Score the Rainbows Pot of Gold: Become the Boss That No One Wants to Leave

Leadership is lifting a person's vision to higher sights, the raising of a person's performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations. Peter Drucker

Ladies and gentlemen, the captain has turned on the seat belt sign. Please return to your seats and make sure your seatbelt is fastened tightly around you. We are encountering some unexpected turbulence. I have no idea what that turbulence will be, the source of it, the cause of it, or the cure for it. But I can guarantee it will come. And like the captain of a 747, your job as the boss, will be to make decisions that help all those on board with you navigate the sometimes unfriendly and uncharted skies of your particular industry. You will make decisions that affect you, but more importantly, you will make decisions that will affect many, possibly thousands of other people. That's what bosses do. They take charge in turbulent time.

Why would anyone want to be led by you? That's the question that needs to frame your journey to better leadership. If you have a hard time answering that one, try this one, "Would you want you for a boss?" When someone answers with an awkward silence or a stare similar to a dog watching a ceiling fan, you can infer that the answer is "no." The next questions are, "What makes you think others want you for their boss?" and "What are you doing that you wouldn't want your boss to do?" As simple as the exercise is, it is eye opening in almost every case.

To score a leader's version of the rainbow's pot of gold, you'll need to rouse others with confidence in you and inspire them with assurance in themselves. Lou Holtz, famed Notre Dame football coach, captured the essence of this daunting task in three questions that he speculated people always ask about their leaders:

Are you committed to excellence?

Can I trust you?

Do you care about me? There are many myths about great leadership and just as many pieces of advice to match them. But Lou Holtz's questions make it all very simple. Can your direct reports answer "yes" to all three?

Are You Committed To Excellence?

People want to play on a winning team, and most realize that hard work and sacrifice make a team win. Football players suit up to practice in the 100 degree temperatures of August not because they like it, but because they know it is part of attaining excellence. Your direct reports are no different. They expect you to demand what it takes to separate your company from the competition.

During his tenure on the speaking circuit, Lou Holtz told stories of inspiring his team by saying that he had called the coach at the University of Michigan to see if he would agree to easy practices for his players so that the Notre Dame players could take it easy that day. Their coach said he wouldn't agree, so he couldn't let them off easy either. As he explained, if the competition is doing it, we have to do it if we are going to beat them in the opening game of the season.

From the time we are children, we understand that excellence requires hard work. People won't grouse about it if they think you are really striving for superiority. What is the essence of excellence? Leo Tolstoy wrote "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way," an observation that is probably applicable to top performers too. Successful bosses are all alike in how they commit themselves to the pursuit of excellence by committing to their own improvement, an ongoing and never ending quest to attain new levels of achievement.

The single worst thing that can happen to cause you to cease being excellent is that you will exhaust your intellectual capital and reach your level of incompetence. Early in your career you dedicated yourself to learning, growing, and experiencing. Now, you are bogged down in the perpetual challenges of getting results. Stephen Covey talked about the successful wood cutter taking time to sharpen his saw. Trying to cut with a dull saw keeps you in motion and lets others know you are busy and dedicated, but it's not the smartest way to operate. You become so busy doing that you forget about learning, the intellectual equivalent to sharpening the saw. You need to learn faster now, so take the time to learn how to learn. It can pay enormous dividends.

The first step is to gather relevant information about yourself. You probably already know most of your strengths and weaknesses, but knowing what others think they are can be truly eye opening. One of the best ways to find out is to ask. That can take several forms, but probably one of the most effective is the multi-rater 360 instrument. A well-crafted survey will capture the opinions of direct reports, peers, and your boss, if you have one. Once you understand what their perceptions are, you will be able to take steps to improve in ways that they think you should. The experience is usually both educational and beneficial. Once you know how your behavior affects your team's productivity, you will be equipped to make changes and to offer more coaching, all important first steps for building trust.

Can I Trust You?

Once your direct reports are sure that you are committed to personal and organizational excellence, they will want to know if they can trust you. This particular question is, "Can I, your direct report, whose future, job satisfaction, and livelihood depend on your good judgment, trust you?" The answer needs to be "Yes. You can trust me to be open when I can be, to be honest and ethical all the time, to be predictable when I can be, and to admit my mistakes." Nobody is perfect, and nobody gets it right the first time or every time after that. Your direct reports know you aren't perfect, they just don't tell you that they know.

