Click play below to watch a short video with some additional thoughts from this week’s blog, "Have you seen this framework for leader development?"
I would love to know what you think about this idea! Please leave a comment below.
If you know someone who might benefit from these tips, please send them the link to the blog and encourage them to subscribe!
I really learn a lot from metaphors and enjoy searching for meaning from other things observable in my life. One of my favorite metaphors for thinking about the context of leadership is the roller coaster.
roller coaster
In the Monday blog post this week my good friend, Dr. Randy Spence, wrote these words:
All of us fail.
We fail in life. We fail in our relationships. We fail in the leadership of our organizations and ourselves.
The question is, do we learn from our failures?
Do we attempt to use failure as a mechanism for growth? Or do we allow failure to defeat us, squashing our ambition and our efforts?
If you have not read the post, Randy did a great job teasing out these questions. You can click here to check it out.
Randy asks some powerful questions for those of us who are experiencing the bottom of the coaster ride.
Here is where Randy’s question took me in my own leadership:
Is it safer if I stay in the trench of the coaster or do I climb back to the top?
How quickly can I get over the self-pity of the trench and find the learning?
Do we enjoy the entire leadership ride or only when we are at the top?
What is the first step I need to take to be able to grow when I experience failure?
As you examine these questions, what 3 or 4 thoughts do they cause you to ponder?
Simply, metacognition is thinking about thinking. In the example above, Randy’s powerful questions caused me to think about questions of my own. Hopefully, my questions spurred questions for you.
The great thing about questions is that they stimulate our thinking and creativity. Questions can really help you see the abundance that is all around you.
The power in the metacognitive question is in the journey of growth. There is no power in wallowing in self-pity and doubt. When we get to the questions about what we are to learn from our failing we can start the journey to abundance, back to the top of the coaster ride.
Have a great 4th of July holiday and be curious my friends.
Scott
A few weeks ago I wrote an article and a leadership tip of the week on the topic of "Failing is Not Failure." Many of you sent me comments and emails on how this thought stimulated your thinking. I thought it would be good to get more perspective on this idea, so I asked my good friend Dr. Randall Spence to provide some of his thoughts on the topic.
If you enjoy reading about leadership with a spiritual emphasis you will enjoy reading his blog at www.RandallSpence.com, or connecting with him on Twitter.
Randy, take it away.....
All of us fail.
We fail in life. We fail in our relationships. We fail in the leadership of our organizations and ourselves.
The question is, do we learn from our failures? Do we attempt to use failure as a mechanism for growth? Or do we allow failure to defeat us, squashing our ambition and our efforts?
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The impact of failure on us often prevents us from seeing that right there within the failure, often hidden in plain sight, is the next opportunity.
Let me illustrate with a story about the Titanic.
In an article in the Harvard Review, Tony McCaffrey talks about the Titanic and that fateful night when she collided with the iceberg in the North Atlantic. What the ship's crew did not calculate in that nightmarish moment was that the very thing that sank the ship could also have saved the passengers, virtually everyone.
Let me explain.
According to McCaffrey, the newspapers of that time estimated the size of the iceberg to be between 50 to 100 feet high and 200 to 400 feet long. The Titanic was navigable for a while after the collision, so the crew could have pulled alongside the iceberg where many, if not all, could have climbed on to find flat places to stay out of the water for the four hours it took before help arrived.
Instead, the crew was fixated on the fact that icebergs sink ships and thus failed to see the sheer size and shape of the iceberg, or to reckon with the fact that it would not sink. In other words, the crew failed to see how the very thing that represented failure could also provide for their safety.
The iceberg could have served as their lifeboat. The iceberg that was to kill so many could also have saved virtually everyone.
There is a term for our inability to see opportunity in the midst of failure. The term is functional fixedness and was first articulated in the 1930s by Karl Duncker. It means that we tend to fixate on the common use of an object and thus fail to see other possible uses.
If you grew up like me watching MacGyver, you know that he did not suffer from functional fixedness. If you recall, he was forever getting into bad situations but always managed to escape by using things most of us would never dream of to get himself free or to solve the dilemma. He might take some baling wire, his pocketknife, a few rags, and rubbing alcohol to make an explosive or something else rather outlandish. MacGyver could do this not only because he was a science wiz, but also because he could see beyond the obvious uses of baling wire, a pocketknife, rags, and rubbing alcohol.
