I don't tend to read "advice" columns, but today there's one in the newspaper next to a daily puzzle I do.  I might read part or all of the column if the headline strikes me as interesting.

That was the case with a recent column entitled "Unsolicited Advice".

The Column

A reader wrote to the columnist (Scott Ervin AKA "The Kid Whisperer") expressing praise for his work, but sharing a story of something she did that did not work out well. Here's a synopsis:

• The writer is a 7th grade teacher who is next door to a teacher with whom she shares students.
• The students were well-behaved in the writer's class, but were misbehaving in the neighboring teacher's class.
• She told her neighboring teacher that the students were well-behaved in her class because she used Ervin's "Behavioral Leadership" approach.
• She told the teacher she should read the book.
• The teacher reacted with anger (but also said the teacher probably didn't like her before the exchange).

She wrote to Ervin asking how she could repair the relationship.

Was That the Best Question to Ask?

Note: the subtitle above is not about whether this is the "right" question to ask. It is about the "best" question to ask?

To use a medical metaphor, most of us (unless we happen to profit from it) probably would rather prevent an illness or injury rather than have to have it cured or treated.

In this case, an alternative question is:

How might I have prevented this reaction or have gotten a more positive response?

The answer may lie in the "Language of Influence".

Could the Language of Influence Help?

Simply, our language-what we say and how we say it-has the potential to be motivating or demotivating.

In the Language of Influence framework, there are companion motivational patterns for decision making:

• Internal: Someone who wants to make their own decisions
• External: Someone who wants input, advice, or data from an external source

We also know that many of us tend to communicate with others based on our motivational patterns.

What if the teacher who wrote this letter was more External than Internal? (In her letter to him, she indicated being External to Scott Ervin and his work.)

What if her companion teacher was more Internal than External? (She responded as though she was . . . at least in this case. And, it is possible that one's motivational patterns can shift temporarily based on the context or emotional state.)

Here's the principle: We are more influential and effective if we communicate on the receiver's channel (pattern) than on our own.

If the advice-giving teacher is primarily External and her next-door teacher primarily Internal, then telling her what she "should" do (read the book . . . stop doing what you're doing and do what the book says) not only has the potential to go unheard, but also could trigger a negative response designed to communicate: "Stay out of my space!" or "Don't tell me what to do!".

The Last Word

The title is a bit of a trick. I do not intend to end by giving you advice.

I only want to provide some information.

You might want to consider the possibilities outlined above or ignore it . . . the choice is yours.

(This last sentence is intended for Internal readers. At this point, Externally motivated readers already have the information they need to decide.)

Having dealt with a large number of senior leaders over the last 50 years, we’ve catalogued some data on one dimension of their effectiveness:

How they construct, develop, and manage members of their leadership team.
Or don’t.

The Three Elements

Creating an effective leadership team has three key elements:

  -Hiring

  -Development

  -Performance Management

Let’s take a look at some principles and practices in each category.

Hiring

In Good to Great, Jim Collins espoused the principle: "First Who, Then What".

Collins said that it was critical to get the right people in the right seats on the bus before deciding where you were going.

If the hiring isn’t right, what follows is not likely to be either.

Myriad things can go wrong in the hiring process from (a) “trying to hire people like me” when the best thing for the organization is hiring someone who is different than you are and who complements you to (b) “letting someone else define and narrow the field” (that someone else could be a colleague, HR/Talent Management, or an external recruiting firm).

Recently, the board of the St. Louis Public Schools replaced a new superintendent after only a year of service citing financial, hiring, and administrative issues. The news reported that the Board retained an outside firm to conduct the search for a new superintendent. The question is: how did this firm decide whom to include in the final list? Then, what criteria and information did the board use to get to the final decision?

In this example and in others we could cite from different organizations, hiring was the first stage of a process that resulted in performance issues downstream.

Development

Without a doubt, effective executives keep learning (unless you hired the “smartest person in the room).

How many senior executives, however, have an ongoing, up-to-date development plan?

To paraphrase a former philosophy professor: “Learning may be a necessary, but is not a sufficient condition for development.”

Although leadership teams with which we have worked almost always fully endorse development planning for their respective organizations, most of them remain advocates for rather than models for the process.

If management and leadership development is important for their organizations, why not for them?

Performance Management

We now come to the third leg of the stool—performance management.

This element of leadership effectiveness is no less important or no less difficult to execute than the first two.

