When it comes to leadership, there are no half measures. However, for the past six months, that is exactly what I have been doling out: a half measure of my full leadership capability. Half measures are a cop-out; a lame duck; a sacrifice of choice. Half measures don’t separate the bad leaders from the good leaders. Half measures separate those who do not lead from those who do.
For the first half of this year I have not been the leader that I am capable of being. I have not lived up to the high expectations I have set for myself, established with my team and that are required of me by the business. This is a sad truth to admit; nonetheless it is a truth. I have been thinking about this for a couple of weeks now. I have been reflecting on my actions, reactions and decisions and I am not happy with what I see. In fact, I am sick to my stomach over it and I aim to do something about it.
This post is my line in the sand: no more half measures.
It has been said before that “leadership is a choice.” I believe that to be true. I am also a firm believer that it is our choices and decisions that define us as individuals. How we choose anddecide shapes our life experiences. How we internalize and reflect on our life experiences over time provides new opportunities to achieve wins and learn lessons. This is where wisdom comes from: experiences, time, opportunities, wins and lessons - a virtuous cycle.
In my forty-two years I have gained valuable wisdom. I feel compelled to share it. I choose to share it through my own style of leadership; I choose to be a leader. The funny thing about making choices is that it is not the actual choice that matters most. It is how accountable you are to the choice itself. Everyone likes the reward of good choices. Not everyone accepts the responsibility for the bad ones.
That is why I am writing and sharing this: to take responsibility for my half measures, to make a statement of intent and to move forward in order provide leadership that inspires others to be better. This post started off a journal entry - something I wanted to get off my mind. Instead I decided that it was something that I wanted to get off my chest. It’s daunting to bear yourself in public like this, but it is liberating, too.
The liberation comes in the form of humility. Instead of internalizing this, I decided to share it so others could learn from it to prevent making the same mistakes, or even better, know that they are not the only ones out there who are fallible. I also wanted to let those who work for me, with me or that interact with me on a daily basis in and out of work know that I understand: we all make mistakes; no one has all the answers; we are all learning, all the time.
How do leaders earn respect… by admitting their mistakes. - John Maxwell
I am probably making my leadership mistakes this year out to be worse than they are; I am my own toughest critic. Let me explain: I haven’t broken any laws, or made catastrophic business decisions or lost the respect of my team. What I have done is let myself get distracted by internal work politics beyond my control; not properly aligned aspirations with realities; given my team the type of leadership I want, not the type of leadership that they need.
Because of these factors I forgot a few key things about what being a leader is. I forgot that to be a leader is to rise above the all the distractions and to keep moving forward. I forgot that to be a leader is to provide autonomy, but support it with guidance. I forgot that to be a leader is to be a listener.
More than anything, I have let myself down - and therein lies the problem. As a leader, when you let yourself down, you let your followers down, too. On behalf of my followers/team - I take this personally. Whether it is six months or one year, lack of leadership can have a reverse-compounding effect; lack of leadership eats away at trust one small bite at a time.
Do You Know What You Stand For? - Doug Conant
To make sure that this doesn’t happen again I am sharing my leadership code with you. Recently I read a handful of articles that helped influence this post and my thoughts on my leadership code. One of the articles was written by Doug Conant (@DougConant), former CEO of Campbell Soup, author of Touchpoints and founder of ConantLeadership.
In the article, Doug asks, "what is your leadership code?" As Doug puts it:
“Your code is the greatest weapon in your leadership arsenal. Having a clear code will help you keep perspective when you are doing well and will help you take the high ground in times of adversity. It will keep you honest. It will deter you from taking shortcuts or engaging in actions that don’t feel right.”
In effect, what Doug is saying is that your code stops you from taking half measures. Sharing my code is all about accountability; to ensure I take nothing but full measures from this point forward. I want to be explicit about my beliefs and what I stand for as a leader. I want to be held accountable to my leadership code by myself and by those that I lead directly and/or influence indirectly.
I am going to express my code as simply as possible. I don’t know about you, but I am burnt out on management speak, Venn diagrams and tired clichés. There are five key elements to my leadership code: authenticity, influence, relationships, focus and change. My code is composed of five brief statements for each of these elements.
My Leadership Code
Authenticity - Authenticity is the metric that all others will judge you by. If people don’t perceive you to be authentic, then they won’t trust you, won’t follow you and won’t believe that you will do all that you say you will do. Authenticity is why people will love working for you. Authenticity allows you to be you without false pretence and to stop worrying about who you should be and just be who you are - and lead the best way you know how.
Additional values/elements with Authenticity: Integrity, Trust, Accountability, Wisdom, Humility, Courage.
Influence - John Maxwell (@JohnCMaxwell) is well-known for his work on leadership. John says that, “leadership is influence, nothing more, nothing less.” If that is true then I think that influence is the spark that creaks inspiration. As a leader, if I can inspire someone to take action, take a risk, take a personal investment in making a change for better for the business and/or within themselves from the example that I set, explicitly or implicitly, then I have exercised influence to its maximum benefit.
Additional values/elements with Influence: Inspiration, Ambition, Passion, Motivation, Momentum, Fun, Behaviour, Enablement, Guidance.
Relationships - One of the most important functions of a leader is to establish relationships: for the business, with their people and within the industry. Most importantly, the relationships that the leader establishes with his people will create the most value throughout the organization. Whether it is a direct report, a peer or a co-worker in another department, the level of investment that leaders put into building positive lasting relationships will define how cooperative that they willing to be. The ability to connect with others, to understand how to use empathy and how to become a master at the all important skill of listening is evident in the how, who, and why of a leader's relationship building techniques.
