Learning Leadership the Hard Way

Innovator and leader, Dov Frohman asserts that leadership must be learned the hard way—by doing it. In Leadership the Hard Way, Frohman likens the situation confronting today’s leaders to a pilot flying through a thunderstorm.

“It is precisely these forces of increased turbulence that have fueled the growing preoccupation with leadership. In such an environment, leadership isn’t a luxury. It’s a matter of survival! Yet the very forces that make leadership more critical also make teaching it virtually impossible. What it takes to lead an organization through that turbulence isn’t simple or straightforward. There is just too much uncertainty. And it takes personal courage. You don’t really know what you will do at the moment of truth. No matter how much training you have (or how many leadership books you have read), nothing quite prepares you for that moment when you enter the eye of the storm!”

He believes this means embracing turbulence and crisis, not avoiding it. It means “flying through the thunderstorm.” While there are basic principles to leadership, Frohman says “there are no simple recipes. Until you have lived it, you don’t really know how to do it.”

If you are going to learn to lead, you must develop a “particular frame of mind, a distinctive way of perceiving and acting. You must free yourself from habitual ways of looking at things, cultivate an independent and questioning perspective, and be ready to embrace alternative and counterproductive points of view.”

Frohman offers four resources that aspiring leaders can use to learn how to lead:

1. Stay True to Your Passion. No leader can be effective who does not identify 100 percent with the organization’s mission. Because this identification between leader and organization is so important, it’s critical for you as an aspiring leader to identify your passion – what really drives you – and to stay true to that passion through the course of your career. If you do, you will find that this passion is a powerful resource for guiding you through the challenges of leadership the hard way.

2. Get An Invisible Mentor. No aspiring leader has to wait to be assigned a mentor. Choose and invisible mentor, someone whose behavior you study from afar. Choose someone whose leadership style you relate to and admire. Study that person closely.

3. Become a Reflective Practitioner. A term coined by organizational theorist Donald Schön in his 1983 book, a reflective practitioner is one who systematically reflects on one’s own experiences. It’s the kind of learning that happens in the moment. Build systematic reflection into your everyday activity.

4. Learn From Your People. A close relationship with your people can give you a tremendous resource for bootstrapping you r leadership capabilities. There are a variety of ways to develop that close bond – be present in the organization, don’t be afraid to expose one’s own mistakes to the organization, welcome dissent, and use your own behavior strategically. Aspiring leaders should get in the habit of thinking of their actions as a form of communication.

Posted by Michael McKinney at 04:01 PM
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In Leadership, Context Is Everything

In leadership, context is everything. As we have said before, leadership hasn’t changed—the context we operate in has changed. Russell Palmer’s book Ultimate Leadership is on target. He believes that “the principles of leadership can be effective in a wide variety of situations, but often they need to be applied in a very different manner depending on the circumstances and the constituent groups involved.”

This of course, makes perfect sense, but what makes no sense is how often it isn’t applied. We tend to plow along the way we have always done things without regard to our current situation. Palmer writes, “Success or failure can often depend on modifying leadership styles to suit a different context.”

While there is no single style of leadership that works in every situation, there are basic principles of leadership that apply universally. Palmer explains some of those principles such as integrity, execution, good judgment, innovation, communication and people skills among others.

The core of the book provides practical, well-heeled advice on applying basic leadership principles in a variety of contexts. He discusses execution and the pros and cons of specific contexts such as top down, crisis leadership, partnership of peers, academic, entrepreneurial organizations, non-profits, government, and the military.

He includes a great deal of his personal experience and interviews with thoughtful people in each of these areas. When leading “partners and peers who have relatively narrow specializations,” Palmer points out, “leaders need a broad view. In other words, they must be generalists who know a good deal about many things. One of the problems in today’s society is that we develop more and more people with narrowly specialized knowledge…. The best subject from an educational standpoint for a leader is the study of history. Reading biographies is also particularly helpful…. The best education, for instance, for a businessperson is a strong liberal arts undergraduate program and then a graduate business program.”

In the end, he concludes, it’s all about people.

Posted by Michael McKinney at 12:12 PM
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Good Followers Make the Best Leaders

In case you didn’t know it by now, let me just say, followership is the crucible of leadership. There is no better way to learn leadership than by being under someone else—leading from the second chair. As ironic as that may sound, it’s true. Learning to lead under someone else provides you with the opportunity (the necessity) to learn to lead without coercion. You learn to let your leadership speak for itself—authentically.

Yet we still, as Barbara Kellerman states in her important new book, Followership, overestimate the importance of leadership and underestimate the importance of followership. She argues that, “thinking leadership without thinking followership is not merely misleading, it is mistaken.” Why? The context of leadership has changed.

First, leaders have been demystified, in part by modern media, which demands grist for its mill 24/7; and in part by the modern culture, in which figures of authority are no longer exalted or even so much respected. Second, because the line between the leader and the led has been blurred, the led have been emboldened.

She points out that much of this is cyclical. I would agree. It’s hard for human beings to find balance. Consequently, we continually find ourselves reacting to someone else’s excessive behavior.

While we have spent a great deal of time distinguishing between types of leaders, we have not done the same with followers. Kellerman spends a good portion of the book explaining followers. She describes four types: Bystanders, Participants, Activists, and Diehards. She writes: “Followers are us. This does not, of course, mean that all of us follow all of the time—sometimes we lead. But all of us follow some of the time. It’s the human condition.”

She advocates that followers not try to become something else, but more importantly that they change their response to their rank, their response to their superiors and to the situation at hand. She emphasizes:

• Followers constitute a group that, although amorphous, nevertheless has members with interests in common.
• While followers by definition lack authority, at least in relation to their superiors, they do not by definition lack power and influence.
• Followers can be agents of change.
• Followers ought to support good leadership and thwart bad leadership.
• Followers who do something are nearly always preferred to followers who do nothing.
• Followers can create change by circumventing their leaders and joining with other followers instead.

What we need now is a Followership Part 2, where it is explained to followers just how one should follow. We do a disservice to followers – as we have with leaders – by requiring no character development and self-discipline. When we learn to develop better followers, we will get better leaders.

Posted by Michael McKinney at 10:06 AM
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Insultants Wanted

We need people who will tell us like it is in the right way. Often we don’t like to hear what they have to say but we should never discourage them. Frequently, leaders are the last to know. Keith McFarland author of The Breakthrough Company, calls these straight-shooters insultants (inside consultants). He describes them as those people “willing to ask the tough questions that cause a company to think critically about its fundamental assumptions. The value of insultants is that they will go to great lengths to get their companies to reevaluate a position or adapt to a changing environment.”

