Jim Stroup (@jimstroup) used to write a blog called Managing Leadership; the blog is gone, but his book of the same name is still available.

Jim understood the myth of leadership.

“…the cult of the superlative individual leader as the cure for our current difficulties,” but Jim also pointed out that those same cult members caused many of the problems.

“We will take the position here at the outset, then, that the family of definitions of leadership that we are discussing is that which incorporates the idea of ineffably sensed forward motion – profound vision, unfathomable wisdom or judgment, courageous decisiveness, a charismatic ability to attract followers, and the like.

After all, it is this type of leadership that we are being told we must place our faith in, so that its exemplars can grasp the reins firmly in their hands, and with reassuring sure-footedness steer we poor, benighted masses out of our barely perceived and dimly comprehended peril. Into which, let it be said again, those exalted exemplars’ predecessors led us.”

Wally Bock has often pointed out that leadership, in common with the emperor, has no clothes and that leadership “wisdom” fails dismally to live up to its name.

Today’s post is short, because it is linked to an important article that KG recently sent as a result of our comparing notes on the subject.

It’s important, because it takes a different, more realistic, look at leadership, as opposed to the traditional view as espoused by the leadership industry. (Yes, “leadership” is an entire industry as is accounting and law.)

The article highlights, as did Jim and Wally, the dangers of our obsession with leadership and those who claim its mantle.

Take the time to read it and, more importantly, think about it, share it, and make it a subject for discussion among your friends.

Image credit: Edvin J.

It’s amazing to me, but looking back over more than a decade of writing I find posts that are still relevant, with information that is as useful now as when it was written.

Golden Oldies are a collection of some of the best posts during that time.

Today is a two-fer, because, when discussing leadership, commentary on followers should be required.

A lot of water has passed under the bridge since these two posts, 5 years on the first and 10 years on the other, were written and the world has changed drastically. It is far more complex and moves much faster than ever before. What hasn’t changed — contrary to the impression you get from both traditional and new media, whether mainstream or on the fringes — is how much influence so-called leaders actually exert on their followers.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

Hate, Intolerance and Responsibility

Anyone reading the news—local, national or global—knows that hate and intolerance are increasing at an alarming rate everywhere.

Also, because there have been/will be so many elections around the world this year ‘leadership’ is in the news even more so than usual.

What responsibility do leaders—business, political, religious, community—bear in fostering hate and intolerance?

Not just the age old race and gender intolerance, but the I’m/we’re-RIGHT-so-you-should-do/think-our-way-or-else.

The ‘we’re right/you’re wrong’ attitude is as old as humanity and probably won’t ever change, but it’s the ‘do-it-our-way-or-else’ that shows the intolerance for what it really is.

And leaders aren’t helping; in fact, they are making it worse.

During my adult life (I missed being a Boomer by a hair) I’ve watched as hate and intolerance spread across the country masked by religion, a façade of political correctness or a mea culpa that is supposed to make everything OK, but doesn’t.

Various business, political, religious and community leaders give passionate, fiery talks to their followers and then express surprise and dismay when some of those same followers steal trade secrets, plant bombs, and kill individuals—whose only error was following their own beliefs.

We are no longer entitled to the pursuit of happiness if our happiness offends someone next door, the other end of the country, or the far side of the globe.

I remember Ann Rand saying in an interview that she believed that she had the right to be totally selfish, where upon the interviewer said that would give her freedom to kill.

Rand said absolutely not, in fact the reverse was true, since her selfishness couldn’t impinge anyone else’s right to be selfish.

Leaders aren’t responsible; we are because we go along with it—as did the Germans when Hitler led them down the hate and intolerance path.

That about sums up my attitude

What’s yours?

Image credit: Street Sign Generator

Two kinds of followers

In general, followers fall into two categories—thinking and unthinking. All of us have issue-specific litmus tests and look for a general comfort level with other followers.

Thinking followers usually have a broader definition of comfort, critically evaluate individual ideas and attitudes, as opposed to blind across-the-board acceptance, and are more willing to consider compromises. They often challenge their leader offering additional considerations, thoughts, suggestions, as well as open disagreement.