The key elements of performance management are:

1. Setting clear and appropriate expectations (not only for output/outcomes, but also for how one achieves those outcomes)
2. Identifying the metrics that will be used to track how well the individual is doing with respect to expectations
3. Taking regular measures of the metrics, providing feedback on the metrics, and reinforcing good practice performance/coaching for areas of improvement
4. Making the appropriate personnel decisions with respect to performance: recognition/rewards, performance improvement plans, or termination.

The “Sins of the Fathers (executives)” are numerous in this category including, but not limited to, the following:

1. Performance evaluations typically involve only tactical business objectives and then often what is to be done, not what is to be accomplished from what is done.
2. Not setting clear expectations for the “how” business objectives are to be executed or identifying the related metrics (the “how” speaks to the cultural and people-related leadership behaviors)
3. Very few executives collect data regularly on performance expectations or have regular performance review meetings with their direct reports (unless something is going very wrong)
4. There is often very little leadership coaching that occurs unless you count the model where the coach tells the quarterback what play to run next.

Finally, if at some point it is clear that an individual is not performing well and is not likely to do so, how many executives take appropriate action?

The question is more crucial when the individual is a member of “the Boys’ Club” or when termination is frowned upon in the organization. We’ve seen under-performing executives left in place for years. We’ve seen them moved to other positions while keeping their titles and pay. We’ve seen them get large payments to leave . . .

Sometimes, we see them put in roles where they can be effective or separated from the organization. Either case, done in a timely manner, is much better than the former (which sends a powerful, non-verbal message to the rest of the organization).

Conclusion

This is not a “how to” article. It’s more of a “why to” or perhaps “what to” (or what not to) outline.

If you plan to lead or keep leading an organization, regardless of how big or small, the three elements outlined above are all important. Consider understanding each and executing effectively . . . and have a team that does the same.

Until next time . . .

We've been using the Leadership Effectiveness Analysis (LEA) 360 Survey published by the Management Research Group for over two decades. The LEA 360 measures 22 leader behaviors from the perspective of "self" and "observers" (boss, peers, direct reports).

One of the behaviors in the LEA is called Restraint. Someone who scores high on this scale "maintains a low-key, understated and quiet interpersonal demeanor by working to control emotional expression."

Someone who scores low is likely to "allow their emotions to show; they make little effort to keep their feelings in check."

The good news is that MRG provides potential assets and potential liabilities for both low and high scores on all the behavior scales. The Resource Guide provides this information.

The Upside and Downside of High and Low Restraint

Leaders who manifest high restraint will often not say what they are thinking if saying it has the potential to offend someone or to initiate conflict. The result is that you might know what the individual is thinking and they will often leave important things unsaid. On the upside, they rarely offend someone with what they say and will tend to "play nice".

Here's a poster we ran across that might apply to leaders with low restraint.

The upside of a leader with low restraint is that you will almost always know what they are thinking or feeling. The downside is that they may express those thoughts or feelings in a way that impacts a relationship negatively.

So What's the Optimal Behavior?

MRG would likely say, "That depends". They contend that there is no one right way to lead and that effectiveness must be viewed through four filters:

• The Organization
• One's Role
• The Situation
• The Individual

That being the case, there are situations in which both high and low restraint would be appropriate and most effective.

In the main, however, a moderate degree of restraint seems to be the behavior range that is best for most occasions. This range of behaviors would reinforce the leader's authenticity while displaying diplomacy. We expect moderate restraint to be assertive, but not offensive.

To conclude: there are times when it is best to keep your mouth shut (high restraint) and others in which it may be appropriate to say exactly what you are thinking and feeling (e.g., dealing with a "bully" leader).

Being self-aware and having a range of possibilities available will best serve a leader's effectiveness in the short- and long run.

I recently had an exchange with a manager in a company that just learned that one of his key people was planning to leave because of "burnout". The manager had approached the HR organization with the idea of offering a 6-month sabbatical to the individual as a way to retain the talent. This is not something the company typically did, so there was not a rush to confirm.

At this point, the individual represents a definite "flight risk". Unless something definitive changes, this person will soon be part of the "Great Exodus".

Exodus vs. Migration Metaphors

What's the difference between migration and exodus?

In  the migration metaphor the birds (or people) fly (drive) south (or north) and then return in a period of time.

In the exodus scenario, they leave where they are and don't come back.

In an organization, if the exodus involves a poor performer, then nobody really cares about the exit. (We hope they care about the recruiting and hiring practices that acquired the individual.)

However, if you happen to be in an organization where "the losers don't leave", then the primary candidates for exodus or exit are most often good to high performers. When that happens, you not only lose your investment in that individual's acquisition and development, but also assume the burden of the cost of replacing the talent to the level lost.

