John Hersey Leadership Blog

“I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element.  It is my personal approach that creates the climate.  It is my daily mood that makes the weather.  I possess tremendous power to make life miserable or joyous.  I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration; I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal.  In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis is escalated or de-escalated, and a person humanized or de-humanized.  If we treat people as they are, we make them worse.  If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)

Personal responsibility over one’s life is not a new concept, however it is much easier to blame others, or fate, for a failed marriage, an unsteady job history, or financial bankruptcy, than to accept that our personal choices have led us down the path of utter failure.  In fact, blaming external situations for our personal catastrophes has become so popular that we only need to turn on the TV to find endless examples of this disheartening behavior.

Nevertheless, there is a select group of people that rejects to be a part of this crowd.  The happiest and most successful people on earth, the people who get things done and make history out of their lives, true leaders, know that life is about personal choices.  These individuals take responsibility for their choices and the resulting consequences. They choose to control their destiny instead of letting fate or other people tell them where, how, and why they are headed in a certain direction.

True leaders know there is a choice behind every circumstance, even when they are not directly responsible. They accept responsibility for their actions or the lack thereof.

If you want to become a leader, the first step is within you.  You have to accept control and choose power over these:

1.    To win- Leaders are identified because they choose to focus on the possibilities rather than on the problems.  When faced with obstacles and failure, a real leader will overcome them and learn from them, turning them into opportunities.  Only these individuals will be truly successful.

2.    The perceived reality- Most facts in life are highly subjective and dependent on how a person perceives them.  The world is seen by each individual as he or she is, not as the world is. This is why it is very common to get trapped inside our own reality groove and unable to see the possibilities beyond.

3.    Personal outlook- The optimist always expects the best to happen and gets the positive out of every situation, while the pessimist lives on the negative side and always imagines the worse that could happen.  Even though we were raised into one or another, it is up to us to decide how we want to see our circumstances and the world today.

4.    Let go of harmful emotions- Leaders know they are responsible for their emotions.  It hurts less to think that others are to blame for our anger, resentment, or jealousy; however, this makes us prisoners of our emotions.  Humans tend to dwell on negative feelings, thus, for our own health and happiness, we have to learn to let go.  For our own sake, we have to learn to forgive and forget.

5.    Thoughts- We are what we think.  Thoughts become things.  By choosing our thoughts consciously we are directly affecting our reality.  Thoughts become actions, actions become habits, habits shape our character, our character dictates our circumstances, and our circumstances define our future.

Become the Leader Your Company Needs. Get My 6 FREE Leadership Videos Here: www.JohnHersey.com

It has been proved.  The best leaders are the ones who understood the super powerful truths in regards to trust:

-    People do business with people they like.
-    People like people they trust.
-    People trust people who have a clear level of compassion and capacity.

Trust is not a matter of time but of level of caring.  Once people feel you truly care about them, they start believing in you.  The best way to show you care is by listening to them, truly listening.

A leader is one if he has followers; otherwise he is just a boss.  No matter how many titles you hold, if your people don’t feel acknowledged and cared for, they won’t trust you, thus, they won’t follow you, and they will do the minimum.  They will be waiting for you to fail, and they will even work to make you fail.

Most people don’t know how to listen, and it is not their fault.  Yes, it isn’t.  Experts agree that the first five years of a child’s life are the most productive in terms of learning, in those five years we learn more than we will ever learn during the rest of our lives.  If during those five years a child doesn’t feel adults listen to him, he will not be a good listener himself.  How can you learn to listen if no one ever taught you?

Here we arrive to the crucial point.  Good listening is a skill that has to be learned; we are not born with it.  People follow by example, thus, in order to create good listeners, we have to become one.

And how do we learn to listen?  Pretty sure, not at a seminar.  We have to work with what we have, and what we have is the capacity to make sure people feel heard.  In order to do this, we have to be conscious about distractions and consciously avoid them.  While an employee is sharing his ideas, you have to stop thinking about the size of his ears, and if you’re talking to a complaining customer, make a conscious effort not to focus on her eye tic.  Yes, our minds tend to wander under any excuse.