I would broaden this definition of functional fixedness a bit to say that in times of personal or business failure we often fixate on the cause of the failure and fail to see that within that failure, sometimes hidden in plain sight, is the next opportunity. It may take some creativity and mental exploration to find it, but it may be right in front of us staring us in the face.
Where does it feel like you are failing in life or in your business today? Look over your answer from every angle.
Do you see a way to use the problem you are facing as a potential way to rescue yourself?
Think about it a bit. You might need a friend, mentor, or coach to help you navigate these waters.
We would love to hear any examples you might provide for this. You can leave a comment below or email us at Scott@DrScottLivingston.com.
In Monday's blog, I talked about some ways for leaders to assess their followers. Followers and leaders are joined across a spectrum of relational commitments. The pinnacle of this relational commitment is called “Die-hards" by Barbara Kellerman in her book Followership: How Followers are Creating Change and Changing Leaders.
Die-hard followers are seen as passionate when it comes to ideas and people. They are dedicated to things they assign high value.
It is important to understand that it is the follower who decides what they attribute high value to, not the leader. You as the leader can think that a follower should assign high value to something, however, this does not mean that they will assign high value. It is nearly impossible to create die-hard followers without an understanding of what they value.
1. Be clear about your own values. It is important that you are clear with yourself about what is important to you. Not everything can be important. Our human minds are finite and can only latch onto a few concepts at a time. This first step is meant to focus you on what is really important.
2. Meet one-on-one with followers and assess their values. This is not a meeting to try to convince them that they should value what you value. Rather, this is a meeting that is full of curiosity on your part. Ask them open ended questions like, “What is the most important thing to you in your role?"
3. Align their values with the vision you have for the organization. It is when you can align their values with the mission of the organization that real commitment begins to form.
Here is a free bonus for you as you think about creating die-hard followers:
Let go of the stupid, trivial stuff that is impeding your followers and preventing them from becoming die-hard followers. What are you hanging onto as a leader that is causing your followers to give you less than a 100% commitment? What silly bias could you let go of to bring you logarithmic improvement in the commitment level of your followers?
If I can be of any help to you as you sort this out, please do not hesitate to contact me. There is never any cost for our first phone conversation.
Have a great weekend!
At one time in our history leadership meant "the rank that was held" or "a hierarchical position that was attained." Leadership was seen as a person in authority holding command and control over those in their sphere of influence. In some nefarious organizations this authoritarian style of leading probably still exists. Today, leadership is something that gets implemented, worked on, and is earned every day. Leadership has taken on a much different relational aspect than in the past. Just because you hold a position that is near the top of the food chain in your organization does not mean that those who follow you are committed followers. As the leader, you may hold their salary card and influence their performance appraisal, even decide whether they stay as a part of your organization, but that does not mean they are excited or enthusiastic followers.
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I will be honest with you. When I read articles like this my knee-jerk reaction is, "He must be talking about somebody else, surely this isn't me. My question for you is, can you stay engaged with this topic long enough to really challenge yourself? Maybe this is you!
One thing I have learned over the years, and has really become evident since I have started writing on the topic of leadership, is that most who are in positions of leadership think they are really good at it. When I was just getting started with this project I had one marketing consultant actually advise me not to pursue the topic of leadership for a blog because he said, “Leadership is one of those things that everyone has their own idea about, and they think they do it better than anyone else even if they are actually horrible at it.”
“Leadership," he went on to say, “is not like weight loss. People who need to lose weight know it. They might not do anything about it, but at least they know they need to shed a few pounds. People who are poor leaders often times don't even know it or care to entertain the thought.”
Leadership has a sort of a swagger to it. It can often feel like since we obtained a position of leadership we must know what we are doing. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The tides of leadership have been changing over the past couple of decades, and research is showing that the followers of leaders are much more influential than they have been in the past. With the advent of technology the bonds that followers feel with each other just make them more powerful.
