A true leader thinks and feels as he says and does, or as a great leadership speaker once said: “Authenticity occurs when the head and the heart meet at the lips, true leadership takes place when what we think and what we feel is congruent with what we say and do.”
We’ve most certainly heard about it and sadly, many of us have seen it happen: a “leader” having a custom-made desk installed in his office the same week he is laying off employees, and he even has the nerve to ask the personnel that is left to accept more responsibility in view of the staff shortage and to save money.
Can you see the huge conflict this “leader’s” message expresses? It is such poor behavior coming from the company’s top levels. Obviously, this person was passionate about cutting back expenses that affected everyone but him.
When something like this happens, when the messages from the organization’s “leaders” are so clearly opposite to their actions, the only possible outcome is a culture of distrust, one where fear rules and that chokes the employees’ “can do” attitude.
This kind of paradoxical leadership creates a spread of dreary behavior and resentfulness that disintegrates a company from the inside out.
Every company leader and CEO should wear a certified badge of authenticity with the legend: “I say what I mean and act as I say.” And to be able to deserve this badge and kiss the corporate lack of authenticity goodbye, you, as a leader must:
- Believe in truthfulness. Does the annual report describe the company you run? Is your company true to what is said about it in articles, internal communications, and description at company meetings and events? If not, set the record straight and show your authenticity.
- Have vision. Do you communicate a vision that your employees don’t support? Do you reward behaviors that are in conflict with the culture you desire for the company?
- Handle inconsistency. Even more, when an inconsistency is identified, do you take action in a prompt, honest, and clear manner to correct the detrimental message that was set loose?
Leadership authenticity is about being authentic, trustworthy, and genuine. Being authentic is about knowing and being true to who you are, not who you pretend to be. Sadly, many “leaders” have been playing the role for so long that they have no idea who they really are.
If you are driven by percentages, maybe this will convince you: 40% of corporate leaders would change careers if they could keep their current income level. Maybe they are tired of not being true to themselves or of being forced by a job or culture to be someone they’re not.
The reality is that if you wish to be a winner in the long run, you must be authentic. So, get real!
Yes, it is no longer enough to see someone’s resume to know if he or she is the best person for that meeting planner or assistant’s job.
Long gone are the days when people were rotated through a position to find a match, or when a competitor’s star player signed on for the big bucks only to fail miserably in meeting very high expectations.
A bad hire today implies such high costs, that the future of a company may very easily be in the hands of the person in charge of hiring the best candidate for the job.
Today, you have to look beyond the resume when hiring a leader, because normally that piece of paper is more filled with air than a hot air balloon.
Presently, you have to hire leaders by measuring their cultural compatibility. Instead of regarding only a certain set of skills, first you have to consider the person’s behavior and attitude towards the meeting planner’s environment.
In fact, there are 4 criteria that are crucial when hiring or promoting someone to a meeting planner or assistant’s job:
Attitude
It is not easy, but is a must, to identify a “can do” leadership attitude. This requires observation, open-ended scenario questions, and self-confidence demonstrations.
Behavior
This one also requires lots of observation and assessment, because it impacts everyone within the company.
You have to decide if you need an aggressive, results-oriented, fast-paced leader, or a stable, dependable, and caring one; this based on what the meeting planner or assistant’s job requires, not on your personal preference.
Competencies and cultural compatibility
Every job needs a given set of competencies. Define the competencies and behavioral attributes that best fit the position and see which candidates have them.
The candidate who best fits the competencies needed is the most compatible with your company.
Skills
You should hire a skilled meeting planner or assistant, but do not make his or her skills the decisive factor.
Most candidates will be able to learn most skills; however, not everyone is capable of changing or learning a new leadership attitude, behavior, or competency.
A leader should develop a system that measures a combination of these 4 criteria to find the right candidate.
This process is so vital that many companies hire a renowned leadership speaker and consultant to guide them through it as well as to help them design the right behavior, values and competency assessments, to conduct email and face-to-face interviews, and to thoroughly analyze resumes when hiring and promoting individuals, all of this in order to lower the chances of making a bad hire.
Permission mentoring is the habit of ripening aspiring contagious leaders. It is a crucial step in becoming such a leader, who literally learns from example, and one that must be tackled correctly to be able to get the best out of the person being mentored.
According to a top leadership speaker, here’s how to get into the permission mentoring habit successfully:
Ask permission
Always ask people if they are interested in being mentored. Never assume everyone wants to become a leader, because this is not true.
