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Leadership and Values

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Great Man LeaderThere is a theory of leadership known as the “great man” theory. It states that great leaders are simply more “heroic” than others. And further, their innate qualities, skills or abilities enable them to shape their world. But this theory is too simplistic and it ignored the evidence that sometimes leaders are developed in the crucible of crisis. This second situation has its own set of statements supporting that theory of leadership.

But, for purposes of today’s thoughts, I want to focus on the “heroic” nature of leadership. I choose to use a word like “heroic” because it connotes a certain values based approach to leadership. Far too often folks discuss leadership in a “value vacuum”. In my view this is not only incorrect, it is ultimately very harmful to the organization that has leaders who act outside of values and ethics.

Values are an integral part of good leadership. To be a true leader, you must

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Being a Leader and Keeping Your Team Focused

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Distraction Girl 1With how the world is today, there are a lot of distractions that can prevent people from performing at their best on a Team. Whether it’s stress on the task itself, or worries about home life, or simply being distracted by other things that you do on your own time, any lack of focus can be detrimental. As a leader, you need to rely on your leadership skills to bring everyone’s focus back on the task at hand and ensure that everyone is doing their best.

One of the great traits of a leader is the ability to keep their team focused on the mission, while still allowing everyone to excel and be successful at the same time. The ability to ask for input along the way, without anyone getting side tracked. Encouraging teammates to come up with new ideas, as long as they do not deviate from doing anything else that they become disruptive or counter-productive to the task is one of the most important leadership skills you can have.

It’s very easy to find your team in a scattered state of affairs, either physically or mentally. And it’s equally as easy to

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Shake it. Don’t Break it.

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You wouldn’t think this sort of article would be necessary, would you?  Unfortunately, it is.  It seems that men shaking hands is a bit of a lost art.

Consider the handshake.  Historical customs indicate that the handshake is commonly done upon meeting, greeting, parting, offering congratulations, expressing gratitude, or completing an agreement. In sports or other competitive activities, it is also done as a sign of good sportsmanship. Its purpose is to convey trust, balance, and equality.

So, let’s start with the basics.

Handshake 1This is a handshake.

Handshake 2This is not.

Handshake 3Neither is this.

Handshake 5I don’t even know what this is!

The importance of a good, strong, firm handshake cannot be overstated. When you shake hands with a man you figure out pretty quickly what kind of man you’re dealing with. If you are dealing with a confident man, a serious man, and a man not to be “trifled” with you will receive a solid, firm and strong handshake and you will receive direct eye-contact. If you experience something other than that, you may have doubts about the person you are greeting.

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Leadership and Conflict

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Conflict and Leadership - 1I have been thinking a lot lately about conflict and conflict resolution. I think we can all agree that some level of conflict is unavoidable. However, how we face it and resolve that conflict says a great deal about our own leadership styles and abilities.

Consider the following statement by Warren Bennis, one of the foremost writers on leadership and organizational and management theory.

“Leaders do not avoid, repress, or deny conflict, but rather see it as an opportunity.”

Leaders, this is one of your primary responsibilities. You cannot delegate this. Nor can you pretend that conflicts do not occur within your organization. I have spent much of my adult life working in the corporate world during the week and serving in a non-profit and volunteer organization on weeknights and weekends. And conflict is common to all organizations. Yes, even within churches and religious organizations. But you, as leaders, have the responsibility to sense conflict at its earliest stages and resolve it before it affects the entire organization.

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Sunshine and Sleepless Nights

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Sunshine and Sleepless Nights - 1I remember when our children were very young. One woke up laughing, the other, not so much. For those of you who know my family, I will leave you to guess which child responded with laughter and which responded with tears.

And I remember trying to teach them to sleep through the night. (Of course I also remember setting up a borrowed video camera and recording our first born while he slept. Pretty exciting video, isn’t it?  But we were brand new parents.) But the process of training them to sleep through the night and go back to sleep when their little bodies awoke in the middle of the night was hard. There was a huge part of me that wanted to just pick them up and bring them into our bed and snuggle.  It seemed that between my wife and I, only one of us would have the strength to deal with the crying.  One of us would begin to cave in and the other would be strong.  Then the roles would reverse.  And on it went for days and days until we finally made it through the night.

Why wouldn’t I want to scoop them up and feed them every time they cried? Or why wouldn’t I bring them into our bed to sleep? Because, they were growing bigger, and they no longer needed to eat every two to three hours, and it would ultimately hurt them and be bad for them if we allowed them to never establish a healthy sleep pattern. They needed sleep, I needed sleep. Heaven only knows their mother needed sleep!