If you think that you welcome these people, think again. A survey showed that while 90 percent of CEOs believed that their companies regularly implemented ideas that the CEO initially didn’t like, only 60 percent of their direct reports agreed.

McFarland reports that people tend to differ to authority and rank because they feel that they must know better. “But often authority figures are wrong, and if an organization doesn’t have a strong insultant culture, errors are likely to be propagated throughout the company.”

If you feel you are an insultant, don't think you begin by charging in like a bull in a china shop. There is a right way and a wrong way to do things. You are trying to make the leader successful, not trying to show how smart you are or place the spotlight on yourself. Good insultants must learn to excel at relationships based on genuine care for others. McFarland offers these tips that one would do well to heed:

• Be Empathetic. Yours isn’t the only point of view. Understand where others are coming from.
• Don’t Attack. Finger pointing is not acceptable. “The most powerful tool in the insultant’s arsenal is the question—and knowing how to ask the right question at the right time.”
• Don’t Triangulate. “Most people find talking behind someone’s back to be insulting—so effective insultants avoid it at all costs.”
• Don’t Kid Yourself—Your Real Motivation Will Be Obvious. “If you mean to embarrass, demean, or criticize another person, while you might succeed in that goal, you will have unnecessarily sacrificed any opportunity you had to contribute change.”
• Be a Grown-Up. “An insultant’s job is to make sure an issue gets a thorough vetting, not to convince everyone to see the world his or her way.”
• Be Assertive and Persistent. “Not everyone will be receptive to the hard truth, so an insultant must be both assertive and persistent, returning to the issue as often as he or she thinks is necessary to get the point across.

As a leader, you gain nothing by not knowing what people are thinking. People with ideas and challenges to your way of doing things are not necessarily being insubordinate. They are practicing leadership. Leaders can encourage a candid environment be celebrating productive failure, involving people enough in the issues that they can make intelligent contributions, focusing on both employees and customers that have left the company, and using humor to encourage frankness and trust.

Posted by Michael McKinney at 01:47 PM
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Charles Handy: Are Leaders Born or Made?

Charles Handy, in another thought-provoking distillation of his thoughts, Myself and Other More Important Matters, ponders the idea of getting to the bottom of who we really are and the difficulty of seeing ourselves as others see us. Throughout our lives we all play many parts and in a sense, become different people. Can we become something different from what we see ourselves as being to this point? Can we become a leader? Handy weighs in on this:

One of the debates in psychology is whether we have a core identity that is sitting there in our inner self, waiting to be revealed, or whether our identity only evolves over time. One of the perennial questions that bug organizations is a derivation of that debate – are leaders born or made? The truth, as in most things, is probably a bit of both. The battery of personality tests that purport to show whether we are introvert or extravert, whether we like structured situations or a bit of chaos, are based on the idea that our real identities are formed by early adulthood and that a good life is about finding situations that fir our characteristics. There is some intuitive truth on this….We can’t escape our genes.

On the other hand, we do develop as we learn from experience and it does feel as though we are doing more than revealing our inherited selves. We are perpetually filling out our identities which get firmer and more consistent as we age and begin to discover the spheres of life that fit us best.

Herminia Ibarra of INSEAD … argues that a successful life does not mean knowing what you want to do before you act, but the other way around. Only by acting, experimenting, questioning and acting again do you find out who and what you are. That is certainly my experience. Our identity is party inherited, partly shaped by early experiences, but it is not fully formed until we have explored more of the possibilities.

Leadership is a possibility we can all explore. It is something we can develop if we choose to. What combination of strengths and weaknesses we have to manage will of course vary from person to person, as we are all different; we are born with different genes. And this is as it should be. Leadership development is a highly personal experience that requires self-knowledge and a willingness to confront those areas where need to improve that will make us effective with people. The traits that will make you a better leader are the same traits that will give you the capacity for success in all areas of your life. Above all, our leadership is reflected in our character.

At the same time, leadership training offers the opportunity to examine our thinking in an environment where mentors are available to help us to interpret what we find and guide us to the appropriate changes we need to make in our lives. But no training will, of and by itself, make one a leader. That’s an inside job.

Posted by Michael McKinney at 08:22 AM
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Qualities of Leadership Found in Wordsworth

English poet, William Wordsworth (1770-1850) wrote in the 1815 edition of his works, what has become a famous preface simply entitled, Preface to Poems. He begins by listing the six “powers requisite for the production of poetry.” Interestingly enough, they make a good list of qualities relating to the practice of leadership.

First is Observation and Description. That is “the ability to observe with accuracy things as they are in themselves, and with fidelity to describe them.” Also, to see reality “unmodified by any passion or feeling existing in the mind of the describer.”

Secondly is Sensibility. The more refined our senses are, “the wider will be the range” of our perceptions” and “the more will he be incited to observe objects, both as they exist in themselves and as re-acted upon by his own mind.”

Third is Reflection. This quality, makes the leader “acquainted with the value of actions, images, thoughts, and feelings; and assists the sensibility in perceiving their connection with each other.”

Fourth is Imagination and Fancy. This is the ability “to modify, to create, and to associate.”

Fifth is Invention. A quality by which a plan is made “composed out of materials supplied by observation” and are “most fitted to do justice” to the vision.

And finally, is Judgment. That is “to decide how and where, and in what degree, each of these faculties ought to be exerted; so that the less shall not be sacrificed to the greater; nor the greater, slighting the less, arrogate, to its own injury, more than its due.”

Posted by Michael McKinney at 10:34 AM
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Your Leadership Brand

According to Dave Ulrich and Norm Smallwood, leaders must live the image they want to portray to their customers (followers) and investors. That is their leadership brand. They write in Leadership Brand, “Leadership brand occurs when leaders’ knowledge, skills, and values focus employee behavior on the factors that target the issues that customers care about. Leadership brand is an extension of an organization’s brand identity because it shows up in the behaviors and results of leaders throughout the firm in a manner that bridges employee and customer commitment.” In others words, leaders must walk the talk.

But it goes beyond that. It is a philosophy that should permeate the whole organization in order to build leaders for future roles in that organization in alignment with that organizations leadership brand. It is something that is done at all levels by all leaders. Leaders who produce leaders “build a leadership brand by cultivating competence, sharing decision making and authority, imparting information, and distributing rewards.”

