“How do you see me as a leader?” (. . .or, as a colleague, friend, parent?)

We take for granted that the people who work for us or with us understand and respect what we stand for— that they appreciate our values and approach to work. The same goes in our personal lives, with regard to our family members and friends. But do they know who we really are? How do we know? You can create a truly intimate and inspired conversation by asking this question. You may learn something unexpected. 

When to use the question 

• Any time you want to know how others perceive your leadership.
• To discover if those closest to you— family, friends, colleagues— understand who you are and what you stand for. 
• To shake people up who are on the fence about your intentions. 

Alternative versions of the question 

• “What do you think I stand for?” 
• “If you were to summarize the principles or values I exemplify, what would some of them be?”

Follow-up questions 

• “What have I done that has really reinforced that?”
•  “What else could I do to better communicate and be a role model for these things?” 
• “Why do you think that?”

Sobel, Andrew; Panas, Jerold (2012-01-05). Power Questions: Build Relationships, Win New Business, and Influence Others (p. 108). Wiley. Kindle Edition.

Leadership Principle: People Do What People See

What do your people see in you?

Two men, down on their luck, sit on a park bench in shabby clothes watching businesspeople in crisp suits rushing to their offices. The first man says, “The reason I’m here is because I refused to listen to anybody.”

“That so?” replies the second fella. “I’m here because I listened to everybody.” 

Both practices are recipes for disaster. Successful people don’t take the advice of everyone, nor do they try to do everything on their own. Instead, they find successful models who exemplify the values, skills and qualities they desire to possess. 

If you’re a leader, I hope you have already found models to follow, but that’s not what I want to discuss. I want to ask you this simple question: Are you worthy of followers?

One of the most important leadership principles I’ve discovered is this: People do what people see. When your team looks at you, when they watch what you do day in and day out, what do they see? If they were to emulate you, how would you rate them?

I base my leadership primarily on my values and a pragmatic approach. I do what I know works. But I’m also very conscious of the fact that others are watching me and following my lead.

What I do, they will do. How I work, they will work. What I value, they will value. So I ask myself: What kinds of traits do I want to model? 

1. A Passion for Personal Growth 
I know too many people who suffer from what I call “Destination Disease.” They’ve identified a certain career position or financial goal they want to reach, and then they work very hard to achieve that goal. But once they get there, they stop working hard and growing.

This mindset creates two problems for leaders. First, it causes them to stall. You’ll stop improving the moment you lose the tension between where you are and where you have the potential to be. Second, it sets a bad example for their followers. Think about it: How many people in your current circle didn’t see your former self, the one who fought hard to achieve? If you’re resting on your laurels, they’ll assume you are doing what you’ve always done and follow suit.

If you feel yourself slowing down, it’s time for a self-assessment. If you’re done working, retire and get out of the way of your business. But if you stay, you must keep striving. If you slacken, your people will do the same—Destination Disease is highly contagious. To keep it from taking hold, set new, higher goals for yourself and make sure your people see you pursuing them. It’s a surefire way to keep your organization humming. 

2. A Heart for People
If you’ve ever seen me in person, you know I don’t blitz through a crowd. Instead, I stroll across a room, shaking hands, saying hello, offering smiles. It’s my way of showing that I care.

I’m a busy guy, but these moments are worth the pause. People want to know that the leaders they follow can be trusted. They want to know that the leader cares about them as people, not just as tools to help realize a vision.

Taking this extra time also forces me to stop and listen. How can you add value to people if you don’t know them and understand what they want? So slow down. Talk. Listen. Connect. This practice will not only help you grow as a leader, it will also establish a caring culture across all levels of your organization. 

3. An Ability to Coach Others to Reach Their Potential
“The only difference between a rich person and a poor person,” says Rich Dad Poor Dad author Robert Kiyosaki, “is how they use their time.”

Boy—is that statement ever true of successful people! This is one principle I really try to model for my team. You won’t catch me idling. You will see me trying to wring the most out of every day.
Here’s a good place to segue into another way I like to cultivate leaders: by mentoring them. You can model all sorts of valuable traits, but sometimes people need hands-on help, too.

One of the best things I did for a member of my leadership team years ago was to meet with her every few months to talk about her priorities. She was a good leader and got a lot done, but she sometimes lost sight of the big picture. Our regular meetings helped her to stay on track.

If you can learn to coach people, you’ll help them, your organization and yourself. By coaching, I don’t just mean giving people the skills to do a job. That’s training, which does have value. But coaching—that long-term, guiding relationship—is even more impactful. According to the International Personnel Management Association, training increases productivity by 22 percent, while a combination of training and coaching increases it by 88 to 400 percent!

This is a message I practice as much as I preach. Early in my career I offered experienced leaders $100 for 30 minutes of their time, just so I could ask questions of them. That would work out to around $1,000 in today’s dollars. I really couldn’t afford it back then, but it was the best way to learn. Even today, I look for guidance from other leaders I admire.

“You will never maximize your potential in any area without coaching,” my friend Andy Stanley writes in his book Next Generation Leader . “You may be good. You may even be better than everyone else. But without outside input you will never be as good as you could be.

Self-evaluation is helpful, but evaluation from someone else is essential.”

So mentor your people. Show them how you seek guidance on your own endless quest for self-improvement. And remember these words by Andrew Carnegie: “As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do.”

Are you doing what you want your team to do?
 

