Real Heroes Wear Helmets

I had spent the year interning with a Fortune 500 company and visited my grandfather in Maine for a week before returning to Penn State. My priorities were not right yet. Money, fame and fortune were still the front of my mind. I dreamed of being the next Bill Gates or Donald Trump. So, as we sat on his front porch one cool summer evening, I casually made reference to a prominent executive at my employer as being, “my hero”.

“Nah! That’s no hero, Ben.” My grandfather cut me off, mid-sentence, in a thick Maine accent. He was not angry, but very serious. The conversation quickly turned from a casual chat to a very somber conversation. I had made a mistake and he needed to correct me. “Let me tell you what a real hero is…”

“… it was 1951 and I was in the 4.2 Mortar group of the 45th Division of the Oklahoma National Guard in Korea. We were firing mortars when we came under attack. As we heard the incoming rounds fly past us, I dove to the ground and my helmet went flying off. Let me tell you Ben, you never feel more naked than when you have bullets flying past you and you do not have a helmet on.”

“That’s when Visloski,  who was from Pennsylvania, saw I’d lost my helmet. He jumped on top of my head, shielding it with his body, reached out and pulled my helmet back to me. That is a hero.”

Lesson learned. The whole conversation took about 5 minutes, but I’ve never used the term “hero” in business since. In fact, I’m not sure I’ve referred to anyone, other than my grandfather, as a hero of mine since. So the next time you think anyone in business is your hero, think again. Let’s save that term for the people who really deserve it - our men and woman in military service, policemen and firefighters. All the real heroes are those who risk their lives for us, while the rest of us lead our happily sheltered lives thanks to their efforts and sacrifices.

Question: Who is your real hero? How do you avoid hero-worship in business?

“To be humble to superiors is duty, to equals courtesy, to inferiors nobleness.”
- Benjamin Franklin

Rock Concert or Business Conference?

The scene resembled a large rock concert. There was a massive stage, huge projection screens, a booming sound system, laser lights and special effects that would make Broadway jealous. To say there was a great deal of excitement and anticipation for the presenter would be a major understatement. His name was announced, the music boomed and onto stage strode the classic image of a powerful, confident executive. Navy suit with pin stripes, tall, slender, salt-and-peppered hair, power tie and polished shoes. The audience’s applause roared. He walked to the podium, the music faded, applause stopped and the stadium settled to perfect silence in anticipation…

Narcissism Defined

“How’s everybody doing today?!” The keynote speaker began, with excitement in his voice. “Wow, what a year it’s been!  Since last year’s conference, a lot has changed. For example, I reorganized our division and product lines into….” he continued into details of how he, apparently personally, completed some organizational and product line restructuring. Then he continued, “in addition I introduced 12 new products, including some of the hottest new items on the market, such as…” he described a number of top selling products. “And what about services? Well, I introduced the following new service lines…”. Then, he launched into series a corporate acquisitions, “I purchased….”, “I merged…”, I… I… I…

BUZZ KILL.

Within the first 5 minutes of his presentation, all the excitement turned into disbelief at the narcissism displayed by this executive. Really?! Did they really just send that massive of an ego-maniac onto the stage?! This guy specifically said he did all these things – not once did I hear him mention the contributions of another individual or his team.

If you were a member of his organization, how would you have felt? I am sure his team put in a lot of hard work and many late nights. Without these contributions, many of “his” successes would never have come to fruition. If I worked for him, I think my resume would have hit the job boards the next day.

MORALE KILL.

His Narcissism, Our Lesson

Confronted with his narcissism, the executive would likely brush it off as an oversight on his part. He would likely reassure anyone inquiring, “of course I meant the team did all this” and follow up with a commitment to be more clear in the future. But how many stadium-sized opportunities does one get? These platforms are rare. The damage was done.

I hope your narcissism does not compare. Still, if we’re not careful, our own oversight can turn into narcissism. At the very least, oversight can easily kill the morale of our own teams. So how can leaders avoid narcissism and keep their team’s morale alive? Here are a few suggestions:

1. Thank someone every day: If not one, then two, three or twenty. Always be sure you reflect your gratitude.

2. Thank publicly: Most people appreciate public recognition. Given the opportunity, share your platform.

3. Document Credit: When creating communications, especially those for distribution, credit those that contributed.

4. Accountable, not Responsible: Toxic leaders tend to confuse accountability for responsibility. Remember, just because you’re accountable does not mean you are responsible for the success.

5. Serve First: Remember your role as a leader is to serve the team first, not for the team to serve you.

Question: What other ways do you or your leaders avoid narcissism and maintain humility?

Passion

Whenever it occurs, passion reflects an individual’s commitment, strong opinions and dedication to their position. In other words, passion may be described as a person’s unwillingness to maintain their composure. With a particularly strong belief in the matter at hand, passion is often the byproduct of someone deeply engaged in serving their organization. Therefore, I believe passion is a great characteristic to have in your team members.

Emotion

In contrast, emotion often stems from a person’s inability to maintain their composure. This is not necessarily a bad thing, depending upon the circumstances. For example, someone receiving negative feedback in a performance review may reveal their disappointment in tears. In addition, frustration from an inability to effectively influence others often results in anger – too often in public settings. While unfortunate, the former emotional scenario is somewhat understandable and, particularly given the confidential nature, generally acceptable. In contrast, losing one’s temper as a result of their own ineffectiveness is not acceptable. Either way, because emotion is generally perceived as a reflections of one’s inability to control their reactions to given situations, emotion is generally considered negative characteristic.

Call me crazy (or passionate), but I want people on my team that believe deeply in those they serve and therefore may reflect their passion through strong words and actions. Yes, I want people on my team who have the ability to maintain their composure.  However, if someone is passionate enough about their commitment to serving a person or group and therefore not willing to maintain their composure all the time, I’m okay with that. Provided, of course, they know when those right times are.

Question: Have you seen passion confused for emotion? Do you like having passionate people on your team?

Source: Wikipedia

The Fourth of July in the United States of America is celebrated as the nation’s birthday – our Independence Day.  It was on the 4th of July, 1776 that the Continental Congress adopted our Declaration of Independence from Great Britain. The creation of this document, the adoption of it’s authority by our congress and the freedom of our nation that it represented would not have been possible without the great service of many leaders in our young nation’s history. Created, read and adopted in Philadelphia, the document set forth many servant leadership ideals. Included among these statements is one of the most famous in the English language, which would eventually be used by Abraham Lincoln in the emancipation of slaves and the creation of Emancipation Proclamation:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Although most of the original text is attributed to Thomas Jefferson, every American associated with this document’s creation and adoption displayed great service to their fellow American. For every man that signed the document understood fully the risk they accepted willingly – the risk of execution by Great Britain for treason to the founding country. Beyond this great personal risk, each man supporting the document and its aims also risked their livelihood and even their family’s well being. As a result, it is clear these individuals were all willing to invest great personal risk in their devotion to serving the constituents of these United States of America.

