What is holding you back?

6 Reasons Why Leaders Don’t Fire Employees, but Should

No. 1 – You see yourself as nice.

When someone is not performing, it is either because they are not motivated to perform or they do not have the requisite skills. If you’ve tried a variety of motivational strategies and have offered skills training, and yet you still haven’t seen significant progress, you and the employee are better off parting ways. Firing may not seem “nice” in the short term, but it’s actually the kindest thing you can do for struggling employees in the long term; the sooner they’re fired, the sooner they can move on to jobs where they have a better chance to succeed. Don’t let your self-image get in the way of doing what’s right.

No. 2 – You will have to do their job while you find a replacement.

Sometimes a replacement can’t be found within the organization. Sometimes the only one suitable for doing the job is you, the leader. The search for a replacement may take a while, which makes it even harder for you to swallow the idea of doing your job and another one. Delaying firing is understandable, but not prudent. Leaving a poorly performing employee in place not only delays the problem, it can amplify it. There is no telling how much of a drain this employee will place on morale and how much your leadership will be questioned–due to your tolerance of bad behavior or poor results.

No. 3 – You feel like you have not given the employee enough time.

You wake up every day competing with another company or someone wanting to get your job. Customers don’t want excuses; they want the best service available ASAP. Time isn’t a luxury you can afford. If the deadline for improved performance has passed for this employee, start looking for a replacement. Don’t keep restarting the clock.

No. 4 – They have been with the company for so long.

Loyalty is important to an organization’s stability and sustainability. All the accumulated knowledge and wisdom held in your employees’ minds helps you avoid past mistakes, maintain group identity, and support each other through ups and downs. Loyalty, though, is a two-way street. Is it loyal for an employee to decrease output, engagement, alignment, and accountability, or fail to develop new skills? Both parties need to have each others’ backs. Prolonged let-ups and let-downs are signs that the relationship has run its course.

No. 5 – You make the employee more important than your vision and mission.

As a leader, you are required to put the organization’s vision and mission ahead of any single employee, including yourself, while being true to your values and the organization’s. Don’t let one employee deter or prevent the organization from fulfilling its vision and mission.

No. 6 – You think the remaining team members will dislike you.

Leaders often worry about the effect firing one employee will have on the rest of the team. They worry about being disliked. They worry about employees being angry or dispirited to the point where it decreases performance. They might worry about key members protesting or leaving. Usually, though, if the fired employee was dragging the team down (and creating additional work for other team members), the team may miss the individual, but they will celebrate your decision. You will likely see the level of productivity go up,  not down, when everyone is pulling their own weight.

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Creativity is the driving force behind many new products, services, and companies around the world, creating solutions to age-old problems and offering new ways to live our daily lives. Yet despite the indispensable nature of innovation, many businesses don’t exactly foster creativity in the workplace, sometimes even actively working against it. Whether they realize it or not, there are many ways that businesses kill creativity on a daily basis, which isn’t just bad for those creative minds but also the organization as a whole. So what can be done? The first step is learning what big innovation-crushing mistakes are being made so that changes can be made. We’ve listed a few of the most common on our list here, a must-read for anyone in a management or supervisory position.

Playing it safe

Rejecting ideas out of hand because they are different than the way you’ve done things before might seem logical but when you think about it, it becomes immediately clear that this is pretty much antithetical to any goal of creative or innovative thinking. True creativity is about taking risks, breaking new ground, and coming up with things that are new and novel, not just more of the same. If you limit employees to only working within existing bounds, then you’re creating a pretty poor environment for creativity.

Restricting freedom

While employees need some structure and guidance in order to flourish and be truly creative, restricting freedom is one way to kill the creative spirit pretty quickly. One common way this happens is by making it clear to employees that new methods of doing things aren’t welcome or by forcing them to work within unnecessarily narrow confines to reach their goals. Understand that there are many ways to reach a desired result and give employees some free reign to be inventive on their own terms.

Rationing time and resources

Creativity can flourish in the most spartan of situations, it’s true, but generally, it takes time and money to make that happen on command. Asking employees to work with little to no resources and within an unrealistically short time frame might sound like a budget-conscious company’s dream, but it’s sure to burn out employees very quickly and leave them resenting you, hating their jobs, and fresh out of new ideas. Allowing employees both enough time and enough resources to do their jobs effectively is essential for fostering a creative environment.

Micro-managing

Trying to control anything and everything on a given project down to the last detail isn’t going to help creativity one bit. In fact, it’s sure to drive off the best creative talent leaving you with those who are less capable and who probably need a whole lot more supervision. Micro-management breeds frustration, wastes time, and ultimately kills morale as employees feel that you don’t trust them to get their jobs done right and on time. Step back and provide consistent guidance if you really want to foster a creative environment in the workplace.

