leadership assertiveness posts

CEO leaves executive team adrift

October 06th, 2009

I’d like to share a story that doesn’t have a happy ending. It’s a story about what happens when a high-functioning executive team with well-defined roles, strengths, and dynamics suddenly loses a member and fails to adjust. If you’re a CEO or senior executive, don’t let this happen in your organization.

I recently worked with a company that had offices across Canada and an executive management team that had been together for over 10 years. They communicated well, were willing to give direct and corrective feedback, shared an understanding of the strategic and tactical goals of the company, and reviewed their metrics with regular monthly strategic meetings.

The company was lead by a female CEO, whose father had passed the company to her 10 years prior. She had stepped into the role with no previous experience and decided to bring in outside resources to establish norms of effective teaming, help the team articulate the strategic plan and understand how to review it on a regular basis. (This is where I came in – facilitating the annual strategic planning process and monthly management meetings.)

She had a consensus building leadership style; she put issues on the table for discussion with her trusted team and then, if necessary made the final decision after weighing all of the viewpoints. A key role at the table and, definitely her primary strength.

As profits soared and the executive management team dynamic flowed effortlessly, she decided to have her first child. I was excited to see how this team would now step up and take on strategic and tactical decisions in her absence. What a possibility for the team to grow to new heights, to function with a deeper level of commitment. It’s interesting how her decision to have a child, could also birth the next level of possibility within her executive team.

Before she left, this CEO needed to pass her authority to another member of the team, but, unfortunately, she didn’t let go of her role. She chose not to do so. Instead she simply left to have her child. She assumed the team would continue to function in her absence.

Instead the team floundered because a  primary leadership strength – building consensus and making the final decision was no longer at the table. Not one of the executives had the ability to make final decisions when needed. Their once dynamic meetings became meetings of discussion after discussion without decision making and actions of how to move forward.

I sometimes wonder whether this CEO recognized her primary strength and role on this team. Why didn’t she assign responsibility for decision making while she was gone? Was she paralyzed with fear that the executive team would function in a different way in her absence. making it difficult for her to find her place on the team when she returned? Watching the team flounder was extremely difficult – I was saddened by the lost opportunity for the CEO to birth both a child and a more highly functioning team.

Challenge your Teams to Exercise Clout

September 17th, 2009

The most effective teams are full of people who have the courage to exercise professional clout in  meetings. They’re prepared and passionate about the meeting contents, willing to be influenced and to influence others. They are willing to take ownership of their individual excellence; their wisdom, knowledge and judgement. All of this equals clout!

You may ask – why clout?

The word clout resonates for me. It represents the courage to be excellent, to put forth my viewpoint and to influence my team. If I’m successful, hopefully I will have the courage to try again next time.

Clout is different than power; my interpretation of power is too closely linked to control.

Brigitte Lacombe wrote a great article in the September 2009 issue of Oprah Magazine titled “31 Ways of Looking at Power” (http://www.oprah.com/slideshow/omagazine/200909-omag-power-list/9) in which she highlights Shirley Ann Jackson, Ph.D.’s formula for power:

1. Follow your passion with persistence, magnified by intense preparation (preparation and passion)
2. Use compassion and courage to weave a strong web of connections (influence)
3. Use focused excellence to drive achievement and gain wisdom (ownership and courage).

She states, “It is through combination of all these things that your power will reveal itself. The magnitude and reach of your power is up to you”. She continues,  “Connectivity is key; it is what creates and strengthens your web of opportunity. The more connected you are, and the stronger your connections, the more effective you will be in obtaining and using power to achieve your goals.”

Now that resonates for me! That woman has clout! Your thoughts?

Own your side of the dialogue!

September 01st, 2009

There are incredible benefits to leveraging diversity in organizations. Broad expertise, knowledge and judgment can create major communication challenges or outstanding opportunities!. To benefit from diversity, we need to work together and be effective in navigating our differences.  We can do this by taking more ownership of our side of the communication, our side of the two-way dialogue.

