The Positive Leadership Blog

The Power of Positive Leadership

(This article is an updated version of an article printed on The Positive Leadership Blog in September of 2006.)

Organizations led by powerful, dynamic leaders – individuals who believe in strong positive values and who are committed to infusing their organizations with those values – will have unparalleled success.        

        Positive leaders sell their people on their organization’s mission.  Leaders talk relentlessly about the values that drive their organization.  These men and women teach their people those values, they walk the floor with them when it is necessary, and they drag them screaming and hollering down the alley when that is necessary.  What powerful positive leaders do not do is sit back and wait for something to happen.      

       Positive leaders are pro-active.  They do all the other things managers and administrators do: they plan, organize, set objectives, establish controls, and evaluate outcomes and they do these things well.  What distinguishes positive leaders from men and women who simply manage, however, is their commitment to personal involvement and positive action.  Leaders make things happen.      

       Positive leadership is a special kind of leadership that brings out the best of an organization and its people; ensures that its objectives are the right objectives; and that the entity’s resources are cultivated to their optimum level.  A positive leader will possess the following attributes: 

1. A healthy self-esteem;

2. An understanding of organizational dynamics and an intimate knowledge of one’s own organization;

3. A commitment to a value system, manifested by a relentless passion;

4. An understanding of the needs of people in the workplace and the ability to facilitate the internal motivation of those people; and

5. An understanding of the true essence of success, which requires a commitment to action.

 

              A healthy self-esteem is vital because one cannot lead unless one believes in one’s self.  In fact, the leadership role requires that men and women put their egos on the line every single day.  The leader who lacks a strong, healthy self-esteem will spend the majority of his or her time and energy on personal needs rather than on the needs of the enterprise and its people.  The needs of positive leaders are met through the satisfaction of seeing their organization and its people succeed.  

              In modern society, everything we do is occurs within the context of a group or an organization.  Positive leaders understand organizational dynamics at the macro level and at the micro level they strive to know everything there is to know about their own organization, its mission, its vision, its customers and suppliers, its products and services, its strengths and weaknesses, and its people. 

              Positive leaders possess a high level of commitment to a system of values that guides them personally and that powers their organizations one of the most important of which is customer satisfaction.  While it is imperative that leaders talk about the values of their organizations with relentless passion, words are only a lubricant.  Values are conveyed most effectively through the actions of the organization and of its leaders because, in the end, people will remember what we do far longer than they will remember what we say. 

       People are the most important resource for any organization and positive leaders understand the needs of their people and they know how to ignite the internal motivation of the people on whom their organizations rely.  They do this by making people feel important. 

       Finally, a positive leader understands that success is the process of achieving results through positive action.  Success is attained when one converts dreams to objectives, to plans, and to action.  Without action even the ideas of an Einstein create no value.  Success is achieved when the process becomes ingrained and when leaders are committed to positive action. 

              Often, organizations elevate people to leadership roles on the basis of their technical competency rather than on demonstrated leadership accomplishment.  The frequent and unfortunate result of such decisions is that the organization exchanges one of its most productive technical performers for a mediocre manager or supervisor.  This unfortunate outcome could be ameliorated if the organization would make an appropriate investment in the development of the individual’s leadership skills but, remarkably and inexplicably, such investments are the exception rather than the norm. 

              Inevitably, the new manager/supervisor will become discouraged and disillusioned with their new role and that leads to diminished enthusiasm.  Nothing contributes to the deflation of an organization’s morale more quickly than the diminished enthusiasm of discouraged and disillusioned leaders.             

              Here are some things to think about as you contemplate your organization’s commitment to leadership development.  It is far easier to teach technical skills than it is to teach leadership.  While a high level of technical competence creates an advantage, one can be a powerful leader with only marginal technical expertise.  Individuals with exemplary technical capabilities but with poorly developed leadership skills will almost always be unhappy and unproductive in a leadership role. 

       Having said that it is more difficult to learn leadership skills than it is to learn technical skills, positive leadership skills can be taught to almost anyone of normal intelligence and many uneducated people have intuitive leadership ability.  The problem, as we noted earlier, is that the actual practice of leadership requires that we put our egos at risk and this is incredibly difficult for some people.       

       The most successful organizations make a commitment to ongoing leadership development.  This means identifying people throughout one’s organization who demonstrate leadership ability and then grooming them for future leadership roles.  A commitment to leadership development also requires that all people in existing leadership roles be given ongoing leadership training opportunities.  When leaders struggle, and this is inevitable for many people, leadership counseling and mentoring can help these men and women regain their focus. This is continuing education in its purest form and no one can be exempt.  Leadership is an art form that flows from the creative resources of talented men and women who practice their craft, daily.  Unless the talent is nurtured and exercised, it will wither and die.  How effectively does your organization identify new leaders and nurture the development of their talent?       

