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Growing or Stuck: how to turn experience into wisdom

What separates leaders who learn from leaders who seem stuck? Leaders who learn share three critical characteristics in my experience.
First they seek out new models (frames) from which to interpret their situation. Effective leaders understand that in a rapidly changing environment their own frame of reference cannot sufficiently interpret the full complexity of the situations they face. So, they not only gather others who have a different expertise from their own, they also find new ways of evaluating data and experiment with these taxonomies by rethinking their conclusions.

Second, they practice critical reflection every day. That is they assess the actions and the reactions/results those actions generated with a consistently disciplined approach of asking two questions. What was good about what I saw today? What was bad about what I saw today? This practice of asking dialectical questions gives them an ability to anticipate unexpected consequences a little sooner than those who don’t practice this discipline.

Third, they are always listening. I am a little surprise by how much effective leaders “hear.” The ability to be fully engaged in a situation or conversation leads effective leaders to hear verbal and observe non-verbal communication. These leaders literally listen with their eyes as well as their ears and pick up subtle distinctions in expression, posture or tone that leads them to ask new questions. In fact this ability to ask penetrating questions seems like a deep intuition but it seems to me as I see these leaders that it is not so much intuition but the ability to stay engaged in a conversation that gives them the clues they need to work with.

It is not possible to fully function as a leader without these three traits. I am often surprised by those inexperienced managers who believe leadership is the same thing as barking commands. Most highly effective leaders I see ask far more questions than they do make statements. It is this ability to interrogate reality that opens the door to deeper understanding.

How well to you listen? Do you reflect on your days using a dialectic approach or do you simply rewind your opinion, fears, belligerence thus failing to see how your own actions may be a significant part of the problem your team faces? Try these three skills – they will help you grow your leadership capacity and insight.

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Servant Leadership and the Pursuit of Excellence

Being a Servant or Whole-sale Self-Preservation
Sometimes the best way to understand a concept is by looking at it in the stark contrast of its opposite. This is certainly true for the concept of servant leadership. Besides sounding a bit like an oxymoron to some the phrase, “servant leadership” seems too ambiguous to put into action.  What does servant leadership look like in the daily grind and more importantly does it make a difference?

I am indebted to Tim Rutten of the Los Angeles Times for his op-ed piece on the plight of the Los Angeles Dodgers.  Rutten’s article about owner Frank McCourt’s chapter 11 bankruptcy filing provides the perfect contrast to the concept of servant leadership.  So, the following is a definition of the opposite of servant leadership:

His latest maneuver – a desperate flight into chapter 11 bankruptcy protection – essentially makes one of Los Angeles’ civic treasures, the Dodgers, a hostage.  It’s always a sad spectacle when mediocrity and cunning are mobilized by an instinct for self-preservation so all-consuming that it would countenance the ruin of everyone involved.[1]

What caught my attention is not the extraordinary degree of transparency that accompanies celebrity crises – I have no wish to take potshots at the trauma the McCourt’s share in their divorce and very public business failings.  I cannot avoid the fact that every leader walks in full view of others – including those who show a pattern of self-preservation.  The pattern of self-preservation identified in Rutten’s article is the opposite of what one expects to find in a servant leader.

What seems to escape some of the leaders I work with is that their employees actually know what is going on and see their leaders arrogantly marching through the business like the king in his new clothes.  The only person who is unaware of the naked reality of the leader’s behavior is the leader.

Behavior is an Amazingly Transparent Judge of Intention

If employees are so observant then why don’t they say something to the leaders to stave the ultimate collapse of the organization or business generated by a leader’s “spectacle of mediocrity”?  They do. I recently worked with a functional team in a manufacturing plant who watched their manager go down in flames financially, morally, ethically over a sexual liaison with one of his direct reports. The rest of the team saw the shenanigans of the manager clearly for what they were – while the manager apparently felt confident he had successfully covered his very exposed backside. If you lead others (have any position in which others report to you) then understand that your reports see you for what you are because they see your behavior. Why is it that we think what we say can actually cover up what we really do?

The employees watching the self-destructive machinations of their manager alerted the chain of command.  Another six months passed before senior management acted on what the employees told them.  The senior management understandably wanted to collect evidence of the violation but there was more to it than that.  Leaders don’t hear or see their employees as clearly as their employees see the leader’s behavior for the simple reason that some leaders see others through a distorted lens as mere objects to be used or manipulated to achieve their personal goals. As people we are loath to admit this yet…seeing ourselves as others see us can be startling.  The distortion of how we see others is not an either/or reality.  It is a perspective on a scale of intensity. Yet, to the degree it exists at all it still has a negative impact.

In their book, Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box, the Arbinger Institute tell a story that raises some simple questions that serve quite effectively as mirrors to how we view those around us.[2] These questions test not only one’s perspective of others but demonstrate the degree servant leadership exists in behavior. Test yourself for a moment, are you a servant leader?

  1. Do you remember when you had the chance to fill the care with gas before your spouse took it, did you decide he/she could fill it up just as easily as you, so you took the car home empty?
  2. Do you remember the time you promised the kids a trip to the ballpark but backed out at the last minute, on some feeble excuse because something more appealing had come up?
  3. Do you remember the time you took the kids to the ball game anyway but made them feel guilty for it?
  4. Do you remember the time you parked in the Handicapped Only parking zone and then faced a limp so people wouldn’t think you were a total jerk?
  5. Do you remember the time, when reading to your toddler, you cheated him by turning more than one page at a time because you were impatient and “he wouldn’t notice anyway?”
  6. Do you sometimes demean others?
  7. Are you sometimes punishing and disdainful toward people around you, scornful of their laziness and incompetence?
  8. Do you more often try to do the acceptable thing? Do you indulge the people who report to you with kindness and all the other “soft stuff” you can think of to get them to do what you want – even though you still feel scornful toward them?

Here is the point – people see behavior for what it is.  Don’t rush past this sentence.  Stop – if you see these behaviors/attitudes in you then admit them. Self awareness, being aware of the impact of your behavior on others, is critical to effective leadership and it is the essence of servant leadership.

So what is the business point? Behaviors such as those implicit in the questions above cause employees to disengage, reduce their commitment, max their sick time, engage in work slowdowns and switch to new jobs at rates far higher than their counterparts who work for bosses who understand their attitudes are transparent in their behaviors. This understanding generates either continued denial or deep change.  When deep change occurs then the pursuit of excellence also emerges – excellence that seeks to raise the capabilities and capacity of everyone on the team.  Excellence is not achievement or power or affiliation. Excellence requires a participation entire networks which makes strong and healthy personal relationships absolutely essential.

Servant Leadership

The pursuit of excellence, that quality of product and service that differentiates one group from all others, is not a simply rhetorical device of business schools trying to increase their tuition cash flow by garnering desperate students trying to survive the global economy. The pursuit of excellence is the best pathway toward profitability in a market crowded with hawkers. It is my thesis that the exercise of servant leadership is one of the fastest ways to reinforce the commitment, contribution, confidence, conviction and cultural alignment of employees around the values of a company (assuming those values seek the greater good). So what is servant leadership?

The servant-leader is servant first . . . It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply different from one who is leader first, perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire material possessions. For such it will be a later choice to serve—after leadership is established. The leader- first and the servant- first are two extreme types. Between them there are shadings and blends that are part of the infinite variety of human nature. . . The difference manifests itself in the care taken by the servant- first to make sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being served.[3]

Servant leadership is an orientation to leadership that owns a transparent moral imperative, exercises personal awareness for the impact of behaviors, recognizes the contribution potential of employees and builds a culture characterized by modeling, mentoring, development, discipline and fun. Servant leadership engages the essential activities of vision, structure, profitability and benevolence in an accessible way to employees, board members, stakeholders and stockholders.

When Ken Melrose (former CEO of Toro) stepped into his role at Toro the company was losing money with sales plummeting from $400 million annually to $200 million annually. The perspective Melrose took to the assignment was one of servant leadership.  Melrose believed in people. He states, “You have to grow good people to be even better people. It’s like growing fine turf. You need to feed (train) them, pull them up in time of need (nurture and motivate them), and basically give them room to grow (empower them). Toro has great people, which makes for a good work environment.”

The changes Melrose initiated at Toro started with a significant reduction of force and a reduction in perks (servant leadership does not mean avoiding difficult realities – conversely it means facing them squarely). Everyone shared the burden of the circumstance including the executive suite. Melrose intentionally exercised servant leadership and created a company culture in which employees know they work for the customers and everyone is empowered to serve the customers.  Did servant leadership work?  Near the end of his service sales at Toro hit $1.4 billion!

