You have a very important team meeting at 9 AM.

Success or failure is on the line, and your leadership and inspiration is badly needed.

You spent the night before going over and over the speech you wanted to make, making sure the words you were choosing fit the bill.

Now, over your breakfast, the anxiety level really cranks up, and worries and doubt start to creep into your brain.

You arrive at the office 10 minutes before your meeting, and as you drop your keys on your desk, you remember some advice you received from a mentor long ago.

He called it the “5 Minute Leadership Makeover“.

You smile knowingly at this last minute revelation, and head to the nearest mirror. It’s 8:54.

There, you stare straight into your own eyes, and start speaking.

You say those words you so labored to prepare, but in fact, you don’t pay any attention to them, at least not yet.

First, you remember that making eye contact with your audience is critical to an effective presentation.

Then, you make sure your posture is straight and confident.

You check to see if your attire (and face)  is free from your morning’s eggs and toast, and all the buttons and zippers are in properly in place.

You listen to the timbre of your voice. Is it too loud?  Too soft?  Too monotone?  You strive to match the ebbs and flows of your content with the proper inflections.  After another 30 seconds you lock it in.

Now, the pace.   Too fast, and the message gets buried.  Too slow, and you lose the audience.  You think of the metronome you used to use when you were learning how to play the piano, and work on a steady rhythm.  Tick, tock.  Tick, tock….   Check.

You look at your facial expressions as you recite several of the key points you want to bring up.   You make sure you are not sabotaging your message by over-emphasis (check the eyebrows in particular), or by wearing a half-smile or smirk that reeks of condescension.  The face can’t be a blank canvas either, so you modulate to a quiet intensity that clearly shows confidence and passion for the topic.

Next, you watch your arms and hands – where are they?  Are they flailing away with no real purpose?  Hand gestures can certainly bring points home with authority, but they can’t be too broad.  You know you need to keep them compact, and simple.

As your meeting draws closer, it’s now time to focus on your words for a moment.   You make sure you link sentences together crisply, without the use of too many “Ahhs,  Ummms, or “You knows“.   These “pause fillers” can give the impression that you are rambling.

4 minutes have gone by since you started talking into the mirror – you stop, and then close your eyes.   You breathe deeply, and relax.

Your mind flashes to a quote that your mentor told you to always remember.  It was  by Adlai Stevenson, who used it in 1960 to introduce John F. Kennedy.

“Do you remember that in classical times when Cicero had finished speaking, the people said, ‘How well he spoke’—but when Demosthenes had finished speaking, the people said, ‘Let us march’?”

You dwell for the last 30 seconds on how words alone cannot make the leader, and the last three words of that quote.

“Let us march”

And at 8:59 you walk away from that mirror and towards the conference room, confident and ready.

It’s showtime!

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I’m a big fan of “So You Think You Can Dance” on FOX TV.   It’s really inspiring to watch these youngsters prove themselves on stage week after week, in front of expert judges and a national television audience.   They do amazing, lyrical, and athletic things with their bodies that I can only dream about.

The great thing for these dancers is that they are getting immediate feedback and validation of their abilities and prowess.   In the business world however, it’s rare when a leader can get the same kind of direct information about how they are doing.

Annual, or even semi-annual, performance evaluations just don’t have the same impact, especially when it comes to the quality of the leadership itself.

So what to do?

Fortunately, there are six indirect tell-tale clues that you can pick up from your teammates and peers that can get you the feedback you need.