Organizationally, the process begins by asking not “What do I want to be known for?” but, “What do we want our customers to know us for?” Once determined, living that brand becomes a serious matter; one that should be taken with careful consideration. Leadership comes with a price. Leadership requires a great deal from leaders as their behavior is carefully watched and observed by others. The needs of the customers/followers come first. Accountability is not an option. This applies to any organization. Just ask Tom Haggard or Bob Nardelli. The higher up you go the more intense it becomes. The authors quote Gary Hamel who put it this way:

Authenticity is a huge multiplier of individual impact. And, at it core, authenticity is not about being true to oneself (whatever that means), it is about being true to the interests of those whose lives you want to improve and change. Mercenaries, careerists, and egomaniacs are me-centered. Great leaders are you-centered. (Nicely put Gary!)

What about a personal leadership brand? They take a chapter to outline this question. It begins with the question, “What do I want to be known for?” But it doesn’t stop there. Ever results oriented (Results-Based Leadership, 1999), the authors say that that question needs to be linked to a desired result so that your brand will endure. A brand statement should read something like this: “I want to be known for __________, __________, and __________, so that I can deliver __________ and __________ at work and __________ and __________ outside work.”

You then need to ask yourself if your leadership brand aligns with the organization’s leadership brand. If not, something needs to give.

Understanding the identity and needs of those you're leading is the driving idea behind the leadership brand. They conclude:

First, focus on the outside in instead of the inside out. Outside in means that customer (and investor) expectations should frame, focus, and influence leader behaviors. When leader know and do things that add value to customers, they are more likely to be doing the right thing. Second, focus not only on the personal attributes of a noble or successful leader but on leadership, or the cadre of leaders within you company. Based on these two principles, a leadership brand bridges the firm’s identity in the mind of those outside (customers and investors) with the behavior of its employees.

Posted by Michael McKinney at 09:56 AM
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The Art of Winning Others Over

If there is any secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from that person’s angle as well as your own.

—Henry Ford

In The Art of Woo or "Winning Others Over," authors Richard Shell and Mario Moussa, make the case that wooing is one of the most important skills in a manager's repertoire. Research would seem to support this claim as people with strong social skills have been shown to command higher fees and salaries than equally talented but less socially adept colleagues. And they are no doubt more pleasant to be around.

Winning others over is an art. It is the ability to sell “your ideas to people within the context of ongoing, important relationships.” They maintain, “If you want to be a player in your organization, a successful partner with your customers or suppliers, a leader in your community, or even a good parent, you need to woo people to your point of view by putting your ideas across in convincing, relationship-friendly ways.”

To that end, they remind us that the idea in persuasion is not to defeat the other person but to win them over. The place to begin is in understanding your own persuasion style. They have identified five types—The Driver, The Promoter, The commander, The Chess Player and The Advocate—and have included a Persuasion Style Assessment to get you started. Whatever your preferred style tends to be, the idea is to strike a balance between what the authors identify as the "self-oriented" perspective-where focus is on the persuader's credibility and point of view-and the "other-oriented" perspective, which focuses on the audience's needs, perceptions and feelings.

They have created a systematic strategy or Woo Process, to aid you in skillfully getting your point across. In brief they are:

Step 1: Survey Your Situation, that is
• Forge and polish your idea,
• Map the decision process you face by understanding the social networks within the organization,
• Assess your persuasion styles, and
• Confirm your own level of passion for the proposal.

Step 2: Confront the Five Barriers, including
• Negative relationships,
• Poor credibility,
• Communication mismatches,
• Contrary belief systems, and
• Conflicting Interests.
Then transform these five barriers into assets.

Step 3: Make Your Pitch by
• Presenting solid evidence and arguments and
• Using devices to give your idea a personal touch.

Step 4: Secure Your Commitments by dealing with politics at both
• The individual level and
• Within the organization.

They note that authority plays a background role in most interactions and while it can be useful in some situations, it should not be relied upon especially where there are multiple stakeholders. They say, “The formal roles people occupy are the starting positions for a complex dance of organizational influence.” They also note that actually, the higher up you go in an organization, the less authority comes into play and the more important relationship and persuasion skills become.

Posted by Michael McKinney at 09:03 AM
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Making Leadership Development Part of Organizational Strategy

Michael Maccoby states in his book The Leaders We Need, that “In any business, good leadership may be the most essential competitive advantage a company can have.” Linking leadership and strategy then, would seem to be an organizational imperative.

According to a recent study outlined in The Leadership Advantage by Robert Fulmer and Jared Bleak, leadership is the essential element in the success of any strategic change effort. “Indeed, no strategy is good enough to succeed without strong leadership.” They found that successful organizations built a strong link between business strategy and leadership-development strategy.

The link between business strategy and leadership-development strategy is not haphazard, but specific and deliberate and omnipresent. The link is part of the philosophy of the organization that “permeates all organizational levels and is applicable to all employees.” In this way, an organization can keep the leadership-development strategy relevant to each business unit and to the overall business strategy in general. For example:

PepsiCo’s leadership-development strategy is grounded in the belief that strong leaders are needed to be successful in the marketplace. This belief is fundamental to PepsiCo’s two-pronged HR approach, which includes a career-growth model and a talent-management model for leadership development. This two pronged approach aligns with corporate strategic initiatives, which in turn link with the organization’s sustainable competitive advantage.

Using senior executive to teach emerging leaders is an effective two-way street where both benefit.

One of the surprising findings of this project was the degree to which senior executives practice the concept of leading by teaching. At PepsiCo, Paul Russell, vice president of executive learning & development, speaks of “the magic of leaders developing leaders.” According to Russell, the missing adult-learning principle is that “people learn best when they get to learn from someone they really want to learn from.” Russell notes that “at PepsiCo, the ‘teachers’ our executives want to learn from are our own senior leaders. They are world class, widely respected, and have proven that they can do it here!”

At PepsiCo, senior executives are asked to share their personal perspectives, as well as build participant confidence and skills while demonstrating support for their growth. Of equal importance, senior leaders elicit greater teamwork from participants and get to know key young leaders while developing more loyalty, motivation, and productivity among employees and creating greater alignment around vision and key strategic initiatives. PepsiCo leaders are encouraged to think of learning as an important arrow in their quiver for helping to drive change. At PepsiCo, learning becomes something to live, not just another thing to endorse.

Posted by Michael McKinney at 08:26 AM
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The Impending Leadership Vacuum

IBM just released the Global Human Capital Study 2008. The study is the result of interviews conducted with 400 human resources executives from 40 countries. It suggests that companies are putting growth strategies at risk if they cannot identify and develop the next generation of leaders.

