IT DEPENDS

What is the best leadership approach? It depends.

What leadership style should I use to empower my staff?  It depends.

How do I change the culture of my organization?  It depends.

Leadership means different things to different people.  In the last week I've had many conversations with clients and those I mentor about the best leadership approaches.  I've found myself spreading the gospel of Blanchard's Situational Theory of Leadership to help facilitate some perspective on this issue.

As a graduate student in Leadership Studies we quickly learned that the answer to every leadership question is "It Depends".  Sounds ridiculous, but not so if you consider the complexity of situations and follower needs.  According to Blanchard (1985), every situation offers context and a unique set of variables.  Each constituent has different values, motivation and influencers (Blanchard, 1985).  Takes more work, but effective leaders consider the needs of the situation and those of the followers when making decisions.

My professional experience has facilitated a first hand understanding that one leadership approach only works when the needs of the situation are consistent with that leadership approach.  Otherwise, monochromatic approaches, lead to decision errors based on leader preference instead of solutions focus.

"To a hammer, everything is a nail".  This describes a leader focused approach to leadership, where no matter the challenge the leader uses the same approach because its what they prefer (or in some cases all they know). We have preferences in all aspects of our lives.  These preferences are usually based on brain dominance and talent/strengths you possess.  High performing leaders serve situational and constituent needs over leader preference.

Are you dealing with an urgent challenge, or one where there is time to make a more calculated decision?  The context should influence how you chose to address the challenge.

Is one of your constituents deliberately ignoring your processes or are they not aware of them?  Clarity on the challenge, offers perspective on the most appropriate approach to address the issue.

Its ok to act based on your preferences, and we all do. Understand that your preferences may not best address the complexity of the challenge in front of you.  Remember, if there was one correct way to lead, everyone would be doing it and leadership would be easy.  One of the greatest strengths leaders can have is an understand of context and the desire to serve those who follow them.

Develop your leadership tools and resources.  Have them in your leadership tool belt.  Assess the needs of the challenge and use the tool that best fits.

LEADERSHIP LOST

One of my Sport Management students is doing a research project on the evolution of the Point
Guard position in the NBA.  I dug up 2007 journal article titled "Does on Simply Need to Score to Score" by Berri et. al at the University of West Virginia to help him get started.

The article speaks to how the contemporary NBA Point Guard has become more of a scorer than a facilitator.  The researchers attribute remuneration as the variable that has caused this shift.  Remuneration in the form of higher paying contracts, endorsement deals, sponsorships and time on "Sportscenter". The equation is simple, score more, get paid more.

This dynamic has had an interesting effect on what used to be the greatest leadership position on the floor.  The point guard was an extension of the coaching staff.  Like the Quarterback in football, this floor general ensured the greatest level of teamwork through execution of the prescribed team strategies.  The point guard took the temperature of the team and the situation. With support from the coaching staff and equipped with a solutions focus, helped the players on the floor to function as a high performing team to drive success.

The problem is that the scoring leaders got paid more and received more of the spotlight. So what happens?  Point Guards decide they wanted the spotlight and big buck so they decide "to hell with assists, we're going to score more!"  This effect has changed the way the position is played, arguably to the detriment of the game.  Your greatest floor leader has now become your top performing follower.  Point guards may be better scorers now than ever, but has this been at the expense of problem solving, facilitating teamwork and accountability on the court?  If my individual production is my top priority, then where does the success of the team fit in?  The bigger problem is that this phenomenon gets modelled down the college/university, high school and elementary school level players.

This is a basketball analogy that has real life implications.  There is a disturbing trend toward promoting, remunerating and idolizing the top producer or performer in organizations, but not the person who helps the organization itself perform optimally.  When your assigned leaders are more concerned with their performance (scoring), than the teams performance (success). We experience "Leadership Lost".

Who is your athlete of the week?  The person who scored the most, or the person who help the team perform at the highest level?  Who do you spotlight in your organization, the greatest individual performer or the person who drives the highest level of team success.  Everyone has a role on a team. Be mindful of rewarding all the behaviours that you value in order to drive the highest level of success with your team or organization.

The truth is that leadership is not lost.  Even though we talk a lot about leadership, we devalue it every time independent production receives more remuneration than behaviours that facilitate high performance teams.

GROWTH MINDSET, FIXED MINDSET

Growth Mindset: "I believe in you"; "There is a way"; "I just need time to figure out how to make the
connection necessary to drive the learning of those I serve"; "I haven't figured it out yet"

Fixed Mindset: "You're not good enough"; "They're not good enough"; "They will never get it".

Growth Mindset drives solutions focused curiosity to figure out how to facilitate the growth of those you serve.  Growth Mindset drives motivation in those you serve.

Fixed Mindset drives unconcern for a solution, by placing the responsibility for a solution fully on the follower, absolving the leader from any accountability in the growth process.  Drives apathy in those you serve.

