Leadership in Error (aka "How not to do a Gordon")

Gordon Brown did the classic mistake of talking privately with the microphone on, which is the political comedy version of the speaker at a wedding doing the same thing as he goes to the loo and bad mouths the parents of the bride.

Rather brilliantly though Gordon Brown didn’t stop there, no! He hurtled on with reckless speed and a gathering momentum:

• He bad mouthed an old lady
• Blamed his aid
• Went to a radio show, didn’t realise he was being filmed and showed his true reactions
• Thinking it would help (it didn’t, it looked staged, because it was) went to the ladies house to apologise
• Didn’t think to do so to his aid, after bad mouthing her too

Frankly as an Executive Coach, even I don’t know where to start, especially as this sits on top of allegations of ‘bullying’ his staff, to which a senior civil servant trying to help said, “Gordon isn’t a bully he just has very high expectations!” (Like Stalin?)

OK! Well enough with the comedy, there is a serious point here which has to do with management of ones personal brand. I could go onto to give some facile tips on what not to do:

• Always check your microphone is off
• Ensure you don’t talk ill of others

But the reality is that though accurate, it’s not good enough, the key here is a person’s personal moral compass and the culture/environment that they build around them.

Moral Compass
Do you believe in only talking of people when they are not in the room, in the same manner you do when they are?

Culture
Do you encourage people to give you honest and open feedback, that you don’t just tolerate, but that you actively encourage, to the point it is aberrant behaviour to not give honest ‘support & challenge’?

When it comes to making mistakes as a leader, the most important thing to remember is that often it is as important to STOP and take a moment to seek counsel, not from those that will tell you how to manage the situation (which is still relevant), but to seek counsel from those who can advise you on who to BE, as the situation unfolds; and frankly the person you are being will dictate the experience and thus your credibility as people judge you for what you are doing (which sometimes you’ll get right and sometimes you won’t).

Gordon Brown tried to ‘control & stage manage’ the situation, he consciously or unconsciously asked himself,”what should I do?”; which is the right question to ask, but he asked it at the wrong  time. His reflex questions, your reflex questions, the reflex questions of any leader should be:

• “Who am I going to be in this situation?”
• “What would a good version of me do next?”

Leadership Excess – It's all about me

How does the man at the top of the corporate ladder stay in touch with the man at the bottom? It’s a good question. But actually I have a better one: “How does the man at the top of the corporate ladder ‘give the impression’ that he is in touch with the man at the bottom?”

I raise this as a more pertinent question as the higher up the ladder you go the reality is the harder it gets to really connect, because you are different, you have achieved more, you do have a better car, a nicer house…..you have in the eyes of anyone who hasn’t achieved as much as you…..done better (regardless of your own humility).

But once on the board or at an executive level, you are also lumped into the barrel with the executives that live in a world of excess. Abercrombie & Fitch for example have paid their CEO Mike Jeffries an extra $4 million to….now wait for it…….to reduce his travel of the company jet for personal use. It turns out that Jefferies in 2008 ran up a $1.1 billion bill for the use of the jet, to be honest I earn a reasonable salary and that’s one heck of a disconnect from the ordinary man on the street.

As an executive coach I often come across the senior manager who is talking about his new car, the holiday in Bermuda or the holiday home to someone who frankly is struggling to pay a mortgage. The executive will say they are ‘just being authentic’, which I applaud, my caveat is that there may be something about the a certain ‘sensitivity’ that one might want to bring into play.

So as I said this isn’t just about staying connected, it’s giving the impression that you are.

• Be sensitive to the reality of others
• Remember your every day is another’s ‘never going to happen day’

Leadership Perfection – We're all human after all

“Why in the face of all that, did you not act to contain abusive
deceptive subprime lending? Why did you allow it to become
such an infection in the market place”
- Phil Angelides
(Chairman on the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission)

This was the accusatory tone that Alan Greenspan the former chairman of the Federal Reserve met when giving sworn testimony recently to the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. Rather fantastically there was a time when Alan Greenspan was considered the nearest thing to a deity, one could even say that there was a time when any form of statements against someone of Greenspan importance would have been an act of treason…..but not anymore, in deed those days are long gone.

In fact Greenspan stated: “In the business I was in, I was right 70% of the time, but I was wrong 30% of the time” , what I like about this is the reminder to all of those involved in Leadership that the ‘mighty have indeed fallen’ and this is a different time; in fact far brighter and senior people than you have fallen in the eyes of the observers of this factors. There are now huge portions of the public who don’t really believe in the leadership of the world any more, you only have to look at voter apathy to understand that people ‘don’t believe’; and that runs down all the way to the man on the street not holding senior management in the god like positions they may have done previously.

