Where There Are People…There Are Issues

When discussing his rise through the ranks of management to executive leadership over the course of thirty one years, one of my clients said, “The time between rewarding moments is often filled with frustrating weeks.”  Is that true for you?  If you said yes, you’ve obviously had enough leadership experience to know that there is some element of truth in this statement, because not every day is rewarding.  If this statement is not true for you, you’re either not really leading or you are one of those rare exceptions.

Effective leadership is a simple process, but difficult to well.  If it wasn’t difficult, everyone would do it and everyone would do it well.  I do believe that leadership skills can be learned.  However, I also believe some people are born with some talents that, if developed, can make them highly effective leaders.  In either case, if you are interested in improving your leadership effectiveness, make it a priority in your schedule to take four L.I.T.E. steps.

Lead Proactively, Not Emotionally

When thrust into a leadership role, you may have nothing to rely on other than your natural instincts.  If you’re an impatient person, you’ll likely be an impatient leader.  If you’re a dynamic person, you’re likely to be a dynamic leader.  And so on. 

The key is not to let your leadership style be determined by your emotions, your mood or your personality.  Leadership requires skills.  Effectively leadership requires developing knowledge, skills and talents into a strength.

Whether you aspire to a leadership role or you are currently in a leadership role, leadership skills can be and should be learned and developed.  The most effective leaders are those who coach / develop / grow / mentor their followers along a path toward peak performance. 

Leading employees effectively and developing them into peak performers provides a significant return on investment for the organization.  That’s the highest and best use of leadership skills.

Influence, Not Control

Leadership is an influence process. 

In the “good ol’ days”, leaders could say to an employee, “Do this or you’re fired.”  If the employee complied, the leader was successful.  The leader had the control in that situation. 

Nowadays, leaders often don’t have direct control in a situation.  And, even if the leader can today say, “Do this or you’re fired,” they know that this is a costly standoff.  Leadership effectiveness is achieved when the employee carries out the leader’s direction even when the leader is not looking.  When this happens, the leader has influenced the employee to embrace the assignment and/or direction.  When this is done successfully, the leader multiplies his or her efforts several times over.

Think First, Then Speak

Wouldn’t work be easier if you could single-handedly do the work of all the people who report to you?  There wouldn’t be any need for leadership, but, if you could do all of that work alone, work would be easier than leading effectively, wouldn’t it? 

The difficulty in the leadership role is that we have to accomplish objectives through the work of other people.  And, as the title of this article says, where there are people – there are issues.  Those we lead are not automatically single-mindedly focused on whatever we want them to do.  They have issues.  And those issues don’t always line up with the work we have for them to do.

The clarity of our communication on what exactly we want them to do, why we want them to do it and how it fits into the larger scope of things will determine our success in getting employees to embrace the work we have for them.  Generation Y is called that for a reason.  When given any assignment, they want to know “Why?”  The reality is that it’s not just Generation Y, we all want to know why something needs to be done.  We want to know the larger context within which this assignment fits. 

The key is to think through what and how you want to communicate your leadership guidance.  Clearly communicating what needs to be done and why it needs to be done is one of the hallmarks of effective leadership.  Think first, then speak.

Exit If You Hate It

If you end up in a leadership role and you hate it, quit!  Life is too short. 

Just as it takes a certain set of interests to enjoy a career as a Geologist, leaders thrive on the fact that where there are people – there are issues.  If you went to school to be an accountant, worked in your field and now find yourself doing leadership stuff instead of accounting stuff and you hate it, quit.  Go back to being an accountant.  We’re each wired with a unique set of talents, skills, knowledge, interests, and experience.  Find out where your “sweet spot” is and make a career there.  You’ll quickly find that it doesn’t feel like work anymore.  

Leadership is a noble calling like many other roles.  Some of us thrive on the frustrating weeks because of the rewarding moments.  If leadership is your calling, spend your career taking these four steps to improve your knowledge, skills and leadership effectiveness.  The Employers’ Association has programs throughout the year geared specifically to help you develop leadership skills. 

Successful vs. Effective Leadership

In my work with clients over the years, one discussion comes up more than any other.  It’s the distinction between successful and effective leadership.

Let’s start at the beginning.  Leadership is necessary because one person cannot accomplish all that needs to be done.  There isn’t enough time.  Things have to happen simultaneously.  Specialized expertise is needed.  More input results in better ideas and decisions.  And, so on.  So, someone has to coordinate the work of others.

In my last post, I defined leadership as opposed to managing or coordinating.  Today, I want to focus on the distinction between successful leadership and effective leadership.

If you give out work assignments assignments and employees complete them, you’ve been successful.  One question to consider is why you have been successful.  Maybe employees did the work because they like the work.  Maybe they did the work because if they don’t do the work, it may, over time, put their employment at risk.  Maybe they did the work to make money to support their boat racing habit.  Who knows.  In any case, if they completed the work, you have been a successful leader.

But, have you been effective?  We acknowledged at the outset that leadership is necessary because one person can’t accomplish all the work that one person is responsible for, right?  For that reason, we need leaders who are more than successful.  We need leaders who are effective. 

Effective leaders are those who influence others to work on achieving organizational objectives even when the leader is off working on other areas of his/her responsibility.  In other words, employees will work toward achieving the organization’s objectives because they, like the leader, are committed to achieving the organizational objective.  When leaders are effective, they multiply their efforts and their results five to ten fold because they have influenced others that the organizational goal is worthy of their best effort.

