Relating to Others

As a leader we must have the ability to relate to any number of people. This weekend I had a unique experience that I would like to share with you. I met a biker.

Larry was a biker. Not your forty something midlife yuppy trying to redefine his manhood on a Harley. No Larry was a biker. He carried a carved bone handled knife in a leather sheath. He wore road cured chaps over well worn levis and a broken-in leather jacket that clearly was the cure for serious bouts of road rash. A black bandana covered thinning hair; sunglasses protecting eyes that have seen more of life than many ever will. A hand rolled a cigarette dangled from his lips. No filters, no conforming to the ways of civilized man here. A guy that cussed as easily as he breathed. Rough and tough a guy who has seen things you don't ask about.

He should have scared us. He should have had us quaking in our shoes. Two middle aged guys meeting on a Saturday morning to discuss the bible; two men who admittedly have seen little of the violence and tragedy of this world. But there was no fear, we were firmly rooted in our faith and open to what may happen.

My friend and I talked to Larry for over half an hour. Two disparate worlds met this morning on a patio. We learned much from Larry. Most of all we learned that he was just a man who like any other was interested in connecting, in discussing life over a cup of coffee.

We learned about his occupation, his hopes, his frustrations, his leisure pursuits. We asked him questions we answered his. We shared openly and offered him friendship. We withheld judgment and met him as another man interested in sipping coffee on a wonderful Saturday morning in the California fall.

The real lesson here relates to respect, dignity and seeing others as worthwhile human beings we just might learn something from. What opportunity might we have missed had we been closed off to Larry fearing what he represented?

As a leader this same lesson holds true. We need to respect others and realize that they can teach us a lesson we may not see coming at first. If we remain open to their perspective, open to their influence we will gain the opportunity to also influence them

Lead well

Ron

A funny thing happened on the way to the office...

Earlier this week I had the most stunning thing happen. I got promoted...

Integrity

I have not talked about my current role in this blog and frankly I will not. Out of respect for my current employer I prefer to discuss the principles of leadership rather than the details of a specific role. In fact all of the examples I talk about deal with either my personal life, volunteer leadership roles or events that occurred well in the past. Stories I have found are powerful teaching tools and I love them. Ethics and integrity trump tools every time. So this post is unique. Today I share a detail of my current professional life. However I will not say what my previous role was or my new current role is. I will say it is a humbling responsibility that impacts the lives of numerous families. The weight of this responsibility is only now starting to hit me.

Selflessness

For the past year I have poured myself into others working on their development sharing all that I know in strategic increments to those who were open to growing. I stepped into the gap within my work site and provided leadership where it was obvious it was needed. I facilitated meetings. I influenced decision making to achieve what I believed to be right outcomes.

All these things I did without consideration of consequence beyond the potential consequence of inaction or not leading. I was not seeking to be promoted although admittedly I was getting a bit bored with my current role.

I was stunned Monday when I was offered a leadership position I did not know was available. Nor did I think I was a possible candidate. Its funny you know when I think about all the talk I have shared about self awareness. How dopey do I look now. Good thing I believe strongly in learning from my mistakes ;-)

So now I play at a higher level, higher stakes higher consequences. I am proud to say that my core values of faith and integrity came running to the front and center of my mind as I considered this new role. As a Christian I recognize the awesome responsibility of effective servant leadership. This is the platform no towel from which I will serve my team, lift them up, teach them to achieve higher levels of performance. My integrity demands straight forward honesty and candor, no monkey business no manipulation.

This is going to be a taxing and fun journey. I am sure I will learn many new lessons. I am sure I will find a way to keep teaching others how to lead well

Ron

Leading from a Different Chair

In the past few weeks I have began to think that there are a few questions about leadership that should be addressed, prior to moving on to the purpose of a leader. We have spent a lot of time talking about what a leader knows about them self, what a leader thinks, and how they act. So before we go to purpose lets talk about these questions.

1. Do you have to be in charge to lead?

So, you have probably heard the old cliche that you don’t need authority to lead. No matter what position you hold in an organization, a leader can function in a leadership capacity regardless.

