How well are you performing as a Leader? 20 statements to help you find out.

How often do you check the road-worthiness of your car? I know people who take better care of their vehicle than they do themselves – whether that be their health, work-life blend and leadership performance – and I expect you know someone like that too.

So for a 3-minute tune-up to assess your leadership performance, check out the following statements and see how many you say can honestly say yes to…

1. I have written SMART goals in my personal life. (Not sure? Click here to check out what SMART goals are).
2. I have written SMART goals in my work life.
3. I revisit my goals on a regular basis.
4. I have written down my top 5 personal values.
5. My personal values are aligned to my organisation’s values.
6. I behave in alignment with my personal and organisation’s values, consistently.
7. I am a level 5 Leader. (Not sure? Click here for Jim Collins’s leadership model).
8. I do what I say I will do, when I say I will do it, consistently
9. I know what emotional intelligence is and have completed an assessment.
10. I know what my drivers are. (Not sure? Click here for Kahler’s drivers).
11. I coach and mentor my team members.
12. I have regular 1-2-1 meetings with my team members.
13. My colleagues complete an annual 360 appraisal on my performance.
14. I invest time in personal development/continual professional development (CPD).
15. When I let down a colleague, I apologise and do what’s needed to put it right.
16. I listen to what others say, without interruption.
17. I practice situational management (Not sure? Click here for Blanchard’s model).
18. I encourage v constructively critique colleagues in a 3:1 ratio
19. I embody the top 4 leadership characteristics (Not sure? Click here for Kouzes & Posner’s top 4 checklist).
20. I believe my leadership role is to serve others, not myself.

How did you get on? What did you learn? Are you taking better care of your car’s road-worthiness than your own as a Leader? What will this encourage you to do and when?

If you would like to discuss any of these points, or would like help, post a reply or email me at markgrant1@me.com  Either way, it will be great to hear from you.

 

 

What can Jack Nicholson and Dr. Stephen Covey tell us about life?

I recently watched a 50/60-somethings film, ‘Something’s Gotta Give’ starring Jack Nicholson (as Harry) and Diane Keaton (as Erica).  For much of the time Jack Nicholson/Harry seemed to be playing himself and without spoiling the plot, Jack/Harry has an epiphany about a third of the way through the film, causing him to re-evaluate his life and how he lives it.

Harry’s link with educator, author, businessman, and keynote speaker Dr. Stephen Covey (1932-2012) may at first sight seem tenuous. However, in his most popular book ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People’ which has sold over 25 million copies since it was published in 1989, Dr. Covey writes: 

“If the ladder is not leaning against the right wall, every step we take just gets us to the wrong place faster.” 

These words could have been written with Harry in mind. But what about the rest of us? How many of us come to the same realisation? Here are some questions to consider:

• Am I in the right relationship?
• Am I hanging out with the right people?
• Am I in the right job/role/business/vocation?
• Do my life/relationships/work have meaning?

If you answered no to any question or you have doubts, what’s that telling you about your ladder? And what will it encourage you to do?

Changing our ladder and our wall requires courage, commitment and self-belief. Most of all, it requires us to avoid procrastination – to be decisive and act. Dr. Covey provides some solace and encouragement:

“How different our lives are when we really know what is deeply important to us, and keeping that picture in mind, we manage ourselves each day to be and to do what really matters most.” 

That’s what guides Harry’s actions in the film. What will this guide you to do and when? 

Post a reply. It will be great to hear from you.

How to avoid scoring an own-goal: seven communication lessons from the Poland v England match

Last night I tuned in to watch ITV’s coverage of the 2014 World Cup qualification football match between Poland and England. It was farcically postponed because of a waterlogged pitch, even though Warsaw’s £500million National Stadium has a retractable roof.

The sell-out 55,000 crowd in the stadium, including 2500 English fans who had made the journey – and the many millions watching on tv – looked on frustrated and bemused as the referee, Gianlucha Rochhi inspected the pitch, bouncing a ball to test its playability, under the watchful gaze of FIFA officials and those of the football associations of Poland and England. It looked like one of those cheesy games from BBC tv’s 1970’s long-running show ‘It’s a Knockout’, for those old enough to remember it. Anyone could have told him that the chances of play were zero.

