How Do You Rate?

Will

Some folks produce their best work with a deadline bearing down on them. Others wilt. It's all too easy to think of how we generally inspire ourselves and then use that to spur everyone we lead. You have to see the interdependence of your attitude and your team's.

Pessimism may fuel your power plant, but you may be poisoning the groundwater. Optimism in the face of big challenges, delivered without any Pollyannaish hooey, is infectious. Focusing on solutions rather than rehashing problems energizes teams and keeps them from getting stuck. The best leaders understand each team member and act accordingly. And yes, pizza parties can be nice, but if that's plan A for rallying the troops, then we have bad news for you: You run a sucky workplace.

Rigor

Wagner Dodge, the smoke jumper who led his team into the Mann Gulch fire in Montana in 1949 (as profiled in Michael Useem's The Leadership Moment [Times Books, 1998]), was individually courageous when he set a fire to save himself from the brush fire approaching him. But he lost most of his team, because he didn't correctly prepare them to follow his lead. Just doing what you've always done to succeed without considering how it affects others can lead to disaster. They don't give out medals for doing your homework (maybe a gold star, if you're lucky), or for having a value system that guides your actions. But without a prism in place through which to view your actions, without some rules that are inviolate, you can't be expected to make the right decisions routinely. So as counterintuitive as it may seem, there is courage in preparation.

Risk

This is the sweaty-palms moment. The leap. It takes daring to invest in your team's abilities and not just rely on yourself. To embrace shared opportunity instead of going for the easier personal success. If you want others to take risks for you, you have to risk the consequences of empowering them to do so. It's about making yourself vulnerable. The X factor here is humility. If you're a "me first" person, then you won't see beyond expediency. To encourage a culture of risk, measure it and reward it. The best organizations celebrate their most spectacular failures instead of burying them. Why? At least people were trying.