Servant Leadership

Let Your Team Know You Appreciate Them

/ Ken Blanchard

Working in teams is more common—and more crucial to organizational success—than it’s ever been. At our company, we define a team as two or more persons who come together for a common purpose and who are mutually accountable for results.

No matter whether teammates are face to face, virtual, or some mixture of the two, members of a high-performance team have the following mindsets in common:

  • They require clarity in communication above all else.
  • They thrive on trust among members and leaders.
  • They aren’t afraid of conflict because they know it is necessary for growth.
  • Ultimately, a high-performance team essentially leads itself.

If you have ever been part of a high-performance team, you know what a fulfilling experience it can be. Just for the fun of it, I referenced Simple Truths of Leadership: 52 Ways to Be a Servant Leader and Build Trust—my new book coauthored by Randy Conley­—and found that the benefits of leading or working with a great team are featured in two of our Simple Truths.

SIMPLE TRUTH #19: “No one of us is as smart as all of us.”—Eunice Parisi-Carew and Don Carew

Servant leaders realize leadership is about working alongside their people, sharing information and keeping lines of communication open. When that happens, people get to know each other’s strengths and build on them to help their team perform at the highest level.

SIMPLE TRUTH #36: “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” —Maya Angelou

As a trusted servant leader, when you establish a sincere, caring environment through your words and actions, you can be assured people on your team will always remember you for the way you made them feel.

To make these commonsense truths common practice:

  • Show your teammates you care through friendly camaraderie and acts of kindness.
  • Ask for help from one another when making decisions or trying to find solutions to problems.
  • Encourage your teammates to catch each other doing things right and praise progress. People never tire of being told they’re doing a good job. It’s good for motivation, morale, and momentum.

I have been a member of a fabulous team for the past three months—the folks who are working together on marketing and promotion for Simple Truths of Leadership. Our team fits the definition of having a common purpose and being accountable for results, and we all share the four mindsets I mentioned above. Each person is a self-directed achiever with special skills and unique talents. What a joy it is to be part of this team!

So please allow me to take this opportunity to thank the extraordinary Simple Truths marketing and promotion team. First, our internal team at Blanchard:

  • Marketing leads: Randy Conley, David Witt, Vicki Stanford, Debbie Blanchard
  • Media Team (videos, podcasts, blog posts, articles): Michael Bowles, Adrian Henke, Chad Gordon, Renee Broadwell, Lisa Boyle, Evelyn De La Garza, Cheryl Horton, Richard Andrews, Mike Ortmeier
  • Social Media Team: Stefanie Hincks, Martha Lawrence, Andrew Broschart, Kayla Ratz, Madeleine Blanchard, Sidney Hernandez

Second, our external team—our publisher and promotional partners:

So here’s a big shout out to all my teammates for your hard work these past months getting our book and its important message out to into the world! Each of you has made such a positive difference. Thank you so much.

Whether you are a team member among peers or a team leader leading direct reports, it’s important to let others on your team know you appreciate them. So don’t forget to show appreciation to the folks you work with. It only takes a minute to give people a much-needed boost—and it will make you feel good, too.

Simple Truths of Leadership Book Coming February 1!

/ Ken Blanchard
Ken Blanchard and Randy Conley

I’m thrilled to announce that my new book, Simple Truths of Leadership: 52 Ways to Be a Servant Leader and Build Trust, will be available on February 1. My longtime colleague and expert on trust, Randy Conley, is my coauthor. I’m especially excited about this book for several reasons:

  • Randy Conley. Randy has been writing and speaking about the importance of trust in leadership for many years. His expertise and passion around the topic—along with the fact that he is a lot of fun to work with—has made him a dream coauthor. Randy and I firmly believe that servant leadership and trust go hand in hand.
  • The Message. For years, we’ve wondered why commonsense leadership isn’t common practice. We know how much more enjoyable it is for leaders to work side by side with their people—serving them, empowering them, and allowing them to bring their brains to work—than to keep looking over everyone’s shoulders and questioning every decision. To help drive home this point, Randy and I share 52 commonsense philosophies we believe will resonate with leaders and show how each one can be applied in your workplace.
  • The Format. Although Simple Truths of Leadership contains more than 140 pages of time-tested lessons on the best way to lead, it’s not a weighty book you’ll need to read for hours on end to benefit. The book was designed so readers can enjoy learning and then applying what they’ve learned bit by bit. It’s a fun, easy read that features 52 simple leadership truths, defines them, and provides suggestions for how to make common sense common practice.
  • The Discussion Guide. Whether you belong to a business book club at work, enjoy talking with a friend or two about leadership strategies, or prefer independent study at your own pace, you’ll appreciate the discussion guide located at the end of the book. It’s filled with questions that will challenge you to delve into your ideas and beliefs about leadership.

