From start-ups to the Fortune 100, the world is changing. Alpha types often still run the show—but they are also a dying breed. ~Jeffrey Hull, PhD, author of Flex: The Art and Science of Leadership in a Changing World

As I walk the streets of Chicago with my dog, Lily, she is sure to let other dogs know that she is the alpha dog. So I have daily first-hand experience with the concept of alpha types. But in the world of leadership, as Hull points out, the alpha leader approach is a dying breed. It’s simply no longer effective in a fast-paced changing world.

I’m reading Jeffrey Hull’s book. It’s one of those books where I discover I’m highlighting nearly every word. The highlights are mostly a mark of enthusiastic agreement for something I too have been seeing happen over the past several years. The ground underneath us is shifting, and so too are the tenets of effective leadership.

Highlights from Flex

I’ll share with you just a few of my highlights from Hull’s book Flex: The Art and Science of Leadership in a Changing World.

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There is an emerging recognition that people with less directive, less authoritative styles can be equally valuable and impactful in leadership roles. It’s a shift in mind-set from a goal-oriented, top-down figuration (alpha) to a growth-oriented, process-based one (beta). Beta leaders are in flux, always improving, and always aware of the need to disrupt the status quo.

Alphas want to win. Betas want to grow.

Beta means being comfortable in a state of constant growth, not aspiring so much to ascend the hierarchy and dominate from above, but to lead from anywhere, anytime.

Beta leadership is, at its core, about reciprocity. It parallels a cultural shift toward a shared economy. Just as many of us no longer have just one career, or even five, leadership is no longer about climbing a ladder to reach a pinnacle of success.

…less emphasis upon hierarchy and more of a sense of teamwork, reciprocity, and respect for the talent and expertise of everyone in the room.

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I find this terribly exciting (of course I am a bit of a leadership theory nerd). It’s exciting because in the past leadership was authoritative (and in many instances, still is). One person made the decisions and the others were expected to follow. But this new shift, not only expects, it requires (or even demands) leaders to be engaged in collaborative decision making. Not only respecting alternative views, but relying on others to make decisions.

The organization really becomes an “organization” of talent and expertise that, collectively, becomes capable of flexing in an ever-changing world.

I came to see, in my time at IBM, that culture isn’t just one aspect of the game, it is the game. In the end, an organization is nothing more than the collective capacity of its people to create value. ~Louis Gerstner, IBM

Since culture is the game. I’m going to compare organizational values to a pizza menu. Probably not a comparison most people would consider.

Let’s say that you are in the mood for pizza. You go online and find two restaurants with a margarita pizza on the menu, just what you wanted. The pizza description for restaurant (A) is: thin base, cheese, stuffed crust. The description for restaurant (B) is: a crispy stone-baked base is the foundation for velvety tomato sauce and melted mozzarella cheese, topped with sharp notes of basil leaf.

I don’t know about you, but I am a fan of margarita pizza and without a doubt I would choose restaurant B. It’s descriptive, it’s unique, I can even visualize what it will look (and taste) like when it arrives at my door.

Then why do so many organizations have values like teamwork, excellence, integrity, customer-focused, etc. All of these values are really expected of employees at virtually every organization. It’s a lot like ordering a thin base, cheese, stuffed crust pizza. Nothing unique. Fairly bland.

Denise Lee Yohn said it well in her article Ban These 5 Words from Your Corporate Values Statement.

Your core values should describe the collective attitudes and beliefs that you desire all employees to hold, translate those into specific actions and decisions that they should make, and then in turn show how those behaviors produce customer experiences that define and differentiate your brand. Your core values need to be unique.

Values need to define and differentiate. They need to be unique.

Why do they need to differentiate? What I’ve seen with my own clients, those that have unique values and differentiate attract and retain the kind of employees who are a good fit for their organization. As Drucker said many years ago, “Culture eats strategy for lunch.” An organization’s values, when they are unique, create the unique culture for that organization.

How do you do that? When I’m meeting with clients and they say something like teamwork is one of their values, I then ask, “What does that mean?” And then I keep asking, “What does that mean?” until we finally get to a point where we really start to uncover the organization’s unique behaviors and culture.

You can also ask, could any of our competitors claim the very same values? If the answer is “yes,” then they really aren’t all that unique.

Your organization’s culture is a brand.

Your organization is a brand to not only your customers, but also to your employees. You build that brand with unique values that differentiate you from other organizations. More importantly, you also live and breathe those values. That’s for another blog post.

Are your values bland and common? Or, do your values make your culture truly unique?

The inconsistent, unproductive preoccupation with all the things we have to do is the single largest consumer of time and energy. ~Kerry Gleeson

The most common answer I receive to the question “how’s work?” is “busy.” As I’ve become more involved with helping leaders wrangle all that busyness, I’ve discovered that what makes it so consuming is the lack of a system to house and organize all that stuff that’s swirling around in their minds.

David Allen, author of Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, puts it this way.

What should be different?

Most often, the reason something is on your mind is that you want it to be different than it currently is, and yet:

• you haven’t clarified exactly what the intended outcome is;
• you haven’t decided what the very next physical action step is and/or
• you haven’t put reminders of the outcome and the action required in a system you trust.

