…your people want a chance to lead too. They want to be led, but they also want to lead.
One of the challenges of leadership is knowing when to slide out of the driver’s seat and let someone else take the wheel. It’s risky: he could make a wrong turn; she could hit a pothole; they could collide with each other.
Remember what it was like when you let your 15-year-old drive for the first time? Did you toss him the keys and say, “Good luck,” or did you find a low-traffic straight road for her first driving experience? Eventually, he got to back out of the driveway and she got to experience the terror of an 18-wheeler roaring past at 75 mph. You were in the passenger seat for both occasions. The big day was when you handed over the keys and said, “Why don’t you drive yourself to school today?” If you got this far without a fender bender you were lucky. Later came the first road trip (spring break in FL?) and at some point it was, “It’s your car now.”
Of course, you could avoid all these risks by choosing to be your child’s chauffer for life. But do you really want your 30-year-old to be totally dependent on you? And do you really want your employees to be totally dependent on you? If you do, stay in the driver’s seat all the time. If you don’t, sooner or later, you are going to have to hand them the keys and say, “You drive today.” Will you have a fender bender or two? Probably. Do it anyway.
True North Leadership #1 was “It’s not about you.” #2 was “You can only lead people.” #3 was “People are different.” #4 was “People actually want you to lead them.” Finally, #5 is “They also want to lead.” Give them a chance. You can go a lot farther with more than one driver.
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© Copyright 2013 by Dick Wells, The Hard Lessons Company
…people want to be led. They don’t want to be bossed…micromanaged…controlled…or bullied, but they want their leader to lead. No team wants to take the field without a coach; no actor wants to take the stage without a director; no business can survive without a leader. People do not want to be leaderless. Without a leader, people feel insecure. Without a leader, there is no one to set the pace and example. Without a leader, people are directionless.
Among my worst leadership moments was when one of my direct reports (a V.P.) looked me square in the eyes and said, “Lead me.” He was trying to give me a message: “I need more from you than I am getting.” Sadly, I missed it, didn’t change anything, and he continued frustrated and leaderless from his viewpoint.
True North Leadership #1 was “It’s not about you.” #2 was “You can only lead people.” And #3 was “People are different.”
#4 is: t
hose people you are leading actually want you to lead them. So don’t shrink back. Step it up and lead!
Not sure how? Ask your people what they really need from you—don’t assume you know. Learn from other leaders. Ask an experienced and effective leader to mentor you. Go to the Willow Creek Leadership Summit. Read Leadership Is An Art and Leadership Jazz by Max De Pree and a host of other books. (16 Stones has a recommended reading list. Check it out at 16stonesbook.com)
Every day is a good day to lead. You can do it. Your people need you to do it. So do it!
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© Copyright 2013 by Dick Wells, The Hard Lessons Company
…people are different—so you can’t lead them all the same way..
It is not true that “treating everyone the same” is a successful leadership strategy. People are different—a lot different—and successful and effective leaders recognize this truth and lead accordingly.
For example, most everyone wants praise for good work, but not everyone wants it in public.
Some people bristle when told how to do something; others want a lot of input from the boss and feel abandoned if they don’t get it.
Some people are extroverts; some are introverts.
On the DISC scale, some are high Ds; some are high Cs. Don’t try leading them the same way!
Some are superstars, some are stars, and some are mere mortals who show up and do a good job in the back office, or media room, or nursery, or receiving dock. You can’t lead them all the same way.
The people you are trying to lead are different from you and from each other, so don’t lead them the way you like to be led, and don’t lead them as if they are all clones.
To lead your people effectively, you are going to have to know them. To know them, you are going to have to spend some time with them. And don’t—ever—say you don’t have time. True North Leadership #2 was: you can only lead people. If you don’t have time for people, how on earth can you expect to lead them?
Adapted from chapter 9 of 16 Stones, available in print at 16stonesbook.com, and in E-book from Amazon or Barnes and Noble.
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© Copyright 2013 by Dick Wells, The Hard Lessons Company
…you can only lead people.
You can’t lead machines; you operate them.
You can’t lead tractors; you drive them.
You can’t lead computers; you program them.
You can’t lead a vision; you cast it.
You can’t lead a strategy; you develop it.
You can’t lead a facility; you maintain it.
And so on….
You can only lead people. Only people can decide to willingly follow you. You can force people to follow you, but that’s not leading, it’s bossing.