What struck me was the lack of communication in the hours leading up to the scheduled kick-off time and the ensuing 45 minutes at which point the match was finally postponed. The Polish authorities were aware of the forecasted weather conditions at least eight hours beforehand and could have closed the roof allowing the match to take place at the scheduled time. And according to newspaper reports many inside the stadium only found out that the match was off from texts they received from those watching on tv. Adrian Bevington, the managing director of Club England commented how important the supporters are – yet many returned to the UK last night having made a wasted journey – and the England players left the stadium without acknowledging them. He apologised later to the fans and so did Wayne Rooney. Too little, too late?

The word fiasco comes to mind and to quote Craig Revel-Horwood, judge on BBC tv’s ‘Strictly Come Dancing’: “it was a disaster, dah-ling!” So let’s hope the match takes place today, though there is still concern about the state of the pitch. But more than that, let’s hope that there is adequate communication whatever the outcome.

Football once again has scored an own goal and further damaged its brand. Let’s not follow suit. Let’s learn seven lessons of communication or lack of it:

• In difficult or crisis situations we can never communicate enough – that means speaking AND listening to the needs of others
• Be prepared for things to get worse
• Face reality have a contingency plan AND communicate it
• Communicate and collaborate, don’t become insular
• Transparency and honesty are crucial
• Engagement and commitment drop when we fail to communicate
• When we get things ‘wrong’ an apology needs to be accompanied with appropriate actions/recompense, otherwise it’s just empty words

What do you think? Post a reply. It will be great to hear from you.

Humility is a key characteristic of effective leaders like David Brailsford. What about you?

Richard Moore’s book ‘Sky’s the limit. Wiggins and Cavendish: the quest to conquer the Tour de France’ provides fascinating insights into the vision, values, ethos, plan and execution of Team Principal David Brailsford, who is also Performance Director for Team GB Cyling. Among the many lessons is one that resonates deeply with me and I’ll explain why, later in this piece.

In the quest to win the Tour de France ‘clean’ with a British team, Richard Moore describes Brailford’s ethos on several occasions in his book – that the team is there to support the cyclists. Team Sky’s coaches, psychologists, sports scientists, therapists, doctors, mechanics, nutritionists, chefs and administrators have one aim – to serve their needs:

“Our philosophy has always been about everybody trying to support the riders to be the best they can be.”  

“We – the coaching and support staff – are the minions. We’re there to help the riders. It’s all about the riders. They’re the kings and queens of their world.”

Brailsford is consistent with this message. In a BBC report in 2008, while talking about track cycling as opposed to road racing, he says:

“We put the riders in the middle; we’re just the minions around them giving them expert advice.” 

“We know our place in the whole team and that’s really important and everybody buys into that.” 

Now it’s one thing to say it. It’s another to actually do it. And to do it consistently, day in and day out requires humility – to take a modest or low view of one’s importance. It requires everyone to leave their ego at the door, so pay attention please, Premiership and England footballers. It’s interesting to note that FA Chairman David Bernstein is to bring in a code of conduct for England players. Perhaps humility will be one of the tenets of the code. We can but hope.

I mentioned at the beginning of this piece that David Brailsford’s humility and ‘minion’ approach resonates with me. When I joined Marks & Spencer as a management trainee in 1973, I was sent on a three week (yes three weeks!) induction programme with 35 other trainees. On the first morning, the Head of Training used an overhead projector to support his presentation. He drew out on a transparency – beamed onto a screen – a simplified structure of the business, starting with the Board of Directors, down through the executive and management layers to the shop floor sales staff. As he drew, he outlined the headcount for each layer and his diagram took the shape of a triangle – with a few people at the top, and many at the bottom. And then he did something that really surprised me. He turned the transparency round, so that it was an inverted triangle instead and said:

“We all exist to support the sales floor staff – we are all here to serve them, because they serve the customer. And without the customer, we don’t exist. Remember that.”

I’ve never forgotten it and carry that thought to this day. And some 35-40 years later, David Brailsford and his team who support the cyclists – whether on the track or the road – are achieving astonishing success following the same principle of humility.

Now compare that with your business or organisation. If you’re in a leadership position, who needs are you serving? Yours or those of the organisation?  If it works for Cycling, could it work for you?

In his book ‘Good to Great’, Jim Collins describes his model: the 5 levels of leadership, with one being the lowest and five the highest level. He describes level 5 leaders as having a curious combination of humility and iron-will determination. Doesn’t that describe David Brailsford? Now take a look in the mirror: does it describe you?

Post a reply and let me know what you think. It will be great to hear from you.

Effective leaders know what to do and do what they know. Do you?