Therefore, whether on the 4th of July or anytime throughout the year, we should remember the debt of gratitude we owe to these great servant leaders and founding fathers of our nation.

The servant leaders that signed of the Declaration of Independence included:

1. John Hancock

2. Josiah Bartlett

3. William Whipple

4. Matthew Thornton

5. Samuel Adams

6. John Adams

7. Robert Treat Paine

8. Elbridge Gerry

9. Stephen Hopkins

10. William Ellery

11. Roger Sherman

12. Samuel Huntington

13. William Williams

14. Oliver Wolcott

15. William Floyd

16. Philip Livingston

17. Francis Lewis

18. Lewis Morris

19. Richard Stockton

20. John Witherspoon

21. Francis Hopkinson

22. John Hart

23. Abraham Clark

24. Robert Morris

25. Benjamin Rush

26. Benjamin Franklin

27. John Morton

28. George Clymer

29. James Smith

30. George Taylor

31. James Wilson

32. George Ross

33. George Read

34. Caesar Rodney

35. Thomas McKean

36. Samuel Chase

37. William Paca

38. Thomas Stone

39. Charles Carroll of Carrollton

40. George Wythe

41. Richard Henry Lee

42. Thomas Jefferson

43. Benjamin Harrison

44. Thomas Nelson, Jr.

45. Francis Lightfoot Lee

46. Carter Braxton

47. William Hooper

48. Joseph Hewes

49. John Penn

50. Edward Rutledge

51. Thomas Heyward, Jr.

52. Thomas Lynch, Jr.

53. Arthur Middleton

54. Button Gwinnett

55. Lyman Hall

56. George Walton

Question: What Servant Leaders have helped you?

1. Evaluate Competitor Products: Within your company and beyond, what are the most admired leaders offering as a part of their “product”? Look at the managers within your organization with the best 360 feedback scores. Also, look at some of the greatest leaders outside your company – those highlighted from Fortune’s Best Companies to Work For or similar studies. The leadership products offered from these competitors are ones you should consider adopting features from for your own leadership product offering.

2. Conduct a Market Study: When was the last time you conducted a survey of your team’s reflection on the quality of your leadership product? 360 Feedback is great, but consider going beyond the standard HR processes and policies. One of the greatest tools I’ve seen is an anonymous Q&A session. In this process, employees on the team submit their questions to a human resources representative. The HR representative filters the questions, rephrases them into their own words to ensure anonymity, then asks the leader these questions live, in an open dialog with the team. Why not conduct your own, similar, marketing study?

3. Invest in Research & Development: Over time, the best products evolve through investments in R&D. Your leadership product should be no different. To maintain the interest and support of your team, you should continuously improve your leadership skills. Invest time with mentors and perhaps even a professional coach. Devote time to personal development and reading the latest leadership books and industry periodicals. If you fail to evolve your leadership product over time, your competitors will become more attractive while your product remains stagnant.

Your leadership is a product purchased by your followers. The team invests time, effort and creativity into your organization, at least in part due to your leadership. Therefore, as you serve the organization, it’s employees, customers, investors and other stake holders, you owe it to them to develop your leadership product. Failure to continuously develop this product could be more costly than failures in your organization’s end product and services.

Questions: What other ways do you invest in your leadership Product? How does your leadership develop their product?

There are so many “models” for servant leadership that I fear we may be creating confusion. For example, there is the Spears model of 10 attributes, the Frick and Sipe model of 7 pillars and of course, there is the “father” of servant leadership – Robert Greenleaf. Furthermore, there are countless religious references and philosophers that date back to 2000 BC. We need to simplify. We need a short, basic description that gets to the heart of the matter. It’s time for a Servant Leadership strip down – my proposed simplification of Servant Leadership.

At the heart of the matter, servant leadership is simply this: putting your stake holders before yourself and leading them through service to their needs. When in doubt if an action is servant led or not, simply ask this question: “How will this action impact all relevant stake holders?*” If it is not helping them, it is not serving them. If you’re not serving others, you’re not leading, you are self-serving.

And that, in my humble opinion, is servant leadership, stripped down to it’s most basic, fundamental principle. Still confused? Don’t worry, I’ll come up with yet another model to add to the complexity. Seriously though, for more information, you can review the Servant Leadership overview on this site.

* Yes, I realize this is similar to Greenleaf’s question that begins, “”The best test and difficult to administer, is…” I’m not trying to take credit for the idea – just supporting a simplification.

Note: This post is the sixth and last in a series of Servant Leadership Lessons from the Chick-Fil-A Leadercast 2010.

You know you’re in for a good presentation when the speaker starts off with a disclaimer that it is not his “intention to offend anyone, but if he does, too bad.” Ben Carson’s amazing story of success from meager beginnings to professor of neurosurgery, oncology, plastic surgery, and pediatrics at Johns Hopkins is truly amazing. In fact, Carson received the prestigious presidential Medal of Freedom and there is even a movie about his life. Perhaps most inspiring of all, is that his legacy will not be one of fame and fortune, but one of serving others. His scholarship program now seeks to ensure that all 4^th, 5^th and 6^th graders realize they can achieve just as much notoriety for academic success, as for a wicked jump shot. Highlights from Ben Carson’s presentation at the 2010 Chick-Fil-A Leadercast follow:

Ben Carson’s Background Comments

• “One of the nice things about medicine is that people turn their lives over to you and you can turn it back to them much better.”
• On Political Correctness: “It is not my intention to offend anyone this evening and if anyone is offended, too bad… I do not believe in political correctness.”
  • “Many people came to this country to escape others telling them what they should say or think and here we are reintroducing this through the backdoor.”
• He was glad his mother never developed the victims mentality, even though she only had a 3rd grade education
• Ben Carson was the worst student in the 5^th grade
  • Brother was doing poorly too
  • Mother prayed and felt God tell her to turn off the TV and have the boys read two books and give a book report of each, weekly
  • In 1.5 years, Carson went from bottom of class, to the top of the class
  • He reflected that he had the same brain, just a very different opinion of himself

