Having purpose as a leader and a team
From TED: Simon Sinek has a simple but powerful model for inspirational leadership all starting with a golden circle and the question “Why?” His examples include Apple, Martin Luther King, and the Wright brothers — and as a counterpoint Tivo, which (until a recent court victory that tripled its stock price) appeared to be struggling. Sav’s notes: We are more likely to follow leaders who vocalise a belief that also rings true for us. Simon Sinek introduces us to the Golden Circle that gives us another way to look at what makes us willingly follow a leader, or buy particular brand or join a certain movement. At the centre of that circle is purpose. It’s useful not only in marketing, or visionary style leadership, but also to anyone operating with a purpose that drives them, the key message being – don’t let your purpose be your best kept secret! In my work coaching corporate teams, in goal setting workshops designed to bring the team together and focus their ambitions, it’s the ‘purpose defining’ exercise at the beginning which has the greatest effect, because it’s a direct reflection of what the team believes it exists as a team for.
Joining the dots, not the butts to the bigger picture
Waiting for the train I notice two still-smoking cigarette butts on the grass bank, the previous mid-fourties owners nearby chatting away. I found myself with an internal disconnect – how hard is it to join the dots between personal actions and the bigger picture. Two adults must by now understand that cigarette butts are litter and the impact they have on the environment, yet ‘the world is my ash-tray’ mentality was for them seemingly default. However, what a great illustration of how personal-leadership involves not just the awareness of personal actions and the bigger picture, but then acting with the bigger picture in mind. In corporate leadership, this goes a step further; modeling a big picture awareness and aligning everything to it. I place a huge amount of importance in on ‘Visionary Style Leadership’ as an essential way to model and help people join dots between what they do and the business/world they create. (If you know anyone who is joining butts, not dots to the bigger picture, here is a great resource: Smoking Station) Coaching questions for joining the dots What solutions do you want to be part of in the world? (the bigger picture) How can you ‘live’ so as to be part of those solutions (the dots)
Altruistic Leaders … Not Surprising!
Reading about new research in an article in Science Daily, I was surprised to hear that the traditional leading hypothesis on Leadership motives, was one of personal gain/dominance …. “Although the research does not deny that some people want to and do lead in order to garner status and dominance over others, it has overturned traditional theories about leadership and challenged the leading hypothesis about the likely motives and personalities of leaders. Until now, most evolutionary biologists and psychologists have considered leadership as the outcome of a competition for status in which people compete for the right to dominate and exploit others. This hypothesis predicts that leaders will be selfish and egoistic.” Read it In my own experience coaching leaders, ‘service’ is time-and-time again a key driver. If you also link in thinking from social-neuroscience and look into the evolution of human technology, then collaboration not dominance is a success strategy and is better for wellbeing and survival. The article goes onto talk about new research: In their forthcoming paper, to be published by the journalPersonality and Individual Differences, the team report on experiments, run at the University of Kent, that support a radically different hypothesis. Through experiments in two economic coordination games, they looked at the personality traits of people who choose to be leaders. Their results found that leaders were more likely to be rated as pro-social rather than selfish. Moreover, those who chose to lead typically earned less money than those who chose to follow. They seemingly sacrificed their own payoff to potentially increase the payoffs of others. Dr Cartwright, Senior Lecturer at Kent’s School of Economics, explained: ‘Our results suggest that leadership is a way for people to be helpful and engender coordination and cooperation between others. This paints a much more positive view of leadership than is typical, and we were surprised by how clear cut the results are….’ Professor Van Vugt, an Honorary Professor at Kent and the paper’s co-author, said: “Our data supports the view that leadership emerged in human societies as a social good. Yet this does not mean that leaders will not abuse their power once they find themselves in charge of a group — in fact many do. But for every Mugabe there is a Mandela and the latter is much closer to the way we want our leaders to be: fair, inspiring and servant.” For anyone familiar with David Rock’s work, there is a great link to his S.C.A.R.F. model, five key principles of effective leadership relationships – to be specific, the S=Status, the R=Relatedness and the F=Fairness. Some examples: Status: Leaders communication with equality in mind not dominance Relatedness: Leaders people humans as people not resources Fairness: Leaders leading by example, modeling expectations More info on David Rock & the SCARF Model Over to you… How does a leader show altruism in a fast-pace environment? How big ‘really’ is the space for altruism in the future of business?
Jeff Bezos: What matters more than talent?