Limiting group diversity

People who are alike generally get along well, but that’s not always a great thing when it comes to creativity. It also means that they may be thinking many of the same things and won’t have disagreements that will push and challenge members of the group to do something exceptional. Teams should be made up of people with differing skills, abilities, viewpoints, and even backgrounds so that they can bring a number of different approaches to the table when trying to solve a problem. These kinds of groups may not work as seamlessly but their work will likely make up for it.

Putting people in the wrong jobs

Just because it’s most convenient to have a certain person do a job doesn’t always mean that’s the right fit. Role mismatch is one key way companies can put a damper on creativity, giving assignments, projects, or even entire jobs to people who aren’t matched in their abilities with the tasks they’re being asked to complete. Ideally, an employee should feel as though they’re being challenged but that a given job is within their capabilities to complete on time and at a high quality. If those terms aren’t met, creativity suffers and so does the company.

Providing no feedback

It’s hard to know if you’re getting the results the company wants if you’re not provided with any feedback, and it’s likely to make you more hesitant and unsure in your future work as well. Companies and managers need to let their creative employees know when something is a success or when something could be better, as feedback is an essential part of the creative process. Without it, employees will start to feel lost, unappreciated, and perhaps even a little confused about the goals of the company and what their role is in achieving those goals.

Demanding immediate returns

Creativity takes time and often won’t offer an immediate and obvious payout to the company, even if the idea is a good one. Demanding creative people not only come up with good ideas but showcase exactly how and when they’ll benefit the company is unreasonable, and will make most reluctant to share their thoughts. Not every idea has to be a goldmine to be good or useful to an organization, a fact that’s important for any manager to remember.

Forcing all employees to work the same way

We all think differently and use different methods to come up with ideas, so why should all employees have to work the same? Some might have their best ideas in the morning; others might like to stay in the office long after everyone has left. If employees are getting the job done on time, not disturbing coworkers, and producing good work, there’s no reason to dictate the way they get to that end goal.

Shooting down ideas immediately

Some of the best ideas in history were pretty crazy at the outset and many others just needed time to be refined. When companies dismiss ideas right out of the gate with comments like “it’ll never work” managers stifle creativity and create an atmosphere where fear of rejection reigns supreme. In that kind of environment, employees simply don’t feel comfortable speaking up or sharing new and creative ideas. They’ll stick to what they see as safe and what’s less likely to get them reprimanded for daring to think outside the box.

Providing no support

Even good ideas don’t always work out and employees shouldn’t be punished for their creativity, even if a given idea fails. The quickest way to destroy creativity is to rub these kinds of failures in the faces of employees, and to remind them of mistakes on future projects. If you want to keep creativity high, stand up for employees, don’t tolerate gossip or infighting, don’t take sides or play favorites, and provide a supportive, open environment for employees to work in.

Not listening

How many times have people come up with amazing ideas that were brushed off or rejected by people who just didn’t want to listen to new ideas or already had a solution in mind? Sadly, it’s not at all uncommon and many of those great ideas were taken elsewhere with great success. Don’t drive creative people away from your company, even if their idea requires changes to the current modus operandi of your business. If you don’t listen, you’ll never get the kind of feedback you need to keep the company on top and people will just learn to go along with whatever you want because it’s too much trouble to do otherwise.

Giving employees no incentive

Incentives don’t always have to be monetary. Sometimes, employees just want to know they’ve done a good job and played a pivotal role in a team. Of course, more concrete forms of reward never hurt either, and can help boost morale and give employees a sense that they have a true investment in the future of the company. Employees who feel a vested interest in a company and see their own interests as being intertwined with the interests of the company are much more likely to turn out high quality work. Environments that lack these kinds of incentives will kill motivation, passion, and ultimately creativity as employees have no reason to really work hard.

If these issues are showing up in your culture you may want to look into executive coaching or team effectiveness training at CO2 Partners.

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Strategic Planning Process

Leaders want to inspire their team members to improve and become success stories. They want to find a way—perhaps the only way—to turn struggling employees around. They see someone else’s failure as a personal challenge, and they can spend an inordinate amount of time devising new accommodations/training and weighing whether to reduce expectations or extend deadlines. As an executive coach, I know how much time leaders spend agonizing over firing. They don’t want to feel like they’ve failed themselves or others. But I’ve also seen how not firing can severely undermine leadership.

Here are three (3) simple questions to ask if you’re weighing whether to fire someone:

1. Is the employee motivated to change?
2. Is the employee capable of making the change?
3. Do I have the time and/or resources to support this change?

If the answer to any of these three questions is “No,” then it’s time to make the move or “make the employee redundant” (as the British would say).

