Tag Leadership

Credit to:

Patrick Lencioni & The Table Group for the “First Team” concept,

Jason Wong of https://www.attack-gecko.net/

and  Dalmau Consulting for the image

I loved my job.

I was part of a powerful and effective executive team to whom I was loyal. I had no problem identifying that they were the team I was personally responsible for and accountable for.

They were my ‘First Team.’

I had built my team into a great team. People took on some of the most complex projects you could imagine and not just succeeded but excelled. I felt great loyalty to everyone who directly and indirectly reported to me.

But there is no doubt that my division was my ‘Second Team.’

Read about what Punk taught me about this situation.

“First Team?”

A First Team – best articulated by Patrick Lencioni – is the idea that true leaders prioritize supporting their fellow leaders over their direct reports—that they are responsible to their peers more than they are to their individual or “Second” teams.

If you’re not entirely on board with that concept, I get it.

In my experience, a “First Team” mindset has been transformational in creating a high performing organization by improving the quality of leadership and management practiced.  

When leaders have built trust with each other, it becomes significantly easier to manage change, exhibit vulnerability, and solve problems together.

I was part of a team who looked and functioned as like example A in the drawing:

When I fell out of my “First Team.”

Things changed when I got a new boss close to me and considered myself a trusted confidant. Over time she went quiet, stopped sharing reasons for decisions and stopped responding. People were hired onto the leadership team I belonged to, whom I believed did not demonstrate the standards I expected of them. My performance began to slip, and my reactions to events were not always as professional as I either hoped or was expected of me.

In retrospect, all the signs pointed to the simple fact that I was nearing or had gone past my best before date as far as she was concerned. To be clear, I have never purported myself to be perfect in any regard. Still, in this case, I was dealing with a boss who was not providing me precise and proper performance management nor effective leadership.

As pictured in example B, I lost faith in my boss and much of the leadership team.

So much so that I focused on my team, and slowly but surely, I became more and more isolated from the organization’s objectives.

 Other Examples of a Broken “First Team”

Imagine a world where the top leaders in your organization are gathered to solve the company’s most pressing challenges. Instead of coming together as a team focused on solving that problem, they approach the exercise more concerned about their self-interest than solving the company’s needs, as pictured in example D above.

Or are you part of a leadership team so disconnected from the rest of the company that they have

no idea what is happening on the shop floor? Picture example C above as the worst of ‘Undercover Boss.’ Where leadership has no idea.

But probably just another day at work for many people, and it’s why I spend a lot of time building a First Team mindset with my clients.

Read more about unaligned leadership teams.

Tragic?

Here are some of the ways I’ve had success in creating a First Team mindset:

Be Explicit

Be explicit about the behaviours you expect from your leaders. Be clear with my managers about their responsibility to one another, including detail of the First Team expectation in the job description and interview for how they’ve practiced it.

Treat Them Like a Cohort

If you don’t treat your leadership team like a cohort, they won’t become one. Ensure you regularly bring together your leadership team, including everything from mailing lists and slack channels to team-building exercises and social events.

Information and trust are the currencies of leadership, and demonstrating an equal distribution through shared experiences is a powerful tool.

Help Them Help Each Other

Encourage interdependence and normalization of help-seeking amongst team members.

Please encourage them to talk to one another about their problems and refer them for help.

Role-play difficult conversations with a fellow manager role play it.

Help Them Help You

Invite your First Team to help you solve your problems.

This vulnerability may feel scary, but it has proven beneficial to leverage your leaders’ capabilities to lead to better outcomes for your organization. And it is a great development opportunity because it exposes them to the types of problems they will face at the next level of their career.                   

Make it Stick

To ensure that you and your leadership team is adhering to the First Team concept, I recommend reviewing the following with your team:

• • At every opportunity, point out the priority of Team #1 before making any critical decisions.

This will put leaders in the correct frame of mind.

• • Demand that team members prioritize the executive team over all others.

When the executive team is truly cohesive and prioritized appropriately, their ability to face complex challenges with further confidence bonds the team and models unity to the organization, this requires an absolute, unwavering commitment to the First Team.

