One of the hardest lessons to learn when we get promoted to a position of leadership: we are no longer responsible for doing the job, we are now responsible for the people who do the job.  ~Simon Sinek

I’ve quoted Simon Sinek a number of times; yes, I’m a fan. Simon’s most recent book Together is Better is being released today. I don’t think I’ve ever promoted a specific book so this is a first. I’ve obviously not read the book, but my copy is on order. I trust that this book will continue to reinforce Simon’s ideology.

Here’s another quote from the post introducing Together is Better. “Leadership is hard work. Not the hard work of doing the job—it’s the hard work of learning to let go. It’s the hard work of training people, coaching people, believing in people, and trusting people. Leadership is a human activity. And, unlike the job, leadership lasts beyond whatever happens during the workday.”

Leadership is hard work, and precisely for the reasons Simon has listed. Sometimes I like to think of leadership as managing with your hands tied behind your back. Meaning, you aren’t doing the work yourself, but you are getting the work done through others. You have to let go, but that doesn’t mean turning your back. It means training, coaching, believing, trusting—all really hard things to do, especially if you’re a highly driven individual.

Have you ever been in a meeting with “leaders” when a problem is identified and then they say the cause of that problem is their subordinate? I put the word leaders in quotation marks for a reason. If they were truly leaders as Simon has defined it, then they would be taking responsibility for those people, instead of passing the buck down the line to those people (aka: throwing them under the bus).

When something isn’t working, I’m frequently a bit surprised by how quickly leaders want to move people into another position or move them out of the organization. As a culture, sometimes it feels to me like we’ve lost a great deal of patience for training and coaching, thinking that doing the work ourselves or replacing people will somehow solve the problem.

Here’s an idea. For one week, track your time at work down to 15-minute intervals. Then go back and first identify how much of your “leadership” time was spent training and coaching people. Second, look at what’s remaining and determine how much of that time you could “let go” of and hand off to someone else as a training or coaching opportunity?

Leaders believe in and trust people.

One way to measure [a leader’s] self-awareness is by looking at their ability to tell their life story in a coherent way. ~Fred Kiel

The quote from Fred Kiel is not opinion; it is based on research. The same conclusion has been stated by numerous experts and research studies. So it’s not surprising that the advice in Psychology Today mirrors the perspectives cited in Fast Company, Forbes, and other business publications. They all start with your life story; can you tell it in a coherent way? Coherent means that you are able to integrate your life experiences into your sense of self, who you are today.

On a number of occasions, I’ve used a question for leadership teams to get to know one another. That question is simply, “What was your most interesting or difficult challenge as a child?” This not only allows teams to get to know one another but it’s also a way for me to quickly see who might be struggling with self-awareness. It’s not uncommon for at least one member of the team to answer this question with “I can’t think of anything.” That usually means one of two things. Either there was something quite challenging and they aren’t comfortable enough yet to say it to the team, or they really can’t think of anything. Either way, there may be some issues around self-awareness. There’s at least one thing we can all think of in the first 18 years of our life that might be interesting or difficult. If we’re self-aware, then we’ve been able to integrate those experiences into our sense of self so we shouldn’t fear talking about it.

Psychologist Dr. Todd Hall provides this outline for self-reflection to develop your ability to tell your story.

Reflecting on your life journey is the way you integrate all your experiences, both positive and painful, into your sense of self. Think through what some of the most formative experiences of your life have been. How have they shaped you and your guiding principles for life and leadership? When you look someone in the eyes and communicate your story, it activates your social brain and deeper aspects of your sense of self. Here are some questions and categories to help you reflect on your life journey.

QUESTIONS FOR SELF-REFLECTION

1. What are the chapters of your life? How would you title them? What does this reveal about you?
2. What are the key events of your life?
   • Peak experience
   • Low point
   • Key turning points
   • Earliest memory
   • An important childhood memory
   • An important adolescent memory
   • An important adult memory
3. Significant People
   • Describe four of the most significant people in your life story
   • Tell me about any particular heroes or heroines
4. Future Goals
   • Core challenges
   • Personal ideology or worldview
   • Deeper themes of your work

What’s your story?

Once leaders get promoted they enter an environment that tends to erode their emotional intelligence. They spend less time in meaningful interactions with their staff and lose sight of how their emotional states impact those around them…  ~Dr. Travis Bradberry

“…It”s so easy to get out of touch that leaders’ EQ levels sink further. It truly is lonely at the top,” continues Bradberry.

Over the years, I’ve had more than one conversation with other consultants where we’ve puzzled over how in the world a particular CEO actually got into their position in the first place. My guess is, they followed the trend lines in the graph. Their EQ was high, and that got them promoted. Then once into an executive position, they lost sight of how their emotional states impact those around them.

Here’s how Bradberry describes it.

The higher you go above middle management, the more companies focus on metrics to make hiring and promotion decisions. While these bottom-line indicators are important, it’s shortsighted to make someone a senior leader solely because of recent monetary achievements. Even worse than metrics, companies also promote leaders for their knowledge and tenure, rather than their skill in inspiring others to excel. Companies sell themselves short by selecting leaders who aren’t well-rounded enough to perform at the highest levels for the long term.