Unthinking followers are more emotional, rarely disagree or argue and may opt out of all thought and consideration following blindly and allowing the leader think for them. At their worst, unthinking followers are fodder for cults.

Most of us would classify ourselves as thinking followers, but are we? I know that politically I have one litmus test that is absolute and a couple of others that have high priority without being locked into specifics. Beyond that, I’ve always considered myself pretty open.

However, as extremists have polarized various issues I find myself becoming more adamant in my own feelings and less open to listening to those who believe that their views represent truth with a capital T — but I still want to live in a country where they have the right to say it.

I’ve lived a long time and I never thought I’d say this, but the rise of social media, with its ability to say anything anonymously sans responsibility, has seriously compromised my belief in free speech.

“Do the right thing” used to be an accepted mantra, as well as a point of pride.

That’s changed; think Volkswagen’s “defeat device” to Nissam’s 20+ years of using untrained inspectors (due to a “shortage”) to Uber’s Greyball, and others too numerous to list.

The companies involved only fixed/changed/stopped because they were caught.

These days, the mantra is “do the right thing if

• caught doing the wrong thing;
• it doesn’t interfere with revenue;
• it removes the spotlight from a scandal;
• it generates good press; or
• it counteracts bad press,

In other words, do the right thing as a sop to the masses until they forget and then it’s business as usual.

And why not?

The same attitude has worked well for politicians, religious leaders, and business executives for decades, if not centuries, so why change a formula that works so well?

The same attitude is in play for individuals, especially these days when personal convenience and comfort are paramount and ethics, morals, integrity, decency and responsibility play second fiddle to expediency.

Like companies, people go their merry way lying, cheating, and stealing their way to the top.

And if they happen to walk into/over/stomp on someone they will look around and, if caught, do the right thing by helping them up and apologizing.

Maybe.

But whether enterprise or individual, permanent change is unlikely.

Image credit: Kurt Bauschardt

Some of the worst management advice I’ve heard/read recently comes from Anthony Middleton, former Special Forces Operator and co-author of “SAS: Who Dares Wins.”

He said; “How do I earn the respect of a group that I don’t know? That’s pretty simple. I go in with a voice of authority. I go in and I show them exactly why I’m their leader. When I give my first set of orders, I’m actually going to get involved with those first set of orders, I’m going to get in there, get my hands dirty.”

On handling people with big egos, the Former SBS Operator says: “I play to their egos, sometimes the best thing to do is let them learn from their mistakes. What I do is I slowly let them trip up, I’ll slowly let them stumble, and then I’ll take hold of them, break them down and build them back up to where they need to be.”

In other words, set them up to fail.

As to building them up, who decides on “where they need to be?”

Given today’s workforce, the only positive thing I can see managers who take this advice accomplishing is to improve their hiring skills.

Sadly, I’ve worked with many people who, for whatever reason, were broken, but not built back up. (I’ve always believed there is a special circle in the Inferno for bosses who intentionally damage their people.)

Knowing how opinionated (prejudiced) I am on this subject, I asked KG, who is a Boomer, and Ryan, who is a Millennial, what they thought. (In case you’re wondering, I’m on the cusp between the Silent Generation and the Boomers.)

From KG Charles-Harris.

The special forces is like investment banking; highly trained and motivated individuals, strong egos, high impact consequences. When dealing with millions of dollars or serious life & death situations (include surgeons in this — my brother is one) with small time considerations, the need for decisiveness and people following orders escalates. There is little latitude for more collaborative or iterative decision making.

While often necessary in the circumstances described above (btw, this wasn’t an exhaustive list of professions), in most organizations and groups the command and control type of leadership would produce worse results. In fact, in the special forces, surgery and investment banking there are deep postmortems and other tools that are utilized to foster organizational learning.

From Ryan Pew.

The advice he is giving is something I have heard time and time again in a military setting where hierarchy is clearly defined and respected. I won’t say it doesn’t hold water in non-military settings but you have to adapt it when dealing with folks who are not as rigid.

In the first bold phrase, I guess I would assume that he is stepping into a new group already defined as the leader. In this case, it can make sense to have a voice of authority, be confident and I like that he backs it up by saying he will do the work with them rather than dictate from afar. However, that can be taken too far if it sounds like a dictatorial tone of voice, that won’t fly long term.

