Jan Richards

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Inspirational leadership: This you can’t pretend

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Admiration. Emulation. Stories told about great challenge, well-met.

Does your leadership inspire this type of respect?

It can.

Leadership that inspires respect is one of the top ten characteristics of great leaders.

Not everyone wants the pressure and responsibility of a high-profile leadership role.

Leadership of all types – some more than others – brings with it a very bright spotlight.

If you’re in a leadership position, people watch you very closely to see if you mean what you say, and and if you hold yourself to the same standards that you hold others to.

What your employees or team members discover about your honesty and integrity has a lot to do with their decision about whether or not to throw their full effort and loyalty your way.

For example, imagine a leader who says he values customer input.

He gets a vigorous complaint from a frustrated customer about the failure of his company’s flagship product or service (and perhaps, as a “bonus,” feedback about his leadership, as the head of the company that created the failed product or service).

What’s his next action? Does he:

1. Use the complaint for positive action, perhaps leading to process improvements that make the product better, reduce rework and the need for customer relationship repair, ultimately improving profitability?

If this leader views customer complaints as valuable – customer research he didn’t seek but now has, and can use to good effect – this response is a winning one.

2. Or does he ignore it, laugh it off, or in other ways try to get rid of the feedback? Or worse, does he belittle the customer who made the complaint, especially in front of employees?

That action, however fleeting, speaks volumes in a very negative sense. And it emboldens others in the company to act in an equally disrespectful way toward customers, and perhaps each other, as well.

Sooner or later, this insidious behavior is likely to drive customers away.

Leaders who inspire respect do these things, among others:

1. Make tough calls with an eye to the future, as well to the demands of the moment.

2. Know their values – what they stand for and what they are against.

They make decisions and take actions based on their values and those of their company or team.

3. Set high standards and lead by meeting those standards themselves.

Leaders who inspire others don’t just assert or expect certain actions from others. They also act in ways that create positive examples for others to follow.

4. Set clear boundaries for what’s acceptable behavior and what’s out of bounds.

5. Treat others, both inside and outside the company, with respect.

6. Incite positive, powerful action. Especially during difficult times, they shine in this aspect of leadership. Top leaders can shift a team’s focus from “We can’t,” “I’m afraid,” or “This isn’t really important,” to “We can, we will, here’s why it’s important,” and “Here’s how we’ll get things done. Let’s get moving.”

7. Expect success, and create the work systems and support that make it possible, no matter what they’re faced with at the moment.

8. Communicate well. They seek, process, and provide information effectively.

Integrity, and being an inspiration to others cannot be “faked,” dictated, or added at the last minute, like a fresh coat of paint.

I’ll provide ideas in future posts about things you can do to increase your skills as an inspirational leader.

Great communication is the lifeblood of great leadership

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Great leaders are great communicators.

Leaders’ effectiveness depends on their ability to inspire, engage, and activate many people to reach for and work for a shared vision, meet common goals, and create significant results together.

Being a great communicator is one of top ten characteristics of great leaders.

Powerful, effective leaders know when and how to communicate, no matter what’s going on with their teams or organizations.

Leaders may face many different emotions at different times in the teams that they lead (and, by the way, in themselves). Some people are excited and energetic, others feel fear, pressure, confusion, and at times, weariness or boredom on the long path to a major goal.

Great leaders know when to observe, when to listen, when to talk, when to show.

And they use all the vital communication skills of leadership effectively.

They also know that the most powerful communication of all is their attitude and their actions – far more than what they say in any circumstance.

Imagine any of the world’s great leaders and what might have been different, had they been an average communicator, at best.

For example, think of Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King or any of many other world leaders without their powerful oratorical and other communication skills.

Leaders face different communication needs and challenges, depending on the circumstances in which they’re leading their organizations. Here are a few of the main ones:

1. Normal, predictable cycles of operations

These circumstances involve vision-setting, planning, regular action, follow-up, problem-solving and process improvements.

During these times, great communication focuses a team or organization on goals, the path and processes to reach them, roles, consistent check-in points, the ways that progress is evaluated and ensured.

2. Major change or improvement efforts

These circumstances may involve reorganizations or mergers and acquisitions, very rapid growth, major improvements and other types of significant change.