Leading is always about people. So if you are going to lead, you better have passion for people. If you don’t, the people you are trying to lead will know it and will only follow you kicking and screaming because they have to. You will have to drive them and drag them. Chances are…you’ll be worn out before you get to the finish line.
Does your leading feel like hard work and drudgery? Maybe you are leading the wrong thing. Why don’t you try actually leading your people for a change?
True North Leadership #1 was: it’s not about you.
True North Leadership #2 is: you can only lead people.
Watch for #3 next week and ”raise the level of your leadership, one stone at a time.”
Adapted from chapter 2 of 16 Stones, available in print at 16stonesbook.com, and in E-book from Amazon or Barnes and Noble.
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© Copyright 2013 by Dick Wells, The Hard Lessons Company
…it’s not about you. In writing about life’s purpose, that is how Rick Warren started his mega-selling 2002 book (40+ million copies), The Purpose Driven Life.
In writing about leadership, Jim Collins was one year ahead of Warren. In his now-classic 2001 book, Good to Great, Collins identifies what he calls Level 5 leaders: they have the “personal humility” and “fierce resolve” needed to transform their companies from good to great. “Level 5 leaders,” he says, “are a study in duality: modest and willful, humble and fearless.”
About one of his Level 5 examples, Darwin Smith of Kimberly-Clark, Collins says he “…carried no airs of self-importance…never cultivated hero status or executive celebrity status.” In a 2003 Fortune magazine article, Collins named Smith as one of “The Ten Greatest CEOs of All Time.” Wow! Top ten of all time! What did all ten have in common according to Collins?
[I]f one thing defines these ten giants, it was their deep sense of connectedness to the organizations they ran. Unlike CEOs who see themselves principally as members of an executive elite—an increasingly mobile club whose members measure their pay and privileges against other CEOs…. Much depended on them, but it was never about them.
Remember the phrase, “it was never about them.” Adopting it is one of the most important steps anyone can take in trying to become an authentic and effective leader.
Whether you are leading a large corporation, a church, a small business, government department, or Little League team, the first truth you need to burn into your memory is “it’s not about you”—it’s all about the people you are trying to lead. If your leading is about your position, power, privileges and prosperity, you’ll never get enough. Want more joy and success in your leading? Start by getting over yourself!
Adapted from the introduction to 16 Stones, available in print at 16stonesbook.com, and in E-book from Amazon or Barnes and Noble.
Watch for Leadership Truths 2, 3 and 4 in the next three posts.
© Copyright 2013 by Dick Wells, The Hard Lessons Company
You have heard it many times: “The devil is in the details.” Is it true? Oh, yes.
Before you try to change the oil on your car, one detail you need to know is which drain plug is for the oil pan and which one is for the transmission pan. I once pulled the wrong plug and drained my transmission fluid instead of the oil. (Because of people like me, transmissions are now sealed and don’t have a plug.)
In Home Alone, a missed detail was that nobody bothered to count heads. It made for a very funny movie, but….
Back in my aerospace days, while touring the plant of one of our subcontractors with a U.S. Army Colonel, the plant general missed a detail: his zipper was down all day. The Colonel couldn’t remember a thing he saw except for the zipper.
In publishing 16 Stones, I discovered how hard it is to find all the missplled words.
Sometimes a missed detail leads to tragedy. In 1988, a missing safety valve (one out of hundreds) on the Rio Bravo oil rig resulted in an explosion that killed 167 men.
Whether you are the leader or not, remember: “the difference between good and great is attention to detail.”
And sometimes it is the difference between success and failure. That is why successful leaders know:
Leadership Stone #14 in 16 Stones: Raising the Level of Your Leadership One Stone at a Time is: Do Sweat The Small Stuff
Order a print copy at 16stonesbook.com. E-book available for Kindle and Nook on Amazon.com or barnesandnoble.com.
© Copyright 2013 by Dick Wells, The Hard Lessons Company
…don’t just happen; not in life, not in businesses, not in churches. When an organization—or person—is in decline, something has to change for the direction to turn upward.
For Ebay, the change was a new CEO: John Donahoe. Ebay’s stock was in free-fall from a peak of $58/share in 2004 to $30/share, and was still declining when Donahoe took the reins on March 31, 2008. It slipped to $10/per share in 2009 (along with the rest of the market), but has since rebounded to $52/share, more than twice as much as the overall market has rebounded.
