This blog post features another excerpt of a special report called “Ten Traps Leaders Unwittingly Set for Themselves ~ and How to Avoid Them” (valued at $47) that I am giving away to anyone who is willing to take the time to complete a brief survey to help me determine people’s most significant leadership challenges. To get your free report, go to http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=saAAJEMZHUw6ptu39axnsw_3d_3d
In appreciation of your participation, I’ll also send you a free audio briefing on The Seven Secrets of Extraordinary Leaders ($47 value). As a bonus, you’ll also receive and a one year subscription to Synchronistically Speaking ($197 value) which features an executive briefing on a different leadership challenge each month.
Early in my career, I would get requests from leaders to come and help them “fix” their organizations. “My people need to learn to work better together,” they would tell me. And I would go about interviewing these people to find out what was going on. I asked them questions about what was working and what was not, what they thought needed to be changed, and what other insights they had.
Often these interviews generated a great deal of feedback for the leader that suggested that he or she was part of the problem. Roles were not clear and people were stepping on each others toes, poor performance was being tolerated, the vision was fuzzy, they didn’t have the resources, support, or direction they needed to perform. And the lists went on.
It is easy as leaders to think that a large part of our work is getting others to do things or behave in certain ways. We can set goals, issue mandates, and give all the pep talks we want. My experience is that the best leaders are those who lead others through their own example. “Actions speak louder than words”, we have been told since we were children. This could not be truer in the case of leadership. As Mahatma Gandhi so beautifully said, “We must be the change we wish to see.”
This means that when there are problems, we need first to identify our role in them and seek to influence what is truly in our control. This could be with regard to the systems we create, the resources we provide (or withhold), the direction and clarity of expectations we communicate, our vision, and our own openness to feedback. We must also be willing to take a good look at the example we are setting and be honest about whether we are unintentionally modeling the very behavior we do not want to see.
I have learned over the years that I cannot truly coach leaders until they are willing to take this kind of responsibility for their actions. Until they make this critical shift, they will complain about the ways others are behaving and try to engage me to help them find ways to make others do things they are not willing to do themselves. Anytime we blame others for things, we conveniently excuse ourselves of the need to change, add to our blind spots and render ourselves powerless.
The most powerful way we can keep our people from falling into this trap is to make sure we are not going there ourselves. Only then can we demonstrate the power each individual truly has and help them to focus it in ways that contribute to something worthwhile.
Unleash the Extraordinary!
Diane Bolden
© blog posts copyright 2007 Diane Bolden. All rights reserved.
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