Category Archives: Leadership Traits

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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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Signs That A Leader Is Succeeding

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Signs That A Leader is Succeeding - 1I recently wrote an article called, “Signs That A Leader Is Failing”.  And I did so with a fair amount of trepidation.  When you consult with other leaders you always wonder what one of them will think when they read one of your articles.  You wonder if they think it is about them.

(Why is there suddenly a Carly Simon song playing in my head)?

Signs A Leader Is Succeeding - 2Well, today, I hope that all of the leaders that I have worked with over the years think this article is about them.

I have written over 160 articles describing, in some way or another, what it takes to be a superior leader in the home, at church, on the job, and in society.  Some researchers and authors claim a superior leader possesses certain traits or abilities innately; others say it is all personality, style and charisma. Still others maintain it is the behaviors or actions that I take — if I do this, then my followers will do thus — that are crucial.  Regardless of the how and why, these are some signs that your followers are following you and that you are succeeding as leader:

The team caught your Vision —  Successful leaders have followers that have a clear understanding of your vision and what it means to them as an individual contributor or follower.  They see it and they own it.  There is no ambiguity.  If you ask them on an elevator to describe the vision of the organization, they can express it with clarity and passion.

The team understands the Mission —  Successful leaders have communicated the mission and the team “gets it”.  They know why the organization exists in the first place and they have a sense of the historical context of the organization.  They can also answer the mission question on an elevator just as effortlessly as they can answer the vision question.

Signs That A Leader Is Succeeding - 4The team has a Goal  —  Successful leaders have followers who understand the goals set for them.  They were probably participants in setting the organizational goals and their individual goals.  They are both excited and challenged by the goals and they are looking forward to stretching to achieve them.

The team is Confident —  Successful leaders have followers who are confident in their leaders and in themselves.  They have been taken through a process

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Signs That A Leader Is Failing

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Leadership Failure - 1I was told by a manager one time, “If you aren’t failing, you aren’t trying.” And I am sure that there are many situations in which that statement is true. But, I am not dealing with effort and intentions alone today. Instead, I am dealing with results.  To some this may seem harsh.  Our society often expresses success in terms of trying really, really, really hard.  But for today, let’s look at failure from a results-oriented perspective.

There are certainly tell-tale signs when a leader is failing. And that is true even when the leader himself does not see it. Certainly those around him don’t always it either. And if those that do, don’t always know hot to address it.  But many times, those with discernment will see it.

Consider some of these signs of leadership failure within an organization:

  • A leader is failing when there is a refusal to accept advice or help from other leaders within the organization who are more experienced. Sometimes we think that we must do it all ourselves and we must “gut it out.” Although advice is easy to find. Good and sound advice is a precious commodity. As a leader you must seek it out and give it very careful consideration.
  • Al leader is failing when they lack the support of those around them. Failure is near when you have lost the support of those closest to you and who have real insight into the situation.
  • A leader is failing when new people searching for a an organization with goood leadership continue to pass you by. Among many things, leadership is defined by followship. And when there are folks in need of leadership and yet they choose a different organization, this is a sign of leadership failure and that failure is obvious to those outside of the organization.
  • A leader is failing when they bring embarassment or shame to the organization. It seems that the concept of shame is a distant and bygone concept. But everyone still understands embarassment on a personal level. So, if your organization is the brunt of jokes or is ridiculed publicly, there is leadership failure.
  • A leader is failing when there are financial problems. This one is a little tricky if your organization is a church or non-profit and it depends upon charity or offerings for funding. Fundraising is an unavoidable function of leadership in this setting. And financial problems are most often indicative of the lack of “buy in” by those in the organization. As leaders we must be able to communicate and get buy in.
  • A leader is failing when you continually miss opportunitues. There is a big difference between “seeing” and opportunity and “seizing” it. And these lost opportunities are hard to quantify. But here is where great leaders surround themselves with great teams where there is likely to be someone with the ability to spot opportunities and initiate a strategy to take advantage of that opportunity.
  • A leader is failing when there is desperation. Great leaders do not let the situation degenerate to the point that deperation kicks in.

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Bearded Leadership

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Bearded Leadership - 1What does having a beard have to do with Leadership? Well, maybe nothing, but maybe everything. If you look back through history, have all of our great leaders been older? Have they all had beards? I think one of our best leaders in history had a pretty epic beard, Abraham Lincoln.