       If you sometimes find yourself frustrated that your organization rarely seems to be functioning at its optimal potential, maybe you should re-evaluate your commitment to the development of your own leadership abilities, as well as those of your leadership team.  Time after time, the difference is leadership!

 

America's Pre-eminence at Grave Risk

The United States of America, which for generations has been the richest, most powerful nation in the world, is under attack and our position of pre-eminence is at grave risk. This threat is more dangerous than anything Al Qaeda or the Taliban can throw at us and it is also more dangerous than our current economic challenges and our proclivity to spend beyond our means. It is even more dangerous than a stalemated Congress that has forgotten that democracy only works when a people are willing to work together to find common ground.

            The U.S. is like a major league baseball franchise that has become so complacent with winning that it has begun to view success as an entitlement and this entitlement mentality is pervasive. The nation’s payroll of its leaders, whether political or economic, has become so burdensome and disproportionate that operating in the red has become a default decision; but even this is not America's team’s greatest problem.

            Historically, our team’s ability to compete was constructed on the foundation of a player-development system that was second-to-none. Over the years, however, our system of player development has become lackadaisical. On the one hand, we have lost sight of the fundamentals but, more importantly, the percentage of the population of young people who not only want to compete but are motivated to excel has diminished exponentially.

Of course, U.S.’s player development system is nothing other than the American system of private and public education. It is a documented fact that American children are falling further and further behind. According to the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), the U.S. ranks 25th in math, 17th in science, and 14th in reading out of the 34 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries.[1]

In school systems throughout the U.S., teacher’s are being held accountable as student performance on various competency examinations fails to rise to expectations. Even more frightening, in some communities, we are lowering our expectations in response to this decline in performance, which is the absolute last thing we should be doing.

Sadly, our propensity for blaming teachers for the problems of public education, particularly in our cities, is a travesty. Because a number of special schools have been able to demonstrate remarkable results only serves to reinforce our belief that our public schools are doing something wrong. The dramatic difference in the performance of private, parochial, suburban, and some rural school districts only reinforces our misguided notion that urban public schools are failing, miserably. That white students out-perform minority students and that children from affluent families out-perform children from poor families further obscures what should be an obvious truth. The burgeoning gap between African-American students and their white counterparts confuses the issue even more.

So what is the obvious truth that we seem to be overlooking? The truth is that the key to educational success is student motivation which, itself, is a function of the extent to which the parents of those children value education and the level of responsibility those parents accept as partners in the education of their children. The success of special schools, private and parochial schools, and suburban public schools is not because they are better schools populated by better teachers. Their success is the result of the fact that these schools have become magnets that draw-in parents who are committed to the vital importance of education along with their motivated students. So blind are we to this penultimate truth, we fail to see that our mindless insistence on offering voucher programs so that more families can pull their children out of urban public schools only exacerbates the problem. Voucher programs may appear to be a salvation for some families but they are daggers to the hearts of urban public schools and the unheralded professional educators who labor there.

What remains are urban communities where the predominant culture, whatever the ethnic or racial make-up, not only devalues education but, most important of all, they have lost faith and hope in America; they have given up on the American Dream.

In the interim, other nations and their emerging economies, with China leading the way, threaten to supplant the United States of America as the richest, most powerful, and best educated nation in the world. This past holiday season, the American consumer has been asked to pay attention to whether or not the consumer goods we purchase are American made. What we have all seen, if we have taken the time to look, is that the products of China and other foreign economies dominate the shelves of retailers throughout the U.S. This is nothing more than hard evidence that we are losing the war for economic supremacy.

Recalling the performance of American fifteen year-olds in PISA rankings, we should be absolutely terrified by the fact that the nation that leads all categories of the PISA study is China. This author’s prediction is that, if we do not commit ourselves to changing this reality, in fifty years China will look to the U.S. workers for their cheap labor.

This threat to our way of life as Americans is more serious than any threat we have faced since the Civil War and the key to our success or failure in the next half century will be determined by the quality of our systems of education, both public and private.

It is absolutely imperative that our political, economic, and spiritual leaders, at all levels of our society, join forces to revitalize “the American Dream” and to reinforce in the minds of American parents of all racial, ethnic, and economic status that the ticket to the American Dream is a quality education. This will require not only that American parents relentlessly instill the importance of education in the minds and hearts of their children but that they make a commitment to become full partners, working hand-in-hand, with their children’s educators.