• Venting in private – If you are leading well, you are acting like a plumber, acting as a safety valve for your teammates to vent any frustrations.  If that venting goes public, or worse, viral, you have some work to do.
• The back door information lock – In larger organizations there are occasions where other departments try to use the “back door” to get information, bypassing the leader and going right to the teammate. If you are leading well, those teammates will always let you know that those contacts were made, and the “asks” behind them, thus locking the back door and keeping you in the loop at all times.
• Snappy request response time – This is a classic leadership “tell”.   Be aware of the time it takes for your teammates to respond to your inquiries via phone, e-mail or text.  If those responses start stretching out, there’s usually trouble brewing. It could be lethargy, or it could be fear. Or something else.   Think about this from your perspective, since we all have bosses – how do your feelings about that leader affect your response time?
• Rare Blackberry sightings – In our electronic, “always on, always multitasking” age, another easy way to see if you are making any headway is paying attention to your teammates handheld devices.  Do they put them away at meetings?  Or do they keep them on the table, letting you know that you are one boring sentence away from a total attention drift.   For a good leader, the less you see and hear of them, the better.
• High smile to frown ratio – When you are leading by walking around, or traveling to remote offices, take the time and mentally note the “smile to frown ratio“.   In my 28 years in the business world, I can tell you one thing that is absolutely true:  Faces don’t lie. Humans typically do not do a very good job of hiding dissatisfaction in their facial expressions, notwithstanding whatever they may be saying to you.
• Good news AND bad news is flowing freely – If you are not getting the bad news from your teammates on a timely basis, then you are in big trouble.  General Colin Powell summarizes this one all too well: “The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help them or concluded that you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership.”

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While you’re thinking about leadership, don’t forget to download my FREE e-book, “Leadership From a Glass Half-Full – The 5 Lessons You Need To Learn Before You Jump Into The Pool”

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The advent of summer brings us the promise of warm and sunny days spent outdoors with friends and family, as well as the potential for an extended period of the “blahs” in the workplace.

It’s the natural rhythm of the calendar, reinforced by our ingrained memories of the school year, where summer meant “gear down, because it’s time to play!”.

In the business world, that feeling can creep into the office very easily.   It’s that “in-between” time,  where the current year’s business plans are fully in place, and the budget season for the next fiscal year is yet to begin.

Many teammates take their vacations, and there are weeks where simply getting a quorum at on a conference call or a meeting is a major accomplishment.

It’s all too easy for a leader to fall into that same state of mind, and gear everything down for a couple of months.   But these days, it just can’t happen.   In an ultra competitive world, a business can never sleep.

So what’s a leader to do to keep the “blahs” away? Here are 5 easy ways that I have used throughout the years to keep that momentum going.

1)  Focus on individual, rather than team,  incentives - Take advantage of the fact that others are vacationing, and spend some extra time with specific teammates.  Set some specific short term goals for them, and better still, throw in an incentive or two (a really good one this time of year is a “free” Friday or Monday off).

2) Teach & Train Leadership - Leadership training is usually cast by the wayside during the busier months, so this is your time to do something.  Either send your team to third party seminars, or better still, conduct one yourself.  Make sure the entry-level managers are getting attention as well – these efforts will pay off when things get cranked up again in the fall.

3) Do an “off-site” with your team - Summer is my favorite time to schedule a team building “field trip”.  In past years I’ve done golf outings, bowling expeditions, and even a National Park hike.  It’s also good to throw in some trinkets to memorialize the event – when we did the National Park hike (in Yellowstone Park),  I gave everyone personalized lunch boxes that featured one of their favorite cultural references (for example, mine was Elvis).

4) Increase the wandering around – Get out from behind your desk and do a lot more walking around.  Do a lot more face to face talking than phoning, e-mailing or texting.   Travel out to your remote sites and hold team meetings.     Increasing your presence sends a strong signal that even though it’s summer, it’s still time to get things done.

5) Kick up YOUR energy - This time of year I’m always thinking of ways to keep my energy level high.    I have a little chant I say to myself  on those summer mornings- “NRG, NRG, NRG“.   This is the time to do unexpected things, like sing at a staff meeting, or dress up in a costume, or ask for “More Cowbell”.   YOU have to set the tempo – otherwise the “blahs” will surely arrive.

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As a leader, I do not often think of myself as a scientist.

Scientists collect data, conduct experiments, observe behavior, calibrate measuring devices, and make and test hypothesis, among many other things.

(and I have to note that I never really wanted to be a scientist, since I wasn’t very good with chemicals and bunsen burners – as the burn scar on my thumb attests)

But when you think about this for more than a minute (like I did on the 4th of July holiday weekend, for example), it turns out we have lots more in common with those folks in the white lab coats than what meets the eye.

