November, 2015 | All About Being "Emotionally Agile"

November 30, 2015

Simple Leadership

I love it when an article strikes a chord in someones brain and creates a strong enough wave that they publicly comment on it. Such was the case in last week’s article about my haircut experiences over time.

One commenter (whom I have excerpted and edited) said the following:

I don’t disagree with the thought that simplicity in life and leadership is a worthwhile pursuit. When I gained most of my experience we had the philosophy, “KISS”, Keep It Simple, Stupid. But I wonder after reading your post, if our issue is that everyone wants to be different — to be separated from the pack.

Do you think the value proposition here is “Chair Cut” on the inside, “House Cut” on the outside? I don’t want to be like everyone else. I guess I see where the relief stems from — less to worry about, relieve some stress.

Simple may be better, but I think I want my leader to be a Chair Cut.

Wow! That has some profound implications. And in retrospect, I was looking at the impact of simplification solely from my perspective and not from the perspective of those around who follow me.

So, let’s consider the impact of being a Simple Leader.

Continue reading “Simple Leadership”

November 23, 2015

I am a House Cut

This may be a little out of ordinary for LeadershipVoices.com, but a thought came to me recently. Now that alone is not necessarily “blogworthy”. But, I am going to try to make a leadership application from that thought.

Several years ago I gave up on dealing with my hair. What hair that I had left was not, nor had ever been, very cooperative. It tended to want to go wherever it wanted despite the lotions and potions that I piled on it to keep it down. So, one day, I asked my barber to make a suggestion. She suggested that I just go to a “#1 or #2” razor guard, cut it really short and be done with it. I did it and I loved it.

You can’t imagine the freedom came with that decision. I no longer had to wait in line for my particular barber that remembered how to cut my hair. I now was no longer what barbers call a ”Chair Cut”. I was now a ”House Cut”. All I needed to tell whoever cut my hair was “#1” and they would take it from there.

Simple.

Easy.

In fact, it was liberating.

Now for the application to leadership.

Continue reading “I am a House Cut”

November 16, 2015

Sincere

I have become a huge baseball fan over the past few years. I won’t go into why or how I became a baseball fan so late in life. But, trust me. It’s a good story.

I saw this quote one night a few years ago while skimming the sports news. Apparently, Yadier Molina, the catcher for the St. Louis Cardinals was thrown out for arguing balls and strikes with the home plate umpire Paul Schreiber on that particular night. Now according to the rules of baseball (both the written AND the unwritten ones) you can maybe mutter something under your breath to the umpire. But everyone knows you are going to get tossed out of the game if you argue balls and strikes. And both Molina and his manager Tony La Russa got tossed out of the game that night for doing just that.

But that is not the point of this post. What really struck me was the comments by his manager, Tony La Russa. La Russa knows Yadier Molina well and Molina has a reputation for being competitive, but good to work with from the home plate umpire’s perspective. Here is what La Russa said to the media following the game.

“You try to coach emotion in players, and that’s what competition is about,” La Russa said. “That’s not his style, so evidently he was sincere. And if he’s sincere, what can you say about it?”

Well, I can say a whole lot about it Mr. La Russa!

But what is the Leadership Lesson?

Continue reading “Sincere”

November 9, 2015

Where there’s smoke . . .

We have all heard the maxim — “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire”. But I say that I no longer believe that based upon something that I saw recently while on a business trip to Calgary.

I was looking for a place to eat one night and happened upon a place that I have frequented before. But, because there was a slight chill in the air, there appeared to be a cozy fire burning in the entryway of the restaurant. Just look at the title graphic for this post and you will see the photograph of what I saw.

I could see little wisps of “smoke” rising from the “fire”. It was only after I got to within just a few feet of the “flames” was I able to tell that neither the smoke nor the fire was real. Instead the effect was achieved through the use of ultrasonic technology to create something resembling smoke that was actually water vapor and then adding a flickering flame colored light to create a very realistic smoke and fire effect. I must admit it was very cool.

So what is the Leadership Lesson here?

Continue reading “Where there’s smoke . . . “

November 2, 2015

Weak Leaders

Weak leaders naturally attract weak followers. That is my hypothesis. I am not sure if there has ever been an academic or scientific study to prove that hypothesis or not. But, it is clearly an observation that I have made over many years of observational study.

Why do you suppose that would be the case? And who is really attracted to who? Is it really that it is the weak leader that is attracted to weak followers?

My fear is that it may in reality be the weak leader that is attracted to weak followers. For it is in that setting that they can operate without much fear of any challenges to their leadership or true accountability for their actions.

I have not yet met a leader who would admit to being a weak leader. Often they will admit that they are not as strong as they would like to be. But they usually don’t admit to their weakness in this area.

According to Les McKeown of Inc. Magazine, “The problem comes when a weak leader masquerades as a strong leader. Outwardly, they appear effective, dependable, on top of things. But look closely at what they believe to be strong leadership and what you see is, in fact, a set of dangerous, destructive behaviors. Behaviors which will eventually strangle the organization.”

McKeown goes on to provide some typical behaviors of weak (or in his words, “ineffective”) leaders. I will not elaborate or comment on all of them. But I would offer my thoughts on how weak leaders interact with their followers. Continue reading “Weak Leaders”