What do you think?

Do you believe this? Can a person in a clerical position for instance be a leader? Do they instead have to strive for the CEO job in order to make a difference?

See the need, collaborate on a plan, mobilize a team, see the future happen

No. You do not have to be the "#1" to lead. In fact if you think about it philosophically you always are following someone anyway. So in a sense the question is moot. Leaders lead from where they are now. They identify something that needs to be done, something that needs to change and they mobilize a group to make the change to better future. This could be something as simple as changing the type of coffee supplied in an office facility or something as complicated as creating am independent ministry to serve the poor in a community. See the need, collaborate on a plan, mobilize a team see the future happen

The “Grant” of Leadership

So if you can lead from “another” chair, what does that look like? Leadership is an activity that can be practiced by anyone. It is a sad state of affairs that so few people choose to. Obviously the degree to which you can exercise leadership changes with your position in the organization. An important point to make here is that leadership does not always have a clear power component. That is, often power is bestowed on the leader by the followers. This is not the case with management where power is a requisite part of the role.

Given this, we need to ask ourselves under what conditions will others grant us, either consciously or unconsciously the right to lead them. Remember there is no moment where they stop and grandly say “Sir will you lead us”. No it is subtle. Followers look to those who are a leader to answer tough questions, provide guidance under stress, to create a comfortable atmosphere.

What are the attributes that followers instinctively look for in a leader? Well that would be another post now wouldn’t it ;-)

Lead well

Ron H

Do you have a web presence?

One of the fascinating aspects of Blogging is the concept of creating a web presence and correspondingly how to increase readership. Unlike the topic of this blog, leadership development, increasing readership is a relatively foreign subject to me. It is kind of like learning a foreign language. For instance, here in Southern California I have been attempting to learn to speak Spanish. I can speak like a two year old; a few words here and their, wrong tense, wrong emphasis, limited word choice. I love to try and am learning and am excited as I pick up more and more. All the while it is frustrating to not know how to communicate.

How do you increase your web presence? How do you get the word out about a blog that seeks to teach leadership lessons? How do you measure success?

There are many strategies I am aware of. Some of these are social websites, letters and comments to other bloggers, the old favorite friends and family. I am sure there are many other ways and I will continue to explore what they are.

Measuring progress is relatively straight forward. Google. Google analytics allows a blogger to track statistics on visits to a site. You don’t know who visited but you know what they viewed, what city they came from and how they found your site. Fascinating stuff.

I think the ultimate measure is the Google search engine. If you type your name in where is the first reference to you? Unfortunately for me there is a famous hockey player and rock drummer both named Ron Hurst. I am on page three of the google search. Not high enough. I am happy though that if you type in Ron Hurst Leadership, I am the first eight hits on the first page of results! Progress!

Why am I sharing this? Because I found a neat post on leadership, integrity and self awareness that I wanted to comment about. When I first read it I wanted to post a comment on this blog saying I DISAGREE! Then I realized as I wrote my comments that I actually agreed with the author. So Instead of trying to pick a “conversation” I will share my thoughts on this topic here. I have also linked to the post should you want to read the original.

The topic of the blog post I found related to the interconnectedness of integrity, self awareness and leadership capacity. Here is the comment I wrote in response…

I am intrigued by your argument that in a leadership context an unresolved internal conflict will lead to indecision, inconsistency etc. That can certainly be true as decisiveness is a critical leadership attribute. Certainly value conflicts provide a more risky stage where leadership can be potentially destroyed. Value conflicts must be resolved as you state.

You present a logical and sensible progression from value conflict to ineffective leadership. Does this progression though not imply that a leader will be unable to recognize the importance of their decision making ability and its role in the effectiveness of their leadership ability? Leaders regularly make decisions on less than complete information and must defend the logic of their choice. As a leader matures the ability to explain their decisions becomes an important skill in their communication and persuasion arsenal. A “leader” who makes a decision half heartedly and is relatively ambivalent about them is not much of a leader at all. Perhaps it is also the case that a person with unresolved value conflicts will not rise to leadership in the first place…but then that is your argument isn’t it J

http://theselfimprovementblog.com/self-esteem/intellectual-health/integrity-self-awareness-and-leadership/

The post in question was particularly well written by a consultant from England named Andy Smith. I encourage you to go have a read.

