Leadership
Picture this. A father had three children. When his oldest child, a daughter, turned 12, he took her with him to the auto dealership. He told her, “I want you to pick out the car that you think I should buy.” Puzzled, his daughter looked at her father and asked, “Why me, Dad?” “Because, this is the car that I’ll be driving for the next four years. When you turn 16 and get your driver’s license, I’m going to hand the keys over to you.”
He repeated this offer with his other two children, and over the next 16 years drove a bright red Volkswagen Beetle, a yellow Honda Civic (for his second daughter), and a red Jeep Wrangler (for his son.)
“I have to admit,” the father said, “when my son asked for a Wrangler, I hesitated.” It was outside of my comfort zone. I had always driven cars, we’d always lived in the city, and I couldn’t see myself driving a Wrangler for the next four years. But, I had made a commitment, and couldn’t break it now.”
“What’s funny,” the father said, “is that I actually started enjoying the Wrangler. By the time my son got old enough to drive it, I found myself thinking about buying another one for myself. If my son hadn’t convinced me to change what I’d gotten used to driving all of my life, I never would have gotten out of my comfort zone.”
What this father knew intuitively serves as a model for passing on the leadership keys in the 21st century. Three themes emerge.
1. Trust. Any worthwhile transition is based on mutual trust. Future leaders need to trust the wisdom and experience of current leaders. Current leaders need to trust the potential of the next generation, their innovative approach, and the ability to handle the responsibility for the future. When there is an absence of trust, the process of a healthy and fruitful transition breaks down, and the passing on of the leadership keys stalls. Breaking down the trust barriers starts with building mutual respect and appreciation for what we each bring to the table. Here’s a short, compelling video that shows how quickly we can start to break down the barriers and build trust.
2. Teamwork. Once we establish trust for one another, we can begin to work together as a team toward the future success of our organization. The father in the example above didn’t arbitrarily decide what cars would be best for each of his children. He included them in the process and let them voice their opinions. When we include future leaders in the decision-making process, they move from obliged to empowered. That empowerment – knowing that the keys to the future are in their hands – gives them a greater sense of responsibility for making good choices to show that your trust was well placed.
3. Transition. One of the most significant lessons from car-buying father is how he adapted to the Wrangler chosen by his youngest child. Most of today’s leaders grew up in a time when decisions and influence came from the top and rippled down. But, the rapid pace of technological change is having an impact on generational influence. Research by the Center for Generational Kinetics (CGK) finds that influence is rippling up, rather than down. “The greatest predictor of older generations,” says James Dorsey, CGK’s Chief Strategy Officer in this TEDx talk, “is what the younger generations are doing today.” They influence how every other generation uses technology. Need more convincing? Think Facebook.
Are you holding onto the leadership keys with a white-knuckled grip? It may be time to shift your view about future generations. When you can break down the trust barriers, give them true ownership and responsibility, and be open to their influence, you’ll be inspired by some of the most hard-working, eager-to-learn, and motivated people in the world today.
Question: What is your view about handing over the leadership keys?
Driven by the premise that excellence is the result of aligning people, purpose and performance, Center for Executive Excellence facilitates training in leading self, leading teams and leading organizations. To learn more, subscribe to receive CEE News!
People
You can choose to invest training and coaching resources in your management team, or not. Either way, the results will show up in your bottom line or in the headlines. Just ask Starbucks – after they complete racial bias training for 175,000 employees across 8,000 stores this afternoon. All because of the actions of one manager.
The single most important decision an organization can make is choosing a manager. Why? Great managers know how to consistently engage their teams to achieve high performance. They create environments of accountability and build workplaces that fuel productivity and sustainable profitability.
Gallup research finds that managers account for an alarming 70% of the variance in employee engagement scores in the global workplace. That variance, in turn, is responsible for the severely low worldwide employee engagement levels. According to Gallup’s recent State of the Global Workplace report, 85% of employees are not engaged or actively disengaged at work.
