Great Leaders are Real Leaders by Sandy Gluckman

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Does This Sound Like Your Corporate Culture?

Something For All Involved in a Corporate Culture To Think About

I found this quote in the draft of a book I have been writing forever.   Although the authors Cooper and Sawaf wrote this ten years ago, my perception is that it is so perfectly descriptive of what is happening today.  You may want to argue with me about this, so please feel free.  Here’s the quote:

‘In many companies we're caught up in an atmosphere of autocratic and sometimes
abusive management, mountains of rules and red tape, traumatic downsizings, and a
fear-laced climate of uncertainty, perceived inequities, resentment and anger that at
times can border on hostility and rage. We show up and keep our hearts closed, just
hoping to get by and collect our pay checks. The truth, however, is that many people
in business have very little energy left; certainly not enough to lead their career,
company or industry into a successful future.’

Wow!  Does this mean that so little has changed in ten years? 

 
I would like to suggest that it is time for us to take hold of our courage, show some spirit and do something that will change this.  Like what?

Think About This

How many of my readers have bosses who say things to minimize you, are disrespectful, negative and are bullies?   If this sounds familiar, think about your role in this.  Think about how often you have responded in ways that allowed them to continue behaving in this unacceptable way.

Think about how much time and energy you have wasted:

·         Protecting yourself from the put-downs of someone in your work or personal environment

·         Avoiding dealing with the real issues

·         Faking acceptance of decisions with which you do not agree

·         Remaining silent when you were aching to speak out

·         Watching as people joked the problem away

·         Putting up with jobs that weren’t right for you

·         Holding back your insights and ideas and knowledge and passion

And if you have been doing some of this then decide NO MORE!

We can only help corporate America find a way to work through this recession and build a strong economy by putting a voice to our spirit and our integrity and who we are, expressing our talents and dreams and perceptions and ideas.  Let’s use our courage and spirit to transform organizations that create a climate of fear into organizations built on mutual trust and respect.  I know we can do it!

I'd love to know whether you agree with me when I say that the Cooper and Sawaf quote still applies today?  And give me examples of why you agree or disagree.  I need to know if my perception is on the mark or not.

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Is Leadership Alignment Really Possible?

Would you agree with me when I suggest that leadership alignment is a great goal to aspire towards but one that is probably very difficult to attain?  Think about it.  Let’s say that the CEO is surrounded by a team of 7 executive leaders.  The absolute ideal would be that they all feel a great sense of common purpose, that they all agree on the best way to achieve this, that they all speak to their teams and departments with one voice, that they all promote one vision and that they are all great role models of one set of company values.  

Let’s Get Real About Leadership Alignment!

Just as misalignment in our bodies can cause us pain and discomfort physically, mentally and emotionally, so leadership misalignment causes pain to people working in the company.  It splits the energy, the focus, the culture, the spirit and the power of the company.  But then I believe that smart leaders know this.  It seems, though, that the power of the ego appears to be stronger than the power of their ability to do something fundamentally different about alignment.   Am I being too harsh?
Let me say that I am certainly not advocating that companies should have leaders who are clones of each other.  I am, however, advocating that while each leader will have a different style of leadership, they will still all send the same messages to employees; they will all follow the same roadmap, albeit executed in their own unique way.   I am suggesting that no matter who their leader is, employees listening to them and watching them in different parts of the business will all be getting the same sense of purpose and the same message about where they are going, how they intend to get there and what’s in it for them to fully commit.

Why Is This So Difficult to Achieve?  

Here’s my perception of what gets in the way of this true leadership alignment.  I would love to hear if you agree or disagree?
As human beings we all have our own personal insights, perceptions, ideas, goals and dreams, for ourselves and for the company.  Leadership alignment is about genuinely sharing these and crafting common goals and dreams that will build the business. This means that true alignment is based on authentic, open and honest relationships.  Leadership teams like to believe that they are behaving in this way, but truth be told, too often they are not.  They sit in meetings, nod their heads at appropriate moments, say what they believe others want to hear and what will keep them safe in their positions– and then go out and speak and behave according to their own goals and personal agendas.

