I was recently involved in one of the most interesting projects of my career. It involved interviewing a dozen very senior executives, who each kindly allowed me to sit with them for 3 one hour conversations. The focus was on the most important things they had learned about leadership during their careers. These were people who had all started out as professionals in fields such as engineering, law, nursing, police service and IT, and climbed to the top levels of large organizations in the private and public sectors. Six made it to the top executive position. Here is what they said about the insights they had gained along the way. The following points were raised by 7 or more of the 12 leaders, with the most frequently mentioned points listed first.

1. Showing interest in people, respecting their contributions, and treating them well brings out the best in people, and greatly benefits the organization. Leaders who try to dominate and control are badly misguided.
2. Strong leaders are rooted in their values and are respected for standing on principles. This is their reference point during challenging times. Without it they are pushed and pulled by the opinions and pressures around them.
3. Senior leaders need to avoid the trap of becoming arrogant and egotistical. They are there to serve and better the organization.
4. A leader’s success is determined by their team. Smart leaders focus on building and facilitating great teams.
5. Good leaders bring value by finding the solutions and strategies their organization needs. They are often good problem solvers as individuals, but they learn to build teams and organizations that support and encourage innovative solutions.
6. Skilled leaders learn to tap into expertise inside and outside their organization.
7. Leaders are better prepared for the wide ranging discussion and decision making that happens at the executive level if they have a broad base of experience related to the organization and its operating context.
8. A critical function of the leader is focusing people on the challenges and tasks that really matter to the organization’s performance and future.
9. Leaders model high standards in personal work and have high expectations of others.
10. Skilled leaders seek to understand other people’s needs, motivations and priorities.
11. Most of a leader’s ability to get things done comes through their influence, the degree to which they are respected, and the processes they use to engage others, not through position power.
12. People thrive in jobs that are a good fit for their skills, and where their values and passions align with those of their leaders.
13. It is important for leaders to show their human side. Employees want to know that you care about them and the work. Letting people see how you think helps them align with you, and support you.
14. Encouraging challenging and provocative discussion brings out the best ideas and best solutions.
15. As you move up in an organization, it is important to become comfortable working with senior leaders who have aggressive or challenging styles.
16. There is sometimes emotional hardship associated with leadership that can be compounded by personal or family problems.
17. Organizational change is difficult and complex, and often harder than anticipated.
18. It is vital to be trusted by those above you, and to have the trust of those who work for you. When you lose trust, it is very hard to regain.

There are times to bet on small, well chosen teams. For example, a great deal of innovation occurs when just 2 – 5 people are involved. I have certainly seen this in my own experience. Most of the time, really creative solutions come from handpicking a small group of extremely bright people and giving them a challenge. On the other hand, giving the same challenge to a group of 20 or 30 or more, often results in a slow moving, ponderous process, with mediocre results. Larger groups seem to have too many people who create road blocks. Innovation requires people who can see beyond what is normally done, and not be afraid to explore dramatically new options.

More and more organizations are tapping into this creative ability of small groups by rewarding individuals and small teams who come up with great new ideas without being told to do so. This is a matter of giving people time to chase things that they think are important. A person working on the front lines may well have a brilliant idea that takes them 100 hours to evolve and make practical. Why shouldn’t they, and perhaps one of their colleagues, be given the time to bring this benefit to the larger organization. Unfortunately, too many senior leaders do not trust their own people to use good judgment, and they only want people to work on what they’ve been told to work on. What a great loss of potential.

A senior executive recently expressed the view that small teams are also well suited to developing strategy. Once again, it is a matter of bringing together the right people with the right skill set. Often this means a combination of people who can think at the big picture level, while keeping front-line issues in full sight. It can also mean balancing the group so that both very adventurous people, and more risk averse people participate.

Some people worry that if you don’t consult everyone, the organization won’t support a major change or shift in strategy. That is not true. The real issue is whether or not the larger group will see the new direction as exciting and viable. So a small team developing strategy must understand this, and make sure that what they bring to the larger organization generates enthusiasm.