Lead well

Ron

Are you Linked In? and Quoted on another Blog

Hey everyone

Have you heard of Linked In?

This is one of my favorite web sites where Web 2.0 comes alive for me. Last January I set a goal to overcome a condition that affects far too many professionals the "not networked beyond your company doors" condition. The goal was to develop a deep and broad professional network where I not only stayed in contact with past colleagues but that I would meet new professionals and build new relationships.

In March a colleague introduced me to linked in and I have since nurtured relationships across the United States and the world. I have added over 140 professionals from four continents to my network in the past six months. It is truly a fascinating process, one I highly recommend to all professionals who cannot get beyond a couple dozen contacts beyond the company front door.

Below is a short endorsement I would like to share related to questions asked on Linked In that I responded to.


In the first I was recently given the honor of being quoted. Susan Bernstein, a life and career coach, found my answer to her question on Linked In compelling enough to be included on her blog. She wrote a wonderful article on the concept of self motivation. What inspires you? Sounds like a question I would ask ;-)

Check out her blog and practice at her blog site work from within

Lead well

Ron

Enhancing Emotional Intelligence

Recently on Linked In, a question was asked regarding emotional intelligence and how to enhance it. I was taken by this question as I am a student of this concept and have spent considerable time in my career learning (often the hard way) how to improve my emotional intelligence abilities. This also is one of a number of critical aspects of effective leadership. In my research of emerging leadership attributes I found that decisiveness, integrity, emotional intelligence and communication skill. We discussed integrity a few times already (756 Homeruns and Adversity and Integrity) . In future posts we will talk about communication (one form of which is this blog) as well as decisiveness. In the meantime emotional intelligence...

There are a few things that I recommend to enhance emotional intelligence when coaching others. My focus is primarily on improving self management and awareness of interactions with others.

On interacting with others

1. I recommend that you find someone who can provide trusted candid feedback. There is no better way to gain an understanding of how you interact with others than to get a trusted external perspective.

2. I recommend that you pay attention to body language. Take an introductory course in Neuro Linguistic Programming, or read a book on the subject so you can be more aware of others reactions and their potential meaning. Then, with those you have a good working relationship with, when you see an unfamiliar physical reaction stop. Consider what you have just said. Did you say something that could have been misinterpreted, something insensitive, something callous? If so apologize. I am sorry that did not come out right what I meant was...

3. Ask people you know to be more emotionally intelligent for feedback and help in understanding others reactions.

4. Lead a volunteer group and pay attention to how group members react to your behaviors. They best part of volunteers is they can vote with their feet. They are not paid to be there or to follow you. You have to learn how to lead in a way that meets their needs of a leader or they will leave. This is a great arena to hone your skills.

Self Management

The most important aspect of self management is to be aware of your own behaviors in the moment. Pay attention to your own emotions; learn to recognize the signs of an approaching emotional state and what triggers it. For instance when I am about to get angry I can feel my head getting warmer as the blood rushes to my brain. When I sense this coming I look for the trigger and then force myself to breathe. Breathing gives me a moment to think and gain control of myself before an unwanted reflexive reaction can take over

The other practice I recommend is to play back your interactions with others paying attention to how you behaved and how you felt. Again the intent here is to understand your normal reaction patterns and see the signs of their approach. I then ask what could I have done differently in that situation that would have achieved a different better outcome.

Lead well

Ron H

Leadership in an Airport

This past week I traveled to Canada to take care of family business. As I considered might happen there was not enough time to do all that needed to, including posting on this blog. Traveling is a fascinating activity and as I did so I considered; How can the concept of leadership be integrated into this time?

Is there an opportunity to lead in the presence of a large group of strangers?

I suppose there is always an opportunity to lead despite the context. Have you ever spent time in an airport though? As you sit and watch the people roll past you can see many states of being.