Carol Dweck is brilliant at pulling back the curtain on Mindset and Motivation in her TedTalk "The power of yet".  Watch it and let me know how Dweck's presentation influences your leadership.

IF YOU WANT TO CHANGE THE WORLD...

Admiral William H. McRaven lays it down!  If you want to change the world...

1. Start each day with a task completed
2. Find someone to help you through life.
3. Respect everyone.
4. Know that life is not fair
5. Know you will fail often.
6. Take some risks.
7. Step up when the times are toughest.
8. Face down the bullies.
9. Lift the downtrodden.
10. Never, ever give up.

Hook 'Em Horns!!!

MISTAKE RESPONSE

Sunday was my Son's recital.  Its always fun to watch all the piano and guitar students perform a
wide array of songs.

We always encourage Tobias to do his best and work through mistakes.  While it would be nice if Tobias became a concert pianist, that is not our focus.  Our focus is that Tobias have fun, work hard to be his personal best, learn to work through adversity and stay focused on the task and solutions even when things don't go as planned.

Tobias practiced his songs everyday for the past few months.  He performed the tunes perfectly in rehearsal.  He was so confident that right before the start of the recital Tobias asked his piano teach Graham if he could perform an additional song.  In his excitement to perform, he made some mistakes.  Watch the videos below (first the rehearsal, then the actual performance) and observe his mistake response.  He doesn't miss a beat!! He goes right on as if no mistake was made.  He solves the problem and successfully performs all three songs.  Interestingly enough, most of the students had little hiccups in their performances.  What impressed me most was how all of them worked through the little problems and persevered and accomplished the task.  They demonstrated a great mistake response.

How do you respond and react when you make mistakes?  How do you respond and react when your constituents make errors?  What can you learn from the attached mistake response from this seven year old boy?

Deeper question, how has your discomfort with making mistakes affected the goals you have pursued in life?

WHY GOOD LEADERS MAKE YOU FEEL SAFE

What is it that good leaders do that makes followers perform at a high level for the organization?  

Simon Sinek nails it when he says that "Good Leaders Make You Feel Safe".  In this TED talk, Sinek enlightens us on how followers feeling safe inspires collaboration and looking out for each other.  When followers feel threatened, it's every person for themselves and employees do not work together to drive organizational or team objectives.  Sinek shares some best practices of how some organizations have walked the talk of ensuring everyone feels safe.  Sinek also shares the transformational results those organizations have realized.

EVERYDAY LEADERSHIP - LOLLIPOP MOMENTS

Drew Dudley de-mistifies leadership in his TEDxToronto Talk about Everyday Leadership.  The biggest takeaways from his talk is that leadership is not something that you will do when you get older or when you get a title.  It's not something that is so far off that "some day I'll get to it".  Leadership is something all of us can practice everyday through seemingly insignificant acts.  Everyday leadership is demonstrated through acts of kindness like saying "hello" or "thank you".  Everyday Leadership is demonstrated through acts of empathy like offering your seat on the bus to senior citizen.

I teach a college leadership course and am invited to facilitate leadership workshops at different institutions.  While I believe in all the evidence based research about leadership, at the end of the day seemingly insignificant acts of kindness, empathy or connection can have significant influence on a person and inspire them to achieve goals.  The goal doesn't have to be life altering, but can be a goal associated with a general goal in life to like enjoying ones day.

Lately I've been leading off my classes by asking students how they practiced Everyday Leadership over the last week or how someone demonstrated Everyday Leadership towards them.  Drew Dudley calls the product of Everyday Leadership a "Lollipop Moment".  Today a student shared his "Lollipop Moment" when the bus driver let him on the bus even though the student didn't have the money to pay the fare.  The bus driver even gave the student a transfer, in the event that the student needed to change buses at any point.  My students are now doing little things like greeting me when I enter the classroom and asking me about my weekend (I identified this behaviour as a lollipop moment for me, so now they do it every class).  Leadership is a skill.  Like any skill it needs to be practiced to be developed.  I used Drew Dudley's video in my first class of the semester to help students understand that they can practice leadership everyday and improve skills and their awareness of leadership moments.

This week I had a BIG lollipop moment that is really worth acknowledgement.  In a moment of rushing I left my Ipad on a desk in the gymnasium at a local high school I was visiting last week.  I realized my mistake the next morning.  I phoned the school and even drove up to ask any of the custodians if they'd seen my Ipad.  But no luck.  I was disappointed in myself all weekend for my careless action.  Monday morning I received a phone call from the custodian, Ayaz, who was on staff on friday night when I left my Ipad at the school.  In a nice message left on my cell phone he informed me that he found my Ipad in the gym on friday night when doing his final rounds, before leaving the school.  He was in a rush to get home that night, so he put the Ipad in his locker with the intension of calling me first thing Monday morning, which he did.  This was a super-sized lollipop moment.  These acts of "Everyday Leadership" set the example for people and inspire them to act in similar ways.

Have you had any "Lollipop Moments" this week?