During these times, great communication focuses on what is or will be different, how the change will be achieved, ways of evaluating and communicating progress, as well as how to sustain momentum as change proceeds.

It is essential that leadership communications and processes at these times keep people focused, energized, engaged and encouraged as they go through the often very difficult work of change.

3. High-stress or emergency communications

These include natural disasters, such as earthquakes or hurricanes, and man-made disasters, such as on 9/11/01 in the US, and during stressful times when US and world financial markets lurched wildly in 2008, and the recovery period afterwards.

During these times, great communication is focused on providing clear directions so people can try to meet their immediate and then longer-term health, safety, security and other needs.

In addition, there’s often a strong need for community in high stress times, with ways for people to share, express and process their often-frightening, yet memorable, shared experiences. (These are the conversations that begin with questions such as, “Where were you when you heard the news?” or “Where were you when it happened?”).

No matter what type of circumstance leaders and their organizations are in, most of the same stages of communication must be successfully addressed:

Focus

Earn and hold the attention of their audience.

Connect

Reach people in a personally significant way so that they can relate to what is being communicated, “enroll,” and take appropriate action.

Direct

Create a clear path for the many individual actions needed to achieve shared or individual goals.

Persist

Inspire people to draw on – and continue to draw on – persistence, if it is necessary to see a difficult effort through to completion.

Check/correct

Ensure that actions are moving along as needed in order to reach goals and significant milestones.

Achieve

Coordinate efforts and information so that people can reach goals, solve problems, and create success, hopefully, in the easiest, clearest, most effective way.

Celebrate/Complete

Acknowledge that major goals have been achieved, and create closure in a valued, positive way.

Resilience: The difference maker when pressure is on

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What’s the key to turning high potential into high performance and results when the heat and pressure are highest?

It’s resilience, and it’s one of the top ten characteristics of great leaders.

Consider how resilience has played a significant part in your life and career.

First, think about the stark contrast in how high pressure situations might have worked out compared to how they did when you were resilient.

On the one hand, you can have:

  • Success
  • Innovation
  • Responsiveness
  • Resilience
  • Influencing and inspiring others in a way that brings out the best in a full team

Now contrast that with these possibilities:

  • Failure
  • Freezing in place
  • Rigidity, inflexibility
  • Fully flourishing fear
  • Expecting the worst and bringing it out in yourself and others

Which experience do you want?

(I won’t wait for your answer. I’m pretty sure I know what it is)

Resilience is the ability to perform at your best. When you’re resilient you’re highly responsive to the situation you actually have rather than the situation you assumed you would experience.

Resilience is most likely, and most effective when you’ve done the learning, preparation and practice required to make great performance and results a realistic possibility in whatever circumstance you encounter.

There are many other examples we could use. Let’s consider one memorable experience from the 2012 Olympics in London.

This example of “Get out of your own way to let your best performance through” occurred in the men’s 10-meter platform diving competition.

First, U.S. diver David Boudia barely made it out of the qualifying rounds.

His early performance earned him the 18th and final spot in the medal round.

Next, the slate was wiped clean of prior scores. Competitors started fresh in the final stretch of the medal round.

Finally, when the pressure was highest, Boudia produced a series of nearly-perfect dives, besting the seemingly unflappable, unbeatable Chinese divers in that particular competition.

The Chinese competitors seemed unable to understand, accept and adapt to having their assumed supremacy (and their expected gold and silver medals) challenged in the final round.

So when they, and other competitors, could not adjust to Boudia’s barrage of near-perfection, they lost the gold medal to him…the man who had almost missed the medal round.

This getting out of your own way business sounds simple enough, right?

But for most people and teams, it’s not.

Why? These are the primary reasons:

1. Fear

This can be a fear of failure, or a fear of success. Or it can be a fear of both.

Either way, fear can be immobilizing.

2. Bad habits or a poor process

Whether because of bad habits or a bad design or implementation, inefficient and unfocused ways of getting things done stack the odds of success against you.

3. Disabling and limit-setting beliefs

You or your team may WANT success.

You may diligently WORK TOWARD success.

But if you don’t BELIEVE you can produce and maintain success, or don’t feel that you “deserve” it, you’re far less likely to achieve it.

It’s like trying to run a race with a 100 lb. weight strapped to your back. That weight…actual or imagined…is a burden your competitors may not be carrying.

