a massive following. The book I was reading presented an idea that I had perhaps never thought of before; that in a bigger picture scope, the everyday people that choose to lead through everyday life to the people they come in contact with are just as effective, possibly even more effective, than those who lead big. To quote the book;

Leading Small - 3“Most people dream of finding an opportunity to do something BIG. To make a BIG change. To lead BIG. That’s why we accumulate Facebook friends and Twitter Followers, make videos in hopes of going viral, climb the corporate ladder, audition for “So You Think You Have the Voice To Dance with the Biggest Loser”. In fact most of us believe the best way to make a BIG difference is to get a big following. And when the masses don’t follow, when the 11’o’clock news isn’t knocking down the door, we try something else. Something BIG. But what if the things we consider BIG don’t matter as much as we think? What if the biggest difference is made by not doing something big at all? What if the biggest things are really accomplished by doing something small? When we lead small we realize that what we do for a few will always have more potential than what we do for many.”  

Pgs.18 Lead Small

Growing up, I was influenced by a lot of things.

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Moving From Vision To Action

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visiontoaction3DThe process and the information contained in the book that I just released on Amazon had its genesis back in the mid 1990s.  And I want to tell you a little bit about how it came to be.

Many years ago I was given the incredible opportunity to work very closely with some guys and to take a radical look at how leadership looked and worked in the local church environment.  Not before, nor since then, have I had the opportunity to have such an impact.

I worked most closely with a young officer in the military.  His name is Capt. David G. Woods.  He and I are the same age and and at the time were at somewhat the same station in life.  Albeit his station was military and mine was civilian.  We had similar circumstances and views of leadership at the time.  We were young.  We were passionate.  We were energetic.  We had boundless energy.  We had very little patience with those not exactly like us.  We were foolish at times.

David WoodsOne of the things that we noted was that not everyone who has the ability to “see the big picture” can then execute a plan to accomplish the vision that is seen in the big picture.  Strategic and tactical planning are leadership skills that are not often found in visionary leaders.

I did not consider myself to be a visionary leader at that time nearly 20 years ago.  I was much more strategic and tactical.  I have developed visionary skills as I have grown older.  But neither of us had them at the time.  I won’t speak completely for David, but I know that I had brief flashes of vision and I had an innate sense that things could be and should be different.  But, I struggled to see that big picture.

Bob SpaldingDavid and I were very fortunate to have an older guy be a part of our little brain trust.  His name was Robert Spalding and he was one of the FBI’s preeminent forensic experts.  I will not go into his area of expertise because some may be a bit squeamish to learn of his expertise.  But he was brilliant, analytical, steadfast, and had the respect of the rest of the leadership that worked alongside us.

Together we produced some evaluation tools and a methodology for helping that local church move from a great vision and begin to put together specific, actionable, and measurable steps that would take us to where we felt that we were called to go.  Dave and I, especially, burnt gallons of “midnight oil” in the basement of my office building in a little office hovering over demographic data, membership data, leadership tools and together we developed the material that was introduced the to the rest of the leadership team and was later used at a leadership retreat.  The result of all of that was a dramatic restructuring of the roles of the various leaders that enabled them to really focus on their areas of strength and really begin to accomplish the goals that so many of them had – building the church spiritually, numerically and financially.

The results did not come over night.  But they did begin to come.

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Ignorance is Bliss – Except in Leadership

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Ignorance in Leadership - 1I don’t know very many folks who don’t know the cliché, “Ignorance is bliss.” But I am wondering today just how many know where where the phrase comes. It comes from a poem written in 1742 by Thomas Gray. The phrase is in the closing lines to his poem entitled, “Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College.” And the full sentence is:

Where ignorance is bliss, ‘tis folly to be wise.

There are many thoughts as to Gray’s purpose for ending his poem with such words. In those final lines he may be expressing thoughts on returning to his old school and there remembering the simplicity and innocence of his youth. It also appears that he is joining two worlds together in this line of the poem. He is joining a world that has not grown up yet with one that has. In a sense it is a world that shaped him into a man and perhaps, as with many, has beaten out those innocent aspirations of early life.

The modern day interpretation of the lines in the poem and the implications of the cliché are significant if examined in the light of leadership principles. The implications can be summed up in these two statements:

  1. You are more comfortable if you don’t know something.
  2. Lack of knowledge results in happiness.

Statement number one is pretty bad. I am never comfortable in the state of lack of knowledge. In fact it scares me and motivates me to seek after knowledge and understanding. Statement number 2 is downright ridiculous. Happiness is not a state of intellectual ascent. Rather, happiness is a conscious decision to maintain a positive and joyous outlook on life regardless of the circumstances.

So, what is the leadership principle here?

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The Importance of Perception

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Importance of Perception - 1“It is more important to the rest of the world that your American president appear or be or be perceived to be a leader than for him to actually be a leader.”

This was a statement made by some colleagues at dinner the other night. I have been in Spain for most of this past week on a business trip. And all of my colleagues are not from the United States. One was from New Zealand, one was from Belgium, one was from the U.K., and the folks we were meeting were all from Spain. So, I tried to keep my mouth shut as much as possible lest I create an inter nation incident!

But I am struck by this question: What are the implications of this kind of thinking?

This was a painful thought for me to consider and it has been on my mind since the moment that one of them said it to me.

