Stories filled the media last month concerning the USDA official who was abruptly fired by the Agriculture Secretary after her recorded remarks to an audience appeared to boast over recent discriminatory actions against a white farmer.  An edited video of her speech had lifted snippets of her statement, deliberately twisting the message and intent of her speech to support a conservative talk show host’s critical views toward the NAACP.  The video excluded her ending remarks providing a wider context of regret for her previously racial insensitive attitudes, calling people to rise above discrimination.

In the ensuing media storm, White House officials called for her dismissal. The lady, a widely respected leader in her field, was summarily dismissed and publicly humiliated, her decorated career seemingly ruined.  However, controversial anger soon turned to embarrassment once the full video recording aired, clearly showing her speech had been misconstrued.

Realizing he had served a grave injustice against this woman, the next day Agriculture Secretary called a press conference and admitted he had made a terrible mistake. He stated he had rushed to judgment and acted in error without having all of the facts.  He confessed the deep damage and great pain upon the innocent lady and her family.  Apologizing profusely to the woman, both publicly and privately, he took full responsibility, neither offering excuses nor blaming others.  He offered her a new position. She responded magnanimously with forgiveness and conciliatory words. The media firestorm was extinguished, as quickly as it had erupted.

No leader is perfect.  We all have made serious mistakes.  A defining characteristic of a true leader is not the absence of mistakes but rather how he or she responds after the error has occurred.  This human leader showed amazing leadership by taking responsibility in a transparent, honest and sincere manner.  He didn’t find a scapegoat within his agency.  He didn’t skewer irresponsible media activity. He didn’t resort to legally safe language designed to ward off litigation.  He did the right thing.  He said, “I’m sorry.  I have wronged you.  I will make it right.”

Afterwards, while teaching leaders, from various racial backgrounds, I asked them, “Knowing the gravity of his mistake and his subsequent response, do you have greater trust toward the Secretary or do you trust him less?”  Unanimously, the group said their trust in the Secretary increased!  They appreciated his transparent humanity, his humility and lack of ego had created deeper respect.

One of the most powerful effects a leader can employ is to say “I’m sorry”.  Many leaders carry the mistaken notion to admit one’s mistake is an act of weakness, that doing so may weaken their leadership position.  This could not be further from the truth.

One of the surest way leaders can undermine their leadership credibility with their people is to refuse to acknowledge and apologize when they have been wrong.   Such arrogance is a deathblow to followership.  Conversely, the strength to admit one’s error can raise the trust quotient.    True humility and sincerity can turn a moment of  miscue into an opportunity to win the hearts of others.  I wonder, how would you have responded if you had been in the  Secretary’s shoes?  Ask your people how they think you would have responded based on your past behaviors?  Their answers may provide pause for reflection.  You might even have to own up to some things and say, “I’m sorry.”

Five Conditions That Can Make or Break Your Success

There is an immense difference between being a good leader and a great one. Effective leaders, like Olympic champions, are developed through training, experience and mentoring. The most successful executives understand that their success is reliant on the fact that they continue to challenge themselves – both in their thinking and through their performance. Becoming a true champion comes with practice, practice, practice and key coaching to refine skills and accelerate improvement.

Great leadership involves the ability to create positive momentum in times of high change. This requires mastering skills such as casting the vision, executing communication, weighing possibilities and seeking new opportunities. Great leaders are highly skilled in cultivating synergy among employees to ensure a company has both direction and growth. All of these attributes are critical and necessary to the success of any company – perhaps even more so in a down economy.

John Kotter says, “Leaders set direction, leaders align people by communicating their vision at all levels and leaders motivate and inspire.” InitiativeOne’s curriculum is based on just that – refining some of the core skills that allow leaders to decide direction, align people and inspire.

Leadership is truly all about influence – are you working on the skills that enable you to influence others through motivation and direction in order to achieve your company’s goals? There is a vast return on this investment both professionally and organizationally – even in today’s economic environment.