This is a formidable challenge that requires an unprecedented level of positive leadership on the part of all Americans. If we fail to rise to this challenge, as a people united in a common purpose, our grandchildren and great-grandchildren's futures are stark. They will never experience what it has been like for us to be "proud Americans."

 

 

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[1] www.oecd.org/edu/pisa/2009. “The Programme for International Student Assessment is an internationally standardized assessment that was jointly developed by participating economies and administered to 15-year-olds in schools.”

America: A Leadership Crisis of Great Urgency!

Any illusions we might have had regarding the invulnerability of the United States as the richest and most powerful nation in the world were surely shattered in the wake of Standard and Poor’s decision to downgrade our nation’s credit rating. The U.S. is trillions of dollars in debt with China, the single greatest challenge to our economic supremacy, our largest creditor. Our ability to compete in the world marketplace over the next half-century is dependent on the quality of the American workforce, which, itself, is powered by the American educational system. According to The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), the U.S. ranks 25^th in math, 17^th in science, and 14^th in reading out of the 34 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries.[1] That China ranks first in all three areas should strike fear, if not outright panic, in every American heart.

We are in the midst of a crisis of historic proportions in which our way of life as a people is in jeopardy. It is a crisis that cries out for positive leadership and yet our elected leaders in Washington stomp around like spoiled and stubborn children who have yet to learn how to work and play with others.

The challenges facing our nation and its people are immense. Whether our burdensome debt; an economy that is only a shadow of its former self; a natural environment that seems to be stumbling under the weight of a burgeoning population that fouls the very air that we breathe and the water we drink; a system of public education that is laden with failure; a health care system that fails to meet the needs of nearly a full third of its citizens, we place our future in jeopardy unless we meet these challenges.

We use oil, a diminishing natural resource, to fuel our demand for energy even though the future will belong to the first nation to develop reliable, alternate sources of energy whether solar, hydrogen, or nuclear fusion. Worse, we are dependent on foreign suppliers of oil that are friendly to us only as long as we are able to pay.

We are a people who have forgotten that the historical strength of our democracy has always been our rich diversity as a people living together, in harmony, under the rule of law. Today we govern ourselves with a two-party system in which loyal opposition has given way to enmity and distrust to such an extent that each side feels the other is out to destroy America.

We must understand that the problems of the twenty-first century are of such magnitude that the politics of the past are no longer adequate to meet our needs. We must find fresh solutions that satisfy the needs of the masses on the one hand and that foster a strong economy on the other. We need the kind of leadership that will demand that its people replace a rampant entitlement mentality with an abundance mentality centered on the belief that there is enough for everyone as long as each citizen is willing to give one hundred percent of themselves through hard work and participatory citizenship.

We need leadership that understands that we cannot preserve our nation’s status as the richest and most powerful nation in the world just because we think it is our right and privilege. We are like a baseball or football team that has been in first place for so long we have forgotten what it took to rise to the top and we have become complacent. Right now, people of other nations, with China leading the way, are working hard to challenge our nation’s status. Just as importantly, the children of China and other nations are working hard to gain what they believe is an educational advantage that will seal the deal for their people and economy in the twenty-first century and beyond. That they are outperforming American children by a wide margin is simply unacceptable and we must answer the bell.

It is unreasonable to think that one nation will be able to dominate the future the way America has dominated the past but if we want a place at the head table, we have to elevate our game. To do so, we must reunite as a people and demand the best from ourselves, from our fellow Americans, from our children, and from our political leadership. We can ill afford to waste a minute let alone a generation.

Stand up, toe the mark, and get moving while we can still see the coat tails of our competitors. We need positive leadership and it must start with each and every one of us. That means me and it means you!

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[1] www.oecd.org/edu/pisa/2009. “The Programme for International Student Assessment is an internationally standardized assessment that was jointly developed by participating economies and administered to 15-year olds in schools.”

To Act Or Not To Act: That Is the Question!

Recently we wrote that positive leaders make things happen and that we define these powerful men and women by their accomplishments. For many of us, however, this advice flies in the face of that which we have learned throughout our lifetimes.

            “Don’t fix it if it ain’t broke!” “Let sleeping dogs lie!” “Don’t upset the applecart!” The list of admonitions against action is interminable. The best one I remember is that when we try something different “only two things can happen and three of them are bad!” Is it any wonder that so many people work so hard to preserve the status quo, even when they are dissatisfied with the outcomes they get? Is it any wonder that so many of us are enslaved by inertia?

