Leadership and Self-Control

Self-Control - 1For the past few months I have been kind of “looking inward” at myself. You know having some of those internal discussions with yourself, lying in bed at night, or on your drive to or from the office. I have been thinking a lot about my family, my past and what our future may hold. During one of these discussions with myself, I started thinking about my flaws, yes friends; believe it or not I have flaws. I know that may come as a shock to a few of you that know me, but it is true. The flaw I struggle with the most is self-control.

Now I wanted to discuss this because I think it is the most detrimental flaw for a leader to have because I think there is some “trickle-down effect” to their followers. In this case I refer especially to our families. What I have begun to realize is my lack of self-control has begun to rub off on my wife and kids. So maybe what I have done here is discovered a Leadership series that should be called Leadership Behaviors, hopefully Kevin won’t read this and ask me to do that.

The more I think about this the more interested in discovering a solution so I thought I would go dig around on the old “inner web thing” and see what others thought. What I found is it must be a pretty common problem and here are what I am going to call the “Four Cs” of learning self control, tell me what you think.

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The Great Man Theory

Great Man Theory - 1You may have heard people saying, “Great leaders are God-gifted, not man-made”? This quote reflects the results of a very popular (apparently) theory known as Great Man Theory of Leadership, which says that leadership traits are ingrained in a person. In other words, the answer to the question of knowing whether you are a leader or not, is that you were either born as a great leader or not. Factors such as your up-bringing, education, experiences are only modeling your leadership abilities; they aren’t responsible for making you a leader.

Great Man Theory - 2During the 19th century, the Great Man Theory of Leadership became very popular. The theory was formulated mainly by analyzing the behaviors of mainly military figures of the time. In the 1800s, leadership positions were held solely by men and were typically passed on from father to son. So, it’s not a coincidence that the theory was named “Great Man Theory” as there weren’t any women that were given the opportunity to rise when the occasion presented itself. The famous historian, Thomas Carlyle was deeply involved with this Great Man Theory of Leadership and had even stated that the history of this world was basically the combined biographies of these great men. Mr. Thomas Carlyle believed that effective leaders were a package of Godly motivation and the right personality.

History is the essence of innumerable biographies. 
Thomas Carlyle

Herbert Spencer (1820 – 1903), famous sociologist said that great leaders were only products of the atmosphere and society they worked and lived in. In other words, society was shaping these great men as opposed to them shaping society. The Great Man Theory is so engraved in our souls that we almost instantly connect authoritative figures as having leadership qualities that should be replicated to become successful. What about authoritative figures that are poor leaders?

Great Man Theory - 3Think of your favorite President or Prime Minister (Ronald Reagan for me), depending on where you live. Now, think of the leadership attributes that you believe makes (made) him or her worthy of the leadership label. Lastly, make sure you seriously consider this before continuing on. Okay, the big realization: are these traits emanating from his being or are they the fruits of all of the great leaders that are guiding him or her behind the scene and who are never or almost never given the appropriate credit!

We did not necessarily seek the role of leadership that has been thrust upon us. But whether we like it or not, the events of our time demand our participation.
Ronald Reagan

This simple exercise really demonstrates the fact that these “Great Man” believers aren’t alone nor are they the results of their “Godly motivation and personalities”, as stated by Mr. Thomas Carlyle. I’m not saying that they aren’t great leaders, they certainly can be. However, we need to realize that these “great man” weren’t born great leaders; they had the potential of being a great leader just as we do, and their leadership abilities have, like ours, evolved from their education, experiences and personalities combined with the social context in which they lived.

If we desire leadership, can we change our surroundings to help fulfill that desire? Are all the necessary traits for leadership already in us and they just need to be turned on? Can we become great leaders despite our social or economic status?

Photo credit: tastybit / Foter / (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Photo credit: Penn State Special Collections Library / Foter / (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Photo credit: Foter / Public domain
Photo credit: K. Sawyer Photography / Foter / (CC BY-NC 2.0)

Authority and Leadership

Authority - 1Imposing your authority does not make you a leader.

I was recently engaged in a conversation with another leader here at Leadership Voices about the differences between authority and leadership. I made the point that having authority does not necessarily make a person a good leader. Likewise, you do not have to have authority in order to be a good leader.

That sounded like a good topic for our discussion here. So, what are the differences and similarities between authority and leadership?

The wonderful internet, primarily the free Merriam Webster dictionary, describes authority as the power to give orders, make decisions and or the power or right to direct or control someone or something. They define leadership as a position as a leader of a group or organization, or the power or ability to lead other people.