Conclusion

Clearly the future of Dodger baseball in Los Angeles now seems to depend on the removal of its narcissistic owner – what does the future of your organization need? In his pursuit of greatness Frank McCourt only demonstrated that the essence of greatness i.e., character and service, was not part of the equation of his pursuit. Leaders whose quest is to appear great, who demand respect or loyalty from the cowering masses, who stomp in angry tirades about all their enemies show the world by their behavior that they neither understand greatness/achievement nor have what it takes to get there.

Conversely leaders who see their power, privilege and position as a platform for serving others understand how to be attentive, inquisitive, transparent and focused. Their pursuit of goals does not find a stumbling block or barrier in the presence of others.  Instead they inspire others to the same nobility of cause and commitment of action.  Servant leadership creates a culture of service that doesn’t have to consistently harangue their employees on customer care, the dismantling of silos, or reduction of waste. Servant leadership creates a culture of care, collaboration and concern that consistently addresses the money generating values of the business with the passion of ownership and pride. Why not focus on being a servant leader?

What does your organization need to thrive in the future?  If you have followed the career path of the Dodgers’ present owner then your organization needs to remove and replace you. If you follow the other path, the path of servant leadership then the question isn’t focused on you, it is focused on how your company/organization serves its market creatively – and the question is not an emotional drain but an adventure energized by the engagement of employees who know their value, see their contribution is recognized and can’t stop talking about how great their company is.

[1] Tim Rutten, “The McCourt’s Foul Ball,” The Los Angeles Times, 29 June 2011, A19.

[2] The Arbinger Institute, Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box (San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2002), 7-9.

[3] Robert K. Greenleaf, The Servant as Leader (Indianapolis: Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership, 1970, 1991), 7.


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Bikers, Church Chairs, Community and Diversity

The unmistakable rumble of three dozen Harley Davidson choppers rolling into the church parking lot sent a shiver down my spine and resonated over the church chairs in the sanctuary – it had only been three weeks since the leader of an outlaw gang had threatened to show up on a Sunday morning and kill me because his girl friend had accepted Christ.  I was still the new guy in town and new to my first congregational assignment.
My pastoral experience up to that point consisted of four years in campus ministry. In those four years working with youth and their parents I had framed a clear view of what I thought a congregation could become.  I envisioned a cross-generational, cross-cultural community that expressed contagious love for their neighbor because of the deep transformation they experienced by engaging Christ.  I assumed that transformation would lead to a contagious love and growth in the character and numbers of people who would connect to Christ and to one another.  However, the realities of stepping into leadership of a congregation forty years past its prime were jolting.

I may as well have used Greek in my sermons – as much as I tried to explain my vision I felt I was making zero progress.  I asked the congregation one Sunday to kneel and pray together for the community only to discover in the lukewarm response and angry visitors that marched through my office the following week that such “radical” expressions of religion were unappreciated and cause for the congregation to reconsider acceptance of my appointment as their pastor!  It did not take long for me to understand that what I assumed was normal Christianity was a radical divergence from the pattern of my congregation’s nearly fifty year existence.  The gap between my vision and reality felt like the distance from wall to wall of the Grand Canyon.

So what lead up to the day I watched three dozen choppers pull into the church parking lot causing me to calculate escape routes to the nearest phone if things became uncomfortable?  It was discouragement with the status quo I could not break in the early months of being the new guy.  So one day I left the church office to walk around the downtown area of our small western Washington city.  I had noticed a Harley Davidson motorcycle shop downtown and decided that I would browse around as an escape from the discouragement of the church office.

Shorty, the proprietor of the shop offered a lukewarm greeting (apparently my khaki slacks, golf shirt and flip-flops failed to exude the right look for a Harley Davidson shop).  I told Shorty I had seen the sign on the shop and was curious about motor cycles. When Shorty found out I was a local pastor the conversation turned surly. I wasn’t put off, four years in campus ministry on high school and college campuses had given me plenty of experience conversing with surly people who had both suspicions of religion and open hostilities toward any one associated with religion. I still love to converse with people suspicious of religion.  I too tend to be suspicious of religion. I would rather spend time talking about knowing Jesus Christ at a deep personal level.

Shorty and I became friends and my wife and I ended up meeting many of Shorty’s friends.  That series of introductions and time spent together is how the girlfriend of the club leader ended up receiving Christ.  About that same time we discovered that the bike shop was a suspected cover for an outlaw gang – the club was actually an outlaw gang and conduit of illegal drugs into the state.  So, we had been in the community by this point for several years.  I had succeeded in offending the congregation resulting in an exodus of a dozen families, leading a few people to Christ and ticking off one of the most notorious outlaw leaders in the state.  The usher team was not thrilled with the prospect of having to deal with a mad outlaw on a Sunday morning.

But this was a Tuesday morning and no one was around.  My part-time secretary did not work on Tuesdays.  Most the neighbors around the church property had gone to work for the day.  I stood face to face with three dozen gnarly looking Harley Davidson riders and I was still dressed in khakis, a golf shirt and flip-flops.  I decided I had a better chance in the open than in the building if things became uncivil.  I walked out the front door of the church office.

“Hey man, we are looking for pastor Ray is he here?” The spokesman for the group in front of me threw out the query with a voice that boomed with intimidating firmness.

“Why do you ask?” I answered still calculating the nearest escape route.

“We heard he had a ministry to bikers and was working with the outlaw gang in this area, we came to help him.”

“I am pastor Ray” I said nearly giddy with relief. I was jubilant to have Christians in front of me and not outlaws.

The next exclamation surprised me and taught me a deep lesson about ministry.

“You can’t have a ministry to bikers man…look at you…you don’t even look like a biker.” The warmth I initially felt for this man cooled a bit.  My jubilation melted to astonishment and humor.

After convincing the group that there was no other pastor Ray in the area we talked about what God was doing in them and through them in the biker community and how I had become involved in that community.  They decided to visit that Sunday. When I looked out on the church chairs that weekend I saw more diversity than I had ever seen in that congregation – uncomfortable diversity yet undeniable unity in the Holy Spirit.  We had two significant breakthroughs that day.

The first was that I realized that being a leader and a catalyst to a church movement could only happen if I was simply and authentically myself knowing God through Jesus Christ.  I still don’t look like a biker. I could never pull off trying to look like a biker – I am too…well I leave the descriptors to others who know me. But, the relief of knowing that all I had to be was myself…that was huge.  God called and summoned me to be myself not a farce.  God asked me to follow God with my own warts and all.  That is why and when ministry is more fun than wearying. I still don’t look like all the people I reach, but there is something about being authentic and a learner that works to bridge differences.

The second was that the congregation saw what I had tried to describe.  It made more sense to them to see the gospel in action than to hear me describe the action.  No wonder Jesus first asked people to follow then explained what was happening.  Explanations of God’s love and power doesn’t make much sense until people experience God’s love and power in their context.  For example; when the 6 foot 2 inch 280 pound leather clad bearded spokesman for bike club walked over to the chairman of the board and smothered him in a bear hug that lifted him right out of his church chair and expressed deep appreciation for what the congregation was doing to minister to bikers in the area – the chairman began to grasp what transformation felt and looked like.  He changed after that and became as “radical” as he accused me of being.

It has been almost thirty years since those three dozen Harley Davidson motorcycles rumbled into the church parking lot.  But the lessons for me are just as poignant today as they were then.  When I hear Thom Rainer talk about the diversity represented in the Millennials, when I look at the changing demographics of my community, when I meet customs and languages I don’t comprehend at the local neighborhood gas-mart I take comfort in the fact that authentic love that engages people in the context in which they live still reduces suspicion and hostility. Authenticity still opens the door to see God do powerful things in the lives of others.  I am still learning. To hear some people I am still radical. I still wear flip-flops although the rest of my wardrobe has morphed.  I still go exploring when I am discouraged…only now there is an expectation in the wandering.  I expect God to bring people across my path who will deepen my understanding of grace like Shorty and the outlaws did by their own encounter with the grace of God.

The expectation makes me wonder – what is the next great rumble I will hear resonate across the church chairs in the sanctuary?  I can’t wait to find out.

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When Leadership Requires the Power of Forgiveness

forgiveness-300x199
I recently experienced a painful betrayal. It reminded me of this article I wrote some time back.  Reviewing it was cathartic to me.  I hope it is to you as well.

Painful betrayal whether it occurs at work or in a leader’s personal life has the potential of distorting personal interactions and the leader’s interpretation of events.  Because a leader’s primary work is with people and because a leader depends on others to execute critical components of strategy the potential of distance and distortion in interpersonal relationships compounds with the scope of responsibility a leader carries. It behooves a leader to keep relationships as well as tactics and strategies current.

