The most overused and abused words in almost any language are ‘lead’ and its close cousins ‘leader’ and ‘leadership’.

People are constantly exhorted to “step up and be leaders” and to “cultivate leadership skills” and therein lies my difficulty.

I googled a number of places and here is a partial list of leadership traits; I’m sure you can add many more.

Do you see the same problem I see?

Ignoring how they are interpreted, these are the traits that allow people to be decent human beings, no matter what they do in life.

Of course, the interpretation is colored by ideology and MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™), sometimes so highly colored that a person on the ‘other side’ won’t recognize them—politics and religion are two areas where this is most obvious—but that doesn’t mean they aren’t there.

If you prefer to see developing these and other ‘leadership traits’ as laying the basis for your emerging as a leader that’s fine, as long as the development isn’t contingent on your advancement to a certain position.

Ever wonder if there is one trait beyond all others that leaders of all kinds have and is obvious in every situation?

Join me Thursday for the answer.

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When you’ve coached or written a blog for years you can find yourself answering the same questions over and over, but that’s OK. I’d rather have you drop me a line or use the chat box in the right frame than search for something and become frustrated.

And that’s what happened last night about 10:30.

“Ken” pinged me and asked if I remembered a post that talked about compensation and used a stool as an analogy for the company. He said he’d read it a few years ago and wanted it as part of a presentation for his boss.

No Problem. I’ve used that analogy with clients for years and in posts three times. After I gave Ken the URL he said I should post it again.

I agreed, but added a bit to cover the current situation.

Success is like a 3-legged stool—

Customers / equity-holders / employees

If one leg becomes too long, the stool tips over!

Taking care of the first two is a given, whereas taking care of employees seems to be based on the labor market.

If the market is hot, people are showered with money and perks, as the market cools, so does employee care.

Yes, you can buy people and you can replace people, but it’s very expensive.

In the kind of tough economic times we’re going through people understand when there are no raises and even when their compensation is cut to avoid a layoff.

But if that treatment extends only to workers and lower management, while executive compensation and perks continue, you can count on a steady exodus as business improves.

When the market is tight and companies are throwing cash, stock and perks right and left it’s the wise manager who remembers that people who join for money/stock/perks will leave for more money/stock/perks.

If instead management chooses to

• do the right thing,
• treat people fairly,
• give them interesting work,
• enable their growth, and
• satisfy most of their intangible hot buttons

employees will be

• more productive,
• innovative,
• engaged,
• committed,
• caring,
• happier, and
• healthier.

What more can any boss/company ask?

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Hat tip to Dan McCarthy who cites a study by Deloitte and asks whether best practices are reality or illusion.

Their research shows that luck alone can account for above average corporate performance for many years.

I haven’t read the study, but I did read Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers: The Story of Success and there is a lot to be said for luck.

Not the kind of luck that wins a lottery, but the “right time, right place” kind.

I saw it first hand during my 20+ years headhunting. When the economy was hot and talent scarce anybody could (and did) become recruiters because companies were so desperate they hired almost every warm body that even vaguely fit the opening.

During the expansion of the nineties, what percentage of a stock rising was skill and how much market serendipity? By the same token how much of the rise was leadership skill and how much a market that not only lifted all boats, but also responded with outsize euphoria to anything that sounded good?

This applies just as much to individuals.

I’m not saying that skill isn’t important or that it won’t offset many factors, but so is timing.

The problem is that you can’t choose when you are born or what the economy will be like when you reach the corner office or get that great promotion; you can only do your best with the situation in which you find yourself.

So when you do look to others for pointers and best practices, be sure that the economy and their circumstances are the same as yours or at least parallel enough to be worthwhile.

Think about it.

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Do you have the courage to hire people with quirks? Those who are unconventional or have unconventional experience for the position? Will you hire someone who is flawed in some way?

Would you hire a ‘cracked pot’ for your team?