I think we would all agree that true leaders have some authority and that there is some inherent leadership that comes with authority. However I would like to talk about the other group that is people with authority that are definitely not leaders.

In his book, The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, author John Maxwell writes “Leadership is influence – Nothing more, nothing less.” I didn’t necessarily buy that in the beginning, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized this:

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The Bowe Bergdahl Thing

Bergdahl - 1 This morning I am a little angry.  I apologize up front if any of our readers are upset about what I am going to say here, but I participate in this forum and I am going to use it. I have to admit I am a little torn over what has transpired in regard to Bowe Bergdahl.  I am torn because I am former military, I am a patriot, and I am a father.  Additionally, I feel like we have not heard all of this story.

This is not about me, so I really don’t want to address my role in the Navy.  But let me be clear, I would not have expected this to happen to me.  If I had been captured, I would have followed military protocol, and the rules of the Geneva Convention, and would have dealt with being a POW.  So having said that, it would never have happened because I would not have wandered away from my base.  A FORWARD OPERATING Base, without my body armor or weapon.  I feel like the vast majority, I would guess 95% or better, of currently deployed or enlisted military men and women would say, “You would have found me dead of multiple gunshot wounds, laying in a pile of my spent brass”.

I cannot and will not speculate on why Bowe Bergdahl would leave his base, or why he would leave his base without his weapon or body armor, but IF that is what he did, then he is not a hero or a POW, he is a deserter.  And if he is a deserter, the Uniform Code of Military Justice, Punitive Article 86 states the following:

“Any member of the armed forces who, without authority, fails to go to his appointed place of duty at the time prescribed, goes from that place; or absents himself or remain absent from his unit, organization or place of duty, at which he is required to be at the time prescribed; shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.”

So it seems to me,

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Seriously, why do we lead?

Seriously why - 1Why do we lead?

This will mark the second time today and the fourth time in the past two days I have started, renamed and changed this article in an attempt to get my point across. I realize that in December of 2012 I authored a very tongue in cheek article about “Why would someone want to be a leader?” However, this time, I am seriously asking the question “Why do you lead?

What deep down causes you or gives you the need or the drive to lead. I don’t think I am talking to business owners because their leadership drives the bottom line. I think I am talking to normal guys like you and like me, fathers, 9-5-ers, husbands, and weekend warriors. Why do you do the things you do?

Seriously why - 2I don’t want to blow my own horn here. I mean to be as humble as possible. But I try to set the right example for my kids. I try to be the leader I think they deserve and want or need. What I mean by all that is, if someone needs help and I am able to provide it, I try to help them. Everything from running to the dance studio at 9:00 pm because a mother has left her dome light on and her car battery is dead, or if one of our elders has trouble getting from the car to door of the church, or if my neighbor who had a stroke years ago, needs help around the house.

But I have realized that I may do these things for selfish reasons. I feel as though in my head, I would want someone to help my family if I was not available. Maybe it is also a little pay it forward as there are folks out there that have helped me in the past.

I heard once, that true character, was the act of doing something for someone who could never repay you. I wonder, could I change that a little bit, to suit leadership?

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Leadership Lessons from Gilligan’s Island

Gilligan's Island - 1If you were stranded on a deserted island…

Have your children ever asked you this? I think that they think it is some sort of a riddle.

“Daddy what are the three things you would take with you if you had to be stranded on a desert island?”

They are always surprised when I tell them that it would be a boat, fuel and food.  What I find interesting is that they are always surprised at my way of thinking.  My daughters would apparently have the best wardrobe and electronics stores on this uninhabited inhabited island, but who knows.  So as I ponder this, this weekend, I think true leadership is sometimes like being on an island.  Sometimes you are the only one with the plan, you are the only one who knows the mission and at some point you may be the only one committed to the journey.

So growing up in the era I did, the only “real” deserted island I ever had any knowledge of was Gilligan’s Island. Now as you think of the players on this award winning “documentary” you realize that there could not have been a better team assembled to deal with the rigors of being stranded on an island. This is really not where this was headed, but lets go with it for a minute, I only want to address the two obvious leaders from the island, The Skipper and The Professor.

Gilligan's Island - 2As the captain of the SS Minnow when the group set sail on the infamous 3-hour tour out of Honolulu, it would stand to reason that the Skipper would emerge as the group’s leader. After all, the captain of any ship should serve as the positional leader of the team.  However in this case, I don’t believe he wanted to be the leader.  I do think he felt responsible for their “predicament”.  When truly he was the one that saved them from dying in the storm. And a feeling of responsibility is a great place to start.

