ABC’s of Leadership | Square One Leadership

Feb 12 2013

Leadership is: Listening

Hearing words is not the same as understanding them.

“The most basic of all human needs is the need to understand and be understood. The best way to understand people is to listen to them.” – Ralph Nichols (interesting interview w/ Ralph Nichols)

Beneficial communication consist of two parts: sharing & receiving. It seems for most, that sharing, or talking, is far easier for the average person than receiving, or listening, is. Also, since we’ve already discussed some healthy sharing habits in an earlier post, lets look at some healthy listening habits.

1. Forming a response, while another person is sharing, is not listening. Conversations move quickly, and they move even faster when more people are involved. It is possible that if we don’t form our response quickly we will miss our opportunity to share our insight. The problem with this perception is that our listening is still about us. Listening must be about the other person. If the conversation passes us by, and we believe our thought/response is beneficial, we can revisit it in the conversation, or say it later to the person one on one.

This leads us to our next habit:

2. Processing, or contextualizing, what another person is saying is crucial for communication. When we combine prior and current information we’ve received from the person with whom we are communicating, it allows us to understand better what it is they are saying. Also, we must listen to HOW they are saying it. It has been said that two-thirds of all communication is non-verbal. If this is true, we must listen to their tone and watch their body language. Paul Ekman discusses this practice in his book: Emotions Revealed: Recognizing Faces and Feelings to Improve Communication and Emotional Life

Finally:

3. Forming our response should not be based on who we are, but rather who the speaker is. We share with the hope that people will respond to what we’ve shared, others are no different. We must format our responses based on who they are so that one, they know they’ve been heard and two, so we can give a proper response. While this doesn’t seem to be an outright listening habit, the reality is we must listen to find out what type of person they are. This way our response can be a proper one.

This 2007 Bloomberg Business Week article has some more great leadership listening suggestions!

What listening habits help you listen better?

Tagged ABC's, Change, Communication, Employees, Leadership, Listening, Team

Feb 11 2013

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ABC's of Leadership

Leadership is: Kindness

Never look down on a person unless you're helping them up!

Never look down on anybody unless you’re helping them up – Jesse Jackson

Being a kind leader is essential to building rapport with team members. Often, kindness is looked at not as a necessity, but rather a characteristic that is helpful if possessed, but one that can be worked around if absent. While the later is true, it is much more beneficial for a leader to work through being kind rather than around it.

Kindness is one of those words that have different connotations to different people, but simply put kindness is doing “good.” I understand we just went from mist to fog with the word good, but you understand the principle. Good is when actions inspire and benefit teams as opposed to demotivating and depressing them.

Over all leaders must desire to do good to their teams! For some leaders it is easy to want to be a blessing towards their teammates, for others it is more difficult. Here are a few ways to increase your desire to be kind:

Focus on the positive. This is not to say that we over look areas of weakness or areas that need improving; however, when a leader focuses on a member’s area of excellence or contribution, their demeanor and view towards them changes. Remember a person will live up or down to your perception of them.
Make the choice to patiently invest in them. This is a hard one for a leader. Ideally we want people who don’t need babysitting or investment. We’d like them to be self-sufficient and capable of going months with out our input or guidance. The truth of the matter is that this doesn’t exists, and if they’re not getting this from you, chances are they’re getting it from something or someone else. When a leader chooses to invest in a person for the sake of the person they will have more buy in to their success.They will search for areas of improvement, and for reasons to celebrate growth.
Desire better for the organization. Actions are mirrored from leadership. If you want your organization to do better, if you want your team members to be better, treat them better. This is not rewarding mediocrity, but rather encouraging loyalty. Zappos.com founder and CEO Tony Hsieh knows this all too well. In his book Delivering Happiness he shares that his company thrives because their customer service is so great, and their customer service is so great because they chose to value their team members.

Kindness is not some characteristic that you can do with out, it is a necessity for success. However, it is not enough to desire to do good. You must do good! Good intentions alone only build frustration.

How are you going to show kindness to your team this week?

Tagged ABC's, Delivering Happiness, Kindness, Leadership, Tony Hsieh, Zappos.com

Feb 10 2013

Leadership is: Juggling

A Balanced Life?

Man maintains his balance, poise, and sense of security only as he is moving forward. – Maxwell Maltz

A lie wrapped in layers of common sense does not give validity to the lie, it only allows us to pursue a lie unaware.

The lie that most leaders often pursue is the mystically balanced life. I’m sad to say that there is no such thing, personally or professionally. The reason is, a balanced life indicates your attention and actions are equally distributed to all areas of your life. As leaders we know this is highly improbable!