When you try to cover your mistakes, pretend they didn't happen, or worse yet, blame them on someone else, you can forget about sustaining, much less building trust for a long, long time. Winston Churchill said it best: "Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm." Churchill is a name that lives on because of his successes, but those who know history understand that he was not without his fiascos or his critics. You won't be either; it's just one of those nasty realities of being in charge.

Do You Care About Me?

The word "coach" is used throughout leadership books, and indeed has been used throughout this discussion. There's little argument that a great boss also needs to be a great coach. But an under represented concept is the boss's role as cheerleader, the person who strives to rally enthusiasm and energy so that the team can play on, even when encountering a tougher team in a dirty fight. Observe the coaches on the sidelines of any high stakes competition. Is there much difference between them and the cheerleaders? The cheerleaders jump more and wear cuter clothes, but they are fundamentally doing the same thing. Like an animated cheerleader, the job of the boss is to be the Energizer Bunny for your direct reports. It's the boss's duty to be the power source that others know they can rely on. What if you don't feel energetic? Fake it.

For so many decades organizational research has been dominated by a desire to understand and ameliorate human dysfunction and problems in the workplace. The emphasis was on motivating disgruntled employees, improving dysfunctional attitudes, overcoming resistance to change, and coping with stress and burnout. Positive emotions, such as hope, were largely ignored. Hope is an attribute that hasn't traditionally been associated with leadership, but with recent work on the subject, new ways of understanding it are receiving attention. The research results indicated that "high hope" leaders had significantly better financial performance, subordinate retention, and satisfaction scores than the "low hope" participants.

Hope has two dimensions: willpower, or the desire to have a positive outcome, and waypower, the willingness to do what it takes to make constructive things occur. High hope individuals tend to be more certain about their goals and challenged by them. They value progress toward objectives as well as the objectives themselves. They enjoy interacting with others and readily adapt to new and collaborative relationships; they are less anxious in stressful situation; and they are more adaptive to environmental changes.

Instilling hope in your direct reports is one of the single most important gifts you can give them; it doesn't cost a thing; and anyone can give it at any time in any set of circumstances. Here are three suggestions:

1. Facilitate the willpower component of hope by engaging your direct reports in discussions and empowering them to set specific stretch goals. Communicate your own faith in them so that they can develop their own "can do" attitude.

2. Assist them in developing the waypower component by requiring well-developed action plans for achieving goals.

3. Act as a sounding board for their thoughts, but instead of shooting holes in their ideas, guide them to their own conclusions by asking open ended questions that encourage them to analyze more fully implications of their decisions.

Accomplishing some objectives can seem a little like trying to eat an elephant. The task is huge and the feelings of accomplishment much removed from current efforts to complete it. Therefore, your direct reports may need for you to break down complex, long-term projects into smaller tasks with a deadline for each "step" along the way. Accomplishing each step then builds hope that the next step and the one after that will also be attainable, with the ultimate realization of the objective becoming more realistic with each achievement.

Showing that you care about your direct reports through hope taps a type of positive thinking and action in people that is significantly related to important workplace outcomes. Stimulating the desire to achieve objectives, willpower and facilitating the discovery of paths to achieving the goals, waypower, leads to positive personal and performance outcomes.

Conclusion

Chances are, no matter how hard you try, you won't be a leader who will be remembered in the history books. Your name won't be uttered in the same breath as Churchill, Ghandi, Eisenhower, or even Lou Holtz. People won't write books decades from now and include your quotes, neither will most remember you at all. That only happens to a handful of people who are blessed or cursed with circumstances and characteristics that coalesce in the right combinations during the exact times they are needed, with too many moving parts and variables to control.

Perhaps you don't have discretionary power to allocate large sums of money to developing all the ideas that you have, but you do have governance over your own behaviors. You can begin with one or two goals that will make small but important moves in the right direction. For instance, you can commit to better listening; you can pledge to others that you will increase the number of performance management conversations you have throughout the year; you can promise to hold better meetings; you can give you word that you will take steps to know your direct reports better so that you understand their strengths and can help to build their hope for the future. Not one of these costs money, yet any one will help you take important steps toward causing your direct reports to answer "yes" to Lou Holtz's three questions and to becoming the boss that no one wants to leave. So, put on your own oxygen mask first and lead the way to the rainbow's pot of gold.

