What example do you set?

I had an important reminder recently that there are more important things than whatever is going on at the office.

I always stress to others about the importance of work-life balance, and to take care of the most important things first – especially their own health. If people aren’t feeling well, I send them home. If something is left undone because they are sick, it can either wait or someone else can pick it up.

So, I should have known better when I came down with a sore throat a couple of weeks ago.  In my mind there were things I had to do, so I still went to work. I didn’t take time to slow down. I didn’t even exercise a telework option, when certainly those things that I was convinced I was absolutely the only person who could do, could have been done from home. But I got up, got dressed and went into the office sounding like Froggy from the original Little Rascals. I sounded worse than I felt, or so I thought.

The sore throat turned into a full-blown head cold.  Nothing overly debilitating, so I took some over-the-counter stuff, hit the Vitamin C for a few days, and continued on. The head cold migrated to my chest, and still I was going in to work. When I was home, I continued to work on some hot deadline projects for the office. I even wound up working two out of the three days of Labor Day weekend. I was able to do that because I shared my cold with my wife, so with both of us sick, we cancelled our social plans and were home anyway.

Tuesday morning, as I got onto the commuter bus, I felt like a truck hit me. I had no energy, and was struggling to breathe without coughing. And I was sweating, but surely it was because it was so hot and humid that day.

When I arrived at the office, several people took the time to tell me that I looked and sounded like crap. But I toughed it out and stayed at work for most of the day. After much cajoling, I did ultimately leave about an hour earlier than usual, and stopped at the urgent care clinic on the way home.

Good thing I did.

Diagnosis: severe bronchitis and early stages of pneumonia!

Lesson learned. I took the next day off and rested, took my meds, and have been taking it easy ever since. There were a few small things that others were relying on me to do my part of, so I did work on those couple of items from home, but mostly I rested.

Pneumonia is nothing to fool around with. Things could have gone much worse. But there is more to this than ignoring my own health for the sake of a few projects that several other people could have done.

Contagion is a significant issue, especially with flu season coming up in the near future, so we need to look beyond our own selves and think about the health of others. This is why health officials encourage people to stay home. No work would get done at all if the whole office gets sick! With my bronchitis, there obviously was potential to infect others, since I had already gotten my wife sick. Thankfully hers never progressed past a basic head cold because she was smart enough to rest over the weekend.

But there is even more to this than the contagion factor and the potential to get others sick. There is the example I was setting.  

It’s the same example we set when we send emails late at night or on weekends, or while we’re on vacation. I know one senior manager who seems to live on his Blackberry and sends email day and night, weekends, holidays, and everything. He also calls people at home or on their cell phones. He claims that he doesn’t really want to bother people when they are off, but he wants to relate info before he forgets it.

It sounds so innocent, doesn’t it. All we’re doing is showing a dedication to our work. Not letting a minor illness keep us from doing our jobs. Not neglecting work when we’re not there. Just a dedicated employee who cares about the organization and it’s mission. Right?

Wrong.

Our behavior influences those around us. If we come to work when we are sick, placing work as a priority above our own health, we are setting an example. If we don’t take time off – really off – we are establishing a standard.

People will believe that we expect them to do the same. It sets up an office atmosphere where employees feel pressured to show up for work no matter what. They feel guilty if they don’t put work ahead of everything else, including their families or even their own health.

This makes for a very uncomfortable and unhealthy environment.

Surely we don’t really expect our folks to be working when they are off, and certainly don’t want them to come to work if they are sick. But what was the unintentional example I set when I dragged myself into the office?

When I look back at the best leaders I ever worked with, they made it very clear that health and family were the priority. They took time off themselves. After hours, they were off the clock, unless there was a true emergency. And they never came into the office when they were sick!

We cannot promote a healthy work-life balance for our fellow employees if we do not walk the talk ourselves.

Let the experts do their jobs

Every organization goes through it. The hiring process can be a grueling affair. You send out an announcement, screen through possibly hundreds of applications trying to weed through all the padded buzzwords and grandiloquence to select applicants to interview. Then follows possibly multiple rounds of interviews, trying to determine who truly has the right skills and experience you need to get the job done. You pick, of course, the best of the best and are confident they know what to do.