            Powerful positive leaders are quick on the draw but never shoot indiscriminately. These men and women understand that it is not good business to mess with success and they do not change things about which their customers are happy. What they also understand is that both customer dissatisfaction and employee discontent can often be subtle and can fester under the surface of things until; finally, the boil bursts, showering us with nasty consequences.

            Positive leaders are constantly listening to all members of their supply chain, both internal and external. These men and women also have an intimate understanding of their organizations and its people, and of the products and services they provide. They understand the needs of their customers, suppliers, and employees and they especially understand that those needs are fluid. Often the signals that float past us on a daily basis do not foretell events of significance. Positive leaders relentlessly investigate the ebb and flow of the marketplace and prepare themselves for tsunamis, both large and small.

          These powerful leaders listen empathically. How many times have you heard someone say, “When is somebody going to do something about . . . ?” Think about how many times in any given day, week, or month that you ask such questions of others.

            Shooting from the hip in a reactionary mode truly will result in unexpected, adverse consequences but this is not a mistake positive leaders typically make. Powerful positive leaders are “pro-actionary” and understand, intuitively, that events always occur in context. The sensory apparatus of these men and women are tuned to the multiple frequencies of their organizations and they view their organization as an integral whole within which adverse events and outcomes sometimes occur. When these positive leaders take action, and they usually do, they understand that taking action is a process of evaluating outcomes relentlessly and making innumerable adjustments.

            Some outcomes are disappointing and, indeed, positive leaders understand that they cannot anticipate every eventuality. They also understand that every outcome, whether positive or negative, creates an opportunity to learn. Positive leaders are eternal optimists who believe that they can always improve. One of the truths that positive leaders embrace is that three things can happen when one takes well-conceived action and all of them are good. Often the outcomes are positive and sometimes those outcomes exceed expectations. They also believe that mistakes in response to reasoned choices are not bad things; rather they are welcomed as opportunities to learn. The third outcome of well-conceived action is that the people of both one’s organization and its supply chain begin to learn that even the biggest mistakes pale in comparison to complacency with respect to ongoing customer satisfaction. Powerful positive leaders are fearless.

            Positive leaders believe that the only time an idea, product, service, or relationship cannot be improved is the precise moment in time when it becomes obsolete. Powerful positive leaders replace the concept of continuous improvement with a commitment to relentless improvement.

            Action is the essential tool of powerful positive leaders an action orientation is an inherent characteristic of vibrant, dynamic organizations that are committed to the satisfaction of customers, both internal and external. In such organizations dogs do not sleep, apples are not allowed to rot at the bottom of the cart, and things are not given an opportunity to break.

           

Positive Leadership Under Extreme Crisis

Recent events in Japan remind us of how important positive leadership can be in crises of immense proportion.  Less recent events such as the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and, prior to that, Hurricane Katrina further substantiate our assertion that powerful positive leadership can make an enormous difference in crisis-management outcomes while the absence of positive leadership can aggravate an already horrific situation.

In times of extreme crisis, providing powerful positive leadership is paramount.  This requires that our leaders be visible, transparent, and honest with us while balancing both the right and the need to know with the responsibility for avoiding panic.  It helps enormously if our leaders have already earned our trust but even a mediocre leader can step up in such crises and be a powerful calming influence while also making certain that the things that need to happen, happen.

It requires that our leaders avoid the blame game and instead accept full responsibility for both the successes and failures in their response to the emergency requirements of their people.  Positive leaders are able to convey empathy by assuring people that we are listening to them and that we understand the magnitude of the circumstances with which they are confronted.

Often in such crises it is impossible to accomplish everything that needs to be done as quickly as people think appropriate.  It is vital that we take the time to understand the full breadth and scope of the crises and that we set priorities but this must be done with the greatest possible expediency and, in the interim, it is important that we take whatever action we can to alleviate danger, suffering, and the anguish of the uncertainty that flows from being uninformed.  Getting water to the Superdome during Katrina is the most glaring example of emergency response systems that become paralyzed by the magnitude of the disaster or other crises.

In watching the news coverage of the tragedy in Japan I wondered, as the news helicopter flew over people who were stranded on their rooftops, if anyone was making the point of communicating with those people to let them know that:

1)      they have been seen,

2)      that authorities have been notified of their location and circumstances, and

3)      if rescue is not imminent, making sure they have water, food, and first aid resources as they wait for help to arrive.

 

Human beings have tremendous resiliency as long as they have hope and nothing eats away at one’s hope more than uncertainty as to whether anyone knows where we are and understands the severity and consequences of our circumstances.