The transition from being one of the team to supervising the team is a real challenge for many first-time leaders. One key problem is learning how to let go of doing everything yourself. So far in your career, you have found that you have strong skills that other people respect. You can do the technical work, and deliver it on time with a high degree of quality. Now you have to learn how to get that work done through other people. Your success will have a lot to do with your ability to not micromanage. It is about building strong relationships with your people, finding ways to delegate that allow you to sleep at night, and then stepping back and giving them the space to do the work.

An even greater challenge is the point at which a middle manager steps up to manage a very large group of people. There can be real excitement in leading very big teams. Big teams have much greater impact on the future of the organization, and they need to be shaped and molded to embrace change and improvement. Now the trick is to learn how to work effectively with such large groups. A recent conversation with the top executive of a very large and complex organization revealed a few key things to keep in mind. Effectively working with big teams requires a) consistently and repeatedly communicating about the top values and priorities, b) finding ways to engage the input and energy of many people when it is time for important changes, and c) physically showing up at their meetings to show your passion, hear their views, and respect their input and ideas.

Today’s leaders need to be extraordinary learners. Fortunately, it is not as hard as it sounds.

The need to learn is a byproduct of rapid change and the knowledge explosion. If you want to be a leader and a significant contributor to your organization, you have to realize that the knowledge base you have today will not serve you well in five years. In just five years you will be drifting towards out-of-date. Think about older employees. You can easily tell the difference between seasoned employees who are still staying on top of their field and those who have started winding down. Those who have one foot out the door towards retirement are no longer current, and they have lost their creativity. Leaders can fall into the same trap as they become caught up in the heavy work load often required of managers. When that happens, you are actually not a leader anymore. Leaders need leading ideas because an essential component of leadership is the ability to take people places that they wouldn’t go on their own. If your team can continue to move along without your new insights, new perspectives, and sense of new possibilities, you may be managing aspects of the operation but you are not leading.

I personally think that strong leaders need to be extraordinary learners driven by curiosity. What trends might be affecting our company? Is there a better way to run our team meetings? Who are the top thinkers in our field, and what are they thinking and doing? What can I learn to become a better communicator? Where can I get the best information on developing my health and fitness and reducing my stress so that I can come to work more energized? What are the leading edge technological developments that could affect our production, marketing and information handling? Who is taking our business or profession in a whole new direction? There are many important questions for leaders to consider. You don’t need the detail on all of them. That’s why you have employees who are technical and content experts. What you need is the big picture, and enough insight to make good decisions to improve and refocus your operation.

One of the best ways I know for leaders to stay current is to keep their whole team aware of leading-edge knowledge. One of my clients does this by working with their team to develop a list of topics that could impact their ability to lead their field. Each member of the team is responsible for reading in that area, and having expert knowledge of developments and trends. Twice a year each team member makes a presentation to their team and the leader to share their most significant learning. In between presentations, they routinely share great articles and ideas they find. In addition, leaders need to organize their days to incorporate reading, and I would encourage all leaders to learn how to use library services and professional databases to search for information on topics of interest. Most people have no idea how easy it is to do this given online library access, and if you don’t want to do it yourself, have your assistant or another staff member learn to do it for you.

Most people think of leadership coaching as a new thing, but if you search back through the literature on organizational psychology and leadership development, you will find it mentioned as far back as 1937. Anthony Grant of the Coaching Psychology Unit at the University of Sydney in Australia discovered this when he went back through psychological databases and produced an incredibly interesting collection of abstracts covering all of the work on coaching that he found between 1937 and 2007. I have since updated his search to 2010 to complete the picture.

The idea of leaders being coached is not new at all. What is relatively new is the idea of trained professional coaches, and the focus on studying how to coach. The idea that people in organizations need to be coached has been written about for decades. However, between 1940 and the 1980s the idea was that leaders themselves should learn how to do the coaching. So a leader learned how to be a better leader by being coached by his boss, and she in turn developed leaders reporting to her by coaching them. In this early literature, the comparison to sport and the arts shows up. If people who perform at high levels in these areas need coaches, why wouldn’t a corporate leader who is expected to perform at a high level need a coach?

