Great article by Steve Keating. If you strip away your title, position, and authority, are you still a leader?
Month: December 2014
The Gifts Leaders Give
This is the time of the year where we think about gifts. Whether it’s Black Friday, Cyber Monday, or Small Business Saturday, we are thinking about what we are giving to those who are closest to us. It’s also the time of year where we begin to reflect on the past year and plan for the next.
As you think back on the past year as a leader, what gifts did you give to the people who work for you? I’m not talking about physical gifts but the things you did that will leave a lasting impact on your employees. These actions, like physical gifts, can either be good or bad.
A study last year by Glassdoor found that 66% of employees believe their direct managers had an impact on their careers. 52% said the impact was positive while 20% said it was negative. The challenge as leaders is that, whether we like it or not, we are leaving a lasting legacy on the people who follow us.
When training to be a Naval Officer, I learned an important lesson on this that has always stayed with me. We were told to learn as much as we could from every leader we were assigned to. We should learn the good practices, to emulate in the future, and learn the bad practices, to avoid in our own leadership activities.
As I look back at all the leaders I have worked for, I can think of a number of good gifts and bad gifts that I have received. Some of the good gifts included:
The Gift of Trust – As a junior officer assigned to my first submarine, I had a commanding officer that regularly chose me for the toughest assignments. Even though I was filled with self-doubt, he told me he trusted me and that I would a good job. That trust gave me confidence.
The Gift of Appreciation – I once had a boss who sent a large basket of cookies and snacks to my home after he hired me. In it was a note that said, “I’m looking forward to all the great things I know you will do.” It was a simple gesture that said he appreciated me as a person even before I started work.
The Gift of Faith – The leader that selected me to run my first manufacturing plant chose me for the job, even though I had never run an operation before. His action told me that he had faith in my abilities and I worked hard to prove him right.
The Gift of Support – When I was going through a career transition, I had several former bosses who went out of their way to provide support and advice through the whole process. Their support during a stressful time was exactly what I needed to make a successful transition.
The Gift of Encouragement – As a young design engineer, I had a major failure of a new product at a test lab costing my company thousands of dollars. I had to call my boss to give him the bad news. Instead of a reprimand, he encouraged me to learn as much as I could about the failure, improve the product, and to get back to the lab.
The Gift of Recognition – I have had a number of bosses who have selected me to receive awards or have recognized me publicly for my actions. In most cases, it was a total surprise. Although I don’t work for the recognition, it is nice to get that type of positive feedback.
The Gift of a Challenge – I once had a boss challenge a business plan I developed. Even though I had created a solid plan, he asked one simple question which changed everything. He simply said, “This is great, but what haven’t you thought of that could create even more growth?” That challenge was the catalyst that changed our entire thinking and business model.
I won’t get into the details here but I have received many bad gifts as well. They include gifts of micromanagement, public reprimand, disengagement, discouragement, disrespect, disloyalty, and, like many others, I have been thrown under my share of buses.
So as we approach the end of the year and begin to reflect, I would challenge you to think of the gifts you have been giving. Have they been good gifts or bad gifts? What is the lasting legacy you are leaving for the people who work for you? What can you do differently in 2015 to give better gifts?
Embrace your Critics – Here’s How
“To avoid criticism say nothing, do nothing, be nothing” ~ Aristotle
I had my first real harsh blog post critic last week and it was great! Let me explain.
I recently wrote an article called 10 Simple Ways to Become an Extraordinary Leader in 2015. In the article, I shared ways to show respect for employees from my 25 years of experience as a leader in both the military and industry. The post received a lot of attention on LinkedIn and the feedback was mostly positive until it crossed the desk of my critic.
My post must have hit a nerve. The following day, she posted an article called Just How Sick of Leadership Posts Are We? The article featured my story prominently displayed as the example of what is wrong with all stories on leadership.
As I read through her post, I went through a number of emotions like anger, frustration, and indignation. Then I began to see her point and understand her perspective. I soon realized these are the same emotions I’ve experienced before when dealing with “business critics.” We’ve all had experiences with these type of critics. They are the ones challenging your assumptions, telling you-you’re not doing it right, reminding you that it didn’t work in the past, or saying it can’t be done.
If you’re a leader doing big things, you are going to encounter a lot of critics along the way. Consider it a badge of honor. The challenge is to learn how to avoid letting criticism derail your plans while still using the feedback to refine your activities.
As a leader, dealing with criticism is an important skill. Todd Kashdan, Professor of Psychology at George Mason University, says one of the most important things you need to master as a leader is how to handle feedback well. He suggests 3 strategies:
1. Look at the person doing the criticism. Molly Cantrell-Kraig, the founder of Women With Drive Foundation, says there are three types of critics you should really listen to: Those speaking from a position of caring, those who have successfully navigated the situation about which they are talking, and those who bring solutions with their criticism. She suggests these are the type of critics who will genuinely help you refine your activities. Critics who might otherwise have an agenda, a conflict of interest, or stand to gain from criticizing your efforts should not be given the same level of attention.
2. Understand that everyone has biases. Not all critics have the same world-view as you. While it is important to seek diverse opinions when creating plans, it is equally important to understand that the past experiences of others will affect their advice. Understanding the perspective of your critic will better help you decide on how to utilize their advice.
3. Create space between you and your plans. As a leader, we need to learn to create distance between our plans and ourselves. It allows us to look at criticism from a more rational perspective, avoiding the obvious emotional response. If we view criticism as aimed at our plans and not us, we can create the distance we need to look at criticism more objectively. This is necessary to find those nuggets of advice that will help us improve our efforts.
Leadership is about influence and change and anytime you implement change, there will be critics. As a leader, it is important you understand the motivation of your critics and their biases. It’s also critical to create a distance from yourself and your plans. These strategies will help you avoid the emotional effect of criticism while still using the feedback to further refine your activities.
I’ll leave you with my absolute favorite perspective on critics from Teddy Roosevelt’s “Citizen in a Republic” speech called “The Man in the Arena.”
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.