Leading a group of people is a lot like conducting a grand experiment, where the “scientist” (the leader) fills a laboratory (the business) with test subjects (the team), and then sets up parameters, calibrates goals, and eventually makes a hypothesis on each one of them.

Then, every day, those hypothesis get tested.

If they don’t prove to be true for any individual, the experiment is adjusted and/or recalibrated, or abandoned altogether.

And there lies the real lesson in making this comparison – the leader’s ability to create the right environment for success in that laboratory, for as many subjects as possible.

To be a great scientist, one must spend a lot of time studying and observing – so too must the leader.

Each teammate brings to the table a unique set of skills, and a distinct personality.   A great leader needs to study those attributes carefully and thoroughly, and eventually determine what combination of goals, accountability, direction, coaching, influence, and inspiration they will need to set that specific person up for success.

That’s our version of a scientific hypothesis – “If I lead a person THIS way, this person will react to it in THAT way,  and they will make their expected contribution to the overall company objectives”

It’s quite a challenge, because that process has to be repeated for each member of the team.  Which means that while some elements can be commonly applied (due to similar traits and skills), for each “experiment” to bear fruit, the leader has to be a lot of different things to a lot of different people.

And along the way, constantly reassess and recalibrate the approach to each person based on how the original hypothesis is faring.

In practical terms, some of the most important calibrations a leader will do are:

• Pushing harder, or backing off.
• Giving more leeway, or clamping down
• Setting higher standards, or relaxing them
• Taking more time to teach, or assigning more responsibility
• Promoting, or releasing

Yes, leadership is quite a science, and the more we can approach it like one, by applying many of the methodologies you would see in a laboratory, the better leaders we can be.

I’m just glad my laboratory is an office, and I don’t have to wear those white coats, or mix chemicals, or put anything under a flame.

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Remember those yellow legal note pads?   They used to be my constant companions earlier in my career, before PCs, PDAs, laptops, and smart phones.

(Yes, there was actually a time like that, as strange as it may seem now.  And yes, that officially qualifies me as a dinosaur.)

I would always be making “to do” lists on those pads.   Some were short, and some were long.   But most of the time, I’d manage to put them in order of their importance.

So that first one on any list was typically a “doozy” task – a task so daunting, so challenging, and so unappealing, that you couldn’t help but stare at it for hours.  Or perhaps retrace the letters with your pen or pencil, just to make absolutely sure you knew it was important (but you weren’t exactly ready to take it on).

It was really tempting, and I mean really tempting, to skip that first one and just start doing the tasks below it.  Just to get a little momentum going.  Check a few boxes.   I could always come back to that first one later, couldn’t I?

Sure I could.  But it was IMPORTANT, remember?

It’s human nature sometimes to gravitate towards the path of least resistance, and I must confess, there were times I succumbed and skipped the doozy.   And I always regretted it later.

But most of the time, I’ve taken on the doozy first.   And I have Brother George to thank for it.

Who’s Brother George, you ask?  He was my Accounting teacher in college.    He helped me in a lot of ways because his class was just so darn tough.

He had a very strange way of administering his tests.   He would arrange the questions from the hardest to the easiest.   That’s not such a big deal, right?  But here was the catch:  You had to answer them in order, or you would not get any credit for those you answered correctly.

Yep, you HAD to do the first one first.  The hardest one. Then, and only then, could you proceed to the easier questions.

Little did I know at the time that Brother George was not only teaching us about Intermediate Accounting, but giving us a critical leadership lesson, one that I use over and over again with my teammates:

Don’t Do Second Things First!

A team isn’t going to accomplish much  if all they are taking on is the easy stuff.  They may feel like they are being “successful” because a lot of boxes are being checked, but it’s an illusion.  All they need to do is stare at their “To Do” lists, and see that doozy staring at them.

And that’s the good news in this story -  most teams learn to prioritize well.  What we really need to do is always staring us in the face, at the top of that list.

We just need to muster up the courage to do it.  Or have a wonderful teacher like Brother George who instills it in us unknowingly.