On the State of Our Country & Education

• He believes the U.S. is headed for a fall, but we can turn it around
• Likened U.S. to Rome and other great civilizations… they all became enamored with themselves, lots of sports as priorities, materialism, lost their morals and these mighty civilizations fell
• The question, he felt, was can we (the United States) become the first pinnacle nation to foresee us about to fall and take corrective action?
  • Yes, there’s something different about us
• Look at our founding fathers. They were men of great faith
  • Many people today are trying to dilute faith or throw it out.
  • The whole world was about to come under tyrannical rule in World War II, were it not for the intervention of the U.S.
• As he speaks with colleagues in the medical profession from other countries, they reflect that it seems we are moving toward their medical system structure
  • This seems to disappoint them, because they looked to us to be the innovators, so we if we are settling into their programs rather than innovating something new, it leaves less hope for the future.
• “No knowledge is irrelevant, because you never know what opportunity will come.”
• “Success is…using the talent God gave you to elevate others.”
• “It’s okay to live by Godly principles.”
• “Not only can we still be a pinnacle nation, but we can be one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

On Peer Criticism

• P.E.E.R.S. in Peer Criticism stands for:
  • People
  • Encouraging
  • Errors
  • Rudeness and
  • Stupidity

For More from Ben Carson:

• The Carson Scholars Fund
• Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story (Movie)

Note: This post is the fifth in a series of Servant Leadership Lessons from the Chick-Fil-A Leadercast 2010.

John Maxwell has an amazing ability to connect with you – whether you are one member of an audience of 65,000+ (as we were this day) or one-on-one. This is appropriate, given that his latest book is entitled, “Everyone Communicates, Few Connect.” This was the main topic of his presentation – Connecting with Others. The best leaders serve their organizations in many ways, but one critical attribute is through their ability to connect. Highlights of Maxwell’s comments on serving and connecting follow:

• “Leadership is influence. Nothing more, nothing less.”
• Definition of “Connecting: the ability to identify with and relate to people in such a way that it increases our ability to influence them.”
• “Some of my best thinking is done by others.”

It’s Not About Us

• “Connecting is all about others… It’s not about us”
  • “If you help other people get what they want, they’ll help you get what you want.” – Zig Ziglar
  • “You put other people first”

It’s Not Lonely At The Top

• Some people say “it’s lonely at the top” but that’s not true.
• “If you’re up at the top all alone, nobody’s following you.” It’s not lonely at the top.
• What real leaders do, is they get off of “the top”. They go to where the people are.

• Then they bring the people (followers) to the top, with them.

Selfless

• When someone thinks of themselves first, they’re immature. They’re selfish.
  • That’s okay when you’re a small child.
  • However, it’s not okay when you’re 35, 45, 55, and you haven’t figured out that it’s not about you yet!
  • “When you become a leader, you give up your right to think about yourself first. Leadership is always about others first.”

Connecting Requires Intentionality

• “Connectors understand if they’re going to connect, they’re going to have to give it a lot of energy.”
  • “It requires intentionality, it requires energy to connect.”
  • Who is that person you need to expend energy to connect with.
  • Find Common Ground
  • “What makes connectors effective is they are constantly looking for common ground.”
  • Make time. Walk slowly through the crowd. Let people connect with you.
  • “Anybody that’s kept at a distance won’t hurt you, but they won’t help you either.”

More From John C. Maxwell

Website: http://www.johnmaxwell.com/
Latest Book: Everyone Communicates, Few Connect
Free Download:

• Give it Time PDF

The Power of Motivation MP3

Note: This post is the fifth in a series of Servant Leadership Lessons from the Chick-Fil-A Leadercast 2010.

At the 2010 Chick-Fil-A Leadercast, Jim Collins interviewed Ed Bastian, president of Delta Airlines and Jim Goodnight, CEO of SAS Institute. Both executives referenced servant leadership principles as key attributes in the success of their companies. As Collins framed it, this also presented an excellent dichotomy, with Delta the large, publicly held airline that went nearly bankrupt and SAS, the smaller, privately held company in the software industry. I found the session particularly interesting as well, given the very different personalities and leadership traits you find in these two individuals, as you will see from many of their comments:

Jim Goodnight

Disclaimer: Jim Goodnight and his efforts at SAS Institute have been the source of much Servant Leadership material for many proponents. As a result, I confess there is a potential for bias in my comments.

• One ways SAS supports its employees is by providing ‘additional income that is not taxed to employees’, such as free coffee, snacks, etc…
  • “It’s much better to keep the money and give it to your employees than send it to Washington – that just doesn’t make any sense to me.”

• “We only have a 35 hour week… have had that since 1976”

• They also have flexible start times, so some people start 7, 8, 9, etc.
• “We’re a knowledge company. Everything we do comes out of the heads of people who work there. “
• Jim Collins asked, how can you maintain a 35 hour work week when your competition in Silicon Valley are famous for 80 or 100 hour work weeks?
  • “The reason they’re working 80 or a 100 hours a week is because everything they did after 5 PM is pretty much mush. So when they come back in the morning, they spend a lot of time fixing that mush.”
  • “So, I feel it’s better to go home and be with your family than stay at the office making a lot of mistakes”
  • SAS Institute made a commitment to no layoffs.
    • “As a private company I don’t have to worry if my profits go up every year. “ He told everyone there would be no layoffs last year, but he told them they weren’t getting raises either. Still they seemed very happy with that.
    • “These are the kinds of times where it’s really important to understand your customer’s problems.”
    • Jim Collins had a great comment in his question build up here: “Some people think business can teach the social sector a lot. I hold a different view and think we can learn a lot from the social sector.”

What social sector issues do you feel passionate about / want to solve?

• “We’ve got to find ways to keep kids in schools longer.”
• “If business wants America to stay strong, we really need to step up and push government to do a better job in education.”
  • So many kids grow up with technology (cell phones, game systems, computers, etc.) and when they get to school they have to leave that at home…as a result they’re bored. I think that’s one reason so many drop out of school.

Any other advice / comments?

• He didn’t like cubicles during his experience working a year on the Apollo project, so we (SAS) only have offices. As a result, there are long hallways and we needed to buy art to fill those hallways.
• I find “the art tends to motivate people.”
• High School Basketball coach was an important mentor to Goodnight:
  • “If we won, it was always our win” the coach recognized it as a team success.
  • “If we lost, he (the basketball coach) said ‘I didn’t have you prepared, it was my fault’.”
  • “That selflessness is something I always tried to pursue.”