So, what is the leadership principle for Fatherhood Friday?

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Music and Happiness

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MM - 20130620First of all, it is your responsibility to be happy at work. Let’s be clear, your boss does not care that you are happy if you are productive. Your office mates like you more when you are happy, but nowhere in their job descriptions does it require them to make you happy.

Alas, this is easier said than done. The odds are against happiness at work.

On the other hand, rudeness at work is easy, rampant, and on the rise. In 2011, half of the workers surveyed by Thunderbird School of Global Management said they were treated rudely at least once a week — up from a quarter in 1998. Yikes. And there is a tangible cost of this bad behavior.

Through a poll of 800 managers and employees in 17 industries, a recent study shows just how people’s reactions play out. Among workers who’ve been on the receiving end of incivility:

  • 48% intentionally decreased their work effort
  • 47% intentionally decreased the time spent at work
  • 38% intentionally decreased the quality of their work
  • 80% lost work time worrying about the incident
  • 63% lost work time avoiding the offender
  • 66% said that their performance declined
  • 78% said that their commitment to the organization declined
  • 12% said that they left their job because of the uncivil treatment
  • 25% admitted to taking their frustration out on customers

Here are some examples of what can happen as a result of incivility:

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Elected Leaders vs. Influential Leaders

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Elected vs Influential - 1Here is challenge that you may have to face at some point in your leadership career. You will encounter two types of leaders. Elected leaders and Influential leaders.

Have you ever considered these two types? If not, consider them now.

Elected leaders are the ones that we may be familiar with the most. It is reasonably clear how they became leaders. Someone recognized leadership ability within them. The organization then went on and nominated or appointed them to a position of responsibility and leadership. That is fairly clear cut. Ability was recognized and a position was attained. This is generally a good model and it produces good results.

Elected vs Influential - 2Now consider the second type – the Influential leader. This person generally does not have real leadership skills. Yet they have a position of leadership in spite of it. They generally attain the position through shear force of personality.  That may be just a euphemism for being a bully. But that is not always the case. Sometimes it is because they possess a specialized skill.  Sometimes they attain it through longevity within the organization. Sometime they attain the role of leader through fame, notoriety, family or financial position. These are the leaders that are difficult to work with or work for.

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Team Commitment

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Vince Lombardi 2“Individual commitment to a group effort — that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work.”

Vince Lombardi

Whenever I hear the word commitment, I am reminded of something a sales manager told me once, he said to me, “Billy I need you committed, I need you to be a pig” I asked “Why a pig?” He said “Consider a bacon and egg breakfast, the chicken is only a participant, the pig is committed”

No I know I don’t have to explain the symbolism here, but I ask you this, Is this how committed to our teams we are?

I recall something I heard at a Promise Keepers event once, Joe White told the audience, Christ calls us to be able to Preach, Pray or Die at a moment’s notice. Now not that I am ready to go just yet, but it occurs to me that maybe this is how we should look at our teams.

I know at least one of my teams, I preach to regularly, pray for often and would die for a member at a moment’s notice. How about you?

Commitment is a strong word to me. As I look back on my life, I have really only been truly committed to a few things in my life. I wonder if that is the crux of finding happiness, your commitment to whatever makes you happy….but I digress.

I appreciate the comments about the Unity post, especially one from Rene that talks about “trust”. I agree wholeheartedly, but I challenge you to consider commitment.

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That Kind of Father

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Last week I asked the audience to submit a story about their father or being a father.  It could be serious or it could be funny.  In the end, I chose the following.  It is short and slightly poignant.

I am told of a dad who had to travel on business a lot when his two children were very young. It seems he would leave early in the work week and return late in the week. Some times his travels took him just far enough to make it too far to come home at night, but close enough to make it home sometimes in the middle of the week. One week he had to travel by plane even though it was just a two day trip.

Welcome Home DaddyNow he loved his children and his children loved him. How do we know that? Well consider this little situation as an example.

Although he had only been away from home for less than 48 hours, when his youngest saw the door to the jetway open, his youngest son broke loose from his mother’s grip and ran up the ramp and into his father’s arms. This startled the stewardess greatly and she asked the embarrassed mother just how long the little tike’s father had been away from home. She was expecting the mother to say that it had been many weeks since her sons had seen their Daddy. Imagine her surprise when the mother told her it had just been two days!

Now I don’t know about you. But I want to be the kind of Dad that is on the receiving end of that kind of greeting from my children. How about you?  Are your children excited when you come home at the end of the day?

Happy Father’s Day from the Entire LeadershipVoices Team

 

Photo credit: Michael D. Dunn / Foter.com / CC BY-NC-SA