(This post is dedicated to the late Brother George Malecek, my accounting teacher at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio – I wrote another piece about him and his remarkable teaching methods for Rosa Say’s blog back in 2006)

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Why do you want to be a leader? That’s a question that needs to be answered by any person taking on that role, or planning to.

The motivational forces that pull us toward leadership do not disappear after the role is secured – in fact, our motivations are as important as any action we take when it comes to determining the success or failure of our teams.

For example, if we lead because we like being in a position of power and authority,  it’s a safe bet that we’ll emphasize these traits in practice –and  maybe even over emphasize them.   While we are fulfilling our motivational desires, exerting too much authority can stifle the rest of the team’s creativity and productivity.

On the other hand, if we lead because we want to make a difference in people’s lives by teaching and inspiring, our actions will be guided by a very different compass.

What’s driving us on the inside is a powerful force that “rubs off” on everyone else – it cannot be hidden.  Your actions will betray whatever words you use to deny it.

You can really see this principle at work when someone is thrust in a leadership position, or takes a position “for the money”, but isn’t really motivated to be a leader.  It isn’t hard to notice the discomfort and the resulting ineffectiveness of the team, even though the person may publicly declare they are “OK” with the job.

And it’s unlikely that any amount of remedial training could change the story.

What it really boils down to is this – until you figure out WHY you want to lead, you cannot deliver great leadership.

I found that out myself very early in my career – 2 years after I graduated from college I was given a leadership position that I really wasn’t ready for.  I hardly gave it any thought – heck, I was still single and devoting a lot of time to thinking about “leadership” just wasn’t in the cards.

What I then delivered to my charges was pretty much “by the book”, and not very inspiring.  It wasn’t until I was thrown into a bigger leadership pool (see my free e-book for that story) that I really spent some quality contemplative time with those “whys”.

And then, and only then, did I start delivering what my team really needed.

I figured out that leadership isn’t a casual endeavor.  It’s not just another rung on the ladder, or a larger paycheck.   To me, it’s a privilege and an honor to make a difference for my teammates, to teach and coach them, and to maximize their potential.

That’s my motivation.  Determining “what’s in it for me” has certainly made me a better leader.  What about you?

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Leaders are constantly processing information, and in the course of doing that are called upon to make decisions based on that information.

Or not make them.

That’s where our knees come in.

Sometimes the nature of this information, its source, or the manner in which it was delivered,  puts some kind of strange electric charge into the knee, and consequently, it jerks upward, causing a powerful reaction.

And a big leadership mistake.

Mainly, a very premature and ill-informed action or decision.

The classic “knee-jerk response“.

It can badly wound or even ruin many a career,  but it doesn’t have to be that way – if this little “tic” can be controlled.

There are three main ways to do it:

• Proper Anger Management
• Respect for the Facts
• Keeping Hearsay in Perspective

Let’s start with anger.   It lurks in many places in the workplace. It can be triggered in many ways – by an e-mail, or a remark at a meeting, or a contentious phone call.    Or by a negative report that points a finger at you.  Or maybe something as innocuous as spilling hot coffee on your brand new shirt.

Anger goes right to the knee, because it’s an emotion that is asking (no, begging) for a release.   I’ll give you a classic example – the flaming e-mail.   You know the one.   The e-mail that makes your blood boil before you even finish reading it.   You want to immediately write a response that fights the fire with more fire.

These kind of knee jerks can practically cause a hernia, they are so strong.   Anger must be managed – that release must go somewhere other than the knee.    Do some deep breathing.  Take a walk.  Go into your coat closet and scream.  Chant “serenity now” (don’t knock it, it has worked for me).   Just don’t let that knee jerk!  Deal with it later, when you’ve gotten that release another way.

Then, there’s respect for facts and keeping hearsay in perspective.  These two go hand in hand.     I’ve seen hearsay sink a lot of leadership ships because that pesky knee jumped way, way up and made a hasty decision based on very sketchy information.   Facts MUST be respected, in nearly every case.

