The Value of Values

Values that serve us well are enduring principles that enable us to maintain our integrity and self-respect no matter the circumstances. Effective leaders routinely exhibit positive, constructive values in their words and deeds, even when the going is difficult.

In healthy organizations, values aren’t merely words on a poster or in a brochure. They are alive in the organization. You see these values at work everywhere you look. When actions run counter to the organization’s values, everyone knows.

We value the things we give most of our time, attention, resources, and reinforcement. This holds true for us as individuals and for our organizations.

What values drive your thinking and behavior? What are your organization’s real values? Are these values all they should be?

The Leader's Lack of Vision

Leaders may feel compelled to have a vision because they believe it’s what they’re supposed to do, or they may avoid a vision because they believe it has no real value.

Stephen Covey described vision as “seeing the end from the beginning.” Vision is a clear statement of what an organization seeks to become over time through the collective efforts of its members.

Many leaders mistakenly believe that everyone expects them to determine the vision alone. In fact, very few leaders single-handedly envision their organization’s future. As a leader, your job is to work with your team to collectively determine this future state of being. Creating the vision together develops unity and commitment.

Commitment

Legendary football coach Vince Lombardi said, “The quality of a person’s life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their field of endeavor.”

The same can be said for the quality of teams and entire organizations. That means leaders must inspire people to commit to be their best instead of merely complying with minimal performance standards.

Inspiring commitment requires creating conditions in which people choose to devote themselves to individual and collective excellence. Such an environment explicitly encourages, reinforces, and rewards optimal performance.

In the end, people commit themselves to a team or organization when they believe their leaders value them and the best they have to offer. They have to know that their best matters. The leader’s challenge is to show them it does.

Wisdom

Wisdom is an important leadership characteristic, but one that we may not sufficiently recognize or value. The mere mention of the word can conjure up images of white-haired old men telling tales to bored faces. However, cultivating wisdom is essential to productive living and leading.

Wisdom is applying our accumulated knowledge to life. We become wiser over time as we learn to discern reality from fantasy, and what works from what doesn’t. Wisdom is developed by people who learn from their failures and successes.

People tend to follow individuals they believe to be wise. The wise leader demonstrates thinking that is simple, common sense, and practical. The wise leader cuts through the noise and gets to what really matters in dealing with life’s challenges.

The Competent Leader

Competent leaders are known for the proficiency they’ve acquired in some field of endeavor. Their proficiency typically includes a relatively high degree of technical knowledge in their area of expertise. More importantly, they realize that it’s their ability to accomplish objectives through the competency of others that defines them as an effective leader.

These leaders are comfortable with what they know and with what they don’t know. They aren’t interested in being “know-it-alls.” To the contrary, they need and want to rely on others for the more complete set of skills and perspectives required for an organization to perform optimally in pursuit of its goals.

Competency among leaders is the ability to inspire, develop, support, reward, and reinforce people in the organized quest for a worthy end. Competent leaders recognize that success is not about them; it’s about the people they lead.

Communication

Communication is the continual process through which we relate to other people. It’s the way we exchange ideas, feelings, knowledge, and information. It’s how we build relationships of trust and respect.

Successful leaders communicate both to share their perspectives and to understand the views of others. These leaders build trust and respect by demonstrating interest beyond themselves and their own agendas.

This give-and-take works best when people interact face-to-face in an environment where all views are respectfully sought, heard, and understood.

A significant percentage of a leader’s time should be spent consistently communicating with people to understand, teach, motivate, and reinforce.

Composure

People expect their leaders to remain composed, calm, and steady, particularly in times of tension or crisis.Even the most passionate leaders must exhibit steady, reassuring behavior, even when pressing circumstances make self-control difficult.

Composure means keeping a level head, focusing on what needs to be done, and preventing emotions from overwhelming the organization’s guiding principles, competence, and common sense.

The composed leader projects confidence, even when she’s not feeling all that confident. She becomes a calming influence. Even when she’s unsure, a leader must display faith in her ability and that of her team to succeed. Such composure may very well be the glue that keeps the team together and functioning.