Ed Bastian

• Delta literally came within a few days of shutting the doors for good
• “Number one thing we did to comeback was to reconnect with the people of Delta Airlines”
• The Delta airlines founder had a quote: “’If you take care of your employees, your employees will take care of the customers’. And we’d forgotten about that.”
  • They had to reignite the spirit of Delta airlines to the employees
• When the company sat on the brink of closure, they approached the employees.  However, they didn’t use Powerpoint presentations, but just spoke with them. They told the employees the facts and said they (leadership) had made mistakes.
• At one point, well into their recovery, there was a takeover attempt by US Air that failed. That was a key moment in the turnaround for him and the leadership. They recognized the people said, “you’re not taking our airline away from us.”
• One of his key pieces of advice to organizations facing tremendous adversity is: “There are more things inside our control than outside…develop a mindset of agility and decide if you’re going to play offense or defense.”
• Other Advice for Leaders in the audience included:
  • “It’s our responsibility, as a corporate citizen of the community, to give back to the community.”
  • “Don’t focus on your career track so much as your own job…and you’ll progress much faster.”
  • As one of his mentors put it, “If you’re going to succeed in life, surround yourself with successful people.”
  • Hire someone smarter than you
  • Hire people that look different than you
  • “Be a perpetual optimist”

Jim Collins closed the panel discussion with a question to the audience:

• Think about who has mentored or coached you.
• Then consider, how do we pay that mentor back?

Mentor the next generation, of course.

More From Jim Goodnight

Website: http://www.sas.com/presscenter/bios/jgoodnight.html

More From Ed Bastian

Website: http://www.delta.com/about_delta/corporate_information/corporate_biographies/bastian/

Note: This post is the fourth in a series of Servant Leadership Lessons from the Chick-Fil-A Leadercast 2010

Mark Sanborn had many great phrases and memorable leadership quotes. In fact, Mark’s website includes the subheading, “Leadership doesn’t make a difference, it is the difference.” How true that is, at every level of the organization. His presentation focused on leaders as story builders, improvers and tellers. Below are highlights from Mark’s presentation:

Making a Better Story

• “Leaders don’t just tell a better story, they make the story better.”
• “We want leaders who can help us make our stories better than they would have been.”
• “…Consider your life (to be) a non-fiction book on the shelf of the bookstore of the world.”
• “Are you a better person because of your manager?”
  • The above is a question Sanborn asks employees of managers confidentially
  • Are you treating your employees like a WIP or WAC?
    • WIP= Work In Progress – how we often view ourselves
    • WAC=Works Already Completed – how we often look at others.
      • “Why do we treat them (those we meet) as foregone conclusions rather than a future possibility?”
      • “…it’s called Leadership not Controllership”
      • “The antidote to ‘stuck’ is hope.”
      • “You, as a leader, might have to resell people on their own value… You might have to renarrate their story…You might have misinterpreted your own story”
• “Reenergize people by giving them hope… Hope is having something new try and be willing to try.
  • • A future that is different than the one they currently occupy
    • “Refocus people from current struggles to future hopes.”
• “Redefine Failure”
  • “Failure is something that happens to you, not something you are…Failures are indicators you are making progress”
  • “Your resume is current until the day you retire. Your legacy will live beyond you.”
  • “We as leaders need to pay attention to how our stories are affecting others.”

C.R.A.F.T. Model

• Catch
  • Catch the other person’s story
  • Requires slowing down, make space to catch the other person’s story

• Respond
  • Don’t reject the story
  • People have no reason to change until we accept them
• Ask
  • Ask questions
  • What is your greatest hope here (at organization / business)?

• Feel
  • Listen with your heart.
  • A cynic is a passionate person that doesn’t want to be disappointed with you.
• Tell
  • Tell your Story
  • That’s where you find the connectivity
  • The focus is not on you or what you learned – but on how they can be better (their story can be better) because of what you learned in your story

I am grateful to Mark for his participation in the Chick-Fil-A Leadercast and especially enjoyed his CRAFT model. I see great alignment here with servant leadership principles.

More From Mark Sanborn

Website: http://www.marksanborn.com/
Latest Book: The Fred Factor
Free Download:

• Be The One – 13 Strategies for Self-Motivation PDF

Note: This post is the third in a series of Servant Leadership Lessons from the Chick-Fil-A Leadercast 2010.

Mark Sanborn interviewed Tony Dungy in a pre-recorded meeting. Dungy’s story and success in both the NFL and life read like a case-study in Servant Leadership. If you’ve not read them, I highly suggest his books, particularly the first, “Quiet Strength”. Below are some of the highlights from Tony Dungy’s Chick-Fil-A Leadercast interview:

• Q: How do we get people “unstuck”?
  • “Energize them…Show them the potential they have… what they are truly capable of.”
• Q: How do you get others committed to your vision and mission?
  • You need to explain, “It’s about more than us, the big picture, the whole team, the whole community… Even more than teamwork, the ultimate goal that all of us can strive for. That’s what you have to sell.”
• Q: What if they’re struggling before they see progress?
  • “You have to talk about perseverance…Show the examples that may not be obvious. Explain that this is not the time to give up, we’re close… Let them know we’re in it together.”
• Q: You have a Mentor-Leader book coming out in August, can you tell us a bit about it?
  • “The Mentor-leader helps people get where they want to be” (vs. pushing them).
• Q: You have a very different coaching style than the stereotype in the NFL, can you explain why / how?
  • You must “be yourself, you have to lead in your own way, don’t imitate others”
• Q: You’ve flagged players in the NFL as “DNDC” – What does that mean?
  • “Do Not Draft Because of Character…”
  • They had the talent, but something in their makeup would not make them a good addition to the group or team
• Q: Do you think Character is taught or caught?
  • A little of both
  • You need to take people w/ potential and build those character traits in
• Q: How do you avoid the “big head” syndrome after success?
  • His mother taught him “it’s important to understand where your success comes from, and it comes from the Lord.”
  • He also referenced a poem from John Wooden, given to him by Dungy’s High School coach:

Talent is God Given; be thankful

Praise is man given; be humble

Conceit is self-given; be careful

• Q: Sometimes you must mentor and sometimes discipline as a coach, how do you handle this?
  • “All coaching is mentoring and disciplining is part of it”
• Q: How do you ration your time and energy?
  • That’s always the dilemma for him
  • “You want to be the best at what you’re doing…people at work are depending on you…people at home are depending on you… Family has to come first – that’s who’s going to be with you the rest of your life.”
• Q: Any other thoughts you’d like to leave with the audience?
  • “God’s put you where you are for a reason. You are impacting a lot of people, whether you know it or not.”
  • “The biggest thing you’ve gotta have is perseverance”
  • “You can make an impact today, right where you are.”
  • Look inside you, figure out what you can do and you can be the one.”