That’s why it’s on your mind. Until those thoughts have been clarified and those decisions made, and the resulting data has been stored in a system that you absolutely know you will access and think about when you need to, your brain can’t give up the job.

Clear your mind.

Nearly every author I come across regarding personal productivity (David Allen, Chris Bailey, various FranklinCovey authors, etc.) says the very same thing in their own way. So I think it’s worth repeating, here’s my version.

• what do you want to be different (which is quite dissimilar from what you want to do)
• what’s the action step you need to take, this week, to help make that difference happen
• where are the physical reminders of both the difference you want to make happen and your action steps stored so that you reference them often and rely upon to make decisions how to spend your time

That’s it. It’s both that simple and that challenging. And leaders should be setting the example in their organizations. These are the very basic steps for effective planning, whether it’s on a personal level or an organizational level.

Social psychologist and author Dr. Heidi Grant Halvorson says that “When people engage in the right kind of planning, their success rates go up on average between 200 and 300 percent.” That’s really important because, as Dr. Halvorson also said, “Succeeding in something hard is more pleasurable, gives greater satisfaction and happiness, and increases your overall sense of well-being.”

As a leader, are you ready to show others how to shift from an unproductive preoccupation with all you have to do, to planning your priorities and freeing your mind to really lead?

Group performance depends on behavior that communicates one powerful overarching idea: We are safe and connected. ~Daniel Coyle

It’s not uncommon these days in my work for people to say that they don’t feel “safe” in their organizations. That means they aren’t speaking up in meetings or when they see that something can be improved they stay silent. If they have a differing view, you may never know, because they feel if they disagree it could cost them their job. Safety is one of three key components to building a thriving culture. Looking at it another way, safety is one-third of your culture, so yes, it’s significant.

Daniel Coyle breaks down each of the three culture components in detail in his book The Culture Code. He says one of the reasons people don’t feel safe is that they don’t feel that they belong. Belonging is critical. What really makes a difference is not the big events or grand rollouts, it’s the small, subtle ways that we communicate.

As an example, Coyle shares this research study to illustrate the point of communicating in a way that connects so others feel like they belong.

Would you give a stranger your phone?

The research study compared two scenarios.

Scenario 1: You are standing in the rain at a train station. A stranger approaches and politely says, “Can I borrow your cellphone?”

Scenario 2: You are standing in the rain at a train station. A stranger approaches and politely says, “I’m so sorry about the rain. Can I borrow your cellphone?”

So, to which stranger are you more likely to respond?

As Coyle says, “both strangers are making an identical request that involves a significant leap of trust.” However, the second scenario caused the response rate to jump 422 percent! “Those six words – I’m so sorry about the rain – transformed people’s behavior. The words were an unmistakable signal: This is a safe place to connect.

Leaders: Belonging is a narrative, not a tagline.

“Belonging needs to be refreshed and reinforced. It’s a narrative—you have to keep it going. A mere hint of belonging is not enough; one or two signals are not enough. We are built to require lots of signaling, over and over,” says Coyle.

Building belonging into your organization is not a one-time event. It’s a new way of life, a new way of communicating. It’s connecting first. We live in a “communicate fast” society. Slowing down to connect might feel unnatural but the long-term return will be exponential.

Leaders, slow down today and look for ways to connect.

When you can make the connection between passion and mission, you can truly propel your organization to a new level of performance.  ~Jim Whitehurst (President and CEO of Red Hat)

1. You poke holes.

When employees come with an idea that steps outside of their job description boundaries, the first thing you tell them is what’s wrong with it, why it’s a bad idea, or it’s a waste of time.  You don’t even ask a question to better understand their thought process, their rationale, or to find that nugget of gold that might be hiding in their idea.

I see this frequently. Emerging leaders are trying to be innovative, trying to be forward-thinking, and they aren’t going to get it right every time or come up with life-altering ideas. That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be praised for their willingness to think out of the box, move out of their comfort zone, or challenge the status quo.

Instead: to fuel passion, appreciate employees’ action, even if the idea itself may not have merit, right now.

2. You don’t help them actually emerge.

You aren’t giving emerging leaders space to spread their wings.  You tell them they are part of an emerging leaders group, but then there’s no career path identified, no mentoring or coaching.  In other words, nothing changes except they’re being referred to as an “emerging leader.”

Instead: to fuel passion, really coach and mentor. Give them projects that stretch their abilities, come alongside them and coach them to success. Let them come alongside you. I remember hearing a leader once say that he made it a practice to never travel alone. What he meant by that was, he always brought an emerging leader with him to meetings and on trips so they could be gaining experience and learning, first-hand.

3. You lose sight of your mission.

You’ve become more focused on the “margin” than the “mission.” 

Every organization has financial demands. When the focus of an organization (not-for-profit and for profit) skews in the direction of finances over purpose, passion quickly fades. When passion fades, so does performance. This doesn’t mean leaders should not be concerned about finances, but they should be concerned if employees are hearing them talk about money far more than mission.

Instead: to fuel passion, highlight mission moments. Always start your communication with the mission first, and the finances will follow.

Jim Whitehurst said, “It’s my belief that every organization has the potential for world-changing impact. The role of a leader is to foster passion around that impact and to keep that passion alive by reinforcing it every day.”