At an organizational level, leaders must know the basic conditions that generate the greatest chance of success. According to a recent article in the Harvard Business Review titled “Why teams don’t work”, there are five critical conditions that make the difference between success and failure – all of which are included in InitiativeOne leadership training. These are:

1. Teams must be real – People have to know who is on the team and who is not. It is the leader’s job to make that clear.
2. Teams need a compelling direction – Members need to know – and agree on – what they’re supposed to be doing together. Unless a leader articulates a clear direction, there is a real risk that different members will pursue different agendas.
3. Teams need enabling structures – Teams that have poorly designed tasks, the wrong number or mix of members, or fuzzy and unenforced norms of conduct invariably get into trouble.
4. Teams need a supportive organization – The organizational context – including the reward system, the human resource system and the information system – must facilitate team work.
5. Teams need expert coaching – Most executive coaches focus on individual performance, which does not significantly improve teamwork. Teams need coaching as a group in team processes – especially at the beginning, midpoint and end of a team project.

If you wisely choose to invest in your leadership development or your team’s leadership development, we hope you’ll choose InitiativeOne. We have many offerings from a “Dr. Fred Online Tune Up” to Executive Coaching to our Signature, nine-week process of comprehensive skill building and leadership development. Contact us directly at 920-246-5175 or info@initiative-one.com.

Our business is based on word of mouth referrals, so don’t forget to mention us to a friend/company you know who could benefit from expert help in the area of leadership development. And, don’t forget to ask us for examples regarding the effectiveness of our work – we have worked with hundreds of companies and have many references!

Emerge from the Dark Side
How Just Paying the Rent Can Draw You Over

Those who have participated in an Initiative One Leadership Process are familiar with the term “pay the rent” (PTR). PTR describes the daily, ongoing firefighting, immediate problem solving activity that is part of every leader’s day. PTR consists of those mundane but necessary things that are the essence of performing the business. Pay the rent is important because if we are not successful in this endeavor, there is a strong likelihood we won’t last long enough to achieve our Vision by reaching our critical goals.

Excelling in PTR is essential to achieve a high level of customer service and the resulting high satisfaction. Show me a company that ignores PTR and I’ll show you a company with a poor level of customer satisfaction.

The problem with “pay the rent” is that it can become all consuming, and in fact does, for many companies and their leaders. PTR is reactive, not pro-active. I remember one executive who obviously liked being stuck in “pay the rent” mode. He told me, “I don’t have time to focus on vision, values, and critical goals. In fact, I don’t need to. Everyday I just show up and problems always find me. Staying busy is not a problem.”

This executive demonstrated the unhealthy, dark side of pay the rent. This man had succumbed to and embraced the dark side. When one is immersed in pay the rent, and not balanced by a strategic focus on higher, long-term goals, the price is the abdication of leadership. When leaders are driving the vision, communicating and measuring critical goals, they are setting the agenda for others to follow. However when they can’t get out of PTR, everyone else sets the agenda for them. They may be busy, but in the long-run they will not be effective. Remember, leaders measure their effectiveness, not by merely being busy, but by the impact of their efforts.

How do so many of us fall into the grip of excessive PTR so easily?

There are five telltale pitfalls that lead to the dark side:

People Pleasing – The desire to have another person like us or respect us is universal for all of us. Unfortunately it can damage our effectiveness. This trap occurs when we frequently acquiesce to another person’s expectations which have nothing to do with advancing our own purposes and responsibilities in the organization.
Poor Boundaries – Typically, to avoid conflict with others, we avoid difficult conversations in which we must communicate that we do not have the time, the resources, or even organizational sanction to invest in their priorities.
Less Than Impeccable Communication – We often fall into the unhealthy side of PTR when we avoid negotiating with a person whose demands, timelines, or expectations are not reasonable. Because we will not lead ourselves, we abdicate our leadership to others who may be more direct, clearer, or more aggressive.
The Lure of Instant Gratification – Usually PTR involves a short-term payoff. One can solve a problem quickly and receive quick gratification. Unfortunately, high level goals and objectives almost always take much longer and require sustained discipline. While vision whispers, PTR screams. Because we become so preoccupied with the urgent, we lose our attention to the important.
The Unwillingness to Ask For Help – Just this week a leader explained to me that she found it difficult to focus on strategic level responsibilities. She stated she was afraid to ask her partners to cover her while she was in executive strategic planning sessions. She found herself trying to be in two places at once, letting down her client, her team who waited for her to show and herself for not fulfilling her commitment.
Ultimately, we fall into unproductive “pay the rent” when we try to be all things to all people. In doing so, we eventually become nothing to everyone, including ourselves.