Again, I highly recommend Dungy’s books as they are packed with Servant-Leadership material. It sounds like his forthcoming book this Summer, The Mentor Leader, will continue down this path. My gratitude to Tony for his continued support and promotion of servant leadership principles.

More From Tony Dungy

Website: http://www.coachdungy.com/
Latest Book: The Mentor-Leader (08.03.2010)

Note: This post is the second in a series of Servant Leadership Lessons from the Chick-Fil-A Leadercast 2010.

At the 2010 Chick-Fil-A Leadercast, Jim Collins’s talk referenced much of his work in the revolutionary books Built to Last and Good to Great. However, most of the discussion centered on his latest work: How the Mighty Fall. I looked forward to this talk, because the Level 5 Leadership model from Good to Great is frequently referenced as really another name for servant leadership. In addition, when studying leadership, we need to focus not only on success, but also comparative failures, such as those reflected in his latest book.  Below are servant leadership highlights from Collins presentation:

How the Mighty Fall

How the Mighty Fall is Collins’ latest book and focuses on how some of the greatest companies failed and defining the stages consistent across these failures. There are five stages that he and the research team identified. He walked us through each. Below are highlights by each stage.

Stage 1: Hubris Born of Success

• They found, in many highly successful companies, cases of outrageous arrogance that inflects damage on innocents
• The issue at stake was not that the failed companies lacked some form of strong leadership, but that… “…the Great companies had a different type of leader”
  • They had Level 5 Leaders (see Good To Great)
  • For the record, many of us in the Servant Leadership proponents corner, believe Level 5 Leadership is really just another term for Servant Leadership. Collins addressed this in GtG by stating something along the lines of not wanting to give the reader the wrong idea by calling it Servant Leadership.
  • “The signature of the greatest executives we studied is their humility.”
• “If you become complacent, you will fall.”

Stage 2: Undisciplined Pursuit of More

• Packard’s Law (Cofounder of HP):
  • If you allow growth in scale…. to exceed your ability to have all key seats filled with the right people, you will fall.
  • “It’s not first what, it’s first who.”

Stage 3: Denial of Risk and Peril

• In this stage, the warning signs begin to accumulate
• People who raise financial weaknesses and other concerns may be perceived as “negative” or not “team players”
• The companies may still look good on the outside
• You must have “the discipline to confront the most brutal facts.”
  • Marry that with the faith that we will prevail – that is the Stockdale paradox
  • You need to be brutally honest with the facts, yet have the courage, determination, will and faith that you will succeed in surmounting the challenges.

Stage 4: Grasping for Salvation

• The company begins to respond to signs of falter by “grasping for salvation”
• This often takes the form of hiring charismatic, external leaders
• 2/3 of the failures studied tried to fix the situation by bringing in “savior” CEOs from the outside
  • Initially, this produces a burst of hope, but it doesn’t have the staying power
  • “Greatness never gets built with a single event, single leader or single program.”
  • Examples of Success to Remember:
    • Sam Walton did not add his second store until 7 years after opening the first
    • Starbucks did not establish their 5^th store until 13 years into their development
    • Most overnight success stories are 20 years in the making
    • If you stay in stage 4 long enough you erode financial capital and cultural capital
      • Cultural capital was a key and often overlooked principle
      • The idea is that these swings up and down, of fleeting moments of success, erode the will and faith of the people that the next upswing will work and you lose energy and momentum as a result.

Stage 5: Capitulation to Irrelevance or Death

• As Collins put it, he did not want to spend much time on this, because there’s not much to say – it’s over.
• Key point to remember: Just because we haven’t yet fallen, doesn’t mean we can’t – some of the Good to Great companies fell all the way

Built To Last Comparison to the Fallen Companies

Collins reflected that all 18 companies from the Built to Last study, still remained independent entities 20 years after the study. They had not “fallen”. In fact, the probability of a random sampling of S&P 500 companies being in the same boat, is 5 standard errors – so remote, that it may be considered statistically impossible.  As he put it, you had to understand this contrast – what made them so great? How did they avoid falling when other, seemingly great companies, did not?  His conclusions included:

• You must have a reason to fight, beyond just making money
  • Disney Example:
    • Disney faced a takeover battle at one point
    • The board and management thought that was unthinkable, even though the company was worth more for its assets than the company as a whole
      • Note: “Storming the Magic Kingdom” book has more on this
      • The company determined there was a reason for them to be here and it is not just financial
        • The kids, the families, what would they think? What would be lost if they weren’t here anymore?
        • Every great company can answer this question: “Why would it matter if we disappear?”
        • Every great company is built upon core values that are not open for discussion or for change – that sustain you when you are hit with shock, after shock, after shock.
        • All great companies existed in the middle of depression
          • P&G Example:
            • Was pressured to cheapen quality during depression, the answer was still no
            • “If we lose our values we lose our soul. If we lose our soul, we lose it all… We will not abandon our values.”
            • There is still this paradox: You also have to be flexible to adapt in a changing world
              • This is the genius of the “and”
              • “Preserve the Core and stimulate progress.”…“What is in the core is those values that do not change.”
              • “All great leaders we studied embraced the genius of the ‘and’.”
              • “How do you get people to share the values? You don’t. You select the people who already share the values.”
              • 90% of Good to Great CEOS came from inside the company
              • “In the end what you have to have is core values and BHAGs. You have to have both.”

To Do List

So based on this research, what are the actions we should take? Collins proposed the following list of 10 items “To Do”:

1. Build a pocket of greatness
   1. Take responsibility for making your “minibus” (your realm of responsibility) great
   2. It will grow bigger and bigger
2. Do your diagnostics (JimCollins.com for free examples and diagnostic tools)
3. Before this year is over answer:
   1. What are the key seats on your bus?
   2. What percentage are filled with right people?
   3. What are your plans to get to 100%
4. Build your own personal Board of Directors
   1. Who do you allow to be your mentors?
5. Create pockets of quiet
   1. Block time to zoom out and think
   2. Turn off electronic gadgets
6. What is your questions to statements ratio?
   1. Can you double it in the next year?
7. Get the right people
8. Ask the right questions
   1. Take Disciplined Action
9. Most people have a “To Do List”
   1. You also need a stop doing list too
   2. Great leaders are clear first on what we should stop doing
   3. Experiment with removing titles
   4. The right people realize they do not have a job, they have responsibilities
   5. “Spend more time being interested than being interesting.”
   6. Articulate the Core Values
   7. This will enable you to rebuke the next wave of shocks
10. Set BHAGs (Big Hairy Audacious Goals)
    1. Marry Values to BHAGs

Before exiting the stage, Collins told a great, personal story. He met the late, great Peter Drucker, who saw in Collins concerns about the future and whether or Collins’ career would be a success. Drucker responded to him, “The question is not how to survive or how to succeed. Why don’t you think about how to be useful.” Collins simply looked at the audience and ended by saying, “Go out and make yourself useful.”