Place a leader’s scope of interpersonal relationships into a global corporation and add the challenges of cross-cultural communication and multinational socio-political realities and possibility of experiencing evil grows exponentially.   For example my friend who lost a trusted manager to terrorist activity faced evil.  The CEO, whose daughter is kidnapped, tortured and killed under the auspices of terrorist activity faces evil. The manager who is held until a bribe is paid faces evil.  The director whose trusted friend engages in a Machiavellian manipulation of political allies to oust him or her from their position faces evil.

There are times every leader find themselves in the middle of difficult conversations filled with accusations and counter accusations, angry words, hurt feelings and painful betrayals.  Leaders who face distorted interpersonal relationships and evil face tangible offenses and real pain.  It is not a matter of being tough enough to anticipate betrayal, loss, or risk – this all comes with the territory of leadership.  It is a matter of how a leader or person facing the aftermath of evil recovers from their experience in a way that strengthens rather than destroys them.

Facing Conflict with Piercing Honesty

I was lecturing on leadership ethics to graduate students in Kenya the year following their disputed presidential election.  As part of these lectures I include a section on the research on forgiveness as a means of combating evil and bridging across distorted relationships.  As the lecture unfolded painful stories of loss emerged from the class (made up by the way of the two primary parties in the dispute). These leaders had lost family in the turmoil that ensued following the election.  They sat in the same room with those who by association were responsible for their loss.  There are times when the need to vent pain requires a place in which leaders can be vulnerable enough to describe their pain and find both a safe place to unload and a strategy to replace the reaction of revenge. Knowing how to work through conflict is not a common skill. Two inadequate alternatives often manifest themselves when I talk with leaders.

On the one hand the motivation and skill needed to have a tumultuous conversation is often lost in the morass of pain and anger. Somehow a mis-belief enters common thinking that to be civil (or in the church world to be Christian) is to be nice in a Pollyanna sense rather than in the true definition of the word.  Civility (good character and reputation; sensitive discernment) must include the skill to engage tumultuous conversations that refuse to avoid the issues or behaviors that minimize or damage the common good.  The fact is that without the commitment to the civility that presses for the common good one may fall to the entrapment of evil’s banality.  The term banality of evil was framed by Hannah Arendt whose analysis of Adolf Eichmann trial in 1961 showed that while a dozen psychiatrists had certified Eichmann as “normal” only showed that the source of evil may be commonplace.  Eichmann had sent millions of Jews to concentration camps during World War II.

On the other hand it is easier in our mobile society to simply disengage the source of discomfort or pain and simply move on.  The question I ponder is how does a person engage in a bifurcation of moral judgment so as to assume that the attitudes and behaviors that person exhibits in one context escape moral scrutiny in another?  The fact is that unresolved conflict and pain follows us to every new context and creates a lens or bias in how we view the actions of others.  Soon even the new context exhibits the failings of the original experience. Does this mean that deep violations in relationships are always reconcilable?  No. I could not engage a class on ethical decision making without also facing my own potential to engage in the kinds of behaviors my students decried as victims – there were victims on both sides.

The challenges of evil; ordinary evil, dreadful pleasure of hurting others, deception, bureaucracy or sanctioned destruction is not simply a problem elsewhere it is a potential of human behavior that every leader must consider.

Let’s Talk about Accountability for a Moment

Wherever people are involved the choice to do good or evil exists. People do not always choose the good. I have experienced the pain of betrayal by leaders, I have comforted those who experienced the trauma of sexual abuse, I have sat in the hospital with women beaten by their boyfriends or spouses, I have cried with children whose father killed their mother, I have wept with spouses betrayed by the sexual affairs of their partner and I have stood in the grief and pain of my students in Africa whose entire families were massacred in political rivalry.  I have experienced the betrayal of insecurity and banal evil myself as a leader. There are victims of evil. There are victims of poor choices.

So, what does accountability look like?  What does the quest for justice look like?  Does it look like a quest for admission of guilt? Does it look like a quest for apology?  I affirm all of these as desirable. But each of these quests for justice or righteousness or an admission of guilt will not occur when one is silent or simply slinks away.  The strongest confrontation of evil or poor behavior is to call it for what it is.  The Apostle Paul’s encouragement to the Romans is instructive;

14 I myself am convinced, my brothers and sisters, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with knowledge and competent to instruct one another.  (Romans 15:14, NIV)

So who is accountable to make the first move toward change?  Paul simply leaves it in the second person, “you” and lets the reader feel the full force of responsibility to act differently. Regardless of whether you are the victim or the perpetrator, you are responsible to make the first move toward actions that identify injustice and pursue justice.

I understand the pain I hear when talking to leaders who have suffered evil.  I was once caught in the court case and needed to secure my own attorney to protect myself from a third party and my own organization.  These parties were engaged in legal action over an insurance claim on property damage.  I had initiated the original claim as an act of stewardship for the property.  When my organization refused to pay the full insurance claim I was told by my boss to secure my own attorney.  I found myself in a defensive position against an organization I had helped build. My rage and sense of betrayal festered into bitterness.  I figured that if a fight was what was desired that I would oblige and adopt a scorched earth policy toward the organization’s other leadership.

I met with an attorney who listened to my story of betrayal and mismanaged insurance funds. She agreed that I had been horribly aggrieved then said she would take my case if I could answer one question.  It was nice to be affirmed in my pain and my sense of revenge was encouraged by her expressed willingness to take up my cause.  “What is the question?” I asked.

“What is God doing in this situation?”

The attorney may as well have hit me between the eyes with a bat – the response would have been the same.  I was stunned. I sat there in silence. I was a spiritual leader of a national program, a professor of leadership, a trusted friend and mentor of other leaders and all I could think in that moment was how I wanted revenge.  Since I had no answer the attorney suggested we meet again when I could answer the question and then we would map out a legal strategy together.

I was still reeling from the meeting with the attorney when I met with one of my graduate school mentors.  I repeated the painful details of my experience and Bobby listened attentively.  He interrupted before I could complete the saga and said, “I have seen this before Ray.  Leaders work in imperfect organizations. That is why we need effective and godly (morally aware) leaders. You have a choice as a leader – you are at a boundary time. You can choose to grow or to plateau in your potential and capacity development.  If you are going to grow you must choose to identify the boundary and then forgive those who have injured you.”

“I need to forgive? They need to provide restitution for my lost wages and legal defense!”  I respected Bobby but I was a little miffed at his suggestion that my response to others actions was the critical key to identifying what God was doing.  Bobby didn’t flinch at my intensity.

“I am not suggesting you forget or ignore the pain of what has occurred Ray.”

“Well what are you suggesting?” I asked.

“I am suggesting that in your present state you won’t see how this event can positively shape your future and your effectiveness as a leader until you choose to forgive and begin to see things from God’s perspective.”

As we talked I discovered that I did not understand either the process of forgiveness or its power.

What Forgiveness Is Not and What it Is

Craig Johnson, professor of leadership studies at George Fox University notes that forgiveness is not:

  • Forgetting past wrongs to move on
  • Excusing or condoning bad, damaging behavior
  • Reconciliation or coming together again (forgiveness opens the way to reconciliation, but the other person much change or desire to reconcile)
  • Reducing the severity of the offenses
  • Offering legal pardon
  • Pretending to forgive in order to wield power over another person
  • Ignoring the offender
  • Dropping our anger and becoming emotionally neutral

I wrestled with these misconceptions about forgiveness and I see others wrestle with them as well. Johnson quotes Robert Enright of the University of Wisconsin to define forgiveness as;

…a willingness to abandon one’s resentment, negative judgment, and indifferent behavior toward one who unjustly injured us, while fostering the undeserved qualities of compassion, generosity, and even love toward him or her.[1]

The definition carries all the biblical aspects of forgiveness I was familiar with in a theological sense.  Forgiveness includes the recognition that the victim has suffered a real injustice; that forgiveness is a choice that involves emotions, thoughts and behaviors and that forgiveness can be offered regardless of the offender’s response.  The fact is that forgiveness is a process that identifies a real problem.  Forgiveness recognizes the high price of carrying resentment and bitterness, works to understand (not condone) the actions of the offender in order to break the cycle of evil rather than pass it on.  Finally forgiveness renders the outcome of seeing a deeper meaning in the events that have occurred and the realization on the part of the victim of their own need for forgiveness in life.  Knowing this as a detached concept and living it as a leader in the middle of the fight is not the same thing.

Working at a Crossroad

Leaders work at the crossroad of moral decision daily.  We listen, we empathize and we try to point those in our organizations in the direction of legal, ethical and moral justice.  How powerful would it be if more and more leaders caught in the painful throes of interpersonal conflict and the experience of evil would exercise the power of forgiveness?  How revolutionary could a company or organization become in today’s global environment if we lay hold of the dynamic of staying in tumultuous conversations rather than running from them?

