Renaissance for Leaders

Fragmentation Leads to Stress

On February 17, 2009

Futurists commonly predict that we are moving away from separate personal and professional lives towards a life where our personal and professional lives are fully integrated.

For many of us, our lives have developed as fragmented sections or compartments. We are one way at work, and altogether different in our personal life. This leads to a split personality: the work persona and the home persona and never the twain shall meet. Our feelings get left at home, and the very fabric of what makes us human gets left out of the workplace.

Denial

By Andrew John Harrison

On February 16, 2009

In Health & Vitality

Denial is a defense mechanism in which a person who is faced with a fact, feeling, situation or reality that is uncomfortable or painful to accept, repeatedly rejects it, despite overwhelming evidence.

Three different types of Denial are as follows:

“Basic Denial” is when the person outright denies the reality of an unpleasant fact, feeling, situation or reality.
“Minimization” is when a person admits the fact, but denies how serious it is.
“Transference” is when a person admits the facts and seriousness, but denies any responsibility and transfers responsibility to someone else.

Financial Stress

By Andrew John Harrison

On February 15, 2009

In Money & Wealth

I noted an interesting statistic today. The most popular post on this BLOG relates to dealing with stress. This has got me thinking… Since October 2008, what is on most people’s minds is the financial crisis and how this continuing crisis is going to impact our companies, our investments, our finances and our personal lives.

What does financial stress have to do with leadership? Everything! If you are feeling nervous, anxious or even outright terror at the thought of not making ends meet, the first person for you to lead is yourself. It is very difficult to be creative, resourceful and confident when you are dealing with the various mind-numbing hormones we experience as fear.

So how do you lead yourself?

Often (but not always) our mind speculates as to what could happen and we conjure up images of the worst case scenario, which in most cases turns out to be worse than reality.

Leading yourself requires objectivity. If you consider the worst case scenario versus the best case scenario, first figure out ways you can live with the worst case. Then from this place, you can calmly consider possible courses of action that you could take to avert the worst case. And in most cases, reality tends to be somewhere in between the worst and the best case.

On the other hand, if you avoid the worst case, pretend it won’t happen (denial), and go on as if nothing is going to happen… you have a very good chance of going through the worst case scenario in reality!

So accepting the worst case allows you to let go of the fear and to think calmly of what can be done with the resources at hand. Once you have a number of items that you can take action on immediately, a strange thing happens. Fear turns to confidence… confusion is replaced with clarity.

Having a plan – any plan – is far better than no plan at all. At least with a plan you have certainty of what you can do. And if it does not work, you can at least be confident in the knowledge that you succeeded in finding out what does not work. Then you can try another approach, and another… until you succeed. Accepting the worst case and then having a plan will reduce your stress, especially when you take action on your plan.

Another possibility is to look at the financial crisis as an opportunity. This will empower you to make changes that you would not otherwise make. Oftentimes, when things don’t flow, we have an opportunity to examine why they are not flowing. Whereas, when the money is easily flowing, we would continue on unchanged and not question what we are doing.

So the financial crisis is an ideal opportunity to re-examine what is flowing and what isn’t so we can make different choices.

Over the next few days and weeks we will write more about stress, the financial crisis and how to cope with it. Stay tuned.

Lack of Love

By Andrew John Harrison

On February 14, 2009

In Health & Vitality

Lack of love as a child leads to feelings of inadequacy. This leads to sensitivity to rejection as an adult.

The Key Is Sincerity

By Andrew John Harrison

On February 14, 2009

In Leadership & Influence

“The key to a leader’s impact is sincerity. Before he can inspire with emotion he must be swayed by it himself. Before he can move their tears his own must flow. To convince them he must himself believe.”