If you have not read all of Collins’ books, you owe it to your teams and your employers to do so. The results of their studies are some of the best business cases for the implementation of Servant Leadership.

More From Jim Collins

Website: http://www.jimcollins.com/
Latest Book: How the Mighty Fall
Free Downloads:

• The 10 Greatest CEOs of All Time PDF
• The Secret of Enduring Greatness PDF

Note: This post is the first in a series of Servant Leadership Lessons from the Chick-Fil-A Leadercast 2010.

At the Chick-Fil-A Leadercast, Connie Podesta focused on connecting our personal and professional lives. She also covered a range of topics including some humor (and interesting facts) surrounding the common differences between male and female communication styles. However, the servant leadership themes I took away from Connie included: leaders should align work and personal lives and they must remember that everyone is always leading by example (my words, not hers). As leaders serving your organization, aligning your personal lives with work lives and not attempting to balance the two, is something I wrote about here. It’s also critical for the serving leader to remember they are always on stage – setting the example for others, as their teams are for peers. Below are some highlights from her talk, aligned to these themes:

Work / Life Alignment, Not Balance

• “There is no separating your personal and professional life”
• Leadership is a 24×7 job
• When consulting, clients often suggest there is not enough time to address the employee’s personal lives and interests, but she finds that is the most important part and necessary.
• “When it comes to material possessions we need to focus more on what we need and not so much on what we want.”
• If you think you need your job, you’ll never be happy at work.

Everyone Is Always Leading, By Example

• You’re on stage every single day of your life
• Your kids, clients, family, employees, church congregation, etc. are all in the audience – they are watching you and trying to decide how you are going to influence them
• “There’s not a human being in your life you can make happy”
• Leadership has changed from 20 years ago, employees and children have not.
  • Employees and children have always looked to leaders and parents, taking their cues for how to behave from them
  • “Character is defined not by how you are when life is going good… Leadership comes out when your life is so far from what you had planned, that you can barely breathe.”

Before leaving, she asked the audience if they are happy with the personal choices they’ve made. Then, are they happy with the professional choices they’ve made. She let it hang there, before exiting.

More From Connie Podesta

Website: http://www.conniepodesta.com/
Latest Book: How to Be the Person Successful Companies Fight to Keep
Free Downloads:

• Change Habits PDF
• Be #1 In Leadership PDF

Servant Leadership Stands Out From the Crowd

Sitting in the CxO’s office, I was stunned. He just asked me to covertly backup another person’s data before he fired them. This was the fourth senior level manager he would fire, less than a year after hiring them. The cycle was now complete for a third time, as his entire department had turned over three times in just under two years. As the technology leader for the organization, one of my unfortunate  responsibilities was supporting these practices. This leadership style, or lack thereof, was in stark contrast to other methods I experienced to achieve success. That moment was the start of a long, winding path leading to the creation of The Modern Servant Leader website.

After experiencing success under many different circumstances and leadership styles, I recognized a key differentiation between leadership styles I supported and those I did not – sustainability. Although I did not yet know the name for it, I recognized servant leaders achieved the greatest success with an ability to sustain that success. In contrast, non-serving leaders used fear and borrowed from the future to obtain success in the short-term, often resulting in low morale, high turnover and limited sustainability.

No longer could I support these practices. No saint myself, I had allowed my skills and expertise to be used in support of leadership practices that offended me and it was time for change. With this background, I committed to researching leadership practices, naming my own beliefs and ultimately promoting the awareness and adoption of these practices. As a result, I was thrilled when I read about servant leadership. I found that servant leadership captured the source of true leadership, delivered sustainable results and aligned with my own values and beliefs.

After years of  studying servant leadership, comparing it to my own experiences – both good and bad, I wanted to share what I learned with others. Thus, The Modern Servant Leader (ModernServantLeader.com) was born. This site is dedicated to spreading the awareness, adoption and support of servant leadership practices with an emphasis on modern trends, challenges and technology. If you have any questions, suggestions or other feedback, please, let me know.

Thank you for visiting the site. I hope you find something here that helps you in the development of leadership practices for yourself and your organization.

Question: How did you first hear about servant leadership?

Are you a Servant Leader? Is your boss or someone else you know? Try this assessment to find out. Use this

free leadership assessment to evaluate yourself or another person, on Servant Leadership attributes.

If evaluating yourself, be honest in your responses.  Don’t respond with how you would like to act, but with how you actually act. Each question includes examples of Servant Leadership in action. After completing the assessment, you will be given your score and the “correct” (Servant Leadership) answers. There are only 18 questions, each with two possible answers. The entire assessment should not take more than 15 minutes to complete.

When finished, you’ll receive a Servant Leadership Grade:

• Servant Leader – Expert
• Servant Leader – Professional
• Servant Leader
• Servant Leader – Novice
• Servant Leader – Amateur
• Servant Leader – Beginner
• Passed – Barely
• Failed

Take The Quiz Now

Note: The quiz is based on Larry Spears‘ 10 Attributes of Servant Leadership. However, the questions are general enough that I believe they apply in any Servant Leader framework.

The Hope College Anchor

Last night, I was honored to participate in a panel on Servant Leadership at Hope College’s Center for Faithful Leadership.  The panel was part of the college’s mentoring program. Below are the questions we covered and my responses (including more content than covered in the session) :

1. What does Servant Leadership mean to you?

For me, Servant Leadership is the only real form of leadership.  After all, if you’re not serving others, you are not leading.  If your primary ambition is self-motivated for personal success, fame and fortune and not for a greater cause, then all you’re really doing is pursuing vain ambitions.

In contrast to the self-serving individual, servant leaders seek to help others become something greater.  They put all stakeholders before themselves in some degree.  Some people think servant leadership means only serving your employees, the poor or any singular constituency, but it’s really about understanding the needs of the broader organization.  So, in business for example, this means yes, serving your employees, but it also means serving your customers, supervisors and investors.

