Sometimes the idea of taking leadership can be scary. We’re stepping out, making a commitment, and asking something of ourselves. All scary things. However, if you’re an aspiring leader who’s mouth goes dry and palms sweaty at the thought of leading, be comforted. The body language of the humans I’ve observed says they’re begging you to.

Photo Credit: Leo Reynolds

More people means added complexity. This leads to rules and guidelines. Rules are good because they help set expectations. However, they’re also bad because they tend to generic and rigid. No one wants the word “generic” to describe their business.

You’ve been successful so you play not to lose. Have you ever watched a sports team playing not to lose? They usually end up losing. They’re timid and reserved. No on wants the words “timid” and “reserved” to describe their business.

Grown up organizations also tend to struggle with memory loss. They forget why the hell they started doing this. At some point along the way the main thing isn’t the main thing anymore. It becomes about “satisfying customers”. (Who wants satisfied customers? I want ecstatic customers!) It becomes about pleasing shareholders or moving our profit margin up a menial .5% this month over the last. You need a mission, a mantra, a dream, an enemy. No one wants the words “satisfied” or “menial” to describe their business.

The trick is to grow your business without killing it’s soul. That takes leadership.

Photo Credit: davehat’s photostream

Here’s how the scenario always seems to play out. You’re passionate about some cause or injustice in the world. You think to yourself, “If I could only work to solve that problem full time I would be so happy. This is what I want my life to be about.” You start a non-profit not realizing what you have truly signed up for: you are now chief fundraiser. Not chief child hugger or chief mouth feeder. No no, as the leader of this organization what you will spend most of your time doing is raising money to equip other people to accomplish the vision or solve the problem. I believe this is a noble task, but it’s not for everyone.

If you want to spend your life directly working on some cause then get a job at an existing non-profit. Don’t start one.

Photo Credit: striatic

1. Be A Listener

We tend to think of leaders as people who are very comfortable talking.  There is a grain of truth in that idea because leaders need to be good communicators, yet even more important than the gift of gab is the gift of  listening, here’s why.  When people feel listened to they feel you genuinely like them, when people feel you genuinely like them they tend to trust you, and when someone trusts you, they’ll follow you.  Listening is almost magical in the way it can magnetize people to you.  To develop your listening skills is surprisingly difficult so here are 3 tips to help you along the way.  First, ask questions.  This puts the ball in their court and allows you to adopt the posture of listener.  Second, make small engaging comments and sounds.  A simple, “Yep, I see what you’re saying” or a “uh huh” communicates that you’re really listening and encourages them to continue talking.  Third, shut up.  You’ll be tempted to jump in with stories, insights, and opinions of your own but just hold back.  When they’re ready for you to talk they’ll tell you with their words or their body language.

2. Keep Your Thumb To The Pulse

Good leaders know the “pulse” of their organization.  They don’t necessarily know how or why but they’re very in touch with employee and customer challenges, expectations, fears, and emotions.  If you ask a good leader “So what’s the vibe of your organization right now?”  They won’t look back at you with a blank look on their face, instead they’ll start talking.  There are few things worse than a leader who has lost the pulse of his/her organization because it begins to undermine their influence on those following them.  Employees begin to wonder “Why don’t they know about this?  How can they be so clueless?”  One of the best suggestions I’ve heard for any leader trying to keep the pulse of their organization is M.B.W.A., or, “Management By Wandering Around”.  It’s been an essential leadership principle at Hewlett-Packard for years and I think it can be especially useful for growing business or larger established organizations.  The idea is that a leader takes ample time each week to walk around, observe, listen, and connect with people.  Note the word “connect”.  This is about geniune listening and interaction, not spying!  What are people discussing at the water cooler?  What are their thoughts about the organization?  What’s been going well?  What hasn’t been going so well?  What would they change?  What do they miss?  The only agenda is to cut through bureaucracy and begin to regain the pulse of your organization.  

3. Be An Emotional Thermostat Not A Thermometer

A good leader tends to be a bit of contrarian.  When everyone is screaming “The sky is falling!  Stocks are dropping. Our economy is sinking.  This will be the end.  We’re going under fast.  It’s over.” The leader steps in and offers a calming influence.  Their words, tone of voice, and demeanor all communicate “everyone needs to take a deep breath and relax.  Yes times are hard but it’s going to be okay.  Let’s just focus on what we can control right now and move forward.  Things will change.”  This doesn’t mean they are in denial it just means they have wisdom.  On the flip side, when everyone is screaming “Things have never been better!  Stocks are up, up, up.  Onward and upward forever.  All our problems are solved.”  The leader again steps in and provides a calming influence.  ”Times are good so let’s be sure to enjoy them” they’ll say “but we all need to remember that this won’t last forever so let’s keep hustling and doing what we do with excellence.”  Thermometers reflect the outside temperature but a thermostat changes the temperature, as a leader be the thermostat when it comes to the emotions of you’re group.  Especially in times like we’re experiencing now people are looking for something special from you.

Misconception 1: Leadership is a position or title.

This is probably the most common leadership fallacy around, especially among young emerging leaders. They think to themselves “If only I could get that position then people would respect and follow me. The reason I’m struggling here is because they won’t give me that title.” The reality is that people will follow you because of your title for about one hour, if you haven’t proved your worth by then don’t expect many people to be paying attention. William Wallace in the movie Braveheart said it best, “Men don’t follow titles, they follow courage.” Wise words from our friend William.

Misconception 2: Leadership is a characteristic you’re born with.

Certainly some people seem to have a knack for leadership, however it’s much more a learned skill than anything innate. Just read the biography of any famous leader and you’ll see the process they went through to become the great men and women they are. I think they would all agree that they learned to be great rather than being born that way.