I believe that life is to be juggled, and I’m not the only one who believes this. In her talk, “What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20,” which is also one of her books, Tina Seelig shares Carol Bartz’s idea that “you need to look at balance over a long period of time and catch it before it hits the floor.”

Here are some of my observations on juggling:

1. Juggling requires that we identify all the pieces. Before we start juggling we must know what all we are going to juggle. A helpful resource for this endeavor is John Maxwell’s book “Today Matters.”

2. Juggling requires knowing the condition of the pieces. Leaders can’t effectively juggle if we do not know the condition of the piece. Some pieces are lighter, some are heavier. We must not overestimate or underestimate what we are juggling. If we do we will throw off our ability to effectively react to what is falling.

3. Juggling requires being aware of what is falling. In order to successfully juggle leaders must give attention to what is falling. The lesson here is to be aware of all of our pieces and know which one is closest to the floor so that we can give it the support it needs. This should be considered our priority above all else.

4. Juggling requires supporting the falling pieces. Leaders must give support (attention + action) to the falling area(s) of our lives. If we’ve focused more on work than we have on family, it’s time to spend some quality time with them. If we’ve focused on information rather than implementation, it’s time to start doing more than learning.

What else would you add?

What are your thoughts on balancing vs. juggling?

Tagged ABC's, Balancing Life, Carol Bartz, John Maxwell, Juggling Life, Leadership, Tina Seelig

Feb 09 2013

Leadership is: Investment

“Really great people make you feel that you, too, can become great.” – Mark Twain

If we ever expect our teams and organizations to be great we must invest in our people! I’ve heard it said that Sam Walton, founder of Wal-Mart, knew that if he wanted to make his customers happy, he would have to make his employees happy first.

While we are all wired differently, we desire to feel connected to people, from the obvious extrovert, down to the the most introverted hermit (myself included). Investing in people is the process of helping them feel connected! John Maxwell says, “leadership is influence,” that influence is gained through investing.

There are all different types of influence, not one type is better than the other. In order to figure out what type of investment you need to give, you must first know the people you want to invest in. What do they like? What is their personality like? What are they interested in? How do they feel appreciated? Them + their circumstances = a unique situation.

Here are a few types of investment:

Financial Investment: A financial investment says that I’m willing to give up my hard earned money to support your cause or need.

Emotional Investment: A great way to build rapport with a person quickly is to have empathy. This can not be synthesized, this must be real! People know when you truly care for them and are willing to identify with their situation. All you might need to do is listen and nod your head as they express themselves to you, but your listening speaks volumes.

Physical Investment: This is probably my least favorite of all the investments. However, there is something very powerful about a person who is willing to take time out of their schedule and give physical effort to help you accomplish a task. This could be moving, painting, building, etc.

Professional Investment: When you’re willing to help people get better through training or mentoring and they experience success because of it they will remember your investment and be more bought into who you are. This is essentially them giving you influence.

What other kind of investments would you add to the list?

What kind of investments do you prefer?

Tagged ABC's, Influence, Leadership

Feb 08 2013

Leadership is: Honesty

“If it is not right do not do it; if it is not true do not say it.” – Marcus Aurelius

Honesty in leadership is tight rope that must be walked.

Unfortunately honesty isn’t as straight forward as it sounds, here are my observations on some methods of honesty:

For some, honesty is the ~~best~~ only policy — If they have the information they feel it must be shared regardless of method, timing, or even outcome. I have a student that believes in this policy. They tend to speak their mind in the moment. Usually this honesty (which is supposed to be helping people) isn’t well received, however true it may be! The problem with this policy is that it violates the healthy habits of communication (I talk about the healthy habits of communication here), as well as John Maxwell’s law of timing.

For others, honesty is circumstantial — If they have information but don’t know if it will be beneficial to the person or situation at the moment, or ever, then they don’t have to be honest with them. Unofficially, this seems to be the favored view of honesty. I don’t have to tell my wife she looks “big” in those jeans, because that’s going to ruin my night and her night. The problem with this view is that it makes us the sole decider of what is beneficial and what isn’t. Usually when dealing with honesty it is for the benefit of another person. When we decide what is and isn’t beneficial for them we rob them of a chance to grow.

For leaders, honesty is all about other people — If you’re goal is other people, your honesty will include the healthy habits of communication, the law of timing and a desire to see them grow. Honesty must be used to build people up, give them hope, and cast a vision for the future. A leader won’t be honest because it makes them feel better, they will give it in a way that connects with the person, and they will said what needs to be said, no more no less.

What are your observations of honesty?

Tagged ABC's, Communication, Honesty, law of timing, Leadership

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