2. Why should we strive to become servant leaders?

Not only is servant leadership the only real form of leadership – it’s also the greatest.  When you think of leaders that motivate you, chances are they’re serving you and others, first.  While it is possible to become successful in business, athletics, academics or other fields by yourself, you can only go so far on your own.  Nobody changed the world by themselves. People, supporters and team members want genuine, authentic leaders with noble motives and intentions.

Fewer people support the leader today who just wants to make a profit.  Instead, people want to follow greater causes.  This is true in every field – not just altruistic causes. In business, people don’t just want to make more money – they want to provide a better lifestyle for their investors, while making their customer’s lives better. So the greedy CEO who is willing to win at any cost will find fewer and less dedicated followers.

3. How does one become a servant leader?

Put the needs of others before your own.  You don’t have to sacrifice everything, but you should strive for the greater good before your own fame, fortune or glory.  From my own experience, I did not start this way.  When I was a college student myself, I had never heard the term servant leadership.  In fact, I was pretty close to the opposite. If someone asked me if I believed in these principles, I am sure I would have agreed, from a theoretical perspective.  However, the reality was quite different.

I wanted to be the next Bill Gates, Donald Trump or any wildly successful technology entrepreneur. I wanted my name in lights. But then something happened. I met my first servant leader in business.

This man was contrary to everything I thought you had to be in business. I thought you had to be cold and heartless. I thought you had to always be looking out for number one.  But this manager was always looking out for others, always had time to hear my concerns, always helped his staff and always framed decisions in how they would impact the broader organization.  Over time I met several other servant leaders and worked for many similar managers.

Then something changed. I began to experience other leaders and organizations that were much less service focused. Yet in some way, every manager or leader was successful.  The difference I witnessed was in how each leader got their results. The servant leaders had a great degree of sustainability. Their happy staffs had lower turnover, the organizations ran on lower overhead as a result and people enjoyed their jobs. In contrast, the more self-centered, autocratic leaders had higher turnover, lower morale and greater overhead expenses as a result.

This all culminated when I worked for a true narcissist.  This senior executive had a nasty habit of hiring and firing people within a year.  I was responsible for one-half of his team and we’d grown successfully over the course of two years. We had great results to report and the team seemed, overall, fairly happy with their work. In contrast, the other half of his team had turned over three full times in the same 2 years. They faced serious audits and were under great scrutiny both internally and externally. Much of the work in the area had to be outsourced for continuity and stabilization.

I had to find a better way of explaining this better way of leadership I now tried to practice.  And so began my long journey to raise awareness and support of Servant Leadership. So while I still have a long way to go, it is possible for someone not initially servant leader-focused to develop these skills.

4. What is most rewarding about servant leadership?

Seeing others succeed. I’ll never forget the day I heard an employee on one the teams I was responsible for say he wanted to ensure he always tried to practice servant leadership. I introduced the concept to him months earlier and he was so impressed at how it generated broader success and results for all that he’d adopted it as his own philosophy.  When I saw it listed in his career development plan later that year, it was all I could do to keep from shouting with joy.  The concept is infectious and it helps us all win together.

5. What is most challenging about servant leadership?

For me, it’s checking your own pride and ego at the door. I still struggle with this myself and I suspect I’m not the only one. Would I still like to see my name in lights, on that magazine cover or attached to some big award or title?  Sure, at times.  But when I die, I don’t want them to say I won some great awards or was recognized as some great expert. I want them to say I helped build something greater than myself, something others were proud of and that I helped spread that approach.  So you have to be willing and wanting to truly help others. Again, not just your team, but all stakeholders.

Feedback, Q&A

Following the formal panel, I was impressed by the students and their mentors’ questions and comments.  The group recognized a growing trend among “generation Me” to focus on self-promotion and the resulting need for greater servant leadership.  Yet, at the same time, there were great examples they referenced of servant leadership in business, both from direct experience at organizations like Ford (which also had an example of autocratic leadership), Fleetwood and a local restaurant as well as among non-profits and service organizations. The students recognized the greater results and benefits from servant leadership and seemed clearly aligned with these beliefs. As a result, I was encouraged by the session, these student’s perspectives and Hope College’s development of those they serve in this space.

Note: My thanks to Dr. Steve VanderVeen, Marcia Floding, Hope College, Center for Faithful Leadership staff and co-panelist Jinny DeJong for this opportunity to develop greater awareness and support for Servant Leadership principles. You are all great servant leaders. Please continue the great work.

Question: What servant leaders have you known and how have they helped you?

Martin Luther King Jr. - I Have A Dream

Martin Luther King is among the greatest Servant Leaders this world has ever seen.  His vision, leadership and ultimate sacrifice blazed a path for millions.  There are many great posts, videos and other references that remind us of his vision and social injustices he would fight still today.  Below are some of my favorites:

1. Wikipedia Article – For a brief background and history on the man and his amazing contributions.

2. I Have a Dream Speech – The famous speech, in full length. Link here to YouTube. Video embedded below.

3. Look Here Interview – This is one of my favorite interviews of King.  It is particularly humanizing of the man while displaying his great intellect and the foundation of many of his beliefs.

4. Assassination Report – Walter Cronkite’s coverage on CBS News of King’s assassination. While MLK Day should be a celebration of the man, this video is also a reminder of the tragedy we experienced as a nation that day.

5. The King Center -The King Center is “the official, living memorial dedicated to the advancement of the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr…”

Question: What are some of your favorite references or quotes from Martin Luther King Jr.?

Embedded Videos

I Have a Dream:

Look Here Interview:

Assassination Report on CBS News:

What are your Leadership New Year's Resolutions?

Thinking about your New Year’s resolutions?  Here’s a quick list of ideas for leaders.  The list includes a few of the standards, but aims to inspire some new ideas for each of us:

1. Physical Fitness - Whether it’s weight loss, increased exercise or dropping a bad habit, this standard is important for leaders to maintain stress levels.  You may also find increased productivity.
2. Listen More – Find yourself speaking more than you listen?  Did your latest 360 feedback suggest the team may not feel their input is valued enough?  Commit to listening a greater percentage of the time.
3. Succession Planning - Too many leaders let real succession planning wait too long, if they do it at all.  Why not start the new year right with specific steps to ensure strong succession planning throughout the organization?
4. Development Planning – Does everyone reporting to you have a strong, specific and measurable professional development plan?  If you’re not growing the organization, who is?  Perhaps this is the year to really tackle the matter.
5. Multi-Channel Communication - Often, as leaders, we forget that people benefit from different mediums of communication.  Perhaps this year is a good time to ensure your messages are spoken, written and broadcast.
6. Open Door Policy - Were you “too busy” to maintain that open door policy last year?  Try opening it again.  If not all day every day, perhaps hold open door office hours and stick to them this year.
7. Responsiveness – Is your inbox volume out of control?  Haven’t cleared that voicemail in a long time?  Try setting aside an hour a week or a daily block to review and respond to your messages regularly.
8. Strengthen Relationships - How well do you really know your coworkers?  We want to help those we care for and support.  This year, maybe we need to make more time to understand colleagues and building relationships.
9. Emphasize Credit – (and Minimize blame).  It’s too easy to give blame out as “accountability”.  This year, maybe we need to ensure for each accountability message, we provide at least 10 praise / credit messages.
10. Serve More - Of course, I had to suggest this one.  This year, why not commit to asking yourself regularly, “how will this decision / action / message serve the organization better?”