For leaders, any enhancement in skills, personality, or behavior are futile if the relationship between the leader and the follower is not sound. When it is all said and done, leaders really do not choose followers, it is the followers who choose who leads them.
Barbara Kellerman, in her book Followership: How Followers are Creating Change and Changing Leaders, defined followers as “subordinates who have less power, authority, and influence than do their superiors and who therefore usually, not invariably, fall into line.” Kellerman goes on to divide followers into five distinct commitment groups:
Die-hards-passionate regarding ideas or people; become dedicated when they assign high value.
Activists-Supportive, eager, energetic, and engaged in the ideas and tasks.
Participants-show care and compassion. Will support if they agree. Will oppose if they disagree.
Bystanders-Observe from the sideline. Generally disengaged. Passive support.
Isolates-Do their jobs and keep their heads down. Do not care much for the leader nor respond to them.
The thing I find interesting in how leadership is evolving in organizations is to examine not who is at the top of any pyramid, but to observe those who are attracting followers who are passionate and extremely dedicated. If you stepped back and examined different leaders in your organization, how would they measure up using the Followership criteria? Who are the leaders who are attracting diehard followers? Do you have leaders who have more participants or bystanders?
What if you scored your own leadership by how your followers are responding to your leadership? Try this simple exercise:
1. Write down the names of those whom you lead. If you have more than 15 you may want to just pick a sample that represents the population.
2. Score their followership:
Die-hards-5points Activists-4points Participants-3points Bystanders-2points Isolates-1 point
3. Add up the points and divide by the number of followers to find your average followership score.
Does the score you obtain score higher than 4 on average? If not, then you may be leading but are you obtaining the results you desire? It is hard to make changes or create vision when you have a congregation of participants and bystanders.
What do you need to do to as a leader to take a bystander to an activist? Or perhaps a participant to a diehard?
One significant factor in the leader/ follower relationship is credibility. In their book Credibility, Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner offer some practical insight for leaders who want their followers to want to follow them. Credibility, according to these authors, is the foundation of leadership. People want to believe and trust those whom they follow.
It is easy for us as leaders to say to ourselves “of course I am trustworthy." You might think you are, but yours is not really the opinion that matters. Do your followers think you are trustworthy? The answer to this question is what will ultimately allow them to decide what kind of follower they will be.
According to the research of Kouzes and Posner, the majority of people look for and admire leaders who are honest, forward-thinking, inspiring, and competent. These four factors play a significant role in the level to which the leader is able to lead because they determine the type of follower that the follower will choose to become.
So how are you doing in creating diehard followers?
I would love to hear your story if you have one to share, or if you decide to do the exercise above let me know the results and what, if any, changes you might need to make.
Scott
Recently, I felt overwhelmed. When I think of it now it seems a little silly. Here's the story:
I was running on all cylinders. Many of you know that in addition to writing this blog, I:
Teach and train emotional intelligence for corporate clients.
Speak at conferences on leadership topics.
Maintain an active executive coaching practice.
Am adjunct faculty at Indiana Wesleyan University.
I love it all, but I was beginning to feel overwhelmed with all the travel I was doing, which comes along with these responsibilities. Like many of you, when I show up to any of these responsibilities my goal is to do it with excellence. When I get tired and stressed I have to make sure that I can deliver what my clients need, no matter what the circumstances are in my life.
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I was describing my overwhelmed feeling to a very good friend who suggested I take a retreat.
Where I live we have a beautiful national historic landmark, Bok Tower, which bills itself as a contemplative garden. My friend suggested I go spend half a day there. Here is part of that conversation:
“Retreat! What do you mean?" I asked him. “Just get away and clear your head for a few hours," is what I heard in reply. "I don’t have time” was my response to him.
Big Fat Lie.
Really what was traversing my mind were thoughts like:
“What would I do?“ "How would I do it? “I don’t know what to do." “What would I do?” I actually remember thinking this one twice.
It is funny I said that I didn’t have time, but time isn’t really the issue. I just didn’t know what to do, but I really didn’t want to admit that to my friend.
Here's what I've discovered since then...
