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If you are a regular reader of my blogs, you’ll know that I’m highlighting the four major areas where great leaders need to grow continuously, taken from my new book with Mark Miller called Great Leaders Grow. I’ve already covered the first two parts of our GROW model—Gain Knowledge and Reach Out to Others.
The third aspect of growth we’re going to focus on is to Open Your World. It’s so easy to get into a rut, both in our work life and our home life, and just stay there. One of the greatest ways to ensure your own continual growth is to expand your mind and your life through new experiences—both at work and outside of work—that light a spark within you. Mark Miller likes to use the analogy of an artist with a palette. When an artist puts paint on the palette, he can then use that paint to create a masterpiece. As we open our world, we’re putting different colors of paint on our palette. We won’t be able to use all the colors immediately, but they are now at our disposal because we’ve had that experience or we’ve established that relationship.
What are some ways for you to open your world—and open yourself to growth—at work?
- I love the idea of having lunch with different people periodically. I have lunch with different groups or departments at our company every so often. I’m always surprised at how learning a few new things about someone can give me a whole new perspective on that person. And then I have a better connection with that person. Try it!
- Take advantage of the opportunity to lead any kind of group at work you can, whether it’s a cross-functional team working on a new company initiative or a weekly book club. Any time you lead, you learn more about being a leader.
- Shadow someone from another department or team. If you are in Finance, learn more about Marketing. If you are in Marketing, spend an hour with a person in Shipping. If you are in Shipping, hang out with someone from Human Resources. It can be eye-opening to see the view from a different side of the organization.
It’s just as important to open your world outside the workplace. A balance between interesting professional work experiences and exciting personal life experiences is essential if you are going to keep growing. This still counts as paint on your palette, because all of these experiences impact you and fuel your point of view. Here are some ideas to open your world outside work:
- Take a class at a local community college. Learn a new language or become proficient with a new type of computer software—this will add something to your resume that wasn’t there last year.
- Volunteer at church, a local Boys and Girls Club, or an animal shelter. Volunteering not only expands your mind, it can make your problems seem less important.
- Travel. It doesn’t matter where you go. Whether you take a day trip to a nearby town or plan a three-week European vacation, growth and learning can happen anywhere.
- Expose yourself to the arts. Get out of your comfort zone if you have to. Listen to a classical music CD, attend a local play, go to an art museum, or take guitar lessons.
Remember, leaders are learners. Every time you open your world, you grow a little. Whether it be meeting with a new colleague, helping at a food bank, organizing the company picnic, or whitewater rafting with friends—you’ll be a more well-rounded person, a more interesting conversationalist, a more critical thinker, and a more confident leader. Take advantage of every opportunity to open your world and you will continue to grow as a leader for life.
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In our just-released book Great Leaders Grow, Mark Miller and I explore how great leaders make the conscious choice of continuous personal growth. As we say in the book’s introduction: Growing for a leader is like oxygen to a deep-sea diver: without it, you die. Not a physical death, of course—but if you stop growing, your influence will surely erode and, ultimately, you may lose the opportunity to lead at all.
One way great leaders can grow is to gain knowledge. Gaining knowledge doesn’t happen all at once. It’s a long-term commitment you must make and then put into practice year after year.
Gaining knowledge generally comprises four elements. The first is self-knowledge. This is a matter of looking in the mirror and being aware of your own strengths and weaknesses as well as how your temperament and personality mesh with your environment. Great leaders have a high degree of self awareness. Assessment tools such as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, the DiSC Profile, or Gallup’s StrengthsFinder 2.0 can help you understand what makes you tick as well as how to better relate to those around you.
Equally important is gaining knowledge of others. Spend time getting to know the folks around you at work. When you work on building relationships, you can go beyond the superficial to learn how people like to be recognized, how they prefer to communicate, who their families are, and what really matters to them. The more you know about your colleagues at every level, the more effective you can be in working with them to attain common goals.
Gaining knowledge includes learning about your industry. Read up on the history of your industry and do some research on what’s happening today. What’s true now that may not be true in the future? Also, take a closer look at your chief competitors. What are their strengths and weaknesses?
Finally, gain knowledge about the field of leadership. Explore the profusion of books, blogs, and other information available about leadership to discover trends and best practices. Take a look at your current skill set and see what skills other leaders have that you might need to work on.
So, what will you do this week to grow through gaining knowledge? Leave a comment and let me know!
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I’m very excited about my upcoming book, Great Leaders Grow: Becoming a Leader for Life, coauthored by Mark Miller from Chick-fil-A and published by our good friends at Berrett-Koehler. It will be available to everyone this Tuesday, February 7.
Like many of my books, Great Leaders Grow is an easy-to-read parable, but its message is significant: Our capacity to grow determines our capacity to lead. In today’s economy, this is more important than ever before. Will you be a leader who is always ready to face the next challenge? Or will you be a leader who tries to apply yesterday’s solutions to today’s problems?