• • Explain how the team’s direct reports will be impacted.

We all know that if there is any daylight between executive team members, it ultimately results in unwinnable battles that those lower in the organization are left to fight.

Like many of the concepts I consult on, First Team is as powerful as it is simple.

Learn more about how I work with executive teams

I have seen highly educated leaders with vast experience have an “aha” moment about the First Team concept resulting in an immediate impact on their team’s cohesion and ability to succeed.

I’ve long used curiosity as a tool to help me understand what is happening around me.

Now and for the record, a Harvard Business Review and a Price Waterhouse Cooper study confirms that I wasn’t just nosy. Research shows that I was attuned to better leadership.

During the 2011 Slave Lake wildfires, I led the disaster response. There is a normal ebb and flow to disasters, but at a certain point, the data showed that the need for disaster assistance was falling off.

I could have assumed we solved the problem, but something didn’t feel right.

Curiosity forced me to explore the data, and I found that we were missing a new demographic of a client. This resulted in a rejigging of our disaster assistance program to suit the needs of the community.

Click to watch the video of me telling the story.

Why Curiosity Is An Important Leadership Mindset

Consider the following:

• If you think you know, then you won’t ask.
• If you think things are a certain way, then you won’t notice changing conditions.
• When you think you have all the relevant information, then you won’t look for other information.
• If you feel you have the solution, then you won’t explore different answers.
• If you think you’re right, then you won’t listen to other people.
• When you think you know, you won’t ask, see, or hear.

“I think” is a very dangerous leadership stance in a rapidly changing world. Instead, I encourage you to be curious about what you might not know. The worst-case scenario is that you’ll learn something new!

There’s a certain kind of curiosity that’s particularly useful for leaders. Keep reading for five ways to develop this skill.

How To Be ‘Leader’ Curious

Five practices to help you become more curious:

1. Listen to learn, rather than respond. Most of us listen so we can confirm our opinions, or we only listen so we can respond to objections. Try listening to learn something instead. Silence can be a handy conversational tool. Here are three tips to help you use silence to improve your conversation skills.
2. Pretend you don’t know the answer. Once you believe that you know, you will stop looking, listening, or testing. But this is precisely what you need to do to spot trends and problems before they arrive.
3. Hold the tension. When challenged with something that seems impossible, don’t be quick to dismiss the idea. Hold the tension. Get curious. Explore. Everything new was once impossible until someone figured out it wasn’t.
4. Don’t be the smartest person in the room. The more experience and higher position you have, the more you think you’re the brightest in the room, and you stop learning. However, if you decide that others may have something to offer something you can learn from, then you will. Want to learn how to have better conversations? Here are six essential questions you can ask children and employees.
5. Think: “I wonder what else?” At best, we only see part of the picture, but not all of it. By asking, “I wonder what else?” you will keep looking, listening, and exploring.

Sure, there is some wasted effort and discussions in the process of being curious.

But at the risk of sacrificing a little efficiency for the sake of exploring, know that innovation and breakthrough rarely arrive in a straight line.

Curiosity will not only save from disaster but will allow you to notice and take advantage of opportunities.

Yes, curiosity is vital. But what is the essential leadership skill? Moral courage. Click here to find out why.

If you’re interested in going even deeper or moving your career to the next level, you’ll also want to have a look at my 1-on-1 coaching services.

If you enjoyed this article, be sure to check these out, too:

A Curated List of Crisis Leadership Articles
9 Stupid Management Practices (and what to do instead)
The 6T’s To Know What To Delegate

This article was originally published on January 18, 2019, and has been updated.

I often work with people who are transitioning from follower to leader.

The question always arises is: What characteristic makes a good leader?

I tell them the answer is moral courage. 

I realized I was never as concerned about my boss’s technical expertise as I was about their moral courage, honesty, and ethics.

Coincidentally, Abacus Data shared the results of a poll examining Canadians opinions of the leadership, answering the question by saying:

“Leadership can be hard to define – but … people … know what they like when they see it. We gave respondents a forced-choice question about what was most important to them in supporting a … leader. By a considerable margin, “values” (42%) were identified as the top quality to look for, followed by judgment (29%). “Ideas” (15%) and “attitude” (13%) were well back in consideration.