Yet companies rarely invest time to understand what makes a great manager. Instead, they promote highly skilled producers and hope that they will be able to replicate their success through others.
So what do great managers do? Gallup finds that great managers have these five talents:
- They motivate every single employee to take action and engage employees with a compelling mission and vision.
- They have the assertiveness to drive outcomes and the ability to overcome adversity and resistance.
- They create a culture of clear accountability.
- They build relationships that create trust, open dialogue, and full transparency.
- They make decisions based on productivity, not politics.
The secret to meeting these requirements is simple – they get to know their team. They don’t just ask their team members to take an online test like StrengthsFinder the Strengths Deployment Inventory. They know how to put those strengths to work.
Great managers know that the most effective way to invest their time is to identify exactly how each employee is different and then to figure out how best to incorporate those innate idiosyncrasies into the team’s operational plan.
Successful managers observe their team members in action. They ask questions, listen, and note what each person is drawn to as well as where they struggle. This practice helps them gain insight about how the unique contribution of each employee can shine.
Companies that increase their number of talented managers can double the rate of engaged employees, and achieve, on average, 147% higher earnings per share than their competition.
If your training budget is earmarked for leadership development and customer-facing skills training, you could be neglecting one of the most important cohorts in your organization. Select your managers carefully, then give them the tools, training, and coaching they need to maximize team engagement.
Question: Where are the training and development dollars going in your organization?
Driven by the premise that excellence is the result of aligning people, purpose and performance, Center for Executive Excellence facilitates training in leading self, leading teams and leading organizations. To learn more, subscribe to receive CEE News!
![6 Leadership Books to Add to Your Summer Reading List]()
Leadership
Looking for some titles to add to your reading list this summer? We’ve gathered our own top picks and included some that our readers have found life changing. Here are six titles we recommend that you pack along with your picnic basket.
1. Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility by Patty McCord
What it’s about: Named by The Washington Post as one of the 11 Leadership Books to Read in 2018, McCord shares lessons she learned as Chief Talent Officer for Netflix about recruiting, motivating, and creating great teams.
Why pick it up: For road-tested advice, mixed with humor and irreverence, to help you create a culture of high performance and profitability.
2. How to Think: A Survival Guide for the World at Odds by Alan Jacobs
What it’s about: A masterpiece about treating thinking as an art, informed by the ancients in the humanities and religious traditions, Jacobs shares the techniques of clear thinking, and how to listen instead of defaulting into our stubborn mind bubbles.
Why pick it up: We live in contentious times when we all need to give the divisive issues we face some serious thought. That’s especially true when it comes to ideas and people we disagree with and those we label as the “repugnant cultural other.”
3. New Power. How Power Works in a Hyperconnected World by Jeremy Heimans and Henry Timms
What it’s about: We live at a time when the captains of business and government are being taken on by surging currents of social media-fed sentiment. Top-down hierarchies where power is centralized in the hands of a few is ceding ground to bottom-up, participatory, peer-driven power.
Why pick it up: To learn how to tap into the participatory energy of your organization and create sustainable success.
4. The Little Book of Change: The No-Willpower Approach to Breaking Any Habit by Amy Johnson, PhD
What it’s about: Anything done repeatedly has the potential to form neural circuitry in the brain. In this light, habits and addictions are impersonal brain wiring problems that result from taking your habitual thinking as truth, and acting on that thinking in the form of doing your habit―over and over.
Why pick it up: Drawing on a combination of neuroscience and spirituality, this book will show you small changes you can make in your everyday life that will help you stop your bad habit in its tracks.
5. The World Without Mind: The Existential Threat of Big Tech by Franklin Foer
What it’s about: Over the past few decades, the world has rushed to embrace the products and services of four titanic corporations. We shop with Amazon, socialize on Facebook, turn to Apple for entertainment, and rely on Google for information. These firms sell their efficiency and purport to make the world a better place, but what they have done instead is to enable an intoxicating level of daily convenience.
