A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here.

As a founder I’m identified as a leader, but I don’t believe that any position makes one a leader.

Nor do visions, speeches, brilliant presentations or skilled fundraising.

I believe you recognize a leader by the quality of their team.

That doesn’t mean hiring someone else’s stars, it means hiring good people and providing all of them an environment that helps them become stars.

Over the years, I’ve collected short quotes that inspire me and help me become a leader in fact, not just in name.

Here is one of my favorites.

The task of leadership is not to put greatness into humanity, but to elicit it, for the greatness is already there.
John Buchan,
historian and political leader

I hope you find it as useful as I have.

Image credit: Wikipedia

A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here

Founder: I can’t be a good leader without knowing my people. How I can contribute to their life?

Me: You are going to have a lot of people who have no interest in sharing their personal life with you or having you contribute to it other than providing a great place to work.

Founder: How? I am a leader who prefers 1 on 1

Me: It’s not about you, it’s about them and what interaction they prefer; and as the company grows you will not have time or access for 1/1, unless you plan to interfere with your managers’ organizations. What it is about is the culture you create.

Founder: You can’t lead if you can’t connect.

Me: Connection is not always 1/1; that’s why culture is so important.

Founder: You have to know your people.

Me: No, you need to know your direct reports and know that they are supporting your culture. Anyway, good leadership should be spread around your company and not just the province of certain positions.

Founder: You can’t convince me. I have had coffee with my subordinates to know them and that catapulted us. Culture is about having a tea, cappuccino with my subordinates and talking about stuff, then car-pooling.

Me: I’m not saying to stop, I’m saying it won’t work with everyone, plus, you won’t have time as the company grows. There are many people who have no interest in that kind of intimate, personal relationship with their boss, but are world-class hires. They care about the company’s culture because they know it reflects the founder’s values.

Me: Moreover, bosses who can only relate 1/1 are often seen as playing favorites, because they tend to favor those who respond to their approach.

Me: If you try to cram every hire into any one, narrow MAP it will cost you talent and engagement, because those who don’t like it will either walk or disengage.

Me: The important takeaway here is that when it comes to worker interaction one size does not fit all.

Image credit: HikingArtist

“I sometimes say things — just stupid, little remarks — and expect people to just ignore them. They will not. They will not. Every little thing you say is something that will stick in people’s heads.” –Amazon CTO Werner Vogels 

Livefyre CEO Jordan Kretchmer, said that he’s made a “benign comment that pissed off the whole sales team.”

Chief product officer of Interaxon, Trevor Coleman, said that once at a happy hour he joked about taking the company in a completely new direction. The following day, an employee asked him — quite seriously — what the next steps for that change would be.

LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner said that every offhand comment he made would turn into a “massively disruptive fire drill…”

There is no such thing as a benign or casual comment, throwaway thought or product/strategy-related joke when you are a senior manager.

This is nothing new. I wrote about the same thing in 2006 and the event I described happened 20 years before that.

The question isn’t how to mitigate the damage; the real question is how do we change the thinking that fosters it in every new generation of leaders.

Image credit: Ben Beltran

A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read allIf the Shoe Fits posts here

Jim Heskett, Baker Foundation Professor, Emeritus, at Harvard Business School is my favorite brain at HBS Working Knowledge (if you don’t already subscribe, you should).

His postings are designed to stimulate discussion from a diverse and intelligent audience.

Most recently he asked why, since “servant leadership” has proved to be highly productive and valuable to both the organization and the person practicing it, it wasn’t seen more frequently.

(Many people like to infuse “servant leadership” with a religious theme, but that isn’t its source.)

Although Heskett was focused on CEOs, the conversation applies to everybody in a so-called leadership position, i.e., bosses.

Reading through some of the 116 comments, number 11, from Phillip Clark, Clark & Associates, caught my eye—probably because it perfectly summed up my own crotchety thoughts; he even ends his comment with one of my favorite lines.

Rather than write my own version, I thought I’d share his in its entirety.

Ego and Stupidity to put it bluntly stands in the way of having more servant leadership in the workplace. Normally, I am not so blunt but after 50 years in the workforce I am becoming old and crotchety about this discussion.

Let’s look at the issue. The “I’m more important than you” leadership usually limits performance and innovation because everything goes through a single control point the leader. The leader has to be always informed, has to give permission, always has “the best ideas” and focuses only on performance goals that make him, not necessarily the company, look good. That creates a huge bottleneck on the performance of the leader’s employees.

A servant leader, focused on getting the most from his or her employees, empowers and trains their employees to do their job, without the “mother may I” albatross hanging around their neck. The servant leader sends the employees working on the project to meetings and links them with resources to do their job. That way the employees can do their job without having to go through the single choke point “the leader”. This type of leader is not loaded with meetings because his or her staff are doing the job. It no longer is about ego but performance. What really is an eye opener is seeing the servant leaders influence explode throughout an organization since they seem to be everywhere. When really it is their influence being expressed by their entire staff at multiple points in the organization at the same time. Bottom line…hire right, support effectively, expect performance….and you will get it.

