LEADERSHIP CHRONICLES - I WAS WRONG

"I was wrong" is one of the toughest things for the average person to admit.  It becomes even tougher to admit when there are investments, jobs and other self interests on the line.  It's even TOUGHER to admit in an environment focussed on results over relationships and perfectionism over growth.

Great leaders understand that accountability is part of a successful leadership process.  You want your staff to be accountable for their behaviour?  Model it by taking accountability and ownership for your behaviour especially when you know deep down inside "I made a mistake".

Nowhere in the leadership literature or research does it say that leaders (or anyone else for that matter) are perfect.  Actually, the more human you are as a leader, the greater the opportunity to connect with your staff or team and develop a sense of oneness.

Take a look below at the leadership demonstrated by Lebron James with his teammate Mario Chalmers.    We're human, so we may lose our temper from time to time or even say something we regret in the heat of the moment.  "I was wrong" is a powerful statement for leaders to take accountability and develop connection with those they serve.  Team leadership is a process of influencing a team to reach their common goals.  This demonstration by James models accountability, builds trust and will serve to drive team performance.

LEADERSHIP CHRONICLES - "FACE OFF" & "MUSIC VIDEOS"

Sometimes it's just fun to be silly, open and vulnerable.  Leaders who create environments where people feel safe to be silly, will benefit from the value of that comes from people feeling comfortable being themselves.  Whenever working with a team, understand that the physiological need for connection drives peoples desire to be part of the team.  Employees leave jobs where they do not feel a sense of connection.  Connection comes when I feel I can be myself and am accepted by the group while being myself.  It's a sense of belonging.  When people do not feel connection, they leave, or even worse they try to adopt the personality and characteristics of someone in the group who is being accepted and who has achieved connection.  This is an example of trying to fit in, instead of belonging.

"Face Off" and "Music Videos" are among several activities we facilitate with our Ryerson University Women's Basketball team for our players to develop comfort being uncomfortable.  Comfort being vulnerable, silly and open.  Once you're silly around your peers a few times, it becomes much easier to just be yourself.

In "Face Off" players go head to head to see who can get the elastic band from above their mouths to their neck only using the muscles in their face.

"Music Videos" is an activity where players pick a song and work together to create their own music video for the song.

LEADERSHIP CHRONICLES - ABSOLUTE STRENGTH

Went to dinner with some good friends on the weekend.  The discussion turned to their sons.  At different points in the conversation the consensus was that both boys were very hard working and then the opinion switched to both boys being very lazy.

Just like a superhero I threw off my glasses and quickly changed into my Leadership Coach costume and became "Leadership Man!!"  Using my Positive Psychology skills, that enable me to articulate strengths instead of merely focussing on weaknesses, I was able to protect both boys from further scrutiny.

Jason is a third year student at the University of Toronto, Majoring in Sciences and Math.  He holds an above 90 percent average in this very competitive program.  Aaron is a gregarious licensed mechanic, who loves working with his hands and who is now interested in pursuing a career in policing.  According to the parents Jason is amazing and works very hard because he earns a 90 percent at school.  However, they claim he is lazy because he does NOTHING around the house.  The parents claim that Aaron is hard working because he has worked hard to become a licensed mechanic and has saved over $30,000 in his few years working since his certification.  Plus Aaron always helps out around the house.  However, Aaron was a LAZY academic student.

Here's the insight I shared with my friends.  Using my Positive Psychology vision I was able to understand this issue through the lens of Strength Constellations.  According to Biswas-Diener et al., (2011) strengths do not exist in isolation.  This suggests that strengths are not absolute, they don't exist all the time in all situations.  But, rather strengths are relative and work in conjunction with variables like other strengths and situational variables.  Positive Psychology experts believe there is much to be gained by looking at specific pairings and groupings of strengths (Biswas-Diener et al. 2011).

As this pertains to the boys, their strengths emerge when they are paired with another strength.  Jason's hard work is activated when it is coupled with his intellect regarding science and math.  Outside of that constellation, the hard work strength vanishes.  Aaron's hard work is activated when using his hands to create.  Again, as with his brother, the perceived absolute strength of hard work hides outside of the constellation of working with his hands.

So how does this pertain to the leader?

It is important for leaders to work with their team, staff, etc to identify strengths and strength constellations so that leaders can put people in roles to support the effective and efficient achievement of department and team goals.  When we perceive aloofness from staff or team members, many times the reason is because we have identified a strength, but disconnected that strength from the constellation (another strength or situation) that helps to activate said strength.  It become critically important for leaders to go beyond the identification of strengths and now start to analyze the contextual factors that exist that activate a perceived strength.

In the book "Eleven Rings" Phil Jackson demonstrates his mastery of understanding of the context of peoples strengths.  For most of Michael Jordan's career, he was a leader by example.  Jordan's expectation was that teammates take his example and do their best to keep up.  Phil Jackson understood Jordan's constellation was Leadership Power, activated by Jordan's incredible ability to perform at the high standard as a basketball player.  Jackson allowed Jordan to lead using this strength constellation, but looked to others like Bill Cartwright and Scottie Pippen to lead in other ways based on their respective constellations to fill out the leadership needs for the team.

Instead of focussing on the weaknesses of your staff, shift the paradigm, see the strengths and the context of those strengths.  Your job as leader is to create roles that reflect strength constellations and not strengths as absolutes.  Then, find others with other combinations or groupings of strengths for different roles until you have a team that can work interdependently, each using their personal, magical, strength constellation.