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.

Don’t bring me a problem...

Media magnate Rupert Murdoch, currently the center of media attention himself, claims he did not know that members of his staff were hacking into the private email and telephone accounts of celebrities and others. Just because he owns a zillion newspaper and media outlets doesn’t mean he has any idea about unethical practices going on in the newsrooms. 

Personally, I believe him. I believe he really did not know that this was happening. But I also believe the lack of this knowledge was his own fault.

Reports about Murdoch’s corporate environment have revealed that people were afraid to tell him about problems. Out of fear for their jobs, fear of retribution or just afraid they’d get chewed out, they avoided telling the boss that things were wrong. Is it possible that Murdoch really didn’t want to know? Or did someone misunderstand a corporate edict?

I have worked for several bosses who had a policy of, “Don’t bring me a problem, bring me a solution.” While this may seem intimidating, to me it seems a way to empower people and to development their leadership skills.  “Don’t bring me a problem, bring me a solution” doesn’t mean “don’t come to me if you don’t have a solution!” The captain still needs to know if the ship is sinking.

This is the way it ideally works.

·         People don’t go running to the boss with every little thing. They handle what they can at their level and fill in the boss later.

·         If the solution needs someone of higher rank to implement or if they do not have the authority to implement the solution themselves, they propose the solution and request the boss’s support.

·         If there are a variety of solutions, they offer them up for the boss to choose which one to implement.

·         In more complex situations, they have a discussion with the boss on what’s been tried or what is recommended and ask for input, advice or an alternate solution.

The employees develop problem-solving skills, confidence, and their own leadership. The boss is free to focus on larger issues that require that particular rank or level of authority. Most importantly, a sense of trust is developed throughout the organization.

The captain of a ship does not personally maintain the engines, put fuel in the boilers, repair leaks, plot the course or even steer the ship. Instead, he or she trusts the crew to make the day-to-day operational decisions to keep the ship functioning and on course to their destination. Problems that arise are handled at the lowest possible level.

But you will notice one key element in making this environment work – the boss is always informed. This is why so many organizations require various periodic reports on the status of operations, sales, profits, personnel matters, news, and so on. These reports go up the chain so that the boss is always apprised of what is going on.

This is important because, no matter what happens, the boss is always ultimately responsible.

So, which scenario would you prefer?

“Captain, we have a problem. We hit an iceberg and punched a hole in the hull. Water is coming in and we’re sinking. What should we do?”

“Captain, we hit an iceberg and there’s a hole in the hull. Water was coming in, but I had it shored up and a temporary patch put in. We’ll have to weld it, but I’ll need your authorization to secure the area while we do the work. Meanwhile, I’ve got the crew cleaning up the excess water.”

“Captain, I am sorry about the ship sinking. An iceberg punched a hole in the hull and water was coming in. We were afraid to tell you because we thought you’d get mad.”

I certainly don’t know for sure that went on in Murdoch’s organization. I cannot imagine that a captain would not want to know when a problem arises that could sink the ship. I also cannot imagine people in any position of leadership that would not have taken action to stop the problem – i.e. plug the leak, stop the unethical practices. Other managers knew about it and were afraid to tell the boss, but also didn’t take any action themselves.

It’s a Titanic mess.

I hope they brought a lot of towels.

Backed into a Corner by Missing Vertebra (You can’t make this stuff up!)

This one happened a couple of years ago, but I still cannot believe it. A non-profit in Washington DC had an in-house team of meeting planners who were responsible for all of the organization’s high-profile events, including big fund-raisers and legislative conferences.

Their biggest event of the year was coming up – the one that secured the majority of the organization’s annual funding. The event starts on Sunday. It is now the Thursday before the event and the meeting planners have not sent out invitations, registration information, or an agenda. As a matter of fact, they are still looking for speakers!

Needless to say, the event was a complete failure and almost caused the dissolution of the organization. Worse, this was not the first time the meeting planners had dropped the ball.