Positive leaders are, by definition, pro-active and one of the most important things they do is to plan for worst-case scenarios.  One of the most vital components of any disaster plan is a comprehensive “first response strategy” ready to be implemented without waiting for some official somewhere to give the okay.

Planning for the unanticipated is always a less-than-perfect process and we will always be surprised by things that could not have been predicted.  That is why it is imperative that we do not spend so much time worrying about the criticism that will flow from our mistakes that we fail to learn the lessons they provide.  This is where leadership integrity distinguishes powerful positive leaders from the field. 

Not all crises take on the enormous magnitude of the earthquakes and tsunamis in Japan but lesser crises can be just as traumatic to people and this is particularly true in an organizational leadership environment.  Positive leaders in organizations are prepared for the unexpected and they understand that the unanticipated loss of a major customer or the need for significant downsizing can be just as traumatic for our people as natural disasters.  If people know they can count on their leaders to be fully prepared, to keep them informed, to admit their mistakes and imperfections and to learn from those things we will follow such leaders almost anywhere and will give them the best effort of which we are capable.

What preparations have you made for such events?  Should they occur, what will be the caliber of the positive leadership that your people can expect from you?

The Passing of a Very Special Man

A couple of weeks ago, a positive leader passed away.  He was a man who made an enormous difference in the lives of literally thousands of young people and hundreds of adults.  Unless you were fortunate to read the letter to the editor in the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette that followed a few days later, most people, including right here in his home town, would have known nothing about this man; this leader.  The letter was from one of the teachers who had worked with this man for many years and it was a beautiful testament to a very special individual. 

The man’s name was Charlie.  He did not have an impressive title, he did not make a great deal of money, he did not have any formal authority, a fancy education, and he was not a star athlete or a famous performer.  This man’s stature as a powerful positive leader came only from the force of his personality, his dedication to his job, his love of and ability to relate and communicate with other people and, most importantly, from his willingness to accept responsibility.

            I first heard about this man years ago when my kids were in high school but, even then, it did not make a great impression on me.  I just assumed Charlie was one of the kids at school.  But Charlie was not one of the kids at school.  Charlie was a high school custodian but he was nothing like any of the janitors I had known, a generation earlier, when I was a student in high school.

            The first and only time I actually met Charlie I was working as a substitute teacher at the high school that my own children had attended.  I was standing in the hall, next to the door to my classroom, reeling from a rough math lab class when this man came up to me.  He was dressed in a sport coat, slacks and tie and it never occurred to me that he was a custodian until he grabbed a broom from a cart he had left a few feet away from me and swept up some debris from the floor.

            “Is there anything I can do for you?” He asked.  “You just call me if you need something,” he continued and then proceeded to rattle off his extension number.  As he continued down the hall, I watched him, trying to figure out who in the heck he was.  He spoke to a couple of students as he passed them and from the smiles on their faces I can only assume he was smiling, also.  Then, he gave another student a high five, and then stopped to pick up a couple of broken pencils that lay on the floor.  A few dozen yards away a young girl had been leaning against the wall, all by herself.  I had noticed her earlier as she had a lonely and forlorn look about her and I had wondered if she had been crying.  As this custodian drew closer he drifted over to her and then stopped and put his hand on her shoulder. 

            This made me immediately suspicious because we are told frequently and pointedly not to touch the students, especially members of the opposite gender.  I could not hear the words that were spoken, but after a few seconds the girl offered up an embarrassed smile, followed seconds later by a laugh.  Charlie lingered a moment, in quiet conversation, and then sauntered off with a couple more high fives to students as he passed.  When I looked back the girl was still there, standing in the same spot but she stood a little taller and had a smile on her face.  Whatever this custodian had said to her must have been something she had needed to hear.

            Later in the day, in the faculty lounge, I asked a teacher about the custodian in the sport coat and tie.  He laughed, and said, “well, that would have been Charlie.”  He went on to say, “he’s a very special guy around here and both the kids and staff love him.” 

            I asked others about him, including my youngest daughter, now a teacher.  Whomever I asked, just the mention of his name would evoke a smile and everyone proceeded to tell me pretty much the same story.

“He is everybody’s friend and always has a kind word for you,” they explained.

         Charlie, God rest his charitable soul, was a positive leader.  He took his job seriously and took pride in keeping things clean for the students and teachers.  Even more importantly, he reached out to people to share his positive attitude.  He accepted responsibility for making this high school a better place and for making its people feel special and important.  He had a special ability to sense when someone—teacher, student, or sub—needed a kind word, a high five, or a warm smile and I doubt that he ever wasted an opportunity to share his special gift.  None of these activities could be found in the job description of a school custodian but Charlie made them a part of his daily routine.