Once you are able to avoid distractions, you have to learn to get rid of preconceptions.  Stop believing that all blondes are stupid just because everyone says so, or that a certain employee is trying to steal your job.  Normally people need just the right opportunity to start giving their opinion and sharing their experience as the solution to someone’s problem.  Right there, the person doesn’t feel heard, he feels judged, and you have lost him.  But what exactly did you do wrong?  Well, you took away their uniqueness the minute you knew exactly what the problem was, prompting them to insist on showing you how special they are and making them resist your lead.

When people talk you are thinking about yourself and what you can do to help them help you.  This is when you start convincing people instead of making them agree with you.

True leaders make people feel heard and feel special.  They make others feel important, thus, they are important to those others.  Once you start focusing on how people really feel about what they are expressing, you start caring for them much more, and suddenly, you become your best self… you become a leader.

Become the Leader Your Company Needs. Get My 6 FREE Leadership Videos Here: www.JohnHersey.com

A few years ago, Randall was the general manager for a restaurant chain.  One time, he and the other managers were having a meeting in one of the restaurants that had just been remodeled.  There was a table with some papers and a bottle of ink on top, and everyone was just hanging around, talking and having a good time.

At one point, Randall’s boss pulled him aside to speak to him about a possible candidate for general manager; the person was currently an assistant manager.  This young man was very good at organizing schedules, food orders, sanitation, and staffing, nevertheless, Randall felt there was something he lacked.  His boss kept asking Randall for specifics so as to not consider this person as an option, but Randall was not sure why he didn’t consider this employee worthy of a promotion, he just felt he was not a leader.

Right that minute, someone knocked the bottle of ink off the table, and everyone witnessed how it hit the new carpet and rolled under the table leaving a dreadful dark blue stain.  Immediately, one general manager got down on his hands and knees and crawled under the table to get the bottle; he just did it without giving it a second thought.  This man was big, he was around 300 pounds, but still, he never hesitated. He got the bottle of ink even knowing that there were others there for whom it would have been much easier to do.

Right then, Randall knew what his hesitation about the general manager candidate was.  He turned to his boss and said: “this person would not have gotten the bottle of ink”.  He would have asked someone else to do it, even if he had been alone in the room at the time.  He was not willing to do what he asked others to do.

Clearly it is not a manager’s job to do the cleaning; he must let others do that so that he can focus on the customers, but in a crowded restaurant sometimes managers must get involved in the operation to get things done, because there isn’t anyone else.  Managing a restaurant is more than walking around asking clients if they enjoyed the meal. Managers must be willing to get their hands ‘dirty’ if necessary.  Randall recalled how he had washed dishes for days after a dishwasher didn’t show up and until he found another one.  He didn’t like it, but it was necessary.

After thinking about it for a while, Randall’s boss agreed that he could not recall a time when this person had done a less than pleasant task. Needless to say, he never got promoted.  This episode was so remarkable that it was discussed at every manager’s meeting from then on.

A true leader picks up the bottle of ink.
If you want people to follow you, pick up the bottle.
If you want to inspire others, pick up the bottle.
If you want to be trusted with the big things, do the little things.

Randall spent lots of time working on the little things to help his employees, and they did much more for him.  He always found someone to cover for a sick colleague, in fact, before accepting, employees asked who the manager was for the shift. If it was someone who was not very respected, they said no, but Randall always got a yes.

A leader leads by example; you cannot expect others to do what you are not willing to do yourself, so, next time a bottle of ink is knocked off the table, get down and pick it up!

Become the Leader Your Company Needs. Get My 6 FREE Leadership Videos Here: www.JohnHersey.com

Many of the top magazines and newspapers hire inexperienced writers to write about business topics, and although it is understandable that these publications hire young people, some of the information and advice out there is plain wrong.  In many cases, these don’t match what truly experienced and successful business people have gone through, and the problem may reside in the process.

Secondhand information gets misunderstood, oversimplified, and it is vague; it is cleaned up, edited, and adorned.  In many cases, the people being interviewed are to blame; they are experts who want to make their teams stand out.