Walking through the pain of my own forgiveness journey and walking with other leaders through their journey encourages me about the powerful potential for deep personal and social change forgiveness can bring. So how does forgiveness break the retaliatory cycle of evil?  Enright, Freedman and Rique (1998) suggest that forgiveness unfolds in four phases.

Uncovering Phase

The attorney with whom I talked skillfully led me through an evaluation of my own psychological defenses evident in my desire for revenge.  I was so enraged that I could barely articulate the reasons why.  I had to confront my anger and release rather than harbor my rage.  I was ashamed at my apparent helplessness in the face of the organization’s concerted attempt to railroad my position in an effort to save a few bucks (odd that the cost of the legal fees eventually exceeded by 4 times the amount of the original insurance claim).   The confrontation I engaged with the attorney and my mentor helped me see that I was living in a rehearsal of my pain rather than engaging my own future as a leader. While the event permanently altered the course of my career the reality was that forgiveness alone could open my eyes to the potential opportunities the irrevocable change would in fact provide.

Decision Phase

Bobby challenged me to look at my situation with different eyes (a different perspective).  In his taxonomy of leadership development my situation was a common means of expanding capacity in leaders who exercised forgiveness.  The same was true for my students in Kenya.  As they moved from a quest for revenge to an admission of their loss and a query about their future they experienced the same change of heart I had that day in Bobby’s office. They became willing to consider forgiveness as an option and determined to forgive the offenders of the atrocity they had experienced.   Remember this is not the same as excusing or condoning the behavior of the offender.

Work Phase

That day in the classroom we worked to reframe the experience of those leaders who had faced such horrendous loss – many of them were exposed to the other side of the political rivalry and the losses incurred by enemies in the conflict for the very first time. They began to see the wrongdoer (i.e., each other) in a new light.  They saw each other from the perspective of their unique context.  For the first time they experienced a twinge of compassion for the offenders (i.e., each other).

I remember encountering a regional vice president from my organization during my own work phase in the act of forgiveness.  We saw each other for the first time since the initiation of court action months after I had left the organization.  We embraced in a bear hug – each having seen the pain faced by the other.  It was one of the most startling and moving experiences I have ever had. We talked about mistakes both sides had made, the injuries those mistakes and intentional posturing had inflicted and then we offered forgiveness to one another.

The work phase is a process of acceptance and absorption of the pain.  It is significant because up to this point pain is fought against or denied and suppressed so that it sneaks out in unconscious actions of revenge and retaliation.  Without forgiveness the experience of evil typically reproduces itself so that the victim becomes a perpetrator.

Deepening Phase

The question of the attorney (what is God doing) was not an attempt to sidestep real issues in the guise of religious pompousness – it was a catalytic question that forced me to find meaning in what I had suffered and in the process of forgiveness I was then willing to engage.  This is the essence of a deepen phase it is the final step in leaving a boundary time with a clear idea of a new future.

As I described the process of forgiveness for my students that week in Africa they realized that they were not alone in their suffering.  This realization is part of the deepening phase and it set the stage for their own transition from a primarily negative affect to the realization of a new purpose in life because of the injury they faced as leaders.

Conclusion

The social-scientific study of forgiveness is a relatively new field.  But so far it shows great promise in helping leaders absorb and diffuse evil.  Global leaders in today’s highly interdependent economies have ample opportunity to experience evil. The reality is that all of us face the choice daily in our operations to be people who act as perpetrators of evil (either by our practiced distance from the sources of evil we see but do not address or by the pain we inflict on those we consider enemies).  If our organizations are really going to thrive, if they have impact for the common good then forgiveness is a skill and discipline every leader must engage as part of achieving their full potential.

[1] Craig E. Johnson. Meeting the Ethical Challenges of Leadership: Casting Light or Shadow, 3rd ed. (Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publishing, 2009), 116.

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Get Spiritual – Releasing Leaders Depends on It

Insight from Research into Spirituality in Leadership
A group of researchers working with the United States Army determined that spiritual leadership is critical to developing organizational commitment and performance.  Their research demonstrated that organizational performance is directly related to the ideas of calling/meaning and membership typically associated with spirituality.[1]  The researchers point out that;

… the tenets of hope/faith, altruistic love, and vision within spiritual leadership comprises the values, attitudes, and behaviors required to intrinsically motivate oneself and others to have a sense of calling and membership – spiritual well-being.[2]

Pastors I know who look into the eyes of those sitting in church chairs every Sunday morning have also observed the quest for meaning and a sense of belonging/membership is nearly palpable in the people sitting there.  Pastoral leaders know that the degree to which spirituality impacts how people understand their sense of calling/meaning and membership in the church is a critical factor in the quality of the congregation’s overall health.

But talk about spirituality needs to make a distinction between religion and spirituality.  Religion is concerned with formalized practices and ideas that depend on a theological system of beliefs, ritual prayers, rites and ceremonies. Religion is not necessary for spirituality but spirituality is necessary for religion.  The challenge is that religion as an expression of human spirituality is reducible to empty and dogmatic forms that actually suppress spirituality.

Spirituality is concerned with those qualities associated with the human spirit (or the Imago Dei as a theologian may prefer to call it) that include such characteristics as love, compassion, patience, tolerance, forgiveness, contentment, personal responsibility and a sense of harmony with one’s context or environment. Spirituality shares the characteristics associated with positive psychology and many of the outcomes associated with happiness at work.

Spirituality is the pursuit of a vision of service to others; through humility as having the capacity to regard oneself as an individual equal but not greater in value to others individuals; through charity, or altruistic love; and through veracity, which goes beyond basic truth-telling to engage one’s capacity for seeing things exactly as they are, thus limiting subjective distortions.[3]

Jesus makes a similar distinction that is important because it reshapes what we think about leadership.  For example Jesus challenged the religious leaders of the day to see past the formal practices, rituals, rites and ceremonies of religious expression to get at the core issues of justice, mercy and faithfulness to God. (Matthew 23:23-39)  Without a distinction between spirituality and religion definitions of leadership in religion typically trend toward a narrow and exceptional set of qualifications that the average person does not meet.  If the starting point is spirituality as Jesus suggested then the emergence of leadership from within a group is a natural course of the activism that occurs as true spirituality responds to issues of justice, mercy and faithfulness.

The researchers use the phrase leadership and not leader in their project to differentiate that they are not looking at the specific qualities of an individual but at the complex and multilevel dynamics of how leadership emerges in a group of people.  Their definition is important because it recognizes that the act of leadership is not only complex but that it emerges when needed from a variety of individuals rather than from an exclusive few. The move to understanding leadership as a complex multilevel dynamic is significant for two reasons.

First, research is getting closer to the reality described in the Bible i.e., that leadership is a functional outcome of all the parts of the body being aligned in mission. (I Cor. 12: 14-31) That leadership is a focus does not downplay the role of individuals as they lead but rather raises the importance of the interconnectedness of the parts of the body while minimizing a hero/messiah complex on the part of leaders. I think Greenleaf got it right when he noted why leadership is a more preferable concept than simply looking at individual leaders;

Finally the prevalence of the lone chief placed a burden on the whole society because it gives control priority over leadership. It sets before the young the spectacle of an unwholesome struggle to get to the top. It nourishes the notion among able people that one must be boss to be effective.  And it sanctions, in a conspicuous way, a pernicious and petty status striving that corrupts everyone.[4]

Second, research quantitatively defines the dynamics behind one of the most interesting leadership emergence stories in the Bible e.g., the identification and release of the six deacons. (Acts 6:1-8)  I do not mean that the Bible needs to be quantitatively affirmed.  Instead quantitative research illustrates the reason why the pattern visible in Acts 6 is reproducible and desirable.  In fact it is my thesis that the events around the selection of the seven deacons is the model of how the church should face the challenges of complex/multilevel dynamics it faces as a congregation grows and attempts to address the rapidly changing social/demographic fabric faced by many congregations in today’s global cities.

Leadership development is a hot topic of discussion in church publications and seminary research projects. So this research on spirituality has an important contribution to make.  Does the research explain what occurred in Acts 6?  If so what insights does it provide to help pastors reproduce leaders?  I see three lessons.

Lesson 1: Succeeding in a Complex Multilevel Environment Requires Disruption of Existing Patterns

I would like to simply stipulate that operating in a church today is a more complex proposition than it was fifty years ago.  That said leading a congregation effectively in today’s world looks nothing like it did fifty years ago…even ten years ago.