If you want more justification for your decision, here are nine (9) fire-able offenses:

1. Poor attendance/punctuality. If employees miss work or show up late, despite repeated warnings, they can’t be trusted.
2. Poor results. If the employee’s work is substandard, you either need to lower the standard or find someone else who can meet it. Otherwise you’ll likely shift responsibilities to other competent workers and perhaps overburden them.
3. He said, “She said….” Gossiping about others causes dissention and leads to poor morale. You need workers who communicate directly, instead of engaging in triangulating conversations.
4. Poor progress. If they haven’t made measurable progress—despite a 360 assessment (or other clear feedback and expectations) and access to developmental training/other resources—they probably don’t have the initiative or the skills to succeed.
5. Poor reports. What do others have to say about the employee? If a number of people you trust don’t have anything good to say about the employee, this person probably isn’t representing the organization well.
6. No exceptional skill. If the employee didn’t arrive with an exceptional skill and, despite being with the organization for a while, hasn’t developed one, then it’s time for both parties to move on.
7. Poor integrity. If employees fail to do what they say they’re going to do, they can’t be trusted.
8. Abuse of power. Here are some signs of abuse of power: coercion, threats, verbal abuse, shedding of responsibilities, and manipulation of information or finances. Such abuse can harm or destroy an organization’s culture.
9. Violation of company rules or culture. If employees don’t respect the organization’s rules or culture—knowingly and repeatedly—they should move on.

Related Posts: 13 Ways to Say You’re Fired, Leadership Accountability–Losing Control of Your Staff

Belief Perseverance Misleads Leaders

As leaders, we want to believe our beliefs. We stake a lot on our beliefs–our reputations, our livelihoods, and, in some respects, the livelihoods of our team members. We’re so eager to be right that we can fall victim to confirmation bias–seeking to confirm what we believe, instead of reading evidence objectively. At times, we may even persevere with our beliefs despite clear and irrefutable evidence that we’re wrong.

“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” – Mahatma Ghandi

5 Ways to Avoid Confirmation Bias & Belief Perseverance

1. Be prepared to learn. Don’t be afraid to test or revise your beliefs. Lead a learning culture by example.
2. Hire an outsider you trust to play devil’s advocate, so that you and your team’s assumptions are challenged.
3. Don’t let a limited amount of past experience (particularly one negative experience) carry too much weight. Be sure to envision the future, not just replay the past.
4. Remind yourself that your intuition is lazy (designed to make predictions quickly not always accurately) and does not want to be challenged. Be sure to seek and fully evaluate other alternatives before setting a direction.
5. When you believe something strongly, but don’t have recent and compelling evidence, be suspicious. Investigate your investment in that particular belief. Ask questions.

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Turning Down the Contrast

Education as Stretching the Mind

I still believe #1 and #2. I have changed my mind about #3. I now believe in a new version of #3, which replaces the above with the following:

a) Learn new frameworks, and be guided by them.

b) But never get so comfortable as to believe that your frameworks are the final word, recognizing the strong psychological tendencies that favor sticking to your worldview. Learn to keep stretching your mind, keep stepping outside your comfort zone, keep venturing beyond the familiar, keep trying to put yourself in the shoes of others whose frameworks or cultures are alien to you, and have an open mind to different ways of parsing the world. Before you critique a new idea, or another culture, master it to the point at which its proponents or members recognize that you get it.

Settling into a framework is easy. The brain is built to perceive the world through structured lenses — cognitive scaffolds on which we hang our knowledge and belief systems.

Stretching your mind is hard. Once we’ve settled on a worldview that suits us, we tend to hold on. New information is bent to fit, information that doesn’t fit is discounted, and new views are resisted.

By ‘framework’ I mean any one of a range of conceptual or belief systems — either explicitly articulated or implicitly followed. These include narratives, paradigms, theories, models, schemas, frames, scripts, stereotypes, and categories; they include philosophies of life, ideologies, moral systems, ethical codes, world-views, and political, religious or cultural affiliations. These are all systems that organize human cognition and behavior by parsing, integrating, simplifying or packaging knowledge or belief. They tend to be built on loose configurations of seemingly core features, patterns, beliefs, commitments, preferences or attitudes that have a foundational and unifying quality in one’s mind or in the collective behavior of a community. When they involve the perception of people (including oneself), they foster a sense of affiliation that may trump essential features or beliefs.

What changed my mind was the overwhelming evidence of biases in favor of perpetuating prior world-views. The brain maps information onto a small set of organizing structures, which serve as cognitive lenses, skewing how we process or seek new information. These structures drive a range of phenomena, including the perception of coherent patterns (sometimes where none exists), the perception of causality (sometimes where none exists), and the perception of people in stereotyped ways.

Another family of perceptual biases stems from our being social animals (even scientists!), susceptible to the dynamics of in-group versus out-group affiliation. A well known bias of group membership is the over-attribution effect, according to which we tend to explain the behavior of people from other groups in dispositional terms (“that’s just the way they are”), but our own behavior in much more complex ways, including a greater consideration of the circumstances. Group attributions are also asymmetrical with respect to good versus bad behavior. For groups that you like, including your own, positive behaviors reflect inherent traits (“we’re basically good people”) and negative behaviors are either blamed on circumstances (“I was under a lot of pressure”) or discounted (“mistakes were made”). In contrast, for groups that you dislike, negative behaviors reflect inherent traits (“they can’t be trusted”) and positive behaviors reflect exceptions (“he’s different from the rest”). Related to attribution biases is the tendency (perhaps based on having more experience with your own group) to believe that individuals within another group are similar to each other (“they’re all alike”), whereas your own group contains a spectrum of different individuals (including “a few bad apples”). When two groups accept bedrock commitments that are fundamentally opposed, the result is conflict — or war.

