Leadership: For Better Or Worse

While you are undoubtedly familiar with that portion of the traditional wedding vow that pertains to your commitment to your spouse for “better or worse”, does the leadership of your organization uphold the same level of commitment to their leadership roles?

Legendary football coach Lou Holtz who led his teams to many championships is widely known for his practice of constantly reminding his team that “You’re either getting better or getting worse. Nothing stays the same.”

The concept of where your organization or yourself as an individual “stand today” lies entirely in the context of what direction you are moving. Your organization, its leadership and yourself are all progressively day by day either moving forward toward mission and goal achievement (better) or are moving backward and losing ground to both performance and goal achievement (worse).

As I so often remind the leaders whom I’m privileged to work with…”Neither time nor the marketplace will afford you the opportunity to remain where you are.”

Your organization exists in a rapidly changing business and economic environment. The very moment that you pause or become complacent in your daily efforts, you begin the move backward. If your organization is simply maintaining the same level of productivity and results, then you are in essence still moving backward, because your competition is in turn is going to zoom right past you.

Another municipality will gladly garner your tourism dollars and attract visitors to their town. If you are a for-profit business, then one of your competitors will be glad to take away your customer and make the sale.

The ability of your organization and its leadership to continually move forward rests solely on the organization’s commitment for “better or worse”. If you are truly committed to a process for the ongoing develop of your leadership at all levels of your organization, your organization will find itself better prepared to sustain its forward progress.

Martin Luther King said that “The time is always right to do what is right.” The fall training season will soon be here and now is the right time to schedule your organization’s fall edition of The Leadership Academy.

The Leadership Academy… Changing the way organizations and people work, perform and live.

Copyright © 2013 Developing Forward | Thomas H. Swank, CBC |  All Rights Reserved.

What Manner Of Great Do You Want To Be?

The following question was recently posed to me by one of my Leadership Academy Program participants. And what a great question it is!

“What distinguishes a great supervisor from a great leader?”

If you’re going to be a great supervisor or a great leader then you’re not willing to be just “average” or allow those people who may be placed in your charge to be average either. You will possess the desire to perform at your personal best and be committed to helping your organization, its people and yourself in achieving optimal success.

As for what makes a great supervisor and a great leader, the answer could be highly interpretive depending on who is providing the answer. From my perspective in any arena of life and business, I like to employ Earl Nightingale’s “KISS” philosophy… Keep It Simple & Straightforward.

So let’s break it down… what does it really take to be “great” at anything?

Is it superior intellect? (High IQ, formal education, lots of degrees and letters after your name) Especially in this day and age, there are a great number of SME’s (Subject Matter Experts) who have a fountain of intellectual knowledge, yet are unable to apply it to the specific work at hand. This result in termed as a functional implementation problem or failure to implement.

Is it natural ability? There have been plenty of “can’t miss” prospects, phenoms and Heishman Trophy winners that never made it BIG. In music they refer to them as “One Hit Wonders”.

Is it work ethic? Does the classic axiom that “An honest days work is worth an honest days pay” still hold water today?

If you’re going to travel the road that leads to greatness, then these are the three ways to potentially get there. As you can clearly see, there isn’t one right answer. There are many highly successful people that have traveled each of these roads to greatness.

To clarify this, let’s use an analogy that is easy to follow. If I’m managing a professional sports team, then I need to know, weigh and then correctly play the odds that will provide me with the best opportunity to attain the result I want. For me personally, in considering these three types of candidates I would almost always take the person with the strong work ethic. Here’s my reasoning… Charlie Hustle will always out work and out perform the smarter or naturally gifted person because they want it more and are willing to work harder to get where they want to go.

This is exactly why Joe Namath, Cal Ripken, Michael Jordan, Chi-Chi Rodriguez, Lee Trevino and many others are in the Hall of Fame. Everyone said that they were too small, not talented enough or couldn’t play the position. While he’s not in the HOF, one of all time the best examples of Charlie Hustle was Pete Rose.