In conclusion, allow me to challenge you to a call to action that might be eye-opening. Chart a typical week’s activity in 30 minute intervals; from the time you arrive at work to when you end your workday. At the end of the week, add up how many hours you spent in “pay the rent” firefighting instead of activity that focused on advancing your highest goals and objectives. Most people are surprised at the outcome. You may find you have unknowingly drifted to the dark side.

Leadership in the Crosswinds
How Safe Are You in Business Turbulence?

I was nervous. I could feel the perspiration on my palms and extreme tension in my jaws. My regional jet was about to land at Chicago O’Hare in 40 mile-per-hour crosswinds. I had heard an off duty pilot riding in the jump seat behind me tell one of the flight attendants that our plane was designed to withstand crosswinds up to 35 miles per hour. I didn’t like the way the math was adding up here.

The lady next to me grabbed my arm and hung on for dear life as we descended to the runway, bouncing like a kernel in a corn popper. A few feet above the ground, an instant before landing, a huge gust of wind caught the side of the plane and blew us off of the runway and into the grass. At the moment of contact, the pilot gunned the engines and soared back into the sky, over the terminal, banked at such a sharp angle that it felt like riding in a fighter plane. The smell of regurgitated food instantly permeated the cabin. The sound of people gagging into their air sickness bags was extremely unnerving. It was the first time I had ever flown that I was genuinely scared.

What came next was a fascinating lesson in leadership. Within seconds after righting the plane, the pilot’s calm, clear voice, came over the intercom. He stated simply, “That is what we call a touch and go. I am really sorry about what just happened. As you can tell the conditions were too windy. Air traffic control is directing us to a runway that points at a better angle for today’s weather conditions. You are safe. The plane is under complete control. No maintenance situation exists. Relax. We are circling once and will land again in five minutes.”

As the pilot spoke, you could feel the tension in the cabin dissipate. I marveled at how the captain was able to keep a near panic situation from erupting into bedlam, helping to restore an almost normal mood among nauseous passengers.

As I pondered the situation later – after changing my pants – I observed several important traits that true leaders naturally demonstrate in rapid change environments:

The pilot openly communicated to those under his command in a responsive, timely fashion. Over communicating in times of high change is a must for followers to feel safe in the unpredictable environment of unending, sometimes uncontrollable change that is often the norm in today’s business environments.
He acknowledged the apprehensions of the passengers. Rather than ignore or minimize the concerns that people were having in the cabin, he addressed them head-on. He apologized in a manner that acknowledged everyone including experienced fliers, thereby validating their individual fears and apprehension. Leaders who create a culture of “putting all issues on the table” are able to navigate better the tense moments that the invariables of high change create. While there is discomfort in the moment of addressing the situation in an open and direct manner, the storm typically dissipates much faster.
He faced the issue head-on. Leaders who try to “manage the message” in tense situations by pretending issues don’t exist, by managing the flow of information, or by creating spin for bad news, typically make difficult those situations worse. When the issues go under the table, issues grow, not go. Deal with the pain before it deals with you! True leaders learn to be comfortable with the uncomfortable.
The pilot set the tone through calm behavior. In times of high change, followers crave some measure of predictability. They respect leaders who are consistently reassuring and under control in high stress moments. Leaders who are able to exhibit self-control will find themselves in control because they will have followers who want to follow them. When a leader is stressed, the menu of leadership effectiveness does not include engaging in shouting, threatening, blaming and other such aggressive behaviors.
Ultimately, this captain demonstrated traits that created an environment of safety in the midst of uncertainty. A secret of effective leaders is that when they become “safe” with their people, problem solving effectiveness increases dramatically. The safer we are to them, the more open and forthcoming people will be in delivering pertinent information, a must in managing in the crosswinds of turbulent change. How safe is your leadership role?