The study reports that the most vulnerable companies are those in the industrial sector and those operating in the Asia Pacific region. Yet the impending leadership crisis is a worldwide issue. Driving the problem is the retirement of baby boomers and rapid growth in Asia. Baby boomers will drain companies of valuable knowledge when they retire, while multinational firms need to find people to lead their businesses in booming markets such as India and China.

The crisis doesn’t end there. “Not only are companies concerned with their current leadership capacity,” the study says, “they are confronted by their inability to develop future leadership talent. Over 75 percent of companies indicate building leadership talent is a significant challenge.” Fifty-two percent of the human resources executives interviewed said their organizations may be unable to rapidly develop skills to meet current or future business needs. The report concludes:

Creating an adaptable workforce requires more than a series of HR programs….It requires the ability to identify experts and foster an environment where knowledge and experience travel beyond traditional organizational boundaries. It calls for a talent model that can help companies recruit, develop and retain valued segments of the employee population….The human resources organization, by itself, cannot be expected to shoulder this entire effort. True, the HR function needs to take a lead role in providing strategic guidance on workforce issues and designing human capital programs that can enhance workforce effectiveness. However, the entire executive suite needs to play a role in improving workforce performance. This may involve providing functional expertise, taking joint responsibility for executing human capital programs or simply setting a positive example for employees within their organizations. Without this unified commitment, all bets are off….The key to building that kind of workforce lies with the leadership of the organization, facilitated in large part by HR.

The ideas in Ram Charan’s upcoming book, Leaders At All Levels, while focused more at developing CEOs specifically, addresses this looming issue and leadership development in general. He has developed a new approach to leadership development that moves it from just an HR function to “an everyday activity that is fully integrated into the fabric of the business and in which line leaders play a central role.” He calls it the Apprenticeship Model. It is essentially learning by doing.

In this timely and valuable book, he states that we focus on the wrong people for the wrong reasons and thus we fail to recognize and develop emerging leaders. He constructed a guide to correctly identify leadership talent early-on, called the CEO Nucleus.

The leaders with the highest potential will have what I call “the CEO nucleus,” the intuitive ability to comprehend the total picture of a business and how it makes money in the language of a street vendor. Another essential is the ability to work with and motivate people, and a third is the intellectual capacity to see ambiguous, complex, nonquantifiable situations from a broader view and through several different lenses.

We’ll take a closer look at what Charan has to say on this important issue as we approach the book’s December 21 release date.

Posted by Michael McKinney at 12:12 AM
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Taking It Personally

“Foolish is the person that takes offense when none was intended. More foolish is the person that takes offense when it was intended.”

The above statement rings true, because either way we lose. In egonomics, David Marcum and Steven Smith describe the difficulties that arise when we get our identity confused with the topic being debated—when we take things personally. When we get into a vigorous debate, it’s quite common to find that we respond to a perceived attack with behavior that indicates our ego is in trouble.

When we respond to a statement or question by comparing ourselves, seeking acceptance, showcasing or getting defensive, it often means that we think our identity is under attack. In other words, we forget about the debate of ideas and respond as though who we are is being threatened and we take it personally. It’s not unusual that we have a tough time separating our ideas from our identity? Trial attorney Gerry Spence explains, “We all have a personal image that he must protect. For example, I do not want to be seen by others, and particularly my myself, as weak, as ill advised, as less than worthy, as stupid, as someone who cannot be respected. I will do whatever is necessary to preserve my personal image of myself. The more fragile my self image, the harder I will struggle to preserve it.”

Marcum and Smith explain it this way: “If we can’t distinguish who we are from what we do, what we have, or who we do it with, we won’t see past our titles or tenure in a discussion. If we say to ourselves or others, ‘I’m the Vice President,’ ‘I’m the CEO,’ ‘I’m the Director of Public Relations,’ or even ‘I’m the creative one’ or ‘I’m the advocate for diversity here,’ then we’re parading our identity, and take it personally.”

In egonomics, Marcum and Smith examine an exchange between Fred Rogers and Senator John Pastore at a Congressional hearing to effectively explain this point. It clearly showcases the benefits of maintaining a separation between identity and ideas and keeping your ego in check with humility. They explain, “In the intensity of debate, humility is like a two-way surge protector; it keeps us from making it personal or taking it personally.”

Of course, the trick is to avoid this negative response cycle in the first place. The authors borrowed an idea from Carl Rogers to give form to an essential attitude to take when faced with a vigorous debate (or when dealing with people in general). The idea is to treat people with unconditional positive regard. That is to say that “everyone is worthy of respect and capable of contribution, even when they don’t particularly act that way or even feel that way about themselves.” We want to assure others that we aren’t trying to change who they are, but we are interested in presenting another viewpoint.

If you find yourself in a situation where things have gotten beyond productive, then the author’s suggest using one of the following opening statements before we begin asking questions:

“You might be right…”
“Even though that’s hard to hear, I’m glad you’re saying something…”
“Okay. Let’s talk that one through.”
“Say a little more about that.”

It doesn’t signal agreement, it expresses a mind open to understanding. Debate needs to follow understanding or people often begin to defend themselves and not their ideas.

Finally, in the spirit of vigorous debate and deepened understanding, humility prompts us to ask, “Who cares if I’m right at this instant if we get it right eventually?” If we’re devoted to progress, it doesn’t matter who has the answer, but that the answers are found.

In the balance of the book, Marcum and Smith show that shifting conversations from statements and judgments to exploration requires not just humility, but the relentless application of two more principles—curiosity and veracity. They maintain a good blog that is worth checking out also.