The second phrase is something I have seen during my time in the Marines. Senior Marines will allow junior Marines to make mistakes early on to learn from them. Typically this is done in a controlled environment before combat operations. The expectation that once we get into combat those rookie mistakes will no longer be there. It helps to build confidence in the young Marine and instill in them a strong work ethic. The breaking down aspect is something also done in a controlled environment.

BUT I WANT TO SAY RIGHT NOW THAT THIS IS INSANITY IF YOU THINK IT WORKS IN CIVILIAN LIFE.

I shouted that to be sure we are all clear here. In the military, you need to be a unified group lacking individuality. This builds cohesion and a willingness to follow orders immediately, even when you know they may kill you. The advantage is obvious, you have a superior fighting unit and ensure that weakness is pounded out.

That will not work at the office. If you have a boss who starts breaking people down emotionally or mentally only to so-called build them back up in the preferred image you will have a lawsuit or worse. Besides, offices do not need a singular mindset, they need creativity and individuality to thrive.

This boss would be a psychopath and it sounds like this guy is just saying stuff to sell books without utilizing it in real-world settings.

So simple answer, this works in the military, not real life.

So. Three generations, raised in substantially different worlds, but all agreeing that if you choose to follow Middleton’s advice you do so at your own peril.

Image credit: Robert Payne

Ironic, isn’t it. Right on top of yesterday’s post about ethics, comes this.

Most people even slightly in touch with the tech scene have heard about the Apple engineer who was fired for allowing his daughter to show off features of the new iPhone X in a YouTube video.

The engineer who was fired, Peterson’s father Ken Bauer, is seen in the video using Apple Pay on the iPhone X. He hands the phone to his daughter, and she walks through various features.

The daughter posted a follow-up video saying,

“Apple let him go. At the end of the day, when you work for Apple, it doesn’t matter how good of a person you are. If you break a rule, they just have no tolerance.”

How ‘bout that.

Dad knew he shouldn’t do it, but did it anyway.

Daughter takes no responsibility and says Apple is the bad guy.

What is wrong with this scenario?

Companies don’t make rules for the fun of it.

Rules are there to ensure certain actions are or are not taken.

Rules are not there to break.

Most companies (all?) would consider giving public exposure to a yet-to-be released product a firing offense.

Hopefully Bauer learned his lesson and won’t do the same thing at his next company; however, his actions will give pause and make many hiring managers skittish.

Cynic that I am, I wonder what, if anything, his daughter will learn from this experience. She doesn’t look all that young, so you have to wonder what her actions will be when she starts working.

Image credit: Joshua Smith

Robert Sutton, Stanford management prof and the author of “The No Asshole Rule” and “The Asshole Survival Guide,” is a very smart guy.

His knowledge and understanding of the forces affecting the modern workplace, and what to do about them, are encompassing and engaging.

Here are three things Sutton believes are increasing rudeness and making things worse.

1. We make less eye contact nowadays — and therefore have less empathy
2. Income inequality is on the rise, leading to jealousy and scorn
3. We work in open offices, which exacerbate existing problems

Exacerbating the loss of empathy are tools, such as Slack, that further reduce eye contact, even when working right beside someone. In fact, as mentioned yesterday, physical proximity doesn’t matter when communications are screen based.

While bullying bosses are falling out of fashion, technology may encourage people to adopt harsher, less empathetic communication styles, said Liz Dolan, a former exec at Nike, OWN, and the National Geographic Channels. (…)  “It makes it really hard for people to understand what boundaries are when they don’t really get to know each other because all their communication is online,” Dolan said. “We all know that it’s true that there are things you would say in an email or a text message to someone that you would never in a million years say to their face.”

What’s worse, researchers at the University of Florida have found rudeness to be contagious. So just one heated email can have a truly toxic ripple effect throughout your team.

These factors play a mojor role in engagement — or the lack of it.

According to Gallup Daily tracking, 32% of employees in the U.S. are engaged — meaning they are involved in, enthusiastic about and committed to their work and workplace.

The overall effect is summed up in one word: loneliness, according to former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy.