Dr. Linda Henman speaks from experience. For more than 25 years, she has helped military organizations, small businesses, and Fortune 500 Companies turn things around by getting the right people in the right place doing the right thing.

Linda holds a Bachelor of Science in communication, two Master of Arts degrees in both interpersonal communication and organization development, and a Ph.D. in organizational systems. By combining her experience as an organizational psychologist with her education in business, she offers her clients assessment, coaching, consulting, and training solutions that are pragmatic in their approach and sound in their foundation. Specializing in assessment for selection, promotion, and development, Linda helps organizations improve their succession and retention initiatives and teaches people to become the boss that no one wants to leave.

---

Google News Updated : Fri, 05 Sep 2008 14:05:39 GMT McCain honors NH soldier in convention speech - Boston Globe BBC News McCain honors NH soldier in convention speech Boston Globe - 1 hour ago ST. PAUL, Minn.—In his speech to the Republican National Convention, presidential candidate John McCain paid tribute to a New Hampshire soldier killed in Iraq. Video: "Change is coming," McCain tells convention - 05 Sept 2008 AlJazeeraEnglish US media mixed on McCain speech BBC News Marin Independent-Journal - Memphis Commercial Appeal - Today's TMJ4 - Detroit Free Press all 1,008 news articles Publ.Date : Fri, 05 Sep 2008 12:43:54 GMT State falling way behind No Child Left Behind - San Francisco Chronicle Modesto Bee State falling way behind No Child Left Behind San Francisco Chronicle - 6 hours ago California schools, required by the federal No Child Left Behind Act to lift more students over a higher academic hurdle this year, instead stumbled and slipped back, as nearly 1400 fewer schools met test-score targets. Only 48% of California high schools meet federal standards, even ... Los Angeles Times Middle schools lead county's API scores The Salinas Californian Visalia Times-Delta - Record-Searchlight - Modesto Bee - Register Pajaronian all 106 news articles Publ.Date : Fri, 05 Sep 2008 07:41:11 GMT Jobless rate soars to 6.1% - CNNMoney.com Macon Area Online Jobless rate soars to 6.1% CNNMoney.com - 59 minutes ago Unemployment surges to 5-year high as employers cut workers for eighth straight month, bringing '08 job losses to 605000. By Chris Isidore, CNNMoney. Unemployment Rate Hits 5-Year High As Economy Continues to Shed Jobs Wall Street Journal Unemployment Rate Rises to 6.1% New York Times TheStreet.com - Forex Pros - Reuters - RTT News all 36 news articles Publ.Date : Fri, 05 Sep 2008 13:05:45 GMT Haiti doubles hurricane death toll; US extends storm watches and ... - International Herald Tribune Boston Globe Haiti doubles hurricane death toll; US extends storm watches and ... International Herald Tribune - 51 minutes ago AP WILMINGTON, North Carolina: Tropical storm watches and warnings in the United States were extended from Georgia to areas just south of New York City on Friday as states along the Atlantic braced for Tropical Storm Hanna, which killed at least 137 ... Southeast states brace for Tropical Storm Hanna The Associated Press Hanna heads to Carolinas; Ike not far behind CNN International guardian.co.uk - StarNewsOnline.com - Greenville News - New York Times all 2,807 news articles Publ.Date : Fri, 05 Sep 2008 13:14:26 GMT Thai PM buys time with referendum plan - Reuters BBC News Thai PM buys time with referendum plan Reuters - 4 hours ago By Darren Schuettler BANGKOK (Reuters) - Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej has bought some time with a referendum aimed at defusing street protests, but it will do nothing to resolve Thailand's fundamental political conflict, analysts say. Video: Locking horns over politics in Thailand -- 05 September 2008 AlJazeeraEnglish ANALYSIS: Thai demonstration raises democracy issues Monsters and Critics.com AFP - Times Online - Aljazeera.net - Inter Press Service all 3,754 news articles Publ.Date : Fri, 05 Sep 2008 09:33:48 GMT Partisan Reception Greets Palin as VP Pick - ABC News CTV.ca Partisan Reception Greets Palin as VP Pick ABC News - 2 hours ago Sarah Palin is receiving a highly partisan reception on the national political stage, with significant public doubts about her readiness to serve as president, yet majority approval of both her selection by John McCain and her willingness to join the ... Video: Joe Biden On Palin's Speech CBS Obama Camp Turns to Clinton to Counter Palin New York Times Boston Globe - AFP - Evening Bulletin - USA Today all 1,899 news articles Publ.Date : Fri, 05 Sep 2008 11:18:50 GMT So What If Sarah Palin Used a Speechwriter? - FOXNews BBC News So What If Sarah Palin Used a Speechwriter? FOXNews - 1 hour ago By Betsy Newmark Disdaining Sarah Palin’s speech last night because she had a speechwriter is one of the lamest criticisms of her performance last night. Video: Inside the Tent: Reactions to Sarah Palin's speech Part 4 ReutersVideo Panel Reviews Palin, Previews McCain RealClearPolitics Baltimore Sun - Detroit Free Press - New York Times - Los Angeles Times all 4,224 news articles Publ.Date : Fri, 05 Sep 2008 13:03:46 GMT Automated Blog and Ping RSS Parser