Greenspan was able to ‘demonstrate some humanity’, but I’m unaware of that ‘humanity’ existing pre-testification!  It often feels that the seeking of forgiveness only comes after things have gone wrong. There’s something there for us to think about, the ‘seeking of forgiveness as you recognise something has gone wrong’ not just when you might be caught.

As leaders there is something incredibly authentic, human and believable about someone who says, “sorry”, when they technically don’t have to. As an executive coach I often hear senior leaders verbalising that they have made a mistake and want to navigate their way through it and “what should I do?”. It’s a simple position that I take:

“Tell the people that need telling the truth”

Leadership and Executive Ego: Keeping it check

The ego of any one of us is, at the best of times fragile, regardless of whether it starts from a position of ‘great strength or great fear’. The ego of someone in a leadership role is possibly even more precarious than the average persons.

Marcus Arelius (known as the last of the ‘five good emperors’) is supposed to have had one of his slaves walk behind him when he was in public receiving the exultation of the crowds and whisper in his ear, “Memento Mori” (Remember you are mortal). As an Executive Coach –  ”I love this!”

There is something about the development of power and what it can do to us, for some it magnifies a ‘sense of responsibility’ and a ‘duty of care’ for others it appears to ‘isolate’ and create a sense of ‘superiority’. As someone said to me recently, “it’s a bit like winning the lottery, if you are nice it makes you nicer because you can afford to be and if you are thoughtless and uncaring, then it magnifies this as well because you can afford to be”. I am inclined to agree.

There is for many leaders a need to revisit the direction of their actions, thoughts and customary thinking; to calibrate ones internal radar in these difficult times as to whether the salary that safeguards you from the worries of the everyday people, the BMW that isolates you from the reality of fear around having ‘No’ money (as opposed to less money!) is in fact working.

How do you do this? How do you know that on promotion you didn’t lose your connection to people, that over the years of platitudes and the gentle drip of obeisance you have not separated yourself from the realness of relations that are framed through the position you hold?

As an executive coach, I am rarely asked this question by a senior leader. Though as an executive coach I am often alert to this phenomenon through observation, story and feedback data.

1. Recognize that this could be you.
2. Seek council from trusted advisors.
3. Seek feedback from peers.
4. Seek feedback from external observers (consultants, coaches, who can be honest)
5. Volunteer for regular 360 Feedback then feed the results back to your people so they know it makes a connection.
6. Seek feedback in open forum: Ask the question. Shut Up. Listen. Say ‘Thankyou’ (And mean it).
7. Eat in the canteen.
8. Take the long way to meetings, so people are familiar with your presence in the business.
9. Talk to people about non-work related business, so they trust your motives.
10. Actually want to know.

And of course, most importantly: “Memento Mori!”

Leadership Learning: Know Thyself

Ferran Adria the godfather of molecular gastronomy and the owner of what many consider to be the best restaurant in the world (fully booked already for 2010) El Bulli, has decided to close and take a sabbatical for 2012 & 2013, so he can “think and create”.

I have no doubt that you require a certain financial status to do this, though when you are booked up a year in advance and have been working 15 hour days, maybe you deserve it; actually as an executive coach I know quite a few executives who are financially secure, booked up for a year and work 15 hour days!

Granted the idea of 2 years off might not be doable for all of us, but you know a week end a way at the beach is; 2 whole days with just yourself (you can take the dog), not even a friend or a partner – Pure YOU TIME!

This is an invaluable activity once a year: The beach, the hills, the lakes, it doesn’t matter, but it does something to you when you create ‘pure space’ devoid of any interference, be that electronic or relational.

• The opportunity to have a conversation with yourself.
• To listen to your own thoughts.
• To Filter out the debris of the everyday life.
• To revisit the focus and value of your life.

The value to those that rely and look to you as a leader, partner, friend, colleague, parent will be as marked as the value you receive on a personal level. I guarantee that two days a year of ‘pure space’ will add value in the clarity and focus of your thinking ‘operationally and personally’ that you will pull on all year untill you do it again!

Challenge: Open you diary, pick two days, put in “Away Days”, tell everyone that needs to know that you are going to be away, go on the internet (don’t get your PA to do it (make it personal), find a little Bed & Breakfast/Family Lodge and GO!

Leadership Thoughts: One Hit, One Kill

In the martial art Karate there is a term: Ikken Hissatsu, which I am reliably informed means “one hit, one kill”, the idea being that you try to ‘finish off’ the opponent with one overwhelming strike.

Some of you may know that I teach martial arts/self defense to quite a high level and for many the idea of the ‘one punch, one kill’ was frowned upon as being impractical for most people.

Untill a gentleman well versed in the noble art of Karate explained to me that most people can’t expect to take out an attacker with one punch, but that Ikken Hissatsu is the idea that you want to!