Posted by Michael McKinney at 12:33 AM
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Four Warning Signs That Our Ego is Getting the Best Of Us

A managed ego is an important trait of the effective person. Authors David Marcum and Steven Smith state in their compelling book egonomics: What Makes Ego Our Greatest Asset (or Most Expensive Liability), that “surprising as it may sound, many people don’t have enough ego, and that leads to insecurity and apathy that paralyze cultures and leaders.” This is an important addition to our thinking about ego and worth examining in more depth. It does sound odd as no doubt, most of us have been told that ego is a bad thing. But an unbalanced ego—either overconfident or lacking in confidence—can trap people in bad thinking resulting in poor or damaging interactions with others.

egonomics offers four warning signs that our ego is getting the best of us:

1. Being Comparative “When we’re comparative, we tend to either pit our strengths against another’s weaknesses, which may lead us to an exaggerated sense of confidence, or we compare our weaknesses to their strengths, which can cause negative self pressure.
2. Being Defensive “When we can’t ‘lose,’ we defend our positions as if we’re defending who we are, and the debate shifts from a we-centered battle of ideas to a me-centered war of wills.”
3. Showcasing Brilliance “The more we want or expect people to recognize, appreciate or be dazzled by how smart we are, the less they listen, even if we do have better ideas.”
4. Seeking Acceptance “When we equate acceptance or rejection of our ideas with acceptance or rejection of who we are, we ‘play it safe.’ We tend to swim with the current and find a slightly different way of saying what’s already been said as long as acceptance is the outcome. That nor only makes us a bland follower, but an uninspiring leader.”

I believe that these four warning signs crop up in our lives and in the lives of those around us, due more to a lack of a proper ego than an oversized ego. More often than not, a person that appears egotistical is covering for insecurities than they are expressing a genuine belief in their superiority.

Humility isn’t the opposite of ego, but it plays a vital role in keeping it in balance. Marcum and Smith created the following diagram to help us to understand the equilibrium concept of humility.

The diagram graphically illustrates the two poles of ego and the grounding effect that humility plays to pull us back into a proper perspective. The authors define humility as the “intelligent self respect which keeps us from thinking too highly or too little of ourselves. It reminds us how far we have come while at the same time helping us see how far short we are of what we can be.”

Ego doesn’t suddenly pull us to the extremes and twist us overnight into egomaniacs, or lead us to believe we’re above the law. But once we’re in the habit of being off-center, we do slowly start to believe we’re above other things: reproach, being wrong, being questioned, the need to prove we’re right, having a bad idea, following the lead of others, and so on. Being consistently off-center leads us gradually toward the extremes.

When we lose control of ego, we lose “trust, respect, relationships, influence, talent, careers, clients, and market share. Each of us has occasionally, perhaps unknowingly, let ego weaken our talents despite our qualifications, expertise, charisma, track record, or remarkable ability.”

This is an important book that will be helpful to anyone trying to get a handle on their ego and understand it manifestations in themselves and others. egonomics is a book that every leader should read and one that we will return to again on this blog.

Posted by Michael McKinney at 12:32 AM
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Be Not a Scholar Confused By Your Own Learning

As one studies leadership, I am reminded of Louis Nizer’s words to be “a scholar who is not confused by his own learning.” It’s easy to get caught up in some of the theory, jargon and formulas and find the whole thing inaccessible but to the best minds. Don’t get me wrong, I believe that the books, training, and mentoring are essential to opening our minds to think in new ways. But ultimately, leadership development begins with self-knowledge and the development of a disciplined mind and character. It is specific to our varied own backgrounds and situations. There are hundreds of great tools to help you get there, but he only one that can begin the journey, is you.

The late great diplomat, Abba Eban once wrote, “An ‘expert’ is a man who understands everything—but nothing else. He sometimes becomes immune to the intangible but powerful human impulses that lie beneath the surface of his discipline.” Yet, it is in the “intangible but powerful human impulses that lie beneath the surface” where you will find leadership. Fortunately, that is accessible to everyone who makes the effort.

Posted by Michael McKinney at 11:07 AM
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Empower Yourself

In a very practical book, Achieve Leadership Genius, authors Drea Zigarmi, Susan Fowler and Dick Lyles ask, “What if employees didn’t wait to be empowered—but empowered themselves?”

Good question; one that places the responsibility for “empowerment” where it belongs. The individual. If you’re waiting for your boss to give up control and decision-making authority to turn you into a free-thinking, free-wheeling employee, empowered to determine your own work rules, you’ll wait a long time. Empowerment is a good idea, but as the authors point out, it depends on self-leadership—“people who possess the ability, energy, and determination to accept responsibility for success in their work-related role.”

Employee engagement suffers because organizations depend on managers to engage employees, rather than developing self leaders who recognize their responsibility and have the skill to take initiative for success in their role.

It just makes sense that every organization should develop self-leaders—yet this is usually the most underfunded and undervalued aspect of leadership training.

The road to empowerment begins with visualizing your ideal role. That vision is something you can begin to build your identity around. How do you see yourself? How do you want others to see you? Your identity will guide you thoughts, decisions and actions. Keep in mind, your vision should be aligned with the goals and purposes of your boss and organization or you will get no support. The authors remind us to, “Consider your role as a piece of the puzzle—one of many in an organization. It is important fro you top understand the big picture and your place within it. Your efforts to envision will not only help you understand the meaning of your work, but it will also remind your boss of the vital contributions being made by you and your role.”

Wise sages extol the virtue in the moment. But what happens when the challenge of the moment diminishes the energy available for moving forward? Your work-related vision acts like an emotional manager to pull you through the tough times and into a time of possibility. It provides a transition from the potentially threatening current reality to the next step of action. It empowers you to overcome the inevitable obstacles, pain strife, exhaustion, and any number of inevitable de-motivators that could jeopardize success in your work-related role.

Posted by Michael McKinney at 10:20 AM
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5 Leadership Lessons: Measure of a Leader

Aubrey and James Daniels wrote a comprehensive and thoughtful book on leadership entitled, Measure of a Leader. It is a book that deserves far more attention. The premise is a new model of leadership that focuses on the behavior of followers. By becoming a better observer of human behavior we can become better leaders. They say that “most leadership writers limit their premises to the success of the leader at his or her particular venture.” There’s more to it than that. How you accomplish something is as important (if not more important) than what you accomplish. Here are a few lessons from their book:

  In any undertaking that requires leadership, loyalty to the individual may be how the venture starts, but it is not how that venture thrives. If the leader cannot transfer personal loyalty to his vision, he has failed one of the critical tests of effective leadership.

  When change exposes individuals to failure and punishment, they resist. When change increases the person’s access to reinforcement, they seek it out. Since one f the leader’s key functions is to lead change, he must view resistance as a signal that something is wrong with the process being used to achieve desired change rather than simply passing off the resistance to change as a normal characteristic of human behavior. Contrary to common opinion, it is not normal!

  Learning to lead is a function of deliberate practice. You refine your techniques and skills by observing the followers’ responses. While you may pick up some pointers from the stories of others, you cannot simply imitate what they do. This intentional search for the impact of your actions will set you apart from those who try to replicate the actions of other leaders.