Gilligan's Island - 4The Professor turns out to be the cerebral member of the group with an advanced education and an overall serious-natured intelligence. The Professor might be perceived as a likely leadership candidate for the group. However, book smarts and leadership savvy are not one in the same.  Just because he used his intelligence to make their life on the island easier, he was not necessarily the leader.  But he was a great resource to the team and the leader.

The problem with much of what happened on Gilligan’s Island is

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Leadership in Chaos

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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A Leadership Formula

A Leadership Formula - 2I often wonder what makes a good leader. I think back to some of the leaders I have experienced in my life and try to remember what they had in common. What I remember is, externally they were all different, there was a teacher, there was a coach, there was a boss, and there were a couple of commanding officers. However internally, or spiritually, I think they were very much alike.

I realized much later in life that someone would have to really want to teach or coach, and really love it, because there was no one getting rich from teaching or coaching on the local level. Secondly there was a boss at my first job, he really helped set the work ethic and began laying the ground work for how a leader should treat their team members, and was a great example of how to treat others. Lastly there were some officers in charge while I was in the military. These men taught me about a chain of command, and respect, and how important being a member of a team really was.A Leadership Formula - 3

So what is the formula that makes these people great leaders? I think they all shared some similar spiritual traits, if you will. Consider these:

  • They wanted to lead
  • They had the ability to lead
  • They felt a need to lead
  • They just had to lead

So I would like to discuss each of these things briefly to see the “make up” of a leader.

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Leadership and Fear

imageIt seems that no matter what we do there is an element of fear involved. I guess first we need to define fear, fear as I know it is not being scared. I believe being scared is the emotion that causes people to freeze up or panic, and fear is something that can be overcome by courage and preparation. I am sure there will be several different definitions, but this is my post so you have to deal with my interpretations of the definitions. This is going to be a discussion about fear, the kind of fear that should push us, the fear of failure, the fear of disappointment, the fear of underachieving.

image“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt cautioned Americans with these words during the 1932 presidential election because he knew the power of fear to bring down an economy, to cripple a nation and to stifle the ingenuity needed to create better solutions in turbulent times.

The words leadership and fear seem to be in direct contradiction with one another, yet if we are honest and authentic, I believe most leaders would admit there is something that they fear. As a leader, it can be alluring to let fear dictate your decisions. NO RISK=NO FAILURE, and in the short term, that type of thinking might seem easier. However the nature of fear can be debilitating and often times can leave you stuck in the same place.

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Leaders and Quitters

Quitters - 1I hate quitters, and it really doesn’t matter what they are quitting, I just don’t like it.

Now, I am not special, I have quit a few things in my life, I have quit a job or two, I have quit smoking, and I have quit working out and eating right more times than I can remember. That is not really what I want to talk about, I want to discuss, quitting things that matter, marriages, families, life, and I am sure there will be more things we come up with. Lastly I want to compare leaders quitting a team, versus team mates quitting a team.

Has anyone ever thought about what it means to give up? No I am not talking about the kind of giving up that can be positive….surrendering your life to Christ, giving up your old ways for a special woman, giving up some extras in life for a new child. I am talking about the, its too tough or hard, I will just stop trying kind of giving up. What have we done is society to make quitting acceptable? Why has is it become okay to decide either someone else will do it for me, or it just cant be done?

Quitters - 2Have we ever stopped to think about where we would be in the world if there were more quitters? What would the Declaration Of Independence look like if those guys said this revolution is too difficult, where would we be if Noah had built a smaller boat because it was easier, and what would have happened to us if Christ had said, I cant put up with this any longer? So I ask you, why is divorce acceptable? How is leaving children to be raised without ok?

Quitting only seems easy from the outside, ask anyone that has ever quit a job, how hard finding a new one can be. Ask me how hard getting back in the gym is after being out of it for a month or more. Find a divorced guy and ask how much he misses his family. How about people who cant quit what they are doing? Ever consider asking someone in the military if they would like to quit what they are doing? You might hear someone say sometime, it takes guts to quit, I dare say it might, but it takes real heart not to.

So I did a quick internet search and perused a few sites and I found 5 common threads about why Leaders quit:

  1. Burnout — So lead, but find some time for you,
  2. Unrealistic Expectations —  Start with attainable goals, use other leaders to bounce your goals off of,
  3. Criticism —  No one critic, or supporter gets to alter how you feel, you don’t have to respond to critics,
  4. Discouragement — Surround your self with people that care about you, people who will tell you what you need to hear, not what you might want to hear. And lastly
  5. Focus — Don’t lose focus on the goal, what ever it may be, make sure you speak with your team regularly about the goal.

I am going to make an assumption quickly, that our teams are teams because we share the idea that something is worthy of our focus. So saying that, here are

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