   
Have you seen this happen?
If I am correct about this, then the challenge becomes one of identifying, recruiting and developing leaders who have the spirit and maturity to:

1.    Confidently and openly share their personal agendas and business insights.
2.    Work honestly towards integrating their personal agendas with the corporate goals.
3.    Release those personal agendas that do not fit with their leadership role and the goals of the business.

I would really like to hear if you believe this is possible and if you have actually experienced this or seen this happen.

Dr. Sandy Gluckman

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It is Leadership Character that Will Get Us Through this Recession

Two Kinds of Leaders

So if you have been reading my blogs – firstly I thank you, and secondly you will know that I come from the platform that there are two kinds of leaders – those who lead with ego and those who lead with spirit.   I consider ego driven leaders to be a serious business liability and spirited leaders to be a huge asset.  My concept of Spirited Economics™  measures leadership and employee spirit as a quantifiable financial asset and competitive edge.

Here is just one of many reasons why ego-driven leaders are a business liability.  They are incapable of delivering Spirited Economics™ because they do not demonstrate leadership character.    

It works like this. Character is not a fancy coat we put on for show; it’s who we really are.   The ego self is not who we really are.  The Spirited self is.   The spirited self represents all that we truly are and all that we stand for – our dreams, our values, our ethics and our self-esteem.   And when we respond to the world from the spirited self it is always with great character. 

So look at it this way.  When our egos are ‘in the driver’s seat’, we are out of character; we are not in harmony with who we really are.   This is why leaders who lead with ego create all kinds of strategic, operational and interpersonal chaos for the organization.  And they have a tendency to succumb to temptation and pressure and bend their ethics.  They believe that, “It’s hard enough getting the job done and making the numbers, now they also want us to be ethically minded”.  What those with ego don’t understand is that it doesn’t take longer to do the right thing.  It takes courage. It takes courage to show character.  The ego does not have courage.   It is a coward.

Because they lack the courage to be who they are, ego-driven leaders use defense mechanisms such as rationalization,  denial and self-delusion as a way of avoiding uncomfortable realities.  The Wall Street's bankers and financiers are a perfect example.  They rationalized to themselves that because housing prices had not fallen nationwide since the Great Depression, nobody could have anticipated the current meltdown in the housing and mortgage markets. They conveniently did not address the all the discussions back in 2005 about whether there was a housing bubble.   They were in denial about the implications of the fact that something unusual might be in the works when housing prices nationally were rising two and three times the rate of inflation, year after year, which was also without recent precedent?

At the congressional hearings on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, we heard that everyone understood that housing prices and mortgage lending were out of control.  But because they were lacking in leadership character they were caught in a double bind.  If they had the courage to pull back on lending and sell of mortgage-backed securities they would have most probably lost market share and profitability and have fallen behind the competition. Analysts and investors would probably call for a management shake-up.  So they took the line of least discomfort and convinced themselves that they should keep doing what they were doing. Where was their leadership character?  Leaders with character do what is right they do not succumb to pressure or temptation.

Leaders with character do not take ethical short cuts.  Their connection with their spirited self would not let them feel good about doing this because they are in harmony with their own core values.

Leaders with character do not make self-serving, short-sighted, greedy decisions.  They make decisions that serve the organization, the employees, the larger community, the economy, the nation and the world.  They come from a stance that is not about me -it is about the company and its long-term interests, of which I am just a part. And they will often sacrifice their own gain for the gain of the company.

Leaders with character operate from the principal that, “If you can’t look yourself in the mirror for something you’re about to do, don’t do it.”  (using the words of Peter Drucker)

So if you want to build leadership character in your organization what do you do?

It’s easy really because you see we are all born with character.  So we all have it in us.  We simply need the right environment to liberate this natural character inside of us.

I recommend that you:

1.     Recruit and promote only people whose behaviors scream ‘character.’ 

2.     Find out how they have displayed character in their past. 

3.     Create a corporate culture that supports leadership courage and character;  a culture of open, authentic and honest dialogue and debate. 

When the leaders shows unyielding character, the rest of the organization will do the same.