Why, then, do some managers feel the need to not only tell these top-notch, skilled individuals what to do, but how to do it? Sure, there’s a learning curve at first to understand particulars of the organization and the job.

Micromanagement is de-motivating. It takes away a person’s incentive to apply themselves, to use their skills in the best way they know how – because the boss is going to tell them the “right” way to do the job anyway.

It’s even worse when the employee has been doing their job well for years, has a proven track record of success, and a new manager comes in and assumes the employees need to be told what to do and how to do it.

Here’s a fresh idea. How about telling the employees what the mission is, what objective needs to be met, and then get out of the way and let them do it?

This is the basic principle behind the concept of servant leadership. A true leader understands that the role of leadership is to enable the work, not to “control” it.

The premise of servant leadership inverts the traditional organizational chart where the boss is at the top with a hierarchical structure below, decreasing in importance.

The servant leadership structure places the senior leader at the bottom, providing the foundation that supports the rest of the organization. He or she oversees the budgetary and other resources to make sure the staff has what they need, and focuses on removing barriers to success. They create an environment where people are encouraged to use their own initiative to accomplish the task instead of worrying about what the boss will say.

Most importantly, servant leaders let their expert staff do what they’re trained to do.

These concepts are not new. The principles go back centuries and are mentioned in Chinese writings from 5^th century BC, in Islamic teachings, and in the Christian Bible.

“Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant.” Mark 10:43

I am sure that you, like me, have worked under a variety of managers throughout your career. Think back about those who you consider the best. Were they servant leaders?

 

Share your stories here.

If you want to know more about the modern movement in servant leadership, read some of the work of Robert K. Greenleaf, Daniel Goleman and Daniel H. Pink. I’ll be writing more about this topic in future blog posts. The concepts are part of the basis of many of my motivational leadership workshops, and I'll be speaking a bit about this in my joint keynote presentation with psychologist and emergent communications expert Tim Tinker on June 13 at the National Association of Government Communicators 2014 Communication School in Washington, DC.  

 

 

Just Call Me A Silly Goose

Several people have asked me recently about the image of the geese on my website and my professional Facebook page, and about the goose lapel pin I frequently wear.

My interest in geese stems from a paper I read a number of years ago about the behaviors of geese and how they interacted with each other. “Lessons from the Geese” originated from a 1972 lecture by Baltimore science teacher Dr. Robert McNeish. Although this idea has been floating around for more than 40 years now, it still provides profound lessons for each of us.

Here are the basic lessons we can learn from geese:  

1. As each goose flaps its wings, it creates an uplift for the birds that follow. By flying in a “V” formation, the whole flock has 71% greater flying range than if each bird flew alone.

• Lesson -- People who share a common direction and sense of community can get where they are going quicker and easier, because they are traveling on the thrust of each other.

2. When a goose falls out of formation, it suddenly feels the drag and resistance of flying alone. It quickly moves back into formation to take advantage of the lifting power of the bird immediately in front of it.

• Lesson -- If we have as much sense as a goose, we stay in formation with those headed where we want to go. We are willing to accept their help and give our help to others.

3. When the lead bird tires, it rotates back into the formation and another goose takes over at the point position.

• Lesson -- It pays to take turns doing the hard tasks and sharing leadership. As with geese, people are interdependent on each others’ skills, capabilities, and unique arrangement of gifts, talents, or resources.

4. The geese flying in formation honk to encourage those up front.

• Lesson -- We need to make sure our honking is encouraging. In groups where there is encouragement, the production is much greater.   The power of encouragement – to stand by one’s heart or core values and to encourage the heart and core values of others – is the quality of honking we seek.

5. When a goose gets sick, wounded, or shot down, two geese drop out of formation and follow it down to help and protect it. They stay with it until it dies or is able to fly again. Then, they launch out with another formation to catch up with the flock.

• Lesson -- If we have as much sense as geese, we will stand by each other in difficult times as well as when we’re strong.

When I was a kid, it was pretty common to call someone a “silly goose” as a light-hearted insult. In retrospect, I guess it was a compliment all along.

Have you seen people acting like geese? I'd love to hear your stories. Please share them here or on my Facebook page.

 

 

Back in Balance

There comes a time in everyone's life when they find themselves not listening to their own advice. Here I am a teacher of motivational leadership, interpersonal communications and work-life balance -- yet I let myself become frustrated by micromanagement from upper levels.