Then, there is another rare breed of people who are great at what they do in life because they embody more than just one of these aspects. Tiger Woods was the perfect example of this for most of his youth and early professional career. He intellectually knew everything and every nuance about the game of golf and how to intellectually “manage” his mental game around the golf course as well as his will to win. While Tiger had great natural ability, he also learned as John Maxwell wrote that “Talent Is Never Enough”. So, not only did he proceed to learn and master even more skills… He used a masterful work ethic to polish them, sharpen them and engrain them.

So my question for you is this… What manner of “great” do you want to be?

Coming soon, the sequel article “Distinguishing Great Supervisors From Great Leaders”.

Copyright © 2013 Developing Forward | Thomas H. Swank, CBC | All Rights Reserved.

Your Brick Wall Is There For A Reason

Do you recall what it was like having to struggle in order to get something you wanted? Time and time again throughout your life, you have encountered an endless number of obstacles, roadblocks and brick walls.

How well did you deal with them? How well did you understand them? Did you have any measure of appreciation for them?

In many instances you may have become frustrated or irritated. After all, you were in a hurry to get where you wanted to go and to accomplish what you had intended to accomplish. Right? Take a moment to recall the time that you were in a hurry to get to a morning meeting, but failed to purchase gas for your car the night before. Perhaps you caught all of the red lights that morning. Maybe you walked out your front door to discover that you had a flat tire or a dead battery.

While these everyday life events seemed like anything but fun at the time, the may actually have been life savers. I would imagine like most people, you have learned later on about a tragic accident that occurred at an intersection that you normally frequent or along the road that you usually take. The fact that you had to switch roles with your spouse that morning and take your child to school, caused you to take a different rout to work and ultimately kept you from being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

The acute awareness that there was a fatal car wreck at the time and place where you normally are and the fact that you were some how spared from being involved is a sobering experience that can give your life new perspective. So, let’s take a few moments to put some of these events into a proper perspective:

Obstacles. First off, obstacles are not a setback at all. An obstacle is simply not going to keep you from achieving what it is that you have set out to do. Regardless of your undertaking, it’s a given that you want to get from Point A to Point B in the shortest amount of time. In track and field they are the runners who run the 100 yard dash. For the rest of us along the road of life, it’s more like running the 100 yard hurdles. No matter what you set out to do, you’re going to inevitably encounter a few hurdles along the way. While they’re not ideally wanted, they are readily overcome and are not going to keep you from achieving your goals.

The other thing about obstacles that you need to comprehend is that most of the obstacles in any endeavor are actually “predictable”. The act of becoming a good goal planner includes identifying potential obstacles during the planning stage. By identifying them upfront, you can have ready made solutions in place for dealing with them should they actually arise.

Roadblocks. Contrary to your probable reaction to one, a roadblock isn’t a setback either. Imagine that you are driving to a conference in a nearby city and about halfway there the highway crosses over a river. However when you get there, you find that the road is blocked off, there are flashing lights and a sign that says Bridge Out.

In one regard you have come to the end of your road. But just because a flash flood from the previous night’s storm may have washed the bridge out, it’s not really the end of the road for you. It’s just a “detour”. There are other roads and different routes that will still get you to the conference. Even if you happen to get there a bit later than planned, it’s not a big deal. While you might miss the welcoming cocktail party -- that’s not the real purpose of the conference is it?

Roadblocks are a clear signal that there is a flaw in your plan and that you are going to have to make a course correction. In the end, you will still achieve your goals and objectives.

Brick Walls. In the words of Professor and Disney Imag-ineer Randy Pausch “The brick walls are there for a reason.” When you encounter a brick wall in your life, its purpose is not to block your path to success or to prevent you from achieving what you set out to do.

Rather, it is there to present you with the important question… How bad do you really want what it is that you are after? Are you absolutely certain that you are ready to handle it when you get it? Brick walls are there to separate those individuals who don’t want it bad enough, from those who will not let anything get in the way of achieving their goals -- Not even a seemingly insurmountable brick wall. Those that possess the all out determination and the ingenuity to find a way to get over, under or around their brick wall, will ultimately have learned to respect their achievement and manage their new found success appropriately.

