All I want for Christmas is Servant Leadership

‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all of the staff
Sat around hoping a leader would come, on their behalf.
Tired of the power model still in the air,
They hoped a servant leader, soon would be there.

There had been no focus on long-term success,
And Short-term drivers too long caused distress.
While some struggled for a solution, others had fled,
We needed a change before going in the red.

Then amongst the board there arose such a clatter,
“Ego-based leaders” they said, “no longer matter.”
“We’ve ousted the selfish, greedy narcissists,
Replaced them with servant leaders, here to assist.”

Ego’s torn, pride drowned, the power leaders walked out,
Their golden parachutes and bonuses now in doubt.
Then, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
Not whom we expected, but one we all held dear.

One who was humble, his concerns were sincere,
We knew right then, our servant leader was here.
His demeanor was calm, though his message strong:
“We’ve got much that’s broken, so the road will be long.”

“Now finance, accounting and back-office teams,
we’ll focus on the future, sustainability our theme.
As for the front-office, say to our customers,
we’re focused on success, for all our stake holders.”

He asked for concerns from the group all around,
listening for hours, until no more fears were found.
He sought out solutions, volunteers and experts,
“I’ve not all the answers, and count on your efforts”

As the night wore on, we grew less tired,
As the future looked brighter, we grew more inspired.
We were no longer feeding egos, pride and greed,
But building something far greater indeed.

New leaders were appointed, for now at least,
Many volunteered to fill gaps by those now released.
But the message was clear for all to observe:
If you want to lead here, you had first to serve.

“Leaders won’t focus on fame, or their name in lights
they will have busy days, large loads and long nights.
“They’ll focus instead on all our stake holders,
putting other names in lights and magazine covers.”

The message hit home clearly, as we all knew,
By serving others, we’d increase revenue.
Leaders would focus on staff, who’d impress our customers,
And with happy customers, we’d please investors.

Serving to lead, the paradox for success,
That Christmas Eve our Servant leader did impress.
Inspired we left, with challenges ahead,
A long road yes, but we’d be servant-led

My head spun with excitement, as I called my wife.
She asked “What’d that boss do now, give you more strife?”
I answered “We’ve a new boss and one we deserve.
We finally got it – to lead means to serve.”

We saw both sides of the story. The individual contributor, Jonathon, working incredibly hard and striving to do the right thing, is misunderstood and feels undervalued. The team leader, Michelle, is looking out for the best interests of her team and the company, but is viewed as a taskmaster, unwilling to contribute the same long hours demanded of her team. The world is full of Jonathons and Michelles. The reality is, many individual contributors and team leaders are more alike than they may realize. This gap in understanding is often the result of insufficient transparency between the two. Below are some suggestions, framed by this business fable, for individual contributors and team leaders to improve transparency.

The Individual Contributor (Jonathon)

1. Provide Timely Updates: When a sudden change occurs that may impact your deadlines, quickly summarize the incident. The timeliness of these updates may be more important than the detail. However, managers also need to understand this practice and have the patience to get the full picture later, when the team members can more effectively provide a full explanation. In so doing, the team leader can quickly respond, if needed, to reset expectations or shift priorities. For example, if there was a quick update from Jonathon before he came into the office, Michelle could have explained that she needed that estimate by noon because there was an external commitment.
2. Understand the Drivers: When asked for a deliverable, especially on short notice, ensure you understand the motivation or driving circumstances. This will enable you to make the right decisions on priorities if something new arises. For example, in this case, Jonathon would have understood the motivation and may have asked Jerry if his production problem could wait until the afternoon, when the estimate was completed.
3. Explain Incidents Completely: After the dust settles, ensure all details are captured with an excellent executive summary. Be careful this message does not come across as whining. Your message should remain fact-based and clarify what you accept responsibility for fixing and / or improving. At the same time, ensure your boss understands why you made the decisions you did. The executive summary is also important. As witnessed in this example, personnel leaders are busy too. Jon’s 8:30 PM email to Michelle was a decent summary, but lacked the supporting detail Michelle could have used to really understand Jon’s many contributions that day.
4. Empathize With Your Boss: Don’t assume you know everything your boss does. In the case where Jon saw Michelle leaving at a decent hour, he was not aware of her 4:00 AM calls or the extent of her time that was focused on personnel concerns – including ensuring his position was not lost. People managers often have a tremendous amount of responsibility and additional tasks above and beyond those transparent to the team.

