acknowledge fears

While you may need to keep some facts private during a transition, the general rule is that the more informed your people are, the more they’ll be able to deal with discomfort. So, learn about your team’s specific fears, then acknowledge them openly.  

Patti Sanchez

"The Secret to Leading Organizational Change Is Empathy," Harvard Business Review. December 20, 2018

growth through shared work

Jesus knew how to involve his disciples in the process of life. He gave them important and specific things to do for their development. Other leaders have sought to be so omnicompetent that they have tried to do everything themselves, which produces little growth in others. Jesus trusts his followers enough to share his work with them so that they can grow. That is one of the greatest lessons of his leadership. If we brush other people aside in order to see a task done more quickly and effectively, the task may get done all right, but without the growth and development in followers that is so important. Because Jesus knows that this life is purposeful and that we have been placed on this planet in order to perform and grow, growth then becomes one of the great ends of life as well as a means.

Spencer W. Kimball

"Jesus, The Perfect Leader" January 15, 1977. From an address delivered to the Young Presidents organization, Sun Valley, Idaho. 

only the leader can make execution happen

An organization can execute only if the leader's heart and soul are immersed in the company. Leading is more than thinking big, or schmoozing with investors and lawmakers, although those are part of the job. The leader has to be engaged personally and deeply in the business. Execution requires a comprehensive understanding of a business, its people, and its environment. The leader is the only person in a position to achieve that understanding. And only the leader can make execution happen, through his or her deep personal involvement in the substance and even the details of execution.

The leader must be in charge of getting things done by running the three core processes - picking other leaders, setting the strategic direction, and conducting operations. These actions are the substance of execution, and leaders cannot delegate them regardless of the size of the organization.

How good would a sports team be if the coach spent all of his time in his office making deals for new players, while delegating actual coaching to an assistant? A coach is effective because he's constantly observing players individually and collectively on the field and in the locker room. That's how he gets to know his players and their capabilities, and how they get firsthand the benefit of his experience, wisdom, and expert feedback.

It's no different for a business leader. Only a leader can ask the tough questions that everyone needs to answer, then manage the process of debating the information and making the right trade-offs. And only the leader who's intimately engaged in the business can know enough to have the comprehensive view and ask the tough incisive questions. 

Only the leader can set the tone of the dialogue in the organization. Dialogue is the core of culture and the basic unit of work. How people talk to each other absolutely determines how well the organization will function. Is the dialogue stilted, politicized, fragmented, and butt-covering? Or is it candid and reality-based, raising the right questions, debating them, and finding realistic solutions? If it's the former - as it is in all too many companies - reality will never come to the surface. If it is to be the latter, the leader has to be on the playing field with his management team, practicing it consistently and forcefully. 

Specifically, the leader has to run the three core processes and has to run them with intensity and rigor. 

Larry Bossidy & Ram Charan 

Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done by Larry Bossidy & Ram Charan with Charles Burck. 2002. Crown Business, NY, NY. p. 24, 25

never tell people how to do things

Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.

George S. Patton, Jr.

War as I Knew It by General George S. Patton Jr. Houghton Mifflin. 1975. p.357. As found in 2022 Great Quotes From Great Leaders Boxed Calendar: 365 Inspirational Quotes From Leaders Who Shaped the World.

and no further guidance

Major Dick Winters is an extraordinary human being. Very self-effacing and very professional in a soldierly manner. When I met him I had showed him my training schedule and said, “Sir can you look and suggest anything I might do differently?” And he had read it the night before. He said, “You know Captain - I think this  would be adequate. Of course it’s not really the aspect of the training, it’s the quality of the training. It’s the Leadership.” And I said, “Yes sir. I understand that full well.” And he said, “I don’t have anything particular to add - except do it well - and hang tough.” And I said, “Yes sir. Absolutely will do that.”  

And I wanted him to come and observe. And in the moment he said, “No, I don’t think I will.” What I sensed was, not that Dick Winters wasn’t interested - Lord knows he was - but he trusted me, as a subordinate, as a fellow officer - he trusted me to do it right. And to me that was the world’s greatest compliment. That he would say, “ No I don’t want to come out and monitor what you’re doing. I trust you to do it. You are a young company commander. I’m the old battalion commander. I was fired up because nothing inspires a leader more than being given a basic mission and no further guidance. “This is what I want you to do. It is up to you as a professional to get it done.” And that’s what Dick Winters did with me. 

Capt. Dale Dye

Band of Brothers Podcast, Episode 3 "Carentan" with Capt. Dale Dye & Matthew Settle. hosted by Roger Bennett. 

dropping all pretenses

Here’s a shocker: your people already know you have flaws! So if you make a mistake, admit it. If you need help, ask for it. When leaders admit their mistakes and ask for help, it creates stronger, more trusting relationships with team members.

Dropping all pretenses and letting your people get to know the person behind the title won’t cause them to lose respect for you. Quite the opposite. It will allow them to see you for who you really are—a confident leader who cares about their people and is comfortable in their own skin.