I’ve been saying this for a long time, but it’s truer now than ever before: the world is in desperate need of a different leadership role model. Trusted servant leadership is not quaint, and it’s not nice to have—it’s critically necessary for every industry, organization, and leader working to manage the immense changes still happening in the way business is done.

We hope Simple Truths of Leadership provokes your thinking and brings you closer to the trusted servant leader we know you can be!

Simple Truths of Leadership: 52 Ways to Be a Servant Leader and Build Trust is available for preorder at your favorite online book retailer.

Now More Than Ever: A Leadership Vision for America

/ Ken Blanchard

Several years ago, I was struck by how many people were expressing disappointment with what was going on in Washington. No matter which side of the political fence they were on, people agreed that special interests and partisan gridlock were hurting our nation’s ability to govern itself.

It occurred to me that four leadership secrets I’d learned over the years could lead to effective solutions to the problems in our nation’s capital. In response, I wrote a white paper entitled “A Leadership Vision for America: Rebuilding a Divided House.”

Recently, Don Miller—the bestselling author and creator of StoryBrand—was inspired by my four secrets and became determined to share my thinking with key people in Washington. Drawing on his extensive contacts, he and our Blanchard colleague, Sheri Lyons, were able to present my white paper and discuss its ideas with key people in the office of the vice president in Washington, DC.

You may remember the 12-part blog series I wrote from June 2012 – November 2012 about those leadership secrets. Here they are in a nutshell:

  • Create a Compelling Vision. We no longer know what business we are in as a country (our purpose), what we are trying to accomplish (our picture of the future) or what should drive our behavior as a country (our values). The Bible says that “where there is no vision, the people perish.” That doesn’t sound promising! We need a big picture vision we can all agree upon.
  • Treat citizens as business partners. Most of us are in the dark about the bills that are being passed and generally what’s going on besides chaos. We need greater transparency in government.
  • Invite every sector of society to the table. There are several sectors in our nation. In the public sector we have government, education, and the military. In the private sector we have business, the media, and the arts. In the social sector we have families, faith-based organizations, and nonprofits. Right now, the only two big voices are government and business; the other sectors are left out of the process. We need all voices to be heard and considered.
  • Elect servant leaders. Servant leaders do not focus on winning. Instead, they focus on the well-being of the communities they serve. Until we elect representatives who put service ahead of ego and ideology, our government won’t improve.

In the years since I wrote “A Leadership Vision for America,” disappointment with Washington has turned to embarrassment. We certainly need some different thinking if we are going to rebuild a divided house. In the meantime, let’s pray that representatives in our nation’s capital start caring more about helping America regain its reputation as “a shining city upon a hill” than getting re-elected.

 

The Unselfishness of Love in Action

/ Ken Blanchard

Time for Part 4 of my “Elements of Love” series based on Henry Drummond’s nine elements of love from his book The Greatest Thing in the World.

Drummond’s sixth element is Unselfishness. Here’s what he writes about it:

“Love as unselfishness never seeks its own to the harm or disadvantage of others, or with the neglect of others. It often neglects its own for the sake of others; it prefers their welfare, satisfaction, and advantage to its own; and it ever prefers good of the community to its private advantage. It would not advance, aggrandize, enrich, or gratify itself at the cost and damage of the public.”

I interpret Drummond’s definition of unselfishness in many ways as being related to humility. It’s all about moving from a focus on yourself to concern about helping others. This is really a journey in life. How many of you have ever known a baby who came home from the hospital asking “How can I help around the house?” No, they’re screaming for what they want! Humans are naturally selfish beings. Being unselfish is a learned behavior.