Now we see in a lot of organizations training their leaders in coaching skills, and many of these organizations believe that they are doing something new. Clearly they are just picking up on an idea that has been written about for at least 70 years. What is new is our knowledge about the kinds of coaching that are effective.

Around the early 90s, there was a big shift in coaching related research and writing. People started to think hard about the coaching techniques used to accelerate development, and we saw more and more talk about coach training and the emergence of the professional leadership coach. The next big change came when the amount of research being done on coaching started to soar. That happened in the early 2000s, and now we have professional journals on coaching, graduate degrees in coaching, and even the evolution of a dedicated area of psychology called coaching psychology.

All of this is great. We are learning a lot about how to work with people to increase their skills, help them become more resilient problem solvers and strategists, and help them find success and happiness.

When I began learning the skills of coaching I quickly realized that clients respond with excitement at two distinct points. The first point is when they achieved clarity on the challenge they are confronting. At this point confusion and vagueness disappear, and the client clearly and specifically sees what they really want to achieve. The second point is when they discover options that were previously hidden from their view and realize that their goal is achievable.

Both of these points involve seeing the issue through a fresh set of eyes, letting go of assumptions and being open to possibilities. I’d like to suggest that everyone build their ability to create these Aha moments. You can do it with or without a coach.

I was reminded of how important this is by a Masters thesis completed by a member of our local professional coaching association. Her study involved extensive interviews with a small group of executive coaching clients to explore what it was like to be in a coaching relationship. For these clients, key high points in coaching were the times when they transitioned from feeling unsure, stuck or pessimistic to feeling energized because they could see where they wanted to go and saw possibilities that they believed could get them there. This is a shift to optimism and a sense of control.

Earlier life experiences have taught me how important it was for people to learn to see beyond their current problems and believe in their ability to create solutions. Somewhere in my early study of psychology I came across the notion of internal and external locus of control. People who see the outcomes in their life as being controlled externally, i.e. by fate or other people, are less likely to seek out and work for their own solutions. Those who believe they can shape their own future see at least some of the control in their life as resting within themselves. This has always struck me as a important difference in how people approach life and improve their chances of success and happiness.

To be a resilient human being and a successful leader one has to believe that they can see beyond their current hurdles and difficulties, find solutions and influence the future through their own actions.

As a coach, I am excited by the idea of helping people become more resilient by helping them learn that they can be creative in the way that they define problems and find solutions. In the past few years books like The Art of Possibility (Zander and Zander, 2000) have inspired me to think about how creativity can be a tool for enhancing individual lives. By deliberately searching for new perspectives and possibilities a person discovers a world full of options rather than constraints. Books like The Big Book of Creativity Games (Epstein, 2000), Unstuck (Yamashita, 2004) and Thinkertoys (Michalko, 2006) have proposed a similar perspective to bring better problem solving and more innovation to organizations. As a coach, I am challenged to bring these ideas and techniques to my clients for both individual and organizational benefit.

In most business situations, the aim is to give your audience something that really matters to their plans and decisions, and to do it a way that is concise, simplified, and easy to remember and act upon. Ideally, a business speaker is also passionate about the importance of their topic, and able to speak in a style that is engaging and even entertaining.

Here is a great way to structure a business presentation. The focus is on the interests and needs of the audience, whether they are your colleagues, clients, employees, executive committee or board of directors. Your role is to give perspective and insight, and to facilitate a path forward.

I.  State the topic and why it is important to this specific audience.

• Example re: a concern – Today I have some new insights on changing market conditions that will help this executive committee turn around the falling demand for our products.
• Example re: opportunity – This morning I would like to talk about the new project and how it will boost the chances for each one of us to learn more and do some fascinating leading edge work.