Charlie was a perfect example of the fact that you don’t have to have a title, formal authority, or even someone’s permission to be a leader and to make a positive difference to the world and its people.  All you need is a belief that you can make a difference and a willingness to reach out to people and accept responsibility for making the world a better place.  This man was living proof that individual men and women can add a little beauty to the world just by doing their job to the best of their ability and by giving of themselves to others.

God bless you, Charlie.

Leaders Are Defined by Accomplishment

Leaders are defined by what they do but just doing matters little without accomplishment.  In the final analysis, leaders are measured by what they accomplish.  Many people have what I like to refer to as “time in title” but a close look at their careers reveals little if any significant accomplishment.  Oh, they do their jobs and they very likely do them with great efficiency and effectiveness.  Often, these men and women are the most technically proficient people in one’s organization.  Not surprisingly, when an organization is looking for someone to fill a leadership vacancy they turn to their best employees from the perspective of technical competence. 

Very often, the decision to promote the organization’s technical stars proves to be a tragic mistake for both the organization and the employee who was promoted.  The organization trades its most technically proficient employee for a mediocre and often ineffective leader while the individual relinquishes a position at which they were comfortable and successful for one in which they are poorly prepared and inevitably unhappy.  Most tragic of all is the fact that the organization’s employees must endure the unpleasant reality of substandard leadership.

We have seen the scenario played out in many different venues.  In the midst of a crisis and employee gets an idea, pulls together the best people available to them in order to put their idea into action and it works; problem solved, catastrophe averted.  In the aftermath, the employee whose technical performance saved the day gets both recognition and reward, earning the designation of “star.”  When the next leadership opportunity occurs, to whom does the organization turn?  Almost always, it is the “technical star” that came through in the time of crisis.  In reality, however, it was the employee who took charge, organized a response, and put people in a position to perform that are the true leaders and will almost certainly be the better choice for a leadership opportunity.

Whether you are hiring from outside your organization or promoting from within look beyond “time in title” in search of real accomplishment.  Ask probing questions about what the individual actually did to make a difference in their organization.  How many special projects did they lead, in how many problem-solving sessions did they participate.  Ask the same type of questions when checking references. 

Educational environments are notorious for promoting people on the basis of the number of years on the job and the proper academic credentials and then they wonder why these people are unable to bring about meaningful change.

The best organizations focus on the leadership development of all individuals who demonstrate talent and promise.  In one organization with which I was involved we developed what we called a “Fast Track” program to teach promising employees the skills they would need to become powerful positive leaders.  Every year, supervisors from every department in the organization were invited to recommend a member of their team for the program.  We did not require any special credentials or experience other than the demonstrated ability to accept responsibility for solving problems and making things happen.  The other key criteria to consider was the skill an individual demonstrated in working effectively with team members and both internal and external supply chain partners.

It is important that positive leaders have or develop technical competence.  Even the best leader will be effective for only so long without a thorough understanding of the product, process, or service being offered.  Remember, however, that it is easier to teach someone the technical aspects of a job than it is to teach them how to be effective leaders.  Positive leadership can certainly be taught but not everyone has what it takes to be an effective leader.  The last thing an organization wants to see, however, is that its leaders are the most technically capable members of the team because this means that the leaders are not doing one of their most important jobs.  Leaders must also be teachers committed to sharing their knowledge and technical expertise with the clear objective that their people excel.  After all, organizations need both effective leaders and technical stars in order to compete in the 21^st century economy.

Your organization deserves the best leadership it can find and your current employee base is the first place to look.  The organizations that do the best job of developing leaders will be the organizations that endure and prosper.

In this Season of Giving, Give the Gift of Positive Leadership!

            Across the globe our democratic way of life is threatened by political, economic, ecological, and social turmoil and anyone who harbors the illusion that these problems will just go away, on their own, is part of the problem. 

            With the holiday season upon us this a perfect time to give the gift of leadership.  For those of you who have followed the offering of articles at The Positive Leadership Blog you know that one of the foundational principles of our theory of positive leadership is the idea that it is more important to give of ones self than it is to receive.  Giving of ones self is one of the things positive leaders do each and every day, irrespective of time and place.

            Recall that one of the definitions of positive leadership is the acceptance of responsibility for outcomes.  As you enjoy the holiday season, giving and receiving gifts from loved ones, be on the look out for opportunities to give of yourself.  Be a leader, accept responsibility, make something positive happen, affirm the value of another human being. 

