|  |  |  | | | | | | SECTION I – The Seven Essential Steps to Leadership Success | | |
In my book You’re In Charge…What Now? I use a mnemonic to describe the seven essential steps to leadership success. The mnemonic is “L.E.A.D.E.R.S” and each of these letters represents an essential step. While I have simplified the elements of leadership into seven words, the essence of my message is that being an effective, peak-performance leader is simple, but not easy.
The responsibility of being an effective leader is much more important than being an effective “manager”. Every effective manager leads first, and manages second. In my lexicon, there are two things the “person in charge of an organizational unit” does: the first is to lead the people; the second is to administer the processes that make up the work. I call this administrative activity the mechanics of managing…these are the activities of planning, organizing, controlling, report writing, etc., and of course the implementation of the technical work of the unit. These are critical activities and can never be ignored, but in my experience those managers who focus the preponderance of their time on the mechanics, ultimately do not succeed. They may achieve short term results, but they usually fail over time. That which is done “to and for” the people makes a leader a long-term success, not what he or she does to administer the mechanics. Indeed, a manager with great leadership skills can sometimes be successful without being an effective administrator. I have worked for leaders like that, and they were great achievers. On the other hand, I have worked for leaders who were great administrators but poor leaders, and they were ultimately failures. Simply put: administration may be a necessary condition, but it is not a sufficient condition, for success; whereas, leadership may be a necessary and sufficient condition for success. My core premise is that if you are to be a successful leader, your success will be determined not by how great an administrator you are, but how great a leader you are day-in-and-day-out. When the staff you are “in charge of” believes that you are a great leader, and when you are doing the seven essential steps, you will be a peak-performance leader who tastes the joy of success. The next seven issues of this newsletter will be a journey through the mnemonic L.E.A.D.E.R.S.… Each letter represents the essence of a key principle for Peak Performance. We start our leadership principles with L for Love, followed by E for Expectations, A for Assignment, D for Development, E for Evaluation, R for Rewards, and S for Self. The words are important keys to remembering the concepts, but we will explore in much greater detail how those concepts make a Leader effective and capable of being great. We hope that by the time you have been introduced to the seven steps in L.E.A.D.E.R.S., that you will be convinced that leadership is really quite simple, but it will require all of your energy and fo! cus to do well. In short, it’s simple, not easy. | | | SECTION II – Mini Case | | |
Albert was preoccupied and filled with a sense of unease as he drove to the office. He knew that he was going to have another tough day at work. As the Supervisor of Accounts Payable for the last ten years, Albert was confident that he knew how to do his job, and how to do it right. He could not understand how his new boss, Barbara, who had only been there for one week, could have such a dramatically different view of his job.
Barbara had been preaching to Albert about leading his staff, and about implementing new procedures that, frankly, made no sense to him. Having seen hundreds of people churn through the Accounts Payable Department over the years, he had learned from experience that his job boiled down to one key responsibility: getting the transactions paid on schedule, but not a day earlier than required. He personally processed nearly half of the payments in any given day, while the other three staff members handled the rest. If they got the job done, great…if not…they would be gone quickly. Paying the vendors was not complicated; therefore, Albert did not see a need to waste time on much more than a quick training of new employees. By focusing on productivity, he had a great record of getting the work out, and had been praised for years on the quality of his unit’s work. In short, he had a great performance record and couldn’t imagine why Barbara was complaining. All her talk about management stuff was just a distraction, and had no practical value in Albert’s eyes. After all, he has been supervisor for ten years, and has always delivered what was asked of him. How could someone say after just one week that he is not doing his job? As Albert walked in the door of his office building, his anxiety grew. He had barely settled into his desk chair when his boss came in and started the discussion… Question: Does Albert have the problem, or does Barbara? Actually they both have a problem…but our limited knowledge of the situation prevents us from determining blame in this case. However, we can identify the signs and symptoms of each participant’s problems. Barbara obviously thinks that Albert should do some things differently (or do things that he currently doesn’t do at all), but she seems to be in an unreasonable hurry to conclude that Albert is not a good leader. We can not be certain if her concerns are about managerial mechanics such as reporting, quality control, attendance records, etc., or if her problems are with his leadership activities. In either case, she is certainly being very aggressive, very early. It is easy to sympathize with Albert’s puzzlement about her conclusions after just a week of being in charge. Barbara is probably moving too fast, and has not given herself sufficient time to assess both the performance of the work unit and the performance of the leader. Perhaps her predecessor or her current boss has expressed some dissatisfaction with Albert’s performance; nevertheless, she seems to be acting in a highly critical manner very early in the relationship. We would probably advise her to slow down, listen and observe for a few weeks, and then begin to share her informed judgments with Albert. Her problems with him may be right on target, but she probably needs more time to get to know him and his style in order to determine if he is really falling short of the leadership that she wants. Albert’s own problems are evident in his attitude towards his staff and his job. He clearly is not very interested in helping people succeed, and his singular focus on output may mean that he has huge turnover in his staff. In addition, his thoughts about production suggest that he is doing 50% of his team’s output, with three people doing the other 50%. Either he is spectacularly productive, or they are spectacularly unproductive. In either case, this discrepancy in productivity poses a real challenge for Barbara. Albert’s thoughts also indicate that he is not very interested in what we would call either the administrative or the leadership work. He is highly concerned with the bottom line, but his role in leading the staff is a low priority. In the long run, Albert’s methods as a “doer” rather than a “leader” could be a serious problem. Our only certainty is that this working relationship is strained after just one week, and unless there is a change of course on both parties, it is in serious trouble. Barbara’s own boss will most likely have to take an active role in resolving this situation.