Autumn is upon us: it’s already the second week of October. The days for those in the northern hemisphere where most readers of Leadership Insights are based are growing shorter. Many of us will be traveling to work in the dark and returning in it too.  To quote Mitchell Burgess on the subject of autumn…

“If winter is slumber and spring is birth, and summer is life, then autumn rounds out to be reflection. It’s a time of year when the leaves are down and the harvest is in and the perennials are gone. Mother Earth just closed up the drapes on another year and it’s time to reflect on what’s come before.”

So time for leaders to reflect on progress so far in 2012? And if so, here are some questions you may want to consider…

• What season are you in – spring, summer, autumn or winter? And why?
• Is that where you want to be? If not, what will you do about it and when?
• And what can you do to get started today?

Whether you’re a newly appointed leader or an experienced one, your reflections are unlikely to tell you anything you don’t already know. And that’s the point – so many of us know what to do, we just don’t do what we know.  So is it time for us to stop making excuses and getting on with it? Most of all, who will hold us accountable?  That’s often what makes the difference. It’s the beauty of a coaching relationship – someone to non-judgementally keep us on the hook!

What do you think? Post a reply. It will be great to hear from you.

Leadership lessons – or warnings – from Ed Miliband’s Labour Party Conference address.

Yesterday’s address by Labour Party Leader Ed Miliband at the Labour Party Conference has received some positive reviews in the press. Judging by the Clap-o-meter report in The Guardian, he said what his audience wanted to hear – a speech of 64 minutes included 17 minutes of applause! However, it will take more than an hour’s rhetoric from a confident, relaxed, unscripted Ed Miliband to transform his leadership fortunes in the eyes of the public and to go on to win the 2015 General Election and lead the country out of the continuing economic gloom.

While we have yet to read what the polls make of Ed Miliband’s electability following his speech, a report in the Daily Mail on a recent Populus Poll commissioned by the Tories before the conference shows just how difficult Ed Miliband’s crusade will be:

• Only 1 in 4 believes he can revive the economy
• 67% of all voters think his party ‘chose the wrong brother’
• 65% per cent of Labour voters say David Miliband would do a better job

These findings don’t make encouraging reading and raise the prospect that Ed Miliband is living on borrowed time as a leader. And they raise wider questions about what it takes to successfully lead and for others to willingly follow.

According to influential leadership experts Jim Kouzes & Barry Posner, authors of The Leadership Challenge, now in its 5^th edition: we have to believe the messenger before we believe the message.

They explain that leaders we willingly follow must have ‘source credibility’. That means they must be:

• Honest
• Forward looking
• Inspiring
• Competent

Drawn from their Characteristics of Admired Leaders Checklist and numbering 20 in total, these four characteristics have consistently topped their list over the last 25 years.

So looking ahead and to  the 2015 General Election, do you believe Ed Miliband possesses these characteristics? For me, the first three characteristics are not in doubt; my problem is with the fourth:

• Does he have the competence to lead the country?
• What are his credentials?

It takes years to master competence in the arena in which Ed Miliband is performing.  And even if he has the competence, it’s all about the my perception of his competence. Echoing the findings in the Populus poll I have serious doubts. Do you?

There are many leadership models and examples of effective leadership.  To paraphrase employee engagement expert Dr. David McLeod: “It’s hard to describe what employee engagement is, but you know when you see it (and when you don’t)”. Can the same be said about credible leadership? And if so, when you see Ed Miliband do you see a credible leader, one who can lead his party to the General Election, win it and transform the prospects of the country? Perhaps in three years he will have developed the mastery required to convince me. And will he be given the time to develop it and demonstrate it or will he just go the same way as so many others and be deposed?

And what lessons are there here for us as leaders in our field?

• Do we have source credibility?
• Are we honest, forward looking and inspiring?
• Are we competent?
• Do we have mastery in what we do and how we do it?
• What do our followers think?

Time to get some feedback?

If you found this Leadership Insight thought provoking and helpful, post a reply. It will be great to hear from you.

When high performing leaders say sorry, they mean it. Do you?

Hardly a day passes without a business leader, celebrity, politician or military commander saying the S-word – ‘Sorry’ and offering an apology for a mistake or for something said or done that caused pain, offence or that let someone else or themselves down.

Most recently there have been a number of public apologies about the 1989 Hillsborough disaster when 96 Liverpool supporters tragically perished. David Cameron has made a statement of apology, while Mayor of London, Boris Johnson is “very, very sorry” for comments made in a 2004 Spectator article about Liverpool fans involved in the tragedy. One parent, Margaret Aspinall, who lost her son James, 18, in the disaster and is the Chairwoman of the Hillsborough Families Support Group, has condemned his words calling them “too little, too late”.

