Leadership: What's your POV?

I think about leadership a lot. This week maybe more than usual as my BreakPoint Soultions^TM partners and I introduce Ascension^TM, our in-house leadership model. The model moves through Animation, Articulation, Amplification, and Action, with Assessment integrated into every element of the model. We believe the model provides a dynamic approach to identifying, expanding and realizing goals that can be used by individuals and organizations. More information is available from me, any of my partners, and at www.breakpoint.solutions.

BreakPoint SolutionsTM Ascension ModelTM

It’s not my intention to sell the model here, rather I’ve been reflecting on what I believe about leadership and how it’s changed over the years.

Like many people, my initial understanding of leadership was as a verb. The act of leading others. Getting others to do what you want or need them to do. Outward focused and the responsibility of someone in a position of authority. The more I read and think about it the more I realize that before you can impact or influence others you need to look inward. As a result, I’ve identified some steps toward becoming a leader:

1.     Recognizing where you have opportunities to be a leader

2.     Be willing to lead

3.     Getting clear about the purpose (the Why)

4.      Communicating from that position of clarity

5.     Honing your skills

6.     Have the courage to take action to make things better

Today I’ll tackle 1, 2 and 6. The rest I’ll leave for another day.

A Leadership Point of View

A few years ago, I was introduced to Level Three Leadership-Getting Below the Surface by James G. Clawson. If you’ve heard me speak about leadership, you have heard me refer to a key concept in Clawson’s book that resonates with me:

Being a Leader depends on point of view, not title or status.

Clawson’s leadership point of view consists of three elements:

1.     Seeing what needs to be done

2.     Understanding all the underlying forces at play in a situation

3.     Having the courage to initiate action to make things better

Anyone can adopt a leadership point of view. No position or authority is required. Instead many of us adopt other points of view – by choice or by habit. You will all recognize the others:

·       the follower – who waits to be told what to do;

·       the bureaucrat – who waits for permission or simply passes things up the chain;

·       the administrator – who is constrained by what has been done before and can’t handle anything new or out of the ordinary;

·       and the contrarian – we all know the contrarian. At one time or another we may have been the contrarian uttering phrases like “that won’t work”, “we’ve tried that before”, “yes but…” and on and on.

I invite you to ask yourself a few questions:

·       What point of view am I operating from? 

·       Is this where I typically operate – my habitual way of seeing the world?

·       If not, why is my point of view different now?

·       Where do I have opportunities to apply a leadership point of view?  

Did you see yourself in any of the other points of view? If so, don’t be too hard on yourself. We’ve all been there at one time or another and sometimes with good reason. A follower POV for example is fine when you are new in a career or position, but if you find yourself here after a while it’s great to step back and ask why? Is it as simple as changing your view or do you need to ask for help or additional training? 

The bureaucrat and the administrator may be tougher. Let’s face it some jobs are bureaucratic or administrative. I think the trick is not to settle for any of these points of view. Even in the most bureaucratic or administrative position you can be on the lookout for what needs to be done and the underlying forces in the situation and when your situation prevents you from taking action the courageous thing to do might be to ask someone who is in a position to act to do so.

Of all the others I think the contrarian is the most dangerous. Dangerous to the team because the negativity can get in the way of success – and dangerous because it is contagious. If Dale doesn’t care, why should I? If Dale say’s we’ve tried that before and it didn’t work, why bother trying? But, perhaps the most dangerous thing about the contrarian POV is that it’s sticky! Once you are there it’s hard to get away. It takes a conscious effort to make a switch. In her book Change Your Questions Change Your Life, Marilee Adams identifies mindsets and pathways and suggests that we can use switching questions to change from one mindset to another. Adams suggests that questions like Why are they so stupid? or What’s wrong with me (or them)? will move you further down a negative path. On the other hand questions like What do I want for myself and others? What assumptions am I making? or Am I being responsible? can move us to a more positive mindset.

What questions can you ask yourself when you need to adjust your point of view?