  Managers need to learn the following rule: you don’t lead by results; you lead to results; and only behavior will get you there. It is important to differentiate between behavior and non-behavior. Of course, attitudes are not behaviors; competencies are not behaviors; values are not behaviors; employee involvement and commitment are not behaviors. Asking someone to smile more often may be infinitely more helpful than telling him to change his attitude.

  Learning leadership is fundamentally a self-management task. But this task is made immensely more difficult if you think of it in terms of changing your personality, such as becoming more charismatic. Since leadership is defined in terms of the behavior of the followers, the task is to ask, “What do I want my followers to do?” and then “What must I do to produce that behavior?”

Posted by Michael McKinney at 10:48 AM
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Remarkable Leadership: The Kevin Eikenberry Interview Part 3

This is the final post of our interview with Kevin Eikenberry author of the book Remarkable Leadership. Kevin Eikenberry maintains a blog on his web site and on the Remarkable Leadership web site.

LeadingBlog: One thing that gets bantered around a lot today is the idea of the leaderless organization. Do you think that there is such a thing?

Kevin Eikenberry: I suppose it depends on how you define it. Could you have an organization where no one has the job title that says “leader?” Perhaps. But I don't think it’s possible for there not to be a leader. Where the leadership comes from could change on a project, on a day, on a portion of the project, on a situation, perhaps. So, if you're thinking about a leaderless organization from that perspective – that is it’s really about shared leadership – I think that’s very possible. But to say that there’s an organization where there is no leadership to me says that there’s an organization that’s going literally nowhere. Because leadership is required to say, “how do we get from where we are to where we want to go.” And in that perspective it’s much more about a role than it is about a person. So I don't think that the role of leader can go away. Although I think it can be shared greatly and successfully. That’s my take. What’s your take on that?

LB: I would agree with you completely. I don't think there is such a thing as a leaderless organization in that there is nobody at any given point at the helm. It may be shared, but that there’s nobody in that role, no.

KE: Remarkable Leadership isn't even out yet as we're talking now, but I'm already working on what the next book is going to be and that is Remarkable Followership. It’s that role we play as followers. If all of us are leaders then all of us are also followers. And what does it look like as a job title or whatever? How do we still be a highly productive, engaged part of the team?

LB: I think that’s really important. That’s one area that I don't think people understand — even people in leadership training — because they get the idea that I'm a leader and so I'm not a follower. Either, or. But throughout the day, sometimes a I'm a leader and sometimes I'm a follower. It changes depending on the situation. A good leader knows when to follow.

KE: Yes. Let’s just take the microcosm of a meeting. Within a meeting a remarkable leader, a good leader, is going to be a leader and a follower over and over and over throughout that meeting – or maybe neither and be a facilitator (neutral). So, it’s really about role and understanding that all of us have to lead and follow. If everyone is leading and no one is following then there’s really no leader either. There’s the need for both roles and I think in reality for us to be truly highly functioning professionals, we need to master both of those roles.

LB: Absolutely. Finally, what do you think is the biggest factor that prevents someone from becoming a remarkable leader?

KE: Oh, to me that’s easy. The biggest factor that prevents it is belief. People don't think it’s possible: “I'm not a leader.” “Someone else is good at that, that’s not me.” “That’s not the thing that I'm good at.” “I don't see myself as that.” “My Dad wasn't a leader so I can't be a leader.” It’s not about potential, it’s not about possibility – yes, there are opportunities, there are development situations where some people have had great mentors and great opportunities and that sort of thing, but in the end, even if you have been given the opportunity to work with a great leader or have a great mentor or have had an amazingly fortunate opportunity, I believe, if you don't believe it’s possible for you to become that, it’s not going to happen. You're not going to see the opportunity. You're not going to take it. So to me the number one factor is belief.

Note: You will find a great interview (podcast) with Kevin Eikenberry that has an entrepreneurial focus on Sam Crowley's EverydayIsSaturday.com. Check it out.

Posted by Michael McKinney at 12:23 AM
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Remarkable Leadership: The Kevin Eikenberry Interview Part 2

Our interview with Kevin Eikenberry author of the book Remarkable Leadership continues. The final part will be posted on Friday.

LeadingBlog: In your book, Remarkable Leadership, you divide teams into two types — basketball teams and track and field teams. Could you explain that?

Kevin Eikenberry: You obviously read the book.

LB: I did.

KE: I love that. To me what we've got is everyone thinking that everyone should be like a basketball team or a hockey team or a soccer team, which is a highly interdependent team. If you've got a basketball team, you've got five players who at any given time might have to play a different role; they all have to have some very similar skills to do various things within the team. And when any one of those five players, like in the case of basketball, is not being successful, it has a significant impact on the rest of the team. That in Western culture is what we think of a team in the workplace. An interdependent team. But in many cases, the kinds of teams at work aren't that way. They're more like a track and field team. So if you and I are on a track and field team together and you're a hurdler and I'm a pole-vaulter, how well you hurdle today does not impact how well I pole-vault or vice versa. But both of us want the other to do well and when we both do well the team wins. And we advance to the next meet, right? But as independent participants in this team, my work product doesn't require your input at the kind of level it does if you're passing the ball to me to take a shot or if I'm passing the ball to you after I make a rebound. So it’s a very different sort of an interaction. And I think the challenge that we get into in many cases Michael, is that we think as leaders and as team members that every team ought to be like that basketball team. And it gets us into all kinds of trouble because we try to interact in ways that we don't even need to, to get the work done.

LB: So what we're trying to do really, is force track and field participants or teams into basketball teams?

KE: I think that happens far too often. I've been on teams like that and I have been in situations like that and I have seen it many times. I've tried to help individual teams and organizations think about it. Most organizations have both kinds of teams and the problem is that leaders try to treat both the same because they've never thought about the differences.

LB: You wrote in your book that “remarkable leaders don't delegate, they share responsibility.” What do you mean by that?

KE: Well, you know I asked a lot of people about the “delegate” word. The interesting thing that I got was, there’s not a lot of positive feelings around the word delegate. I think that maybe it’s a bit of a play on words but I think that when leaders are thinking about delegating at least in my experience—anytime I think about any book I've read about being a more effective leader or manager and it talks about delegation, it’s talking about handing things off so you can do something else—and when you think about delegating from the perspective of handing things off to others so I can do something else, you're not doing it in support of the other person. You're just doing it in a somewhat selfish way to give me time to do something different , however valuable that might be.