            Leadership does not always mean something grand and glorious.  Sometimes leadership can be as small as a simple act of kindness.  It means being conscious of the people and events that surround us and tuned in to what people are feeling or needing.  Maybe it is a simple smile and a season greeting to someone who looks sad, frustrated, lonely, or even angry.  Maybe it means reaching out to an individual in need.  It could be as simple as holding a door open and at other times it could mean helping someone in need of food or shelter.  Sometimes it is a simple as a willingness to listen empathically to another human being.

            Very often we think that, as leaders, it is necessary that we take charge, offer advice, or solve a problem for someone.  As positive leaders our opportunities go far beyond these obvious activities.  Maybe we can encourage someone else to take the lead because we know they have something to offer but lack the courage or the initiative.  Sometimes it is teaching someone how to solve a problem for themselves or showing them how to gain an element of control over their lives.  Often it is a simple as making certain that a friend, colleague, spouse, or child gets the recognition he or she deserves.

            The beautiful thing about being a positive leader is that, every single day of our lives, we have opportunities to add a little beauty to the world; to make the world a better place.  Experience teaches us that we may never know how a simple act of kindness or affirmation on our part may create a turning point in the life of another person. 

            Right now the world needs all of the positive leadership it can get.  Have an abundance mentality and seek out win-win opportunities.  Go ahead and give of yourself without thought of return, without expectation of reward or recognition or even a word of thanks.  What you will discover as you give from your generous heart is that you possess an enormous power to make a difference. 

             Be joyous and share your joy!

Positive Leadership Critical to the Future of Public Education

The crisis in American public education could also be described as a crisis of leadership.  As is true in so many venues, we have a tendency to view our problems from a perspective of encapsulation.  Within a system, we examine only those components in which we operate, never taking the time to examine the system as an integral whole or to understand how our own actions contribute to the system’s failures.  As we confront the challenges that flow from the decline in test scores, in cities all over the nation, it is critical that we explore the role of leadership in education, that we apply a system’s thinking approach to the challenges of public education, and that we think exponentially.

For a number of years, while rebuilding my leadership consulting practice and writing books, I worked as a substitute teacher in the public school district of my community.  In my visits to all of the high schools and middle schools, as a substitute teacher, I can usually tell the quality of leadership being provided in the school just by observing the school in operation.  My observations may be from the classroom, from the hallways, or from the faculty lounge.  After seven years of subbing, I have been in each of the nine middle schools and six high schools scores of times.  During the course of a single school year I may have visited a given school building a dozen or more times and there are several school in which I never laid eyes on the principal. 

On one occasion, while taking a break in the faculty lounge, I listened in on a conversation in which several teachers were expressing frustration about their principal.  One of the teachers came to the principal’s defense by commenting that the administrative demands placed on the principals from the school corporation are such that they have time for little else.  This is exactly the wrong focus and contributes significantly to the problem in many schools.

School corporations must do whatever they can to remove the administrative burden from the shoulders of their principals.  This could begin with the addition of a middle level administrator whose job it is to handle all of the administrative demands involved in managing the operations of a school building so that the principal can spend a minimum of seventy-five percent of his or her time in face-to-face contact with faculty and staff, students, and parents.  Let’s face it, anyone can do the paperwork but we need our best leaders providing leadership. 

Every principal and assistant principal in the district should participate in a variety of leadership development programs to hone their skills in selling vision, mission, and values to all of the players in their school community.  They must know how to effectively develop the skills of their faculty through observation, consultation, and feedback; they must be able to relate to the kids through face-to-face interaction, getting to know as many of them as possible and forming genuine relationships with them; they must be able to communicate directly with parents, always selling the mission, always doing whatever they can to pull those parents in, both physically and emotionally.    

When our eldest child was nearing high school age, my wife and I debated whether to send our Catholic daughter to the public school for the district in which we lived or to a nearby Catholic high school.  The decision was made after attending an orientation program at the public high school and was influenced almost entirely by the principal who spoke to us one mid-summer evening.

This man began his presentation with the words, “I am big, and I’m black, and I’m ugly!” and in the next ten minutes he successfully sold himself and his school to us.  He was far and away the best principal that any of our three children had while attending Fort Wayne Community Schools. 