Questions will also help if you find yourself occupying a point of view that is different than your typical world view. What is it about this situation that has shifted you from where you normally are to one of the others? Can you use shifting questions or the leadership POV to readjust? It may require the courage to take action!

I hope by now you agree that being a leader is a choice. It’s about recognizing when we have the opportunity to lead, being willing, and taking action. Many of us see what needs to be done and understand at least most of the underlying forces at play but having the courage to initiate action to make things better is, for me, what differentiates a leader. You know these people. We all do. People in our lives, in the public eye or historical figures who provided leadership regardless of, and sometimes in spite of, their title or authority. Could you be one of these people?

So, the most important question to ask yourself might be:

Am I willing to adopt a leadership point of view?

Willingness to do so, especially having the courage to take action, is a giant step toward leadership for those who are starting out and a giant step in the right direction for those who already see themselves as leaders.

Keep your eye open for opportunities!

My hope is that sharing what I’ve been thinking gets you thinking.  As always, I invite your comments or questions. Agree, disagree, and share your own tips and tools. Thanks.

_______________________________________________________________

Dale Cooney, BSP, MBA, ACC, CEC
Executive Coach/Consultant
BreakPoint Solutions
dalec@breakpoint.solutions
780-250-2546

Leadership is a Creative Process!

Leadership has been defined and dissected in more ways than we can probably number and from a variety of authoritative sources from which I draw my inspiration - Covey, Collins, Sinek, Kouzes & Posner, to name but a few.  Each of these leadership guru's has helped me identify, refine and grow my leadership philosophy over the years.

None of their musings, mantras and models mean much, however, unless they are matched against the lived experience of an individual leader.  To become truly useful and powerful the lessons that these authors try to impart must also be applied in the real world.  As leaders, we must put the various theories to the practical test in our own unique environments.  We must see what could work for us - or not - and then evaluate to what degree our level of success in implementation was the result of quality and intensity of effort, true understanding of the model and principles being applied, or some combination thereof.  Tools on their own are not the answer.  Tools on their own are not going to turn us into better leaders.  What is required is critical and concerted application and adaptation of that tool to our environment and skill level.

This is where I believe a key - and underappreciated - aspect of leadership comes into play.  The skill or tool of creativity.

I believe one of the least understood qualities of good and even great leaders is their ability to be creative.  This goes beyond being entrepreneurial or innovative in relation to getting new products or services to market.  In my view, creativity in leadership is characterized by a spirit of curiosity, a motivation for making impactful change, for trying something different and even a commitment to exploration with all the attendant risk that comes from trying something new.  Creativity in leadership means challenging oneself and the teams that are being led.  Creativity results in conceiving of and realizing dreams never thought possible before.  Creativity does in fact lead to exponential changes or quantum leaps in thinking and being.

What makes for a creative leader?  What provides the context for creativity for a leader and thus for their teams and organizations to build, advance and succeed - perhaps out of all proportion to their perceived limitations?  I believe there are a few key factors to consider:

Ability to Defer Judgment: A rush to judgment precludes understanding of the true or real challenges or opportunities before a leader and their team and constrains perspective on possible new opportunities, options and avenues of exploration.

Passion to Seek Out Novelty: While deferring judgment opens up the mind, the novelty principle requires a leader to actively seek out and explore options that are original, unique and out-of-the-box.  You might even note that such a leader is voracious and compelled to seek out insights from all kinds of sectors and sources.  

Drive for Quantity: This quality, building on the previous two, suggests that the quantity of ideas explored is an ally of the quality of ideas ultimately achieved.  Creative leaders always seem to have a variety of ideas in their heads.  In fact, it can even be exhausting keeping up with their restless energy and stream of thought!  In this case though, quantity is intended to leverage the probability of generating several good options.

Make/Seek Connections and Applications:  Creative leaders recognize that limiting their field of view to their particular industry or sector is woefully insufficient in terms of pushing the envelope.  This is also where the drive for novelty and quantity come into play.  Creative leaders look for ideas and synergies from a variety of related and (seemingly) unrelated experiences, sectors, fields of study, stories, and genres.  

