Workplace Culture

Do you think of yourself as a leader?

/ Ken Blanchard / 2 Comments

Some of you might know that I’m good friends with Colleen Barrett, who stepped down as President of Southwest Airlines two years ago.  It’s interesting – at Southwest Airlines, they say that all of their people are leaders, including those who don’t have management positions. It’s because they think everyone can have a positive impact on others. That’s consistent with the way we at Blanchard define leadership—it’s an influence process. Anytime you’re trying to influence the thinking, beliefs, or development of someone else, you’re engaging in leadership. I think the reason people like the title of The One Minute Manager better than if it had been called The One Minute Leader was that a lot of people don’t think of themselves as leaders. When I do sessions, sometimes I’ll ask big groups of managers, “How many of you think of yourself as a leader?” and less than one-third of them raise their hands. Somehow they think the word leader is reserved for high-level positions like Presidents and CEOs. In reality, when I ask folks to list influential people in their lives who have impacted them the most, they very seldom mention managers or supervisors at work. They usually talk about parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, coaches, or teachers. So there are life-role leadership roles as well as organizational leadership roles. It’s an interesting thing.

So I want every one of you to remember that you are a leader. Each of you has the ability to influence other people, whether it’s a coworker, a kid at home, a spouse, or a friend. Because anytime you attempt to influence the thinking, beliefs, or development of someone else, you are engaging in leadership. So we’re all leaders. It’s just a challenge to get people to think that way. So be good to yourself. Be a good leader this week. Impact people in a positive way for the greater good!

Don’t be a Passive Victim

/ Ken Blanchard / 6 Comments

There is a Positive Psychology course that Margie and I have been taking that is really interesting. We ran into a guy named Nathaniel Branden, who wrote about the six pillars of self-confidence. His big theme is nobody’s coming. If you are thinking about someone who is going to get you out of a situation, and you’re waiting for them to take all the action, the reality is that people can do things, but nobody is really coming. What are you going to do?  One thing that’s interesting is the difference between passive victims—people who are in a situation and immediately go to self-pity—“This is really tough.” Then they want to point fingers and blame other people. This leads to frustration, and eventually anger, and things kind of spiral down that way. This is the passive victim that somehow thinks their fate is in somebody else’s hands, versus the active agent who takes action—“Okay, this is tough, but what am I going to do? What can I do in my area? What ideas do I have?”  They are willing to take responsibility, which is being able to respond, and give suggestions that will help. They have a feeling of confidence—“Somehow we’re going to make it through this thing together.” This leads to hope and optimism. We all need to take action—what can we do to help?  Let’s work on responsibility. I have confidence and hope. What is it that makes some people be able to pull out of tough times? It’s all about resiliency. So remember—we’re all responsible somewhat for the condition we’re in. So be an active agent, not a passive victim. Life is a very special occasion. Don’t miss it with a lot of negative energy.

Excellence

/ Ken Blanchard / 2 Comments

Listen to this definition of excellence: Excellence is the result of caring more than others think is wise, risking more than others think is safe, dreaming more than others think is practical, and expecting more than others think is possible. I just think that is a really interesting thing  –  think about yourself and how you are doing in a caring scale, how you are doing in the risking scale, how you are doing in the dreaming scale, and how you are doing on the expecting scale.  I really think that’s a wonderful definition of excellence. Be excellent today – care, risk, and dream and expect big.

Speaking of excellence… At the University of San Diego, my wife Margie and I teach a course as part of the Master of Science in Executive Leadership program. Our course is “Determining Your Leadership Point of View.” Your leadership point of view is really figuring out who you are as a leader, and sharing it.

There are seven aspects of it:

  1. Who are the role models you had early in life that impacted your belief about leadership? Most people don’t talk about bosses; they talk about their mother or father, uncle or cousin, teacher or coach—what we call “lifelong leaders.”
  2. What’s your mission in life? What are you trying to accomplish?
  3. What are your values – what’s going to guide your behavior?
  4. Based on those three things, what’s your leadership point of view—what are your beliefs about leading and motivating people?
  5. What are your expectations of others?
  6. What do your people expect of you?
  7. How are you going to walk your talk? How are you going to model what you say you stand for?

It’s a fascinating process. We discuss this in Chapter 15 of Leading at a Higher Level. So if you want to find out more about that, get a copy of that book and read that chapter. If any of you haven’t developed a leadership point of view, I would like to challenge you to develop it. Then sometime, maybe in the first part of next year, sit down with your people and share your leadership point of view with them. Because it really does clarify expectations and who you are. It’s not about weakness; it’s about sharing who you are so other people can share who they are with you. It’s a wonderful process. And remember, it’s not just supervisors that should have a leadership point of view—all of you are leaders in some aspect of your life. You’re a leader as a spouse, as a father or mother, or as a volunteer. Anytime you try to influence the behavior of someone else, you’re engaging in leadership. Where did you get your image of leadership? I challenge everybody to develop and be able to share their leadership point of view.

How to Deal with Problems

/ Ken Blanchard / 4 Comments

This morning I was listening to Tony Robbins. I went and got a tape of Tony after being with him recently. He was saying a lot of people acquaint happiness with having no problems. He says that’s crazy. It reminded me of one of Norman Vincent Peale’s favorite stories. Norman was walking down the street in New York City when he ran into a friend of his and said, “How are you doing?”  Norman thought it was just a casual greeting, but the guy took it as an invitation and he lay down all of his problems at Norman’s feet. After about twenty minutes, he was finished and he said, “Norman, if you can solve all of my problems, I’ll give you a check for $5,000 to give to your favorite charity.” Norman said that he had never turned down such a challenge, so he ruminated and he cogitated and he agitated and he came up with a solution. He said, “I was just at an organization the other day where people have no problems. Would you like to go there?” And his friend said, “That’s exactly where I want be.” And Norman said, “I’ll take you there tomorrow. It’s called Woodlawn Cemetery. The only people I know who have no problems are dead.”  Problems are a way of life, so if you equate your happiness to not having any problems, you’re going to be naïve for the rest of your life. Happy people know how to deal with problems. They don’t get bogged down with problems. They solve problems. They work on problems. But they don’t let problems take over their life. You know, sometimes you put a problem on your back and it drags you down. What you have to do is to say, “How do I solve this?”  Happiness and problems go together. So as Tony said, it’s your attitude—it’s what you bring to a problem—that can result in a positive solution, So if you have any problems today, great! You’ll probably have a happier day.

Master Your Moods

/ Ken Blanchard

I’ve been reading a book by Mick Ukleja, who is one of my good buddies. It’s called The Ethics Challenge: Strengthening Your Integrity in a Greedy World. He says that one of the ways to keep your integrity high is to harness your moods. He says, interestingly, that a study of red-light violations shows a strong relationship between feeling under pressure and breaking the law. Forty-one percent of the people who go through red lights are doing it on their way to work or to school. But only nine percent of the red light violations were committed by people on vacation. He says, “A basic human frailty is that we allow our moods to master us rather than making sure we master them. You’re probably a lot like us. Sometimes we’ve known what to do, how to do it, and that we ought to do it, but we didn’t do it. You discover that your good intentions can be hijacked by your feelings. We speed through a red light, we cut off another driver, we procrastinate, we shut our minds to others because we’re in a bad mood. It’s easy, especially in pressure situations, to let our moods master us. So we really need to harness our moods. When you feel like you’re in a mood, go walk around the building. Go walk around your house. Get yourself back under control so that you can do what you know is right.”  So don’t be moody. And if you are, recognize it and get it back under control. That’s a good thought for today.