I recently worked with an extremely talented CEO who was visually impaired.  To improve communication and team effectiveness within his organization, I facilitated a number of teaming experiences in which his associates were blind-folded. Once they experienced what “visually impaired” truly meant, they started to utilize different ways of communicating to complete the task at hand. They also started to recognize how their CEO had to work differently to get things done.  They had more empathy for him. End result, they became more aware of how they could increase their communication with him by being more responsible to their side of the dialogue.

I’m now working on a team with a deaf woman, and it has been a most incredible learning experience for me. I’ve learned to adjust my own communication style, to apply different techniques in an effort to respect the wonderful diversity she brings to the group.

• I have realized our ‘communication loop’ reflective listening competence; in which the receiver of the communication re-phases what they heard from the sender, is as effective when she re-types as when we re-phase,
• I have learned how ‘instant chat’ can trump email for effective communication,
• I have learned to write more in my blog posts as opposed to simply uploading a video,

The most important thing I’ve learned is that I have to be responsible for my part of the communication, for my part in this relationship.  So I’ve started to learn expressions in sign language. Even though I am not great, not perfect, she can still understand when I say, “Good morning, how are you?” She can understand when I say, “Can you repeat, I don’t understand.” She starts to be able to communicate with me because I am working to improve my side of the dialogue.  As a manager, leader and co-worker I have to draw people out and help them understand the message I’m delivering.

For me, diversity just means we are different. We’re different because we have limitations. We’re different because we have strengths. We’re different because we come from different places and we have been brought up with different norms.

It takes self-awareness and initiative to recognize these kinds of communication challenges and courage to make them opportunities. When you consider the diversity in your teams, can you see opportunities to improve the way you communicate? Can you take more ownership of your side of the dialogue and become more effective in the process?

Emotional Intelligence and Our “Private Self”

August 14th, 2009

This weekend I went to see Julie & Julia. Loved it! It got me thinking about “The Feedback Self Disclosure Matrix,” a tool that can help all of us – particularly CEOs and senior managers – create deeper connections and better results in our businesses and with our teams.

This matrix is based on the foundations of the Johari Window model that was developed by American psychologists Joseph Luft and Harry Ingham in the 1950s. The Matrix is comprised of four quadrants.

Each quadrant represents a part of our self, representing particular behaviours, feelings, motivations that are known by (self) and about the person (other).

At the bottom of the illustration you see how the four different quadrants of the ‘self’ can be altered in size reflecting the relevant proportions of each type of ‘knowledge’ of/about a particular person.

The four quadrants of our “Self” are Private, Public, Blind and Unknown.

The horizontal axis shows how much a person asks for & receives feedback.

The vertical axis measure the amount the person self-discloses & gives feedback.

This dynamic feedback model illustrates:

• People with high emotional intelligence (large ‘public self’ – orange box) ask for feedback, give feedback and self disclose often.  They have well-developed public personas.
• Those who are protected (large ‘private self’ – green box) keep ‘what they know about themselves’ private. These individuals rarely choose to self-disclose.  Their Private Selves are large, making it difficult for colleagues to comfortably collaborate and communicate with them. These individuals often control the flow of conversation by asking many questions. They rarely share their own experience. So, they don’t get much feedback so their Emotional Intelligence is suspect.
• Aggressive (large ‘blind self’ – yellow box) give plenty of feedback but don’t ask for it a lot – their Blind Selves dominate.  They aren’t as aware of themselves or environment. This hampers their ability to work collaboratively or take in feedback from others. They have a low level of Emotional Intelligence.
• The Well of Potential (large ‘unknown self’ – brown box) these folks neither ask for feedback, nor give much feedback – if they started to open up, they would experience a great deal of professional and personal growth because they would be developing their Emotional Intelligence.

After seeing Julie & Julia, my girlfriend left the theater inspired to do more cooking – I left with the realization that this blog is a perfect vehicle for me to self-disclose. I can decrease my ‘private self’ while increasing my ‘public self’. As I write this I realize that will take additional courage on my part – yikes. I’ll get feedback!