Your ability to scale your brick walls, will keep taking you to new heights of achievement.

Copyright © 2013 Developing Forward | Thomas H. Swank, CBC | All Rights Reserved.

Leadership In Decline

A recent Washington Post headline read “Federal leadership on the decline, report says” which was referring to the newly issued report by the Office of Personnel Management for the year 2012.

 

Based on a 100 point scale, the overall leadership score for federal government agencies fell 3.82% (2.1 points) from 2011 to 52.8 points. Max Stier, President and Chief Executive of the Partnership for Public Service stated “it is definitely significant and consequential”.

 

I would heartily concur with Mr. Stier, as this report provides further confirmation of the growing global leadership crisis and the shortage of qualified leaders in our government, business and civic arenas. 52.8 out of a 100 is a failing grade score by any measure.

 

The report also cited that federal employees “feel less empowered to do their jobs and are less satisfied with the way senior leaders are handling their agencies”.

 

Additionally, “Given the current environment, sustained attention to improving leadership is not a luxury, but a necessity.”

 

The House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul stated that his panel “has routinely found that Department of Homeland Security mismanagement and a lack of real leadership has bred dissatisfaction throughout the ranks…”

 

The Office of Personnel Management report also stated that “The decrease in satisfaction with senior leaders is especially worrisome.” One of the specific issues that the report cited was that “Part of the problem is that leadership doesn’t communicate with staff well enough”.

 

Effective communication is not only a critical leadership issue, it is an essential attribute of an authentic leader. In the words of Gilbert Amelio, President and CEO of the National Semiconductor Corporation, “Developing excellent communication skills is absolutely essential to effective leadership. The leader must be able to share knowledge and ideas to transmit a sense of urgency and enthusiasm to others. If a leader can’t get a message across clearly and motivate others to act on it… Then having a message doesn’t even matter.”

 

When you consider the results of a recent Salary.com survey report, there are a lot of messages that apparently don’t matter to the American workforce at large. According to a Salary.com report, 84% of all American workers are either dissatisfied or unhappy with their jobs. Concurrently, 86% of American workers are not fully engaged in their work assignments.

 

On “National Boss Day” in 2012 it was reported on Yahoo! News that “Two-thirds of American’s are unhappy with their jobs to the point that they would rather have a ‘new boss’ than a pay raise.”

 

Good communication is a basic concept and a clear necessity for building mutually beneficial working relationships in business and government. This requires nothing less than a basic comprehension that every human being is unique and that they have genuine “value”. Effective communication and meaningful business relationships are built on the foundational building block of mutual “respect”.

 

People can only take appropriate actions if they are first appropriately informed about both the current situation and the work that needs to be accomplished. Regardless of how brilliant the ideas and plans of leaders may be, if they can not be effectively communicated, little progress will ever be made to achieve or implement them.

 

George Bernard Shaw once observed that “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” Amidst the hustle and bustle of daily work routines, the fatal mistake is that all too many supervisors, managers and executive leaders assume that their people know what they know and consequently “understand” what is at stake as well as the work to be done.

 

One of the primary reasons that leadership is in decline is the failure to comprehend that communication is the language of leadership.

 

Copyright © 2013 Developing Forward | Thomas H. Swank, CBC | All Rights Reserved.

The Top 5 Signs That You're Stuck

How many times in your life have you heard someone say “I’ve got to get my act together”? Or you may have heard it expressed as “I need to get my priorities straight”.

Be honest now… How many times have you said these statements to yourself? How many times has someone else said them to you? I would imagine that over the years, it’s been quite a few times.

These self professed acknowledgements are sure-fire indicators that something is potentially out of balance in your life or in your work. Perhaps both. While there are numerous potentialities for what may be occurring (or not) in your life, there is a high likelihood that you are stuck in one form or another. Worse yet, you may not even realize it.