Bradberry suggests several ways to get better at not only maintaining but continuing to improve your EQ as you get promoted. These are the two I’ve seen have the greatest impact and would put at the top of the list.

• Acknowledge Other People’s Feelings [or I would say, be empathetic]

Executives who are assertive, especially those who are borderline aggressive and very action-oriented, may not ignore other people’s feelings, they might do something even worse. They marginalize or “fix” other’s feelings to get them out of the way so they can continue to make progress.

Bulldozing through someone’s feelings might feel more efficient in the short-run, but the long-term damage that’s been done may take months, if not years, to rebuild and may never return to its original state. Ironically, dramatically slowing progress and reversing any trust that may have previously existed.

• Watch Your Emotions Like a Hawk (or I would say, be highly self-aware)

For the average executive, their weakest self-awareness skills are “understanding how their emotions impact others” and “recognizing the role they have played in creating difficult circumstances.” For nearly every client where I’ve been hired because things aren’t going well, the person who hired me is part of the problem. And for nearly every client like that, they aren’t aware that they are part of the problem.

Next week I’ll talk more about how to actually become more self-aware.

The art of leadership is saying no, not saying yes. It is very easy to say yes. ~Tony Blair

I do a lot of strategic planning facilitation and I cringe every time I read an article that includes a percentage of strategic plans that fail. The failure percentage cited is almost always at least more than half if not the vast majority. So of course many authors and consultants have written articles suggesting reasons why so many plans fail. I have my own theory.

My theory begins with the quote from Tony Blair, that the art of leadership is saying no. I have found that too many leaders allow their strategic plans to evolve into a lengthy to-do list, without actually stating what the organization (or team or individual) is going to say no to. That should translate into a short list of truly strategic goals. My definition of strategic centers around what the organization (or you, the individual) will do differently. What the organization will truly prioritize as the “must-do’s” or “must make happen” within a specific timeframe.

The illustration I’ve included here is exactly what I’m talking about. This is taken from the book The 4 Disciplines of Execution by Chris McChesney, Sean Covey, and Jim Huling. Organizations (or individuals) who have 2-3 goals will achieve those goals with excellence. As the number of goals increases, our ability to actually achieve those goals with excellence declines, rather dramatically. So, those strategic plans with more than four goals (including an overload of sub-goals) that look impressive on paper, actually have little likelihood of going anywhere.

The diminishing returns on goal achievement is due to what’s included in parenthesis in the illustration, “in addition to the whirlwind.” The whirlwind is everything we still need to get done on a weekly or daily basis in order to stay in business.

Personal example, I have a lengthy list of things I’d like to fix/change in my home. Right now, none of it is getting done. By the time I get my weekly cleaning, etc. done (the whirlwind), I look at that long list and as the authors of The 4 Disciplines say, “when confronted with so many goals the team members will stop listening let alone executing.”

Chris McChesney says, “There will always be more good ideas than capacity to execute.” That means, “the art of leadership is saying no, not saying yes.” As a leader, what will you (personally and organizationally) say no to, so that you can achieve your 2-3 wildly important goals?

Most people don’t lead their life, they accept their life. People who lead their life intentionally add value to others. ~John C. Maxwell

Maxwell says that the difference between accepting your life and leading your life is intentionality. He believes that everything worthwhile is uphill, all the way. Most people have uphill hopes and downhill habits. The people who accept the premise that everything worthwhile is uphill, are the people who live, and lead, with intentionality.

I heard Maxwell speak last week. One of the ways he distinguished someone who accepts their life (downhill habits) from someone who leads their life (intentionality) is that the leaders are always adding value to others. Here is Maxwell’s list of five things to do every day, to add value to others.

Value people.  You can spend your life connecting with people or correcting people. If you value them, you will be connecting.

Think of ways to add value to people. This is upfront thinking. You’re thinking ahead of time–to the next week, the next day, or the next meeting–how you will intentionally add value to someone else’s life.

I want to pause here and share an example that Maxwell described. He has a nine-year-old grandson who, even at his young age, gets the concept of adding value to other people. John asked his grandson what he was going to do tomorrow to add value to other people. After his grandson thought about it for a while, he decided that he was going to open as many doors as possible for people the next day, and smile. He kept his word and was very intentional the next day about adding value to other people. He proudly reported back to his grandfather that he had opened 42 doors, and smiled!

I share that example because, surely, if a nine-year-old can intentionally add value to others, we should be able to do the same.

Look for ways to add value when you are with people. This takes it one step further, you’re not only planning ahead, you’re acting in the moment. In other words, you’re intentionally looking for ways to add value to people, all the time.

Ask yourself at the close of every day, did I add value to people today. Adding value becomes so interwoven into the fabric of your being that you begin and end your day thinking about how you added value.

Encourage others to add value to people. Imagine being part of an organization where everyone intentionally focused on adding value to others. Wouldn’t that be a place we would all want to be, every day; wouldn’t that get us up in the morning?

As John asked his grandson, I’ll ask you. As an intentional leader, how will you add value to others tomorrow?