… being physically close your colleagues doesn’t guarantee you’ll feed off their brainpower or work ethic. There must still be some aspect of social connection — be it joking around or thoughtful conversation — for health and productivity to improve.

“A more connected workforce is more likely to enjoy greater fulfillment, productivity, and engagement while being more protected against illness, disability, and burnout,”

In short, screen time -> less empathy -> more rudeness -> escalating disengagement -> increased loneliness = lower productivity and engagement.

This sequence of events has a very personal effect on you, too, in terms of poorer reviews, smaller raises, and fewer promotional opportunities.

Image credit: Joshua Smith

A few months ago I reposted Passion Unchecked, because it still seems to be the favorite excuse when things go wrong.

It was Ben Kaufman’s explanation when Quirky failed.

“If I ever go too far, it’s because of the passion I have for this place, and the love I have for this place, and the community,” Kaufman tells Business Insider. “I want this thing to be so perfect and so great. And, yeah, often I may take it too far, but it comes from a place of love, you know?”

Everybody lauded the passion with which Travis Kalanick drove Uber’s growth — until he drove it off a cliff.

Dara Khosrowshahi, Uber’s new CEO, told his troops that they need to take responsibility for what’s been happening.

“While the impulse may be to say that this is unfair, one of the lessons I’ve learned over time is that change comes from self-reflection. So it’s worth examining how we got here. The truth is there is a high cost to a bad reputation.”

High cost indeed, but it could go much higher if the most recent lawsuit gains traction.

Irving Firemen’s Relief & Retirement Fund filed the lawsuit in California federal court on Tuesday. The lawsuit does not say how much the retirement fund is seeking but alleges that Uber has lost at least $18 billion in private market value as a result of a series of scandals and controversies.

Passion isn’t limited to startups; it is present to some degree in almost all humans, especially those in formal or informal leadership roles.

It is the wise boss who understands that while passion is necessary to attract, motivate and sustain people uncontrolled passion isn’t what brings success.

Success results form a mix of passion, intelligence, grit, planning, and hard work.

What changes is the amount of each needed to deal with a given situation.

Image credit: One Day Closer

It’s amazing to me, but looking back over more than a decade of writing I find posts that still impress, with information that is as useful now as when it was written.

Golden Oldies are a collection of what I consider some of the best posts during that time.

It is said that hindsight is 20/20, because we can see the whole as opposed to the part in which we are involved. It’s mostly an accurate statement, but only if we can set aside our many biases. If not, we will see what we expect to see, whether it fits all the facts or not,

The problem is, of course, we are no better at seeing our own biases than we are at seeing all parts of a situation as it is happening, which makes 20/20 vision of ourselves elusive.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

A few weeks ago Wharton professor Adam Grant wrote Dear Men: Wake Up and Smell the Inequality focusing on why men can’t seem to wrap their heads around gender inequality.

In corporate America, 88% of men think women have at least as many opportunities to advance as men.

This is the finding of a major new study—almost 30,000 employees across 118 companies—by LeanIn.org and McKinsey & Company.

Just 12% of men felt that women had fewer opportunities to advance in their organizations.

Today, KG Charles-Harris sent a link to an article by Marshall Goldsmith about suck-ups, with an underlying focus on how easily we see traits in others, but not in ourselves. (I call it ‘but me’)

Almost all of the leaders I have met say that they would never encourage such a thing in their organizations. I have no doubt that they are sincere. Most of us are easily irritated–if not disgusted–by derriere kissers. Which raises a question: If leaders say they discourage sucking up, why does it happen so often? Here’s a straightforward answer: Without meaning to, we all tend to create an environment where people learn to reward others with accolades that aren’t really warranted. We can see this very clearly in other people. We just can’t see it in ourselves.

And that brings us to MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™).

MAP, in case you’ve forgotten, is what underlies and drives all our thoughts and actions.

While not seeing things in ourselves may be fundamental to our MAP, that doesn’t mean we can’t change it.

To do so is a choice, yours and no one else’s.

Choice is the most valuable thing that any of us have and it’s the most painful to lose.

Remember Dumbledore? He summed it up perfectly.