Following below are the Top 5 Signs That You’re Stuck:

You’re Floundering. The most common sign of floundering is indecisiveness. This typically takes the form of waffling about making decisions and initiating the actions that you deep down know must be taken. One part of you says that you don’t know what to do or aren’t sure about what to do. Conversely, there is another part of you that instinctively knows what the right thing to do is, yet you can’t seem to pull the trigger.

You’re Disorganized. When your normal state of organization deteriorates into an inefficient state of chaos it’s a sure sign that you are not coping well and that something is affecting your life to a significant degree that is sufficient enough to disrupt your ability to remain organized.

You’re Procrastinating. Putting off your least favorite tasks or chores temporarily while you work your way down to the bottom of your list is reasonably normal. However, when you start putting things off for longer periods of time or even indefinitely this is not normal. The problem with true procrastination is that you disproportionately skew in your mind that which needs to be done. You build the task into a monumental event far beyond the scope of reality, i.e. cleaning out the garage is going to take me all weekend and will cause me to not be able to play golf with my buds on Saturday. Plus I’ll miss out on… (You get the picture).

You’re Avoiding. The act of avoidance differs from simple procrastination in that is not merely circumstantial, rather it’s 100% “intentional”. In variably what you are avoiding has a clear consequence associated with it. Consequences are generally painful, which may not always impact just you. Often times, what you’re avoiding will also cause pain or disappointment to someone else.

You’re Distracted. There are times in life when you will find yourself in a state of “overwhelm”. In such circumstances your state of overwhelm is going to cause you to be easily distracted. When your conscious brain becomes overloaded it enters into search mode looking for a way out of the pickle you find yourself in. Everything then becomes a distraction which only serves to further cloud the issue of what to do next.

In that you are a perpetual work in progress, the reality is that you will never truly “get your act together”. You will however find yourself stuck in a ditch along side the road of life from time to time. While it’s never a pleasant experience to endure, you will in the end get through it.

The correct mindset to adopt when you find yourself in one of these roadside events that will actually make more sense than the aforementioned adage… is “To get your life back on track”. Don’t allow your life to get put on hold for any appreciable length of time. Call a tow truck (get real help), get yourself out of the ditch and get yourself back on the road of life. Then put your foot on the accelerator and get back up to speed.

In the process, you would be wise to heed adage #2 from the intro above and seriously consider what is genuinely “important” and further enhance your recovery process by prioritizing the most important issues and tasks that will get you back on track, back up to speed and back in control of your life.

Copyright © 2013 Developing Forward | Thomas H. Swank, CBC | All Rights Reserved.

Hurdling Toward The Crossroad

In light of the tragic events which have now occurred at the Boston Marathon, the United States would be wise to heed the resounding warning of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher who in referring to her own nation, keenly observed that “Unless we change our ways and our direction, our greatness as a nation will soon be a footnote in the history books, a distant memory of an offshore island, lost in the mists of time like Camelot.”

Nearly six decades ago many Americans who were enamored with President John F. Kennedy, First Lady Jackie Kennedy, Caroline and John-John -- Affectionately referred to their all too brief tenure in the Whitehouse in the context of “Camelot”.

In the post war era of the mid 50’s and 60’s the every day life of America’s people was safe, secure and prosperous. If something such as Camelot ever existed for the average family, this was the time and this was the place. Wally and Beaver along with the rest of the Baby-Boomer generation grew up experiencing the epitome of personal freedom that today’s young people couldn’t possibly begin to conceive of.

Times have changed… The world has changed… Life as we once knew it has changed. Camelot is no more.

Margaret Thatcher will never pass this way again. She will be sorely missed, as her watch was one of true authentic leadership.

Of all the potential crises that we currently face, the single greatest crisis is the lack of authentic leadership in every arena of our modern society. Simply consider the events of “Leadership Gone Wrong” that have surfaced in just the past week:

Six prominent New York political leaders were arrested for election corruption.

In Cleveland a former Councilwoman and 4 other officials await sentencing on bribery charges.

The U.S. Department of Justice squandered 58 million dollars on extravagant conferences.

The IRS was rebuked for wasting taxpayer dollars on highly questionable video parodies of Gilligan’s Island and Star Trek.