What Matters Most in a Leader?

For me, values and judgment add up to Moral Courage. Historically, courage hasn’t been recognized as an essential attribute for business leaders.

This is changing.

Future leaders will need the ability to act courageously.

Without question, innovation is needed in “for’ and ‘not for’ profit businesses, but courage makes change possible. 

In a recent Harvard Business Review article, Rosabeth Moss Kantor wrote:” moral courage enables people to stand up for principle rather than stand on the sidelines.” 

What is Moral Courage in Leadership?

Courage in leadership is doing what’s right despite being afraid of risking negative repercussions.

Fear is the most common reason people give when they avoid being courageous. Think about how you feel when you watch a leader who demonstrates personal courage. Most likely, you will trust that leader more.

Courage comes from being very clear about essential values and working to achieve goals that are consistent with those values.

Ultimately, every leader has the choice to either lead with courage or lead without it.

Examples of Courageous Leadership Behaviours

1. Moral courage & humility when providing honest feedback in conversations and discussions or managing your supervisors or boards
2. Allowing alternative & opposing viewpoints to be shared with the rest of the team.
3. Speaking up rather than being compliant in silence.
4. Leading through change & not settling for “we have always done it this way.”
5. Taking ownership when you are in uncharted territory, and the safe path is to do nothing.

How are you, or your organization, doing at removing the barriers to morally courageous behaviour? Try this simple exercise here to find out. 

Developing Moral Courage

1. Be very clear about your vision and values.
2. Scripting in advance what to say.
3. Anticipate those who will disagree.
4. Be honest in admitting when you have made a mistake or taken a wrong path.
5. Be willing to entertain new ideas and change your assumptions.

Courage is a learned skill, and we all can be courageous. Being brave means stepping out of your comfort zone and taking risks.

As we invest in the future and emerging leaders, isn’t it better to learn values, judgment, and moral courage in a SYSTEMATIC and PURPOSEFUL way instead of allowing them to muddle through?

Do you think fear is driving your leadership actions? Here are 7 questions to prevent fear of leadership failure. 

If you’re interested in going more profound or moving your career to the next level, you’ll also want to look at my 1-on-1 coaching services.

If you enjoyed this article, be sure to check these out, too:

How One Word Can Damage Workplace Culture

9 Stupid Management Practices (and what to do instead)

The 6T’s To Know What To Delegate

This article was originally published on January 5, 2015, and has been updated.

They say “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” But words do hurt—and all too often, what they hurt is workplace culture. 

I have come to realize how important words are not only in everyday life, but in our workplace interactions as well.

And I don’t just mean poetry and prose. Simple one or two-word phrases can stop a conversation dead in its tracks. This can lead to mistrust and a toxic work environment.

I wouldn’t call myself a word nerd. But I understand words are significant so I try my best to use them as precisely as I can. 

Before I get to examples of words and phrases that can damage workplace culture, let’s look at some common terms that are often used incorrectly or made up entirely.  

Words that are commonly used incorrectly.

• Adverse and averse
• Affect and effect
• Led and lead
• I.e. and e.g.

Made up words and phrases:

• “All intents and purposes,” not “all intensive purposes”
• Enunciate, not annunciate
• Espresso, not expresso
• Cabinet, not cabnit
• Nuclear, not nucular

If the words or behaviour used at work lead to a culture of harassment, here are some ways to stop it dead in its tracks. 

Words that lead to an unhealthy workplace culture.

Now that we know some of the words and phrases that are often misused or made up, let’s get more specific. 

If you’ve noticed a dip in morale or in overall performance at work, it might be time to ask yourself about the words you use or the words you hear your team use with one another.

Here are some other questions you can ask to check up on your team. 