An elderly Chinese woman had two large pots, each hung on the ends of a pole which she carried across her neck.

One of the pots had a crack in it while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water.

At the end of the long walks from the stream to the house, the cracked pot arrived only half full.

For a full two years this went on daily, with the woman bringing home only one and a half pots of water.

Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments.

But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it could only do half of what it had been made to do.

After two years of what it perceived to be bitter failure, it spoke to the woman one day by the stream.

“I am ashamed of myself, because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your house”‘

The old woman smiled, “Did you notice that there are flowers on your side of the path, but not on the other pot’s side?”

“That’s because I have always known about your flaw, so I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back, you water them.

For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate the table.

Without you being just the way you are, there would not be this beauty to grace the house.”

Managed correctly, appreciated instead of tolerated or, worse, homogenized, the idiosyncrasies of your team, the unusual backgrounds, your cracked pots, are what push productivity, juice creativity and drive innovation across the board.

And often it’s another’s management failure that gives you the opportunity to increase the strength of your team.

So cherish the pots you already have and never hesitate to hire another.

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How do you feel when you read something presented as a unique insight into a subject and it turns out to be the same old tire stuff that you’ve seen for years?

That’s how I felt when I read The Coming Leadership Gap: What You Can Do About It by John Ryan, president of the Center for Creative Leadership.

I’ve been hearing the term ‘leadership gap’ for years, yet Ryan writes that his company just coined it.

Based on our [global] survey, there are four skills that executives all over the world believe will be most important just five years from now: leading people, strategic planning, inspiring commitment, and managing change.

Most important starting 2015?

Good grief, I haven’t done a survey, but I’d say those four skills have been important for decades hundreds of years, more actually.

I’m sure Attila the Hun found them critical when he conquered the known world. In fact, odds are that they were on the mind of the first Cro-Magnon clan chieftain when he fought his neighbor.

Pity our poor world when the people running global enterprise think they have five years before they need to master these skills.

One of the comments was especially perceptive; in part it said,

Various management gurus from the 1950’s have said the same thing over and over again. Yet despite this each generation of corporate leaders repeat the mistakes off their predecessors in that they fail to invest in leadership and management development. I believe the answer lies firstly in a change of mindset. –John Coxon

Now we are getting somewhere.

It’s MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™); it’s always been MAP and it will always be MAP that is the problem—or the solution.

Before and after 2015 it will be the executives and managers who get it; who understand that these skills need to be embedded in the company’s DNA; they are not CEO skills, but core competency requirements to thrive in the 21^st Century.

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Sports has long been used as an analogy to various business practices—the best sales training film I ever saw was done by Vince Lombardi explaining how selling was akin to the plays in football.

But using good business practices to motivate a sports team isn’t heard of as much, except when it comes to ‘leadership’, a subject that, in its current ascendancy, annoys me no end.

A couple of years ago I read a post by Mike Kavis in which he focused on how Giants’ coach Tom Coughlin turned around his own career and his team using best practice leadership techniques.

“He listened to the constructive criticism of his bosses and players and decided to make some changes. What he found was that his vision was not fully understood by all of the players on the team. So he formed a leadership committee made up of various players on the team who could help him clearly communicate the vision. Better yet, he let the players select the leadership team. Since the players participated in forming the leadership team, it gave them a sense of ownership in the process…”

The creation of the leadership team accomplished the following:

• Clear understanding of team’s vision
• Participation in overall strategy
• Constant feedback
• Clear communication
• Accountability
• Buy-in
• Shared goals
• Clearly defined roles and responsibilities

And a Super Bowl trophy, I might add.

In his summary of what happened, Mike says, “If you want people to change, first change yourself.” which gave me a chuckle, not because it’s inaccurate, but because it’s so true that it’s the tag line of my company—To change what they do, change how you think.

A winning team is the goal of every person ever put in charge of an endeavor.