The Team Leader (Michelle)

1. Empower Your Team to Prioritize: In today’s dynamic workplace environment, priorities change quickly. As the “boss”, you can’t always be there to adjust priorities for your team. Therefore, we must empower our teams by providing them sufficient data to prioritize both effectively and independently. Too often, leaders assume staff will guess the right prioritization if something else critical comes up. In this example, Michelle failed to provide Jon the reasoning for the noon deadline. As a result, Jon did not shift priorities appropriately, in part, from a lack of information.
2. Get the Facts Before Responding: Leaders should not reprimand before they are certain to have all the details. In this case, Michelle’s roll of the eyes and negative feedback about the missed deadline, before she fully understood the situation, was a poor response. Instead of reprimanding on the spot and in public settings, Michelle should have requested Jon send her an explanation on why the deadline was missed and what the two of them (including herself) could do in the future to avoid another incident.
3. Deliver Thorough Feedback: Empowered by all the facts, leaders should provide comprehensive feedback. For example, Michelle was really impressed with Jon’s report – it exemplified why she asked him to do it. However, her message reflected the lack of her full comprehension on surrounding circumstances and her inability to make appropriate time available to respond completely. It’s important to note though, that this feedback can’t be too late, as good feedback is specific and timely. There is a delicate balance that is more art than science.
4. Clarify Commitments: Share your calendar with the team, both formally and informally. There are plenty of technical solutions available, but this requires informal communication as well. For example, if you have regular calls at 4AM, they should know. Not that you need to broadcast it, but if you’re leaving early one day, explain why. If you’re tired during an evening meeting, inform the team it is not because of disinterest in the topic. This is not to suggest that working long hours should be celebrated – working smarter should. However, when demanding times call for more hours from your team, it is important they realize your are doing your part as well.

This is not to suggest there are no bad bosses or poorly performing team members. However, there are plenty of great bosses and individual contributors that are undervalued due to a lack of transparency between the two. To ensure you are not perceived incorrectly and to deliver the most effective and sustainable results, focus on providing and promoting transparency throughout your organization.

Additional questions for reflection:

1. What other tips do you have for improving transparency in teams?
2. Are there other missed opportunities for transparency you see in this business fable?
3. From your own experience, do you feel you are transparent with your own boss or team?

Sleeping In
Michelle awoke to the obnoxious sound of her alarm clock ringing at 2:45 AM. It was 3:45 PM for her Asian colleagues she had visited earlier that month. While there, she learned how frustrating it was for her team members to always conform to U.S. time zones. Michelle believed in supporting her team and began accommodating them by awaking incredibly early for these weekly calls. Ugh, she groaned, rolling out bed, trying not to wake her husband anymore than the alarm clock.

Before she got into the agenda with the team, Michelle was interrupted by Yoko, the team lead in Japan. Yoko explained that one of her team members quit yesterday and another threatened to leave, based on a disagreement with management in a parallel department. Michelle was surprised – these were two rising stars in Asia. Losing one was bad, but losing both could have disastrous results. The meeting agenda was out the window, as Michelle began a deep dive, asking what it would take to make the situation right and if anyone had suggestions. She left the meeting with a list of ideas to review with Human Resources. However, she knew time was of the essence and needed to resolve this before the start of the business day tomorrow in Japan – seven o’clock PM her time.

Unpleasant Surprises
When the conference call ended, Michelle sent a long, thorough email to her HR representative. She would be in meetings most of the morning and had another important dialogue with the VP of Marketing at noon. As a result, she’d only have brief periods to respond to questions. By the time the email was out, she had just enough time to get ready for work and be in the office by 7:30 AM. Her boss called an urgent meeting where she anticipated a discussion on the current financial crisis. Michelle feared the worst expectations would be delivered.