It is leadership character that will get us out of this recession.

For more information please contact me.

03:56 pm | 0 recommendations | 7 comments

Your Employees are Your Brand

Have you ever sat in the reception area of a company and let yourself absorb the culture of that company? Have you ever watched how the members of the company behave and checked to see whether this behavior is living evidence of the company’s brand? It was a chilly Monday morning and I arrived 15 minutes early for my meeting with the CEO so I decided to use the time to see if what the company said about its brand was brought to life by the way the employees behaved. After all, employees are the custodians of a company's brand.

You would be amazed what you can learn about an organization simply by sitting in the reception area, watching the receptionist and employees as they pass through. You can begin to see elements of the company culture and values coming through by the way people speak to each other and by their body language, tone of voice, the way they express themselves, the connectivity between people, the noise level, the level of interpersonal warmth or coolness. Sitting in the reception area you will soon be able to sense the level of energy and passion that permeates the company, the degree of corporate pride; you will soon know something about the level of professionalism and caring, about how people relate to each other, how they feel about themselves and the company.

I looked around. Plastered around the walls of the reception were several banners and beautifully framed vision and mission statements. A huge framed graphic, with many leadership and employee signatures on it, boldly pronounced the corporate values to be: building relationships, exceeding expectations; taking personal accountability and resourcefulness.

So I began to look for living evidence of these great statements, hoping that they would not turn out to be corporate value cliches of the kind that appear in Annual Reports. To my utterdelight, I soon began to see that the brand was alive and well in the way the employees behaved!

To begin with, the receptionist come out from behind the imposing reception desk and walked towards me. She said that since I was early for my meeting perhaps I would like a cup of freshly brewed coffee. I gladly accepted, upon which she disappeared and promptly returned with a cup of steaming coffee on an elegant tray bearing an elegant napkin and a small plate with 2 cookies.

She then went back to her desk to greet someone who had arrived. Just as I began to sip the coffee, the CEO’s assistant appeared through the side door, approached me and said, “Oh I see that you have already been taken care of. I am Sylvia, the CEO’s assistant. I knew you were waiting so I came to see if you would like something warm to drink.” She then checked with me that the flip chart and the laptop and LCD projector were all the equipment I needed (she had sent me an email the day before requesting to know what I required for my meeting with the CEO). This certainly exceeded my expectations!

“I love your accent,” she said. “Where are you from?” I asked her to guess, because I have an accent that most people do not easily identify. This led to a fun conversation about how British I sounded and yet I heralded from South Africa ….about what brought me to the United States… about whether there were elephants walking in the streets where I came from…This is relationship building!

She then went off saying that she would return for me in a short while. As she walked away, she turned back and suggested that she was going to prepare a copy of the organizational chart because she had a feeling that the CEO may want this for our meeting. (I was certainly going to ask the CEO if I could see an org chart!)

Being on the receiving end of branding come alive in this way, had a great impact on me. I felt energized; I felt recognized; I found myself smiling. It was a good feeling. I couldn’t help thinking how different this experience was from the meeting I had several days ago. From the moment I entered the reception area, the staff were stiff and impersonal. The employees did not communicate easily or spontaneously with each other; there was a sense of discomfort hanging in the air and evident in the body language of everyone I saw. It was as though every person I met made all the right gestures and facial expressions… but their tone of voice was flat. I had the distinct feeling that they did not really see me. I remember how de-energized I felt when I left.

Soon Sylvia was back. I followed her to the CEO’s office and as he greeted me, I knew exactly why this company’s brand was so evident in everyone’s behavior – he was a dynamic role model of all the company’s values! Everything about the CEO epitomized the corporate brand – how he was dressed, the way he treated his assistant, the way he greeted me, and his warm, engaging style of communication. Guess why he had called for this meeting - “Sandy,” he said, “Our values have created shareholder value! We have achieved our strategic goals for the year, even though it was a huge stretch! I would like to explore what we need to do to take this company to the next level!”

02:20 pm | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment

Profitable Decision Making

Profitable Decision Making

By: Sandy Gluckman PhD.

