Blanchard LeaderChat

In a recent blog post at Harvard Business Review’s The Conversation, best selling business author Bob Sutton generated a lot of discussion with a post entitled Some Bosses Live in a Fool’s Paradise.  Bob’s basic premise is that leaders become more susceptible to a distorted sense of reality the higher they climb in an organization.  Why? Three reasons according to Sutton. Read more…

Have you ever wondered how bright, successful leaders go from speeding along on the career fast track to suddenly crashing and burning?  Two recent books help identify some of the unknowing ways that leaders ultimately trip themselves up in their careers. 

In Know What You Don’t Know: How Great Leaders Prevent Problems Before They Happen author Michael Roberto, a professor of management at Bryant University and former faculty member at Harvard Business School, advises managers to be on the lookout for small problems that could potentially lead to disaster down the road. 

BNET blogger Stacy Blackman recently interviewed Roberto to find out the four issues leaders need to be on the lookout for. You can see what he recommends by reading Blackman’s post on Why Managers Don’t See Problems Until It’s Too Late 

Blanchard’s own Madeleine Blanchard, who heads up our Coaching Services division, recommends a second book called Why Smart Executives Fail: and What You Can Learn from Their Mistakes by Sydney Finklestein.   Madeleine has been recommending this book to leaders because it does a good job illustrating how admirable leadership qualities can be a double edged sword. As Madeleine writes in her blog post, “Confidence and willingness to take risks is a hair’s breadth from arrogance. Will you know when you’ve crossed the line?”  

You can see what Finklestein identifies as the seven key mistakes—along with Madeleine’s commentary—by reading her post, What Not to Do

The unfortunate and sad news of recent extra-marital affairs in politics once again highlights the damage that can be done when a person in a significant position of leadership suffers a moral or ethical failure. The extent of the collateral damage of these actions remain to be seen, but this much is obvious – people can severely, if not irreparably, damage the trust and respect of those closest to them: spouse, children, staff, colleagues, and constituents. Can this trust and respect be restored? Yes it can, given the right amount of time and the willingness of people to humbly submit to the requirements they will face in rebuilding the bonds that have been broken. If anything, this incident should remind everyone in a leadership position how easy it is to suffer a fall from grace.

How do we protect ourselves from such failures? It’s a complex issue that is influenced by a person’s spiritual, mental, and emotional makeup, but we can ask ourselves a few simple questions that will help us to evaluate the impact of our decisions. Is it legal? Will this decision break any civil laws or company policies? Is it balanced and fair? Will this decision or action promote win-win relationships for those involved and is it fair to everyone in both the short-term and long-term? How will it make me feel about myself? If this decision or action was published on the home page of CNN, would I be proud? What would those closest to me think about it? Of course these simple questions won’t completely resolve all the moral and ethical dilemmas we face, but it certainly can put us on the right track.

In the June issue of Ignite, Ken Blanchard identified ego as one of the biggest stumbling blocks to people being able to collaborate effectively.  Now that ego is on my radar screen, I’m beginning to see it appear all around me. 

Most recently I saw the behind-the-scenes impact of ego described in Jim Collins new book, How the Mighty Fall.

In a section on The Dynamics of Leadership-Team Behavior, Collins explains some of the subtle changes that take place in the way teams operate once ego—expressed as “hubris” sets in.  The result is behavior that is defensive, self-promoting, comparative, and resistant to new ideas. See if you recognize any of these behaviors starting to creep into your team dynamics:

According to Collins, in teams on the way down: 

• People shield those in power from unpleasant facts, fearful of penalties and criticism for shining light on the rough realities
• People assert strong opinions without providing data, evidence, or a solid argument
• The team leader has a very low questions-to-statements ratio, avoiding critical input and/or allowing sloppy reasoning and unsupported opinions
• Team members acquiesce to a decision but don’t unify to make the decision successful—or worse, undermine it after the fact
• Team members seek as much credit as possible for themselves, yet do not enjoy the confidence and admiration of their peers
• Team members argue to look smart or to further their own interests rather than argue to find the best answers to support the overall cause
• The team conducts “autopsies with blame,” seeking culprits rather than wisdom
• Team members often fail to deliver exceptional results and blame other people or outside factors for setbacks, mistakes, and failures

Are you looking for a way out of this vicious cycle?  Start by looking at where your focus is as an organization.  Is it on serving yourself, or on serving others?  Ego plays a big part in this.  Looking for some ideas?  Be sure to check out Ken Blanchard’s interview in Ignite or better yet, join us for Ken’s webinar tomorrow on The Power of Collaboration.  You’ll learn some ways to get your organization back on track.

Two articles in my Outlook Inbox this morning got me thinking about the “triple-bottom line.”  This is a term that Ken Blanchard uses to describe the need to focus on more than just profits when measuring business success.

In the first article, Focus on Individualism Creates MBA “Monsters”? Dr. Peggy Cunningham identifies that “Too much focus on individual success and competition between companies makes people forget that they’re part of a larger social system to which they are accountable.” 

In the second article, Are You a “One and Done” Leader? authors Steven Smith and David Marcum ask, “If two people were debating or competing, and one was egotistical and the other was humble, who would win? The majority of people answer, “The egotistical person.” Why? Because while humility is an admirable trait, there’s suspicion about its weaknesses—who wants anything to do with humility if it’s incompatible with winning?”

I think that both of these articles raise questions about the wisdom of seeing business as an individually focused quest for short term goal accomplishment.

While leaders can be successful in the short run by emphasizing goal accomplishment, what tends to fall by the wayside is the condition of the human organization. Those leaders don’t always take morale and job satisfaction into consideration—only results.

This type of thinking is too short-sighted and will not position a company for long term growth or success.  To succeed long term you need to have a both/and philosophy. The development of people is of equal importance to performance. The leader of the future will need to balance a focus on results together with respect, care and fairness for the well-being of all involved.  The result is an organization where people and profits both grow and thrive.

If you’d like to learn more about a more balanced approach to leadership and a more thorough explanation of what we mean by the “triple bottom line,” check out our article on Leadership: The Key To Organizational Vitality.