When I get that overwhelmed feeling it means that I have so much going on in my mind that I can’t really think clearly about anything. The pressure of all that I have to get done starts to close in around me. My emotions really start to take over and I feel the stress in my shoulders and a shortening of my breath in addition to being overwhelmed.
Dr. Henry L. Thompson, an award-winning organizational psychologist, in his book The Stress Effect, emphasizes that an emotionally intelligent leader must be aware of emotion to be able to “choose when, where, and how to use emotion." According to Thompson, “Anything that interferes with this ability, such as stress, will tend to degrade the application of emotional intelligence." The feeling of being overwhelmed will trigger stress and could lead to outcomes where I may not deliver excellence for my clients.
The overwhelmed feeling I had, along with the stress it produced, meant that my thinking was actually inhibited. I was at risk for making poor decisions, not because of my intelligence or lack of information, but because I needed to step away so that I could be objective.
Retreat Is A Power Position
I didn’t need to step away, or retreat, as a sign of weakness. Actually, retreat is a powerful tool for positioning yourself for strength.
The state of being overwhelmed was causing me to not be able to provide excellence. I had two choices:
Slug through it and hope that no one noticed
Retreat. Take a step back so that I could re-engage into the circumstance more powerfully.
I chose retreat. And am I glad I did.
So what does this mean to you & me?
The next time you get that overwhelmed feeling, why not take a Personal Leadership Retreat?
A Personal Leadership Retreat is where you carve out a small amount of time (I did 4 hours) and gather your thoughts about the impact your leadership is having.
As a result of the conversation with my friend, I finished a Personal Leadership Retreat a few weeks ago and came out with much clearer thinking. I felt really good about how I spent my time. The benefits for me were:
I felt better about my relationship with God.
I was clear on what I had accomplished in the first half of the year.
I have clarity around things I want to get done in the second half of the year.
I have more focus around my core business moving forward.
I felt relaxed so that I was making better decisions.
If you are interested in doing a Personal Leadership Retreat, here is the agenda I followed:
8am - Arrive 8-9am - Bible Reading and Reflection 9-10am - Reflections on Leadership 10-11am - Nature Walk 11-11:45am - Leadership Issues that need to be resolved 11:45-noon - Final Reflection
The next time you find yourself feeling overwhelmed, why not take a few hours and do a Personal Leadership Retreat? Once you do, I think you will feel more focused, relaxed, and perhaps even improve your outcomes.
Hey Mike, thanks for recommending this to me. I owe you.
Let me know how this works for you, Scott
P.S. Are you interested in a Personal Leadership Retreat but still feeling like still don’t know what to do? Here is the step by step guide I developed from my own Personal Leadership Retreat. Click here to download the guide and start your own Personal Leadership Retreat. In this guide you will get hour by hour instructions on what to do during your retreat. You will get questions to answer to stimulate thought. You will get a list of resources to take with you on your retreat and much, much, more. I would love your feedback on the guide, so if you do take a Personal Leadership Retreat be sure and let us know how it went for you.
Have you ever been in a rut? Do you have 2 minutes?
If so, I thought you might like this short video.
I am going to explain one proven way for you to get out of a rut! I have recently done this one thing in my own business, and it has made all the difference in the world for me.
Let me know what you think by leaving a comment below.
Scott
PS. Hey, you might not be in a rut right now, but I bet you know someone who is. Or maybe you are in a rut and you know someone else who might enjoy seeing this tip. Why not forward the link to them? On Monday's blog post, "Four Proven Ways to Get Out of a Rut," one of the tips was to help someone else out of their rut, which can often times help us out of our own.
The Pareto principle is one of the most common axioms I hear leaders describe when considering outcomes. It is also commonly known as "the law of the vital few" in which 80% of the effects we experience comes from 20% of the efforts being given.
I experienced this with a client who was having a difficult time getting motivated setting goals for the year. He had completed an analysis of his business and noticed that of his 165 or so clients, only 13 of them provided 80% of his business The other 150 or so clients made up the remaining 20% his business. He knew he had to call on all of his clients, but felt like "what is the point". If this was a straight college grading scale , he could get a “B” with the 13 clients without even trying, and the thought of trying to motivate the other 150 was overwhelming.