“Coughlin had a very rigid methodology that he followed to a T. It wasn’t working but he kept following it because it worked when he was with the Jaguars several years ago. By listening to his players, he made some minor tweaks to his methodology and the team responded.”

Those who are truly successful understand the importance of putting their egos in their respective pockets in order to listen and change themselves as needed.

The rest will continue to go their merry way, listening to no one, issuing edicts, and complaining when their people don’t buy-in or perform.

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“Clint” used the ‘Chat with Miki” box in the right-hand frame to ask me this question.

Have you ever heard this?  “People usually won’t change until the pain of NOT changing exceeds the pain of changing.”

Since this is a pretty common idea I thought I’d share my ideas with everybody.

I’ve heard this and many variations of it over the years, especially when applied to the workplace where it becomes a form of management by threat

For example, if your company or boss decides on a change and people’s jobs hinge on that change, they will change.

The problem is that they will also disengage at some level, maybe a little, but sometimes a lot. Not always obviously, but over time it will show in lower productivity, less creativity and, eventually, higher turnover.

Clint then asked if I thought that vested self-interest could be used instead of increasing the pain.

The answer is absolutely.

VSI is the perfect opposite to increased pain.

By rethinking a desired action, such as change, and presenting it in terms of its value to employees you can trip the VSI switch—but not if it’s a con.

As I’ve said a million times, people are not stupid; if the desired action is not really in their best interests there is nothing you can do that will convince them. VSI will still kick in, but the result will be resume polishing, lots of LinkedIn action and conversations with recruiters.

Clint decided that by using vested self-interest he could reduce the pain of changing. He plans to connect his organization’s goals to his people’s goals, which will effectively reduce the pain and increase the likelihood that they will do what he needs them to do—painlessly.

Handy little item my chat box. Try it, I’m usually here.

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I’m a bit ambivalent about Thanksgiving along with many other holidays, such as Mother’s Day. While I understand and even agree with the idea of honoring a certain attitude, it seems hypocritical when the attitude exists only on that day.

Sadly, many of the people most vocal about a holiday are the same people whose actions during the rest of the year belie their holiday attitudes.

That said, here are my suggestions regarding Thanksgiving.

No matter how bad things are in your corner of the world give thanks that you are alive to read this. As long as you’re breathing you have a shot at changing your circumstances or improving someone else’s.

Several years ago I had a terminally ill friend. Her final Thanksgiving act was to sign papers consigning all her useable body parts to an organ donor program; she died just a few days later.

Her action infuriated her family, but she had made sure they couldn’t stop her choice. She died knowing that others would live because of that choice.

Which brings us to my second suggestion.

Remember the words of Plato, “Always be kind, for everyone is fighting a hard battle,” and follow the advice of Anne Herbert, “Practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty” every day.

Get in the habit of doing one small, unplanned thing every day—drop a quarter in an about-to-expire meter; pick up a piece of litter; help someone across the street.

Just think of the difference in our world if everyone did just one random act every day.

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Are you familiar with The Onion?

I came across an old headline and laughed at how applicable it is to so many of us.

Search for Self Called Off After 38 Years

Phil Gerbyshak described himself in response to Becky Robinson’s Be Who You Are, in which she said that she couldn’t separate her business self and personal self.

But would she want to?

We are all a product of our MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™).

The biggest difference between personal and professional is the words used to describe what’s going on. We have ‘relationships’ in our personal life and ‘interactions’ in our professional one.

Knowing who we are is important, but constantly updating our knowledge is even more important, because we continue changing as long as we live.

Stopping your search could mean being stuck at that point like a fly in amber.

Along with continued searching, we need to share the information with the world, not just in words, but through our actions. I came across a quote from the movie Fat Like Me that says this best and has always resonated with me.

The world will tell you who you are until you tell the world.

And another one I read somewhere.

What we are never changes.
Who we are never stops changing.

So be your MAP, tell the world and update them frequently.

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