Robert Whipple, www.leadergrow.com
There are hundreds of leadership assessments for leaders. The content and quality of these assessments vary greatly. You can spend a lot of time and money taking surveys to tell you the quality of your leadership. There are a few leading indicators that can be used to give a pretty good picture of the overall quality of your leadership. These are not good for diagnosing problems or specifying corrective action, but they can tell you where you stand quickly. Here are several of my favorite measures - we will be posting all 23 dimensions throughout the month.
#7 Connects Well with People
A good way to evaluate the quality of a leader is to watch the way he connects with people both upward and downward. Great leaders are known for being real rather than phony. People describe the great ones as being “a nice guy” or “approachable” or “like a friend.” The idea is the leader does not act aloof and talk down to people. There is no pedestal separating the leader from people in the organization.
There are numerous ways a leader can demonstrate the genuine connection with people. For example, John chambers, CEO of Cisco works from a 12X12 foot cubicle and answers his own phone. There is no executive washroom and no corporate plane. Other leaders dress more like the workers in jeans and polo shirt rather than suit and tie. Probably the most helpful way to be connected to people is to walk the deck often. There is a way you can tell if you are getting enough face time with people.
When you approach a group of workers on the shop floor, watch their body language. If they stiffen up and change their posture, you know that your visit it too much of a special event. If the group continues with the same body language, but just welcomes you into the conversation, then you are doing enough walking of the deck. They used to call this habit MBWA – short for Management By Walking Around. It is, by far, the most enjoyable and easiest way to stay connected with people.
Likewise, the great leader knows how to stay connected with the people above him. In this case MBWA does not work too well because there is no real “shop floor” for upper management. Being accessible helps, so know the layout and drop by on occasion to check in. Do not be a pest – there is a fine line.
One suggestion is to experiment with the preferred modes of communication of your superiors. For example I can recall the best way to keep in touch with one of my bosses was through voice mail. Another boss would rarely reply to voice mail or e-mail, so I would make sure to stop by to see her physically.
One tip that was helpful to me was to arrive very early in the morning – before any of the bosses were present. Most executives arrive at work before the general population to prepare for the day and get some quiet work done before the masses arrive. I would always be in my office working when the boss arrived. There were many occasions when something had to be done to help the boss very early in the morning. Since I was the only one around, I had the opportunity to do little favors for the boss to help her out. Over time that builds up a kind of bond.
Beating the boss in to work consistently demonstrates a kind of dedication. The boss has no way of knowing when you arrived. You could have gotten there just 5 minutes before her or already been hard at work for an hour. I always enjoyed having my car make the first set of tracks in the snow of the manager’s parking lot. Over time, that built up a helpful reputation for me that paid off.
#8 Firm but Fair
Great leaders know how to navigate the minefield of being compassionate but have a sense of discipline within the organization. It really is a delicate balance. You need to make accommodations in some circumstances and draw a firm line on others.
We have all seen leaders who are too eager to please. They bend over backwards to be accommodating to the outside needs of people in the organization. In return, people take advantage of the leader and make more requests for special consideration. Also, since people can observe the concessions made by the leader with other people, a sense of equity demands that when a similar situation comes up the same concession is extended to others. Before long, the leader has lost all sense of control. In a desperate attempt to regain order, the leader tries to draw lines on the sand. This is annoying to people who have become accustom to a more lax interpretation of the rules. So, being too accommodating is dangerous.
On the flip side, going too much “by the book” gains one a reputation for being a hard ass. That reputation limits the amount of discretionary effort people are willing to expend. If a leader shows little compassion for the typical tight spots people find themselves in, he becomes an ogre that demands respect through command and control. Scrooge, before his transformation, was a good example of this kind of leader.
Neither of these extremes is desirable. The “sweet spot” is to have a reputation for being firm with application of the rules, but compassionate as well and willing to be flexible in extreme cases. Also, be cognizant of the need for fairness. This implies putting a damper on the issue of playing favorites. I have written elsewhere on the issue of favorites. Briefly, we need to recognize that we cannot avoid having favorites within any population. We are human beings. What the great leader does is show in many ways that, even though there are favorites, he does not “play favorites.” To avoid this, the leader tries to treat each person as a favorite and operates outside his comfort zone for some small percentage of the time.