Michelle entered the conference room as the meeting started. The vice president of her division began by getting straight to the point. He laid out the bad news Michelle feared most. The difficult year resulted in drastic requirements for the fourth quarter and the company had to make some serious cuts. Each department would have to reduce head count by at least one employee in the United States. Michelle immediately recalled the advice of one of her mentors who said, “remember, you’re not firing a person, you are firing a family.” Her heart sank as she tried to determine which employee’s family she would let go from her already understaffed team. Before leaving the meeting, she reconfirmed, “Yes, I’m sorry, it must be a U.S.-based employee. Remember team, this is for the greater good”, her boss assured the team as they filed out.

On the way back to her desk, Michelle saw Jonathan coming in late… again. “Great”, she thought to herself, “now Mark, has more ammunition to press for firing Jon”. Mark, one of Michelle’s peers, seemed to have a personal vendetta for Jon. But Michelle knew better. She knew Jonathon was a great performer, in spite of his spotty tardiness and occasional missed deadlines. With the morning’s pressure, Michelle uncharacteristically let a roll of her eyes slip out as she passed Jon in the hall.

Long Breaks
With 15 minutes before her next meeting, Michelle sat in her office to figure out who she was going to layoff. She also emailed the HR department again about the Asia surprise. Unfortunately, it seemed HR could not meet any of the options her team in the region suggested. “Stumped again,” she thought. Feeling it was necessary to speak directly with her HR department head, she walked into his office and presented the facts. “I’ve already lost an excellent team member in Japan last night and I’m about to lose another. At the same time I am being asked to reduce head count in the U.S. – can’t we leverage this situation to minimize the impact to the team?”

Her HR representative leaned back in his chair in deep thought. Michelle took a seat. “Hmmm…” the HR guru pondered. There was a long silence, before he spoke, “The cuts in headcount are ultimately about saving expenses. For a variety of reasons, there must be position elimination associated to your cuts and the budget reduction must be from your U.S. budget.” He paused, as if hesitating on whether to provide the following option. “However, I suppose you could reduce your U.S. budget accordingly and match that with a headcount reduction in another region.” Michelle saw a light at the end of the tunnel, but knew this, in effect, meant doubleing the expense reduction, something she was not certain she could do, but she’d try. Michelle thanked him and began heading out the door when she heard him say, “just remember, we need your decisions before the start of business tomorrow morning.”

As she went in and out of meetings the remainder of the morning, Michelle spent the better part of her time working out a solution. She emailed the draft to HR and her boss just before her noon meeting. She knew it was not bullet proof, but if she could get their alignment, the finer details could be resolved this evening.

Always Blaming Others
Michelle headed down to Jonathon’s office to pick up a report he promised. On the way, she bumped into Mark. “So, you know who you have to let go, don’t you Michelle?” Mark asked without reservation. Mark had been with the company longer and technically had a more senior title. As a result, though he had not earned Michelle’s respect, he felt he had positional authority over her and often made demands of her as though he was her boss.

“Mark, I appreciate your position, but I need to make this decision on my own and I will make it based on the requirements of my team and what we need to be successful” Michelle responded, trying to make as little eye contact as possible. “I’m sorry, but I have to run as I am late for a meeting.”

She needed to only pop her head into the office to see Jonathon furiously typing away in a chat sessions. “Michelle, I’m really sorry, but I don’t have that report for you” Jon’s bad news was just one more in the string of unfortunate news that morning.

“Damn it Jon, I really needed those numbers” recognizing the impact of the morning’s events, Michele tried to control her increasingly short temper. “I’ve got a meeting with our VP of marketing at noon and I promised him I’d have it by then.”"

Jon did not realize Michelle had made a commitment to the business by noon. Before he could explain further, Michelle continued, “I think we have an issue Jon. You need to work on meeting deadlines and your prioritization methods.”

Tired from an early morning support call and feeling a bit defeated, Jon looked down and replied, “I understand and I’ll work on it Michelle.”

“Right, well, that’s all I ask. Thank you. So when can you have the estimate completed?”

“Certainly by the end of the day today, maybe sooner.” Jon promised.