Changing social context like the one faced by churches today is not unheard of historically.  Consider the situation in Acts 6.  The influx of new cultural groups responding to the gospel after Pentecost resulted in the types of conflicts those of us in Intercultural studies predict – some people were invisible. Look at the text:

1 In those days when the number of disciples was increasing, the Hellenistic Jews among them complained against the Hebraic Jews because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food. (Acts 6:1, NIV)

The complaint brought to the apostles resulted in two significant actions.  First, the apostles leveraged the disruption of existing behavioral patterns to challenge incongruous cultural norms (i.e., the way we do things around here).  Cultural norms are not in themselves bad but where cultural norms impede the expansion of the church they result in behavior by the church that contradicts the message of the church. This is an important change insight.

Second, the apostles did not ask the pre-existing social network to answer the need they asked the new group to identify their own leaders and answer their own needs.  This avoided three unhelpful dynamics.  It avoided the creation of a dependency on the part of the new group. It avoided over taxing the change resiliency of the pre-existing group.  It avoided marginalization of the new group by offering them equal status i.e., they were able to self govern even as the pre-existing group was. Too often new or minority groups encounter an attitude in the pre-existing or majority group that treats them as children rather than fully functional adults. Decisions made on behalf of others in an intercultural context fail to fully understand cultural implications. The result is that decisions make little or no sense in practice.

Disruption of existing patterns of behavior is unavoidable in the face of new growth especially where that growth reflects the growing globalization seen in many cities and churches around the United States and the world. Is there a common ground from which to work in the face of cultural diversity? Spirituality may offer a common starting point.

Lesson Two: Identifying Leaders in a Complex Multilevel Environment Requires a Focus on Spirituality

That the Apostles used the criteria of spirituality to encourage novelty and embrace ambiguity of an inter-cultural challenge is a powerful lesson in leadership selection.  Facing the ambiguity of unpredictable results often feels unbearable or off-balance. The risk was in how the new cultural group (Hellenized Jews) defined good leadership.  The definitions of leadership change from culture to culture.  Would the new group fit with the existing group if they defined things on their own? If the apostles had defined the characteristics of a good leader in any other terms than the three criteria inherent in spirituality they would have failed to effectively allow the new/minority group to act as equals.  The important leadership observation here is that the apostles did not abandon the process or simply abdicate their responsibility in a misguided attempt at pluralism or relativism. They assigned a task designed to encourage leadership emergence i.e.

Brothers and sisters, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them…. (Acts 6:3, NIV)

The Apostles risked giving the assignment that allowed the characteristics of spirituality (i.e., good reputation, filled with the Holy Spirit and filled with wisdom) to be interpreted and applied by the new/minority group. They exercised an implicit confidence in the work of the Holy Spirit. (John 14:26) It is important to see that implicit confidence in the Holy Spirit’s role is not an abdication of responsibility in leadership but a necessity in the exercise of leadership.  Because the Apostles identified key values already at work in the majority group they provided a foundation from which the minority group could defend their choices and make choices that align to the scriptures.  Interestingly the Apostles’ criteria paralleled the definition of spirituality the researchers provided and with the same results seen in leadership i.e., both groups shared a sense of calling and membership in a larger group (the body of Christ not just the Judaic or Hellenized group).

Lesson Three: Leadership in a Complex Multilevel Environment is that of Sense Maker not Director

The apostles did not answer the need.  They did not work harder and longer.  They did not chastise. They did not belittle.  They did not take on the role of the over burdened leader.  The Apostles interpreted the events the people brought to them by refocusing attention on the significance of the challenge.  The Apostles’ response “It would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the word of God in order to wait on tables” (Acts 6:2, NIV) was not a pejorative on serving but a refocusing on the significance of Pentecost and their assignment.  In other words the focus of the situation could not be the complaint itself but the cause of the complaint i.e., the church was expanding to Jerusalem, Judea,Samaria and the outlying areas.

By keeping the focus implicitly on the expansion of the church and the reproduction of spirit empowered ministry rather than the complaint the Apostles created a sense of expectation within the congregation (Acts 6:5). Not only did the Apostles empower the congregation by moving responsibility for answering the new need to the people rather than the Apostles themselves they also refocused attention on the larger mission of the Church.

Conclusion

Did the Apostolic strategy work?  According to the text one of the seven went on to do great wonders and miracles among the people.  The strategy did work.  In fact it worked well enough that Luke’s record of the early church’s expansion focused exclusively on Stephen (one of the seven) for the next chapter and a half.  This is pretty impressive since only four people are really highlighted in Acts (Peter, Stephen, Philip and Paul or if you add supporting characters then include Barnabas and James).  Said another way, a new guy (Stephen) made it into the history of the Acts movement in its first 10 years of existence.  It seems to take at least a generation or more for new guys (those from another culture) to make it into the history of many modern church movements.

Is the Apostolic strategy reproducible?  Let’s go back to the significance of the research…YES.  Where there is a deliberate emphasis on spirituality as a leadership qualification and where existing leaders push problems back to people to resolve, providing guidance based on spirituality and avoiding the urge to override decisions based on more familiar methods or rituals, then similar results are predictable. The risk is that a leader may lose control of a group.  However, loss of control is hardly an issue to anything other than ego. What is really at stake is not so much the loss of control (all cultures frame boundaries so that they can function effectively).  The issue really is where the locus of control will rest. One cannot be a classic micro manager and expect either numerical or qualitative growth. The emphasis on spirituality in leadership is important because it is the closest thing to a universal standard that we possess in leadership development.

What does the research affirm?  Growing leaders is a disruptive event to business as usual and disruption to business as usual is fertile soil for leadership development. A focus on developing spirituality is critical to effective multiplication of leadership – it provides the control point and flexibility needed for leadership emergence.  The most important thing leaders can do when facing changing and confusing times is to help others by making sense of the times. Biblically informed leaders have a leg up in this regard in possessing both a history and a future surrounded by the promise and working of the living God.

How will you apply the insights from this research to your own leadership behaviors?  In what ways does the research affirm your present activities?  In what ways does it challenge your present activities?  Let me know what you think!

[1] Louis W. Fry, Sean T. Hanna, Michael Noel and Fred O. Walumbwa (2011). “Impact of Spiritual Leadership on Unit Performance” in The Leadership Quarterly 22, 259-70.

[2] Ibid 260

[3] Ibid 260

[4] Robert Greenleaf. Servant Leadership: A Journey into the Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1991), 65.

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Are You Happy at Work – Does it Matter?

An Agitating Question – Investigating Hope
Are you happy at work? The question burned in my mind in fact I found it quite agitating.  The agitation did not stem from feeling like I was unhappy it was the opposite.  I am happy in the work I do. What became agitating is that my work in developing leaders in business or through the classroom or through consulting and coaching work lead me to conclude that how people felt about work is critical to how they perform.  But, I did not have a way to turn this observation into a reliable method of measuring hope or initiating change designed around the generation of hope in the organizations I worked in or with.

So I started to investigate the connection between happiness and work to the extent I left work long enough to complete doctoral studies while I immersed myself in the question. My research focused on the role of hope in leadership emergence patterns in complex organizations.  What I found was that people who had hope were not only more optimistic in their perspective or mindset they also had a much more realistic grasp of their situation whether positive or negative that seemed to lead them to make much better decisions than those who did not have hope. People who possessed hope worked proactively to alter the way things were done to improve processes and the work environment so that others felt recognized, challenged to do their best work and discovered a sense of deeper purpose or meaning in their work. People who possessed hope never remained victims even when they endured significant loss.  They possessed a resilience that got up and went forward again.

Hope in its essence is “…a combination of clearly articulating goals, believing that one can meet these goals, charting a course of action or a path, and arriving at the goal while experiencing a sense of well-being as a result of the process.”[1]  Psychologists have determined that hope and other positive emotions impact one’s openness or cognitive flexibility, problem-solving abilities, empathy, willingness to engage diversity/variety and resilience (persistence).

In my research I found that (1) the presence of hope predicts a framework that shapes leadership values and motives toward new outcomes and possibilities. (2) Hope engenders inquiries about reality that expose and subvert dysfunctional tendencies that suppress or reject emerging leaders and suppress or reject new possibilities. (3)  Hope synthesizes the attributes and transactional characteristics of the church and other organizational entities in a way that accelerates the construction of a dynamic and organic leadership development pipeline.  Writing from a theological perspective I was particularly excited to discover that the field of positive psychology had done much work in understanding the impact of positive emotions and hope that I mirrored in my research.

Hope serves as both a trait and a mindset.  In the words of Jessica Pryce-Jones it serves as “…a kicker to action and it is clearly associated with higher job performance and happiness.  In fact some psychologists call it a ‘Velcro’ concept as it seems to enable you to stick to your commitments regardless of your other attributes.”[2]

Hope – Happiness Connection

I had perceived happiness as an outcome of hope.  So, my focus was on discovering why people had or did not have hope and where hope came from for those that did.  I saw that hope stemmed from a belief or mindset specifically rooted in the promises of God.  People who believed the promise of a different future tended to live in a “future perfect” way i.e., their anticipation of the future altered how they approached the present and affected what they would or would not tolerate as acceptable.  In leaders this meant that those who had hope acted as contagious change agents.