“The right idea, in the right hands at the right time … can change the way we lead our lives” From TED: As founder and CEO of Amazon.com, Jeff Bezos defined online shopping and rewrote the rules of commerce, ushering in a new era in business. Time magazine named him Man of the Year in 1999. In this Princeton University graduation address, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos makes the case that our character is reflected not in the gifts we’re endowed with at birth, but by the choices we make over the course of a lifetime. (Jeff starts speaking at 6-minutes-ish) Notes from Sav: Failure an important component of innovation Ambition: The world’s most customer-centric company The difference between a gift and a choice …. Cleverness is a gift Kindness is a choice Following the less safe path to pursue your passion is a choice… not a gift “Will you follow dogma, or will you be original?” Thoughts from Sav Jeff outlines how already having a good job doesn’t mean you shouldn’t ditch it and give your ideas a good run … he left what sounds like a GREAT job and set up Amazon. I often encounter the ‘comfort-zone’ dilemma when I’m coaching … people with great ideas, but why on earth would they create change when what they already do provides so well for them financially… then they remembered why they hired a coach, because $ doesn’t = happiness, satisfy ambition and quieten curiosity. I think being outside the comfort-zone is uncomfortable for a reason… when the risk is high, so too is the focus, determination and drive to succeed in that critical start-up phase. I came to NZ to travel on English pounds, but I heard about coaching and spent everything on my Coach Training. I had $20 left in the bank that Christmas and I never had any doubts about my choice. Then there is always that saying…. ’If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!” - Ideas and innovation fall outside this philosophy, they are about progress and ambition, not about fixing. This speech by Jeff gets better and better as it goes, enjoy! Over to you… What’s happening when people choose not to pursue an idea or passion? How can this ‘pursuit of passion’ be taught in schools?
Leadership style and way of the dinosaur!
As a leader, if you want people to follow you, inspire them with a compelling vision, affirm the importance of their roles in achieving success, and then give them the resources they need to innovate and make the vision a reality … they will find the way! By David Savage with extracts from the the book The New Leaders by Daniel Goleman The Way of the Dinosaur The ‘do as I say’ approach comes from ‘I know best’ type thinking. It’s a single brain approach that pays little acknowledgment of collaborative thinking. Leaders loaded exclusively with this command style might feel like they’re constantly pushing large rocks up hill, meeting resistance and reluctance at every stage from their team and peers. A traditional reaction, to an extent still experienced by some leaders today, has been to simply push harder. Results may come in the short term, but the output of energy to achieve them is often huge and not sustainable. And so starts a downward spiral – Team members feel claustrophobic as the opportunity to input narrows, the office environment becomes toxic with murmurs and moans, and website hit counters of recruitment agencies surge upwards as people look for a more rewarding job. ‘One manager we know described a leader and a toxic organization that ultimately left her feeling physically ill … The cause was clear: a pace-setting leader who relied on threats and coercion to get things done.’ From a neuroscience perspective, our brain is geared to like our own ideas the best, and in such moments when ideas are born, physiological rewards (a feeling of natural high) are felt via feel good chemicals released into the body as we create new connections in the brain. In a work environment where innovative thinking is suppressed, the leader equates to a neurological party-pooper; homeostasis (resistance against change) amplifies and frustration builds. The brain loves to create new and meaningful connections – new ideas, solutions, innovative thinking – the body even develops an addiction to the chemicals released at such times. So when we find ourselves in a ‘do as I say’ situation, not only do we feel our mouths taped shut and our thinking silenced, but we even get physiological withdrawal symptoms and STRESS! ‘When stress is high and sustained, the brain reacts with sustained cortisol secretion [stress chemical], which actually hampers learning by killing off brain cells…’ In short, the last few hundred thousand years of evolution have geared us to be innovators and puzzle solvers, anything that suppresses this genetic urge goes against grain, or should we say brain! Our incredible capacity to think gave us a huge survival advantage and we thrive in environments where our thinking is stretched (as coaches help their clients do) and look to burst out from those that dismiss out thinking potential. As the saying goes, people don’t leave their jobs, they leave their managers. With escalating costs of poor retention damaging profits, companies globally are investing heavily in their leaders, equipping them with a repertoire of EI leadership styles that not only increase employee retention, but also results. The New Leader The New Leader replaces the Dinosaur Leader with a range of skills and behaviours which empower and develops others. These leaders acknowledge everyone’s value-add, they resource their people to perform, give them the freedom to innovate and create a collaborative culture where everyone embraces the responsibility of achieving results. The company’s success becomes everyone’s success and very importantly, vice versa too. EI (Emotional Intelligence) savvy leaders are masters of inclusion, listening, awareness (of self, others and the organisation), relationship building, self-control, leading and supporting change. “To create resonance – and results – the leader has to pay attention to the hidden dimensions: people’s emotions, the undercurrents of the emotional reality organization, and the culture that holds it together.” In style, they have an adaptive portfolio of skills. Visionary; inspiring people to achieve greatness, lifting the thinking of others into a realm of possibilities and potential. ‘…visionary leaders articulate where a group is going but not how it will get there – setting people free to innovate, experiment, and take calculated risks.’ Democratic; acknowledging that everyone’s input is of value, everyone should be heard and that multiple brains are more powerful and lead to bigger results than a single brain. ‘Even if a leader has a strong vision, the democratic style [of leadership] works well to surface ideas about how to implement that vision or to generate fresh ideas for executing it.’ Affiliative; understanding, hearing, relating – connecting people to other people to build relationships that are supportive on all levels. ‘By recognising employees as people – for example, offering them emotional support during hard times in their private lives – such leaders build tremendous loyalty and strengthen connectedness.’ Coaching; supporting the development of others by improving people’s capacity to think effectively, and thereby connecting personal ambition with corporate objectives. Through such strong connections, a sense of purpose emerges and win-wins are created. ‘Coaching’s surprisingly positive emotional impact stems largely from the empathy and rapport the leader establishes with employees. A good coach communicates a belief in people’s potentials and an expectation that they can do their best.’ The Intelligent Leader in Action Intelligent leaders are those who within an organization develop connective relationships to form a collective brain – numerous networks of teams share ideas and information. Aligned to a common vision, communication is free flowing and interference in performance minimalised. The intelligent leader models this behaviour and develops others with the capability to connect at a thinking, emotional and behavioural level. Ideas are captured, frustrations and excitement are given equal acknowledgment, failures are fed back as learning opportunities and successes are applauded. The investment of the intelligent leader is in people – the same people who will (or won’t) take a company to its goals. The return on investment can be measured in many ways; in a leadership sense, a successful measurement is the easing back – as the workforce becomes more capable, so increases initiative, a solutions focus and individual responsibility. There is less need for the leader to provide all the answers and to ‘manage’ people’s behaviour and less need to give direction. As this occurs, the leader drives individual energies into synergies directed towards common outcomes – results. ‘These leaders naturally nurture relationships, surface simmering issues, and create the human synergies of a group in harmony. They build fierce loyalty by caring about the careers of those who work for them, and inspire people to give their best for a mission that speaks to shared values.’ In this type of organization, the leader resources people to work at their best, maintains a peak-performance climate, tracking progress and continually developing greater and greater capability for better and better results. Daniel Goleman is author of the book Emotional Intelligence. In his subsequent book ‘The New Leaders’, Goleman applies EI to Leadership – looking at the EI competencies of the most successful leaders and how a lack of EI can literally be the down fall of a company.
How we exited the Stone Age!
We didn’t exit the Stone Age because we ran out of stones, we progressed because someone saw room for improvement, had a great idea, chose to lead the change and took action …. and so came the Bronze Age! So obviously, this isn’t a historical piece about the Stone Age and the evolution of human innovation, but about four key steps needed for change to happen from a Leadership perspective. Step One: Recognising the need for change This recognition can come from a number of places, and two great questions a leader can ask themselves are: What can we improve? (achieving more, getting better results, greater job satisfaction) What needs to change for those things to improve? Step Two: A new idea Following the need for change comes the ideas part, “I know… let’s switch from stones … copper gets harder when it’s heated, we could call it bronze!” The innovation stage is about connecting existing neural-maps (in the brain) in different ways to create new insights and ideas. Where can our processes to reconfigured? What technology exists that we can adapt? What technology can we create to simplify our systems? What would Google do? Step Three: Leading the way The thing about change is that change needs a leader to lead it. Chances are, if it’s your idea, you’re a candidate. This is where that quality ‘Leadership Courage’ kicks in. Plus, as a Leader it’s likely that this is what you’re being paid for … leaders are far more useful when navigating virgin jungle vs. daily trips to the local playground. Credit to a client I had (a real innovator) who said, “well, if I’m not ‘nearly’ getting fired [for his new ideas] I’m probably not doing my job”. Step Four: Putting talk into action Ideas are one thing, but they need partnering with real action that extends beyond jaw movement. Right now, where are your BEST ideas? In your head, on paper …. in action? Ideas alone don’t create change, what a leader does once they have an idea, is what leads to and creates the change.
Leadership’s missing manual
FROM TED: Leadership doesn’t have a user’s manual, but Fields Wicker-Miurin says stories of remarkable, local leaders are the next best thing. At a TED salon in London, she shares three. Sav’s commentary This is a great story of how local leaders look after their heritage and people by looking forward into the future and finding solutions that bridge the needs of people and the speed of change. There are such gaps between cultures, here are examples of initiative, vision, collaboration, hope and action. Fields also talks about ‘succession planning’, bringing new leaders into the world modeling on the achievements of local leaders who make a difference.
Two heads are better than one … Right?
Even people working together on the same goal, towards the same vision sometimes clash …. that’s OK… brain-science tells is that making mistakes accelerates learning.
Leadership’s missing manual
Leadership doesn’t have a user’s manual, but Fields Wicker-Miurin says stories of remarkable, local leaders are the next best thing. At a TED salon in London, she shares three.