And Practical:  One of the key aspects of useful creativity is the ability to implement something of impact or effect.  The ability to translate creative ideas into practical application is one of the key elements that separates the dreamer from the effective leader.

As I noted earlier, creativity in leadership is not simply about introducing new products or services to market.  One of the hallmark distinctions between leadership and management, or between being a leader and a doer, is getting things done (bigger things done) through others.  In the context of leadership, therefore, and in the tremendously dynamic and ever-changing reality that is today's modern economy and workforce, leadership also demands creative approaches, adaptability and flexibility in responding to and achieving the potential of one's teams. How does a leader create and apply a creative process to building the capacity and capability of their teams?    

In the context of leadership, therefore, the elements noted above (and likely more) need to brought to bear on leveraging the skills and abilities of a team or organization.  Moreover, the leader has to have the vision and be actively scanning the environment to understand the challenges or opportunities available to the team. Next the leader has to build a level of awareness on the part of the team as to the importance of these challenges or opportunities and why achievement of success is so critical.  Next the team has to be engaged in an experimentation phase - brainstorming, piloting, trial balloons - that start to put ideas to the test.  And finally, and most critically, something has to be implemented.  Engaging the team throughout the creative process allows for definitive buy-in and adaptation as environmental circumstances dictate.  

Leadership is an art - you are the conductor, the sculptor, the artist or perhaps even the chef.  You are the creative inspiration and shaper of your team to something beyond what any one of you could achieve.  Commit to your creative aspirations for your leadership and to the benefit of your team.

_________________________________________________________

Greg Hadubiak, MHSA, FACHE, CEC, PCC

President & Founder - BreakPoint Solutions

gregh@breakpoint.solutions 

www.breakpoint.solutions 

780-250-2543

Helping leaders realize their strengths and enabling organizations to achieve their potential through the application of my leadership experience and coaching skills. I act as a point of leverage for my clients. I AM their Force Multiplier.

Our Leadership Choices

I last posted to this blog over a month ago (April 2020). At that time we were relatively early in our COVID response in Alberta/Canada.  Around the world we have witnessed a multitude of vaired responses to this pandemic, it's health, economic impacts and hoped for relaunch.  Many of us - myself included - were wondering what the short-term and medium-term future held for our employment and business prospects, how we might make ends meet, how we could still deliver on the educational requirements of our children (hello home schooling!) and protect vulnerable family members from a premature death. 

How the world has changed in a month - and not in a good way!  As I write this we are seeing continued massive economic dislocation throughout the world, the first faltering steps towards (perhaps premature) relaunch, documented deaths from COVID nearing or over 400,000 globally (and more than likely an underestimate), no ability to say when normal - whatever that means - returns, and now the greatest civil strife in the USA that I have witnessed in my lifetime.

Leadership has never been more in question and never more required than now.  But, I dare say, we are found wanting for courageous and selfless leadership like never before.  And I recognize as I say this that not everyone's definition might include a reference to selfless and others might well define courageous as draconian and iron-fisted, not conciliatory, considered and collaborative.  I lament the political posturing and bravado that somehow seems to be more the norm than ever before.  And this situation prevails not just in the USA - the easy target with a reality TV persona focused on dominating the streets and bible-holding photo-ops - but also in large parts of the world from Brazil to the UK.

How have we come to this crossroads in leadership and life?

I come to back to elements of a post I first wrote back in August 2014.  At that time I had just completed a book by Sebastian Haffner in 1978 and translated from its original German in 1979.  This analysis of a prominent historical figure of our time was entitled "The Meaning of Hitler."