Fortunately, the brain has other systems that allow us to counteract these tendencies to some extent. This requires conscious effort, the application of critical reasoning tools, and practice. The plasticity of the brain permits change – within limits.

To assess genuine understanding of an idea one is inclined to resist, I propose a version of Turing’s Test tailored for this purpose: You understand something you are inclined to resist only if you can fool its proponents into thinking you get it. Few critics can pass this test. I would also propose a cross-cultural Turing Test for would-be cultural critics (a Golden Rule of cross-group understanding): before critiquing a culture or aspect thereof, you should be able to navigate seamlessly within that culture as judged by members of that group.

By rejecting #3, you give up certainty. Certainty feels good and is a powerful force in leadership. The challenge, as Bertrand Russell puts it in The History of Western Philosophy, is “To teach how to live without certainty, and yet without being paralyzed by hesitation”.

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The Ultimate Question to Ask in a Job Transition

After years serving as president and co-founder of my company, and growing it from two to 2,200 employees, I took a sabbatical. I signed up for some art classes, interviewed over a hundred leaders in a variety of fields, and began writing a book, Just Ask Leadership: Why Great Managers Always Ask the Right Questions (McGraw Hill 2009). In the meantime, I received a number of unprompted requests from leaders, asking if I would coach them.

Coaching wasn’t a career move I’d ever really entertained, but before long I had a full slate of coaching clients. Friends and acquaintances would often say, “I can’t believe it took you this long to get into coaching” and “I always thought you’d be good at this.” And yet, nobody had ever mentioned this to me while I was in my previous career!

What career insights are you withholding from friends and loved ones? What new career might prompt you to say, “I can’t believe it took you so long to figure that out” or “I always thought you’d be good at that”? Give yourself permission to tell them, and invite them to share the same insights with you. Even if you’re satisfied in your current career, what’s the harm in learning other ways to utilize your strengths?

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Posted on Tuesday April 10, 2012by Staff Writers at BestCollegesOnline.com
If you’ve never delved into the field of leadership studies as a businessperson or college student, you really should. There are dozens of fascinating theories from the field that can help you become a better leader or at the very least offer insights into the reasons why we act the way we do when leading or being led. While leadership studies is a much broader field than can be addressed in a short article like this one, we’ve pulled together some of the biggest and best theories put forth by a variety of leadership studies academics, providing you with an excellent primer for understanding not only the fundamentals of leadership studies as a discipline but also for being a better employee, leader, or mentor at work and in your personal life.

1. GREAT MAN THEORY

   Do you believe that some people are just born to lead? That’s the basis behind this early 20th century theory proposed by Thomas Carlyle. Carlyle believed that history could largely be explained through the actions of “great men,” individuals who he believed exerted high levels of influence over others through their inborn charisma, intelligence, wisdom, or drive for power. While there may be some truth to Carlyle’s idea that some people are born with characteristics that make them more apt to become leaders, his theory was refuted soundly by Herbert Spencer. Spencer believed that even those predisposed to leadership couldn’t emerge as influential figures without the help of social conditions outside of their control, and that great leaders were more the products of their environments than any particular inborn talents. It’s an interesting issue and one that we still struggle with today when trying to figure out just what drives some into great leadership roles, whether it’s nature, nurture, or some combination of the two.

2. TRAIT THEORY

   Taking a look at trait theory, you’ll see that it is in many ways related to Great Man Theory when it comes to understanding leadership. In the 1930s, many working in leadership studies believed that the traits of leaders were simply different than those of non-leaders, and that effective leaders were born, not made. A number of studies were done that looked at those in leadership roles, examining their physical, mental, and social characteristics to come up with a list of traits that could be linked to leadership effectiveness. While researchers initially thought there was great promise in this theory, studies would go on to show that there were no universal traits that consistently separated effective leaders from other individuals, though this may have been in part to blame on poor methodology on the part of the researchers. Yet these findings do bring up some interesting points and also showcase just how hard it is to pin down what separates good leaders from bad ones.

3. PARTICIPATIVE LEADERSHIP THEORY

   The idea of a participative leadership style arises from the work of Dr. Rensis Likert in 1967. Likert proposed several types of leadership styles including exploitative authoritative, benevolent authoritative, consultative, and participative. Participative leaders were those who show great concern for employees and use input and advice from these individuals when making decisions. A similar theory was proposed by Dr. Gary Yukl in 1971, with the leadership style being called delagative rather than participative. Today, the ability to be seen as a participative leader can still be important and those in leadership positions that don’t take the thoughts and feelings of their subordinates into account are rarely regarded as truly great leaders.