Mark and I are convinced that the path to increased influence, impact, and leadership effectiveness is paved with personal growth. Growth is at the heart of what creates and sustains great leaders. And the lack of personal growth sabotages the careers of more leaders than anything else. Case in point: A leader mentioned in the book was terminated after fourteen years with the same company. Because he wasn’t learning and growing, he had basically repeated his first year of service fourteen times. The world is moving too fast to rely on past success and past knowledge alone. Leaders must continue to grow.
We believe that great leaders make a choice to GROW in four areas. In a nutshell, to be a great leader, you must:
- Gain Knowledge
- Reach Out to Others
- Open Your World
- Walk toward Wisdom
In the next few blogs, I’ll expand on each of these ideas. In the meantime, in both your professional and personal life, think about whether you are growing in these four areas. And remember: Continuing to learn and grow leads not only to professional success, but also to personal fulfillment.
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A lot of people wonder if they can be a leader if they don’t have charisma. I’m not sure I really even know what charisma is.
I think what you need to do as a leader is be who you are. I think sincerity and caring are the qualities people look for in a leader—not some dashing person with charisma. Don’t feel you have to play some sort of a role and try to be something you’re not. On the other hand, if you’re a person who does have that extroverted style, don’t hold back. Be who you are, because that’s who people want to get to know.
Leadership is about being authentic. And it’s about reaching out to people in a way that says, “I think you’re important. And I’d like to help you be the best you can be.” People don’t care if you have charisma. They just want to know that you care about them.
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As a leader, you should never start thinking that leadership is all about you. When things go well, a great leader doesn’t look in the mirror and pound himself or herself on the chest and say, “Aren’t I fabulous?” A great leader looks out the window and gives other people the credit. Get your ego out of the way and remember that leadership is about people who work with you, not for you. People want a leader who cares about them and wants to help them achieve their goals so they can be magnificent. So don’t get overimpressed by yourself as a leader. The fact of the matter is this: You are nothing without your people.
The firing of Joe Paterno as coach of Penn State has dominated the news this week. A legendary coach with the most wins in the history of major college football, Joe was dismissed for not doing more to stop the alleged sexual abuse of children by former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky.
The news came as a shock, because in many ways Joe was considered an outstanding human being. Not only had he coached at Penn State for 61 years, he’d also donated more than $3 million to the university and helped raise more than $13 million for its library.
I feel badly about the Paterno firing for two reasons. First, I’m deeply saddened about the impact of the alleged sexual abuse on the victims and their families. Second, I’m saddened for the students at Penn State, who argued that the board of trustees should have allowed Joe at least one more game or let him finish the season. From their point of view, Joe had broken no laws. When he’d learned about the sexual abuse, he’d reported it to the athletic director and to the vice president.
As I thought about it this week, the case of Joe Paterno is a classic example of why it’s so important to do the Ethics Check when making key decisions. In our book The Power of Ethical Management: Integrity Pays! You Don’t Have To Cheat To Win, Norman Vincent Peale and I describe the Ethics Check, which poses a series of questions around three areas: legality, fairness, and self-esteem. The next time you’re faced with a dilemma, ask yourself these questions:
1. Is it legal? Will you be violating either civil law or organizational policy?
In today’s society, people tend to focus on this first aspect of the Ethics Check—the legal question. They think if they can get lawyers to okay the decision, they’re doing the right thing. But just because an action is legal does not make it ethical. To assure that you’re doing the right thing, it’s a good idea to review the second two aspects of the Ethics Check.
2. Is it balanced? Is it fair to all concerned in the short term as well as the long term? Does it promote win-win relationships?
If Coach Paterno had really thought through the fairness question—if he had fully considered the trauma to the victims and their families—he might have realized that he needed to do more. He’s already made statements that he probably should have done more. The fairness question goes beyond the legal question and looks at the effect your decision will have on others.
3. How will it make you feel about yourself? Will it make you proud? Would you feel good if your decision was published in the newspapers? Would you feel good if your kids and grandkids knew about it?
Unethical behavior erodes self-esteem. That’s why you feel troubled when you make a decision that goes against your own innate sense of what’s right. As the legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden said, “There is no pillow as soft as a clear conscience.” Thinking through how you’d feel if your actions were published in the newspaper or if your kids found out about them can help you decide the right thing to do. I’m sure that if Paterno knew how this incident would dominate his reputation at the end of his career, he certainly would have done more.
This simple but powerful Ethics Check can help anyone—from world leaders to boards of directors to private citizens—make decisions that stand the test of time and result in the greatest good. When you look at all three aspects of the Ethics Check, you can see that in making their tough decision, the board of trustees at Penn State did the right thing.
There’s an important difference between delegating and abdicating. When you delegate to someone, you give them responsibility for something, but you stay in the information loop. Abdicating is when you give somebody responsibility and then you disappear and you’re not in the information loop. Then what happens? All of a sudden someone says, “Do you know what’s happening?” Now you have become the classic manager of all time; what I call the Seagull Manager. You fly in, make a lot of noise, dump on everybody, and fly out. Why do you do that? Because you didn’t know what was happening in the first place.