However, my research included organizations that were not church related and I noticed the same type of leaders in those organizations i.e., men and women filled with hope that acted as visionaries and change agents.[3]  It was not that these people were more charismatic that others it was that they had a deep sense or mindset through which they interpreted the realities around them.  They saw opportunities others missed.  They saw a preferred future as possible when others saw only drudgery or failure.  The research by Pryce-Jones and her team introduced the idea of happiness and set it up as a precondition of hope.  So, I was intrigued.

So what is happiness? “Happiness at work is a mindset which allows you to maximize performance and achieve your potential.  You do this by being mindful of the highs and the lows when working alone or with others.”[4]

Happiness at work allows people to leverage their experiences regardless of whether they are positive or negative (high or low) to meet their full potential at work.  The theory behind the idea of happiness is rooted in positive psychology that builds on four ideas:

  • You are responsible for your own level of happiness
  • You have more room to maneuver than you think
  • You always have a choice
  • Self-awareness is the first step

Five Critical Factors of Happiness

I needed to know more about the research done by Pryce-Jones and her team. They began to research happiness at work because Pryce-Jones observed the connection between her own productivity and her happiness at work. She formed a team that through the process of data collection began to see data cluster around five different themes.  As these themes became clear they designed an assessment reliably measure these themes in people.  Their work resulted in an assessment that measures five factors that define happiness.

These factors include items typically included in human capital studies (employee engagement or job satisfaction). However the data collected via the research by Pryce-Jones and her team indicates that such things as employee engagement relates to 10 percent fewer items than happiness does.  The bottom line is that people who are happy at work are 108% more engaged than their unhappy colleagues, love their job 79% more and achieve their goals 30% more often. Happy people cut the costs of turnover, sick days, work slowdowns and absenteeism by as much as 50%.

The five factors that define happiness are:

Contribution: the effort an employee makes and their perception of this effort.

Conviction: the motivation employees have whatever their circumstance.

Culture: how well employees feel they fit at work.

Commitment: the extent to which employees are engaged with their work.

Confidence: the sense of belief employees have in themselves and their job.

Factors Thrive in a Healthy Corporate Culture Indicated by Pride, Trust and Recognition

Pryce-Jones and her team also found that these factors are supported by pride, trust and recognition which serve as proxies for the existence of the five factors.  In other words if one has pride in their work and feel they are safe in taking risks at work without the fear of a hidden agenda and where work recognizes their efforts the stage is set for employees to arise to new levels of productivity, creativity and effort.  People recognized for their achievements at work (in ways that are meaningful to them) their energy level and engagement skyrocketed.  Finally where people trust their organizations risk taking rises, they are more committed and relationships operate with greater transparency.  Conversely when these critical cultural components are missing productivity and engagement plummets – in fact the absence of these three factors often indicate that people are already engaged in looking for new jobs.

So What? 

Clearly the impact that happiness has at work is unavoidably significant at least if one takes the research seriously. If happy people are more engaged, if they make their goals more often if they take measurably less sick days or engage in measurable fewer work slowdowns then calculating a return on investment on happy employees is certainly possible.

But how are these employees identified?  Pryce-Jones and her team’s assessment offer a means of reliably measuring happiness at work for both individuals and teams.  Because they measure specific characteristics in the factors they also create a diagnostic that illustrates the relationship between personal happiness and organizational culture.  Their assessment makes it possible to effectively measure current conditions, design and ROI and engage in a pointed strategy to alter the work culture to achieve a greater level of employee happiness at work.  The net effect is higher productivity and lower costs of doing business.  What is not to like?

It is now possible to name the factors that contribute to hope, contribute to higher output and contribute to lower costs.  Not only does this help organizations respond to the emerging leaders working toward a new future in their organizations, it also helps create strategies to remove the barriers to the emergence of these leaders.

I adopted the assessment developed by Pryce-Jones and her team.  The results the assessment has generated in defining the psychological and social capital that determines the effectiveness of an organization’s human capital impress me. The reality is that “financial value is reduced or increased as a direct consequence of the relationships that individuals have with themselves and with others at work.”[5]  Pryce-Jones’ iOpener Assessment is a reliable and valid tool that turns the concept of happiness at work into a concrete means of achieving significant change and higher levels of performance in those organizations ready to rigorously embrace the facts behind their financial performance.

Are you happy at work?  The question is not just an inquiry into how one feels it is a diagnostic that predicts how well your organization is going to do. As it turns out it does matter. For more information write me at ray@leadership-praxis.com, I would love to discuss the application of this instrument in your organization.

One last question came to me from my own research.  What would happen if I asked people, “Are you happy at church?”  Are the factors of commitment, contribution, conviction, confidence and culture effective in measuring who is about to leave a congregation and who is really engaged in the mission of a local congregation?  I think so. Now, I need to find a way to test this hypothesis.  Any takers?

[1][1] C. R. Snyder. “The Past and Possible Futures of Hope” in Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology 19, no. 1 (2000):11-28.

[2] Jessica Pryce-Jones. Happiness at Work Maximizing your Psychological Capital for Success (West Sussex, UK: Wiley & Sons Ltd., 2010), 125.

[3] This is not to infer that the presence or absence of faith made no difference in how leaders approached their situations or their lives. Without turning this into a theological treatise what I concluded was that those leaders who had hope without referencing faith were also those leaders most open to discussing the impact of faith and the promise inherent in what Christian theological work calls the gospel. In other words these individuals were not opposed to God, they possessed a respect for God even though they expressed varying degrees of understanding about the message of Christianity. All of them found my theological approach to business/organizational research fascinating.

[4] Pryce-Jones, 4.

[5] Pryce-Jones, 7.

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Feedback – or Lessons on Hearing Past my Biases

It wasn’t what we expected. Have you ever asked for feedback and ended up being surprised by what you found out?  This happened recently to us and it opened up a great lesson on leadership.  We started a product development cycle to answer a problem that occurs over time in some of one of our products. We designed three new prototypes based on feedback we had received from our customers.  Once we completed building the prototypes we showed them around the factory and reached a consensus about which one our customers would like best.
Then, we schedule some focus groups with customers to decide whether we had the right idea.  We asked the participants in our focus group to rate the prototype designs and tell us which one they would most like buy and why.

Then the surprises started. The participants all gravitated to the one choice we thought was the most boring.  When we calculated the results the product design team challenged the outcome.  Did we ask the right questions?  Did we tabulate the results accurately?  Why did this prototype seem better to the participants than the two factory favorites?

Feedback is always important in product development.  Our customers often give us the best ideas!  But our corporate reaction to this feedback got me thinking about feedback I receive as a leader.  How important do I consider this to be?  What did our experience with the focus groups teach me about leadership generally?  As I thought about it I came up with three feedback pitfalls that I have experienced and seen leaders commit when it comes to either giving or receiving feedback.

Pitfall 1: Championing a Premature Solution (Regardless of the Feedback)

The focus group experience illustrates this pitfall in seeking feedback.  We set up the focus group as a way to affirm a predisposition not explore possibilities.  This was not a conscious act – we did not see the bias we were working out of until we faced the contrast of unexpected response.  Leaders must be aware of their biases. When leaders ask for feedback and that feedback does not give the anticipated results its time to stop and check the biases i.e., the assumptions. Obviously we wanted to know what would sell best but we had inadvertently committed ourselves in the wrong direction – we committed to a particular solution rather than a measurable outcome.  What is the difference and why is it important to remember not just in product development but also in leadership?

Presumably the ask for feedback assumes that the solution has not yet been identified.  The mistake we made was that we assumed we knew the real problem and had the only commercially viable solution.  The mistake was that we owned a solution before we really defined the problem from the customer’s point of view.  I see leaders making the same mistake i.e., rushing to a solution before they really hear the problem. As a result time and energy is spent on actions that have either no impact or the opposite impact the action intended.

The lesson for leaders is to change the focus of attention.  Rather than enter conversations seeking to own (define, promote or insist on) a solution leaders should spend more time helping define the problem and the preferred outcome.  When others engage in helping define the problem then it is possible that several great solutions present themselves.

Pitfall 2: Reactive Response

The internal tension I felt during the focus group was just that – internal. I faced a decision to either be defensive about which option I felt was best or to spend time asking questions to understand why I received the feedback I was getting.  This ability to stop in mid-emotion and think about what I wanted to really do has been a hard-earned skill. There have been times that I projected my own embarrassment at being caught flat-footed on what others were thinking and became reactive.  The result was never pretty – typically I reacted to things no one else perceived. I have often seen leaders react defensively or punitively when they felt like questions were a sign of disrespect and not engagement in a process of change or understanding.