Ken Blanchard

"Everyone Benefits When Leaders Get Real," Linkedin Article. May 12, 2022

being free of self-betrayal

Your success as a leader depends on being free of self-betrayal. Only then do you invite others to be free of self-betrayal themselves. Only then are you creating leaders yourself - coworkers whom people will respond to, trust, and want to work with.

Leadership and Self-deception: Getting Out of the Box by Arbinger Institute. Berrett-Koehler. 2002. p.154

trust and share

Leaders must share as openly as possible, erring on the side of sharing more information with more people, more of the time. Sharing requires that leaders trust in the people around them. A great leader once told me, “You should trust the people who work for you, and if you don’t trust them, they shouldn’t work for you.”

Tracy Brower

"Knowledge Is Power, But Not In the Way You Think," Forbes. December 12, 2018

negaphobia

The corporate world has a disease that Robert McKee calls “Negaphobia.” It’s the fear of anything that is negative and the potential consequences. Too often, everything needs to be positive, with a smile on the face and not talking about “problems” or “weakness.” If you want to earn trust from your audience, share the problems, struggles and weaknesses that are part of life.

Typically, presentations avoid problems and emphasize the good. This is the best way to lose your credibility. Everything that sugarcoats your point, leave that at home. The audience trusts in honesty and not in perfection anymore.

Joni Galvão

"10 Golden Principles for an Effective Presentation" MARTECHseries. December 2, 2019

all politics is personal

I believe all politics is personal, because at bottom, politics depends on trust, and unless you can establish a personal relationship, it's awfully hard to build trust.... I have always followed my father's advice: Never tell a man what his interests are. Be straight and open with him about your own interests. And try to put yourself in his shoes. Try to understand his hopes and his limitations, and never insist that he do something you know he cannot. It's really just about making the effort to make a personal connection.

Joe Biden

Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose. By Joe Biden. Flatiron Books. 2017. Preface. 129

trust is the coin of the realm

Trust is the coin of the realm for creating the harmony, speed, and teamwork to achieve success at the lowest cost… Yet it’s not enough to trust your people; you must be able to convey that trust in a manner that subordinates can sense. Only then can you fully garner the benefits… I had to build awareness and trust above me. This takes significant personal effort, and the information age has not made this easier or removed the need for face-to-face interaction.

I found staff visits and daily or weekly visits – reducing reports and getting out more to see units on their turf – essential to building trust. And “hand-con,” maintaining relationships, takes time to build, and can be lost in a second – and you may not get a chance to get it back. High morale is reflected by the absence of self-pity. Resourceful leaders do not lose touch with their troops. A leader’s job is to inculcate high-spirited, amiable self-discipline. Leaders must always generate options by surrounding themselves with bright subordinates and being catalysts for new ideas. 

Jim Mattis

MATTIS, J. (2019). CALL SIGN CHAOS: Learning to lead. S.l.: RANDOM HOUSE. 240

the behaviors of engaged teams

Engaged teams are productive, enthusiastic, and focused. But how can managers keep a pulse on their team when these are very subjective traits to measure?

Engaged teams and employees often:

• Confide in and show trust in their leadership team
• Identify problems and take on challenges proactively
• Work with a win-win mindset
• Provide better performance on day-to-day tasks
• Work with purpose and reevaluate priorities without instruction
• Challenge priorities and push back on assignments when they don’t see the value of them
• Collaborate with team members (and other departments) with a positive attitude

On the other side, disengaged teams and employees do the following:

• Shuffle responsibility from person to person
• Approach projects with a defeatist attitude
• Prioritize individual work over teamwork
• Fail to speak up or contribute during team meetings
• Come to one on ones without any agenda items 
• Fail to follow through on commitments

These are the telltale signs that something has gone awry. Yet, managers may not have the visibility to identify these signs early when managing remote and distributed teams. 

Marlo Oster

"How to Increase Remote Team Engagement" Workpatterns. December 10, 2020

bring data to the table

In the wry words of N.R. Narayana Murthy, former chairman of Infosys, “In God we Trust; everybody  else brings data to the table.” Managing the program dynamically depends on good data. You have to be clear from day to day how much progress you’ve made against your plans. That means regularly measuring the impact of your change program on at least four key dimensions:

1. Initiative progress. Track progress not just in terms of time (milestones) and budget (money spent versus planned), but also against key operational performance indicators (e.g., cycle time, waste, wait times, quality). 

2. Health impact. Are management practices and their underlying mindsets and behaviors shifting to support the improvements in performance that you want to see? Targeted analytics, surveys, focus groups, and observation can give you a good read.... 

3. Performance impact. Measure key business outcomes such as revenue, cost, and risk to confirm that improvements are happening where you expect and not causing unforeseen consequences elsewhere in the organization. 

4. Value creation. Keep a constant eye on the ultimate outcome that matters. In large-scale company-wide change programs, this measure is shareholder value creation…. It is vital to have a clear-eyed view of the ultimate outcome that maters most amidst all of the other data. 

