Category Being A Leader

I’ve said it

You may have said it

You probably had it said to you.

It goes like this:

The boss proudly says: “I have an open-door policy!” And then they state, “Feel free to bring your problems to me, but bring a solution with it.”

Sounds good?

We believe we are creating high employee engagement.

We think we are encouraging creative thinking.

We hope we are developing future leaders.

What is wrong with that?

What if our high-minded, forward-looking leadership ideas are shutting people down?

Read more about words that shut you down

Let’s pull his apart:

First, you announced an ‘open-door policy, BUT’ … ‘but’ tells the listener that you do not mean what you just said. It implies there are conditions.

Then you say you want people to bring you their problems with the qualifications they need to get solutions.

If they had solutions, they wouldn’t need you to help figure it out.

You may very well have shut down all the people who are too afraid to bring problems to you because they don’t have a solution to recommend.

Having people come to your office is a demonstration of the power you have over them.

A better approach is to not hide behind your desk; narrow the power differential by going to them, to their workplace, so you can see what is going on.

Ask open-ended questions, like what is going on? Do you understand where your work fits into the company? Is there anything getting in the way of you meeting your objectives?

Read more about asking the right questions

What Does This Look Like?

I had an employee who made a series of small and seemingly insignificant requests whenever I stopped by his work site.

With each request, I listened and took it under advisement.

And I either addressed his suggestion or responded as to why I couldn’t.

Read more about building trust

Over time, we established a high level of confidence.

Eventually, he mentioned that a piece of equipment was being misused and offered a solution that saved over $50,000 in the first year.

He was a good employee and worked in another location than I did.

He’d seen bosses come and go and had no reason to trust that I would ever have fixed anything.

So, the odds of him walking into my office to share his ideas were slim to nil.

So, tell me something: how would my ‘bring me solutions, not problems’ speech work out?

99% of being a leader has everything to do with interpersonal relationships and social interactions.

And not every interaction is with someone you like.

Read more about working with that SOB in Accounting

The book Leadership and Self Deception: Getting Out of the Box by The Arbinger Institute is easy to read and written in the form of a fable.

The gist of the book is that conflict between people is based on our self-deception that we view others as either a help or hindrance and begin to feel we are more critical than others.

Whether it is a family member or that ‘idiot’ at work, this perception becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. We inflate our self-worth while deflating the other person until we rationalize our behaviour by blaming the other person.

How does the book suggest how we can get past this self-deception?

1. Have empathy. Treat people like people. When you are in the box and are being self-deceptive, you treat others as objects, not as human beings.  

This doesn’t mean you don’t fire someone who isn’t right for a job; firing can be done by seeing the other person as an object or as a person among people.

2. Don’t let your expectations affect your view of someone’s actions. One way of being in the box is having a view of a person or the world and then fitting all the evidence to reinforce your view.  

Suppose you expect someone to be a particular way. In that case, you view their actions differently. “we subconsciously begin to ignore or dismiss anything that threatens our worldviews, since we surround ourselves with people and information that confirm what we already think.”

3. When you betray your sense of what you should do for another, you begin to see the world in a way that justifies your betrayal. And that leads to blaming others and viewing yourself as a victim.

For example, if you are sure that SOB is a jerk, everything that person does will begin to reinforce that perception, Even if he is doing the right thing.

4. Self-betrayal leads to self-deception. When you engage in self-deception, you are in the box. You exaggerate your virtues, inflate the faults of others, and emphasize factors that support your self-deception.  

 When you betray your core values, you explain the betrayal by deceiving yourself.  

5. Being in the box leads others to be in the box. By justifying your view of the world and acting and communicating accordingly, others will develop a view of you that causes them to be in the box. 

The leadership self-betrayal results when we don’t do what is right and justify that action or inaction to protect our egos. This leads to us shifting the blame onto others. We start to view others as activating or stumbling blocks – they help or hinder us.

This book’s message is that the problem often lies within ourselves, and only through self-awareness can we move forward.

I wish I had read this book in my twenties when I was starting my leadership journey … except I suspect I had deceived myself and was so self-absorbed that it would have been lost on me.

As is most good life advice. 

With the holidays over, I find myself thinking about food.

Family Dinners.

Staff parties.

And the many times that food contributed to my success as a Leader.

Leaders Eat Last

This phrase was recently made famous as a Simon Sinek book title.

But it isn’t a new concept; leaders eating last has been the standard of victorious armies for eons.