Author of 'Who's in the Driver's Seat; Using Spirit to Lead Successfully'

Leaders at all levels are accountable for making decisions, large and small, strategic and tactical. Collectively, these decisions will move the company forward, keep it in neutral or move it backwards. The trick is to get leaders, throughout the organization, to make financially profitable and strategically aligned decisions from boardroom to backroom, keeping the company moving in the agreed direction. 

A profitable decision is defined as a decision that is:

•  Made in an efficient manner
•  That involves vigorous dialogue
•  That includes a wide diversity of input and perspective
•  That is strategically focused
•  That is based on fundamentally different thinking
•  And that leads to significant revenue enhancement.

The term ‘profitable,’ as applied to decisions, then refers, not only to financial outcomes but also to the return on investment on time, talent, and intelligence.

When ego is involved in decision-making there is a significantly increased probability that decisions will not be profitable - as defined above.  Ego-driven decision-makers, at all levels, will make mediocre and misaligned decisions that do not move the organization forward; or, even worse, they make poor decisions that cost the company money. 

To make vision-directed, strategically-focused, revenue-enhancing decisions requires that the decision makers have the integrity and strength of character to lay personal agendas aside and put the company’s goals first. If we are ego driven, this is unlikely to happen. The central purpose of ego is to protect us and take care of ‘me, my and I’.  This means that it is difficult, if not impossible to lay personal agendas aside, when our ego is in control. As a result ego-driven decision-makers tend to make defensive, self-serving, short-term, safe and strategically inappropriate decisions, regardless of whether the decisions are right or wrong for the company, profitable or not. 

The Cost of Making Decisions with Ego 

Think of all the meetings in which people are afraid to challenge the status quo, in which there is low participation, low ownership and accountability, little enthusiasm and energy, lip service,, thinking in linear terms, accepting the assumptions of old standards, no creativity and passing the buck. Count the hours of these meetings per month, include how many people on average attend a meeting, take an average salary, and calculate the cost of ego. Multiply this across the organization and the cost becomes frightening. 

Teams that are ‘sweating the ego stuff’ see the world as limited, polarized and threatening; they use black and white, either-or, right-or-wrong type of thinking. For them decision-making is about someone winning and someone losing, which excludes the possibility of integrativeand innovative solutions. 

Spirited Decisions are Profitable Decisions 

In spirited meetings the team members are not intellectually superior nor do they have higher education or greater experience. What they do have is the ability to take ego out of the equation. This frees them to have a spirited debate.  They have the courage to challenge themselves and each other. They challenge their outdated assumptions. Their dialogue is open, honest and respectfully confronting. Their interaction is enthusiastic and authentic. Their energy is high.  Because they have litle ego, they are able to look beyond themselves and scan the horizon for new possibilities. This enables them to discover what others in their market cannot see, which then leads them to make innovative and profitable solutions.

Create a Culture of Spirited Economics™

Instead of spending many thousands of dollars fixing the huge range of symptoms that our egos create, let’s go back and fix the problem where it starts - by teaching leaders, managers and their team members how to use spirit as a business asset - and manage their egos.

The Missing Link

I highly recommend that before an organization invests in leadership development programs, or team building initiatives, they first undertake a fundamental transformative initiative:

1.   Educate the leaders and their teams about the value of managing ego behaviors and replacing these with spirited behaviors

2.   Identify the spirited behaviors that will assist the organization icreate the kind of culture where talented people can thrive and produce remarkable performance.  (I recommend to all my clients that they identify only 4 core behaviors that will create a spirited organization/team. More than that are too hard to implement.)

3.    Decide on a measurement of success that will close the gap between current performance and ideal performance.

4.   Then teach the team how to manage ego and build spirited behavior.  These skills are described in my book, Who’s in the Driver’s Seat: Using Spirit to Lead Successfully.  (To purchase my book go to www.sandygluckman.com)

5.   Measure the success of the spirited behaviors. 

Spirited skills are easy to learn. The tough part is having the personal courage, self-confidence and humility to openly face the topic of ego and spirit as a leadership imperative with major economic implications. Ego is not a bad thing as long as we recognize how it shows up for us, when it shows up for us and how to keep it in check by replacing it with spirit. In fact just the act of being aware of our own egos automatically strengthens our spirited self.