Some individuals are not interested in becoming contagious leaders, and some others may not be interested in being mentored by you, and this is fine, everyone is entitled to choose what works best for them; thus, it is only wise to make sure you are investing your time in people who truly want what you can offer them.
The good thing is that a very powerful force is activated when you ask and someone says yes, a new level of commitment arises, and the results are remarkable; in other words, a new individual is born.
Create parameters
Your mentoring must have well-defined and approved boundaries. If the goal is for the employee to become a contagious leader, focus on the habits such a person requires and reach an agreement as to what is expected.
Before beginning the mentoring program, ask the employee to self-assess each habit, and compare it to your assessment. Talk about the progress you both expect to see, and establish time limits for each session and for the totality of the program in a way that lets you both get the best out of it.
Focus the parameters on activities and behaviors instead of on results, because the first are the ones that will guide the person towards the desired result, while many outside circumstances can affect the second.
Schedule uninterrupted time
There should be a time exclusively devoted to discuss, review, measure, and offer feedback. Honor the process, and your commitment to being a contagious leader and a mentor, by giving it meaningful time. Never allow the person to feel forgotten or neglected.
Employ involved recognition
A mentoring program is a great opportunity for you to practice the habits and qualities of a contagious leader.
Keep an eye on your attitude, focus on the person’s strengths, and employ involved recognition as much as possible. Pay attention and identify as many opportunities as you can to recognize the actions and behavior of the person you are mentoring.
This is key to strengthening the confidence in their ability to become contagious leaders, and will teach them how to use it themselves.
Never stop measuring
Your job as a contagious leader is to develop many other contagious leaders, and you have to make sure the persons you are mentoring are moving in the right direction.
You must keep track of how each one of them is doing and of how many you have at a certain stage of development, so as to be able to control and anticipate when these individuals are ready to move on.
One of the easiest ways to promote a contagious leadership culture in your company is to be constantly aware of the obstacles that hinder it.
Intelligent leaders work on eradicating the conducts and actions that discourage the behaviors of contagious leaders in order to make the good arise by itself.
Here are 4 wise and simple strategies to stop energizing the contained and to start turning your company’s ways into contagious leadership ones:
Stop praising erroneous behaviors.
True contagious leaders are congruent; constantly, in every decision they make.
Let’s say a director whose style emulates that of a tyrant, who cares only about the bottom line, who is three-times divorced because work is his religion and expects it to be everyone else’s, gets promoted to vice-president. What do you think is being praised here?
Make it right to be a contagious leader.
In order to develop contagious leaders you have to commit to doing it.
Just decide that contagious leadership is the right way to go, decide that it is ok to be a leader instead of just a manager, and embody that decision every single day and in every single thing you do.
Before you know it, your behavior will become… contagious.
Get personally involved in the process.
Developing a contagious leadership culture project cannot be delegated; you have to be deeply involved in the process if success is your goal, even though this may not be your only role.
In order for such an initiative to work, you must be a contagious leader yourself, you have to honor and reward contagious leadership behaviors and examples, and you should teach others to become such powerful leaders.
This is basic, because the contagious leadership approach implies a big cultural change for the majority of companies, and it doesn’t work hands-off, as management does.
Select a CLO- Contagious Leadership Officer
Give a hand-picked someone¾as advised by in the lines of a leadership speaker and advisor¾ a meaningful title, a big office, a lot of money, and unlimited authority to put into action, measure, and honor success all the way through your organization.
Beverly and I recently flew to Portland, Oregon to join our friends for a week’s holiday. As we were boarding our UsAir flight a passenger asked the flight attendant a question about the baggage policy. The reply was, “We aren’t Southwest, Ma’am!”
WOW, talk about owning an advantage. When brands begin admitting that they are NOT a competing brand, you just know that the competing brand has made significant progress in capturing share of mind and most likely, share of market.
I have wondered from time to time why Southwest was investing somuch money advertising the fact that it does not charge for baggage. I wondered whether this was a significant point of difference. Now I know! Clearly, the passenger and the USAir flight attendant think it is a significant point of difference.
Doing something that captures the attention of your ideal prospect is what branding is all about, isn’t it?. Sometimes we so over think how and what to do to accomplish this that we miss the real advantage when it is staring us in the face.