What is my point? My point is that it doesn’t really take age or facial hair to be a leader, although I think it should. My point is, however, that it takes maturity to both have facial hair and to be a leader.

“No one was ever born with a beard”

Anonymous

 

No one was ever born a leader. I think maturity, like leadership, is one of those things that is not inherent in life. You are not guaranteed or promised maturity, or leadership. Maturity is also different in all of us. It is found in different places, and different times and we discover our maturity for different reasons. Personally, it took a war, for me to discover mine. I will admit I have times of immaturity, and I think that is not only okay, but is healthy. I don’t think we should take ourselves too seriously.

Bearded Leadership - 2I think it is safe to say, while it doesn’t take a beard to be a leader is does take maturity. There are immature people in leadership positions, but their leadership is either poor or short lived. Remember maturity is several things. It is physical. It is mental. It is emotional and it is spiritual. All of these things contribute to the style and the effectiveness of your leadership.

A leader has a mission. A leader has a plan. A leader is going somewhere. There’s a reason for doing what you’re doing, and when anybody thinks about you, they think about a person with a plan.

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Leadership Principle in Breaking Bad

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Breaking Bad - 1I just recently finished the last episode of the hit television show Breaking Bad.  Yeah, I know, it took me awhile.  Truth is, it took me so long to watch it because I almost quit watching it in the middle of season three.  Call me an old fuddy-duddy, (and by using that term I realize I am an old fuddy-duddy) but I had grown weary of the increasing violence, and the immorality and lewdness of the characters.  Most importantly, however, I had lost all respect for the character I assumed was the “hero” of the show.  I was rooting for Walter White from the beginning, but my ability to continue rooting for him eroded rapidly as he told one lie after another and performed acts of ever increasing selfishness.  That left me with no one to root for, and for me, having a rooting interest is an important aspect of a compelling television show.

Fortunately (although I would have lived had I not completed all the episodes), a friend of mine convinced me to finish watching the show to its end.  He assured me that I would find someone to root for, and he was right.  As my fealty for Walter White turned to disdain, my respect and admiration for his brother-in-law, Hank Schrader (who comes across as an uptight, know it all jerk in the first few seasons), grew.  Hank was the antithesis of Walter, and the juxtaposition between the two made a great dramatic foil for the writers of Breaking Bad.

Breaking Bad - 2As I contemplated these two characters, and their diametrically opposite characteristics, I realized that the attributes exhibited by each provides a great insight into leadership. 

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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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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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Leadership is . . . Saying you’re sorry

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Saying you are sorry - 1Back in the 1970s there was a very popular little one panel comic that depicted a little male and female cherub-like creatures.  It had “Love is . . .” written in the upper left of the panel.  The couple was in the middle and the bottom was the rest of the sentence that told you what love is.

One of the most famous comic strips of the entire series was  “Love is . . . being able to say you’re sorry” and was published on Feb. 9, 1972.  The beginning of the strip coincided with the very famous film from 1970, “Love Story”.  The signature line from that movie was “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.”   What a crock!

So, what is the leadership implication?

It is simply this.  Leadership often involves making mistakes.  I was once told by a CIO that I worked for, that if I wasn’t failing once in a while, then I wasn’t really trying very hard.  Now, I won’t debate that thought today as it is probably worthy of an article or post all on its own.

Saying you are sorry - 2But I firmly believe that leadership involves many things.  Some of those are

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Is it Obliviousness that is Really Bliss?

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Oblivion and Bliss - 1I know that there are some things that I know. And I know there are some things that I don’t know. The problem is that there are potentially a lot of things that I don’t know that I don’t know. Do you know?

That sounds almost like a line from a Gilbert & Sullivan musical. For those of you who are not theater buffs or who are under the age of 50, go Google it.

I received a lot of comments via Facebook and other social media on my article on ignorance in leadership from earlier in the week. And those comments and conversations made me take another look at this issue of ignorance and bliss.

For me, I can almost assign the category of “Ignorance” to those who know that there are things that they don’t know. The word, ignorance, has taken on a cultural meaning that is not etymologically correct. The dictionary defines ignorance with words such as; unaware, inexperience, illiteracy, unfamiliarity and lack of knowledge. It does not assume that an individual is incapable or lacking the capacity to become aware, experienced, literate, familiar or knowledgeable. Indeed it is society and culture that makes that assumption about our nature.

Oblivion and Bliss - 2But the category of “Oblivion” may best be described as one who does not even know what they do not know. And here I would go further and suggest that

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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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