Nelson Coulter

The late Dr. Stephen Covey got quite famous on the strength of his writing of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (2004). He followed that book a year later with The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness (2005). Both were excellent; I liked the latter even more than the first.

What is that 8th Habit? Finding your voice and helping others find theirs.

Finding our own voice is challenging enough. From a leadership perspective, however, helping others find theirs is extremely difficult. Some of the things that can foster that development of voice in others…

• Creating environments where it’s safe to dissent. 
• Inviting others to lend their voice/thinking/perspective to complex problems.
• Articulating clearly the desire, and expectation, for others to speak up/out.
• Being genuinely open to the ideas/perspectives of others.
• Being better Listeners than we are Talkers.
• Saying “And” quite a lot, and saying “But” almost never.  
• Making respectfulness in interactions an organizational non-negotiable.

Most of us want something we don’t currently have. Sometimes it tangible stuff, sometimes intangible.

Wishing for it, however, usually doesn’t fulfill our aspirations.

Consider a well-used recipe for getting what we want:

• Be crystal clear about what it is we want.
• Make sure that want is righteous, and does not harm others.
• Dedicate the necessary time, effort, and resources required to attain that want.
• Ask for the help of critical others in attaining the want, and be prepared to reciprocate.
• Don’t give up if the going gets a little rough in pursuit of the want.

Tomes have been written about effective leadership. 

One of my faves is Primal Leadership, written by Daniel Goleman, et al (you can find it under the Book Recommendation tab on this site).

In the book, DG articulates six types of leaders: Visionary, Affiliative, Democratic, Pacesetting, Commanding, and Coaching. The best leaders I know flex among and between those six typologies.

Coaching is the one that speaks to me the most. In pretty simple form, it is grounded in a few on-repeat questions:

What are we doing?

How well are those things advancing us toward the Vision we have articulated?

If so, how might we do them better?

If not, how can we take corrective action TODAY?

We can’t do it ALL today, but we can do SOMETHING today.

As with all recipes (and the best things in life), it’s more art than science.

If you’d like to read more of nc’s blatherings, go to nc’s Recursive Learning.

Fear in the workplace is like putting shackles on continuous improvement.

When team members have fear, the very best in potential performance and the highest aspirations of the organization are mired in concrete.

What would cause apprehension and tentativeness in the minds of team members? Fear of…

• Having decisions made within policy and law reversed.
• Public criticism.
• Retaliation.
• Social isolation.
• Embarrassment. 
• Being marginalized.

Empowered teams are powerful teams. They can get “stuff” done.

Teams that are DIS-empowered feel/look/smell like this:

• De-energized
• Helpless
• Listless
• Weak
• Fearful
• Useless
• De-valued

Nobody likes annual evaluations. Well, perhaps a few masochists or sadists do, but none of the rest of us do.

Why do those yearly events cause us so much angst? From my experience on both sides of that table, it always feels painful due to the judgmental-prescriptive dynamic that is built into it. One person in the conversation, usually the boss/supervisor, is tasked with “scoring” the other person on their performance, then giving them advice/counsel on how to do that job better. 

An alternative that seems a bit less painful is a collaborative inquiry-based conversation. Some questions that generate reflective examination of performance (for both parties) can include the following:

• From your perspective, what are two or three of the primary things we need to try to accomplish in order to achieve the Vision our organization espouses?
• What about your assigned work role seems to align well with that Vision?
• What about your assigned work responsibilities seem misaligned, or maybe even run contrary, to that Vision?
• In what ways do you feel you’ve improved in the work you do?
• What about your work seems to give you the most pleasure?
• What about your assigned role causes you the most heartburn or anxiety?
• If our organization was performing perfectly, how would it look from your role?

Leadership, effective leadership, is a shared endeavor. Just like intelligence, it is always collective; never singular.

Yet, some think otherwise. They think…

• Accountability flows only in one direction.
• Others only improve with their help.
• Dissent should be squelched.
• Permission must be pervasively granted.
• Others must be pushed or driven to do the right thing.

In most organizations, we’ve got the people we’ve got. Only in the rarest of situations does the leader of an organization get to craft the team from scratch. And in most organizations cleaning house and starting over is not an option.

Some leaders I have watched spend a lot of time wishing for better players, complaining about the team they have, and spending inordinate amounts of time trying to squeeze people out.

Some really wise others, however, choose to take the team they’ve been dealt and see how much they can get the team to grow, learn, adapt, and excel.

Both approaches take a LOT of time. The latter approach seems far more interesting, invigorating, and gratifying.

We get to choose how we “mix the colors” on the palette of people on our team. And we get to see what kind of picture we can paint with them.

*If you’d like to read more of nc’s blatherings, go to nc’s Recursive Learning. 

One of my mentors asserts that “every decision is a political decision.” Over the years I have come to appreciate the wisdom in that assertion.

I have also come to believe that every decision we make is an ethical decision. Each and every decision we make reflects our ethical viewpoint or worldview, somehow.

Those whom we influence — family, friends, teams, organizations, stakeholders — come to understand our ethical grounding by observing the decisions we make. They learn what to expect of/from us, whether they know it consciously or not.

The good news: Those whom we influence also begin to forecast what kind of answers and action they can expect of us ahead of time. 🙂

*If you’d like to read more of nc’s blatherings, go to nc’s Recursive Learning. 

Every team, every organization experiences turbulence. Stuff happens that is unsettling, disruptive, distracting, off putting.

How we respond to turbulence has a lot to do with how well we ultimately achieve the outcomes we desire. It also has much to do with the level of confidence we enjoy from both our internal and external stakeholders. 

The best leaders I know practice some pretty common responses to turbulence. They…

• Never take their eye off the BIG picture, the vision of their organization.
• Act and react with careful deliberation, resisting the urge to be hasty.
• Solicit the insight of both their team and that of wise others.
• Frame with clarity the problem/issue to be tackled.
• Say “thanks” A LOT, especially in times of stress and duress.
• Insist on a work space that exudes respectful treatment of others, always.
• Keep attention predominantly focused on the windshield, not the rearview mirror. 

 Turbulence happens. Tough and thoughtful leaders help us navigate it with calm and purpose.

To quote the late head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers, Chuck Noll, ” Panic is not a part of our game plan.”

*If you’d like to read more of nc’s blatherings, go to nc’s Recursive Learning.