Leading

Leader

Anyone who takes responsibility for finding the potential in people and processes, and who has the courage to develop that potential. 

To begin with, the definition of a leader leaves space for people and processes. It is critical that we acknowledge the multifaceted face of leadership but never forget that people are always front and center. No process will ever overcome a lack of love and care from leadership. No process will ever overcome a lack of stated and lived out vision. No process will ever overcome the feelings of unimportance and lack of empowerment.

At the core, leading is about helping people live to their potential.

How do we do this? In Rising Strong, Brene Brown states, "We know that the way to move information from your head to your heart is through your hands." Leadership requires the whole person engaging with another human. The focal point of this lesson is to develop the ability to engage the head, heart and hands in how we work with other people.

1. We avoid tough conversations, including giving honest, productive feedback.
2. Rather than spending a reasonable amount of time proactively acknowledging and addressing the fears and feelings that show up during change and upheaval, we spend an unreasonable amount of time managing problematic behaviors.
3. Diminishing trust caused by a lack of connection and empathy.
4. Not enough people are taking smart risks or creating and sharing bold ideas to meet changing demands and the insatiable need for innovation. When people are afraid of being put down or ridiculed for trying something and failing, or even for putting forward a radical new idea, the best you can expect is status quo and groupthink.
5. We get stuck and defined by setbacks, disappointments and failures, so instead of spending resources on cleanup to ensure that customers, stakeholders, or internal processes are made whole, we are spending too much time and energy reassuring team members who are questioning their contribution and value.
6. Too much shame and blame, not enough accountability and learning.
7. People are opting out of vital conversations about diversity and inclusivity because they fear looking wrong, saying something wrong, or being wrong. Choosing our own comfort over hard conversations is the epitome of privilege, and it corrodes trust and moves us away from meaningful and lasting change.
8. When something goes wrong, individuals and teams are rushing into ineffective or unsustainable solutions rather than staying with problem identification and solving.
9. Organizational values are gauzy and assessed in terms of aspirations rather than actual behaviors that can be taught, measured, and evaluated.
10. Perfectionism and fear are keeping people from learning and growing.

What do these organizational issues have in common? They are people issues that require leaders to love people. While our class may not encapsulate all these issues, the core problem of not caring for people well will pop-up.

How they do we move past these issues? How do leaders create a culture where people are first? Let's start looking at some of the traits and characteristics great leaders need.

Joseph Stalin once stated, "The death of a man is a tragedy, the death of a million is a statistic." People are naturally cooperative animals that are biologically more inspired and motived when we know we are helping others. For many reasons, we often fail to recognize this reality in our living. We are prone to dehumanizing people unintentionally. But this objectifying and dehumanization of people leads us to lack the basics of love, compassion and empathy in how we treat people.

This principle was covered in Ecclesiastes 5:8 which states, "If you see the poor oppressed in a district, and justice and rights denied, do not be surprised at such things; for one official is eyed by a higher one, and over them both are others higher still." The basic principle is simple, to care for someone you must get into the midst of their life and live a little with them. The more we experience another person the less likely we are to dehumanize them under any circumstance.

The next question is simple, how do we best experience work with people? The answer is simple, relationships. The next four points are how we can use emotion to best lead (as summarized from Brene Brown's book, Dare to Lead.

The odd thing about vulnerability is that we need to trust to be vulnerable, and we need to be vulnerable in order to build trust. It take a mutual give and take in order to increase the other.

The leaders role is to both model vulnerability and make space for others to enter into the territory. In psychologically safe environments, people believe that if they make a mistake others will not penalize or think less of them for it. This belief comes about when people both trust and respect each other.

To create these Psychologically safe spaces, leaders must establish clear boundaries for behavior. Boundaries are not intended to restrict behavior for to provide the needed freedom for action within a specific space. Boundaries are not rules that can simply be stated. They are behaviors that can be seen. These behaviors will create clarity for the people in a group or organization to act. This clarity is a gift from the leader.

With clear boundaries in place, people will feel the freedom to become vulnerable. From the comfort of vulnerability and autonomy, people will pursue innovation and creativity with a whole heart commitment. It is then that leaders will get the best of people in their work.

When the heart is open and free, the true creative genius of innovation will explode from the work of our hands and heads.

In summary, we can say the following: Leadership is about people, people, and people. If leadership is about people then we must lead with empathy.

