Leadership Trends and Realities

When Trust is Broken - Lessons Learned

Reposted from Lead Change Group blog.  

When it comes to people working for my company, I made a promise when I first started to be true to myself and my values and to model “loving and kind” actions in dealing with my staff.  We became the company of “loving and kind” people.  And no, we’re not a bunch of “touchy feelys.”  We simply believe in the value of every individual and in honoring what they bring to our company. We don’t all think alike nor do we have the same skills or knowledge, but it takes a well-rounded, cohesive team to succeed.

So what does this mean?

Your employees are watching… They see what you do every day.  They read your emails, corporate memos and hear your hallway, bathroom, and lunchroom conversations with others.  They listen intently to see if what they were told is the same “line” being told to everyone. People yearn for truth and want to trust their peers and leaders.  And just as important, they want to trust that “what they see is what they get.”  I’ve always told my employees that “I’m not that deep.  Take what I say at face value and know that you can bank on it.” After all, life is way too long and my memory is way too short to remember different tales of the same incident. Better to be transparent and honest all the time!

This sounds good, huh?

Well, there was a short time in our company history where I was deceived by a leader who was keeping up appearances but wasn’t modeling the loving and kind behavior defined in our core values.  All had been going well.  Business was clicking along, and I thought we were winning on the “happy employees” scale. Unfortunately with growth comes hiring new people – and sometimes they just don’t fit with your culture.

We had hired a new instructional design manager – let’s call her Mary.  She was uber qualified with degrees, experience, and a smile in the interviews that drew me in.  She knew the right words to fill my trust meter. I believed what she told me was truthful and that what she was saying to me was the same as she was telling/instructing her direct reports – our talented, committed employees and contractors.

Here’s how it played out:

Mary was business-like and very organized. After only a short time, she attended our 1-on-1 meetings prepared with all the appropriate paperwork completed and ready to bring me up to speed on the projects in her area.  She said all the right words that led me to believe that everything was fine with the projects and our people. I’m a type A, get to the bottom-line kinda gal, so I was feeling very comfortable with how our meetings were going.

Unfortunately, after a few months went by, the unspeakable happened.  I realized that I had stopped walking among the troupes to keep communication open among us! I was just listening to Mary.  Luckily, on the Friday of Mary’s last day of PTO, her direct reports felt “safe” to come and speak with me.  Whew – glad they still believed in me!  Yep, NOT just one, but EVERYONE from the instructional design department lined up in the hallway next to my office waiting for their turn to tell me how the “real Mary” was nothing like I thought. In their own words, they explained that Mary was verbally abusive, unforgiving of mistakes, rude, and just plain mean. She didn’t have a sense of humor and simply didn’t fit in with our cultural morals.

A person of action, I immediately called an emergency meeting of all employees.  I knew everyone in that meeting well.  They were honest, hard-working professionals that liked working in our “loving and kind” company.  They would not have chosen such a dramatic way to get my attention had they not tried to solve the issues on their own. Yep, they had talked with Mary, pleaded and even cried in her office, but Mary was just a tough nut to crack that didn’t believe in “loving and kind.”

Our HR Director and I took care of her firing – with Mary screaming and threatening us as we walked her out of the building. Let’s just say she showed me her true colors – enough that I called the authorities to make sure my employees were safe!

Don’t ding us for this quick fire…

• It was the right decision for keeping our company healthy.
• We ALWAYS play by the rules and it was a legal fire.
• We’re a small, limber company that is fair to a fault.
• It would have done more harm to keep Mary around.
• We could have given her time to try and change her ways, but we have lost many of our esteemed colleagues as they would not work for her any longer.
• Mary’s management style just didn’t fit.
• She was simply a bad hire.

The moral of this story:

Stay true to your values and trust your employees.  Keep your doors open and keep communication two-way with as many people in your company as possible. Provide an environment that PROVES it’s safe to speak up. If you model the behavior you want, your people will thrive and help you keep your corporate values alive and well!

Jonena

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TBD Consulting has a 21-year, proven track record for ensuring employee performance improvement which translates to employee performance success. Whether you need help developing an in-house training organization, create a Lean Academy, or simply need "extra hands" to meet your deadlines or ROI goals, please contact Jonena. She and her qualified staff are here to assist you with your organizational development, coaching and training initiatives.

Corporate Office 602-263-1961.  Email Jonena today!

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Coach Talk: Transforming Leaders

Bob Craig

"I am personally convinced that one person can be a change catalyst, a 'transformer' in any situation, any organization. Such an individual is yeast that can leaven an entire loaf. It requires vision, initiative, patience, respect, persistence, courage, and faith to be a transforming leader."  What I have always loved about Stephen Covey is the clarity and simplicity of what he wants us to know. Since his passing, I have been carefully reading through articles from him and have started to re-read The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. As you look at his quote up above, those are very simply the qualities you need to lead people. You can use them as a sort of checklist to ask yourself how’re you doing, what you need to develop. Notice that it all starts with a vision of where you’re going, what you’re doing, what is the goal. Without a vision no one follows you anywhere. Take some time today to reflect on those qualities, pick one you want to grow. Effective leaders are always re-inventing, re-learning, re-modeling themselves. Be thoughtful about it, ask your peers what quality they see you needing more of and then set about growing it. Have fun today.

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Approach to Leading and Winning - Step 9

Earl Cobb

Focused Leadership is a book which provides you a synopsis of the approach I diligently crafted, refined and applied in order to get the leadership results I desired over my 30-year career leading large and small organization in Fortune 500 companies as well venture capital backed start-ups. In Focused Leadership I have incorporated a series of informative and concise discussions regarding my leadership approach, which I now call the “10-Step Approach to Leading and Winning”. 