Why pick it up: To learn how to restore your inner life, private contemplation, autonomous thought and solitary introspection.
6. Hit Refresh: The Quest to Rediscover Microsoft’s Soul and Imagine a Better Future for Everyone by Satya Nadella
What it’s about: Microsoft’s CEO tells the inside story of the company’s continuing transformation, tracing his own personal journey from a childhood in India to leading some of the most significant technological changes in the digital era.
Why pick it up: For a set of reflections, meditations, and recommendations presented as algorithms from a principled, deliberative leader searching for improvement—for himself, for a storied company, and for society.
If you’re an avid reader, you’re likely on a continuous journey for discovery and self-improvement. These titles will give you new insight about the changing definition of power, the impact of technology on our lives, and the ability to make immediate changes that will have a sustainable impact.
Question: What books have helped you along your leadership journey?
Driven by the premise that excellence is the result of aligning people, purpose and performance, Center for Executive Excellence facilitates training in leading self, leading teams and leading organizations. To learn more, subscribe to receive CEE News!
![6 Leadership Books to Add to Your Summer Reading List]()
Leadership
Over the past 10 years, I have been honored to explore and debate the essence of power with Dr. Tony Baron. Specifically, how power impacts leadership, how leadership impacts culture, and, ultimately, how culture impacts performance.
With a double doctorate in psychology and theology and decades of executive coaching experience with Fortune 100 companies, you can imagine the depth and breadth that Tony adds to the subject. We are currently co-authoring a book that combines Tony’s scholarship and my straight talk about the challenges faced by today’s leaders. Meanwhile, I will be sharing guest posts by Tony from time to time to give you a taste of what it’s like to have an amazing colleague and friend like Tony Baron. – Sheri Nasim
The world of work is going through dramatic changes. For the first time in history, five generations are working side by side. Baby Boomers are retiring at the rate of 14,000 per day. 18 months from now, 50% of the global workforce will be made up of Millennials. Today’s employees want more than a paycheck. They want work that has purpose.
At the same time, companies are more global and the workforce is more diverse than ever before. Today’s leaders are handling a tsunami of technological distractions that would have been unimaginable just 20 years ago.
Successful leaders of the 21st century tap into the fundamentals to guide their teams through an increasingly complex work environment. Consider these seven fundamental leadership virtues that transcend time.
1. Truth. The first requirement for every leader throughout time is the ability to assess reality correctly. Yet, we live in an age of “truthiness.” Bad news is shaven, shorn, and often completely misrepresented out of fear, or an unwillingness to deal with conflict. What are you doing as a leader to ensure that you are getting accurate information?
2. Beauty. Socrates believed that the purpose of education is to teach people to love what is beautiful. A radiant sunset. A grandmother’s smile. An act of kindness. These are the transcendental things that lift us from the de-humanizing aspects of life. How much time are you building into your schedule to contemplate and reflect on the beauty around you?
3. Spirituality. Consider this. What if we are not human beings having a spiritual experience, but spiritual beings having a human experience? You don’t have to subscribe to an organized religion to acknowledge that our spirits soar in an environment where we are inspired, equipped, and encouraged. How can you create a culture that feeds the human spirit?
4. Relationships. Every human being has the need to love and to be loved. The decades of information that I collected on workplace violence showed that the most disturbed members of our society are those who are most isolated. Leadership is a relationship. What are you doing to broaden your relationships beyond your circle of direct reports?
5. Freedom. Coercion and manipulation are de-humanizing. They may produce short-term results, but eventually people will revolt against such behavior. To flourish, people need the space to make decisions, take chances, and course correct without fear. Are you creating an environment for sharing lessons learned – both positive and negative – with your team?
6. Justice. Spend an hour watching preschool children playing a game, and you’ll eventually hear one of them say, “That’s not fair!” The natural sense of justice that we have as children is part of our human ethos. Are you using your position and power to self-serve? Or, are you creating a culture of equal opportunity to benefit from a just system of rewards?
