be energizing, not energetic

Here is the paradox: You can actually speed things up by slowing down. There is no doubt that being energetic is contagious and therefore a short-term source of momentum. But if you lead by example all the time, your batteries will eventually run dry. You risk being drained at the vey point when your leadership is needed the most. Conveying a sense of urgency is useful, but an excess of urgency suffocates team development and reflection at the very point it is needed. “Code red” should be left for real emergencies... with [a] co-drive mindset, [we need] to widen [our] sights and recognize and reward people who are good at energizing others. Energizing behavior is unselfish, generous, and praises, not just progress, but personality too.

If you lead by beating the drum, setting tight deadlines, and burning the midnight oil, your team becomes overly dependent on your presence. Sustainable speed is achievable only if the team propels itself without your presence. Jim Collins wrote that great leaders don’t waste time telling time, they build clocks.

Self-propulsion comes from letting go of control, resisting the urge to make detailed corrections and allowing for informal leadership to flourish. As Ron Heifetz advocates, true leadership is realizing that you need to “give the work back” instead of being the hero who sweeps in and solves everybody’s problems.

Resist the urge to take the driver’s seat and allow [yourself] to take the passenger seat instead. Leading from the side-line, not the front line will change [perspectives]. Instead of looking at the road and navigating traffic... monitor how the driver is actually doing and what needs to improve. In [your] mind...fire [yourself] — momentarily — and see what happens to [the] team when [they are set] free, [taking] charge instead of looking to [leaders] for answers, deadlines and decisions.

Merete Wedell-Wedellsborg

"Help Your Team Do More Without Burning Out" Harvard Business Review. Oct. 15, 2018

carried his own bags

In his new position as secretary of defense, General James Mattis has assumed control of the world's largest and most powerful military. Mattis is now in command of a military made up of nearly one-and-a-half-million people spread across the entire globe. The General is inarguably one of the most powerful men in the world.

Yet, the renown “Warrior Monk” seemingly remains as humble and modest as he's always been.

When Secretary of Defense James Mattis was boarding his flight to South Korea early Wednesday morning, he did something unprecedented for someone in his position. Mattis carried his own bags onto the plane. Embarking on his first overseas trip as Secretary of Defense, Mattis sent a clear message about his leadership style.

To see someone so powerful carrying their own bags may be surprising to some, but to people familiar with the famed “Warrior Monk,” it was all but expected....

This isn't anything new for Secretary Mattis. Stretching far back into his days in the Marine Corps, Mattis has long been praised for being a servant-leader and always putting the needs of his subordinates before himself.

Perhaps no better story can describe this characteristic of Secretary Mattis than when he opted to spend Christmas on base at Quantico so the young Marine originally scheduled to do so could be home with his family. General Charles Krulak, then the Commandant of the Marine Corps, had stopped by the base to deliver cookies and was shocked to find Mattis on duty. Not only had Secretary Mattis given up his holiday for a young Marine, he hadn't told anyone. He simply did it because he knew it was right.

Josh Billinson

"This One Thing Secretary Mattis Does Separates Him from the Rest of Washington's Powerful". IJR News.  Feb. 1, 2017.

flipping the triangle

...[A]fter Harden hits the 3 to give the Rockets their 53rd win, something doesn't feel right. In his office, D'Antoni grabs a marker from a cup on the table and takes to the wall, which is a floor to ceiling whiteboard. In the background, Hall and Oates are imploring Sarahto smile a while. Every other coach and player has gone home.

D'Antoni says he knows everything's OK with this team, but he repeats that sentiment often enough to indicate that he might not trust it. With the playoffs looming, he can't help but worry about chemistry and egos.

He pops the cap off the marker and draws a triangle with the point facing up. "This is the player's viewpoint," he says. He points to the peak and writes "player" next to it. At the wide base of the triangle, he writes "team." To the player, the individual is at the top of the triangle, the focus, the pinnacle. Self-preservation is vital. The team, down there at the bottom, is less important.

He draws another triangle with the point facing down. "This is the coach's viewpoint," he says. He writes "team" across the wide flat top and "player" at the point facing down. To the coach, the team is at the top of the triangle, the focus, the pinnacle. Communal preservation is vital. The individual, down there at the bottom, is less important.

The triangles are presented in a basketball context, but the top-down triangle is why Laurel and Mike have been married for more than 30 years. The message echoes a sign in the D'Antoni kitchen that bears an Italian proverb, the last thing they see as they leave and the first when they return:

When the game is over

The king and the pawn

Go back in the same box

It's cave-quiet untill Laurel asks, "What do the players think when you show them the triangles?"

"They think it's cute," he says.