The lesson for leaders is to embrace the reality that emotionally awkward situations may show one’s insecurity more accurately than the disrespect or challenge to one’s authority. When that twinge of embarrassment lurks below the surface ask what internal assumption just got challenged.  Then embrace the emotion and ask for more clarification.  Lead the process of discovery rather than blow it up with reactive emotions.

Pitfall 3: Working on Assumptions not Facts

Feedback is simply information that helps to decide whether actions are moving closer to an objective or farther away.  Somewhere deep in the Judeo-Christian ethic an awareness exists that feedback is a constant companion.  Jesus said it this way,

But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. (John 14:26)

Notice the verbs; teach and remind.  These verbs certainly show that providing feedback both in the sense of a moral compass and commentary on behavior is a normative experience. Somewhere this gets lost.  However, effective leaders embrace feedback and create a culture that encourages feedback to engage actions that grow in consistency between their impact and their intention.  In other words feedback helps close the gap between behavior and the vision of the organization.  So what is it that causes feedback to go awry?

The leadership lesson is that all of us have past experiences, relationships, beliefs and assumptions that serve as filters to what we hear.  Chris Argyris calls this the ladder of inference and he describes it in seven steps:

  1. All observable data and experience
  2. I select “data” from what I observe
  3. I add meanings
  4. I make assumptions
  5. I draw conclusions
  6. I adopt beliefs
  7. I take action based on beliefs

It is important for individuals and leaders to be aware of this process of inference.  When providing feedback it is important to listen for the beliefs behind the responses.  When listening to feedback it is just as important to consider whether one’s own beliefs are they supported by the data or do they distort the data?

The focus group process helped us land on the right product design.  But the greater win may be that we learned something about how we respond to feedback that will make us more effective leaders and better friends in the days ahead.  How are you using feedback?  What experience have you had with either positive or negative feedback?

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Shaping Employee Engagement and Emotional Intelligence Part 2

In part 1 “Shaping Employee Engagement and Emotional Intelligence” I outlined a situation in which one of my direct reports (Sally) launched an email broadside aimed at my boss and included my entire team and copied the executive team.  She disagreed with a decision.  She had a significant insight that if delivered with some finesse would have improved the project.  Her edgy emotionally charged tone buried her insights and resulted in a sharp rebuke from my boss.  I returned from a business trip to manage multiple layers of disillusionment and anger.
I urge open communication among my team.  This fact is known in the company and upon my return I was instructed to pull my team in line.  Managing up meant that I affirm the inappropriateness of the email and outline the limits I insist on when encouraging open communication (i.e., respect, a clear business case, passion – emotion does not bother me).  The email failed to communicate respect, it communicated impertinence.  It failed to make a business case – it jumped to unsubstantiated conclusions on the motives of the executive team. It had plenty of passion.  Two things were at stake in my upward management: (1) whether I was leading the team or was being overrun by the team and (2) whether the disruption caused by the employee offset the value they brought to the company. How would you manage the upward challenge?

When I walked back into the office I asked Sally to meet with me.  She entered my office and declared, “Tom already talked to me about the email.”

“Ok, then tell me why it was inappropriate.”  I asked.

She answered, “I was mad and should have just kept this to myself.  I will never talk again every time I do I just get shot down.”

What do you see in her response?  How would you have responded to her statement? What result might I face if I let her statement stand?

The rest of my team was hiding in their offices.  I made the rounds and checked in with each of them.  They felt the tension in the office and universally felt that they had lost something in the public exchange that occurred between Sally and Tom.  They knew I was under pressure to bring things back into control.  They did not want to lose the ability to talk openly with me about their concerns and ideas. On the other hand they did not want to go through another round of acidic public exchanges.  They felt my boss could be punitive even over reactive.

Was my boss over reactive?  What did I need to pay attention to as I responded to the team?

In Part 3, I will tell the rest of the story and how things worked out.

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Resilience – A Lesson on Leadership from Manufacturing

Resilience is a process of adapting in the face of difficulty, hardships, trauma, tragedy, or set backs.  Since I work in a manufacturing environment I often think about resilience.  For example the resilience of our foam or proprietary blow molded seat foundation. We design and test seating products to endure the stresses of routine use and support the comfort and durability that is the company quality brand. We go to great lengths to engineer our product to serve the unique demands of our market.
Product design and testing made me think about resilience as an adaptive response needed by leaders who face the stressors of routine activity. No one thinks about a chair failing.  A chair used week in and week out does not suddenly change in how it feels, how it performs and how it looks. Similarly no one thinks about a leader failing.  People expect leaders to be consistent week in and week out (i.e., compassionate, authoritative, certain, open, knowledgeable, inquisitive, courageous etc.).

Leaders unlike chairs actually experience stress inducing events and circumstances. Unlike chairs one cannot engineer leaders to be resilient and durable. The act of leading is more complex.  So, how are leaders tested and proven so that they grow in resilience?  Allow me to stretch my manufacturing analogy to illustrate my observations on leadership resilience.

Start with Purpose

When we think about new products the first question we ask is always how will a chair be used e.g., for a “3rd place”, a training room, a sanctuary – each application places different demands on a chair.  We look at design trends in facilities.  We look at aesthetic trends.  Why?  Manufacturing a top selling church or hospitality/banquet chair means it has to serve the customer’s purpose with distinction.

Developing resilience in leaders requires a similar intentionality.  Leaders who have a sense of purpose define the present based on where they are going in the future. Think about what you want your leadership life to look like in the future.  Imaging for a moment what it would feel like to experience that future – to be there and enjoying the outcomes. How do you feel – empowered, encouraged, confident, energized? Leaders always start at the future and work backwards.  This propensity to live “future forward” creates hope and a sense of purpose and lays a foundation for resilience.

Resilience doesn’t mean an absence of difficulty or emotional pain. Resilience develops in leaders who practice “future forward” thinking in the midst of difficulty and emotional pain and show a specific set of characteristics:

  • The capacity to make realistic plans and take steps to carry them out
  • A positive view of oneself and confidence in one’s strengths and abilities
  • Skills in communication and problem solving
  • The capacity to manage strong feelings and impulses
  • Accept that change is part of living.

Individuals or leaders who move through life without a sense of purpose typically share an opposite set of characteristics.

  • Lack the capacity to make realistic plans usually supplanting plans with “pipe dreams” that are disconnected from their context
  • Exhibit a victim mentality and lack of confidence offering the evidence of how life and circumstances have stolen their opportunity to make it big
  • No problem solving skills instead they shift responsibility for action to others
  • Demonstrate a lack of self-discipline as seen in impulsive actions and inappropriate and accentuated emotions (e.g., rage, fear, self-loathing)
  • See change as a threat to well being.

Great leaders like a great chair exhibit a structure in life that absorbs impact and returns to its design parameters.  For example, sit on a chair and stand up – the foam in the seat returns to its original shape after being compressed.  Great leaders show the same consistency in character – their sense of purpose helps them keep their emotional and intellectual shape as they live “future forward”.

Define the Cost

Once we understand the purpose of a church chair and determine a design that meets the use requirements and aesthetic sensibilities of the greatest number of customers we define the materials needed to manufacture the new church chair. The process of finding quality material at the best cost helps us decide whether future customers will be able to afford the price of the chair.

Jesus’ parable about the tower builder affirms the importance of cost awareness. (Luke 14:28-30)  Leaders recognize the cost of their actions and routinely reassess this cost.  What costs are associated with leadership decisions?  The costs of living “future forward” include more than financial costs. In a leadership context cost include factors such as:

  • Impact on relationships
  • Ethical challenges
  • Follower’s emotional capacity for change
  • Unexpected impact on facilities, regulations, and organizational structures

Even in successful leadership initiatives that propel an organization to a new level of prosperity and influence hidden costs arise because change has occurred.

The question we face in manufacturing is whether the value to the customer makes up for the cost of producing the product – the question of price.  If we design ingenious chairs but the associated costs cannot be offset by the value added to the customer the price would be too high.  If we design ingenious chairs and use substandard materials then the chairs fail in meeting their purpose.

Leaders routinely face similar dilemmas.  What is the best solution or direction for the organization and its people?  If grand plans use substandard processes and inadequate resources because a leader did not count the cost then resilience fails and the leader and the followers loose.

Our design process involves people from every function in the company as well as customer focus groups.  In order to understand purpose and cost we gather advice from as many sources as possible to expect as many potential problems as possible and see opportunity we would otherwise miss.