Step 1: Leading with Intention, Not Authority

Step 2: Envision the End at the Start

Step 3: Articulate Your Vision, Repeatedly

Step 4: Don't Allow Bumps in the Road Distract You

Step 5: Energize Others to Do Their Best

Step 6: It's Not All About You

Step 7: Set a Course Lined with Short-term Successes

Step 8: Have the Courage to Make the Right Decisions 

Step 9: Insist on Accountability and Respect from All

Creating a greater accountability at every level of your organization is a means to gaining both organizational improvement and building an organization of mutual respect. When you fail to hold others accountable, you reap the consequences ---some obvious and some not so obvious.

Accountability is the willingness and interest to assume responsibility for one’s work and actions. It occurs only when team members accept full ownership of the results of their work. Without accountability, your organization is incapable of achieving and sustaining its best performance.

In leading high performance organizations, I have always made a concerted effort to utilize personal and team accountability to drive the execution of strategy and the accomplishment of organizational goals. Although the prospect of instilling accountability throughout an entire organization can seem daunting, I have found that each team member within an organization has the capability, if called upon, to contribute to building personal and team accountability. However, accountability is not something you can make people do. It has to be chosen, accepted and agreed upon by all the members within your organization. Your team must “buy in” to being accountable and responsible.

Also as a leader, it is vital that the people you are leading have respect for you. If you have their respect, they will work harder and longer to help you reach your vision.

Mutual respect is one of many values that most organizations seek to institutionalize. Like all values, it cannot be legislated or regulated into existence. However, it can be learned and it can be coached. It must also be demonstrated by you as the team’s leader.

From an organizational context, a team’s respect is not something handed to you when you take on a new leadership role. It is an essential leadership quality that you must build and earn over time. I have learned that if you know what you want, maintain a positive attitude, make yourself available and value team member differences, you can accelerate the process.

Although there is no sure method for gaining respect in a leadership role or instilling accountability instantly within an organization, as the team’s leader you should still insist on accountability and respect from all. Then, you should aggressively establish and embrace a workplace environment which will provide nourishment to both.

INSIST ON ACCOUNTABILITY AND RESPECT FROM ALL

Earl Cobb is the author of "Focused Leadership: What You Can Do Today to Become a More Effective Leader", and an American “rags-to-riches” success story. Through his hard work, dedication and faith, Earl has forged an accomplished career as a systems engineer, project/program manager, and gifted entrepreneur. He is also a highly respected senior management executive. He has enjoyed over twenty-five years of success within Fortune 100 companies including Honeywell, Inc., Motorola, Inc. and Wells Fargo Bank. He is the former President and CEO of MedContrax, Inc.

You can contact Earl at earl@richerlifellc. You can find his website at  www.richerlifellc.com

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Quality Check for Meetings

Robert Whipple, LeaderGrow.com

For most of us, meetings are our most significant time-wasting activity. If you have not found yourself frustrated while sitting in a useless meeting with no escape, you must be a hermit.

The interesting thing is that we, the participants, really do have the power to manage these interfaces between people in ways that are productive, impactful, and fun. In this article, I want to focus on a simple quality check as a means to improve meetings.

The way time is used in meetings is a part of the overall culture of a team. Managing meetings well is one activity that will improve team performance, but it should not be done in a vacuum. It should be a part of an overall process to improve trust and accountability within the team.  Leaders normally set the pace for what goes on in any team, so they need to take a lead role in managing meetings for better outcomes.

I advocate that teams have a quick evaluation at the end of each meeting. The leader simply states the following.  "Our time is precious, and meetings use a lot of time. It is our responsibility to make sure we are making the best use of every minute.  How many of you think this meeting was an excellent investment."  The feedback can be in the form of a quick discussion, a questionnaire, or, if trust is high already, just a thumbs up for good, thumbs down for bad. Of course, if a binary vote turns out to be mostly negative, a conversation needs to take place to understand the specific issues. It can take less than a minute, but it gives a quick feedback.  The other benefit is that it lets people know the leader is not clueless and is open to suggested improvements for next time.

For this method to be fruitful, the leader must establish an environment of trust. People need to know they will not be punished, in any way, for giving their opinions. If the leader reacts well to comments, even if the input suggests the leader is wasting the group's time, then trust will be enhanced. Another benefit occurs if the leader includes other people in planning future events to prevent the same problem at the next meeting.

It is critical if the leader does such an evaluation that he or she follows up and actually makes the changes suggested.  A subsequent time check should not bring up the same issues.  If it does, then stronger action is required before going further. The leader is responsible for the follow up and modification of meeting processes, even though he or she may ask for help from others as well.

This quality check allows everyone to take ownership of the meeting process to ensure it is vital and adding value.  If there are problems in the meeting format or content, they can be addressed before the next meeting, so bad habits are not proliferated.  I urge you to add this simple check to the end of all your meetings.  It will pay big dividends.

Robert Whipple, MBA, CPLP, is a consultant, trainer, speaker, and author in the areas of leadership and trust.  He is the author of: The Trust Factor: Advanced Leadership for Professionals, Understanding E-Body Language: Building Trust Online, and Leading with Trust is Like Sailing Downwind.  Bob has many years as a senior executive with a Fortune 500 Company and with non-profit organizations.  For more information, or to bring Bob in to speak at your next event, contact him at www.Leadergrow.com, [email protected]

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