One obvious thing that some leaders miss is that being firm implies having standards. Neither of the extremes in this dimension is advisable. On the one hand, you can have a burdensome employee manual with thousands of rules that people find hard to remember. If you find yourself “hiding behind” the employee manual when making decisions on personal requests, you may be in danger of over doing the bureaucratic mumbo jumbo. On the other extreme is the office where there are no formal rules, and we just try to always do what is right. That is a slippery slope because without some form of standards people don’t know what to expect.
The optimum position is to have a crisp and concise set of expectations, and everyone should know they are enforced. People should also be aware that there are emergency situations where a rule can be waived, but those situations are rare. Knowing when to grant an exception is what puts the art in leadership. In general it is best to lean toward the formal side.
#9 Admits Mistakes
All leaders make mistakes. Few leaders relish the opportunity to publicly admit them. I think that is wrong thinking. For many types of mistakes a public “mia culpa” is a huge deposit in the trust account. Sure, there are types of mistakes that should not be flaunted before the general population. For example, if a mistake is similar to one that a leader has made several times in the past, it is not a good idea to stand up in front of a group and say, “well folks, I did it again.” Likewise if a mistake is such a bonehead move it brings into question the sanity of a leader, it is not a good idea to admit it. But barring those kinds of issues, if an honest mistake was made, getting up and admitting it, apologizing, and asking for forgiveness is cathartic.
I once had the opportunity to call people together and admit a mistake I had made in a budget meeting the previous day. People were not happy to hear the news that I inadvertently gave away $10K, but I did have a steady stream of people come to my office later to tell me my apology was accepted and that my little speech hit a home run on the shop floor. Reason: people do not expect leaders to apologize because it is almost never done. You catch people off guard when you do it, and it has a major impact on trust.
Apologizing upward is another tricky area that can have a profound impact. The same caveats for apologizing downward apply here; if a mistake was plain stupid or it is the same one you have made before, best not admit it to the boss unless some serious damage would result. But if you have made an honest mistake, admitting this to the boss can be a big trust builder. This is especially true if the boss would never know unless you told him.
I recall a situation in my career where I had inadvertently divulged some company information while on a business trip in Japan. Nobody in my company would ever know I had slipped in my deportment, but it bothered me. I took some special action to mitigate the mistake and went hat in hand to my boss. I said, “Dick, I need to talk to you. I made a mistake when I was in Japan last week. You would never know this unless I told you, but here is what happened…” I then described how I let a magazine be copied where I had written some notes in the margin. I described how I retrieved the copy and was given assurances that other copies had not been made. My boss said “Well, Bob, you are right, that is not the smartest thing you ever did, but thanks for letting me know about it, and I forgive you.”
That short meeting with my boss increased his trust in me substantially, and I received several promotions over the next few years that I can trace to his confidence in me. Granted, his confidence was influenced by numerous good things I had done, but by admitting something that I did not need to do, the relationship was strengthened rather than weakened. This is powerful stuff, but it must be used in the right way at the right time for the right reason.
After making a mistake most leaders try to hide it, downplay the importance, blame others, or use some other method to try to weasel out of it. Often these actions serve to lower trust. Consider taking the opportunity to apologize publicly, Often it is a great way to build trust. Use this technique carefully and infrequently, and it can be a positive influence on the quality of your leadership.
Robert Whipple is also the author of Leading with Trust is like Sailing Downwind and, Understanding E-Body Language: Building Trust Online. Bob consults and speaks on these and other leadership topics. He is CEO of Leadergrow Inc. a company dedicated to growing leaders. Contact Bob at bwhipple@leadergrow.com
Thanks for this leadership assessment. Very impressive stuff indeed.
Posted by: Sample Assessments | March 15, 2012 at 05:19 AM