II.  Give your point of view. (Don’t leave them searching for the big picture you already have.)

• Having examined the situation carefully, my perspective is that we are facing …
• I would like to suggest a new and useful way of looking at our challenge.
• The research suggests that there are three things that really matter as we move forward.

III.  Give supporting evidence.

• Let me highlight the key reasons this point of view makes sense.
• Here are the key supporting facts.
• There are also risks/weaknesses that also should be acknowledged.

IV.  Give a resolution, i.e. a plan, proposal or idea

• It appears that we can benefit by …
• There is an opportunity here for a win-win if we …
• You may wish to reduce the inherent risk by implementing a plan with these elements …

V.  Give or suggest the next step.

• If you agree that this should be implemented, the next step would be to …
• I would like to suggest that each team move forward by …

Let me continue with my challenge to encourage leaders to think about the essential components of their personal leadership.

 

Here is another very interesting leadership model that diverts significantly from the previous two. The MIT Leadership Center has created this picture of leadership. See http://mitleadership.mit.edu/r-dlm.php to learn more. They refer to it as “a pragmatic, research-based model of how successful leaders at every level actually work”. According to them leaders do the following things.

 

1.     Sensemaking: making sense of the world around us, coming to understand the context in which we are operating.

2.     Relating: developing key relationships within and across organizations.

3.     Visioning: creating a compelling picture of the future.

4.     Inventing: designing new ways of working together to realize the vision.

 

Sensemaking is the component in this model that strikes me as most unique compared to other views of the leader’s role. It also seems right on the money. We only have to look at the trauma caused by the current economic meltdown to see how much employees look to leaders to make sense of what is going on in the world, in the market place and in their company. Leaders who can provide insight, perspective and calm direction in any challenging time are valuable people indeed.

 

So how do you react to MIT’s take on leadership?

My last entry began a series that challenges leaders to think about the essential components of leadership. So what elements of leadership to you believe in?

 

Here is another great leadership model that is definitely worth some thought. It is called “Legacy Leadership”, and it was developed by Dr. Jeannine Sandstrom and Dr. Lee Smith. You can learn more at http://www.legacyleadership.com . They have an excellent book and a number of useful reference materials. Have a look, and consider how each of these areas of leadership skill could work for you and your team.

 

Based on a broad review of leadership research, Legacy Leadership identifies the following leadership traits as lasting aspects of leadership that endure beyond the fads that are the focus of so many trendy leadership books.

 

1.     Leaders hold, model and communicate vision and values to establish direction and commitment

2.     Leaders build and measure responsibility and accountability for execution and performance

3.     Leaders create innovation and collaboration by shaping the environment of working relationships

4.     Leaders inspire people and help them become leaders through the way they connect with others

5.     Leaders build a community that recognizes and values people’s differences

In a previous article, I suggested that leaders need to find their own leadership style. This is a matter of clarifying what you personally believe about the kind of leader you want, or need, to be. One way to do this is to reflect on a variety of leadership models that have been endorsed by researchers, authors and significant organizations. As you ponder these models think about a) what really makes people excited about coming to work in the morning, b) what it takes to produce innovative, exceptional results, and c) what would stretch your leadership skills but still be relatively comfortable for your personality.

 

The next few entries on this site will summarize a few models worth considering. Check them out further by going to the listed websites. To get started here’s a model that is pretty much a classic for contemporary students of leadership.

 

From The Leadership Challenge by James Kouzes & Barry Posner – Based on their long term research into the attributes of great leaders, they believe that exemplary leaders do the following.

 

Model the Way by clarifying their values and aligning action with those values

Inspire a Shared Vision by imagining exciting possibilities for the future and creating shared aspirations

Challenge the Process by searching for innovative ways to do things and by experimenting and taking risks

Enable Others to Act by fostering collaboration, building trust, and strengthening others by sharing power and discretion

Encourage the Heart by recognizing and appreciating others, celebrating values and victories, and crating a spirit of community

 

Which of the ideas in this model could make you a better leader? Learn more at www.leadershipchallenge.com or pick up a copy of the book.

