Leadership Challenge

Leadership is in the Moment

In The Leadership Challenge, 4^th edition, we tell the story of the time in 2006 when Michele Goins, chief information officer for Hewlett-Packard’s Imaging and Printing Group, spoke to our Executive MBA students in Leavey School of Business at Santa Clara University. What she said resonated very loudly with the group. “Leadership opportunities are presented to everyone,” she observed. “What makes the difference between being a leader or not is how you respond in the moment. ” One student commented to us that he had not realized until her heard Michele “how defining a single moment can be.” Michele’s observation and her own experiences of leadership in the moment are testimony to how important it is to approach every interaction and every situation as an opportunity to lead. Sometimes we imagine leadership to be something majestic—about grand visions, about world-changing initiatives, about transforming the lives of millions. While all are noble possibilities, real leadership is in the daily moments.

I became even more intrigued by Michele’s comment when I read an interview with Gloria Mark, associate professor at the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences at the University of California, Irvine, and a leading expert on the nature of work.  In that interview professor Mark said, 'What we found is that the average amount of time that people spent on any single event before being interrupted or before switching was about three minutes. Actually, three minutes and five seconds, on average.” Three minutes and five seconds! Wow. It seems all of us suffer from ADD. But here’s the strange part. I was in San Diego last week speaking to some alumni and friends of the Center for Creative Leadership as we celebrated the 20^th anniversary of the opening of their San Diego campus.  I shared Michele’s “in the moment” comment and Gloria’s “three minutes and five seconds” research with audience and then offered the observation that leaders clearly have only moments in every day to influence others around critical matters such as vision and values.  If you do the math and divide 480 minutes in an eight–hour day, there’re are 160 of these moments.  At the break a participant came up to me and asked me if I had heard the Billy Joel song “The Entertainer.”  I said yes, and then she asked if I remembered the words.  I confessed that I didn’t, and then she recited this line: “It was a beautiful song, but it ran too long. If you’re gonna have a hit you gotta make it fit, so they cut it down to 3:05.” “No way,” I said and we both laughed.

You know, maybe leaders need to take a cue from songwriters. If we want to make an impression on our audiences, we need to focus and keep our messages succinct.

Posted by Jim Kouzes

Leadership and Power: Making distinctions

I’ve been reading the Oct 15th issue of Newsweek whose feature story was on Women&Power. The first article has these headings:

Women & Leadership | Women & Power
In All Their Glory
Americans could elect our first female president in 2008.
What the most powerful women of the past can teach us about how the rule in the future.

What follows is a series of stories of women who have risen to leadership positions and roles. Underscored are common traits of having big dreams and facing obstacles, as well as their biggest fears. The stories are compelling, as good stories most often are, but I kept going back to the headline. I was stuck on the easy exchange of the words “power” and “leadership” as though they were one and the same. To me this indicates an understanding of the term leadership that is limiting, not to mention dangerous. I was also uncomfortable with the word “rule”. “Rule” implies command and control. Is that what we want from our leaders? If you think of a leader as one you would willingly follow or one who mobilizes you to want to struggle for shared aspirations, as authors Kouzes and Posner define it, then “rule” has no place in leadership. It undermines the essential ingredients of collaboration and trust. “Rule” is about power, “Leadership” is about service. So let’s leave the word “rule” out of conversations about leadership and focus on the power of vision, compassion, and courage. Then when we have conversations about women who lead, the role of power will refer to their ability to inspire and influence.

posted by Beth High

A 360-Degree Life?

While Jim has his treadmill excuse (see October 23 post below), I have my bum knee defense.  After a 8-hour conference call (couldn't attend a crucial meeting because of the knee), I turned on Oprah yesterday to give my mind a short break before turning to the email that had stacked up during the day.  The guest of honor was Cathie Black author of Basic Black: The Essential Guide for Getting Ahead at Work (and in Life).  Ms. Black is president of Hearst Magazines, and no doubt a very powerful, successful leader.  While the Oprah piece was a bit over the top for my taste (it ended with a fashion show), I did find the main point of Ms. Black's book interesting.  She refers to her life lesson as a "360-Degree Life" - that is a "blend of professional accomplishments and personal contentment."  It's clear that 360-degrees has hit the mainstream...it's not just about circles or feedback anymore! 

We all know that work/life balance is tougher today than it has every been.  With our always- on-cell-phone-or-BlackBerry corporate culture that prevails today, most leaders continuously struggle with competing expectections and demands on their time.  And as Jim and Barry have written, "How you spend your time is the single clearest indicator, especially to other people, about what's important to you."

How did you spend your time today?

Posted by Lisa Shannon

Keeping Hope Alive

I was watching Oprah yesterday....yes, I admit it… while on the treadmill, and I caught the last fifteen minutes of her show with Randy Pausch, professor of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. What’s a popular computer science professor doing on Oprah? He was there because he’s dying. Randy is suffering from pancreatic cancer, and he’s passionate about sharing his experiences with others in hopes that the lessons of dying can help others improve the quality of living.

I was first introduced to Randy on September 20, 2007 through an article by Jeff Zaslow in the Wall Street Journal. Zaslow wrote about Randy’s “Last Lecture” at Carnegie Mellon and called it a “a rollicking and riveting journey through the lessons of his life.” I was so struck by the piece that I took the hour to listen and watch Randy. I am not alone. About a million others have also viewed Randy's lecture. The response was so powerful that Jeff Zaslow wrote a followup piece the next week. Randy then appeared on Good Morning America and ABC World News. If you have not yet watched Randy’s speech, I strongly urge you to. You will be moved to tears by the humanity of this man. And you’ll learn lessons that apply to leadership and every aspect of your life. For instance: "Brick walls are there for a reason. They let us prove how badly we want things.” I’m going to put that on a slide and use it in my speeches!