4. Expectations that turn out to be wrong

You can plan and prepare for a circumstance that does not come to pass.

And when the situation is different from what you expect, you may not be able to see it, accept it, and adapt rapidly, or enough.

If fear, bad habits, disabling beliefs and incorrect expectations are some of the causes, what are some of the cures for the problem?

  • Benchmark and learn from the best.
  • Observe others in competition. See how they handle the pressure when the pressure’s highest.
  • Get a mentor. Learn from someone who has been where you’re going.
  • Plan for and practice in all sorts of circumstances…best and worst…to build resilience, muscle-memory and relative fearlessness in your ability to handle many types of situations.

When the pressure is on, your ability to read a situation quickly and accurately, then to choose the right moves, take them, and ultimately succeed in unexpected situations may be one of your most important success skills of all.

Get out of your own way.

Let your best, and the best of your team, come through clearly and completely.

Don’t trap or bury your talent.

Tap it.

Turn your full potential into full success.

Leadership strength includes more than you think

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Leadership strength is much more than what most people think it is.

One of the top ten characteristics of great leaders, leadership strength certainly incorporates the classic signs and skills needed for effective use of leadership power. Many of these characteristics are covered in other posts on this blog.

Among these skills and inclinations are initiative, the ability to engage people in a vision of the future and to motivate them to move forward.

Leadership strength also includes persistence, or the ability to push through barriers that would discourage people with far less fortitude.

In addition, leadership strength includes – yes – sensitivity and humility.

Excellent leaders are able to listen to, observe and learn from the many people who are involved in creating success.

The groups an excellent leader needs to be well-tuned into include direct reports, managers, peers, as well as customers, of course.

Leadership strength also includes humility. It means being able to say, “I don’t know the answer to that question,” or “We made a mistake and we are doing everything we can to correct it. Here’s how…”

That’s because honesty and integrity are very significant parts of a leader’s strength and power.

The people around a leader know if he or she is being honest, and it definitely affects that person’s ability to lead, in many ways.

When I asked professional colleagues for examples of strong leaders, the following are just a few of the people they cited, along with their descriptions of the strengths they saw in these individuals:

Alvin Ailey was an American choreographer who started a dance company in New York that bears his name.

Said the person who suggested him as a strong and effective leader, “He’s been gone for 20 years, yet his dancers still feel like it’s his company. He was nurturing, creative, generous, ambitious, kind, appreciative.”

Golda Meir was the Israeli prime minister in the early 70’s.

She was noted by one person because, “She was strong, reassuring, straight-talking, determined.”

Mahatma Gandhi was an Indian political and spiritual leader who led through non-violence.

The colleague who suggested Gandhi as a powerful example of strong leader said, “He had the willingness to take on huge goals and then work persistently to find allies and to communicate his key points not only in words but in actions.”

“He was also able to admit mistakes (“though not always,” she added) and then to look for a better way to accomplish goals. Most of all I admire his insistence that there are no short cuts to the goal, that the path taken is also the goal, itself.“

Focused action produces results

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A strong orientation to action is one of the top ten characteristics of great leaders.

Action orientation is not as common a characteristic as you might think.

“Making an idea work is more difficult and more important than having the idea in the first place,” notes author and consultant Edward de Bono.

At many companies, there’s great eagerness and competition for being involved in new and intellectually engaging assignments. These may include deciding and designing how something will be done, such new products and services, or an entirely new division of a company.

When it comes time, though, for some of the every day, nitty-gritty aspects of turning the great potential of those possibilities into consistently bankable results…and ensuring that they continue to perform…enthusiasm may be harder to round up.

And yet, if you’re an action-oriented leader or a member of a team whose focused efforts yielded great results, there’s nothing quite like the thrill of that collective achievement.

That’s when the responsibility of leadership and the accountability for action is clearly worth the risk that the leadership role – and its need for sustained commitment to positive action – brings.

What works to move good ideas, great intentions and high potential into focused action that eventually produces tangible results?

“The most important and visible outcropping of the action bias in excellent companies is their willingness to try things out, to experiment,” note authors Thomas J. Peters and Robert H. Waterman, Jr.

Here’s the bottom line on those with an action orientation: they focus not on the ways things might go wrong, or the risks of the pursuit, or the blame they’ll lay if things go wrong.