4. LEADER-MEMBER EXCHANGE THEORY

   If you’re going to learn about leadership studies, you’ll need to know about this big theory that has been analyzed and studied extensively by big names in the field like Dansereau, Graen, Haga, and Cashman. This theory was a hot topic in the mid-1970s and takes its roots in the larger social exchange theory, a social psychological perspective that explains social change and stability as a process of negotiated exchanges between parties. It isn’t hard to see how this could apply in the workplace, and that’s just what organizational scholars did, showing that leaders develop different relationships with each subordinate as each party defines their respective roles. The studies also revealed that when leader-member exchanges were of high quality, employees were less likely to leave, had better job attitudes, were more willing to participate, made faster career progress, were promoted more often, and showed greater organizational commitment — all things that any leader should be striving to get out of subordinates, making this one theory any present or future leader should learn more about.

5. SITUATIONAL LEADERSHIP THEORY

   Situational theories of leadership generally propose that leaders choose the best course of action based on variables that change from situation to situation. It was first proposed by Dr. Paul Hersey and Dr. Ken Blanchard, who believed that leaders chose their leadership style based on the maturity or level of the follower,dividing up the necessary leadership behaviors into four different quadrants. These included directing, coaching, supporting, and delegating, in order of those that provide the most supervision and direction to those that require the least. The fundamental lesson of this theory is that there is no one “best” style of leadership, and to truly be effective, leaders have to change and adapt their methods depending on the situation and the person or group they’re working with. Not bad advice, no matter who you’re leading.

6. CONTINGENCY THEORY OF LEADERSHIP

   If you believe that a given environment determines what leadership strategy is best, then you’ll want to learn more about the Contingency Theory of Leadership. Proposed by Dr. Fred Fiedler, this theory states that the best leadership style isn’t set in stone but varies depending on a given situation, meaning that some leaders simply may not be a good fit for certain environments. Fiedler developed the Least Preferred Coworker Scale as a way to determine which managers would be the best fit for a leadership assignment. In order to determine whether a leader is favorable for a given task, Fiedler examined three factors: the leader-member relationship, the degree of task structure, and the leader’s position power. If all three of these dimensions are high, the leader, and his or her leadership style, is considered a favorable match. For example, a leader with a drill sergeant-like attitude probably isn’t the best choice for an office that requires creative thinking and collaboration.

7. PATH-GOAL THEORY OF LEADERSHIP

   The Path-Goal Theory of Leadership was developed in the mid-’70s by Martin G. Evans and Robert J. House and draws heavily on an earlier theory by Victor Vroom called the Expectancy Theory. The theory relies on the assumption that subordinates will be motivated to do work when three conditions are fulfilled: they believe they can do the work, they believe their efforts will result in a specific outcome or reward, and they believe the outcome or reward will be worthwhile. The Path-Goal part of the theory comes in with respect to how leaders can help get subordinates to feel this way about the task at hand. According to their theory, leaders will be able to improve the motivation of subordinates by increasing the number of payoffs, making the path to the goal clear through direction and coaching, removing obstacles and road blocks, and making work more satisfying. This theory may be decades old, but the lessons it offers are just as relevant in today’s workplace as they were then, offering some scientifically backed fundamentals of leadership everyone should know.

8. SERVANT LEADERSHIP THEORY

   In 1977, Robert Greenleaf published a series of essays on a new type of leadership that he coined “servant leadership.” Servant leadership is focused on the follower, not the leader, and encourages those in leadership positions to pay close attention to the needs, desires, and motivations of subordinates. His work would be the inspiration for Larry Spears, who broke Greenleaf’s leadership model down into ten characteristics every servant leader must have. These include: listening, empathy, healing, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, commitment to growth, and commitment to building a community. With organizations across the nation trying to build more transparent and ethical leadership strategies in the wake of numerous scandals, this theory of leadership has received increased attention and should be something every well-rounded leader learns more about.

9. IMPLICIT LEADERSHIP THEORIES

   Implicit Leadership Theories aren’t drawn from textbooks or leadership guides. They’re the ideas and theories that individuals develop based on their own beliefs and assumptions about effective leadership. These theories are how individuals analyze their experiences with leaders and determine who’s effective, who’s in charge, and who’s doing the right thing. There’s been a fair amount of research in this area, with academics discovering that these individual theories change over time in response to experience, education, and social influences and that they can be shaped by our outside beliefs, values, and personality traits. This is something that’s important to know not only in how you define yourself as a leader, but in helping you to understand how others will see you as a leader as well.