If you’re delegating, you’re turning over responsibility to someone else, but you’re still in the loop so you know at what point you might need to get involved again and maybe help in some way. But if you turn your back on the situation, you have abdicated and you are helpless. You become a seagull manager. And remember—people don’t like to be dumped on when you haven’t been around.
So delegate, don’t abdicate. People don’t mind you being in the information loop because then they can get your help when they need it.
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A lot of people ask me, “What’s the difference between leadership, management, and supervision?” Most people think it’s about where you are in the hierarchy—if you’re at the top, you’re a leader; if you’re in the middle, you’re a manager; and if you are closest to the people who are actually dealing with the customers, you’re in supervision.
I’d like to break the mold and forget about those labels. I believe all three are leadership roles. No matter whether you’re at the top, in the middle, or supervising people on the front lines, as a leader you first need to make sure that everybody is clear on goals. The first secret of The One Minute Manager is One Minute Goal Setting. All good performance starts with clear goals, which is the vision and direction part of leadership. The next thing you need to do is to help people accomplish those goals. That brings to mind the second and third secrets of The One Minute Manager. The second secret is One Minute Praising. After people are clear on what they are being asked to do, you need to wander around and see if you can catch them doing something right. Accent the positive and praise them. If someone does something wrong, but is a learner, don’t punish the person. Just say, “Maybe it wasn’t clear about what we were working on,” and redirect. However, if you are dealing with an experienced person who for some reason has a lousy attitude, give the person a One Minute Reprimand, which is the third secret of The One Minute Manager. That’s where you make clear what the person did wrong: “You didn’t get your report in on Friday, and I really needed it. Let me tell you how I feel – I’m really upset about it.” Be sure, though, that you always end with a reaffirmation: “The reason I’m upset is that you’re one of my best people and I always count on you for that.”
Every level of leadership starts with clear vision and direction and then moves to implementation. Remember that managers, supervisors, and CEOs are all leaders. Don’t let yourself get hung up on labels.
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This is a tough question that especially haunts younger leaders…
If you think you’re a leader and you turn around and nobody’s following, you know what? There’s probably some feedback there that you can learn from. Why aren’t they following? Because your leadership might be all about you. People want to follow someone who appreciates and cares about them, who thinks they are important. Are you involving your people? That’s what they want. They want to work with somebody who wants to work with them. If nobody’s following you, stop looking in the mirror and thinking that leadership is all about you. No—it’s out there. It’s with them. It’s encouraging them and supporting them and helping them and involving them. People love to follow leaders who share the responsibility of accomplishing goals. So look out there at your people. That’s where the action is. And if you take care of them, you know what? Next time you turn around, there might be a crowd.
People sometimes have a strange idea about what it means to be a leader, regardless of their field. Some merely “pose” as leaders because they are unsure how to lead effectively. Others may consider themselves to be naturally good leaders simply by virtue of their title or position, such as mother, store manager or lieutenant. To compound the problem, these people usually assume that everyone else also believes them to be good leaders merely because of their rank or title. The result can be insensitivity and a lack of consideration for those being supervised. Such an attitude can be death for any constructive leadership attempt. Following are two characteristics of a good leader or manager that illustrate this theory:
First, consider the act of listening. God gave us two ears and one mouth. This ratio of personal communication instruments should give us a clue about the proportion of time that each should be used! The hallmark of a good leader is the ability to listen to others, no matter what they want to say. It’s amazing how often this simple truth still mystifies leaders who think that their position means they should talk first and ask questions later, if ever. Many leaders forget how to be humble and recognize that they don’t know everything. In reality, they often have a great deal to learn about those they supervise as well as the job those people are doing. For some reason, they confuse their job title with some sort of overall expertise, which makes them overbearing and foolish in the eyes of their subordinates.
A second point concerns respect. I personally think it is a very important point to remember. Specifically, managers should treat those closest to them as though they were strangers. Let me explain that statement. Because we have people in our lives with whom we become very familiar, either at the workplace or at home, it is very easy to slip into a rather casual attitude toward these people who know us best. The result is sometimes an outward appearance of a lack of respect or love, expressed by how we speak or behave. When we are upset, busy or unhappy, it is very easy for us to snap at those closest to us. We may shout or become nasty or insulting simply because someone is nearby. However, if the telephone rings with a stranger on the line, we can immediately switch to a sweet, kind and considerate persona. Why? Because we would never insult a stranger with our surly attitude. This just doesn’t make sense. Why should you abuse your colleague, close friend, or child just because that person is nearby when a bad mood strikes? The answer is: You shouldn’t. Don’t beat up people emotionally just because you know they’re familiar with your mood swings.
Remember, the people you are closest to, at work and at home, deserve to be listened to and respected. Do you lead this way? Does your boss?