The following are some words and phrases that can kill trust and lead to a toxic work environment: 

• “Yeah, but.” This tells the listener that you don’t care about what they’re saying.
• “You don’t understand.” This causes the listener to feel like they are being disdained.
• “With a bit more experience…” This dismisses youth and enthusiasm. 
• “I appreciate your comments.” This tells the listener thanks, but you think he is an idiot.
• “It’s not in the budget,” or “That’s not according to policy.” This means you’re blowing the person off because you haven’t even thought about what they’re proposing.
• “Five-year strategic plan.” Usually, this just means blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

While we’re on the topic, here are 2 phrases a boss must learn to demonstrate their trust in their team. 

Words cut to the core faster than a knife. They can cause wounds that take forever to heal.

As a leader, our people are watching and listening to everything we say, ergo (and I use that word correctly), leaders must be very precise with the words we choose. Words must be applied judiciously and thoughtfully—or we risk contributing to or creating a toxic work environment.

In World War II they said ‘loose lips sink ships.’ In today’s world, loose lips can sink workplace culture.

If you’re interested in going deeper on improving the culture at work or moving your career to the next level, you’ll also want to have a look at my 1-on-1 coaching services.

If you Google the term ‘first day as a manager,’ you’ll get almost three billion results.

What does that tell us? 

That a lot of people are looking for ways to succeed as a new leader, boss, or manager. 

It also tells us there are a lot of people offering advice on how to do so. 

But what if I told you there are only three things you need to remember to succeed on your first day as a manager? 

I’ve been the new boss many times. 

Each time, I found myself with more responsibility and in charge of more people. 

And each time, there was a nagging voice in my head telling me the same thing: I was in over my head.

When self-doubt creeps in, it doesn’t just affect the impression our employees, peers, and bosses have of us—or how we see ourselves. It can also have lasting negative effects on our performance and success at work. 

Here are three things you should know to quiet self-doubt and be the best boss possible:

1. Your boss has confidence in you.

You’re in a leadership position for a reason.

I once told my boss that I didn’t think I was ready for my pending promotion. 

It didn’t take long to get sent out of his office with the words, “I’ll be the judge of when you’re ready,” still ringing in my ears. 

Fear of leadership failure is a real thing. Remember, your boss believes you’re ready to lead or you wouldn’t be there. So run with it!

If you want to explore this topic further, don’t miss this post. 

2. Don’t rush.

I remember seeing a brash young captain standing in front of his new command. 

The first words out of his mouth were: “there’s a new sheriff in town and there’s going to be changes…” He looked like an idiot.

In that moment, he completely lost all credibility. 

What could he have done differently?

He should have entered calmly and slowly, asking people for their names and stories, instead of assuming everything needed fixing and stomping on toes. 

On your first day as a new manager, come in with the knowledge that it’s going to take time to get to know the staff and the way things work. From there, you can determine which adjustments need to be made. 

It might feel like there are a million things you want to hurry to get done on your first day, each more important than the last. That’s why I’ve written this post for dealing with competing priorities. 

3. Spend time with your boss and your peers.

This is advice not only for your first day as a manager, but on every day after that: Spend as much time with your boss as you can. 

Ask them what their performance objectives are and how you can contribute to their success. This demonstrates your value and establishes your place as a great asset to the company. 

Want to learn more about partnering with your boss? Be sure to visit this post. 

You should also invest in getting to know your team whenever you can. 

These people can help you navigate your new environment. And quite frankly, if you’re offside with them, they can contribute to your failure.

Almost all advice to a new leader is to invest in their employees during the early days of their new position. Your employees are important. But if you don’t understand what your boss wants or your peer team needs, you’re in for a rough ride.

Your first day as a new leader is just that—one day. Don’t expect to overhaul a company or predict your own failure before you’ve even had a chance to start. Remember: you were chosen to lead for a reason. 

Come in with a good attitude, an open mind, and a willingness to connect with your boss, peers, and employees. It will go a long way. 

Keeping these things in mind will help you succeed not only on your first day as a new manager, but throughout the rest of your career. 

If you’re interested in going deeper or moving your career to the next level, you’ll also want to have a look at my 1-on-1 coaching services.

If you enjoyed this article, be sure to check these out, too:

Micromanaging is a Good Thing
9 Stupid Management Practices (and what to do instead)
The 6T’s To Know What To Delegate

This article was originally published on March 14, 2016, and has been updated.