10. AUTHENTIC LEADERSHIP THEORY

    Authentic Leadership Theory is relatively new, coming onto the scene in 2008 when it was coined by researchers Bruce Avolio and Fred Luthans, and it’s undoubtedly a term you’ve heard in business or leadership literature before. At the heart of the authentic leadership theory is the idea that leaders should demonstrate a pattern of behavior that promotes a healthy work environment, both mentally and physically, creates an ethical climate, fosters self-awareness, is transparent, and offers an internal moral perspective. That’s a tall order, but one that many businesses, some hopelessly focused on profit over personnel, may need to find in management to help retain and motivate employees.

11. CHARISMATIC LEADERSHIP THEORY

    This leadership theory is drawn from the term “charismatic authority,” coined by sociologist Max Weber, which he defined as “devotion to the exceptional sanctity, heroism, or exemplary character of an individual person, and of the normative patterns of order revealed or ordained by him.” Weber believed that certain people are exceptional due to their individual personalities, which makes them more attractive and charismatic as leaders, with people naturally wanting to follow their lead. If you want to see this in action, head to any schoolyard playground and see which kids are running the show; they’re likely to be the most charismatic. Yet, this type of leadership isn’t the most stable, Weber warns, and can easily dissolve in the absence of the leader or when his or her qualities are called into question.

12. TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP THEORY

    If you’re looking for a leadership theory with a broad base of research behind it, then Transformational Leadership Theory is probably your best bet. It has been the subject of countless books, articles, and academic investigations from the 1980s up to the present day, including a seminal work on the theory by James McGregor Burns in 1978. According to Burns’ book, transformational leadership exists in opposition to transactional leadership. Where transactional leadership is superficial, transformational leadership is a process by which real, lasting changes are made in both followers and leaders. Burns states that in transformational leadership, “leaders and followers raise one another to higher levels of morality and motivation.” In subsequent literature, some researchers have suggested that transformational leaders motivate followers by focusing on a common purpose, addressing intrinsic rewards and higher needs like self-actualization, and by developing a deep and lasting commitment with and in those being led. It is ideally what every leader should aspire to be, and there’s more than a few books out there that can help any budding business professional learn a thing or two about this style of management.

13. SUBSTITUTES FOR LEADERSHIP THEORY

    You may be a great leader, but you alone can’t change a situation if there are other factors that are holding you back. That idea is at the heart of the Substitutes for Leadership Theory, which gained prominence during the 1970s with research from Kerr and Jermier. It states that characteristics of an organization, task, and the subordinates themselves may negate or change the effects of leadership behaviors. The theory was developed to help explain why there aren’t stronger correlations between leader behaviors and subordinates’ satisfaction and performance, something that was also touched on with the earlier work into Trait Theory. Even those that exhibit positive leadership traits may be stymied by an inflexible organization, inexperienced subordinates, or repetitive tasks, among many other factors. While it might not be as inspiring as other theories on this list, it’s important to remember that sometimes, it isn’t you; a job just might not be the right fit.

14. FUNCTIONAL LEADERSHIP THEORY

    First introduced in research by McGrath in 1962, and expanded on by Hackman and Walton in 1986, this theory addresses how specific leader behaviors contribute to organizational and leadership effectiveness. According to Functional Leadership Theory, it’s the leader’s main job to see that the needs of a given group are taken care of so that members of the group can, in turn, do their jobs. This, it is argued, also ultimately leads to greater group effectiveness and cohesion. In more recent research, the main functions of a leader have been expanded on more precisely and can include environmental monitoring, organizing subordinate activities, teaching and coaching subordinates, motivating others, and intervening actively in the group’s work, with the goal of building relationships and setting clear roles and standards for all parties involved.

Meeting Rules That Bring You Together

30 Meeting Rules That Work

We operate under the assumption that everyone’s participation and presence in meetings is important. We want to create a culture and community where time is not wasted, opinions are shared freely and honestly, individuals are treated with respect, risk taking and open-mindedness are valued, and wise decisions are made.

Unity

1. We start and end together. If someone is not in attendance, we don’t meet. If someone needs to leave early, we end the meeting when they leave.

2. We break together. If someone needs to make or take a call or use the restroom, we all break.

3. We don’t use cell phones or electronics, except for note-taking purposes. Multitasking serves no one. The crack-berry user distracts not only himself, but others trying to hold or gain his attention.

4. We treat everyone with an equal amount of respect, no matter their position, wealth, or power.

5. We share airtime. We don’t want to miss any valuable input, so we make sure everyone—including the most soft-spoken members–contribute.

6. We celebrate. Celebrating successes makes everyone feel supported and safe, which leads to more honesty and sharing, and a stronger sense of community.

7. We follow the rules. Everyone—not just the facilitator or leader—is responsible for making sure members don’t get out of line. If we see a foul, we call it.

Confidentiality

8. We maintain complete confidentiality unless or until a communication plan is developed. We may feel divided loyalties, but we don’t allow them to breach the trust of this group.

9. We respect privacy. When someone says they would not like to discuss the subject further, we allow them that courtesy.

10. We don’t tolerate negative sidebars during breaks or while meetings are in session. We share our concerns in the meeting with everyone present, not with just one or two members in the bathroom or in the hall.