“Alrighty then, I’ll tell him to expect the report on his desk in the morning. Thank you Jon.” Michelle knew it was important to thank him. Jon was a hard worker, he just didn’t always have his priorities right, she felt. So she didn’t like being hard on him, but had to let him know she was unhappy.

No Accountability
Michelle had to explain to the Vice President why she did not have the promised report. She took accountability and explained she should have managed it more closely. However, she assured him it would be ready in the morning. He seemed unhappy, but was comforted to know it would be there in the morning. This was not the impact Michelle wanted to have. She liked ensuring her customers knew they could count on her, and her team, to deliver effectively, but it was the best she could do to promise the report the next morning. After leaving the disappointing lunch meeting, Michelle went back to work on her challenge with HR and her boss for cost reductions. There were several questions in her inbox regarding the proposed solution. Although it would reduce her budget substantially, Michelle was focused on retaining the employees she could. This would take all afternoon.

It was a frantic 5 hours as she responded to question after question, both from her boss and HR. Each answer seemed to bring new questions. Each question required more research, charts and data. However, by 5:30, she received the answer she hoped for – she could use the open position in Japan, balanced with expense savings elsewhere in the U.S. to meet her cost reduction objectives. She was momentarily relieved, before she reflected back on the other employee in Japan that threatened to leave. She still didn’t have an answer for them, HR had left for the day, and she wasn’t sure what she could promise.

Always Leaving Early
Tired, knowing she had another 4:00 AM call the next day and several emails to send out yet that evening, including the message for the estimate she hoped Jonathon was sending later, Michelle decided to go home for dinner before getting back online for the evening.

It was about 8:30 PM when Michelle finally got Jonathon’s report. It was very well done – an example of the quality of work she knew he was capable of. She was tired though, had an early morning ahead of her and still had to write the email to her business customer that requested the estimate. As a result, she sent a short note of gratitude to Jon:

Thanks Jon. Looks great. No questions.

Michelle went to bed with her head racing. What would she propose to her team lead in Japan? How would the VP of Marketing receive the estimate? What would Mark say when he found out she had found a solution that did not require laying anyone off in the U.S.? How would she formally address Jon’s missed deadline. She wondered if she would get any sleep before the 3:45 AM alarm rang again.

NOTE: This deviation from the usual format is part 2 in a 3 part series on the importance of transparency between team members and their leadership. I welcome your comments and feedback on this foray into business parables. Part 1 is titled “A Day in the Life of Your Staff“. Part 3: “Transparency Between Leaders and Their Team” is coming soon.

Peaceful Nights
Jonathon woke to his Blackberry ringing. Rolling over, still blurry-eyed, he saw the alarm clock glaring back with “3:05 AM”. This couldn’t be good, he thought to himself as he sat upright and tried to clear his throat before answering. “Hello, Jonathon here.”

“Hi Jon, it’s Jerry, down at the Data Center. I’m afraid we’ve got a problem. It seems one of the servers crashed and we can’t get it to stay up.”

“Which one?” Jonathon asked, hoping it was a low value system so he could continue sleeping.

“It’s ProdBatchFin_05-”

“Ah, crap…” Jonathon interrupted. This was the production server where financial system batch jobs ran nightly. Usually that’s not that big of a deal and it can be fixed in the morning, but this was the end of the quarter. If the financial systems didn’t update properly by the morning, the finance and accounting teams couldn’t close out the books on schedule. “All right, hang on Jerry, I’m going to boot up.”

Moments later, Jon was sitting in his kitchen, trying to be quiet, so as not to disturb his wife or young daughter sleeping down the hall. “Alright Jerry, give me the low down”.

“Well here’s the deal – it was running really slow and although we tried clearing the cache and all the usual preventative measures, it still crashed. It’s been down for about 15 minutes now.

The two went back and forth for a couple hours, bringing the server back to life by about 6:00 AM – just in time to get Jonathon’s daughter ready for school. He still had to file a report of the incident and notify some of the financial system users that their data may be a bit late, but that could wait until after his daughter was on the bus.

Leisurely Entry
With his daughter off to school, Jonathon got dressed and headed to the office. Although he was running a late, he figured his boss would understand. However, as he walked in the office, his supervisor, Michelle, saw him and looked quite unhappy. Brushing it off, Jon sat at his desk and began running through his plans for the day.