“It is our choices that show us what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” (Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, p 333)

Image credit: Peter O’Connor

Last February I wondered if the iconic 1984 Apple Super bowl ad would still feature a woman if it were made today.

There’s been a lot of change since that ad, but for women and people of color much of the pre-2000 progress has regressed.

Fixing that means transforming what-is to what-should-be and management professor and guru Henry Mintzberg offers some of the wisest thoughts I’ve seen on the subject (‘wise’ being very different than ‘smart’).

Transformation requires change — the organization and its culture must transform itself based on a new vision and different core values.

But where to begin? That’s easy: at the “top”. Where else when there’s such pressure. Besides, any chief who has been to a business school or reads the business press knows that it’s all about leadership: the boss who does the thinking that drives everyone else. Louis XIV said “L’état, c’est moi!” Today’s corporate CEO says “The enterprise, that’s me!”

I’m sure we can all think of numerous CEOs who model Louis’ mindset and dozens of them have gone down in the conflagrations they started at the top.

Yesterday’s Golden Oldie revisited Steve Ballmer’s effort to transform Microsoft’s culture by edict. It didn’t work.

Ballmer seemed to channel John Kotter’s eight point approach:

1. Establish a sense of urgency.
2. Form a powerful guiding coalition.
3. Create a vision.
4. Communicate the vision.
5. Empower others to act on the vision.
6. Plan for and create short-term wins.
7. Consolidate improvements and produce still more change.
8. Institutionalize new approaches.

As Mintzberg points out, this is a top-down, command/control approach that certainly won’t fly well with today’s workforce in spite of being taught at Harvard Business School by a “transformation guru.”

Mintzberg demolishes each point (read his post) and is backed by solid brain science.

…to achieve this result, people throughout the company need to change their behavior and practices, and that can’t happen by simple decree. (…) New behaviors can be put in place, but only by reframing attitudes that are so entrenched that they are almost literally embedded in the physical pathways of employees’ neurons. These beliefs have been reinforced over the years through everyday routines and hundreds of workplace conversations. They all have the same underlying theme: “That’s the way we do things around here.”

The most dynamic, ongoing case study of transformation is being played out publicly at Uber.

It will be interesting to see which approach Uber’s new CEO Dara Khosrowshahi uses.

Image credit: Howard Hecht

I read a post by Ellen Pao in Medium in which she asks if anything has really changed.

On its face, it all sounds like meaningful change, right? Or at least it sounds a lot better than the very recent public shaming of women who came forward and the sweeping of bad behavior under the rug. (…) Public apologies and one-off actions are superficial ways to react to criticism or put on a happy face, but they often cover up company culture failures that are hard to fix, especially if no one is seriously trying.

While there have been multiple resignations and apologies (complete with crocodile tears), do you really believe that any of these wealthy, well-known, white guys will land anywhere but on their feet? That their actions will have any permanent effect on their future?

If so, you’re living on a planet to which I’d love to emigrate.

Whereas the women who went public will pay a heavy toll.

I [Pao] have heard from several women who spoke up in this newspaper and elsewhere this year that they continue to face harassment. They have been told that discussing their experiences has limited their careers.

After virtual reality startup UploadVR was sued for sexual harassment in May, a male startup CEO publicly commented that lawsuits like this make him “VERY afraid to hire more [women]. It just seems like such a huge risk as CEO.” His comments went viral and he later retracted, apologized and deleted them.

Retracted, apologized, deleted, none of which is likely to have changed his attitude.

Speaking of UploadVR, which had, and probably still has, one of the worst, sex-drenched cultures in Silicon Valley.

The Valley will protect it, because it isn’t just a guy or a company, but a hub for the VR crowd and, collectively, they need it.

While current publicity is heavily focused on tech, the same actions are alive and well in many venues from the University of Rochester’s Department of Brain and Cognitive, one of the top graduate programs in the US, to women in sports broadcasting.

Are things getting better? Maybe.

But as long as there are no long-term ill effects for guys there is little reason for them to do the hard work of educating against bias, both inherent and societal, and changing culture.

Nothing is as simple as it seems. Be sure to read about an experience, shared by an East Coast founder (published September 20), that turns a spotlight on rarely mentioned fall-out from the harassment problem.

Image credit: TimOve