The greatest breakthroughs happen because of a major breakdown.
John Hersey, a renowned leadership speaker and coach, and his wife Beverly, conducted a two-day leadership workshop at a meeting planning company not too long ago.
The first day went by smoothly and successfully; everyone learned a lot, the vibes were good, and there was the feeling that the leadership team was truly getting to know each other in a meaningful way.
During the second day, the leader meeting planners had to role-play a specific situation. The first three hours were a kind of meeting planners’ hell; it was quite uncomfortable.
John and Beverly observed the uneasiness and perceived the room was packed with fear. In their own words, “it was as though the leaders were having roots canals without Novocain.” Nevertheless, they didn’t step in; they didn’t stop the program to change paths to a more comfortable space, but instead, let this painful scenario progress.
Until, in the early hours of the afternoon, something wonderful happened. The meeting planners got through their limitations and were able to see the essence of the crucial leadership aspect they were dealing with.
It was remarkable to witness how after fighting to hang on to what they believed was the right way to lead, they all let go at once and made a major breakthrough. Everyone could feel the sense of accomplishment that filled the room.
And this is how it happens…
Contagious leaders know that they can truly cripple any leadership development effort if they jump in with a solution, if they take control of a situation that is getting out of hand, if they offer a helping hand prematurely, or if they bring chaos into order, because major growth, confidence building, and leadership development normally happens after a crisis.
In fact, it is through experiencing crisis that we grow, so, as leaders, why is it that we commonly weaken the learning experiences for our teams?
Simple, this happens when:
- Leaders are uncomfortable with discomfort. We agree that it is not easy to watch your people struggle and stumble, especially when you feel you can get involved and solve the situation.
- Leaders try to avoid stress. Stress tires you; it makes you short-tempered and impatient. It is easier to solve the problem than to deal with the team’s reaction.
- Leaders have short-term success mentality. When a true leader develops the team’s leadership bench strength he knows that short-term struggles bring long-term success.
- Leaders are coming from scarcity. If our business is struggling with success, it may be difficult to let our team stumble. We operate from a scarcity mentality.
So, the next time you perceive your meeting planning business is headed towards chaos or that your leadership team is stumbling with a problem that seems too much, do not jump in to fix it, instead, let them stumble, because later they will be able to enjoy the breakthrough that will take them farther up.
There is no room for excuses in a culture based on leadership, sadly, in ours, there is.
In our culture it is acceptable to “not have the time because I’m swamped” or to “just be too busy” to make sales calls, to face challenges directly, to be on time for appointments, to change when it is necessary, or to simply get the job done.
To make up excuses means giving up and abandoning responsibility. A company full of employees that at every level only make up excuses generates apathy, and passiveness and detachment kill leadership.
True leaders don’t tolerate excuses because these excuse no one. There is no such thing as a valid excuse for being late, for not contacting a client, or for not changing to improve a company.
However, excuses have become acceptable, are seldom questioned, and have turned into a cycle where effective feedback and leadership coaching are not welcomed.
Contagious leaders and their staff never focus on excuses; instead, they have an unobstructed vision, meaning they focus on a clear picture of the desired outcome. In their case, it is very rare that a distraction or excuse will become more important than the desired result.
But, how do they do it? Well… contagious leaders generate engaged and productive employees who in turn create involved customers.
Here we give you the 3 strategies that contagious leaders use to permanently ban the excuses cycle from their organizations or departments:
1. They commit to their company or department’s leadership goals and vision. They get passionate about them, believe in them, and visualize the result. This brings more excitement than thinking up excuses.
If an excuse clouds their vision, they acknowledge it and find the way to get rid of it.
2. They practice vibrant communication every day. Contagious leaders believe that the attitude of employees and customers is a result of communication, because when one feels involved and understands the direction the company is taking, in other words, when one writes, speaks, and lives in that direction, one makes better and more productive leadership choices.
3. They practice meaningful permission mentoring. They offer their staff thoughtful and straightforward feedback, they speak out their people’s greatness, and extend a helping hand to get people out of the excuses cycle.
Show your concern if you perceive the cycle of excuses in your organization because it is a sign of defeat, and instead… make your team remember the Nike leadership slogan: JUST DO IT! Every good leadership speaker and coach does…
Each week, we will be highlighting (or “spotlighting”) someone we think demonstrates the actions, thoughts and mindset of a Contagious Leader. This week’s spotlight is on Jeff Eschliman.