Replacement is a challenge and costly--directly and indirectly.

Why Are People Leaving?

Oh, that's easy to answer!

• Competitors are offering them more money.
• Other companies let them work from home.
• They weren't that committed; wanted more "work-life balance"
• And so forth . . .

What May Really Be Driving Much of the Current Exodus?

While on a case-by-case basis, one or more of the reasons above may be the case, none of the reasons is new. The potential for each has always been there, so there's something new in individuals' decisions to leave.

In a recent strategy+business article entitled "The bullies are back", we ran across to references to research that speak to the question. Here's one:

In an article published in the MIT Sloan Management Review in January, researchers Donald Charles Sull, of analytics firm CultureX, and Ben Zweig, of Revelio Labs, analyzed data from 34 million online employee profiles in the US Bureau of Labor and Statistics database, as well as 1.4 million Glassdoor reviews, and determined that “toxic corporate culture” was the single biggest predictor of employee attrition, ten times more significant than compensation.

This and other research citations further emphasize that something significant has changed. What people want may not have changed, but rather that their awareness of what they want and their tolerance for what they've got (the corporate culture and corresponding basic assumptions, policies, and practices) in combination create the synergistic influence on exodus decisions.

So what?

Board rooms and executive teams will discuss and debate what's behind the statistics if they represent a potential liability for an organization. The data suggest, however, that if they limit the discussion to the options in the "Why Are People Leaving?" section above, they may not arrive at a conclusion which stems the tide of the exodus.

Perhaps, in the example cited at the beginning, if the organization sees fit to offer the individual a sabbatical, they could trigger a migration rather than an exodus.

As most of you who follow this column know, I often use daily comics as a resource for articles. In doing so, I'm just piggy-backing the talented cartoonists who represent and sometimes exaggerate real life as the basis for their works.

Here's an edition of Pearls Before Swine that triggered today's post.

Goat takes the high road and notes Rat's candor. One definition of candor is:

             ". . . the quality of being open and honest in expression; frankness".

Rat definitely demonstrates candor.

One of my former colleagues introduced me to the term "oversharing". Rat may qualify for that as well. In his "overshare", Rat's behavior may be interpreted by some as obnoxious.

So, while candor is often viewed as a positive aspect in one's behavior, there may be situations and circumstances where that is not the case.

Daniel Ofman Provides Perspective

Daniel Ofman's Core Quality Model provides a framework to understand the relationship between our core qualities (Strengths), our overdone strengths (Pitfalls), the complements to our strength (Challenges), and the negative opposite of our strengths (Allergies).

In this case, Rat's behavior appears to be an "overdone strength" (too much candor) resulting in a Pitfall.

In Ofman's framework, we don't think of Rat's behavior as a "weakness", but rather as a potential liability in regard to his effectiveness. It's too much of a potentially good thing, that being candor which is related to authenticity.

Working with Leaders

As we learned in working with the language of influence and the iWAM assessment, people in charge tend to want to decide more than not and tend to want to be in control. (Both, when not over- or underdone, tend to be positive characteristics in most settings.)

One implication is that these individuals may be resistant to feedback especially if that feedback contains information that is contrary either to their self-image or to the image they want to project to others.

When that is the case, how do you get crucial information to someone in a way that it is heard so that the individual can make choices about how they proceed with their management and leadership?

Ofman's framework is one way to do it. It is not necessary to talk about a "weakness", but, anchoring on a strength,  it is more helpful and often more accurate to talk about:

• an overdone strength (Pitfall)
• the absence of a challenge (Complement)
• how one is responding to behavior opposite your strength (Allergy)

If you combine the Ofman framework with strategic questions such as "What happens when . . . ?", you can often generate a conversation that is useful to the individual and will have a chance of impacting positively future behavior.

Our basic premise is that the three core elements of effectiveness in an organization are strategy, culture, and leadership. Here is how we connect them symbolically.

In this framework, Strategy defines how the organization plans to pursue its mission and vision.

Culture describes the context, values, and behavior expectations of the people in the organization. Culture will drive the strategy.

Leadership is the key to both. Leadership is responsible for developing and overseeing the execution of strategy. In addition, according to Edgar Schein:

"The only thing of real importance that leaders do is to create and manage culture. If you do not manage culture, it manages you, and you may not even be aware of the extent to which this is happening."

As a result, if the organization does not have the right leadership, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to fulfill its mission and vision or accomplish its goals.