**** Want to find out more about Dr. Gluckman and her seminars on Spirited Economics™ & 'Who's in the Driver's Seat? **** For a complete list of Dr. Gluckman's keynote topics and training programs please contact her at:

Phone: (972) 758-1246

Email: mail@gluckmangroup.com

Visit her website: www.sandygluckman.com

10:57 am | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment

Are You Using the 'Whole' of Each Employee?

By Sandy Gluckman PhD Author of ‘Who’s in the Driver’s Seat; Using Spirit to Lead Successfully’

One of the core issues of organizational success is the ability of leadership to apply the spirit and talent of the workforce to the achievement of the stated business goals. A vital question companies need to ask and answer is, ‘how do we gain the greatest economic value from the talent of the people who work for us?’  The answer is ... use the 'whole' of each employee, not just a half. 

Our brains have 2 parts – referred to as the left brain and the right brain, or left and right hemispheres.  Each side of the brain receives, processes and interprets information differently.  The best solutions and plans are those that use information from both sides of the brain.

The left brain is logical, rational, analytical, linear and theoretical.  Language and numeracy are specializations of the left brain.  When we think with the left brain we will think in an ordered, sequential, detailed fashion.  The right brain, on the other hand, thinks laterally and creatively…so we will get an idea, feel an emotion, intuitively know something or imagine an innovative possibility that breaks the mould of the old way of doing things.  The right brain allows us to empathize with others and to connect with others in a meaningful way.  Using the right brain we create mental pictures.  With the left brain we are able to plan how to implement the pictures we see.  

Traditionally business and even educational institutions, in fact society in general, has emphasized the value of the skills of the left brain only.  For several decades the “knowledge worker” has been prized.  The right brain was perceived as being somewhat ‘soft’ and ‘flaky’ and of little importance in the serious corporate world. 

This is changing.  It is becoming increasingly evident that traditional left brain thinking without right brain input, has outlived its usefulness. A new respect is developing for the conceptual, intuitive, imaginative and interpersonal abilities of the right brain. There are many good reasons to understand and incorporate the talents of the ‘whole brain,’ for more effective thinking and planning.  But for me, the most important benefit of using the right brain is its ability to provide us with emotional information about ourselves and others, and its ability to help us engage others. 

We can develop the most competitive, leading edge strategies but if we do not know how to engage and excite the employees, it will remain a strategy that is great on paper alone – a strategy that could not be taken from conception to execution.  Understanding the interpersonal and emotional dynamics empowers leaders to communicate and interact with others in a way that will switch them on, instead of switch them off.  (For a detailed description of how whole brain thinking and communication works, as well as the tools and skills of whole brain thinking, see my chapter in the book, Mission Possible.)

How do we make use of the 'whole' of each employee?

The first step is to know which side of the brain you prefer - what is your own thinking style preference?  Are you more logical, rational, detail oriented?  Or more linear, intuitive and imaginative?  Each one of us has our own thinking style preference.  So we need to recognize this and then understand that what this means is that we will think with one side of the brain more often than the other.  This skews our decisions, planning and interpersonal behavior and communications.  

The second step is to decide what you are going to do about this.  Based on the fact that whole brain thinking, communication and execution has a significantly better outcome than half brain thinking, it becomes important for us to address how we can use the 'whole' of ourselves and of our team members.   There are just 2 options here.  We can either attend courses to learn how to integrate our own 2 brains.  Or we can create a whole brain team.  This is a complementary team consisting of individuals with different brain preferences and therefore with different thinking styles.  This means Identifying those people in your personal life, your teams and departments who have a different way of thinking to yourself, incorporate them in your meetings and planning sessions and consciously include their differing perspective in your decisions.  As long as we keep an open mind, they will assist us in thinking differently…and we will do the same for them. 

For a complete list of Dr. Gluckman's keynote topics and training programs contact us or visit her website:

Phone: (972) 758-1246

Email: mail@gluckmangroup.com Visit her website: www.sandygluckman.com