It is when the most senior leaders of a unit only eat when all privates and corporals have eaten.

Leaders eating last accomplishes two crucial leadership functions:

1. It is a physical expression of servant leadership. Leaders care that the troops have eaten.
2. It allows the leader to test and correct the supply chain. Is the food hot and healthy, and is there enough?

It would be best to understand there is a problem before your company’s lowest-paid or highest-ranking person does.

The Soldier’s Christmas Dinner

The Soldier’s Christmas Dinner is a tradition where the soldiers are given the day off from their duties.

This is possible because the officers and sergeants cover their duties and serve dinner.

It goes back thousands of years and is still in practice today.

It is a simple, thoughtful thank you and an appreciation for past and future service.

It recognizes that there would be no need for officers and sergeants without soldiers.

Final Thoughts For The Holidays

Share a meal with your team.

Give your people as much time off as possible over the holidays.

But inevitably, someone will still have to work, so call or visit each office between Christmas and New Year’s to tell those working that you appreciate their duty and service and wish them the best.

This season, be thankful for your people.

You have a job because they are good at theirs.

With apologies to Victor Frankl, as leaders, we must learn to embrace the pause between the stimuli we receive from a million sources.

Who has never received a stimulus from our employees, coworkers, bosses, family, or customers?

And who has never responded too quickly?

This week, listen to Steve’s boyhood shoplifting experience and a series of gracious pauses that impacted his life and his leadership style.

And how we can use that moment to be better bosses.

 Do you feel overwhelmed at work?

If yes, you are not alone. According to a recent Deloitte survey of 2,500 organizations in 90 countries, two-thirds of managers say they’re overwhelmed.

This is a problem; your responsibility is to ensure the company succeeds.

The result is that managers and leaders take on too much work. A survey by eVoice found that 44% of entrepreneurs reported wearing five or more hats in their business at any time.

The answer is to delegate more effectively.

Delegate so you can spend more time on strategic decisions.

You should delegate every task that DOES NOT move you closer to achieving your objectives.

But how can you decide which tasks to delegate and what you should keep control of yourself?

Jenny Blake, in a Harvard Business Review article, suggests we conduct an audit using the six T’s to determine what tasks make the most sense to offload:

Tiny: Tasks that are so small they seem inconsequential to tackle, but they add up. They are never urgent, and even if they only take a few minutes, they make you out of the flow of more strategic work. For example, they are registering for a conference or event, adding it to your calendar, and booking the hotel and flight — on their own. These things may not take much time, but they all add up.

Tedious: Relatively simple tasks are not the best use of your time and can (and should) be handled by anyone but you. For example, you manually input a 100-item list into a spreadsheet and colour-coding it or update the KPIs in your presentation deck.

Time-Consuming: Although they may be significant and even somewhat complex, tasks are time-consuming and do not require you to do the initial 80% of research. You can quickly step in when the task is 80% complete and give approval, oversight and direction on the next steps.

Teachable: Tasks that, although complicated-seeming at first and possibly comprising several smaller subtasks, can be translated into a system and passed along, with you still providing quality checks and final approval and, for example, teaching one of your direct reports how to draft the presentation deck for the monthly all-hands meeting and even how to be the one to deliver those updates to the team.

Terrible At: Tasks that not only do not fall into your strengths but an area where you feel unequipped. You take far longer than people skilled in this area and still produce a subpar result. For example, designing those PowerPoint slides for the team meeting.

Time Sensitive: Tasks that are time-sensitive but compete with other priorities; there isn’t enough to do them all at once, so you delegate an essential and time-sensitive task to be done parallel to your other project-based deadlines.

Once you have decided what to give away, learn how by reading “The #1 Secret “ & 4 Tips You Need To Know To Delegate.”

In the most recent Better Leader Inner Circle, we discussed developing your personal transition plan to become a better leader.

But where you want to end up MUST be aligned with your values.

You see, no one is perfect. Not you, and certainly not me.

None of us is all that we could be. At the core of any successful change is a compelling need to create something different – to move toward something desirable. 

I wanted to be better, but my drinking was getting in the way.

My desire to be a more effective leader had to be rooted in values.

Once I understood my values, I used them as the foundation for a Better version of myself.

This is as true for organizational and work cultures as yours.

Hear my story by clicking the video below:

And learn more about when my values clashed with my being better:

7 Steps To Leading in A Crisis: Don’t Be an Ass

Increase Your Emotional Intelligence To Be a Better Leader