Scott Keller and Bill Schaninger

Beyond Performance 2.0: A Proven Approach to Leading Large-Scale Change. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2019

we had to trust

If Grameen was to work, we knew we had to trust our clients. From day one, we knew that there would be no room for policing in our system. We never knew that there would be no room for policing in our system. We never used courts to settle our repayments. We did not involve lawyers or any outsiders. Today, commercial banks assume that every borrower is going to run away with their money, so they tie their clients up in legal knots. Lawyers pore over their precious documents, making certain that no borrower will escape the reach of the bank. There are no legal instruments between the lenders and the borrowers. We were convinced that the bank should be built on human trust, not on meaningless paper contracts. Grameen would succeed or fail depending on the strength of our personal relationships. We may be accused of being naïve, but our experience with bad debt is less than 1 percent. And even when borrowers do default on a loan, we do not assume that they are malevolent. Instead, we assume that personal circumstances have prevented them from repaying the money. Bad loans present a constant reminder of the need to do more to help our clients succeed.

Muhammad Yunus

A Bangladeshi social entrepreneur, banker, economist, and civil society leader who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for founding the Grameen Bank and pioneering the concepts of microcredit and microfinance. These loans are given to entrepreneurs too poor to qualify for traditional bank loans.

Banker to the Poor: Micro-lending and the Battle Against World Poverty. 1999. Public Affairs, New York. P.70

humble people

There's an allure about humble people. They exude greater power, influence and persuasion than their overly-talkative brethren because, well, nobody likes hearing the same voice time and again. If you're compelled to speak for fear of not being heard otherwise, then the greater question is “Why does that fear exist?” There needs to be a firm foundation of trust to be heard so everybody knows their best interests are held. Without trust, the tendency is to shy away from we and instead focus on me. Not ideal.

Jeff Boss

"These Leadership Lessons From The SEAL Teams Are Universal For Any Industry" Forbes. Mar. 2, 2017

stand out from the crowd

Self-doubt and fear can lead you to want to blend in with those around you. But, trying to fit in with the crowd will cause you to disguise who you really are. Trust that you're mentally strong enough to stand out and dare to be different.

Amy Morin

"9 Ways to Avoid Giving Away Your Personal Power" Inc.com. Dec. 21, 2015

CEO disease

[Psychologist Tasha] Eurich uses the term "CEO disease" to describe the phenomenon in which the higher you ascend on the corporate ladder, the less self-aware you become. Eurich recommends that all leaders encourage their staff to share honest feedback with them, even pinpointing a single person who can do that really well.

Shana Lebowitz 

"Jamie Dimon says bureaucracy is 'a disease' — and JPMorgan takes 5 steps to combat it" Business Insider. Apr. 5, 2018

therefore trust

One of a leader’s most important jobs is to drive employee trust. Without it, you cannot drive change and accountability. When I was CEO at Investopedia, we drove trust by always sharing the “bad and ugly” not just the “good”. If we were missing our goals, we let everyone know the challenge, the reason behind it and what we were doing to fix it.

I required every member of my executive team to send a weekly all-employee email we called the “3x3” with three positive updates and three challenges. We forced the sharing of the bad so that everyone would know the challenges each department was facing. We forced it to ensure no one would be surprised. We forced it because it enabled 150 individuals to provide solutions so we could fix things faster.

But most importantly, we shared the bad because it is precisely through the transparent sharing of the bad that trust is built. Psychologists will tell you that trust is most engendered when individuals can be vulnerable around each other. “Sharing the bad” demonstrates a leader’s potential failings and vulnerability, and therefore trust.

David Siegel

"Opinion: A CEO explains why you should stop lying to your employees." Marketwatch. Sept. 15, 2018

eyes on, hands off

There is clearly risk associated with empowering your team to make more and faster decisions at a lower-level than was previously the norm. As you take your hands off the wheel, you need to be more vigilant and aware than ever about the decisions your team is making. Provide your team with guidance on the decisions that you want to maintain, and then expect them to handle the rest by leveraging their increased connectivity internal and external to their team. Encourage an environment of transparency where the expectation is for people to be self-aware of when they need help, and are comfortable asking for it. Use every challenge your team faces as an opportunity for organizational learning, and you will quickly build trust in this new way of working.

Chris Fussell

"Eyes On, Hands Off: How to empower your team and get out of their way" Medium. March 15, 2017.

what my job as CEO is not

The most powerful learnings for me in my journey as a CEO have been about what my job is not –

It is not my job to be a judge. My job is to give people the tools and visibility to assess themselves. People are fully capable of self-assessment and although I often give feedback, this is just an input which may or may not be relevant in the problem they are solving.

My job is not to problem solve. I have a natural love of problem solving so my natural instinct is to jump in and try to solve the problem. My true job is to make sure success is clearly defined and then hard as it is—step aside. One person has very limited experiences to draw from and we can only achieve success if everyone is problem solving together.

Phoebe Hayman

"Phoebe Hayman, the founder of Seedling, Talks About Leadership as a Support Role" by Ramon B. Nuez Jr. Huffington Post. August 28, 2017.