Getting Effective Leadership in Place

Organizations that have effective leadership typically do four things well:

1. They have clear definitions of what constitutes effective leadership along with the competencies and characteristics that are associated with that effectiveness.
2. They have state-of-the-art systems and processes to "get the right people in the right seat on the leadership bus".
3. Once in place, organizational leaders do the right things in the right way [right action]
4. The organization has effective feedback and development processes and programs in place to provide the engine for continuous growth and improvement of leadership.

If your organization has effective leadership, then you are likely doing most or all of the above fairly well.

If your organization has spotty or inconsistent leadership, then there may be deficiencies or gaps in one or more of the areas listed above.

Here's something we picked up off the internet that speaks to one aspect of getting effective leaders in place.

In the meantime, all of us are trying to learn more about what constitutes effective leadership in the constantly changing world we inhabit and how to identify and grow effective individuals and teams to lead in that world.

When listening to an organizational assessment recently, a couple of things came to mind. The first was related to a manager who is smitten with the "Perfection Syndrome". That is, he needs everything to be perfect and manages to that standard. While the drive for perfection tends to guarantee good quality, there may be other unrecorded costs such as overinvesting in creating the product or delivering a service.

The quote that came to mind is:

"Perfection is the enemy of 'good enough'."

While we can agree that not-good-enough is unacceptable, there is often ambiguity around what's good enough versus what's perfect. I recall an exchange between a consultant and a manager in which the consultant asked the manager: "What represents 'good enough' for you?"

The manager responded, "95%". The consultant, in turn, said, "That (95%) represents perfection for me."

That tells you that in the same situation, the two of them would set the bar at different heights and would manage clearing the bar to different standards.

So what?

While contemplating the above, a second quote came to mind:

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend."

If we put "if" at the beginning of each quote to make them premises in the logical argument, the conclusion that follows is:

"Perfection is the friend of my enemy."

In this case, your "enemy" is your competitor, the success of your organization, or enterprise, or sustainability.

We are not making a case for mediocrity. It is a call for paying attention to the standards you set related to the requirements of your customer or client. If the client/customer requires perfection, then that's the standard.

If, however, the customer has requirements that are acceptable, but not as good as possible (i.e., perfection), then there are implications for both the standards you set and how you manage to those standards.

Some time ago we wrote a piece called "The I's Have It!". We updated the article in 2020. In the update we added an "I" for Insight (self-awareness).

The four I's are:

• Integrity
• Intelligence
• Intestinal Fortitude
• Insight

This reflection is about the third characteristic, Intestinal Fortitude, or courage.

This post is based on an email from the International Leadership Association (ILA) which issued a call for nominations for "The Larraine R. Matusak Courageous Leadership Award."

The Courageous Leadership Award

The  Larraine R. Matusak Courageous Leadership Award was created in 2007 and  is given biannually to recognize bold and courageous leadership in the  face of social difficulty and injustice. In the words of Dr. Matusak . . . . . .

The  purpose of this award is to recognize and reward those individuals who boldly take a risk to stand up for what is right and just; who work for  the common good; who are willing to take an unpopular stand even if doing so may jeopardize their jobs, cast them in an unpopular light or even cause them to lose friends. They are willing to act authentically and speak up when silence would mean colluding with the problem, and they boldly take actions that tangibly improve the human condition.

Courageous Leadership is defined as the ability and passion to attain  positive results by encouraging others and by working with and through  others to achieve a common good. True leaders are courageous people. They are not afraid to take a risk and they don’t waste much time  worrying about what other people might think of them; they are more concerned about doing what is right and effective. They make every  attempt to weave a shared vision, to align others toward a goal, and  then with enthusiasm, energy, and commitment they are willing to walk near the edge and even do things that raise the eyebrows of those around them in order to achieve a positive goal that effects the common good…. to do what is right! Their risk taking is creative, reinforced by sound  judgment, common sense and a profound sense of responsibility, honesty, and truth.

Eleanor Roosevelt said, “You must look fear in the  face and do the thing you think you cannot do.” This Courageous Leadership Award is a call to courage that requires a belief in something much larger than the individual; the type of courage fueled by  a passion for the common good and a commitment to principles greater than self-interest; the kind of courage that once exhibited galvanizes others.          

Questions for the Potentially Courageous

Would you even consider doing what is required to be eligible for this award?

If so, for what reason or cause?

What is the risk if you did what was required to be nominated?

What is the potential downside to you, your reputation, or your family?

What is the reward or payoff? Who benefits?