There’s always the question of how many facts a leader needs to make a good decision (using the gut instead of the knee) -  because of the nature of business many decisions just have to be made with less than 100% of what is needed.   However,  it’s a reasonable assumption to shoot for at least 50%; that’s my minimum threshold.

That eliminates the prospect of decision-making based on a single shred of information that may look compelling at first glance – those are very well suited to causing the knee-jerk – but upon further investigation turn out to be less than accurate, or just plain wrong.

“Facts are stubborn things”, said the great American patriot John Adams.   What he didn’t say (and I’m sure her surely thought it) was that facts, and good anger management, will also save you a lot of trips to your orthopedist to pull that knee off your head.   Or, more importantly, trips to your bosses to explain your bad decisions.

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With summer approaching it’s time for a mid-year leadership “Check-Up”.

Back in January we completed a  New Year’s “checklist” of 10 things we needed to do to make it a great year.

Let’s see how we’re doing against that list, with nearly six months of activity behind us.

1. Take Stock of the Victories – We started the New Year by pausing and reflecting; it’s time to once again “come up for air” from the deep dive of our busy business lives.   Make sure you take a day, or even just a morning, to have an informal chat with your team to consolidate your learning from the first six months.
2. Analyze and Absorb Your Current Position – Just like we “studied” up in January to know our business plan inside and out, we need to analyze and absorb the year-to-date operating results, so we can make meaningful comparisons (and more importantly, any mid-course corrections).
3. Perform a Self-Assessment – Take a look at those “fine print” tendencies that you filed away earlier in the year – are you pushing too hard? Did you micromanage anything you should have backed away from?  Or did you overcompensate and not push hard enough?
4. Assess Team Performance - Make sure the team you evaluated in January still has the right stuff in June.   Are there any “cracks” in resolve, or commitment to the plan?   Are there any lagging performers that need to be coached and/or reassigned?  How is overall morale?
5. Check the Bars – It’s time to take a realistic look at those goals you set six months ago.  If you hit them already (or are about to), raise the bar again.  If you are falling way short, reinvigorate your team by coming up with an intermediate “benchmark” goal and an incentive to hit it.
6. Listen for the Mantras – We reduced our key goals into “bite sized” pieces and relentlessly spoke about them – now, it’s time to see if they’ve “baked in”.   Spend some time with employees and listen for those mantras, without prompting them.   Does speaking about them come naturally (i.e. they “get” it), or is it forced (because they “have to know”)?  You’ll figure out quickly if you’ve made any headway.
7. Recalibrate Accountability Meter – Did you praise appropriately, and conversely, coach and/or discipline when the need arose?  Keep out of that “comfortable middle” – remember, when you are not taking proper accountability actions and staying passive it can create a poisoned atmosphere of resentment in the workplace.
8. Dig Out Any Ear Wax Buildup – How are our listening skills so far?    Be honest with yourself and see if you can recall any times in the first six months where teammates had to repeat themselves in front of you, or clearly were disappointed or annoyed that you were distracted during a conversation.   You might need to reload on those “virtual Q-Tips” I wrote about in January.
9. Monitor the Feedback Loop – It’s time to assess how much “one-on-one” time you’ve had with your direct reports, and how effective you’ve been in delivering good feedback on their performance.   If your answers are “not much” and “not very”, then get some mid-year performance reviews on the calendar immediately, and make sure you are on the same page with your teammates.
10. Meditate, and Rededicate  - Over the years I’ve really grown to appreciate the value of meditation.  Yes, the kind where you literally try to just focus your attention on your breathing, and perhaps also on a simple intention  (I recently read an article in my wife’s Yoga Journal that presented scientific evidence that meditation can increase your brain’s ability to process and focus).  Mid-year is a perfect time to rededicate ourselves to being centered, calm, and open minded as we tackle the rest of a hectic year.

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It’s a sentence that can make a huge difference in the workplace.

A real shot of motivation and inspiration that, if delivered at the right time and place, can spur your team to the pinnacle of success.

But if it’s overused, or delivered incorrectly, its potency can be radically reduced – or it could cause awful side effects.

What is this “leadership wonder drug”?

5 words.