He caps the marker, tosses it on the table and sits down. He says he's probably worrying for no reason, and Laurel agrees. It's time to go home, but not before he takes one more look at the whiteboard. Flipping that triangle in the minds of his players - getting them to see the game the way he sees it - is the fundamental conflict of his professional life.

Tim Keown
"All Their Hoops And Dreams" ESPN the magazine .08.5/8/2017

generous listening

Jazz thrives on improvisation; there's no clear road map that tells people how to act in order to coordinate with one another. The only route available to them, in fact, is listening. Jazz musicians have to heed one another closely; they need to be attentive not only to what each member is doing and saying but also to what no one is doing or saying. When someone asked Miles Davis how he improvises, he said that he listens to what everyone is playing and then plays what is missing.

So open, appreciative, and generous was Davis's ear that he could hear strengths even when weaknesses were shining through. When Davis first heard John Coltrane play, he might well have picked up on what so many others noticed: Trane's occasional awkwardness or the squeaks that would intermittently disrupt his lines. But that's not what caught Davis's attention. He heard Trane's creative impulse -- his willingness to take risks, his unique voice, and unpredictable phrases. Davis heard what could be, not merely what was: a huge difference.

This is generous listening at its best, an unselfish openness to what the other is offering and a willingness to help others be as brilliant as possible. Being generous is not the same as simply being uncritical. In jazz as in any other endeavor, people get stuck in phrases and modes. Not everyone has to suffer until he or she finds a way through. But generous listening does mean being acutely aware of where the other is heading -- of someone else's sense of future possibilities. There's a selfless suspension of ego in these moments when you make the other primary and seek to further his or her contributions. In essence, generous listening means you are willing to become the thinking partner of your immediate colleagues, helping them navigate through the terrain of obstacles they face while fashioning a way forward.

In jazz, generous listening expresses itself first and foremost in what is known as "comping": the rhythms, chords, and countermelodies with which the other players accompany a solo improvisation. ("Comp" is short for "accompany.") Not surprisingly, comping goes to the very soul of the art form.

Is it possible for members of an organization to do the same -- to accompany others' thinking so that ideas achieve fruition, just as jazz players comp each other's playing to bring the music to its fullest expression? Yes, of course, but doing so requires letting go of automatic patterns. Organizational members have to make room for one another, suspend efforts to manipulate and control outcomes, relinquish investment in predetermined plans, and often surrender familiar protocols. To agree to comp, in other words, is to accept an invitation of openness and wonderment to what unfolds.      

Frank J. Barrett

What biz leaders can learn from jazz. Fortune Magazine. 9/10/2012

that seem less than leaderish

Servant leaders also often do things that seem less than leaderish. Wolfskehl, for example, would clear the snow from employees' cars on wintry days. Other proponents step in for absent staff rather than expecting others to shoulder the burden. At the Ward Group, a $34 million advertising agency in Dallas, founder and CEO Shirley Ward filled a vacant media buyer position for several weeks; she and her son Rob Enright, the agency's president, have been known to man phones in the reception area to give a secretary a break. Similarly, Chris McKee, managing partner of Venturity, a $2 million accounting outsourcing firm in Dallas, has been performing some of the duties of an assistant controller who has been on extended sick leave. Although McKee has 25 employees he can call on, "I don't want the weight of the world on their shoulders during difficult times," he says. 

Leigh Buchanan

In Praise of Selflessness: Why the best leaders are servants. Inc. magazine. May 1, 2007. 

socialized to think about success

Ari Weinzweig and Paul Saginaw understand the challenges [of Servant Leadership] better than most. The co-founders of Zingerman's Community of Businesses have built their $30 million food, restaurant, and training company on servant leadership principles. In the process, they've wrestled with three paradoxes. First, the higher you rise, the harder you must work for others; no kicking back in the Barcalounger of success allowed. Second, although you hold formal authority over employees, you must treat them like customers and, when reasonable, do their bidding. Third, when your desires and the needs of your organization conflict, your desires draw the low card. "It's a big change from the way we're socialized to think about success," says Weinzweig. "When you've put so much energy into getting to a leadership position, this is hard." 

Leigh Buchanan

In Praise of Selflessness: Why the best leaders are servants. Inc. magazine. May 1, 2007.

leading at a higher level... is a process

Leading at a higher level… is a process. We define it as the process of achieving worthwhile results while acting with respect, care, and fairness for the well-being of all involved. When that occurs, self-serving leadership is not possible.


Ken Blanchard
Leading at a Higher Level: Blanchard on Leadership and Creating High Performing Organizations (Revised and Expanded Edition). FT Press, 2009. p.xvii, xviii