PARLOT::Ebooks, Scripts, Websites, and more...

Adsense websites

Business & Family Safety and Health Rating

For good reason, practically every endeavor in life is rated.... Read More

Score the Rainbows Pot of Gold: Become the Boss That No One Wants to Leave

Leadership is lifting a person's vision to higher sights, the... Read More

Steps to Build ISO 9001 Compliant Program

Implementing an ISO 9001 system represents a major effort. However,... Read More

Employee Motivation: It?s More Than A Paycheck

Managers often ask, usually with exasperation, "How can I keep... Read More

Learn About Commercial Collections Agencies Fees

As with any other service, there are good and bad... Read More

Top Ten Tips About Communicating with Your Employees Effectively

Communication is the basis of who you are as a... Read More

Knowledge Management - Leadership Behaviours Which Encourage Knowledge-Sharing

The concept of knowledge management or knowledge sharing makes intellectual... Read More

Innovation Management ? Selecting Good Ideas

Creativity can be defined as problem identification and idea generation... Read More

Unlock the Hidden Creativity of Your Employees

To release creativity in employees, managers must get involved in... Read More

The High Cost of Employee Turnover Among Project Managers

Imagine for a moment this scenario from a frustrated Senior... Read More

Book Summary: Mind Your Own Business

A maverick is an independent person who will not go... Read More

Teamwork Training: Learning to Build a Successful Team

Teamwork is a process that can be experienced outdoors and... Read More

Crisis Management Essentials - How to Communicate Effectively During a Crisis, Emergency or Disaster

A crisis, emergency or disaster can happen at anytime and... Read More

The Ivory Tower Syndrome

"His cardinal mistake is that he isolates himself, and allows... Read More

In Leadership, The Critical Convergence Drives Great Results

The Leader's Fallacy lives! We subscribe to the Fallacy when... Read More

New UK Laws on Staff Dispute Resolution and Disciplinary Procedures

October 2004 saw the introduction of the Employment Act 2002,... Read More

5 Ideas To Leverage The 3 Stages Of Career Development In Your Organization

In most industrialized nations, the average age a student graduates... Read More

Forget The Sandwich Technique

Do you remember being told to use the "sandwich" technique... Read More

Four Corners of a Triangle: Why Organizations Succeed or Fail

When we want to hire people for a corporation or... Read More

Creativity and Innovation Management :- Thought Leadership

Leadership is only sustainable when leaders consistently come up with... Read More

Selecting A Collection Agency

If you run a business, you are sure to have... Read More

Be a Leader - The Importance of Going Home Early!

How you run your business is, of course your business.... Read More

Understand What Flows Through Your Business to Find Improvement

I remember once seeing a cartoon which showed two people... Read More

CEOs Role in Family Business

I first met Roland (not his real name) in 1972.... Read More

Improving Your Inter-Company Communications At No Cost

It's all very well having a flashy (and expensive) advertising... Read More