As a leader…do not become the choke point in your organization. How can you tell? Are you going to too many meetings where you have to follow-up and pass information to others? Are you overworked with too many interruptions from employees? Are you demanding deadlines to meet goals instead of having work appear on your desk completed? Are your employees happy and getting promoted? If not, take a close look in the mirror.

Which kind of leader are you?

Image credit: HikingArtist

According to Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com, his number one job is empowering his people.

“Thinking about how I can empower my employees to be a part of the growth and innovation of the company.”

While employee empowerment is acknowledged as of key importance, it is an elusive goal for many CEOs, executives and managers. What makes Hsieh different?

Security.

Hsieh is comfortable in his own skin; secure in his own competency and limitations, so he doesn’t need to be the font from which all else flows.

As he points out, one good idea a day from him won’t come close to matching one good idea a year from each employee and not just the highly visible ones.

Some of the best ideas come from places a CEO would never have thought of.”

But employee empowerment often hits a positional brick wall that starts with the CEO and filters down through the ranks of the company’s positional leaders.

There are thousands of executives and managers who are insecure and the level of their insecurity defines to whom they will listen.

Most CEO’s who look at their corporate culture from the top-down are really preventing their company to grow faster, better, and more profitably.

And Just as true for other positional leaders as it is for the CEO.

What is most ironic is that by empowering employees, listening to everyone, adopting the good ideas without prejudice and publicly acknowledging their source does as much to enhance you as it does to push your group/company to greater success.

Flickr image credit: ZedBee | Zoë Power

Many of the news reports and stories I read leave me with the same unanswered question, ‘why’?

Why do people with everything do such incredibly stupid things?

Why do they risk losing it all—and often do?

To paraphrase a question, what’s in it for them?

And more importantly, what can be done about it?

Bill George, Professor of Management Practice and Henry B. Arthur Fellow of Ethics at Harvard Business School wrote an article on the subject. Focused on positional leaders in a variety of circumstances it considers “Why Leaders Lose Their Way,” but his solution, while correct, is old and tired. Not to mention that he’s preaching to the choir—those who listen are on the right path already and those who should won’t.

While George’s approach offers nothing new, Dave Balter, founder of BzzAgent, provides a much more compelling story that should provide a wake-up call to anyone who’s ego is on the way to, or has already gotten, out of hand.

Interestingly, there is a ‘why’ on the other side of the coin, too, but it’s one that goes unnoticed, buried in positive actions and the (well earned) praise sung by the media.

I’m referring to the actions of people such as Angelina Jolie, Bono and now, Matt Damon. If you aren’t aware of the role he’s created for himself, read about it. It surpasses by far anything else he’s taken on before.

Image credit:  MykReeve on flickr

True leadership often defies conventional wisdom about what works and what doesn’t in order to succeed.

Conventional wisdom says that a high school with 4100 students and 300 teachers is doomed to fail, which it did until a giant dose of in-house of initiative and tenacity turned it around.

In 2000 only a quarter of Brockton students passed statewide exams and a third dropped out; compare that to now.

This year and last, Brockton outperformed 90 percent of Massachusetts high schools.

This wasn’t accomplished by a charismatic, visionary leader who came from outside, firing up the troops and getting rid of dead wood.

It came from a group of teachers working under a principal who did nothing.

That team of leaders took the initiative, meeting on their own time to craft an approach that would work.

Then Susan Szachowicz and a handful of fellow teachers decided to take action. They persuaded administrators to let them organize a school wide campaign that involved reading and writing lessons into every class in all subjects, including gym.

An approach that didn’t cost more money, but one that fundamentally changed Brockton’s culture.

Moreover, they had the tenacity to keep selling the concepts to their peers in the face of doubt and resistance. Not just with words, but with support and training.

In just one year test scores rose dramatically.

Overnight, the restructuring committee gained enormous credibility, and scores of once-reluctant teachers wanted to start attending its Saturday meetings, which continue today.

Szachowicz became principal in 2004, replacing the positional leader who did nothing.

Read the article (it includes a link to the Harvard study) and remember it the next time conventional wisdom tries to dictate to you what can and can’t be done.

Image credit: Tombstone image generator

It’s something we all know, although we tend to forget, leadership and positional leadership are not the same thing. Because anyone/everyone can lead, within the framework of their own lives, much of the information available about and for positional leaders can be absorbed and used by all.

Of course, there are always those in positions of leadership that don’t lead, while some lead backwards and some even ass backwards but, sadly, it doesn’t seem to matter when it comes to their paychecks.