7. Power. A team at Berkeley recently showed through MRI studies that, when a person gets power, a hit of dopamine shoots to the brain. At the same time, the ability to empathize is suppressed. To counteract this effect, leaders must continuously, intentionally “think about what they are thinking about.” Doing so over time will burn new neural pathways in the brain. What are you doing each day to ensure that you are using your power and position as an opportunity to serve the needs of others?
Leadership is about more than power or strength. It is about being aware of the life you model and the lives you touch.
Question: Which of these virtues resonate with where you are as a leader today?
Dr. Tony Baron is Distinguished Scholar-In-Residence at Center for Executive Excellence and an internationally recognized speaker, writer, corporate consultant, professor and the San Diego Director of Azusa Pacific University Graduate School of Theology.
Dr. Baron is the author of six books, including The Art of Servant Leadership and a workbook manual co-written with noted author and business leader Ken Blanchard. Throughout his career, he has worked with hundreds of companies including Ford Motor Company, Coca Cola Company, Warner Brothers Studios, and Boeing, among many others.
People
One of the most dramatic changes in employee and leadership development programs in the last decade has been the shift from correcting weaknesses to enhancing strengths.
A Google search for “strengths coaching” yields over 47 million hits. Amazon sells over 30,000 books on the subject, including StrengthsFinder 2.0 which instantly became a Wall Street Journal, Businessweek, and USA Today bestseller, and was named Amazon’s bestselling book of 2013. Gallup’s Clifton StrengthsFinder assessment is used by 1.6 million employees and 467 Fortune 500 companies every year.
Strengths has developed a cult-like following among HR and talent management professionals. Like all movements, this one too has developed myths that deserve to be debunked.
Myth #1 – Focusing on strengths means you can ignore your weaknesses. Sorry. Not true. Ignoring a problem is never sane management theory. Instead, get clear about what your weaknesses are, and develop ways to minimize them.
Strengths coaches are fond of saying that there is no such thing as a well-rounded person. Instead, focus on being a well-lopsided person and develop a well-rounded team. Spend your time where you can excel, then delegate to, or partner with, others who are naturally more adept in areas where you are weak.
Myth #2 – Strengths and weaknesses are two sides of the same coin. Wrong again. Strengths are not the flip side of weaknesses. You can make strengths stronger. You can make weaknesses not so weak. But you cannot transform weaknesses into strengths.
What is true, is that a person can operate either in the balcony or basement of a strength, and the basement can be unpleasant for everyone. Consider Achiever. When things are going well, an Achiever can be a tireless go-getter with a strong work ethic. Conversely, she can be overcommitted and in danger of burning out. Being in the basement isn’t a weakness, it’s a strength overapplied.
Myth #3 – You can become too specialized if you focus on your strengths. Good reasoning, but not the case if your manager takes the time to understand how to put strengths to work. First, strengths are not labels. If your manager locks all “Strategics” in a room and expects they will come out with the perfect strategic plan, it’s not likely to happen. That’s simplistic and a little reductive.
Managers who understand the power of strengths know that the best way for people to grow and develop is to identify how they most naturally think, feel and behave, then build on those talents to create strengths. People with Strategic as a strength are naturally good at anticipating alternatives and finding different paths. They may be good at mediating debates or contract negotiation. The best managers will not only have a good working knowledge of strengths, but will also take the time to get to know what situations enable their employees to succeed.
We all have weaknesses. But putting your time, energy and focus on fixing your weaknesses will only yield mediocre results. If you want to unlock your greatest potential and bring out the best in your team, let go of the myths and put strengths to work.
Question: Have you taken the StrengthsFinder assessment? What are your Top Five?
Download our INFOGRAPHIC – Putting Strengths to Work – which unpacks groundbreaking research that launched the Strengths© movement and offers three keys for how great managers can put strengths to work.
Driven by the premise that excellence is the result of aligning people, purpose and performance, Center for Executive Excellence facilitates training in leading self, leading teams and leading organizations. To learn more, subscribe to receive CEE News!