Press On

For some, courage is a trait they must call upon often in their lives. For others, it is a recently discovered characteristic they weren’t sure they possessed.

Whether it’s long-standing or newly discovered, courage -- the ability to press forward through our fears and doubts toward a worthy goal -- is an essential characteristic of leaders. People tend to follow individuals who display the courage to overcome obstacles.

You can develop courage by examining your fears and understanding them. Then put your fears in perspective by measuring them against the value of the goal you seek to lead others to achieve.

Courage is not being fearless. Courage is moving forward in spite of your fears.

Credibility

Credibility is essential to developing a reputation for personal integrity and trustworthiness, fundamental attributes of all effective people and their leaders. We build credibility with others over time by consistently doing what we say we’ll do. The phrase, “walk the talk,” means we routinely behave in harmony with our stated values and intentions.

Maintaining an unbreakable link between our actions and words doesn’t mean people will always agree with us. It does mean that people can rely on us to do as we say and believe. People look for this kind of reliability in the leaders they follow.

Credibility can take time to build, but it can be lost in a moment when our actions don’t match our words. Take care to protect your credibility. No one can lead without effectively it.

Focus

The German author and scientist Goethe said, “Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.”

Myriad people, challenges, and tasks may vie for our attention and resources. Leaders must focus themselves and their organizations only on the truly important, setting aside the less important and unimportant. Stephen Covey describes this prioritization process as “putting first things first.”

Consistently focus on the relative few things most relevant to your purpose, mission, and values. Resist the temptation to elevate the priority of less important seemingly urgent matters beyond their real impact on your success.

Focus often requires leaders to display the discipline, courage, clarity, and commitment to challenge institutional “sacred cows” and popular notions. This leadership competence is as essential as it is difficult and unpopular. Without focus, individuals and organizations lose their way.

The Power of Listening

You may have heard it said that we have two ears and one mouth because we are expected to listen twice as much as we talk.

Listening is an essential leadership skill. People truly follow you only if they believe you respect and care about them. Nothing demonstrates greater respect and genuine interest in others than listening to understand their needs, concerns, and views.

By disciplining yourself to listen carefully, you can build the trust that enables you to be an effective leader. With trust established, those you seek to lead are more likely to consider what you have to say.

How much time do you spend listening instead of talking?

The Power of Influence

The words “influence” and “power” have similar definitions, but very different effects when leading others. Power makes people comply; influence leads them to commit.

Influence suggests persuading, encouraging, and reasoning with others to both think and behave a particular way. Influencing convinces people to believe in a particular action.

Power based on position, connections, or resources may control someone’s behavior, but not their thinking or beliefs. People may do what we say because they fear our power over them. Power may make people comply with our wishes, but they’re not likely to commit themselves until we influence their hearts and minds.

Make sure you’re not using power when influence would be more effective.

Motivation

Dwight Eisenhower said, “Motivation is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it.”

Effective leaders positively motivate others to achieve goals, overcome obstacles, and develop capabilities.

They motivate first and foremost by consistently demonstrating positive inspiration in their own words and actions, setting an example others want to emulate.

These leaders help others aspire to the best in themselves, including a belief in their abilities and in those of their teammates. They focus individual and group efforts on goals worth reaching, challenging themselves and those around them to work collaboratively for the common good.

And when the going gets rough, motivational leaders remain calm and constructive, keeping themselves and those around them on course toward their destination.

Perseverance

Winston Churchill said it best, “Never, never, never, never quit.”

Perseverance is a trait of all great leaders. Leadership is a much about tenacity as it is about talent. Leaders who create a legacy are not those whose paths are uncluttered. Just the opposite, the best leaders have completed quests replete with trials and tribulations.

Whether you were born a leader or learned to be one, consistently exude the will to go around, through, over, or under the obstacles in your path. No matter how many or how daunting the challenges between you and a worthy goal, great leaders never quit.

Whether you’re leading an entire organization, a team, your family, or your own life, make perseverance a defining quality of your leadership legacy.

Development's Master Key

Realistic self-awareness is essential to leading organizations and your own life. Self-awareness is how you see yourself, and how others view you. These differing perspectives can lead to reactions you never intended.