For a while, I became the weakest kind of leader where I gave up trying to create a better work environment and instead I found myself complaining to coworkers and subordinates. Even as I realized this was not the proper way for a leader to behave, I allowed this venting to become my dominant demeanor at the office and starting to creep into home life.

I finally took a page out of my own book and reevaluated the situation.

The secret to maintaining balance is knowing when you've lost it.

Senior managers, when looking to hire staff, go through an extensive screening process to find experts with the background and skills necessary to do the job. Some of these managers, however, do not trust the people they hire to do the job they were hired for. Some managers feel they are better experts themselves and insist on directing even the smallest aspect of a task. Sometimes, new managers come in to a position and feel they must demonstrate their authority by taking over every decision. Or they don’t feel the staff hired by their predecessors would be loyal to the new management, so they don’t trust them.

These are all signs of weak leadership. I would bet that everyone has had a boss like this at least once in his or her career.

Remembering the profound words of Maya Angelou -- words that I myself have cited in so many trainings in consultations that I gave to others -- "I can be changed by what happens to me, but I refuse to be reduced by it," I realized that I did not have to let the incompetence of others reflect upon my own level of performance or lower my own standards. I did not have to get angry about what I felt were irrational demands or interference with the way I accomplished a task. More importantly, I did not have to let any of it get the best of me.

I set my sights on accomplishing whatever I could and letting go of those things that were completely beyond my influence. I sought solace in my family and refused to let the petty issues at the office impact my home life. Since we all need an outlet, I found new avenues for my creativity and made time for some artistic projects I had put off for way too long.

More importantly, I threw myself into efforts that would make a difference and would help others. In the past year I have taken on more speaking engagements and more clients for leadership and communications training. Helping others in this way validates me to myself, counterbalancing the way the micromanagers would try to make me feel.

With things back in balance, I can now find time to devote to important efforts, like getting this blog back online and hoping that someone will find benefit in the lessons I share.

Telling it like it is

It’s been a terribly long time since my last post and I apologize for that. I’ve been meaning to write this one for a while and visiting my mother recently reminded me of the topic.

A couple of months ago as Hurricane Irene was trundling her was up the East Coast and residents were being warned to prepare, I called my mother in New Jersey to see how she was doing. I was staggered by something she said, something I never thought would ever come from her lips. She said, “I love my Christie.” She was talking about Governor Chris Christie.

Now understand, in the more than 52 years since I’ve left this woman’s womb, I have never heard her say a thing about anyone in a political office. Never known her to vote, or even have any awareness of who was in office at any given time. I didn’t even know she knew who her Governor was, or even cared!

So what happened that would get this politically unaware septuagenarian to proclaim adoration for someone she barely knew existed?

It was something he said in a press conference earlier that same day. Commenting on news footage he had seen on people partying on the Jersey shore despite rising surf, strengthening winds and ominous cloud formations, Christie said. “Get the hell off the beach in Asbury Park and get out. You’re done. It’s 4:30, you’ve maximized your tan. Get off the beach.”

This wasn’t some polished speech, clucked over and modified by speechwriters, press secretaries and a hoard of flacks and other hangers-on trying to preserve the Governor’s image and their own careers. The comment was raw and genuine. It was a gut-reaction from a man who was angry and perplexed by the stupidity he was witnessing. Because of its simplicity and authenticity, it won Christie world-wide notoriety as the comment was picked up by national press and repeated over and over again in international media channels.

What he said wasn’t profound, thoughtful, or even powerful in the words themselves, but it instantly endeared him to millions that had never heard of him before. So much so, that I believe this simple comment may have brought just enough attention to Christie to get the Republican party to try to convince him to run for president. He declined the honor, but now people are talking about him for a Vice Presidential bid.

I admit I haven’t tracked Christie’s career, his voting record, or his history of enactments in my old home state, but I’m sure he’s done lots of good stuff to earn such a high opinion in the party. But I think it was this refreshing, yet rare, glimpse of an American elected official actually telling it like it is that will earn him future votes.

Being genuine, being authentic, being real, and telling it like it is. Isn't that what people look for in a leader?

Milking it for all its worth!

