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Does leadership require humility?

Silly question, how could it not?  The simple truth is:

“People who are genuinely humble are

freed from the tyranny of their ego”

Really!?

What … Me?

Filled with ego?

Well we all have a little ego, do we not?

Does my ego actually get in the way?

I know it does make me seem as if I’m a know-it-all with all the answers; with a little humility I might actually start asking questions, maybe even the right questions.

I suppose when I’m filled with pride, I see the world as rosier than it really is… yeah, maybe I should be getting more of the facts; more importantly, maybe I should be facing the facts that I have now

Gut hunch and pride don’t really get along, do they?

Someone told me that I actually isolate myself by being so competitive – - that the name of the game is really teamwork, not hogging all the credit… that is why it is hard to get and keep good people: a little of my ego and they just want to keep moving on

Yes, I know: business is a collective collaboration, not my individual pursuit. And true, I can’t really do it all myself anyway, at least not anymore… business just moves too fast for me these days …and who can know all that needs to be  understood around here?

Command-and-control is what feels best to me, but what feels worst is feeling out of control… I need the collective knowledge of our team… I need to put more responsibility into the hands of my knowledge workers. I really have to let go and let them make a lot more of the on-the-spot decisions, for better or for worse. They are just as capable of learning as I am – - yikes, maybe even more so.

I know, I know – - I can’t really lead a team if I don’t have a team, and as long as I’m the one out there waving the flag all by myself, am I really leading anything except a long line of lemmings?

Get back you ego, get back!

Source:   LEVEL FIVE LEADERSHIP Gunn, Bob. Strategic Finance, Feb 2002, Vol. 83 Issue 8, p14-16

DIANNE DURKIN suggests 5 strategies to improve organizational performance… Here are my thoughts on her five points:

1: Engage employees in discussion.  This takes genuine initiative.  We always think we are friendly but I think we are mostly self deceived on this. We pay lip service and make pleasantry – -  we don’t really engage.  To actually engage we usually need to set up a process, a formal process.  We need to be able to draw out in a positive way the best of  the lurking ideas  and those little known organizational secrets that just might change the company.  Without any formal processes genuine discussion rarely takes place.

2: Create focus and shared vision.  As much as we don’t like to admit it, we still pretty much operate our companies by command and control; we think we have freedom but the boss is still so very much in charge. Sharing and creating is not something we are really asked to do.

Still, in this  day and age, we are knowledge workers predominately, and assembly line workers not so much.  As a knowledge worker, we have to make constant decisions in our little fiefdoms.   So we are still operating as silos  way too much.

My hat goes off to those organizations that can link its people together to create anything at all  in a balanced, shared process.  And, until we can do that, combining visions into a singular driving force is not going to happen.  But, if, as, and when that does actually happen, look out for there is tremendous power on the horizon.

3: Communicate, communicate, communicate.  Most companies are driven by productivity; their goal is efficiency, not effectiveness.  Relationship building is frowned upon as self-indulgence. Laughing and joking around the water cooler for any length of time means you’re lazy and not focused.  Yet until relationships are actually built the level of communication is going to be very low.

4: Ask, listen and empower employees.  Who really delegates?  We are by nature micromanagers who want it done  “our way”. Delegation is really mentoring, requiring a lot more work than simply doing  it ourselves.   This is what we never seem to get.

Yet we are all overwhelmed, so we are busy handing off a lot of  our stuff to the safest possible people who just might rise to our level of expectation.  When it doesn’t happen as we imagined it would, we kick ourselves.  If we can begin to see ourselves not as bosses but career coaches for those in our charge, our world will begin to change.

5: Recognize and praise employees.  There are givers and getters.  Both have their operating processes.  Only the givers can share in another’s success.  The getters never get past jealousy.  If we want to be truly great,  we can only do it  by growing together and investing in each other’s success.  Celebrating together  is probably the biggest high of all.

“A leader motivates, inspires and energizes people by connecting the vision, mission, values, purpose and business goals of the organization to individual values and needs.”

A great platitude but for most of us it’s gobbledygook.

Leadership is from the heart and we decide what kind of heart we are going to have.

These five admonitions have extreme power but not if they’re implemented mechanically.   But, if our goal is to get everyone having fun, we will be outright amazed at the results.

Leadership Practices That Drive Results. By: Durkin, Dianne. Baseline, Mar/Apr2010, Issue 103

Nearly 27 percent of financial executives in a recent survey from Robert Half Management Resources said that organizations needed to put a greater emphasis on “maintaining employee  morale.” Why? Highly engaged and motivated workers just do a lot better work. [1]

That just makes sense, right? The more you give, the more you get; what goes around comes around? This kind of give-to-get philosophy is grounds for cynicism.

Integrity is a bottom line ingredient for any organization-wide leadership initiative. You actually have to care about employees if you want their respect – - and with it their engagement. Any thing less and they smell it. There is something about that self-absorbed greed motive that the practitioners never see.

Enjoy workers, have fun with them, and humbly live with them at their level. When they know they are actually cared for (it can’t be faked), they will put out some kind of incredible.  In such a chipper world, they will put out as much as we let them.

What kind of a squeeze will it be? A happy hug… or like getting blood out of a stone?

Its all a matter of what we choose to give – - or get!

Source:

[1] “CFOs Are the Canary in the Coal Mine When It Comes to Workforce Morale” John Hollon March 25th, 2010 http://workforce.com/wpmu/bizmgmt/

Level 7 Leadership is a new concept for the business world. It has to do with making a massive impact on a world that is bigger than our own. Level 7 leaders bring about team innovation that disrupts an entire industry. all their own. Level VII is about producing innovations that break the compromises an industry imposes upon its patrons, clients and customers. A compromise is not a trade-off where features and benefits are weighed off against price. Solving a compromise means ridding artificial methods of extracting rents and outrageous profits from consumers.

For example, Southwest Airlines broke the artificial rules that demanded that either you had to buy a two-way ticket or stayover a Saturday night if you wanted to buy a reasonably priced airfare. The airline industry controlled passengers’ buying decisions with their impositions. Southwest changed the way the nation traveled.

Level 7 Leaders beat up the bullies by taking away their weapons. Level 7 Leaders are liberators;  they are freedom fighting innovators with a passion all their own.