“You did a great job”

Giving praise to our teammates is one of the critical elements of effective leadership.  This kind of positive reinforcement provides a psychological boost that can lead to greater and greater achievement, because it plays to basic human needs of acceptance and recognition.

These 5 words can mean more than any bonus, raise, or promotion – but the deliverer must be careful, and like any wonder drug, the directions for use need to be followed to the letter.

Let’s set out some clear “directions” for the maximum effectiveness  of “you did a great job“:

• It should only be used to praise performance which exceeds an established “norm”.
• Those norms should be carefully calibrated and modified as the team is built and executes its duties & responsibilities.
• It needs to be used as close to the completion of said performance as possible.
• It should be delivered personally – face to face is best, followed by a telephone call, or a handwritten letter.  E-mail and text should only be used if that’s the only option available to meet the timing requirement noted above.
• It needs to be delivered with high enthusiasm and a positive tone.

And how about the side effects and risks?

• If used to praise “normal” performance,  it could cause a case of lowered expectations, which would spread, virus-like, among the team.
• If used too often, it would lead to an overdose or an addiction, which could cause a loss of leader credibility.
• If norms are not calibrated properly, the team could suffer from a bad case of inertia.
• If its application is delayed, it significantly lessens its effectiveness.
• If not delivered personally, or worse yet, carelessly or too casually, it could cause the exact opposite effect, and act as a disincentive.

Indeed, there’s a lot more to this 5-word sentence than meets the eye.  Yes, praise is good, and yes, there’s probably not enough of it going on in a lot of workplaces.  But it certainly shouldn’t be thrown around like candy either.

It also needs to be balanced by effectively dealing with those who are under-performing against those same norms – the other side of what I call the management spectrum.

So, if you are looking for that difference maker in your workplace, take Dr. Starbucker’s advice and get a prescription for the wonder drug “You did a great job” – but be sure to read all the fine print in the directions before you start using it.

Good luck, and good leading!!

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If you liked this post, be sure to download my FREE e-book, “Leadership From a Glass Half-Full – The 5 Lessons You Need To Learn Before You Jump Into The Pool”

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It’s the office equivalent of a four letter word – “meeting”.   Why has this simple little gathering become such a bad thing in the workplace?

I can imagine the scene in just about every office – the sound of that “ding” from the calendar software, followed by the feeling of approaching gloom, and then, the slow rise from the desk, followed by a very deep breath and finally, the trudge to the conference room.

Sound familiar?

It doesn’t have to be that way.   I know it’s hard to fathom, but there really is one very, very important reason why we must gather together every now and then (and preferably regularly).

It’s for what I call “getting everyone on the same page”.

Think about that one for a second.  How many times have you gotten “out of sync” with teammates or other departments, because of a lack of good communication?   How many times have you zigged while others have zagged, causing big problems?

Exactly.  It can, and does, happen quite frequently in the business world.

Here’s the rub:  Do you think these problems can really be solved by e-mails and phone calls?  Maybe, but that’s really the equivalent of going 15 miles on a 5 mile road.

The best way to address these issues is with that dreaded meeting.   That’s the only way I’ve known to quickly and effectively get everyone on the same page.

“The same page” is a concept that is constantly on my mind as a leader, since I certainly know the consequences if I cannot get my team in that state.

It’s something a leader must not take for granted, like assuming that everyone knows a key deadline, or has the same understanding of a new initiative, or are aware of all the inter-dependencies that flow from their actions.

Because it’s just a fact of life that those e-mails and memos can be misread, or worse, unread.

So you just have to do it, and schedule the meeting.  Or click the “accept” button.

And when you are there, don’t turn off – tune into the “getting on the same page” frequency.  Tailor your interactions accordingly.   It doesn’t matter if you’re the organizer, or a participant.

If the conversation veers from that page, set it back on track – your teammates will thank you for it.

One last thing – if you are very confident that you indeed have everyone on the same page, chances are you don’t even need a meeting, even if it is a regularly scheduled one.

Think of the smiles you’d get when your teammates see that “cancel” notice.

Priceless.

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