The Six Deadly Sins of Leadership

By Jack Welch and  Suzy Welch

Being a leader is perhaps the hardest challenge any of us will ever face. No matter how long we work at it, practicing the right behaviors is a never-ending task. Knowing – and avoiding – the wrong ones is too. Thus, we offer the following six common leadership pitfalls:

1. Not Giving Self-Confidence its Due.
Self-confidence is the lifeblood of success. When people have it, they’re bold. They try new things, offer ideas, exude positive energy, and cooperate with their colleagues instead of surreptitiously attempting to bring them down. When they lack self-confidence, it’s just the opposite. People cower. They plod. And they spread negativity with every word and gesture.
But all too often leaders ignore (or neglect) this very basic fact of the human condition. Why is anyone’s guess. Perhaps they just don’t understand that it is part of their job to instill self-confidence in their people. It may even be said that it’s their first job. You cannot unleash the creative power of individuals who doubt themselves.

Fortunately, some people seem to be born with self-confidence. Others gain it from life and work experience and come to a company fully loaded. Regardless, leaders can never stop pouring self-confidence into their teams. The ways to do so are myriad. Make sure goals are challenging – but achievable. Give effusive positive feedback. Remind your direct reports of what they do right.

We’re not saying that leaders should blindly extol and exalt. People know when they’re being gamed. But good leaders work relentlessly to find ways to instill self-confidence in those around them. They know it’s the gift that never stops giving.

2. Muzzling Voice.
Perhaps the most frustrating way that leaders underperform is by over-talking. That is, they act like know-it-alls. They can tell you how the world works, what corporate is thinking, how it will backfire if you try this or that, and why you can’t possibly change the product one iota. Sometimes such blowhards get their swagger from a few positive experiences, but usually they’re just victims of their own destructive personalities.

Ultimately, the company ends up being a victim too, because know-it-alls aren’t just insufferable, they’re dangerous. They don’t listen, and that deafness makes it very hard for new ideas to get debated, expanded upon, or improved. No single person, no matter how smart, can take a business to its apex. For that, you need every voice to be heard.

3. Acting Phony.
Can you spot a phony? Of course you can – and so can your people. Indeed, if there is one widespread human capability, it is sniffing out someone who is putting on airs, pretending to be who they’re not, or just keeping their real self hidden. Yet too many leaders spend way too much time creating personas that put a wall between them and their employees. What a waste.
Because authenticity is what makes people love you. Visibly grappling with tough problems, sweating the details, laughing, and caring – those are the activities that make people respond and feel engaged with what you’re saying. Sure, some people will tell you that being mysterious grants you power as a leader. In reality, all it generates is fear. And who wants to motivate that way?

Now, obviously, authenticity is unattractive if it’s coupled with immaturity or an overdose of informality. And organizations generally don’t like people who are too emotionally unbounded – i.e. so real that all their feelings are exposed. They tend to tamp that kind of intensity down a bit. And that’s not a bad thing, as work is work and, more than at home, allows us to maintain some privacy.

But don’t let convention wring all the authenticity out of you, especially as you climb the ladder. In time, humanity always wins. Your team and bosses come to know who you are in your soul, what kind of people you attract and what kind of performance you want from everyone. Your realness will make you accessible; you will connect and you will inspire. You will lead.

4. Lacking the Guts to Differentiate.
You only have to be in business a few weeks to know that not all investment opportunities are created equal. But some leaders can’t face that reality, and so they sprinkle their resources like cheese on a pizza, a little bit everywhere.

As a result, promising growth opportunities too often don’t get the outsized infusions of cash and people they need. If they did, someone might get offended during the resource allocation process. Someone – as in the manager of a weak business or the sponsor of a dubious investment proposal.

But leaders who don’t differentiate do the most damage when it comes to people. Unwilling to deliver candid, rigorous performance reviews, they give every employee the same kind of bland, mushy, “nice job” sign-off. Then, when rewards are doled out, they give star performers little more than the laggards. Now, you can call this egalitarian approach kind, or fair – as these lousy leaders usually do – but it’s really just weakness. And when it comes to building a thriving organization where people have the chance to grow and succeed, weakness just doesn’t cut it.

5. Fixation on Results at the Expense of Values.
Everyone knows that leaders deliver. Oratory and inspiration without results equal…well, a whole lot of nothing. But leaders are committing a real dereliction of duties if all they care about are the numbers. They also have to care about how those numbers came to be. Were the right behaviors practiced? Was the company’s culture of integrity honored? Were people taken care of properly? Was the law obeyed, in both letter and spirit?

Values are a funny thing in business. Companies love to talk about them. They love to hang them up on plaques in the lobby and boast about them to potential hires and customers. But they’re meaningless if leaders don’t live and breathe them. Sometimes that can take courage. It can mean letting go of a top performer who’s a brute to his colleagues, or not promoting a star who doesn’t share her best ideas with the team. That’s hard.

And yet if you’re a leader, this is a sin you cannot squint away. When you nail your results, make sure you can also report back to a crowded room: We did this the right way, according to our values.

6. Skipping the Fun Part
What is it about celebrating that makes managers so nervous? Maybe throwing a party doesn’t seem professional, or it makes people worry that they won’t look serious to the powers that be, or that, if things get too happy in the office, people will stop working their tails off.

Whatever the reason, too many leaders don’t celebrate enough. To be clear here, we do not define celebrating as conducting one of those stilted little company-orchestrated events that everyone hates, in which the whole team is marched out to a local restaurant for an evening of forced merriment when they’d rather be home. We’re talking about sending a team to Disney World with their families, or giving each team member tickets to a show or a movie, or handing each member of the team a new iPod.

What a lost opportunity. Celebrating makes people feel like winners and creates an atmosphere of recognition and positive energy. Imagine a team winning the World Series without champagne spraying everywhere. You can’t! And yet companies win all the time and let it go without so much as a high-five.

Work is too much a part of life not to recognize the moments of achievement. Grab as many as you can. Make a big deal out of them.

That’s part of a leader’s job too – the fun part.