This latest high profile apology coming 23 years after a disaster, begs the several questions:

• what does the word ‘sorry’ actually mean?
• is our use of the S-word now so pervasive that it has lost all meaning?
• has that turned us into hardened, disbelieving sceptics when someone genuinely shows contrition?

When you were last on the receiving end of an apology, how did you feel? Did the person proffering the apology genuinely show remorse? Or did you feel they were just going through the motions – that their words were merely salving their guilty conscience? If the latter, what did it do to your level of trust for that person? And if you were offering an apology, did you really mean it? What damage is done to relationships in either case when the apology doesn’t ring true?

Now take the S-word into the workplace…

Here’s a not uncommon situation – when the CEO/director/boss/line manager is frequently late for meetings or cancels them at the last minute because of overruns and a heavy workload. Perhaps that’s you; I know it’s been me on occasions. Perhaps you’ve been on the receiving end and it was your 1-2-1 session or review meeting with your boss and they rescheduled or cut your meeting very short. Did you lose respect and trust him less, even if he said he was sorry? Did you become disengaged with a drop off in performance? Did you feel undervalued?

All too often, our apologies are just words. They trip off our tongue, even when they may be heartfelt. As the old adage goes – “actions speak louder than words” and two simple actions can help restore trust to damaged relationships and minimise disengagement to show we really are sorry:

• Either asking the injured party what we can do to put things right and then doing it
• Or offering them a solution and asking if that would put things right between us and then doing it.

Either option requires a degree of humility on our part. When our words of apology are not accompanied by either of these actions, then aren’t we simply being self-serving, massaging our own egos? Doesn’t the injured party see straight through this charade? What do you think?

For more on this subject, see June 2012 Harvard Business Review which coincidentally has an interesting article on this subject: Why “I’m sorry” Doesn’t Always Translate.

As a leader, how sure are you that your company’s brand values are being protected?

Two recent examples with BMW and Mercedes demonstrate how easy it is for respected brands to become tarnished and for a competitor to benefit.

Earlier this week I met up for a coffee with old friends in Brighton. We chatted about the things friends chat about – family, holidays, cinema, sport – you name it. Then John excused himself to take a call and he returned with a smile on his face and explained he’d arranged to pick up his new Audi the following day.

John had owned a Merc for ten years. It hardly had anything on the clock really, but it no longer suited his needs. He explained that he had gone back to Mercedes to look for a replacement car. The salesman used old-fashioned, high pressure techniques to solicit a sale, saying that they could ‘cut a special deal’ for John. There was a relentless focus on price with both the salesman AND then his boss pressurising John into making a decision. The harder they pushed forward, the more uncomfortable John felt and the further he stepped back and eventually away from the purchase altogether. He decided to look elsewhere and subsequently considered two other marques – Audi and Range Rover, choosing the aforementioned Audi. John explained to me that the experience at both Audi and Range Rover was very positive and completely the opposite of Mercedes. The salesman in both cases engaged with John, asking him questions, listening attentively and building the relationship. Once he had committed to Audi, John decided to send an email to the salesman at Range Rover and Mercedes to thank them for their help and that he had made a decision to purchase elsewhere. The Range Rover salesman sent a very courteous reply saying he appreciated John letting him know and that he hoped he would be happy with his purchase and wished him all the best. John didn’t get a reply from Mercedes. In fact his dealings with Mercedes left a nasty taste in his mouth and it’s very unlikely he will go there again, should the need to arise.

After John told me his story, I told him of a similar experience with BMW. My partner recently replaced his BMW that was also ten years old. The transaction that ensued calls to mind anything but BMW’s strap line about ‘the joy’of BMW motoring. As an experience, I’d put it up there with a visit to the dentist.  Similar high pressure sales techniques were used, with the focus on price and their need to hit their monthly sales target. There was no attempt to engage and build rapport with my partner, to ask questions and to listen. It was all ‘tell and sell!’

So what can we take from this? I’d like to think these examples are just one-off’s, though I doubt it.  And with the advent of social media, brands increasingly belong to everyone – not just the brand owner. It’s so easy for anyone with a twitter, facebook, blog or linkedin account to broadcast to the wider world about their experiences. And those high profile ‘broadcasters’ on social media can reach millions of followers, influencing their preferences and buying decisions, any time of day or night.

