Archive for June, 2011
There’s No Me In Leadership June 8 2011 3 responses
Am I the only one who’s gotten tired of all the stories we’ve had lately about self absorbed “leaders” behaving badly? Just in the last couple of weeks I’ve written about four of them in the posts, Four Dogs, One Hero and Three Danger Signals That Your Integrity Is At Risk. Now, we have Congressman Anthony Weiner and his creepy sexting scandal and world class lying about it. I wrote about Weiner on this blog three years ago and, clearly, things haven’t gotten any better with him.
The part of the Weiner story that really stood out for me was the self-portrait that was released in which he’s holding up a little sign that says “me” to prove to one of his correspondents that, yes, he’s the same Congressman Weiner she’s seen on TV. We’ve all heard that, “There’s no I in team,” and now Weiner has reminded us that there’s no “me” in leadership.
The real leaders are the ones who make it all about them – the people they’re leading. They’re what some call servant leaders. They act in service of the people they lead. I’m fortunate to have a lot of coaching clients who fit that definition. One of them is a guy I’ll call Sam who was just assigned an interim senior management role after his previous boss left the organization. Frankly, Sam’s strategy since taking the role has been to do the opposite of whatever his boss did. In a nutshell, that means connecting with people in ways that work for them and create the focus and morale required to get stuff done.
The stuff Sam is doing is simple really. They’re the kind of things that people do if they’re focused on the needs of others and understand that there is no me in leadership. Here are a few examples of what Sam’s doing that’s working for his team:
Leadership Is Not An End In Itself June 6 2011 5 responses
As is often the case, The New York Times’ Corner Office feature offered an interesting interview with a business leader last week. The subject this time was Bing Gordon, a partner with the Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins. Gordon said something about leadership that might sound counter intuitive:
“Early on, I learned that I’m better with influence than power. .. I like having influence. I like being with interesting people and helping them become better and being part of the flow of ideas. And that’s a little bit uncomfortable, as a boss. It doesn’t make sense to people that the boss, who is kind of a figurehead and maybe a confidence-giving parent figure, just wants to be an experienced helper. As a person of authority, I’m kind of teacher-consultant more than wielder of power.”
So much of what we read about leadership is about the exercise of power. A lot of people are drawn to leadership because they want power. Things often end badly for those who equate leadership with power. For those who equate the two, leadership and the accumulation of power essentially become ends in themselves. As Lord Acton wrote in the 19th century, “Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” You don’t need to work very hard to find examples of what Lord Acton observed. (For example, you could read this recent article in the Washington Post on the rise and fall of former Prince George’s county executive Jack Johnson.)
Bing Gordon’s perspective on leadership reminds me of a conversation I had with an executive recently.
Video Book Club: You Are Not Your Brain June 3 2011 no responses
It’s conference season which means free books and authors talking about their books. Heard and started to read a good one this week. It’s You Are Not Your Brain
He offers a four step approach to doing this which I highlight in this short video. The headlines on the four steps are:
- Relabel
- Reframe
- Refocus
- Revalue
You probably noticed that each step starts with Re. Interested in learning more about what they mean?
Watch this video.
3 Danger Signals That Your Integrity Is at Risk June 1 2011 one response
Some recent news stories, one in particular, have caused me to pull out my dictionary to look up the word “integrity.” (I like to use the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language because it offers the roots of the words all to the way back to the Indo-European roots.) The primary definition of integrity is steadfast adherence to a moral or ethical code. The Latin root is integer which, in this context, means whole and complete.
So, if you have integrity, it means your approach to life is integrated. Everything is whole. By that definition, the recently resigned coach of the Ohio State University football team, Jim Tressel, doesn’t have it. As a thoroughly reported and sourced article in the current issue of Sports Illustrated points out, Tressel has at least an eight year record of willfully ignoring violations of rules in which Ohio State boosters gave his players sweet deals on cars, free tattoos, marijuana and other favors in exchange for football memorabilia and the opportunity to hang out with them. When the story came to a head a few months ago, Tressel let his players take the fall and denied any prior knowledge but documents now show that he knew and tried to cover it up.
None of this is what anyone expected from a coach known for his button down, sweater vest demeanor. In addition to his winning record and national championship title, Tressel was admired by many for conducting pre-game quiet times with his team to study humility and other virtues. He kept a prayer request box on his desk and was praised by retired NFL coach Tony Dungy for his integrity.
It’s not my intent to pick on an easy target. My point is that the cumulative pressure to win — whether it’s coming from your fans, your shareholders or yourself — can make it is easy to compromise your integrity. The person you thought you were or want to be can get buried by the decisions you make that don’t square with that ideal. Using the Tressel story as a case study, here are three danger signals that should tell you you’re putting your integrity as a leader at risk:
Scott Eblin is an executive coach, speaker and author of 
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