| | | SECTION III – Being Sensitive... | | |
When you take on a new job, you should not immediately adopt the notions and biases of the previous boss; it is wiser to make your own conclusions in the first several weeks by doing more listening and watching than speech making. Certainly you need to give some guidance as to your expectations, but you should also be sensitive to the fact that you have now become a “disruptive force” in the lives of your new staff. The change to working for someone new is unsettling and often dramatic. It will take time for them to get to know you…and you to know them. Moving too fast can disorient them, and prevent you from fairly assessing each individual. On the other hand, do not wait for months to pass before making your thoughts known or taking necessary actions. This transition phase is a balancing act, and you need to make certain that the unit’s performance is not damaged by one extreme or the other.
| | | SECTION IV – Ask The Czar | | |
Robin: I have a boss who seems to think I’m so good that I don’t need any time for the learning process. She keeps piling on projects that are completely new to me, and I feel like she expects me to have them finished the next day. I enjoy the work but I’m totally overloaded, and if it continues like this I won’t be able to meet her expectations. How can I tell her to back off?
The Czar: the good news is that you are probably right, and your boss thinks you’re great. The bad news is that you really have to be cautious in asking her to back off, because you could damage your ability to be seen as a “star.” My first thought is to say, keep trying to keep up. You may be being tested and for now you do not want to cry wolf. Let it go for a couple more weeks, and put in the extra time it takes to get the assignments done, and I might add, done well. The onslaught of new projects may be followed by a quieter period that will allow you and your learning curve to reach a more comfortable balance with the workload. If the pace does not slow down after a couple of weeks, or worse, if it gets even more demanding, then you will need to talk to her about the problem. Each one of us must decide how much work we can do, and how many extra hours we are willing to put in. If you have hit your limit, and are now passing it, then it is time to have a candid discussion with your boss. The trick will be how you handle the conversation. You do not want your boss to see you as a “whiner”, but you need to get your message across. Tell her that you want to do an excellent job, but you simply are running out of time to do a great job. Express your concerns in terms of the quality of the work, rather than the quantity. There is no guarantee that she will react exactly as you want, but if you do not address the issue, you will eventually fail or “burn out”. Let’s us know how it goes on the first conversation. Jeff: I just started in a new job as a supervisor, and I am already lost. My boss hasn’t done anything to help me get started, and the staff is not helping me at all. I have been at this job for about a month now, and I am really worried that I am not getting the job done. What should I do? The Czar: it is important to recognize that if you are worried about your performance, then there is a pretty good chance that your boss is as well. However, your concern is not a bad thing, as it is a warning that you need to take action. I suggest you do a couple of things: 1) Talk to the former supervisor, if he/she is still around and find out what you can from them. This may not be just your problem. 2) If you have a good friend in management close by, talk to that friend and see if just sharing will get you some insight. 3) Talk to your boss. Now I know that sounds like a really hard thing to do, but you must do it sooner rather than later. I suggest that you ask to see you boss, and in that session ask (not tell) him to advise you on how you are doing and how you might improve. My guess is that if you are concerned, so is he, and this will give him a chance to talk to you about those concerns.! You need to do this conversation “yesterday” because the longer you go without the feedback, the more convinced he may become that you can not do the job. On the other hand, you may be surprised. Perhaps he thinks that you are doing a great job and you are simply being too hard on yourself. A more likely scenario is that he has not yet noticed the situation, so when you talk to him you will be alerting him to your concerns. With any luck, you will start to get some help. If he thinks that there is a problem with the staff, he may think it is your fault, or he may realize that you inherited some staff problems that need to be addressed. In short, there is much more downside in not talking with your boss. Good luck, and let us know how it worked out. Please send us your questions: gerry@the-czar.com
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