I’m rarely at a loss for words. I think nothing of standing in front of 500 people to lead a professional development seminar. But spilling my guts in front of a video camera to post a new blog is scary. I get the shakes even writing this!

Back to the movie …

Julie trembled in her boots as she blogged about her frustrations, joys and commitment to learn how to cook the Julia Child way. She opened her Private Self to make her experience more public. I connected with her more deeply because of it.

Executives with high emotional intelligence are better able to lead and motivate their people.

Sharing their Private Selves is an important behavior.  I realized that just standing up in front of a room and blogging are public activities, but it doesn’t automatically mean I’m revealing or connecting.

There is learning here for me, as there is for the CEO’s, sr. managers and executives that I work with.

Lets drop the hesitation. Pick-up a bit of courage. Boost our Emotional Intelligence. So, we’ll no longer miss an opportunity to gain more feedback and build deeper connections.

I’m committed to doing so – thanx Julie!

With time, courage, and your feedback, I’ll explore my Unknown Self, become more comfortable with my new Public Self, and get better results through improved Emotional Intelligence.

Are you comfortable sharing your Private Self in your business life? Think it might be important to develop your Emotional Intelligence? What do you think?
Download Feedback-Self Disclosure Matrix

Emotional Intelligence Series #7: Leadership Assertiveness and the Importance of the Vision!

June 28th, 2009

Sorry about the volume of this video – some of it was shot in studio and some outside; audio levels vary.

In April, I participated in Habitat for Humanity’s Toronto Women’s Build. I was in a group of 60 business leaders gathering to give back, to have a fun day and to somehow swing a hammer to build one of sixteen new homes for families in need.

As eager business women with type A personalities, we were all juiced and ready to jump in!

Habitat for Humanity gave us the overall vision of the day. Our project manager then started us with some tactical direction – it excited all of us for a short period of time.  Then we all became very ineffective.  Our participation slowed and motivation waned.

A fellow entrepreneur, Joan, saved the day with her high level of Emotional Intelligence:

1. Self Awareness in her ineffectiveness,
2. Self Management in her ability to manage her frustration and,
3. Her courage to act with Leadership Assertiveness; simply requesting that the project manager share the tasks vision.

Watch this video – a great case study for team effectiveness. Consider the following:

1. Describe the project/task vision. All of us need to understand where we are going so that we can get there.
2. Provide direction then support. Provide detailed direction to the newbies on your team (like us — highly motivated but lacking in task specific competence in how to build a house). Provide support when you recognize effectiveness is declining.
3. Encourage your team members to uplead. Joan exercised her leadership assertiveness in asking our project manager to explain the vision of the task – this is ‘upleading’,
4. As a leader, respond to the upleading immediately. If a member of your team behaves with a positive uplead – grab it and act immediately. Our project manager did just that! She led us to the sample home and showed us the needed end result.

Emotional Intelligence – What the heck is it??

April 21st, 2009

Emotional Intelligence is smart!
It is key to the success of highly developed and functioning teams. When individuals are aware of the five elements of emotional intelligence they have a deeper ability to navigate individual and team effectiveness.

There has been lots of buzz about Emotional Intelligence for years, as well as lots of confusion about what it is.

In this video, I discuss the five core elements of Emotional Intelligence that we use when working with teams:

1. Self awareness: the ability to connect with my emotions and articulate the source,
2. Self management: the ability to manage what I do in the midst of that awareness,
3. Empathy: once I experience self awareness I can increase my empathy for others,
4. Social skills: I can navigate my relationships using my self awareness, management and empathy,
5. Leadership assertiveness: not to be confused with ‘leadership aggressiveness’. With assertiveness I can competently come forward with my viewpoint and opinion to influence others and to promote effective decision making.

Consider the impact that elevated emotional intelligence may have within your core team. Willing to share a comment?