Ah ha! Well there’s a thought, I don’t know if there is an equivalent term in Japanese for this, but perhaps the idea of coaching someone is very much like this, you go in with the idea that one intervention will suffice; but understanding reality you have the patience and wisdom to be prepared to continue past the first blow, sorry session.

Perhaps it is the willingness of an executive coach to continue, that enables you and the coachee to sense the momentum of a conversation, to sense your commitment to the output and thus in many circumstances this acts as its own force in gaining commitment to change.

It is a powerful thought: “That your authentic presense is in itself part of the solution” and that as a leader or executive coach the technique you use will only be as valuable as the intent you have.

Leadership Change

One of the key aspects of a leader and the development of a leadership culture is the capacity to deal with constant and unremitting change. It is often the primary ‘confusion’ for many leaders who engage an executive coach.

A great scenario to pose to yourself and to others is this: If this conversation was an interview for a new job and the job description was a description of this scenario:

1. How would you plan to approach it?
2. How would your emotional state differ to how it is now?

Two very simple questions that can go along way to reframing your approach and feelings to what in another context might be a highly motivational scenario.

Leadership and Technology

I have a relative whose daughter started to look down at her due to her inability to navigate the latest mobile phone she received. Later on as she started to get the hang of it then the more she grew in terms of her daughters credibility; this is unfortunate but not unlike many senior managers who operate in a non IT literate world.

3 years ago I was the executive coach for a CEO, we had been discussing the poor results of the companies employee satisfaction survey and one of the areas on the survey was around trust and comments people had made about not being allowed to use the internet.

She wondered out loud at the point of it other than wasting time, I asked a simple question, “I notice you do not have a PC on your desk, do you have a PC here or at home?”, the reply was, “No, but my estate manager does.”

She then went on to say, “what does anyone actually use the internet for?”, I looked out of her office and saw two PA’s, one for work and one for personal, they printed emails, made the notes then they typed them out for her, it went on from there. This is a very successful woman, who has made her fortune through organising her day this way and has done a darn good job of it.

Though the learning for her, was not ‘how to use a PC’, but more to the point that the gradual dissociation with the world that everyone else lives in (I know for a fact I can barely function without the internet).

What’s my point? Well, there is a mental note to self here for many senior managers probably on topics more far ranging than the internet, even simple things like getting to work. Most senior managers drive and even have their own parking but guess what the people that work for you probably don’t….. many people get the bus and a train then they have to walk; most senior managers can leave their desk whenever they want to and can go out to have a meeitng, most peole can’t do that….they can’t leave their desk unless they are going to the loo and even then not to often.

Many, many senior managers (not intentionally), but this they are discontected from real living and more often than not completely disconnected from the driving factors of mortals.

As an example: This CEO now has a 45 minute once a quarter, “what’s going on in the world” session with a selection of the most junior people in the business, granted she doesn’t have a Facebook account, but she knows what one is and even sees the point.

Consider:

1. Do I understand the lives my people live?
2. Have I lost the understanding that I used to have?
3. How can I regain not the credibility but the understanding that will lead back to the credibility?
4. Who will be my council and advise me?

New Year Resolutions – Not just once a year

Consider the ‘new year resolution’ and if I ask when you’d do it, well the clue would be in the question; you do them in the New Year.

It might be worth considering that actually a New Year Resolution can start technically whenever you want it to, as any day is a year later, the start of a new year.

Todd Thomas from the DeVos Graduate School of Management who conducts Resolution research found that, “CEO’s are less likely to make personal resolutions as opposed to ones directed at the companies they run.” 

Why? Well in my experience, it’s because the commercial aspect of  senior executives life is often more understandable and negotiable than what sits outside of it.

A provider of workplace employee benefits WorkplaceOptions did a survey recently that polled 700 workers on their resolutions for the new year; a 1/3rd of them involved ‘weight loss and improved fitness’.

Maybe there is an opportunity for the employee to demonstrate some more focused commercial goal setting within their resolutions to engender collaborations and sustainability and for the leadership Cadre to set and share more personal goals to increase the humanity in the observation and experience of others.

Weary Executives leave the City

The Times carried a story today about James Burridge who left the banking world to become a maths teacher, with the words:”I just thought there has to be more to life than this“.

It’s a valid point and one that any Executive Coach coaching at senior levels finds themselves increasingly coming across and as a coach there is no definitive answer other than the one that sits within the individual and that of course is the point. It’s the answer that sits within all of us.

The role of the executive coach is to enable the thinking of those asking themselves this perennial question, so that they may come to a conclusion that enables them to live within the moment and not lose focus on the reality of their real world situation.

It becomes apparent that for many people the answer is well-known to them, what is not so clear is how to access the courage that may have to be called upon to take the relevant steps.