They focus on the possibilities, the multiple ways they can get the job done. And then…sooner or later…they do.

They make their way persistently and creatively over, around or through any barrier they find.

That may involve creatively moving forward in ways they did not expect. It may involve changing the timing of their efforts. Or it may mean going back to square one, getting more information, and adjusting, adapting, refining the goal, and they way they hope to achieve it.

Four decision making mistakes to avoid

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Being able to make good decisions, at all levels of your organization, is vital to your company’s success.

It’s also vital to your professional and personal success, no matter who you are or what you do.

Decision making skill, one of the top ten characteristics of great leaders, is more difficult than many people realize.

Consider this thought:

“Some problems are so complex that you have to be…well-informed just to be undecided about them.”

Laurence J. Peter

Great decisions can have deep, lasting and positive effects on many people.

Think about the far-reaching impact of these three decisions:

  • Columbus’ decision to seek the New World
  • John F. Kennedy’s decision that the US would land a man on the moon, and do so before the decade was out
  • Rosa Parks’ decision not to give up her seat on the bus one day in Montgomery, Alabama

Poor decision quality is equally powerful, but in undesirable ways. It can have devastating effects on people, organizations, and even entire countries.

Here’s just one example (and there are many, including many current examples):

Think about the impact on US and world financial markets of a few false assumptions about market risk and how to best manage it in 2008 (and in the years leading up to it). In addition, what was deemed adequate oversight of financial institutions turned out not to be.

It all added up to very big, very bad, very sudden surprises for many people and institutions, with long-term repercussions.

What are some of the primary problems?

Here are just a few:

1. Being unable to decide without a lot of information.

And then, being unable to swim one’s way through the sea of data, information and opinions to reach a valid, effective and timely decision.

2. Being decisive – but too much so.

Decision-makers may reach conclusions quickly, based on too little information, or inaccurate, deceptive, or untimely information.

3. Simplifying information so much that it’s stripped of significance.

Data and information may be overly simplified – or it may be unwieldy.

Either way, it may be difficult to synthesize information, or to understand the deeper meaning the data could have provided. In addition, it may not be possible to draw meaningful conclusions with information stripped of significant detail.

4. Disowning one’s decisions.

This can occur if a leader fears the pushback that naturally happens at some point in almost every change or transition process, and then overreacts to it.

We’ve touched on significant ways that decisions can go wrong.

How can decision making go right?

First, great leaders ensure that they have the reliable, accurate, timely information that they need.

And they make sure that their process for making decisions is effective and continually improved, as needed.

These are characteristics of good decisions:

  • Timely
  • Well-informed
  • Take into account the needs and desires of the various people who will be most affected by the outcomes
  • Prioritize and use criteria that will yield a good result

Decision making comes easily to some people, but for others, it is a continuing challenge.

These skills can be learned and improved, with focus and practice. And they are absolutely, positively essential for leadership excellence. 

You place your bets when you set strategy

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Strategy. Strategic.

Do those words make you feel excited, eager, energized? Or does your heart start racing a bit in fear, at the mere mention of strategy, and the responsibility it brings?

Leaders’ reactions to strategic opportunities run the full gamut from fear and apprehension to eagerness to take on the challenge.

Some people like the excitement of sizing up the future and placing their bets on a particular course of action and events which strategy setting really represents.

For others, the word “strategy” and “strategic” make them break into a fearful sweat. For this group, the risks of getting it wrong seem far higher than the thrill of getting it right.

Strong strategic skills – strategic thinking, strategy setting, and strategic management – are among the top characteristics of great leaders.

The essence of strategic ability is that, of the many paths of action open to an organization, great leaders can see, and then take – or make – the strategic course most likely to lead to success.

They can find their way through uncertainty to high customer satisfaction, product, service and process excellence, and maximum profitability.

When you set strategy, you’re placing your bets – and committing your resources – to what you believe will happen in the future, and what your best response is likely to be to the anticipated future.

What’s really involved in being a great strategist?

You must be able to envision playing the game out completely, rather than to just hope things will work out, magically and effortlessly.

You must have alternative paths figured out in case the paths you envision are wrong, or eliminated for some reason.

You must have or be able to get the resources you need to turn the strategy into effective action.