Right off the mark you might now question how I could reasonably tie an assessment of Hitler's reign to our current state of affairs.  And sadly others would not question this comparison at all. What possible insight could I have gleaned from a book analyzing the actions of a genocidal megalomaniac?  Simply this.  Haffner analyzed both Hitler's successes and achievements and contrasted that against his failures and defeat.  What he concluded from both was that the rise and fall in Hitler's fortune was not as a result of any physical, mental, emotional, intellectual or other change in Hitler himself.  He suggests that Hitler was quite dogmatic and unwavering in pursuit of his ends and the means to achieve those ends.  Rather, Haffner states, "[The] key lies not in any changes in Hitler.  It lies in the change and alternation of the opponents with whom Hitler had to deal."  He goes on to say "Successes always involve two [people] - and the success of one is the failure of the other.  Given constant strength one can be successful against a weaker opponent and unsuccessful against a stronger one...Hitler's successes and failures become instantly explicable if one turns one's attention away from Hitler and towards his opponents at the times in question." (underline is my emphasis).

Haffner specifically suggested that Hitler only succeeded as a leader when he faced weak opposition, when he faced weak leaders - Chamberlain, Daladier, and others within and outside of Germany - in the years leading up to World War II.  After the invasion and subjugation of Poland, and most definitively after 1941 and declarations of war on the Soviet Union and the United States, Hitler faced a decidedly different calibre of leaders in the form of Churchill, De Gaulle, Stalin and Roosevelt.  He ultimately was defeated even though his character and tactics had not changed at all from those that had led to his early, spectacular successes.

When I first wrote this blog I focused primarily or only on the external opponents of Hitler and how that changed the fortunes and outcomes in World War II.  What was clearly missing from my analysis, and became even more important in the eventual devastation of Germany, was either the active participation of others in the pursuit of Nazi utopia or the acquiescence of greater portions of the population in this march of doom.  Hitler not only rose to power and achieved his earliest successes because of weak or naïve external leaders.  First and foremost, Hitler had the active support of those that believed as he did, saw their advancement in his actions or were simply complicit in allowing events to unfold as they did.  Hitler had willing and willfully blind accomplices.  Some believed as he did.  Others turned a blind eye to what was happening before them so long as they could gain or not be adversely impacted.  If he it wasn't happening to them (e.g., constraint/ elimination of rights, persecution, execution) they kept whistling in the dark, convincing themselves that there was a greater good at play, bad things were not really happening, or otherwise pretending life was normal or better that it had been or otherwise could be.

That's where I fear we have come to now.  Collectively if we lament the state of our society and the calibre of leadership that is with us or has led us to this point we have only to look in the mirror for the answer as to "why?".  If we have looked in the mirror we have seen the enemy and it is us.  It is with this lines that I understand if not fully comprehend the protests and riots taking place in the streets of US cities - many of which I have walked in ignorance and bliss on previous countless trips before now.  Columbus, Denver, Chicago, Philadelphia, to name but a few.  I also must appreciate that we in Canada are not so distant from this level of discord and polarity.  We also tolerate, incubate and ignore leaders who would divide us from each other, create enemies of others, all in the belief that we are somehow above the ideological chasms that exist elsewhere.  We remain blind, naïve and complacent at our peril.

This may seem like a somewhat belabored point but the insight I gained from this unlikely source is that mediocre leaders, poor leaders or destructive leaders succeed not so much by what they do but by what we ourselves fail to do.  If we desire different leadership we must have the courage to look for it, to ask for it, demand it and support leaders that will inspire us to some more noble goals and achievements.

If the collective WE fails to exert our own expectations and standards for the type of leadership we desire than we likely deserve the hand we are dealt.  As well look at the experience of other nations and societies we may find that while misery loves company it's no recipe for success.

It's about the choices WE make and It's All About Leadership!

_________________________________________________________

Greg Hadubiak, MHSA, FACHE, CEC, PCC

President & Founder - BreakPoint Solutions

gregh@breakpoint.solutions 

www.breakpoint.solutions 

780-250-2543

Helping leaders realize their strengths and enabling organizations to achieve their potential through the application of my leadership experience and coaching skills. I act as a point of leverage for my clients. I AM their Force Multiplier.