This client happened to be in sales. However, the analysis he provided is really about leader and follower relationship. Sales are the result of the relationship with the follower, or in this case we call them clients. Those of you who lead churches for example may not think in sales terms, you may have other metrics you measure. No matter the metric, if you lead people, it is about the investment in quality relationships that matter.
The client and I decided to make a game out of motivation by saying, “OK let’s NOT think about this year”. He is 32 and I challenged him to think about where he wanted to be in his career when he was 60. He said he had no idea, and I was reminded of the children’s classic, Alice in Wonderland. Alice was walking along the road and when she came to the fork was puzzled on which way to go. The Cheshire Cat looked down out of the tree and said, “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there”.
[Tweet "Leadership lesson: 'If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.'"]
Developing yourself as a leader requires that you know where you are going. So I had him write a narrative, a story of about 1 page that is descriptive in nature, of what he envisions doing in his sixth decade of life. I challenged him to be descriptive and emotional in his writing of this one page novel.
This writing of your personal narrative can be quite freeing as a leader. If you are feeling stuck in your goal setting, write a picture of what you want your goal attainment to be and then work backwards to create the steps that are needed to get you there.
Now that my client has identified what he wants his story to be, he must work to turn it into reality today. We took Pareto’s rule and continued the game by putting his customers in three buckets, then describing what his emotional connection is to them for the year. Next, we applied what we all know about top performers: that if you stretch and care for them they will produce even more. Notice there are two important facets here:
Stretch them. Give them bigger goals, bigger targets. Believe in them, really show them that you think they can do it.
Care for them. Support them. Give them resources. Encourage them along the way. Top performers will do great things for you if you support them.
Here is what it practically looks like:
In the first bucket are the 13 who provide 80% of his business. His connection to them is one of nurturing He wants to support them, and provide for them so they continue to grow. The idea is to give them the support they need to reach their full potential. However 13 is probably too many for him to fully invest in without ignoring the other 150.
From these 13 in the first bucket, he now chooses 5 who have the potential to make his vision a reality. We called them Drive with 5. He picked 5 clients that he wants to be more assertive with in their development. He wants to be intentional about getting more business from them, and really give them a lot of his emotional energy and time. The development with these 5 is where the stretch comes in. Give them bigger goals. Give them more of a chance to have breakout kinds of success. Invest in these leaders. Spend more time with them and give them coaching and encouragement.
His second group of clients are the 150 or so customer that make up 20% of his business. The question to ask about this group is: "Who has potential to rise into the first bucket?" He is having a dating relationship with them. Getting to know them better and deciding for next year which one or two of them will become part of his Drive with five. What are their strengths? How can he capitalize on their strengths so they can become more self-aware of what their potential really might be?
The next segment is those still in the 150 group we call Future Harvest. This is the balance of your universe of relationships. This pool will always be there for you in small capacity. They are important because they make up your world of relationships and potential. They are important for stability and support. You need them, so do not ignore them. Love them and treat them well.
Last, my client sent me his narrative, as well as the names of his Drive with 5 and his dating list. We are going to discuss them on every coaching call. Accountability is another key to making your dream come true. Even Alice in Wonderland had the Cheshire Cat to hold her accountable!
I believe this process can work whether you are in sales, a minister in a church, an IT manager, or a company president. We all have a finite number of relationships we engage with that make up our 100%. The question is, which ones are you going to invest in to make your life goals a reality? Keep in mind that this leader I was working with had over 100 clients and so the narrowing to 13 and then to 5 to really invest in made sense in relation to his overall numbers. If you have 60 in your sphere of influence you may only want to invest in 3 or 4. If your sphere is smaller you might pick one or two. The actual number becomes less important when you are starting. The most important question is, besides yourself, who are the leaders you are going to invest in to make your leadership vision a reality?
[reminder]What are your thoughts about breaking down the important relationships in your life like this? [/reminder]
[callout]I have seen this process work time and again to help people analyze relationships for leadership investment. I believe it will work for you to think about who in your sphere of influence you should be intentionally developing to allow your leadership vision to become a reality. Click here to download a free pdf tool that will walk you through these three steps to help you analyze your relationships.[/callout]