Misconception 3: Leadership is responsibility for certain tasks.

I think this confusion stems from the first misconception. We get in a certain position and instead of thinking “Who do I need to lead?” We ask, “What do I need to do?” So having touched on these three misconceptions, let me get to our original question: “What is leadership?”

I believe that leadership is influence. It’s been said that a “leader without followers is just taking a walk” and our definition of leadership couldn’t align more. With this truth in mind, Ghandi, Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Theresa, and even Adolph Hitler were all extremely powerful leaders. Not primarily because of their positions, innate charisma, or ability to accomplish high level tasks. They were powerful leaders because of the profound influence they had on people, of course we may or may not like how they were waging that influence but at the end of the day no one can dispute their profound impact on peoples lives. So if you’ve been wondering whether or not you’re a leader, wonder no more. All you have to do is take a look around and ask “is anyone following me?”

Serving as inspiration for this post are Developing The Leader Within You by John Maxwell and Courageous Leadership by Bill Hybels.

What Is Relational Capacity?

When I say relational capacity I’m talking about the level of relationship you have with the other team members.  If your team is an engine then relational capacity is the grease.  It’s there in every interaction: smoothing over sharp-edged personalities, lubricating every disappointing moment, and easing the friction of hard conversations.  A team can function for a while without this ingredient but eventually without the grease the engine will break down.  Commonplace comments like the following show where many leaders mindsets are when it comes to team leadership, “Oh come on” they say, “I’m not here to be friends with these people, I’m here to lead them.  This is business, it’s not personal.”  The problem with this thinking is that it assumes people will follow you because of your position or title, when the reality is that leadership is influence, and your ability to influence people is largely dependent on your level of relationship with them. The question you should be asking yourself is “How can I get people to want to follow me?”  Imagine if you were the team leader or boss that people actually wanted to work with.  Imagine if people genuinely enjoyed team meetings?  Imagine if your team kept improving as the months and years went by. A utopian dream?  I don’t think so.  

New Hope 

Before joining the business world I worked as a youth pastor for over four years at a large suburban church nestled in the suburbs north of Dallas.  As you may know churches are notorious for their nasty infighting and splits and it seems some churches can’t go five years without some major meltdown among the leadership team. But what I witnessed among the leadership team of New Hope was a beautiful thing.  Here were a handful of people from all sorts of different socioeconomic backgrounds, serving side by side, taking a church from 100 people to 1,000 in just a few short years, genuinely enjoying the journey together, and after ten years they still like each other!  It’s not unusual to show up at our local Starbucks and see a handful of them hanging out, not strategizing about the next outreach event, just talking, laughing, and enjoying one another’s friendship.  

Just take a minute and think back to a team that you absolutely loved being apart of.  Did that have anything to do with the relational capacity of the team?  Of course it did!  You trusted each other, you had productive meetings because people could be honest, you enjoyed being with those people because you felt accepted and valued, you weren’t watching your back, you weren’t struggling to fit in, you had the “it” factor, chemistry, or whatever you want to call it because you had relational capacity.  I’ll end with a few action points to get your team building more relational capacity in no time.

Relational Capacity Action Points

Spend Time (Outside of Work).  This doesn’t have to happen every day but should be happening regularly.  You need to facilitate shared experiences because these experiences are part of the relational foundation your laying.  Have coffee, grab a beer, invite a team member’s family over for that Christmas party your throwing.  You can’t ever miss by being too kind, thoughtful, and relational.

Speak Life.  Who wants to be on a team where the only way your recognized is when you screw up?  It’s okay to be honest about shortcomings but make sure you communicate the victories and strengths of your team members.  As the leader you are setting the tone for everyone else, so unless you want a discouraging and critical atmosphere, be lavish in your praise of others and watch them flourish.

Be authentic.  It’s easy to get all this relational talk confused with schmoozing.  We’re not talking about manipulating people or getting team members to only “think” you like them.  You really have to give a damn about them.  A wise person once said, “I don’t care how much you know, until I know how much you care.”  Your team will see through fake gestures in the blink of an eye- so do us all a favor and stay authentic.

Good luck on your journey to strengthen your personal brand by forming great teams.

If I could have chosen not to tackle the IBM culture head-on, I probably wouldn’t have.  My bias coming in was toward strategy, analysis and measurement.  In comparison, changing the attitude and behaviors of hundreds of thousands of people is very, very hard.  I came to see in my time at IBM that culture isn’t just one aspect of the game- it is the game.

Culture?!  What is this Lou character talking about?  Sounds like he’s going all Oprah on us.  Part of the challenge of this soft stuff is that it can be hard to pin down because it isn’t necessarily easily measured or quantified – which is why it’s also easy to ignore.  I mean come on, how do you measure the culture of a place?  

 So let me take a stab at describing this soft stuff.  Soft is…

• The power of great design.
• Remembering employee birthdays
• Over-communicating when all hell breaks loose
• Really listening (all too rare) 
• Handling conflict well
• Saying “great job” when someone deserves it 
• The power of first impressions 
• The way a great attitude can lift any team
• The leadership of a Tom Brady
• The attention to detail of a Steve Jobs 
• Honesty
• Thoughtfulness 
• Smiling
• Keeping your company vehicles clean
• The “vibe” of your workplace
• Authentic friendships among teem members
• The kindness in the voice of a customer service representative
• A good handshake and steady eye contact
• The intangibles we sense in great leaders

…one of the professors observed that one can be a good manager knowing hard or soft skills, but one can only be a good leader with both.