Senior management finally decided to do something about it and discharged the meeting planners.  You could almost hear cheers throughout the office on the day they walked out the door.

Now we all know that firing someone can be a very uncomfortable ordeal. Few people enjoy having to let people go – and the ones that do, I don’t want to work for. Neither do you, I bet.

But difficult as it can be, sometimes it has to be done. And it takes a strong leader to do it right. Among various other traits, such as compassion, integrity, and authenticity, fortitude is paramount. A leader must have the courage to stand up to convictions and be truthful with the employee. The individuals have a right to know why they are being let go, and, if for no other reason than common courtesy, they need to know where they need to improve.

In this particular case, however, management did not have the necessary spinal column required for the task. Instead of being honest about why the meeting planners were being fired – incompetence – they said it was due to budgetary issues and a reorganization of in-house functions. They said, “We’re going to contract out the meeting planner functions from now on.”

So, out the door they went, decided they knew what the organization needed, formed their own company and put in a bid for the job. The bid was a good one, within the price range the organization could afford, and full of the kinds of details that show knowledge of the organization’s needs.

Guess what happened! Yep, you guessed it!

Management hired them back! They feared a lawsuit if they did not accept what was otherwise a legitimate bid on the job. Because they weren’t truthful when they fired these people, there was no documentation of professional incompetence. The meeting planners would have had a good case for a discrimination suit if they chose to file one. Management saw the potential for trouble and bit the bullet.

Now, they still have the same incompetent meeting planning services, but are paying significantly more per hour than they were before. All because they were too weak to be honest!

Risky Business

During the many weeks since my last blog, we have witnessed some spectacular examples of leadership – at both ends of the performance spectrum.

We witnessed the travesty of Congress in their inability to perform their one most vital function of passing a budget for the federal government. As a body, they proved themselves to be nothing more than a flock of elected sheep. Not a one had the courage to stand up to their “party” and push for the common good. Well, perhaps that isn’t quite a fair analogy. For the sheep, that is. A more appropriate analogy might be of a gang mentality. During the budget war on the Hill, the gang members fiercely battled each other, whether or not they believed in what the gang was doing. They were afraid for their own safety – i.e. their own political careers – so they mindlessly went along with the gang instead of standing up for what was right or working to find a solution to their differences.

And they each tried to blame the other’s rigidity on the potential consequences of shutting down government services. It’s amazing how quickly they came to an agreement on a continuing resolution – which, by the way is a cop-out since it does not address budgetary concerns at all – when the media started talking about the one thing that would get the American public in an uproar: stopping pay for our military and their families. Neither party wanted to take a chance on being blamed for that.

At the height of all of this hoopla, I found this little ditty floating around on Facebook. I do not know who the original author is, but I wish the genius would step forward and take credit:

Dear Congress, Last year I mismanaged my funds and this year I cannot decide on a budget. Until I have come to a unified decision that fits all of my needs and interests, I will have to shut down my checkbook and will no longer be able to pay my taxes. I'm sure you'll understand. Thank you very much for setting an example we can all follow. 

Meanwhile, on the better side of the leadership spectrum, was one of the most difficult decisions that the leader of a world power could make – the decision to send a military strike team into an ally’s sovereign territory to root out a dire enemy. Kudos to President Obama for having the spine needed to finally rid the world of its most evil terrorist, Osama Bin Laden. I don’t care what your party affiliation is or where you stand on Obama’s overall performance record, this was the act of a true leader.  Of course, we cannot overlook the amazing performance of our Navy SEALS who actually went in and got Bin Laden! They made me proud to be a Navy veteran – even more so than I already am.

Real leaders are willing to take risks. It is not that they are careless. On the contrary, a real leader takes great care in evaluating the pros and cons of an action. But unlike our risk-averse Congressional representation, true leaders do take action! Sometimes that action is not the popular choice. But having the fortitude, the strength of character, and the integrity to do the right thing even when no one is watching, is what counts.