Question: What are your New Year’s Resolutions?

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.”

1. Accountability
   Servant Leaders accept the blame for failures within the team. However, in serving their organization and their stakeholders, they must ensure accountability. As a result, leaders must follow up on failures, identify the root cause, fix whatever process and circumstances are required, but also hold people accountable. This is never an easy conversation and the person accountable for the failure undoubtedly does not like receiving the message. Yet, this dialogue is necessary if the leader is to meet the needs of all stakeholders. What separates the servant leader from others is their assurance to reprimand in private and set clear expectations with guidelines to avoid a recurrence of that failure. In contrast, power-based leaders may use public humiliation tactics to “make an example” of the individual accountable for the failure.
2. Military
   One of the top Servant Leader consultants and thought leaders, James D. Hunter, has many clients in the military (mostly the U.S. Army and Air Force). When you think about a drill sergeant barking orders at new cadets in a military film, you don’t think of “nice guys”. However, in preparing these troops for the high demands and significant risks of their future, the sergeant is serving these men and women in some of the most extreme ways. In order to prepare troops to respond in a crisis (see below), they must learn quickly to obey orders, follow a chain of command and countless other concerns in a very short time. What sets the servant leader apart from others is their focus on serving those troops and their community (or country), while other leaders may leverage abusive tactics for their own career advancement.
3. Crisis
   In times of crisis, the servant leader makes decisive actions that may not always reflect full consensus.Regardless , when quick action is required, especially when that action means risk to the leader, the servant leader steps up to the challenge. Often, in cases of crisis, leaders are slow to step forward – be it for fear of retribution, losing political clout, fear of making the wrong snap judgments or simply the insecurity most feel in such uncertainty. In these times, leaders need to serve by accepting the risks of quick decision making to protect and serve the community. In responding quickly and effectively under crisis, the servant leader may make rushed decisions that are perceived as cruel, unreasonable or simply against the norm. However, to do less in a time of crisis may be detrimental to those they serve. While serving leaders make bold decisions to serve immediate needs of their stakeholders, others may manipulate the circumstances to achieve personal fame and glory for their own benefit.
4. Managing Out
   In serving their stakeholders, servant leaders often find individuals whose interests and / or skills would be better utilized elsewhere. This may mean on another team or with another company altogether. A servant leader understands the needs of the organization, serves its stakeholders by finding the best people for the job and helps the organization’s people find the best job. This may mean people need to be led out of their role, to new opportunities. What sets the servant leader apart from others is their commitment to helping anyone displaced by the shifting needs of an organization. A servant leader goes above and beyond to help their team find the best fit for their skills, experience and passion, regardless of where that fit may be.

When circumstances call for it, servant leaders can seem mean too. However, therein lies the difference between servant leaders and others – there needs to be the right circumstances. Servant leaders don’t condemn someone for immaterial savings, they will not belittle vendors to achieve higher service levels and they will not reprimand publicly, just to set an example. A servant leader will not be soft because they want everyone to like them, for if they were, they would not be serving their organization. In serving others, great leaders may seem mean, but they never have to be cruel or respond in a manner that reflects anything other than our commitment to serving stakeholders and our community.

Questions:

1. Have you known a leader you thought was “mean” but later realized they were serving the organization?
2. What other ways have you seen great leaders act in a “mean” way?

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.

In the chapter entitled, “Project Management Leadership: Servant-Leader vs. Subject Matter Expert”, Perry introduces the concept of servant leadership for project managers. In addition, the author presents servant leadership for the PMO in the framework of the 10 servant leadership characteristices defined by Larry Spears (Listening, Empathy, Healing, Awareness, Persuasion, Conceptualization, Foresight, Stewardship, Commitment to the Growth of People and Building Community). In addition, contributor Jennifer Arndt, PMO Manager for the American Chemical Society, wrote about Situational Leadership for project managers while Michelle LaBrosse, Founder and CEO of Cheetah Learning, wrote about How to Get What You Want.

In my contribution, entitled, “Servant Leadership for the IT Project Manager”, I explain why the project manager is best positioned in the organization to execute and / or change leadership culture in an organization, given their multiple cross-functional touchpoints. In addition, I explained that Project Managers need to look at the Complete Return On Investment (CROI) for a project, not simply the tradditional, financial perspective. In addition to the standard financial ROI, the Complete Project ROI encompasses values such as new skills obtained by the project team, team building outcomes, education of stakeholders and enhanced morale. Finally, this contribution also addressed the concerns project managers face in the times of a crisis or turnaround and how we, as servant leaders, should respond.

Mark has done an outstanding job in creating a book every Project Manager should have on their shelf and he is receiving excellent reviews as a result. The feedback implies “Mission Accomplished” for Perry as he delivered the no-nonsense, real world actionable insights that seem lacking in today’s Project Management literature and guides. I encourage you to pick up a copy (no, I do not receive a commision).

Table of Contents:
Chapter 1: Mission, Goals and Objectives — Business Driven vs. Theory Driven
Chapter 2: Organization — Constituent Oriented vs. Inwardly Focused
Chapter 3: Managing Projects — Think Process, Not Methodology
Chapter 4: Managing the PMO — Embracing Flexibility vs. Mandating Conformance
Chapter 5: PMO Tools — Establishing a PMO Architecture vs. Implementing a Tool
Chapter 6: Executive Reporting — Keeping It Simple
Chapter 7: PMO Leadership — MBWA 2.0 vs. The Meeting Manager
Chapter 8: Project Management Leadership — Servant Leader vs. Subject Matter Expert
Chapter 9: Creating High Performance Teams
Chapter 10: Establishing a PMO — A Practical Roadmap
Chapter 11: Line of Business PMOs — The Ubiquitous Nature of Project Management
Chapter 12: Advancing Organizational Project Management — From Theory to Practice
Chapter 13: PMO Passion — Where does it come from?