I think that the difference is in the focus. The focus of thinking is about sharing responsibility—it's not “I'm sharing this with you, yet I'm going to be free to do something else” but “I'm sharing this with you to help you grow, to help you to get to the point where you can do my job, or that we collectively can be more productive or whatever that looks like.” But really I think its as much about what’s the underlying reason for the activity. Remarkable leaders think about it from the perspective of how’s that going to impact positively the other person and the organization. I know that if I'm thinking about it that way Michael, I'm going to do a better job of handing-off that task—whatever we're going to use to call it. If my intent is about helping the other person be more successful, building their skills, increasing their accountability, whatever that looks like, if my intent is to help them, then I'm going to be much more successful at doing it whatever I call it. So the difference is not so much about the semantics, but the intent. I'm using different words to try to help describe that intent. I may have just done a better job of describing it here than I did in the book. I don't know.

LB: That caught my eye in the book, because everything you read says delegate.

KE: Everybody that I talked to—and that’s one of the chapters that as I was writing that I spent a lot of time calling people, calling colleagues, calling friends, (and the next book I'd be calling you—you're one of those people that I'd ask) everyone had this whole thing about delegating—both as being delegated to and delegating—not a positive thing. I'm thinking, you know, wait a minute, these are opportunities for learning and development and growth, why is it that they don't feel that way. And I tried to back into this whole idea of intent and I think that’s where the difference is.

LB: Well, that makes good sense. I was wonder about delegating those tasks where we know we are weak … if you're doing it in the sense of a shared responsibility then that would make sense wouldn't it?

KE: That’s exactly right. And I think remarkable leaders do recognize their strengths verses the strengths of the other people on their team. And hopefully we are self aware enough to know what it is that we want to be sharing based on what our strengths are.

And we're aware enough of the strengths of our team members to be sharing things with them that matches their styles or strengths better. I think as remarkable leaders we recognize that we're better off when we put the right work in the hands of the people that have the strengths to handle it. It doesn't necessarily mean the experience or knowledge as much as the strengths. I think that remarkable leaders figure that out well enough and try to share the work in a way that makes the most sense.

Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:24 AM
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Remarkable Leadership: The Kevin Eikenberry Interview Part 1

This week—Monday, Wednesday and Friday—we will feature an interview with Kevin Eikenberry author of the book Remarkable Leadership. Kevin is the Chief Potential Officer of The Kevin Eikenberry Group, a learning consulting company that provides a wide range of services, including training delivery and design, facilitation, performance coaching, organizational consulting, and speaking services. Kevin believes that remarkable leaders are developed. Remarkable Leadership identifies the 13 competencies of remarkable leadership and offers a proven method for applying those competencies at any level leadership. The book is thought provoking and easily applied. In this interview, Kevin will share his thoughts on leadership development, lifelong learning, teamwork, delegating, followership and the biggest factor that could prevent you from becoming a remarkable leader.

LeadingBlog: How do you define a Remarkable Leader?

Kevin Eikenberry: I think all people who are leaders have the ability to become remarkable leaders. I think that’s the most important thing and the underlying concept of my book. But to me you define a remarkable leader as someone who is continually working to become a more effective leader, number one. And secondly, they recognize that remarkable leadership is not about the technical skills of forecasting, budgeting and technical knowledge of the work, but really about how we engender trust, build relationships, develop others, communicate more effectively—all of those other skills that we really think of when we think of great leaders that we've worked with in the past. That’s a remarkable leader.

LB: What is wrong with how most organizations do leadership development today?

KE: The main thing that is wrong with what most organizations are doing, is that they think of leadership development as being about events. We always say, “training is an event, learning is a process.” And it’s the same thing for leadership development. Organizations are looking for the magic pill, they've identified people as high performance or their next leader or “they've been a supervisor for three years so we'd better give them some training.” So leadership development looks like this event, this workshop, this seminar, this whatever, and when they've done that they've checked that box and that’s their leadership development process. I think the smartest organizations are looking at it differently. They're looking at leadership development much more holistically. They're thinking about a wider variety of activities, and experiences and processes. Anything from different sorts of assignments, different sorts of projects to application projects, to the chance to be coached or coach others, mentoring programs and a whole host of other things, put together specifically to work best for that organization. So in short, what’s wrong is that people are thinking about leadership development like they do most training and that is as events as opposed to thinking about a process in terms of what really makes learning work.

LB: So more of a long term thing?

KE: A long term thing, but an integrated thing. Integrated with the work. You could have training that is long term right? You could have a class this week and next month and four months from now and 21 years from now and all that sort of thing, but the real challenge is, I think, integrating it back into the work so that people can go back and really apply what they're learning.

LB: You place a lot of emphasis on learning? Would you say that the ability or the desire to learn is the most fundamental skill of the remarkable leader?

KE: That’s like the big softball for me. One of the early chapters in the book talks about that very thing. I do believe that the number one skill of a leader—the underlying core skill of a leader—is their ability to learn. Because, if we want all of these kinds of things in our employees or those we lead—we want flexibility and collaboration, and we want them to continually grow and we want them to develop and we want those things for them—then number one, we had better be doing those things ourselves. And secondly, if we want to continue to build our skills—as I said a remarkable leader is someone who does continue to build their skills—that means by definition, that we have to be ongoing, or as I say in the book, continual learners. To me it is the fundamental underlying skill. And Michael, when I work with groups, I'll ask them when they think of the best leaders they've ever experienced, make me a list of their characteristics, and people will come up with a long list of great attributes, but they won't come up with the word learning. But without learning most of those other things aren't going to happen.

LB: So you don't think leaders are born?

KE: I don't. I don't think leaders are born. I think that all of us have a unique bundle of gifts and talents that are a part of our DNA and although there are some people that may have some innate skills that help them become some parts of the leadership process more easily—just like there are some people that innate skills that make them better mathematicians or musicians right? But I think just like those things that challenge us as a leader, is to play on our greatest strengths—to utilize our greatest strengths—to become more effective leaders. Because in the end being a highly effective leader is about being a highly effective human. There are many different ways to lead and the challenge is finding the voice that we best lead with and build on those strengths first.

LB: Good. How would you improve your learning ability? Or make the time for it? Sometimes we get so busy that we put “learning” off because we don't have time for it.

KE: Absolutely. That’s why, when I started to write the book the learning competency was that remarkable leaders are continuous learners. And I don't think that that’s really true. We're not continuous learners. We're doing all sorts of things and although as human beings we are learning beings, we are not necessarily continuously, consciously learning. The kind of learning we are talking about here is conscious right? And so, I think it’s much more about being continual. On an ongoing basis as opposed to continuous—in every moment being a learner. I think that’s too high a bar to set for ourselves.