Who are some examples in your life or your experience who were such people?

What's Involved?

Making decisions related to taking courageous risks involves at least three things:

1. It takes certain kinds of motivation (e.g., the Inventory for Work Attitude and Motivation (iWAM) scales for Initiation, Goal Orientation, Breadth, Shared Responsibility, Change, Affiliation, Compliance, etc., come to mind).

2. It takes a certain set of values or principles to behave consistently with the criteria. This may fall under the heading of moral development (Piaget, Kohlberg, Perry et al.). The criteria strongly suggest that a set of principles are part of what drives the behavior.

3. Finally, there is a knowledge and intellectual skill set required. One has to be smart. We're not talking about IQ or Mensa smart, but someone with good reasoning powers that includes being able to integrate data, values, context, and outcomes when formulating and executing strategy. And, while perfection in such matters may be desirable, it is probably not possible. In lieu of perfection, one has to be willing to make and be able to endure "intelligent mistakes."

It would be interesting to profile ILA's Matusak Courageous Leadership Award winners to see how they reflect theses criteria.

More than a decade ago I gave a speech and referenced the book, What They Don't Teach You at the Harvard Business School. Having worked in several universities and having dealt with the business schools and programs in those schools, I tend to be a bit more hesitant with my claims than was Philip Delves Broughton and his publisher with their title. And, even though I never attended a business school, I've worked in, ran, and consulted to businesses all my life, so I'm claiming the right to reflect on some aspects of those experiences and the resulting learning.

Are the Criteria for Leadership Success Rational?

In this case, by rational I mean that the premises and conclusion in my deductive model match another's conclusion that I hear or read.

Here's today's offering from Scott Adams:

Dilbert is doomed or done in by the Pointy-Haired Boss's premises about management potential. Somehow where the PHB ended up is not what I think I would have concluded.

How often have you seen that happen? In hiring and in promotions?

Once when working with the practice group in a law firm, we were discussing the topic of how to select the best attorney's when adding to the firm. I recall one senior lawyer in the group saying: "My biggest limitation is that I keep looking for people like me and that's probably not the best strategy."

How true. Just as "what got you here may not get you there", hiring someone like you already have may not be the best strategy for the organization, business, or the firm. What criteria are the candidate evaluators really using when doing interviews or screening paper?

The same applies to promotions. Existing people in power may well judge the talent who work for them on the basis of the extent to which they match the criteria the boss thinks are important which may also be the criteria the boss applies to him- or herself.

It that's the best strategy for the organization or the business, great!

Often, however, it isn't and performance suffers as a result.

So What?

What do you do about situations in which the conclusion doesn't match yours?

We often start by arguing that the conclusion is wrong. With lots of people, that's the "wrong" place to start. Instead, we want to know the premises that underly their conclusion. That's the gold we want to mine in order to figure out how the individual got to this conclusion (that we conclude is erroneous).

If you pursue the issue may depend upon your position in the organization. If you are a peer or superior, it is very different than if you are a subordinate. Often, subordinates will "let it pass". That is, they will accept a conclusion and move on even when it impacts them directly and is clearly perceived as wrong.

Often, peers who witness the same process will not say anything. Why? It could be that they "don't want to get involved". That's the same issue law enforcement faces when trying to get people who may have witnessed a crime to step forward. They may also not want to set themselves up for the same kind of scrutiny. Neither of which seems like a particularly good reason not to speak up, but it serves as one nonetheless.

Looking in the Mirror

We often only hold our own mirror. When I do that I'm reminded of a major meta-study entitled "Flawed Self Assessment". It covers research and gives implications for health, education, and the workplace.

It seems that we're not particularly good at giving ourselves accurate self-assessments. If, at the same time, we're not particularly motivated to get input from others, then the state of being tends to be locked in place.

If that's the case for a lot of people, then the only way in might be with questions. With questions, we don't challenge the conclusion, we're simply exploring the premises.

• What leads you to conclude that?
• What experience have you had that drives this conclusion?
• If I were evaluating your recommendation, what's the upside?
• What's the potential downside?
• Etc.?

We don't change minds with questions, but might "soften the barrier" that tends to resist influence. If the individual asking is a subordinate, it is the least risky way of getting more insight so that you can decide the best strategy forward.

And like so many things of this nature . . . nothing is easy.

This TedTalk is the message. Adding verbiage only gets in the way.

Click here to view:

Sometimes it takes pictures and words (less than a thousand) to convey a message. Here's Stephan Pastis's (Pearls Before Swine) coaching for coaches lesson of the day.