The Latin expression ‘caveat emptor’ – buyer beware – comes to mind. Perhaps in this day and age it should be ‘seller beware’! So we all need to be even more vigilant. If you’re a leader, what are you doing to protect your brand? What do you have in place? How do you make sure everyone is bought into your brand values and behaves accordingly, day in and day out, especially if they are in front-line sales? Or are you risking your reputation being slowly damaged and your competitors benefiting?

What’s your experience? Post a reply. It will be great to hear from you.

Being an exemplary leader means being an exemplary role model for your followers. Are you?

According to leadership experts Kouzes & Posner, one of the key tenets of exemplary leadership is to ‘model the way’. That means consistently demonstrating a set of behaviours and skills that set an example for others to follow. As Gandhi put it:

“If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him … We need not wait to see what others do.”

So as leaders, when we aren’t getting the behaviours and actions we desire, particularly when we have a set of written values to guide those behaviours and actions, then it’s time to look in the mirror and hold ourselves accountable.

Sir James Porter’s ‘Observations on the religion, law, government, and manners of the Turks’ (1768), includes this:

‘The Turks have a homely proverb applied on such occasions: they say “the fish stinks first at the head”, meaning, that if the servant is disorderly, it is because the master is so.’

Recent events at Barclays Bank and News International seem to support this belief, even though there is no evidence of complicity or involvement by either Bob Diamond, former Group CEO of Barclays Bank plc or Rupert Murdoch, Chairman and CEO of News Corporation.

So here are 10 questions to assess your situation and run a quick health-check:

• In your organisation, do you turn a blind eye?
• Do you have favourites?
• Do you foster a culture of collaboration or confrontation?
• Do you let your ego get in the way or do you act with humility?
• Is the organisation/team there to serve you or is your role to serve the organisation/team?
• Do you behave in alignment with the values of your organisation, consistently – that means every single day?
• Do you do what you say you will do, when and how you say you will do it?
• Nobody can see 360 degrees of themselves – do you have blind spots that may be a contributing factor and what are they?
• Do you seek honest feedback on your behaviour and then act on it?
• Is your performance/behaviour formally reviewed or is the appraisal process there for everyone else except you/your leadership team?

So, if you’ve been honest with yourself:

• What insights has this quick health-check given you?
• What 2-3 actions will you take as a result?
• What will be the benefit for you/your team/your organisation?
• Who will hold you accountable for the changes you’re committing to?

Post a reply and let me know what you think. It will be great to hear from you.

As a leader, what’s your default position in pressure situations and does it serve you?

It is now commonly accepted that in pressure or danger situations, the amygdala – which is part of the limbic system or mammalian part of the brain – reacts emotionally in one of three ways. Typically we will:

• Fight
• Flee
• Freeze

…hence the expression – ‘fight or flight response’ – first coined by Walter Bradford Cannon, M.D. (1871–1945) an American physiologist, professor and chairman of the Department of Physiology at Harvard Medical School.

In humans, the fight response may be manifested in angry, argumentative behaviour and the flight response through social withdrawal, substance abuse and even television viewing.

Males and females tend to deal with stressful situations differently. Males are more likely to respond to an emergency situation with aggression (fight), while females are more likely to flee (flight) and turn to others for help, or attempt to defuse the situation.

As a leader when in stress situations, what do you typically do? Does it:

• Serve you?
• Your colleagues/team members?
• Your organisation?

…and if not, what can you do about it?

Paying attention to your typical or default response will raise your self-awareness, the foundation of more effective leadership. Become more aware of your shallower breathing, raised heart-rate, sweaty palms. Once you are more aware, you can begin to think more clearly and respond the situation more rationally as opposed to just reacting emotionally.

Assuming there is no immediate physical danger, pause, take a deep breath, count to ten, buy yourself time to process the situation in the neocortex, the rational part of your brain.

This raised awareness may encourage you to find a resolution to situations that is more collaborative, avoiding blame, judgement, recrimination and guilt, aggression or passivity. Assertive behaviour is likely to be the result.

For more on this subject, read Dr Steve Peters’ excellent and readable book ‘The Chimp Paradox’. His style is engaging and accessible with practical advice and insights. Dr Peters – engaged by British Cycling Performance Director, David Brailsford – is regarded as a key player in the sustained success of Team GB’s Cycling Team at the Olympic Games over the last 8 years and more recently of Team Sky on the road.