Respect

11. We criticize ideas, not people. Members won’t feel like offering ideas or suggestions if they fear personal attack.

12. We’re engaged and active listeners. We stay with the conversation’s twists and turns, and ask questions to make sure we understand what we’ve heard.

13. We affirm others. We let them know that they’ve been heard.

14. We accept that others’ knowledge, pace of learning, and skills vary. We understand that the group is stronger for that diversity.

Participation

15. “No comment” does not count as participation. If someone hasn’t shared their opinion, we ask for it.

16. We don’t ramble. Some of us do our thinking out loud, which is fine in other settings, but not here. When we’re uncertain about what we want to say or what we’re trying to say, we pause to gather our thoughts (in our heads or on paper) and cede the floor to others.

17. Only one person talks at a time. If it’s worth saying, it’s worth waiting until everyone can give their full attention.

18. It’s okay to pass. If someone is really uncomfortable speaking on a subject or truly has nothing to add, they may say so. We allow others this courtesy, too, and don’t judge them for it.

Open-mindedness

19. We offer our knowledge freely and fully. We don’t withhold important information.

20. We speak our truth, even if it means going against the tide. We’re not afraid to say, “No” or “Wait a second” or “What about…?” One lone voice, when it’s strong and clear, can turn the tide.

21. We balance advocacy with inquiry. Since our point of view is already known to us, we spend time reaching deeper into others’ perspectives. We ask open-ended questions (not leading questions) and seek a new understanding.

22. We’re prepared to learn from others and to alter our beliefs.

23. We aren’t afraid to discuss the “un-discussable.” We try to help the group break out of old paradigms, tackle thorny problems, and move toward new, innovative solutions.

24. We don’t run with the first idea without testing it fully and seeking other solutions. We allow time for questions and counterarguments to rise.

Clarity

25. We ask the “dumb” questions. We’re not afraid to reveal what we don’t know.

26. We differentiate fact from opinion. We ask, “Do you know or do you think?” and sort material into these two important categories.

27. We’re all biased by negative experiences, so we try not to let those exert too much influence on current decisions.

28. We look for dead ends. If we sense a discussion is heading toward one, we explain how and why, so we can spend our time on more fruitful pursuits.

29. We’re willing to take risks and make mistakes. We know these lead to opportunities and new learning.

30. We seek to clarify by providing concrete examples. We don’t hide behind oblique and abstract language.

Related Posts:

7 Reasons NOT to Have a Meeting

What’s the Write Way to approach meetings?

Do You Give Adequate Time to the Important Things?

Time is Money – with awesome time management tool

Services

Strategic Planning Process

What do you need to do to share your strategic plan?

Creating a strategic plan is quite an undertaking for a business. Not only are you often hiring outside firms for facilitating the process but you are using an enormous amount of internal resources for gathering data converting it to meaningful information and sorting that data over 3 to 5 days of meetings of your key players.

What is fascinating is how often this effort fails not in determining the path forward for the business but in disseminating the information broadly and effectively to all the members of the organization that were not part of the decision making team. A great strategic plan should have focus and clarity around vision, mission, objectives, strategies and actions. In order to elevate engagement and participation a communication plan needs to provide great simplicity, clarity focus without ambiguity in your communication strategy.

1) Call an all company meeting around the communicating the strategic plan. If you have any thoughts that information from your senior team will leak beforehand use email or text message to get out in front of your messaging.

2) Who’s coming to the party – Review in detail who will be present and what level of detail they will need to give to create comfort around any changes that will affect them. Think through the negative as well as positive aspects of the plan. When it has to do with change people will imagine the worst so get it all out at once.

3) Provide conceptual tools – During meeting describe the basic principles of strategic planning. Explain any new terms or definition of terms. For example if you discuss EBITDA (Earnings before interest tax and depreciation) don’t assume that all your employees will understand what you mean. If you use a Balance Scorecard model take employees through the basics so that they can understand the meaning behind what you are about to explain to them.

4) Tell and retell the history – Provide broader base around the history of the organization to create the context of how strategy plays a part in the growth of the company. You can provide the key elements of what has led to your growth and challenges in the past and how that has informed your future direction.

5) Reveal the competition – Describe your competitive advantage and disadvantages even providing some specific examples. In other words, name the competition. It may surprise you to learn how few people actually think about the impact that competition has on your business and direction.

6) Compare and contrast – Compare past planning processes with current ones. Some organizations have had very bad plans or poor execution of plans, which can give you a bad rap among employees. If you are not specific about how this year is different from the past you may have a tsunami of resistance against your planning before you have even begun to change it. Get ahead of the resistance by naming the difference.