What kind of leader are you?  Do you strive for success or effectiveness?

To learn more about the difference in organizational results for organizations with effective leaders, call or write for the details.

A Working Definition of Leadership

I define leadership as the act of influencing others toward organizational objectives.

Leadership requires influence.  If you’re managing a project, giving out assignments to team members and coordinating what items can be checked off the list, I’m not sure you’re really leading.  In the true leadership context, the definition of influence is to affect or to sway.  Team members may not be influenced by your direction as much as they are by the fact that they like the work or that there are consequences if they don’t do the work.  So, avoid automatically crediting management experience as leadership experience.

Secondly, leadership is the process of influencing others toward an organizational goal.  Leadership to achieve organizational objectives is necessary because the leader can’t do all the work him/herself.  Believe me, if it were possible, the leader would have done the work him/herself if they could have.  It’s easier than leading others to get the work done. 

Whether it’s the soccer team, a church committee or a manager and his/her employees, the purpose for our influence is to achieve an organizational objective.  Despite our different interests and motivations, the leader’s job is to get his/her followers to accomplish organizational objectives.  Unlike the weight loss class teacher who wants each person to achieve their own goal, true leadership requires pulling different people with different skill sets, diferent experience, different opinions and different motives together to accomplish organizational objectives.

Keep these distinctions in mind as you select and develop leaders in your organization.

Next up:  Successful vs. Effective leadership

Are You The Micromanager Your Employees Are Complaining About?

How would you react if your boss reminded you several times a day how to tie your shoes? Would your reaction be “Stop wasting my time” or “Don’t you have anything else to do?” Ask an employee who works for a micromanager and they will instantly know what that feels like. So, how does a manager become a micromanager? What are the impacts of micromanaging? How can it be fixed? What if the micromanager is you?

To start, let’s define a micromanager. A micromanager is a manager who uses a highly directive management style even when it’s not called for. A highly directive style is perfect in an emergency or when working with people new to a task. But, a highly directive style is not the most effective choice when leading people who perform tasks moderately well or extremely well. Unfortunately for employees, micromanagers believe a highly directive management style is always called for.

So, why does a manager become a micromanager? There are at least four reasons.

• First, their model for what a successful manager looks like may have been a micromanager from their past experience. They saw managers taking control and getting things done so they think they should emulate that successful, but less than effective, manager.
• Second, as I have studied micromanagers over the years, in their defense, they often can’t help it. Micromanagers are often “wired” to be highly directive. The same is true for delegating managers who delegate too much. We each come “wired” by our personalities and previous experience with a primary management style that we use most often. The goal is to make a conscious decision to use the
  most effective management style for each situation.
• Third, micromanagers often believe that only they can do the job right. And, in fact, they may be right. Of course, if the micromanager never allows anyone else to learn and do the job, no one else will ever do it “right.” 
• Finally, micromanagers often develop out of a lack of proper planning and effective management. If tasks are not planned out, assigned and followed up on, then the micromanager often has to do much of the work himself or herself.

The interesting thing about micromanagers is that they are sometimes groups of people.  If the board of directors you sit on approves purchases of office supplies for the organization, the board has become a micromanager of the organization. This is not some way out extreme example. I know of numerous organizations where this level of micromanaging by the board is routine. That’s a topic for another article.

Next, let’s consider the impact that the micromanager has on the organization.

For employees who work for the micromanager, there are two outcomes that result from being micromanaged:

• First, employees develop “learned helplessness.” The micromanager’s style causes an employee over time to give up their ability to take charge and complete tasks. The employee knows that the micromanager will come in and change whatever they did accomplish.  So, the employee mentally “gives up,” resulting in “Learned Helplessness,” a disease that infects organizations. 
• Secondly, employees stop demonstrating passion for their work.  It’s a defense mechanism that causes them to say “If my input will never be considered or if my completed work will always be changed, then why should I bother.” Employees feel like their contributions are not valued or trusted. The result is that you end up with employees who, like prisoners, are serving time instead of serving the needs of the organization.

For managers who have become micromanagers, there are at least two outcomes of their micromanaging style:

• First, micromanagers are racing toward burnout. Micromanagers feel that few tasks in their departments can be carried out without being personally involved. Their burnout may take the form of continued poor productivity, their resignation or even being fired.
• Far more significantly for managers, the major outcome of micromanaging is that, while the manager is mired in the details of  accomplishing other people’s tasks, he or she is missing the big stuff. Big stuff like analyzing sales profitability, performance to budget, industry trends, new products and key contacts that would bring more business. The micromanager is single-handedly limiting the ability of the department or the company from growing beyond their personal ability to manage the details.

So, how can a micromanager be “fixed?” In short, if you work for a micromanager that doesn’t make the changes that need to be made, my only advice to you is to find a new job. Life is too short.

What if the micromanager is you? Simply put, if you keep doing what you have been doing, you’ll continue to get the results you always gotten. Seek out the help of books, a trusted mentor to act as your coach, a management effectiveness workshop or other professional resources that have expertise in helping managers become more effective.

Changing the style that you’ve become accustomed to and found some success with will be difficult. But, with a strong desire to improve your management skills and lots of persistence, you can become a much more effective manager in a relatively short period of time.