First tip: Make sure you have a printed copy of your PowerPoint presentation, and make sure it is in a form that you can refer to quickly. Often the best bet is to have your slides in a handout that you will give the audience, and simply make sure that you have a copy for yourself. Then before your presentation go through your printed copy and quickly number all of the slides in the exact order that they appear in your presentation. Now when someone asks you a question, and you want to refer to a specific slide, you simply glance at your printed copy and find the number of that slide. Then enter that number on the keyboard, and press enter. PowerPoint will jump ahead and show that specific slide. Then when you want to go back to where you were before the question, enter the number of the slide you want to return to and press enter again. This avoids the messy situation of having to click forward and back through all of your slides while your audience waits and you looked disorganized.

 

Second tip: When you provide a handout of your slides to an audience make sure that the slides are printed large enough and clear enough to be easily read. Not only does this make it more likely that people will actually referred to the slides in the future, it can be a lifesaver if the computer or projector crashes. If the technology lets you down you can simply continue your presentation by having people follow you in the handout. If a presentation is particularly important, I like to print the handouts with only two slides on the page. If the projector is not working you simply ask people to refer to the slide on the top of page 2 [or whatever slide you are on] and carry on with your presentation, while someone else tries to fix the technology. You don’t have to be flustered, and your level of organization will impress.

We have all been bored to death by PowerPoint presentations with slide after slide containing line after line. It gets to a point where you just want to run from the room screaming. So how do you use PowerPoint intelligently while you keep an audience fascinated with what you have to say?

 

First of all, let go of the obsession with piling on the information. People with technical expertise have a lot of trouble realizing that most people do not want to hear all of the details. You may think every little point is vitally important, but take a long cold look at it from your audience’s point of view. Then narrow it down to what really matters to the audience, and leave out the rest or move it to a handout. Ask yourself, what do I want them to remember two weeks from now? And ask yourself, what are they really looking for? For example, if you are seeking approval for a project from an executive, they typically want the vital few facts that will determine their decision.

 

Next, think about which parts of your presentation are about conveying facts and concepts and which parts are really about trying to evoke an emotional response in the audience. Many people want to pretend that emotion is not part of business, but it is a very important part. Often we want people to be enthusiastic or excited, or to feel that they should trust the presenter. When you are in the emotional realm turn the projector off. You will do much better if you simply talk with your audience, and build a person to person connection. The easiest way to do this is to push the “B” key on the computer. The screen will instantly go black, and people will pay attention to you rather than stare at the screen. When you are ready to resume showing slides, push B again, and the screen comes back to life.

 

For the parts of your presentation where you are actually trying to teach, use slides to get your ideas across. Typically, that doesn’t mean listing point after point after point after point. Look for ways to represent your information, concepts and new ideas visually in simple charts, diagrams and illustrations. Photographs and video clips can also be very powerful. Yes, it takes a little longer to build these kinds of slides, but you only need a few of them. Instead of burying your audience in dozens of points, your goal is to have them understand and remember the few points that really matter.

 

And finally, learn to simply be a good speaker. Practice getting your ideas across clearly and concisely with only your voice. Then when it is appropriate to add slides, the combination of your words and visual representations will be even stronger. And practice storytelling. This may be the most powerful tool in any speaker’s repertoire. Many of the ideas we want to get across in our presentations are best illustrated by using real-life examples in the form of stories or short anecdotes, and audiences tend to love them.

“How am I supposed to give clear direction to my team when the people above me don’t know what the heck they want?” Most of us have heard this complaint in one way or another. And, most leaders have worked in a situation where the direction from above was vague, contradictory or prone to change. So what do you do?

 

One of the traits I most admire in mid-level and junior leaders is the ability to establish a vision for their team when those above them lack a clear direction. Most supervisors and managers faced with this dilemma sit around complaining. They take the position that they will be able to give their team clear focus when senior management gets its act together. It does sound logical that organizations should have top down direction, but there are two big reasons why it doesn’t always work that way. First, there is such a thing as mediocre or poor leadership. The people above you may never do a good job in this area, and sitting around waiting for them to undergo a fundamental personality change won’t help you and your team. And second, organizations need leaders at all levels. The folks up top need you to work out the things they can’t get to.