What does that mean about leadership?  Is that a statement about political leadership in particular? Is any part of that sentiment true?  What about your leadership role?

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Leadership in Chaos

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Leadership in Chaos - 1I had the privilege of escorting my wife on a trip over the last few days to New York City.  Now those of you that know me, I am sure cannot imagine why I would want to go to New York City.  Well I’ll tell you, because my wife has always wanted to go there.  So I return to work today to relax a little bit and think about the pure and utter chaos that is NYC.  It caused me to remember a “Leadership In Chaos” workshop I attended while I was in the military.  The man that spoke during the workshop was a Colonel and an Airborne Ranger, and today as I write this, he is a leadership consultant at the Military Academy at West Point.

Last Thursday morning at 0530AM I found myself in Times Square standing outside of the Good Morning America studio preparing to be part of the audience that you see outside their window if you have ever watched the morning show.  As the majority of this was pretty slow, I found myself wandering and looking around in Times Square at 6-ish AM.  What did I see? That’s right you guessed it – chaos.

So I got to thinking how a leader would be able to maintain discipline and focus with surroundings like this? Leadership in Chaos - 2I thought our military leaders could offer some ideas.  If there is anything that today’s military leaders are comfortable with it is in being…uncomfortable.  In places like Afghanistan (and Iraq before it), spans of control are so broad, geographic distances are so immense, and challenges so diverse that leaders cannot possibly be everywhere or know everything that is happening.  The fog of war is an almost constant companion to our military heroes.  “VUCA – Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity – is the new normal.”

Much of what we thought about organizational management is grounded in the “Command & Control” world, a paradigm that just doesn’t fit in today’s VUCA scenario.  Places like Afghanistan are causing us to think differently about some aspects of leadership.  “Decision cycles are too compressed to fit within the top-down Military Decision Making Process (MDMP).”  Things that were accepted norms like, “No more than 5-7 direct reports” are not necessarily true, and can’t be any longer.  Even leadership teachings about things like planning, risk, or scope of responsibility are being re-thought in light of what we are learning downrange.

So, with leadership as we thought we knew it in evolution, how do leaders provide clarity of purpose and thought and drive appropriate actions? 

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Second Chair Leaders

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Second Chair Leaders - 1There has been much that has been said recently in the area of “Leading from the Second Chair”. Although I have not yet read Bonem and Patterson’s book by that name, I have seen a lot of that type of leadership in my own life and in those who I admire greatly.

In fact, from a political perspective, one of the political leaders that I admire the most is Sen. Howard Baker of Tennessee.  His was the very first Presidential campaign that I worked on was as a volunteer.  Unfortunately I was a part of his unsuccessful attempt to become President in 1979. I admire Sen. Baker on multiple levels. Others admired him as well. Known in Washington, D.C. as the “Great Conciliator”, Baker is often regarded as one of the most successful senators in terms of brokering compromises, enacting legislation, and maintaining civility across the aisle. A story is sometimes told of a reporter telling a senior Democratic senator that privately, a plurality of his Democratic colleagues would vote for Baker for President of the United States. Unfortunately, not enough Americans apparently shared that sentiment.

Second Chair Leaders - 2But the times during his career that I admired him the most were his days as White House Chief of Staff for Ronald Reagan, the man who defeated him early in the primary season and caused him to drop out after the Iowa Caucuses and the New Hampshire Primary.

Baker did not seek re-election in 1984. However, as a testament to Baker’s skill as a negotiator and honest and amiable broker, Reagan tapped him to serve as Chief of Staff during part of Reagan’s second term (1987–1988). Many saw this as a move by Reagan to mend relations with the Senate, which had deteriorated somewhat under the previous chief of staff, Donald Regan. (Baker had complained publicly and privately that Don Regan had become a too-powerful “Prime Minister” inside an increasingly complex imperial presidency.) It is interesting to note that in accepting this appointment, Baker chose to skip another bid for the White House in 1988. Who knows if he would have been successful? I, I for one would have loved to have seen him elected in 1988 over the alternative that year.

Second Chair Leaders - 3So what is the leadership principle that I admire in Sen. Baker? Well, I think it is for these two reasons. One is that he understood the power and responsibility to still lead even though you are not “The” one. He had ambitions to be “The” one. But ambition, skill, and aptitude did not translate into the Oval Office for Sen. Baker. So, he withdrew for the sake of the overall mission of his party and supported the ultimate candidate who went on to become President. He waited patiently for the second term of Ronald Reagan and began to make his own plans for another run for the White House. But “Duty” called and

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A Leader’s Role in Their Team’s Performance

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A Leader's Role in Their Team's Success - 1It may be obvious to most people that a leader’s performance is directly proportionate to their teams success or lack thereof. But it occurs to me that there are teams that have succeeded in spite of their leader and surely there are teams that have failed even with quality leadership. So I set out to discover if there are any connections or similarities that we could find, to determine just how much of a team’s success or failure is because of the leader.

It occurs to me that a leaders specific role may change slightly depending on the team or the goal of the team, but surely there are things a leader does or doesn’t do that helps or hurts a team. These are some of the things I found:

Aggressor: I think this happens when a team leader is directly compensated for his team’s performance. He or she has the ability to block the introduction of new ideas and concepts by minimizing and deflating the status of other team members and creating a sense of intimidation. If this behavior and role is not checked it will tend to decrease the team’s overall motivation and subsequent member involvement.

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