Loyalty: more than a quaint notion

Executive Leadership Vol. 23 September 2008
ExecLeadership.com

Not everybody is ready to step up, so congratulations. Here are a few guiding principles on building loyalty and trust:

Leave your ego in the parking lot. Yes, you need self confidence, but a leader’s job is not about empowering yourself. It’s about doing that for everyone around you.

Grow antennae, not horns. Think about meetings this way: You’re going in there to find out what’s messed up and how to fix it.

Show maturity. Leaders exhibit a good sense of timing, think before they act and put themselves in other people’s shoes.

Build trust. If you don’t follow through on your promises, or if you appear to mock people when you’re just joking around, you will have a hard time winning their loyalty. Mistrust is reversible, but it might take a while.

Give away glory. If you have ever been tagged as a narcissist, now is the time to lose that label. Take every scrap of blame on yourself and give away all the glory. This is not merely so you can act like a sponge and soak up bad news. It should also poke you to question and improve your processes, which will be really hard at first, before it becomes really fun - when your team starts winning.

Keep learning. Making yourself comfortable at one skill level is not an option. Don’t foist onto someone else the responsibility for operations you don’t understand. Constantly ask what will work better.

- Adapted from “Building Blocks of Leadership,”
Ken Bradford, The Leaders Course,
www.leaderscourse.com

See you in the trenches - vmsteveo

Leadership & Self-Deception - getting out of the box

So the kids are back to school and I am back on track with the book reviews. I apologize to our readers that haven’t had much fresh content lately and I promise that will change in the coming last months of 2008 and well into 2009. On with the review….

Leadership & Self Deception, getting out of the box
by the authors of The Arbinger Institute

review by vmsteveo

What a jerk! How can he be so selfish? Does he realize how much of a problem he is causing? How can she say I am non-committed when I am the one doing all the work? If he goes over my head one more time!!...

Leadership and Self-Deception is yet another paradigm shift into understanding a problem that your coworkers, employees, direct reports, boss, spouse and kids all know that you have. The problem is you don’t have any idea what it is or how to fix it. After all, how can you fix something that you are unaware you have? Confused? Read on Kemo Sabe!

Leadership & Self-Deception, Getting Out of the Box teaches you to understand self deception behaviors that come as a result of betraying an action or feeling that you know is the right thing to do.

Example: You have a new born child, its 2 AM and she starts to cry. Your thought is to get up and tend to your new born to allow your spouse to get some needed rest (I might have been here a few times in my life). You now are faced with two choices:

1. Honor the action and tend to your newborn
2. Betray the action even though you know it’s the right thing to do and fake that you are sleeping nudging your spouse to get out of bed to tend to your newborn (oh yea, I’ve been there).

If we honor the action we are outside of the box of self-deception and allowing ourselves to run true to our thoughts, actions, and feelings. If however we choose to self-betray, a slew of repercussions and self justifying behavior occurs. Welcome to “The Box” of self-deception. Thoughts literally domino on how you perceive the other person based upon your own betrayal:

Lack of commitment
Lack of engagement
Trouble maker
Conflict
Lack of motivation
Stress
Poor teamwork
Backbiting
Misalignment
Lack of trust
Lack of accountability
Communication problems

The interesting concept here is your investment in justifying your decision not to honor the action which creates the above issues. These issues you created project upon you from the other parties’ perspective. Instead of the intended person or party being the one with the above problems, not honoring your action has a completely opposite effect as you are now percieved as the one with the above issues. Hence we have self-deception. Think about it. These aren’t truly or at least aren’t as drastic as you now perceive the other person to be and actually werent there at all until the point you decided to betray yourself. You’re in the box! Your reality is now completely sku’d based upon your inability to honor what you knew was the right thing to do in the first place.

Do you think the other person had any investment in you or your decision at that moment of you honoring or betraying an action? No, of course not! If you honored the decision you were doing it because it was the right thing to do. But what is the investment of the other person if you self-betray the action? Hint, look at the above list.

The author gives both personal and business examples that clarify this concept of recognizing when you are inside the box of self deception and how to get out. They also explain that we carry boxes with us and apply as necessary to specific situations which indicate that we can be inside and outside of the box depending on the situation at that moment. The good news is there is always a way out of the box but it takes a commitment to honor those actions that you know are true.

In summary, when outside of the box, decisions to do the right thing are easy and perceptions of situations and people remain clear. Stress is taken away because you are honoring what you know is the right thing to do vs. supporting a decision of self betrayal.

See you in the trenches - vmsteveo