For example, the people around you already know your shortcomings. What they don’t know is whether you’re aware of them. Once you indicate that you are aware of your deficiencies, the door is open to developing more honest, effective relationships of trust, respect, and understanding.

Reflect on your strengths and also on your weaknesses that might hinder your full leadership potential. Seek constructive criticism. What you learn will enhance your self-awareness, focus your personal improvement efforts, and open lines of communication, important goals for any effective leader.

Leadership Service

Initially, we may aspire to leadership positions because of what we anticipate getting from the role, particularly the power to have others do things our way.

In reality, true leadership means serving others’ needs, not others serving us. Becoming an effective leader requires routinely finding ways to help individuals and teams succeed in pursuit of shared goals.

After all, leading means accomplishing something through the actions of others. As leaders, our challenge is to make sure those we lead have what they need to reach the destination and to overcome any obstacles they encounter along the way.

How much of your leadership is driven by what you give instead of what you get?

Trust

All healthy, productive relationships are based on trust. With it, relationships develop and grow; without it, individuals and institutions alike are doomed to fail.

We build trust by demonstrating trustworthy behavior consistently over time. This includes demonstrating that we value and respect other people, even when we don’t like or agree with them. It means doing what we say we’ll do – every time – so that people learn that they can take us at our word.

When people operate in a trusting environment – where they trust and are trusted – they’re likely to be more open to new ideas, to give more of themselves, and to stick with someone or something longer when the going gets tough.

Beginning with their own behavior, if leaders promote a climate of trust, people will more confidently and openly contribute their best without fear of being compromised or undermined.

The Character and Leadership of BP

As the disaster in the Gulf continues to play out from an engineering, environmental, regulatory and financial perspective it is time to start talking about the character of the organization and leaders that led to this situation.

Over the past three years we have witnessed the melt down of the financial service sector and the now the fouling of our environment. As those in charge sort out the root causes of these disasters from a technical perspective let's not forget to look at the character of the leaders that allowed these situations to occur.

Character is formed around core beliefs. British Petroleum's values are: Progressive, Responsible, Innovative and Performance Driven. These seem like a suitable (if not inspirational) set of values but clearly something has gone wrong in the display of these values with regard to the Deepwater Horizon.

Our response to this disaster and others that befall us cannot be limited to assigning legal and financial responsibility. Our response must include analysis and understanding of the real root cause of man-made disasters; character and leadership.

Maintenance

I have a Mugo Pine in my front yard that has gone rogue. To be fair the bush has just done what it is supposed to; grow 8 inches per year in every direction. I however, never took time to maintain the bush and this past weekend was forced into radically pruning the rogue Mugo back into a shape that is appealing to the eye and does not inhibit my sprinkler system nor my ability to put the car in the driveway.

I should have maintained this bush over the past several years but instead I was doing something else and left the bush to its own devices. When I finally paid attention to it, the plant had become unruly and the only way to shape it up was to make some radical changes. The plant looks better but the cuts I had to make were deeper than they would have been if I had just trimmed it every year instead.

Leadership ability requires maintenance to avoid radical reshaping. Don't wait too long for that needed and necessary maintenance.

I Am Encouraged!

Despite all the troublesome things we hear, read and see on a daily basis about our government and corporations there is still good news to be had. I have often complained that there is not enough shared about the good things happening in our world and that the good still outweighs the bad. So here is a note about the good.

For several years I have been a member of the College of Business Advisory Board at Idaho State University. I have not always been a good member (as measured by my attendance at meetings) of that Board but despite that they have allowed me to remain.

Last Friday I attended a meeting in conjunction with the University's graduation and met the outstanding graduates of the College. I was so impressed with the maturity, eagerness and intellect of this group. To have forged out degrees in one of the worst economies in history and to have done that in ways that distinguished their efforts is a great accomplishment.

Some of the students were bound for industry, others for international studies while one young man was heading home to run the family farming business. Regardless of their next steps these people represent the best of one College at a small University. More than that they represent a bright and powerful future for the organizations in which they will lead.

I am encouraged!