– Winston Churchill

The Seven Leadership Saboteurs

By Andrew John Harrison

On February 13, 2009

In Leadership & Influence

There are a lot of things that can cause a leader to fail. None of them are as deadly as what they do to themselves! The following is a list of saboteurs that apply equally to leaders and followers:

fear, doubt & disbelief
criticism (and the inner-critic)
anger (under-expressed & over-expressed)
invalidating behavior & communication (most of us are so used to this, we don’t even notice it)
triggers, reactions & moods (we all know people who react to small things and are moody)
greed & jealousy (yikes)
black holes, denial and the emotional roller coaster (no matter how much you give, it is never enough)

Who wants to follow a leader who is afraid, doubts the task at hand is possible and disbelieves the team’s ability to get the job done? On the other hand, who wants to lead people like that? The truth is no one in their right mind would “want to.” However, the reality is that as a leader, we end up having to lead people exactly like that!

The key is to learn how to succeed as a leader regardless of the quality or state of the people we are leading.

In future posts we will discuss in more detail how to handle difficult people…

You Gotta Have a Dream

By Andrew John Harrison

On February 12, 2009

In Leadership & Influence

“You gotta have a dream. If you don’t have a dream, then how you gonna have your dream come true?”

– Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, “Happy Talk,” South Pacific, 1958.

What Motivates People To Lead?

By Andrew John Harrison

On February 12, 2009

In Leadership & Influence

There are eight primary motivations for leading:

By default (no one else wants to lead)
The desire to make a difference
A belief that they are the best suited for the role
Other’s belief that they are the best suited for the role
The desire to control and have power over others
Ego, status, power and prestige
Greed
Not wanting to follow others

You can see from this list that the best leader is a person who desires to make a difference and is the best suited for the role. Best suited for the role means they have the right combination of experience, skills, attitudes, and abilities.

What happens when a person is motivated by the desire to control, enhance their ego, status, and power, etc.?

Their decisions, actions, and thought processes will be based on their own ego and what’s in it for them and not necessarily what is right for their stakeholders.

Who wants to follow a leader who is motivated primarily by self-interest?

The best leaders know when to lead and when to follow.

If the leader is motivated by not wanting to follow, then they will insist on leading – even when they are clearly not the best suited for the situation. The end result is an outcome that is less than what would be possible with the right person leading.

Next time you are choosing a leader, consider these eight motivations and don’t listen to what they say. Consider their past actions as good indicators of future actions.

Creativity Killers

By Andrew John Harrison

On February 11, 2009

In Leadership & Influence

Many of today’s leaders are operating from an old leadership model that could be described as “leadership through domination.” This style stifles creativity and inhibits innovation.

It is impossible to think of new ideas that defy old ways of doing things if we are afraid of making mistakes and are constantly worried about the real or perceived threat from a leader whose style is based on autocracy, coercion and punishment.

Creative and innovative people require creative and innovative workplaces that are fluid, flexible, fun, nurturing, supportive and enjoyable. No longer is economic success dependent on natural resources, manufacturing excellence, and scientific or technological prowess. Today, the terms of success revolve around an organization’s ability to mobilize, attract and retain creative human talent. Every competitive dimension depends on creativity and ingenuity of the people that make up the organization.

Leading a team of creative talent is very different from leading a factory line of workers who do similar tasks repetitively. It simply does not work to command creativity! Can you imagine Mozart or Picasso being told to produce or else, “You are out!” Leadership in the creative economy requires vastly different skills.

Today’s new model of leadership involves partnership, cooperation and team.

The Culture of “Blame”

By Andrew John Harrison

On February 10, 2009

In Leadership & Influence

One of the biggest blocks to most people stepping into personal leadership and responsibility is that they are so afraid of making mistakes that they won’t take the risk of being responsible and accountable at the same time. Most people inaccurately see responsibility as another way of laying “blame” – or finding who is “at fault” when things go wrong. Combine this with the fear of losing face, and you have people who won’t speak up – even though they know the solution!

Encouraging people to speak up requires building trust and safety. Before people will take the risk of speaking up, they need to know that they won’t be punished for expressing themselves and stating their opinions.