My father modeled unselfishness for me when I was very young. He graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1924. Since World War I had ended and people thought that was the war to end all wars, the Navy didn’t think they needed as many officers at that time. As a result, my father was released after his senior cruise. In January 1925 he entered Harvard Business School with a major in finance and then headed to Wall Street to begin his career.

In 1940, when I was one year old, he was about to be made a vice president of National City Bank. Instead, he came home and said to my mother, “I quit my job today.”

My mother said, “To do what?”

“I rejoined the Navy.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me!”

My father responded, “Remember when we got married, I said that if the country ever got in trouble, I owed it something. Hitler is crazy and pretty soon the Japanese will be in this war.”

So my father went from being a potential bank vice president to a second lieutenant at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. When Pearl Harbor happened in December 1941, it looked like he was going to stay there because he was 40 years old with no naval experience. But that wasn’t my father’s style—so he called one of his classmates from the Academy who was a top person at the Bureau of Naval Personnel in Washington and said, “What do you have for an old fart with no experience? I’ve got to get in the action.”

His buddy said, “Let me see what I can find and I’ll get back to you.” A few days later he called my dad and said, “All I have for a guy with your experience is heading up a suicide group going into the Marshall Islands.”

My dad immediately said “You’ve got your man!” Of course, he didn’t tell my mother what his friend had said. He was given the command of twelve LCI (Landing Craft, Infantry) leading the first wave into the Marshall Islands. Well over half of his men were killed or wounded. I have a picture of me at five years old in a sailor suit saluting him as he got off the train, returning home after being away for more than two years.

All this to say my dad was the most unselfish person I have ever met. How about you? Who models or has modeled unselfishness for you in your life? Remember—just because we were all born selfish doesn’t mean we can’t master unselfish behavior as adults!

Refiring Spiritually: Working for the Common Good

/ Ken Blanchard / 2 Comments

Japanese meditation or zen garden simplicity , calmness and balaIn our new book Refire! Don’t Retire: Make the Rest of Your Life the Best of Your Life, Dr. Morton Shaevitz and I talk about four keys. The first key, Refiring Emotionally, is about creating connection; the second key, Refiring Intellectually, refers to lifelong learning; and the third key, Refiring Physically, is about keeping active to improve your mental outlook.

The fourth key is Refiring Spiritually. When I begin to talk about this topic, people often assume it’s going to be about religion. But I’m actually referring to the universal sense of the word spiritual as the opposite of material things. Refiring Spiritually is about getting in touch with something important outside of yourself—looking outward instead of inward. I believe when people have an opportunity to focus outside themselves, they will work toward a higher purpose. After all, it’s hard to become stale, bored, or dissatisfied with your work or your life when you are doing something that serves the greater good.

As the Chief Spiritual Officer of our company, I leave a morning message every day to praise and inspire people. I want everyone in our company to hear when someone has accomplished a big goal or when someone needs a little help with achieving something personally or professionally. Leaders who provide opportunities for giving and spiritual growth help people understand that it’s not all about them.

For example, we have a self-organized team called Blanchard for Others that donates time and funds to help other charities in the community. In another program we call Blanchard Gives Back, every year we set aside a percentage of our profits and allow each of our people to designate a portion to go to a charity of their choice. We also encourage employees to take up to 40 paid hours a year to donate their time to charitable organizations. Do our people feel good about the difference they are making in the world? You bet they do.

In our book, Morton and I share a code of conduct that I think can help you find ways for your people to grow spiritually, too. Encourage your people to think about these statements from the perspective of their own working environment:

  • Be aware—See the big picture
  • Be forgiving—Give up being right
  • Be grateful—Count your blessings
  • Be accepting—Realize you’re not in total control
  • Be humble—Realize you’re not the center of the universe

It’s amazing what people can do when they work toward something bigger than themselves. Encouraging people to focus on the greater good works in our company—and I think it can work in yours as well.

RefireTo learn more about Refire! Don’t Retire: Make the Rest of Your Life the Best of Your Life, visit the book homepage where you can download a free chapter.