Although not typically his job, Jon knew he had to complete an estimate for Michelle by noon. The team lost credibility recently, due to some particularly poor estimates that created significant gaps in project budgets. As a result, when this project request came in, Michelle asked him to personally oversee it, to ensure accuracy. After a quick check of email to ensure there were no critical requests, Jon was submerged in creating the report.

Socializing with Friends
Shortly after starting the report, Jon’s instant messenger blinked. It was Eric, his friend in product development who recently helped him and Michelle with a critical fix they needed. “Jon buddy, old pal, good friend…” Eric was still typing, but it was clear to Jonathon that a significant favor was about to be requested. “It seems one of the new marketing applications I wrote has a bug in the code. I can’t get access to the system, but you know that system too and can resolve it before many more customers see it. Any chance you can help me fix it?”

Jon’s eyes glanced down to the start of his estimate for Michelle and back at the instant messenger window, blinking impatiently. Jon knew he owed Eric and undoubtedly, would need to call upon him again soon. “Sure Eric, I’ll take a look, but time is tight, so we have to be quick”. Eric and Jon began reviewing the details of the problem. The problem turned out to be a bit more challenging than anticipated though and before he knew it, Michelle was standing in Jon’s door, looking for the estimate – “was it noon already?!” he thought to himself.

“I’m sorry Michelle, something came up last night and Eric needed a fix first thing this morning, so I-”

“Damn it Jon. I really needed those numbers. I’ve got a meeting with our VP of Marketing at noon and I promised him I’d have it for him by then.” Michelle was visibly frustrated and Jonathon was at a loss for words. He didn’t realize she had a meeting at noon to share the data, he thought it was – His thoughts were interrupted again by Michelle. “I think we have an issue Jon. You need to start reevaluating how you prioritize and improve upon meeting deadlines.”

“I understand and I’ll work on it Michelle” Jon, said, too tired to explain and feeling a bit defeated.

“Right, well, that’s all I ask. Thank you. So when can you have the estimate completed?”

“Certainly by the end of the day today, maybe sooner.”

“Alright then, I’ll tell him to expect the report on his desk in the morning. Thank you Jon.” Michelle said, not really meaning it, as she turned and walked away.

“Well, there goes lunch”, Jon thought to himself.

Missing Deadlines
Jonathon wrapped up his help with Eric soon after the confrontation with Michelle and began working on her estimate. He had to attend several meetings that afternoon, but managed to multi-task and work in enough time to get something presentable for Michelle completed by five o’clock. It still was not the slam dunk he wanted though, so he called to ensure his wife could pick up their daughter from rehearsal. “Sure, Jon. Working late again tonight, huh?”

“Yeah, sorry, I promise, this should be the last time this week.”

“Uh-huh” his wife said, unconvinced.

At 5:30, Jon saw Michelle leave the office. “Geeze”, he thought to himself, sarcastically, “I sure am glad she works so hard”. Regardless, he was making progress on the estimate report and he knew it would be just what she needed to impress the Vice President.

8:30 PM and the report was perfect. The estimates included many different options, spelled out in great detail, so the business could decide which solution they wanted and even pick from a variety of options within each solution. Every option included price ranges with a degree of accuracy attributed to it. The report would have impressed Michelle too, if it had been done by noon. Jon’s email to Michelle that night read:

Michelle,

Here is the estimate you requested. I apologize this was late, but there was a production issue last night and Eric needed some help this morning.

Let me know if you need any revisions, I will be online when I get home later tonight.

Thanks,
- Jon

As Jon hit “send” he thought to himself, I wish Michelle understood better how busy I am and how hard I try. Michelle’s email came back on Jon’s Blackberry as he pulled into his driveway at nine o’clock:

Thanks Jon. Looks great. No questions.

NOTE: This deviation from the usual format is part 1 in a 3 part series on the necessity of transparency between team members and their leadership. I welcome your comments and feedback on this foray into business parables. Part 2, “A Day in the Life of Your Boss” is now available.