Leaders who count the cost are only as effective as the feedback they receive.  Make connections with family members, friends, and others who are important and who care about you and listen to you – listen to them.  Solicit their opinion.  This strengthens resilience by clarifying opportunity and identifying potential problems.

Be Persistent

Persistence is an outcome of resilience and a factor in developing resilience.  By persistence I do not mean meanness, spite, vindictiveness or ruthlessness.  I mean determination, perseverance, diligence and resolution.  Why must leaders exercise persistence?  Persistence is the practice that refines the leader’s vision and grows capacity for resilience.

Leadership vision is always incomplete.  This is one of the most important leadership principles affecting resilience.  The single greatest relational mistake leaders make is the assumption that they know best because they see a future or an opportunity clearly.  A leader may see a clear future. However the leader also must see the challenges, resistance, threats, opportunities and insights that have the potential of shaping or derailing a leader’s vision.  Leaders need to listen to feedback to gather intelligence about the path to the vision.

A leader’s level of resilience is a result of persisting in a purpose over time.  Persistence accepts help from others, looks for multiple break-out opportunities that set the stage for the future and spends very little time with entrenched opposition to the vision.  This does not mean leaders can ignore feedback. Leaders who persist recognize the difference between a naysayer (resister) and an early adapter or a neutral (who will ultimately contribute to the vision when they see it works) and choose to spend their relational currency strategically.

When we design a new product we persist in getting feedback all the way through the development process.  Persistence is like the actions of a great football running back like Earl Campbell, Eric Dickerson, Terrell Davis, Tony Dorsett or Willie Gallimore.  Like running backs leaders bounce off tacklers, look for blockers, see the opportunities in the open field and always orient to the goal. Like a running back persistent leaders get up after being knocked down.  Persistent leaders look for new means when their planned strategy collapses. Persistent leaders listen for the encouragement of their team mates.  Leaders who exercise persistence are people who:

  • Meet obstacles as learning opportunities
  • Learn from set backs to refine communication and clarity
  • Ask questions to look for insights and correlations they did not see before
  • Interpret setbacks as an opportunity to test the validity of their strategy
  • Incorporate feedback into their tactical responses to new situations

Conclusion

Watching a leader under pressure says a lot about the leader’s future potential. Leaders who own a sense of purpose, exercise cost awareness and practice persistence are leaders whose resilience grows over time thus enlarging their capacity to deal with complexity, ambiguity, resistance, setbacks, and challenges.  More importantly leaders who are resilient see opportunities others miss because they keep looking and learning while others quit.

Resilience is a mindset that practices specific actions over time and adjusts those actions based on lessons learned along the way.  The combination of practice, learning and agility increases a leader’s resilience and enhances the value the leader brings to an organization.

How is your resilience?  Look at the factors I describe above (purpose, cost and persistence) if any of these are weak set aside some time to think about what you see in yourself.  Ask those closest to you for their input. Resilience is learned and is therefore a trait that can increase or decrease.

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Defining Moments In Leadership Development

I was thinking about all the defining moments I have experienced or others experience that make them great leaders.  A defining moment is a point at which life takes a new turn because of some deep or penetrating insight, experience or expanded awareness.  Defining moments come in many unique ways and when they come they deeply alter perspective and action. I think of four specific ways defining moments enter the life of a leader.
Defining Moment of Reflection

I thought about a statement one of my students made the other night in class. “I cannot truly know myself by seeing myself just from the inside, I know myself more fully by hearing what others see on the outside.” This student faced a defining moment that will impact the rest of his life. He understood his connection to others in a way that he never had before. The defining moment came as an involuntary insight resulting from the rigor of academic study.  He was struggling with new ideas that challenged deeply held assumptions about himself, his context and his faith. Thinking theologically about what he realized I turn to Paul’s letter to the Corinthians where Paul wrote:

Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by[c] one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.[1]

My student understood himself in a new way. His new insight sent him on a quest of attentiveness to the voices of those who reflect the impact of his behavior.  My student’s insight demonstrates that possessing a sense of belonging in relationship to others does not diminish a sense of self-identity it amplifies it.

If I reflect on this student’s statement psychologically then I turn to the work of Kegan and see that this young man has emerged from a time of differentiation to a new understanding of his interdependence on others. His new self-awareness has provided a new confidence and sense of contribution in life.  If my student did not pay attention to this defining moment he would have become a fearful leader isolated from the advice and help of others.

Defining Moment of Success

The most effective leaders I know recognize defining moments when they face them and they pay attention to them. The April edition of Harvard Business Review was devoted to how people deal with failure and success.  One article noted that people and organizations don’t learn as much from success as they do failure.  It is not that success doesn’t have something to teach us but that we don’t really investigate success.  The result of not thinking about why we are successful or what we should learn from success allows blind spots to occur.

In light of this observation about success I was delighted to read about a defining moment that came as a result of success in the life of a pastoral leader.  Mindi Caliguire writing in Christianity Today described a defining moment rooted in success:

Not long ago a pastor told me: “Mindy, we have a lot of young leaders. Most of our staff is under 40. We’ve launched two new campuses, finished a building campaign, and are making inroads into serving the marginalized in our community. The staff has been running hard and fast for a long time. I’m wondering what the trajectory of our ministry will be two years from now if we don’t intentionally focus on the well-being of our souls. Which marriages are likely to collapse by then? Which young leaders will be run over and left for dead?”[2]

Consider the power of this pastor’s reflection on his own success.  What would have happened if this pastor ignored the defining moment success brought about?  Defining moments are unsettling at any point but I have found that defining moments around success are deeply challenging in part because I have to consider the frailty of success and the reality that success is not an end it is a door way into a far greater challenge.  If this pastoral leader had not allowed the discomfort of this defining moment to challenge his success he would become a toxic leader – a reality clear in his own question.

Defining Moment of Change

Times of change also provide opportunity for defining moments to sneak up on leaders. Jack Connell wrote about his process of change moving from a familiar house and community to a new place.  Packing up his library lead him to reflect on what he would do differently in the future.  He wrote and article titled, “Ministry Mulligans – if I had it to do all over again.”[3] He gave five:

  • More collaboration, less competition
  • More pastor, less CEO
  • More rest, less rush
  • More friendships, less isolation

When I review the insights provided by Jack Connell I find a leader who has chosen to allow the exposure of his own limited perspectives to become a leader of greater capacity. If this leader had not allowed the exposure of his limited perspective and skill while packing his office he would devolve into a leader dependent on habits and blinded to the opportunities change put in front of him. Leaders blinded to opportunity ultimately become hopeless and cynical.

Defining Moment of Prayer

In the situations above, reflection, success and change, defining moments emerge that altered the course of a leader’s life.  But there is another situation that opens up deep processing and new defining moments – it is prayer.  The defining moments initiated by prayer are often realized over time and in hindsight.  King David wrote:

1 I waited patiently for the LORD;
he turned to me and heard my cry.
2 He lifted me out of the slimy pit,
out of the mud and mire;
he set my feet on a rock
and gave me a firm place to stand.
3 He put a new song in my mouth,
a hymn of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear the LORD
and put their trust in him.[4]

For David patient and persistent prayer turned into a profound realization – God hears our cry. There is something about a leader who prays that affirms the reality of God and the acute insight that the Almighty’s attention encompasses personal struggles and turmoil – God knows me.  Leaders who are defined by prayer are leaders who know what it means to be present in the here and now.  These leaders see people not just big plans. Leaders who are not defined by prayer often leave their footprints over the backs of those they trod to success. Leaders who are not defined by prayer can fall prey to the illusion that leadership is all about them.  David understood that leadership was all about living the kind of life that ultimately draws people to the perception they can trust God.

Conclusion

There are no doubt other contexts where defining moments occur.  The outcomes however are similar. Leaders who embrace and not run from defining moments are leaders who: grow in confidence about their contribution (and not stagnate in fear and isolation); see success as a door way to greater challenges (and not becoming a toxic leader characterized by a lust for more); see opportunity (and not barriers that leave them hopeless and cynical) and see people (and not raw ambition alone).  What defining moment has entered your life?  Did you embrace it or run from it?  Are you the kind of person or leader you hoped?  Take a moment and re-engage your most recent defining moment – let its lessons sink deep and bring about transformation.

[1] 1 Corinthians 12:12-14 (NIV)

[2] Mindy Caliguire. “Thruway or Partway?” (Source: http://www.christianitytoday.com/le/2011/winter/thruwaypartway.html?start=2; accessed 5 April 2011).

[3] Jack Connell. “Ministry Mulligans: If I had it to do all over again” (Source: http://www.christianitytoday.com/le/2011/winter/ministrymulligans.html?start=1; accessed 5 April 2011).

[4] Psalm 40:1-3 (NIV)