Southwest Airlines has a serious advantage with the fact that it does not charge for baggage when every other airline is determined to nickel and dime us to death. They are pretty smart folks over there at Southwest. Of course they would make a considerable investment to leverage this advantage and turn it into increased revenue and market share. In fact, they own the advantage.
This makes me wonder what little advantages we all have that could be leveraged? What little advantages do we have that have been overlooked? Have we been concentrating on identifying huge advantages while the little advantages are stuck right in front of us?
Marketing advantages come in all shapes, sizes, colors and forms. Sometimes a wonderful advantage doesn’t even look like an advantage, until we look a second time. When airline ticket prices are $400-$1000 or more, who would guess that saving $25 bucks checking your bag could be a highly profitable advantage?
This is an interesting question, if you truly consider it. What makes this economy so interesting is that answering questions like that may well be the difference between getting by and getting way ahead. Think about it!
So, what advantage can you leverage? I’ll have more to say about this in the next post. In the meantime,
Contagious Leaders know that they have to help their teams find passion, energy and excitement for the vision. People get excited by people who are excited. So, find ways to get excited and you’ll see the excitement around you change. It really is that simple.
So many of us long for the “good old days” when the good guys finished first. It seems as though those days have been replaced by all the “bad boys” winning the big games and gaining all the notoriety and huge pay days. Well, we have news for you; the good old days may still be with us.
We recently traveled to Baltimore to visit relatives and participate in a fund raiser for the Baer School, which Bev’s sister Debbie Kastendike, her uisband Graham and their sons Eric and Christopher and his wife Ashley are deeply involved with. The plan was to have an affair at the Legends of Sport Heroes right near Camden Yards where to Baltimore Orioles still play. A special treat would be an appearance by Joe Flacco, Quarterback for the Baltimore Ravens. With all the controversy about and around “star athletes” these days I wasn’t so sure that the QB’s appearance was anything worth getting all excited over. Boy, was I wrong!
Joe Flacco impressed each of the 200 people there, including the biggest doubting Thomas of all, me.
Joe Flacco and the Kids of The Baer School
Joe and more Kids
Eric Kastendike, Joe Flacco and Christopher Kastendike
Joe Flacco and Ashley kastendike
Joe and another Baer School Charmer
To watch him was to learn about him. He began quietly, appearing a bit shy at first. Then as we entered the room where the kids were he began to be more lively. For the last picture above he actually asked if the little girl would like to have a picture taken. He didn’t presume she wanted the shot, nor did he walk away relieved that he avoided yet another inconvenience. No, he asked if she would like a picture.
Most of these kids had no idea who Joe Flacco is, nor did they care. They only knew that he enjoyed being with them, paying attention to them, talking with them, smiling with them. They loved him for that and so did the delighted people that came to help the Baer School.
That night, we all saw a side of Joe Flacco, and perhaps other “star athletes” that made us revisit our attitudes toward all athletes. Perhaps they are not all thugs and bad boys. Perhaps a few, like Joe Flacco, are really good guys that just dress up like athletes and happen to get paid a lot of money for doing so. This doesn’t make them bad. In fact, it just helped prove a really important point for all of us. Despite what the world may look like from time to time, good guys really do finish first.
Spend your day looking to peoples greatness instead of trying to find fault and see the results:
* More fun
* More Productivity
* More Trust
* More Confidence
* More Results
Most people have a long list of IRRITATIONS that continue to bother them, over and over again. They learn to accept them as part of life. The IRRITATIONS may come from relationships, violations of boundaries, the work environment or annoying things that for some reason people allow to remain in their lives. Sometimes, IRRITATIONS are a result of our own behavior. We allow these IRRITATIONS to become sources of stress and frustration. When our lives are full of IRRITATIONS, it is impossible to break away and take the journey towards mastery in our lives. You cannot ride a horse with burrs under the saddle, at least not for very long. Similarly, you cannot have a smooth ride in life while accepting the IRRITATIONS you currently allow.
The first step in conquering your life IRRITATIONS is to identify them. The next step will be to develop strategies to rid your life of all IRRITATIONS. What I want for you is to have an IRRITATION FREE LIFE. Is it possible? Absolutely!
Decide today to do something about your top 3. You can either accept them, change them or rid yourself of them. Whichever way you choose, it is up to you.
Passion Counts, it sells, it inspires and people respond to passion. So, if you are not naturally passionate how does an aspiring leader get passionate. The 3 E’s of a Passionate Leader are:
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