Not that all positional leaders should be tarred by the same brush; there is still a lot for everyman to learn from leadership teaching from sources such as these.

Over the past six years, starting as a project focused on women that now includes men, McKinsey has developed a vision they call “centered leadership” that includes five specific dimensions. You may find it useful in putting more meaning and balance in your own life. (Free registration required.)

This concept has five dimensions: meaning, or finding your strengths and putting them to work in the service of a purpose that inspires you; positive framing, or adopting a more constructive way to view your world and convert even difficult situations into opportunities; connecting, or building a stronger sense of community and belonging; engaging, or pursuing opportunities disguised by risk; and energizing, or practicing ways to sustain your energy on a long leadership journey.

Do (did) you love or hate Shakespeare? Besides being one of humanity’s most accomplished writers, Shakespeare, like Lao Tzu, offers brilliant insights for all those who want to excel. Check out how Carol and Ken Adelman, founders of Movers & Shakespeares, use Henry V to teach leadership and let Shakespeare’s ideas guide you.

Henry V’s leadership skills and his ability to innovate in ways that would turn significant disadvantages into game-winning advantages.

What can you learn about leading a ‘culture of innovation’ on your iPod? And learn it not from a podcast, but through music from a guy who has constantly reinvented himself and his music to stay relevant in the current world.

Even if there is “darkness on the edge of town” today, when it comes to leading your company’s growth efforts with innovation expertise, there is no reason for your organization to be a casualty when you could instead “walk in the sun” (Born to Run).

And that’s not the only musical source from which you can draw lessons in leading, innovation, extending, inventing and reinventing yourself.

From business to fashion, Lady Gaga is an innovator, and she also makes a strong case as a leader.

Flickr image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pedroelcarvalho/2812091311/

Leadership has become a catchword, a panacea, a supposed solution to whatever ails us as a nation and a world. It is what people get degrees in, strive to be and worry that they are failures if they aren’t recognizes as leaders.

There is a fantasy that positive leadership is an integral trait of positional leaders no matter how many times that has proved to be a false assumption.

Another assumption about positional leaders is their ability to see the big picture; also proven to be untrue. Here are two excellent examples of narrow, short-term thinking—one stupidity that just happened in a small biz and the other from a corporate titan 56 years ago.

The former is another stupidity from Subway, the company best know for $5 foot longs and a bullet-ridden foot. The most recent foot shot happened in Dartmouth, NS when a worker was fired for giving her own lunch to two fellow apartment dwellers after a fire left them homeless (she also offered them lodging in her own apartment which wasn’t damaged in the fire); Quiznos, being more publicity-wise, hired her.

The older stupidity was perpetrated by the original Bell Labs, one of the most prolific research organizations that ever existed, and is a story that has been repeated in one way or another by companies large and small ever since.

Executives recognized that many of those moving up the management ladder lacked the broad thinking skills that would enable them to function as leaders in the future, so they set out to provide an intense program to remedy the situation. The remedy succeeded beyond their expectations in that the attendees learned to thing for themselves and those thoughts didn’t dovetail with the slavish corporate mentality the executives desired the program was shut down, … executives came out of the program more confident and more intellectually engaged, they were also less interested in putting the company’s bottom line ahead of their commitments to their families and communities. (I hope you take a moment to read this fascinating story.)

It should be noted that authoritarian leaders, whether of companies or countries, have always known that education and strong positive values are anathema to their continued power.

How do you define leadership?

Join me tomorrow for a look at this question.

Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hikingartist/4192572927/

Post from Leadership Turn Image credit: Daniel Voyager from TSL

An interesting post over at Collab@work led me to the Executive Summary of an HBS study on how multiplayer games hone leadership skills.

“…the authors studied people who headed up teams in online games. They also sought the insights of gamers who have led real-world business teams at IBM.”

“The authors identified three distinctive characteristics of leadership in online games that, as workplaces and the overall business climate become more dynamic and gamelike, will be essential for tomorrow’s leaders: speed, risk taking, and acceptance of leadership roles as temporary.”

It is the last condition, people acceptance that leadership roles are temporary based on the needed skills at that particular moment and for that particular effort, that will be the hardest sell.

In his blog post, Romuald says, “…in those games, leaders are not designated but rather elected… All team members want to win… So they will elect the one leader that can bring them victory.”

The researchers say that “…nonmonetary incentives built into a game economy strongly motivate individuals to accomplish group aims.”

Temporary leadership happens all the time, but because companies, churches and government insist on connecting ‘leadership’ to ‘position’ via assumptions—if you’re in X role then by definition you’re a leader—makes getting ‘leaders’ to admit that leading is a temporary function all the more difficult.

How would you make leadership less positional?

Your comments—priceless

Don’t miss a post, subscribe via RSS or EMAIL