I think the challenge for us all is that first of all we have to figure out how to make the time for it and the way to do that is to find opportunities. I think if I could encourage people to do just one thing that would make them a more effective continual learner—and it doesn't necessarily take a lot of time, it takes change of a couple of habits—that is that we would just take time to reflect more on our day; thinking about what worked and what didn't, what we want to repeat and what we don't want to repeat, and what we learned that we want to do differently the next time. If we would take 20 minutes everyday to do that we would improve so rapidly I think it would be quite amazing. And the way we do that is to first of all, make a conscious effort to do it. You say, “Well I don't have 20 minutes.” but yeah you do. Because you drive home from work and you listen to the radio or you take your walk and you listen to your I-pod or watch television in the evening, I think there are lots of times we can steal 15-20-30 minutes a day to do these kinds of things. It’s not like reading … having a book in hand or any of those other things. It’s just closing our mind down enough from other things to give ourselves a chance to reflect. And in the end, a learning process has to include a reflection process or we can't learn from our own experiences. I think that that is too often left out. And we're in such a rush to move from one thing to the next—from doing one tele-seminar, to another interview, to do another phone call, right?—that we don't take the time to just stop take a mental deep breath and really think about what worked and what didn't. So if I'm going to do a better job in my next interview, I'd better stop and spend a little time thinking Michael, about what went well on this one or not. And I think that is the key for us to become continual learners. If I could say one thing, it would be take the time, make the time to reflect and ask those reflective questions.

Posted by Michael McKinney at 03:23 AM
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Developing a Respectful Mind

Howard Gardner writes in Five Minds for the Future, "Adolescents have potentials for leadership, or for enterprise, that can be marshaled for diverse ends; it is up to their elders—parents, educators, community leaders, slightly older and more mature peers—to influence how these potentials are mobilized." This is a significant thought worthy of repeated reflection. It describes the process of character development throughout our lives. We might consider what functions we occupy and the influence we are having on others.

In any event, Gardner believes that the mobilization of these potentials should progress in five directions that can be manifested in five minds. They are: the disciplined mind (a mind trained on a specific scholarly discipline, craft or profession), the synthesizing mind (a mind that can create value from information), the creating mind (a mind that can break new ground), the ethical mind (a mind that contemplates meaning in work and life and then acts on it) and the respectful mind (a mind that welcomes differences between group and individuals).

Looking specifically at the respectful mind, he writes that “rather than ignoring differences, being inflamed by them, or seeking to annihilate them through love or hate, [he] would call on human beings to accept the differences, learn to live with them, and value those who belong to other cohorts.”

The respectful mind, like the other four qualities of mind, Gardner believes is a kind of thinking or attitude we will need to have to thrive during the eras to come. He says “eras to come” because while we have always needed this quality of mind, it has been a kind of option. Meaning I assume, that the repercussions of not having it were better contained in times past. However, today we are so interconnected that our very survival depends on it. In a global sense he is right.

While all of these minds interact with each other, the respectful mind, I believe, would seem to be the cornerstone. Without it we limit our input—distance ourselves from reality—and virtually assure that we are not effective with others. Consequently, the respectful mind is the first mind we should seek to develop in children and demand from ourselves.

Posted by Michael McKinney at 12:22 AM
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Ignition Points

How do you lead in a situation where you are not in control? Vince Thompson asks in his book Ignited, “Can the principles [CEOs] use to run their companies really work for managers in The Middle like us—managers without the ability to reshape businesses, redirect strategies, or even (in many cases) to hire, fire, and reward employees as we see fit? The answer is a qualified no.”

Working from where you are with a foundation of authenticity and self-discipline, you can help to make the necessary changes in your organization and create more purpose in your leadership role. Thompson defines seven ignition points—functions or tools you can develop and use to create unique value to your organization.

The first of these is the power of the Process Master. “One of the most powerful ways for a manager in The Middle to add value is by knowing the processes his company engages in … and knowing them cold.” In addition to specific steps in the process, “It also means knowing the individuals who handle the processes, along with their quirks, strengths, shortcomings, needs, and vulnerabilities.” A big picture thinker.

Second, is the power of the Linkmaker. “Great managing is largely about Linkmaking—knowing the people around you, understanding what makes them tick, And connecting their knowledge and skills in ways that will make powerful things happen for the organization.”

Third, is the power of the Translator. The translator helps people in the organization to see each others viewpoints and values to help unite them behind shared organizational goals. It’s the ability to translate organizational goals “into actionable ideas that our diverse workforces can ll relate to, buy into, and support.”

Fourth, is the power of the Scout. The Scout understands the landscape—the environment, the customers and vendors—the organization is functioning in and communicates that throughout the organization. The Scout tracks people’s changing attitudes, interests and ideas and works to develop its full potential for the benefit of the organization.

Fifth, is the power of the Pilot. In the role of Pilot, you need to be “looking for threatening shoals and promising open sea lanes, and working to steer your company away from the former and toward the later.”

Sixth, is the power of the Bard. “The Bard is an ignited manager with the ability to record and pass on organizational history … and the evocation of relevant facts and comparisons from past events when current decisions are being weighed.” Why is this so important? Because you can “help others understand where they fit into that story.” That’s vital.

Finally, he describes the power of the Healer. “Rather than treating people like cogs in a machine, smart managers empathize with the struggles and aspirations of their team members. They realize that each one is an individual with strengths, weaknesses, and emotions that must be understood fully.” The ignited manager “knows that motivating people is, in part, about nurturing their hearts and minds. The ignited manager “knows that motivating people is, in part, about nurturing their hearts and minds.

Thompson begins with a short quiz to help you identify your mindset in relation to the ideas he presents in this book. He finishes with steps you can take for “getting your idea sold and ensuring that you achieve the success and recognition you’re earned.”

Posted by Michael McKinney at 12:51 AM
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The Acid Test of Leadership

A title or a position can be akin to the Emperor's Clothes. We can become blinded by our titles; blinded to our impact and effectiveness in our role. We can become unable to see what others around us can see. They can create a hazard to our ability to see ourselves and our motives clearly. A title can open doors, but our staying power will come from our ability to influence others. The real strength of a leader is the ability to elicit the strength of a group. Our accomplishments are restricted by our ability to lead—influence—others. But how are we doing this—by force of power?

If leadership is about influence then the acid test of leadership must be the following question: <