Randy is a role model for leaders. He demonstrates the power of being positive and resilient when faced with the worst of all outcomes. The response to his openness and genuineness clearly illustrates the kind of leader we desparately need in a crisis – someone who does not deny the diagnosis but defies the verdict. John McDonnell once said that “Adversity introduces you to yourself,” and Randy Pausch reveals a person who keeps hope alive. Thanks, Randy.

Posted by Jim Kouzes

Skip the debates. Let's use LPIs.

I was listening to National Public Radios program "All Things Considered"tonight and there was an interesting piece on the importance placed on “experience” in the increasingly cantankerous debates among the candidates. In the segment the question was raised as to whether one can really prepare for the role of leader of Commander in Chief. One expert said, “There is no school for becoming president.” Each candidate claims vast experience, but each defines it in a slightly different way that usually links to their history. It made me think about what kind of experience I was looking for in our next president. Was it experience in foreign policy? Was it working with congress? Yes, absolutely. However, what I look for even more than time spent in these different arenas is how effective they have been as leaders. What do those who have worked with them say? Wouldn’t it be great if we could administer the LPI to all the candidates and ask them to share their takeaways with us? It might create a common language we could all use to help us with this most important choice.
posted by Beth High

The Leadership Challenge, 4th Edition Review

The Center for Workplace Excellence recently posted a review of The Leadership Challenge, 4th Edition.   The piece was titled So You Want to Be a Leader and was written by Dan Bobinki, the CEO and Director of the Center.  It was a favorable review (which makes all of us at Jim and Barry's publisher happy), but what I liked best about the review was Dan's take on the current state of the leadership book category.  He begins the review with this astute observation: "Over the past few years it seems that every former high-profile CEO, ex-mayor, and ant farmer has put out a book on leadership."  This reminds me of what I like most about The Leadership Challenge...real stories of real people doing really extraordinary things. 

- Posted by Lisa Shannon

A recent National Public Radio show caught my attention. It was called "Americans Flunk Self-Assessment" and the host, Alix Spiegel, talked about how most of us tend to inflate our own self evaluations, while others –managers, peers, direct reports, close associates – see us more clearly. Unrealistic optimism and self-affirmation is particularly acute in North America and Western Europe, but not in Asia. There it’s less about self-affirmation and more about self-improvement. It ought to give us all a little pause.

It was a sober reminder of how important it is to ask for and accept the gift of feedback. If we’re going to significantly improve our performance we need the “loving critic” who cares deeply enough about our growth to tell us the unvarnished truth. Whether you use our 360-assessment, The Leadership Practices Inventory, someone else’s tool, or just a one-on-one meeting with a good coach, make it a practice to ask others, “How am I doing?”

Jim Kouzes

Framing LPI feedback

I'm working with a new client in Atlanta. This is a small group of people who have started an independent preschool. They have decided as a group to focus on their leadership development to support the headmaster and build their capacity as a board. As we talked about launching the LPI the idea of transparency came up. How could the group best inform the people they are asking to be observers about their commitment to becoming stronger leaders? How could they ask for meaningful feedback and avoid the assumption that they are just seeking positive reinforcement. After playing around with several ideas, we landed on having the group work in teams to come up with a metaphor they felt captured their intent. They will bring those back to the group, find one they all feel comfortable with, and draft a letter to their observers together. It struck me as a very cool exercise for the group that will get them the feedback they are looking for and deepen their own commitment to their leadership development. Since commitment is so key to the success of any leadership development activity, I think they are off to a great start.
-Beth High

Getting Started with Model the Way

In the the 4th edition ofThe Leadership Challenge Jim and Barry write, "Titles are granted, but it's your behavior that wins you respect."  For me, its all about DWYSYWD (Do What You Say You Will Do).  One of our Leadership Challenge Affiliates, Meridian Leadership Center (Jo Bell and Renee Harness) just created DWYSYWD bracelets, and they gave me one at our Master Facilitators meeting in August.  I like wearing it because it's a constant reminder not to make promises that I can't keep.

The 2007 Top Companies for Leaders

I recently had the honor of serving with several esteemed colleagues in selecting the 2007 Top Companies for Leaders. The panel was convened by Hewitt Associates who first initiated the research on Top Companies 2001. Hewitt wanted to discover the factors that allowed financially successful companies to consistently develop exceptional leaders. Hewitt repeated their rigorous study in 2003, 2005 and now 2007. This year’s research was done in partnership with FORTUNE –- who made it their cover story in a recent issue -- and The RBL Group, co-founded by HR guru Dave Ulrich. The winners? GE, Procter & Gamble, and Nokia head the list of global companies. GE, Capitol One Financial Corporation, Procter & Gamble, General Mills, and McKinsey are the top five in North America. What sets these companies, and the other winners apart? I urge you to download the complete study report from Hewitt and check it out for yourself, but here are a few key findings. The single most important characteristic is that the Global Top Companies make leadership a critical part of the company’s organizational fabric. As the study reports, “There’s a genuine belief that the way to propel the business forward is through investment in leaders…” Other things that set them apart are a focus on growth and globalization, a dedication to developing a global talent pipeline, a true strategic commitment to leadership, senior-level commitment to developing leaders, and clear expectations of desired leadership behaviors. And for those who doubt that they have the time for leadership development, better think again. At The Top Companies for Leaders the percentage of time spent directly on leadership development by the board, CEO, and other senior management is significantly greater compared to other companies. If you want to join the ranks of the best in the world, you have to devote the time and resources to it.

Posted by Jim Kouzes