You must have good information, and know how to use it for effective decision-making, having considered those decisions from many different points of view

You must have the confidence to choose the best course, and stay that course or adapt, as you see what’s happening, as conditions continue to change.

You must keep your eyes on the ultimate prize, the vision of success, given the circumstances at any point, and what may still lie ahead.

Taking the risk, and placing your bet on how you think the uncertain future will play out is not an easy task.

Strategic skills are essential as a leader, however. As with other leadership skills, you can build and refine strategic skills, too, through learning, focus and practice.

Leadership excellence: Courage is power

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cour·age, noun

The quality of mind or spirit that enables a person to face difficulty, danger, or pain without, or in spite of fear; bravery.

We admire courage when exhibited by others.

Yet do we want to be in situations where our own courage is called for?

In a word, no – or most people don’t.

Such times center around high-risk circumstances that could so easily go wrong. But for so many reasons…and because they may affect many people…situations that call for courage really must go right, somehow.

Not surprisingly, great courage is one of the top characteristics of great leaders.

What does courage really involve?

Courage is the ability to look beyond one’s own fear, to find and draw on one’s strongest reserves to get a critical job done, no matter what stands in the way.

It is the ability to assess risks and reduce them however possible, and yet to carry on with integrity in the face of the risks that still remain.

Courage, as a leader, is also the ability to incite a group to move forward and to continue to work toward a goal in spite of what may be their natural desire in a risky situation to freeze in place, or retreat.

When you hear the word, “courage,” what people and situations come to mind?

Is it Captain Sullenberger and his co-pilot, who brought US Airways 1549 down safely in the Hudson River, and the team of many people on land and in rescue boats who rapidly coalesced, moved into action, and ensured that everyone from the downed plane was saved?

Is it Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, the first men to walk on the moon, and the achievements of many other people, over many years, that led to those first lunar steps?

Is it Marie Curie and other scientific explorers who forge on despite uncertainty, doubt and resistance, making discoveries that benefit many people in countless ways?

Perhaps the courageous people and circumstances you think of involve world leaders, whether elected or personally inspired to act based on the strength of their beliefs.

Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and many other leaders in history led people they inspired through sometimes dark and difficult days.

Of course, there are many other courageous leaders who may inspire you. And more will emerge through the course of history.

We can also see courage in people around us, in our daily lives. These may be people who are not widely known so their acts of great courage may be quiet, even subtle, but still significant, and deeply inspiring.

You, too, have surely exhibited courage at times.

Think back to times when you had to press on – and did – even though you might have wished to give up and admit defeat.

In those circumstances:

  • What were your beliefs – before the danger or difficulty arose – about what you were capable of handling?
  • When pressed by circumstances, what did you discover that you could, in fact, handle?
  • Did tapping your courage strengthen it, and enable you to be courageous again in the future, when needed?

Here are guidelines to help you increase your comfort and preparation for uncertainty…and to prepare you to be courageous when needed:

1. Anticipate and prevent problems from occurring in the first place.

That’s easy to say, and not so easy to do, but it works much of the time. It requires good foresight, planning and follow-through.

It also calls for, among other things, strong risk assessment, problem analysis and prevention skills.

2. When, despite your best efforts, danger arises, do your best to size up the risks, and quickly control the things you can control.

This may also enable you to reduce, as much as possible, the impact of factors that you are less able to control.

3. Also, set up systems to monitor key aspects of the situation you are facing to help you decide as early as possible what actions to take.

In circumstances requiring courage, conditions are likely to be changing rapidly.

Create an early warning system of some type, if you can, and do so ahead of time if you can anticipate that a situation is volatile, unpredictable.

Know, however, that you won’t have perfect information at times such as these.

Just get the best information you can, as quickly as possible. Then use that information to guide the best decisions and actions, moving forward.

4. Check in with your team in simple but effective ways.

You need to stay in close touch with others on your team. However, keep the information exchange simple, and focus on the most important decisions and details.

5. Stay the course, as long as you can tell that it is working.

Don’t be blind to what you find. At the same time, this isn’t a popularity contest. There’s a risky, and possibly even a physically dangerous circumstance to be fought.

Pay attention to the information you have, as well as your own intuition, and prior experience if you or others on your team have experience that’s relevant. And, of course, as always, use your good common sense.

At times when courage is called for, your quiet inner strength and wisdom is an invaluable asset.