What was it about this man that distinguished him from his colleagues over the twenty-year period during which we had children in public schools?  He was a communicator.  He sold us on his mission and his belief that our kids were special. During the several years that he was principal for two of my children, it was obvious that this man had a special gift.  He spent time in the halls and classrooms and would stop to talk to kids and also to listen.  At every opportunity he talked to them about pride and about respect and they listened; black kids, white kids, and Hispanic kids.  He expected much from his students both academically and with respect to how they conducted themselves and they listened.  Whether it was true or not, every student in the school believed that they had a relationship with this man and that he had a special interest in them.  The school was a special place, indeed.

Just how much a difference this man made for all of his students was not fully apparent until he left for an advancement opportunity.  His successors, accomplished professionals all, were never quite able to reproduce the magic.

No doubt, not everyone comes to their role as a principal in possession of a special gift but what this principal accomplished, through his positive leadership, illustrates just how much of a difference positive leadership can make.  Every principal should strive to model this man.  They should be evaluated on the effectiveness with which they perform to these expectations and they should be selected on the basis of skill sets that would make that possible.  Because positive leadership is craft that men and women develop over time, leaders in all venues must be involved in incessant, ongoing leadership development.

Principals have no business hiding in their offices any more than managers in business organizations belong in their offices.  The challenge of organizational leaders everywhere is to help their people be successful and to satisfy their customers.  In the business of education our customers are the students and parents that we serve, and our people are the professionals who teach those children and the staff that support both students and faculty in that process.  Any school district that allows administrative paperwork to obscure the mission and purpose of its principals will surely fall short of fulfilling its potential.

One of the most important things positive leaders do is to make sure their organization and its people are focused where they need to be.  In the next article we will explore how a systems-thinking approach can provide a meaningful opportunity to transform public education in the United States.

             

EXPONENTIAL THINKING

            How do you teach yourself and your people to think exponentially?  Exponential thinking is often referred to as “thinking outside the box” or creative thinking.  While the phrase “thinking outside the box” has become somewhat cliché, the activity of expanding one’s paradigms and thinking creatively is a critical skill that powerful positive leaders rely on to manage their organizations.

            We live in a multi-dimensional, interdependent world in which events about which we may be unaware and that seem disconnected to us still impact on our lives and businesses.  The most effective leaders are tuned into the world around them, fully aware of the interdependencies.  These men and women recognize how easy it becomes for people who are immersed in their daily work activity to lose sight of the events taking place around them.

            “System Thinking,” a term introduced by Peter Senge in his best-selling book, The Fifth Discipline[1], teaches us how to step back to a point from which we can examine our venue, company, or even industry as an integral whole.  This perspective enables us not only to see the broad forces that influence our activity but also to see how what we do influences the whole in ways that may not be apparent to us.  Under a systems thinking approach we are able to examine our basic assumptions about the world in which we live and work. 

            What all organizations should do is to periodically stop and re-examine where they are going and how far they have come.  Is our mission still important?  Are our goals and objectives still appropriate given changes that have taken the place in our industry or even within our supply chain?  Have any of the things that have changed in our environment also altered the needs of our customers?  That such changes, unnoticed, can have a devastating affect on a business organizations future is bad enough.  Just as importantly, these changes often create new opportunities for the alert and the innovative.

            Creating an organization in which all members are engaged in a learning process, and in which they are encouraged to develop and share new ideas can pay enormous dividends.  Senge refers to such entities as “learning organizations.”[2]  Many quality systems have built in process to facilitate continuous improvement but only a special few actually make the effort and investment to teach people how to think exponentially and then reward them for sharing.

            What we have learned is that continuous improvement is insufficient for the dynamic world in which we do business.  What is needed is relentless improvement in an environment in which people at all levels of the organization have been taught to accept responsibility for exceeding customer expectations.  Acceptance of such responsibility is the purest form of positive leadership.  Most organizations are blessed with a small number of individuals who are natural leaders, irrespective of their title and formal authority.  The challenge of executive leaders to infuse their organizations with positive leadership requires, first, that those executives are, themselves positive leaders, and second, that they make a relentless commitment to developing the leadership skills of their people.

            Positive leadership is more than just a skill that people with titles keep tucked away in their portfolios.  Positive leadership is a craft that must be practiced daily and one of the tools utilized by such craftspersons is exponential thinking.  In one organization with which I was involved, we encouraged exponential thinking by including what we then called “continuous improvement” as one of the criteria by which employees at all levels of the organization were evaluated in the company’s integrated performance management system.[3]  One of the best ways to build creativity is to be creative in developing ways to encourage, celebrate, and reward exponential thinking throughout your organization.

           

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[1] Senge, Peter M., The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of The Learning Organization, Currency
Doubleday, New York, 1994.

[2] Senge, 1994.

[3] See “Performance Management, The Positive Leadership Blog, August 6, 2007.