You can get the whole Ebay story in EBAY’S BACK by J. P. Mangalindan (Fortune, 2/25/2013). But for my purposes in this post, the story is simple: when things are in decline, something has to change. It could mean you have to change. Either the leader has to change, or the organization has to change leaders.
I have been on the receiving end of “change the leader” scenarios. Believe me, it is a lot less painful for the leader to change than it is to change the leader. So, what are you waiting for? Today is a great day to change! Get started.
By the way, this principle applies in your personal life as well. If your health, finances, emotions or relationships are in decline, CHANGE! Waiting for others to change is a waste of time that accomplishes nothing. You change! Start today.
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© Copyright 2013 by Dick Wells, The Hard Lessons Company
As boys growing up in SW Oklahoma, our only swimming holes were stock tanks, or the Red River. Most of the year and especially during summer, the river was just a dry, wide bed of sand, some of which was quicksand.
One of our summertime games was called quicksand chicken. The winner was whoever would sink the deepest before being pulled out by his buddies. Stupid? Not so much. Unlike in the movies where the quicksand swallows up entire wagon trains, it is usually only a couple of feet deep. So somewhere about the knees or thighs, we usually hit firm sand, and if we didn’t, the cry was “chicken, chicken, get me out of here.”
Life and leadership can often be like playing quicksand chicken. So a few good things to remember are:
Unless you are super-cautious and unadventurous, you are likely to get in quicksand at some point. So expect it and don’t be surprised. If you have a quicksand escape plan, you have a good chance of getting out before you are up to your neck in…well, quicksand.
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© Copyright 2013 by Dick Wells, The Hard lessons Company.
Old B&W westerns with stagecoach chases are near the top of my list for spending downtime. Invariably, the robbers wait on a hill, let the stagecoach pass, and then give chase. The chase can go on for miles with both the chasing horses and the coach at top speed. I have never understood why the robbers don’t surprise the coach from the front rather than chase it from behind. (I suppose stagecoach robbers are not too smart and chase scenes are more exciting for movie audiences.)
Here are a few truths about stagecoach chases that apply to a lot of things in life:
So how does this apply to you? If you are worn out chasing something and your horse is about dead, if all your best shots have missed, if your dream (the beautiful girl or miners’ payroll) seems further away than ever, the remedy is QUIT CHASING SOMEONE ELSE’S STAGECOACH AND GET YOUR OWN. Quit chasing and get out front. Quit dreaming and go to work. Quit wishing you were Steve Jobs or whoever, and be yourself. There are a lot of successful stagecoach lines and there is always room for one more, but put your own name and brand on it rather than trying to borrow (steal) someone else’s. It’s a lot easier, and a lot more satisfying.
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© Copyright 2013 by Dick Wells, The Hard Lessons Company: www.hard-lessons.com
It must have happened something like this:
Henry: “Hey, Henrietta (Henry’s wife), this Loniten is a miracle drug. I feel great! My blood pressure is down to normal!”
Henrietta: “Yeah, and you’re lookin’ better too.”
Henry: “Why so?”
Henrietta: “You have fuzz on your bald spot—your hair is coming back.”
Henry: “Really? Wow. I wonder what brought that on?”
What we now know as Rogaine was originally an antihypertensive vasodilator drug used to treat high blood pressure. One of its side effects was (and still is) stimulating hair regrowth. So Loniten was repurposed from the heart to the head and renamed Rogaine.
Side effects aren’t usually positive. Listen to the fast-speaking part of drug ads and you’ll be scared to death by the “rare, but has been known to cause….”
Like drugs, organizations have a lot of side effects, usually caused by the leader’s style.
If you lead as a boss, the side effect will be that best and brightest in your organization won’t stay long.
If you use anger as a leadership tool, the side effect will be pervasive fear that buries the truth.
If the leader has favorites, the side effect will be losing the support and respect of the non-favorites.
If command and control is the leadership style, the side effect will be an organization full of yes men who never question or challenge decisions—even really bad ones.
If the organization is stuck and unwilling to change, the side effect will be obsolescence and eventually, disappearance.
I could give a lot of other examples, but the point is, remember this: everything you do—at work, at home, at church, etc.—will have a side effect. It is up to you whether it will be positive or negative.
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© Copyright 2013 by Dick Wells, The Hard Lessons Company
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