I love to people watch; despite a strong type A personality and an overwhelming urge to work as a hobby, to work in my quiet time. Heck if I could find a better way, I would probably work in my sleep. So far all I have gotten out of this time is to give my subconscious mind some things to think about. You can imagine that while I wait patiently in an airport for a connecting flight, I am looking for something to do. This is where I engage in the activity of people watching. I believe to be an effective leader you need a healthy ability to read emotional states in others. So while watching has no feedback mechanism to check assumptions, it is a really fun way to learn. One time I will start interviewing the crowd to see how close I am in my assessments. Here are the people I would check in with.

The Lost

There are those who are searching. I do not mean spiritually, they are lost, looking for the next gate, like a Mennonite navigating Times Square. You can tell who is out of their element. It might be fun to try an experiment and just come alongside a lost person and offer to help them find their way. I can see a number of responses. The spectrum ranges from a stiff but polite get away from me to a relieved YES I really need help.

Autopilot

I have lived here myself. Business travelers who frequent airports know how to get through the crowd with minimal delay. They find the short cuts, the fast lanes, the speed amenities. As they briskly walk through, they pay scant attention to their environment other than to ensure of their path. Approaching one of this group requires some skill. Finding a commonality would be best, even then you are likely to get a polite smile or a quizzical glance as they breeze past.

The Frazzled Mom

It’s bad enough that little Billy cried through most of the last flight, but now he is trying to climb onto the furniture in the departure lounge (this actually happened on the trip home!). The flight is delayed and the last nerve departed on Flight 306 a half hour ago for all of the other travelers. You have seen them, with a Herculean effort they try to keep the kids in line, keep them out of trouble but it is not working. Talking to a mom in this state would be akin to discussing the flora and fauna with a mother bear while her cubs were behind you. Not a good idea.

Grandpa Joe

His first flight since World War II, Grandpa is moving not much faster than a glacier. I really think slow moving vehicle triangles should be standard issue for the elderly in airports. No one wants to bump into them or cause them to stumble. No one wants to disrespect their elders, they are just almost in the way of this little short cut I need right NOW. Oops sorry sir! It would be fascinating to talk to this person, oh the stories he could tell, the life lived, yes as long as my layover was at least 2 more hours this is a person I would talk to. What would their impressions be? They are a horse drawn buggy in the middle lane of an interstate, cars blurring past at a dizzying pace.

The Newlyweds

Their focus so enthralled on each other that there is literally no one else in the airport. Naw, lets leave them alone. The honeymoon is just starting, no need to interrupt it.

Aircrew

This group is always fun to watch. They have this look of invincibility, they belong here they are treated better, this is their turf. Do you think they realize that they are like a high tech version of a Grey Coach bus driver? They will be helpful and polite as long as they have the time.

Panic Attack

Their first flight was delayed 35 minutes and they only had 40 to catch their connection (this too happened on the flight home!). They could have pulled it off if their connection had not been in the next county. You will see this group either in a slow boil in a customer service line or playing the role of a charging Rhino headed to their next gate. You might even hear them say “I can still make it!” You can’t catch them and you wouldn’t want to if you could. Remember the sign on the back of the fire trucks in New York. “Keep back 200 feet” You would be well served to keep this in mind.

Summary

Yes these are generalizations; each person is a unique creation and acts as such. I believe though that under stress a person becomes more of who they already are. Our base personalities are not that different. Leadership under stressful conditions is one of the most challenging of life’s endeavors. It requires decisive action, visible confidence, and strong nerves. To lead in such a context can seriously tax relationships.

Relationships are the core of effective leadership. Not at a corporate level perhaps but certainly when we consider the leaders first line of contact. There is an intimacy here with effective leaders. In the airport, unless you bring your family or your leadership team, leadership is an elusive concept. Unless there is an emergency where your skill as a leader is needed (in a fictional Bruce Willis Die Hard sort of way) I argue you are better off just learning about human nature. Sit back, ensure your seatbelt is fastened and enjoy your late crowded flight.

Lead well

Ron