Jeff Eschliman, Director of Construction for Maracay Homes in Scottsdale, Arizona, has been a student of Contagious Leadership since 2005. He recently reached out and asked me to connect with him on LinkedIn. I agreed, mentioning in a return message that I was looking forward to getting to know him better. He took this as a green light and sent me the following email through LinkedIn; “I’d love to buy you lunch some day and get more insights into Contagious Leadership. I just received the book (Creating Contagious Leadership) and I’m looking forward to diving in.”
That’s initiative!
During our lunch Jeff mentioned he has been practicing Recognize 5, our program for the Habit of Involved Recognition. We immediately invited him to do a video interview that will be shared with other Contagious Leader Coaching Club members.
Jeff Eschliman is a true Contagious Leader for a number of other reasons:
In an industry that has been hard hit by the economic challenges of recent years, Jeff works at staying positive
He continues to build his inventory of talents for the future by practicing the leadership habits he learns.
He faithfully practices Recognize 5 week in and week out without expecting accolades from the employees he works with or his superiors.
He has recent;y committed to deep and lasting changes in his personal life in the areas of fitness and exercise.
Yes, Jeff Eschliman is a true Contagious Leader, our Contagious Leader of the week. He is also our new friend.
If you would like to nominate someone, feel free to send us an email by clicking here, and we would love to consider them! Please tell us a bit about them and what makes them Contagious in their leadership.
Each week, we will be highlighting (or “spotlighting”) someone we think demonstrates the actions, thoughts and mindset of a Contagious Leader. This week’s spotlight is on Frank Shankwitz.
Frank Shankwitz is a Prescott, Arizona resident and a 37 year veteran of the Arizona Highway Patrol. He’s a cop, always has been, probably always will be. He has seen bad things happen everyday for 37 years and you would think his outlook on life might be colored by that.
Not Frank Shankwitz!
This big man has an even bigger heart. That’s how he was able to make the world a better place for 230,000+ kids with life-threatening diseases since 1980.
Frank is a contagious leader. He saw a need, knew he could make wishes come true for kids if he found the right people to pull it together. And he did with a ‘can do’ attitude, a clear vision and uncompromising focus.
If you would like to nominate someone, feel free to send us an email by clicking here, and we would love to consider them! Please tell us a bit about them and what makes them Contagious in their leadership.
Each week, we will be highlighting (or “spotlighting”) someone we think demonstrates the actions, thoughts and mindset of a Contagious Leader.
Noah Plumb is an inspiring GoDaddy.com employee. When Eric Keosky-Smith arranged for the Fountain Hills Leaders Institute to meet with Warren Edelmann, COO of GoDaddy.com and to tour the facilities last year, we had no idea that we would still be thinking about Noah. Noah gave us the tour.
It occurred to us that we rarely hear an employee so enthusiastically rave about their company, passionately engaged with the success of GoDaddy.com as he constantly offers up suggestions to grab more market share, expand products and boost morale even more. And GoDaddy.com has had something to do with this relationship as they warmly embrace and encourage even more suggestions from Noah. Noah proclaims that he is a lifer at GoDaddy.com, he drank the cool-aid!
Noah is a Contagious Leader! Congratulations, Noah!
If you would like to nominate someone, feel free to send us an email by clicking here, and we would love to consider them! Please tell us a bit about them and what makes them Contagious in their leadership.
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.
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.
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.
Jeff Eschliman, Director of Construction for Maracay Homes in Scottsdale, Arizona, has been a student of Contagious Leadership since 2005. He recently reached out and asked me to connect with him on LinkedIn. I agreed, mentioning in a return message that I was looking forward to getting to know him better. He took this as a green light and sent me the following email through LinkedIn; “I’d love to buy you lunch some day and get more insights into Contagious Leadership. I just received the book (Creating Contagious Leadership) and I’m looking forward to diving in.” 
Frank Shankwitz is a Prescott, Arizona resident and a 37 year veteran of the Arizona Highway Patrol. He’s a cop, always has been, probably always will be. He has seen bad things happen everyday for 37 years and you would think his outlook on life might be colored by that.
Each week, we will be highlighting (or “spotlighting”) someone we think demonstrates the actions, thoughts and mindset of a Contagious Leader.
Entries (RSS)