A value is something that we hold as a critical component to defining who we are or what we believe to be true. Most of us would say we value our faith and family. James K.A. Smith wrote a book titled "You are what you love," that stated the liturgies of life are what define our values. He stated that our values are less about what we say we love, and more about what we do.

This belief that the body is critically important is a fundamentally important Christian doctrine that is distinct from secular theology. The secular person typically believes in some form of enlightenment thinking that views humans as brains on a stick. The Christian theology rejects this ideology holistically. We believe that the body, made in the image of God, is critically important in communicating who we are as humans.

We are called to live in a way that is aligned with what we hold most important regardless of the setting or situation. It is the body that and its actions that make this most clear.

It is natural at this point to ask yourself, what are the values that I seek to impart in my life? How do you live into your values in marketing?

In marketing, we finished with a final on developing your personal brand. People and organizations ultimately state and live by a set of core values. In the best case scenario, the core values we state match the core value we live by.

When we establish core values, we set up a clear guidelines that enable us to choose what is right over what is easy in the moment.

Charles Feltman, in The Thin Book of Trust, defines trust as "choosing to risk making something you value vulnerable to another person's actions." He went on to define distrust as deciding that "what is important to me is not safe with this person in this situation."

Leaders who want to build trust must be willing to live it out. Trust is built primarily in the small moments of living through experiences that are often not easy.

Something that is fragile is easily broken or damaged. Antifragile is a property of systems that increase in capability to thrive as a result of stressors, shocks, volatility, noise, mistakes, faults, attacks, or failures. This concept was first communicated by Nassim Taleb in his book Antifragile.

This is different than the concept of resiliency. Resiliency is about not being broken. Antifragile is about getting stronger. This is the process an athlete goes through in training for a competition or sport. The athlete works tirelessly, breaking down their body, to make it stronger. Becoming antifragile is a skill that must be developed over time.

Brene Brown gets at a similar concept when she says we must Learn to Rise. She even goes so far to say, that "if we do not have the skills to get back up, we may not risk falling. And if we're brave enough often enough, we are definitely going to fall." The point here is we must develop the skill set to get back up and grow stronger over time.

The role of the leader is to help others learn to get back up, and grow stronger. How do we do this?

There is a story referenced in Leaders Eat Last about Captain David Marquet, of the US Navy. Captain Marquet says the following about running a submarine: "Those at the top have all the authority and none of the information. Those at the bottom have all the information and none of the authority. Not until those without information relinquish their control can an organization run better, smoother, and faster and reach its maximum potential."

Over his time in the Navy, Captain Marquet came to understand that the role of the leader is not to bark commands and be completely accountable for the success or failure of the mission. It is a leader's job instead to take responsibility for the success of each member of his crew.

In his book, Turn the Ship Around!, Captain Marquet goes through all the specific steps he took to develop an environment in which those who know more, the people who are actually doing the work, are empowered to make decisions. Through this he noted, there are three things he can't relegate. "I can't delegate my legal responsibilities, I can't delegate my relationships, and I can't delegate my knowledge. Everything else, other people can take responsibility for."

In physics, the definition of power is the transfer of energy. In leadership, the definition of power is helping people live to their potential.

1. Being every day with a focus on the lives you touch.
2. Know that leadership is the stewardship of the lives entrusted to you.
3. Embrace leadership practices that send people home each day safe, healthy, and fulfilled.
4. Align all actions to an inspirational vision of a better future.
5. Trust is the foundation of all relationships; act accordingly.
6. Look for the goodness in people and recognize and celebrate it.
7. Ask no more or less of anyone than you would of your own child.
8. Lead with a clear sense of grounded optimism.
9. Recognize and flex to the uniqueness of everyone.
10. Always measure success by the way you touch the lives of people!

In conclusion, we need to accept the premise "I will see it when I believe it." People are hungry for positive change in business and school. They are waiting for real leaders to lead. They are eager to share their gifts. They just need a leader to show them it is okay.

Questions

• At the heart of leadership is human relationships. How can we build a relational culture in the class?
• How do you set up an environment where students feel free to make create decisions without fear of failure?
• Barry-Whemiller has a clear set of values by which they operate. What are your values that you would like to bring to marketing as the leader of the team? Explain how these will be implemented.

Sources

• Dare to Lead by Brene Brown
• Everybody Matters by Bob Chapman
• Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek
• Antifragile by Nassim Taleb