Additional values/elements associated with Relationships: Mentoring, Coaching, Empathy, Communication, Collaboration, Cooperation, Calibrating, Listening.
Focus - The importance of these two leadership responsibilities cannot be understated: determining where we are going and what needs to be done to get there, i.e. setting a vision and taking a pragmatic approach about the who, what, where and when of how the vision will be realized. I think about this in horizontal and vertical terms. Vision is horizontal - taking a broad picture view of mission, change, capability, resource, people and motivation. Approach is vertical - what are the individual things that need to be calibrated to keep pace with the vision? Focus is also about being deliberate. I think it was Jim Collins who said that, focus is what you don’t do.” I wish I came up with that.
Additional values/elements associated with Focus: Pragmatism, Clarity, Calibration, Discipline, Accountability.
Change - Is there anything more polarizing in an organization than change? Some people thrive on it and some people are scared senseless by it. I see a lot of people who react to change with “short-term” thinking, i.e. how will this change my job right now?!? I always approach change from a “long-term” point of view. Maybe this is a result of my travels and experience over the past twelve years, but I think that, as a leader, understanding the implications of change first helps you interpret it and respond to it. A leader’s ability to recognize when change is coming, when it should be created and how to manage it is the key to their longevity in their company or in their leadership career. Also, the leader will know how to best manage the change-lovers and the change-haters through periods of change.
Additional values/elements associated with Change: Adaptability, Ambiguity, Change Agent, Empower, Initiative, Voice, Embrace, Encourage.
My Code - Inherent and Explicit
There you have it - my leadership code. These five elements are what I value most in my leadership style. You will notice that there are not a lot of hardcore business functions or role responsibilities included. This isn’t the place for that. That is what jobs description is for.
Leadership transcends roles and job descriptions. Leadership is not something that has a logo or a letterhead. Leadership is what you believe in and what you value. It is inherent in you and explicit in your behaviours. My leadership code is a reflection of the intangibles that I think are necessary to be the leader that I know I can be. Your code may be different. I would love to know more about it.
Doing Better
It is important to understand that leadership is not a destination. Leadership is a process - a process that we tweak and test and trial and error in an effort to get better at it. The better we are as leaders, the better off those are that follow us. As leaders we can do a better job at holding ourselves accountable to be better at what we do. And I am not just talking about hitting targets and KPIs either.
"Better, better, better... never best." - a quote paraphrased from Toyota CEO, Akio Toyoda
This truth rang true for me. "Best" is an endgame… a destination… a full-stop. "Better" is exponential. Better is improvement. Better is raising the bar each and every time that you do something.
Leaders are in the game of doing better, not being the best.The funny thing is, better trumps best every time. Don’t think that doing better means that you can blow by "the best" and become the new best. That is a fools game, too. As soon as you think you are the best someone outdoes you - someone does better.
I recently asked my team to focus on getting better in the second half of this year. What I was really saying was, “let me help you get better.” It was my commitment to them. That is what I enjoy doing most - helping people get better. That is why the mistakes of the last six months sting so badly. My purpose in life is tied directly to my leadership code. Without a purpose, your code is a bunch of words that sound good in a blog post on LinkedIn. Leadership is a personal choice. Your purpose is deeply personal. They go hand-in-hand.
My purpose in life is my life’s context. People often talk about and write about purpose as if was a thing, e.g. tradesman, artist, developer. I have come to realize that for me it is not a thing, but my context. My purpose in life is that I am man who is dedicated to having a positive lasting impact on others that inspires them to be better. It is what I am here to do. It is reflected in my leadership code.
Holding Myself to a Higher Standard
So now the work begins (continues!). I am not one to dwell on the past or regret or look back. I am all about forward momentum… getting better. What happens next is up to me. I need to hold myself to a higher standard as a leader. I want to make a bigger impact on a broader scale. I want to keep pushing myself to see just what I am capable of - how big of an impact I can actually make.
There are three important words that exist within the authenticity element of my leadership code. I consider these to be part, but not all, of my life-values: integrity, trust and accountability. Through reflection on the first half of this year and by writing this post, I have come to realize how essential they are to me as a person and as a leader. I do not want to feel as though I have compromised these values ever again.
I will make sure of this by demonstrating my integrity, earning trust and by being accountable for my choices and decisions. These aren’t always easy things to do, but it is essential that they get done.
Humility is also now part of my set of values. Humility will force me to admit when I am wrong. Humility will keep me grounded, keep me from repeating mistakes and ensure that I am focused on demonstrating my leadership code and acting out my purpose everyday - that I avoid the fallacy of half measures.
We have to challenge ourselves to continuously do better as leaders. That requires making mistakes as much as it does celebrating wins. We have to check-in with ourselves to make sure that we are mindful of our actions and self-aware. We have to be committed to demonstrating our leadership code everyday, all the time. Challenge, check-in and committed... a good process to make sure that we measure up to being the best leaders that we can be.
Originally posted on www.PositivelastingImpact.com
---
POST SCRIPT
I thought you might like to check out the articles and books that influenced this post:
Part 1: Leaders - do you know why you want to lead? - Doug Conant
Part 2: Do you know what you stand for? - Doug Conant
Part 3: Do what you say you are going to do. - Doug Conant
The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership - John Maxwell
The Trouble With Leadership Theories - Doug Sundheim
The best leaders are humble leaders - Jeanine Prime and Elizabeth Salib
If interested, here is the mindmap I created to support this post.
No comments:
Post a Comment