A senior vice president recently had a baby. Since the doors in all the executive offices in this organization have windows and, thus, offer no privacy, a separate room – sans window - was set aside so that new mothers could, um … well, pump.

This is a necessary function and part of the beauty of child bearing. I am actually in awe of the fact that a woman can produce food for her young from her own body. It’s a beautiful thing.

I commend the organization’s management team for recognizing their error when designing their office space and ignoring the need for privacy. The office space was obviously designed by men because they never considered this special privacy need for their female staff. I can say this, because I’m a man and admittedly would not have thought of this particular need either. But, then again, I would not have put windows you could see through on private offices - especially for senior management. I do understand that everyone has a need for privacy at some point - whether it is to have a meeting on a sensitive topic or change your shirt after spilling your coffee (the latter is usually me, by the way).

Anyway, our now-enlightened management team quickly compensated and allocated this private room, complete with comfy couch, so the senior VP can collect her offspring’s nutrition. One would think all would now be well. Not quite.

After leaving the lactating room, this woman has a tendency to roam around the office carrying her full bottles. She will stop by people’s desks or offices and chat while waving her body juice in the air. She has shown up to meetings, bottles in hand, and sat them on the board room table while conducting business. This might not be so bad if the bottles didn’t have giant labels on them that say, “My Mommy’s Milk” or if she didn’t say things like, “Sorry I’m late, but I had to pump!” She gets away with it because, well, she is a senior VP!

When she doesn’t bring them with her, she leaves them places. On her desk. At the fax machine. On the counter in the kitchen. Sometimes, she wields her seniority in the organization and asks junior employees to go get her juice and put it in the fridge for her because she simply didn’t have time to do it herself.

To make matters worse, she has begun conducting meetings in the lactation room! While she is pumping! Sometimes with outside visitors, not just internal staff! Can this possibly be appropriate in a business environment?

Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against breasts. I’m rather fond of them. They are among some of my favorite things in the whole world. But there are times and places for everything.

Every mother certainly has a right to pump at the office, but the rest of the staff has a right also. The right not to be grossed out by their boss!

If you ask me, this leadership style is just in bad taste.

A Quiet Leader and a Life Well-Lived

This past weekend, in one of the most difficult days of my life, I said farewell to a truly inspirational leader and a dear friend. I only had the honor and pleasure of having Steve McCullen’s presence in my life for a few years, but in that brief time, I quickly learned how special a gift that was.

Steve was one of the warmest, most caring and generous individuals I have ever known. He was deeply devoted to his family – his wife and four wonderful sons. If you ever need a testament to the kind of person someone is, just look at the relationship they have with their children. Steve and his family had the most enviable relationship. I’ve never seen a family where teens and young adults would rather hang out with their parents and their parents’ friends on a Saturday night watching cheesy, old movies than go out partying. They hung out with dad because they wanted to.

Steve had the same relationship with nearly everyone around him -- at work, in his personal life, and even with people who just happened to be fortunate enough to come in contact with him.

People were inspired by Steve’s perpetual optimism, his enduring sense of humor and his aura of sage calm. Throughout his career as a county police officer, junior cops would seek him out as a mentor, senior cops would seek him out for advice and entrust him with special assignments.

Steve was what Harvard Business School professor Joseph Badaracco would refer to as a “quiet leader.” A quiet leader is one who leads by example, who instinctually does the right thing, and who empowers others by trusting them.

Admittedly, I had never really looked at Steve this way before. I just knew him as a heck of a nice guy. But this weekend, as I was reading the tributes written by family members, former coworkers and other friends – and even his hair stylist – I learned a lot about how others had seen him. Many called him mentor, and even hero.

That’s when I realized that he was a role model for me as well. Without even realizing it at the time, I had been trying to emulate many of his traits.  

I never saw Steve in a bad mood. Even over the past 10 months when fighting his battle with cancer, he was endlessly optimistic, maintained his humor and kept working tirelessly to rebuild his strength. I think he got through these past months easier than the rest of us.

Steve, my friend, you touched a lot of lives and made each one better for the contact. Your quiet leadership was an inspiration to many. Your kind heart and generous spirit lives on in those you have left behind.

Your work here is done. Now rest, my friend, and know that you had a life well-lived.