And then… there was the Atlanta public school system "cheating scandal" which resulted in the indictments of 65 school system leaders.

Each one of these events is without question a result of broken leadership. Where there is faulty or inept leadership, companies fail and governments crumble. Simply stated, it’s referred to as “history”. When government officials find themselves incapable of appropriately solving the nation’s problems and in the process fail to adequately protect its citizens… then its leadership has unquestionably failed the people.

At such a juncture, neither an organization nor a country can stand united… it has become fragmented. People summarily fail to agree and consequently fail to act. The inappropriate events and actions listed above are but the tip of the proverbial iceberg. These are the capricious and selfish acts of elected government officials, business executives and civic leaders who abide by a single mantra… Look out for #1.

The United States was forged as a “republic” of the people… by the people… and for the people. The result of leaders who effectively abandon the interest of their citizenry and whose primary focus is the preservation and elevation of self -- Is that the people will ultimately be returned to the state of having to fend for themselves.

It is this writer’s opinion that we are all too fast hurdling toward this crossroad. I encourage you to join with me in praying for our country in accordance with II Chronicles 7:14. May God again bless the U.S.A.

Copyright © 2013 Developing Forward | Thomas H. Swank, CBC | All Rights Reserved

How To Deal With Your Mistakes

In the game of golf they are called errant shots, while in business they are referred to as “mistakes”. Given that a considerable amount of business is conducted on the golf course, have you ever wondered why the game of business can’t be as forgiving as the game of golf?

While the Royal and Ancient Golf Club in St. Andrews along with the PGA Tour may provide strict enforcement of the proper rules of golf, there is also the “gentlemanly” game of golf that so many business people and weekend hackers dearly love.

After all, who wouldn’t love a “do-over” at any level of life? For the typical golfer the “Mulligan” is an accepted way of life. Heck, in charitable golf outings they will even sell them to you for $5.00 a pop. The Mulligan is a beautiful thing!

Not only does it raise money for a worthy charity, it gives you the opportunity to screw up your golf shot and still get a free do-over. Now that’s a concept that I can get on board with. Seriously, think about it. What if you could call a Mulligan at work? What would that look like?

Whether your organization is on a calendar or fiscal year, at some point your revenue and sales cycle begin anew. From one perspective you are starting over with a clean slate, in essence a brand new start. Yet, you also have the benefit of all that you have learned and experienced over the course of the past year’s business operations. Gee, how fair is that?

If your organization actually learned something in the process, it might be highly valuable and fair for you and your staff. The valid question is… what have you learned from your successes and mistakes in the course of the past year?

The first thing that you should learn is that every member of your staff, including you, is human and will therefore make mistakes. It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of “when”.

The second thing that you need to recognize about mistakes is that they have parameters:

Frequency: How often do you, your organization or people make mistakes?

Magnitude: How significant are these mistakes and how far reaching is their impact?

Recurrence: How repetitive are these mistakes?

As a leader it is your chief responsibility to remove the element of “fear” from your people’s psychic response profile. When people are focused on fear, they will ultimately under-perform due to their fear of making a mistake. Fear will also result in slower reaction times and impaired result outcomes.

Mistakes and the behavioral response to them is a critical factor in the organization’s development and its ability to drive out the fear of making impactful mistakes. The optimum time to address this element of fear is before potential mistakes even occur in the first place.

It is inevitable that mistakes will be made at all levels of your organization. The critical factor is how your organization chooses to handle and address mistakes when they do occur. Your response will directly contribute to your organization’s culture and should be readily considered as a part of your organization’s big picture.

When mistakes occur, discuss what happened with the people involved. Review the potential fallout from the mistake. Develop the appropriate actions to correct it. Then identify the root cause of the mistake and create a resolution to prevent future recurrences.

Lastly, realize that “rework” isn’t a Mulligan… It’s a costly accrual of materials and man hours to re-do the work and it will ultimately kill your profitability and bottom line.

Copyright © 2013 Developing Forward | Thomas H. Swank, CBC | All Rights Reserved.