 

Smart leaders facing this problem establish the best team direction they can in the circumstances. Every team is looking for certainty. They want to know why they exist, and how they can do a good job. A strong leader doesn’t abandon his or her responsibility to provide these answers just because the air above them is foggy. Their team will have a vision even if others don’t. So they do their best to determine what the senior leaders see as priorities, even if those priorities aren’t being voiced clearly. Then they work with their team to build a picture of how the team can contribute and excel and find satisfaction in their sometimes foggy organization.

One of my first discoveries as a leadership coach was that many leaders can’t tell you what they believe about leadership. This is sometimes true of even very senior executives.

Imagine asking an engineer who designs bridges “So what are the main principles you have to adhere to as you design a bridge?” and discovering that they don’t know the answer. How disturbing would that be the next time you are suspended over a river surrounded by the massive weight of four lanes of cars, trucks and buses. And yet time and time again, I’ve seen leaders in business stumble over the same question applied to leadership. You ask “What are the main principles you adhere to in order to give your team, unit or company strong leadership?” and they stumble around gradually pulling their ideas together.

So here’s the challenge. Right now take out a piece of paper and draw a line down the middle. On the left half of the page, write down the CHARACTERISTICS great leaders tend to have. Think about their character, their personality traits and their values. This is what you believe about the kind of person a strong leader needs to be. For example, you might say they have to have integrity or be trustworthy. On the right side of the page, right down what you believe about the ABILITIES strong leaders should possess. Think about both high level skills (e.g. being able to see the big picture and think strategically), and very down to earth practical skills (e.g. being able to listen).

It might take a few days to ponder this challenge, and maybe talk it over with someone else. You might need to go to a few books or websites on leadership to fill in your lists. When you get it done to your satisfaction, you will have discovered what you really believe about the attributes of strong leaders and the principles that guide them. This can shape your own development as a leader, and help you see the kind of leader you want to be and need to be. It is your personal foundation for your leadership.

 

My last entry on this site was titled “Your Relationship with Your Boss”, but it actually focused on how good bosses shape and build the supervisor/employee relationship. My thoughts on how good leaders build relationships provoked a couple of interesting comments that focused on the question “So what do you do when your boss doesn’t initiate a good relationship with you, and is actually hard to work with?”

 

The reasons a relationship with a supervisor can be rocky are many and varied. And unfortunately, they are also very common. A lot of people wish that they had better two-way communication with the person who is all important to their happiness at work. For example, the boss may have what appears to be a “my way or the highway” attitude. Or the boss is never around. Or they keep changing their mind on what they want. Or they rarely take the time to give feedback or have a “good” discussion. Or they are introverted and don’t like to talk much. Or they are a micromanager. Or they are flat out a real jerk!

 

A number of my coaching clients have had to deal with this type of situation, and as is usually the case, I’ve learned a lot from them. They would tell you that if your supervisor isn’t a great communicator, you have to take the steps that will build the relationship you need to succeed and be happy at work. That means getting up the courage to have a series of private conversations with the boss where you very respectfully talk about how the two of you need to work together to create a good working relationship. Ask him/her about the kind of communication they need, and share your thoughts on what you need. Talk about how often you need to talk, what you need to talk about, how you can support each other, how you prefer to work on assignments, how you can introduce innovative ideas, and how you will discuss things when you disagree. Time and time again, I’ve seen the supervisor respond well to these kinds of discussions. Most people want to be a good leader, and they understand immediately how this kind of discussion can help. So while many people worry about initiating such a discussion, the risk is low. And if you are really unfortunate and have a boss who is inconsiderate, self-centered or rude when you broach these topics, it may be time to ask for a transfer or seek a new job. Life is too short to put up with a manager who isn’t open to improving things.