Good business writers identify an interesting and good idea, and know how to present it in a clear and persuasive way, period.  This being said, we have to say that there are many misunderstandings out there about what leadership is, and if you pay attention to them, you can harm your business in a serious way.

Here are two common ideas of what leadership is, that are definitely wrong… any true leader will tell you so:

1.    Leadership is about being ‘soft’
You read it all the time; that a good leader should listen to his employees, share his feelings with them, and be open to their ideas, no matter how bad they are, otherwise, business is dead.  Today’s business leadership arena is presented as one where employees want to be listened to; they want to contribute to decisions and give creative solutions.

As truly experienced leaders will tell you, the opposite of this is completely true.  Employees want leadership, meaning they want someone to solve the problems and provide clear direction.  Leaders are paid a lot of money to do just that, make tough decisions and get the job done.  Obviously, a leader must be open to ideas, and should communicate and pay attention to his employees, but he has the last word on the direction the company takes and the way to get there.

In order to do this, a person must have vision, knowledge, skills, and great ideas, but above all, he must know how to make others support his ideas and work to make them a reality, even if he is criticized or opposed.  And the way to do this is by making the work valuable.

2.    Leadership allows for participation over sharing a vision
The idea is that when establishing goals, a leader must focus on encouraging employees’ participation instead of on creating a plan for better business.

A true leader can delegate a lot of work if he has the best people around him, but he can never let another person establish the goals and create the vision.  The leader is the only one who knows what the business can accomplish, how far it can go, and how great it can be; this is his most important job.  He can ask questions and he can look for advice, but in the end, he decides where the business is going and what he wants to achieve.  After everything is clear, the leader can share his vision.

This is not easy to do.  True leaders have the blessing of knowing how to create and communicate their vision in an inspiring way.  They are able to communicate to others the value of the work being done; they make others understand that what they are doing is good.

In order to be a leader, you have to take the time to think about how you can make things better, and make people believe in the good behind your ideas.  Only then, will employees feel honored to work for you; you become powerful and meaningful.  You possess authority and influence; and it is a responsibility as much as an honor.  True leadership changes lives, all you have to do is define a worthy vision and inspire others to work with you to make it a reality.

Become the Leader Your Company Needs. Get My 6 FREE Leadership Videos Here: www.JohnHersey.com

�Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change.�

Dr. Wayne Dyer

It is a very simple statement but it can be powerfully true.

As leaders it is our responsibility to stay fresh, remain open to new alternatives, advance solutions that may have been unthinkable just 3-6 months ago. It�s so easy to get stuck in our way of doing and thinking that before we know it we are rigid, unable to see beyond that which we already know. Once stuck it can be very, very difficult to get unstuck. So, how do we avoid it and how do we get unstuck if that is where we are. Here are some easy, do it now suggestions:

• Practice changing your perspective by questioning your automatic responses.
• Make your self uncomfortable by simply sitting in a different seat during your regular meetings. You will be amazed at how differently you hear and see the content of the meeting and the participants.
• Go into the office (if that is where you go everyday) a bit later or earlier than usual. Get to the office in a different way like taking a different route, carpooling or taking public transportation.
• Read a book you would never think of reading.
• Read a totally unusual magazine for you, not business related.
• Take a course, any course. Check out a community college, the internet or your newspaper for course listings.
• Hire a coach who will hold you accountable for getting unstuck. www.thecoachinstitute.com or email us at beverly@johnhersey.com .
• Go on an adventure vacation by yourself for a day, overnight, or long weekend.
• Do some volunteer work. Pick an organization that you believe in such as the Boys & Girls Club, school athletic team, SCORE, or check out Volunteers of America�s website for ideas www.voa.org
• Turn off the TV and go for a brisk walk instead. It�s not only a great way to boost your mood and increase your energy but you will get in shape as well.

We recently delivered a keynote speech that included a demonstration of changing your perspective. It was lots of fun. You might enjoy watching a short clip. Just go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpNBIAqMZ0k and enjoy the show.

Just DO something that is out of the norm for you. Shake yourself up. There are lots of actions you can take if you decide to get unstuck and if you really determined to get better at being a better leader.

John