7) Connect employees to the plan – Describe how the plan differs from the past strategies. If you went out to employees with surveys, make sure they understand how they participated in the creation of the plan. Making connection points with employees will help find a mental place for them to store the information you are sharing. Without this many companies disconnect with their people and it directly impacts employee engagement. Dow Corning uses a matrix that focuses on Intellectual Understanding and Emotional Commitment of their employees. Those that are high in both are considered Champions. If you execute your communication plan well you are more likely to develop Champions within your organization.

8) Describe the plan and what barriers will likely appear that may prevent your organization from achieving its vision, mission, objectives and actions. Remember that all employees have different levels of understanding so make sure that you not only describe the numeric of the plan but what the terms mean and why they are meaningful to understanding the business. We all have different stages in our learning. Differentiate between signal and noise for your employees to determine relevancy.

9) Provide handout of the plan (Don’t handout information that you would not want your competitors to see – it is a fine line of who to share what information with – within the company). If your plan is in book format please do yourself a favor don’t pass that out. Provide the critical information that will help support your employees doing their job.

10) Point out the differences – Describe the way in which you would imagine how these differences would show up in behaviors in the organization. The greater the clarity of how these changes will impact each individual the higher your return on both your planning and your communication delivery.

11) Ask them what they believe will be different and the same. Often times leaders don’t want to ask questions because they are afraid of what they may hear. Remember just because you don’t hear it does not mean that they are not thinking those thoughts and discussing them among each other. The only difference of you asking is that you now will know what is going on for them.

12) Allow them to ask you questions. Often times this model puts you as the leader on a pedestal, which is not the leader of today. So be careful about showing up as the leader with all the answers.

13) Reinforce Communication Strategy on regular intervals and in different ways:

a) Ask them to each meet with their managers about the details and implications of how they do their work within the firm.

b) Provide a report card monthly on how the company and or area is doing against the plan.

c) Provide employee reviews that directly connect back to the plan

d) Tie compensation back to the success of the plan.

e) Include connections in the company newsletter or intranet blog about successes and challenges associated with the plan

f) Put up a communication board or measurement graphic that will keep everyone connected back to the plan and be explicit.

g) Use infographics to present information back to employees

h) Hold quarterly employee meetings live or by video if you are challenged geographically and reconnect everyone back to the plan.

i) Use walls and screen savers to propagate company values and mission regularly.

j) Use electronic score board on video monitors throughout organization.

k) Use metaphorical premiums that can represent the over-arching vision.

If you use some or all of these steps in your communication strategy you will reduce resistance and increase the likelihood of success in your favor.

Related Posts:

What Goes Into Your Strategic Plan

Strategic Planning Motivation 3.0

Creating a Vision Statement

Business Model Generation

Strategic Planning Words Are Important

Reasons Not to Meet

Leaders need to know not only how to run a good meeting, but also when NOT to hold one.

Here are ten reasons why a meeting should be canceled or rescheduled:

1. A key member can’t make it. Rescheduling is a pain, but it’s worse to bring everyone together and not be able to do the work planned. If you need a key member’s input, reschedule.

2. The agenda hasn’t been distributed far enough in advance. People need time to prepare for the meeting, make suggestions and changes to the agenda, and get a sense of how much time each item will and ought to be allotted. They should receive the agenda at least 3 days in advance.

3. The purpose of the meeting isn’t clear. When meetings are simply informational, participants feel and resent their time being wasted. Make it clear what is to be accomplished, why, how, and when.

4. The work could be done quicker or better in another format (e.g. e-mail or phone). Don’t hold a meeting unless that’s the only and best way to get the work done.

5. Reading materials haven’t been distributed beforehand. Reading should be done on each individual’s time, not group time.

6. The only available meeting space won’t accommodate the group’s technological needs. If material can’t be presented convincingly or in its truest form, hold off until it can.

7. A recent event or finding has rendered the meeting’s purpose/discussion moot.

Related Posts:

What’s the Write Way to approach meetings?

Do You Give Adequate Time to the Important Things?

Time is Money – with awesome time management tool

I first ran across 5-15 reports in Growing a Business by Paul Hawken. My company was growing 50% compounded annually per year, and I found it difficult to manage information. Responding to similar pressure, Yvon Chouinard, CEO of Patagonia, designed 5-15 reports as an upward and efficient channel of communication. Here’s how they’re structured:

Name:

Week Ending: / /

Accomplishments for the week:
[List completed activities and notable accomplishments. In general, what is working? What is your current state?]

Priorities for next week:
[List priority tasks for next week. Be specific.]

Challenges/ Roadblocks:
[Imagine and describe potential challenges that may impede planned tasks.]

Lessons Learned/Opportunities for Improvement:
[List any areas that may benefit from improvement. What questions are you trying to solve? What is a lesson that you recently learned or relearned?]

That’s it. Short and simple, but effective and efficient.

1. We have not been measuring the things right
2. We have not been measuring the right things
3. The dimensions of performance interact
4. Star actors and directors increase revenue but my not increase profitability
5. Spectators have good taste but also enjoy bad films
6. Regional preference is the norm in countries with strong film industries

The Future of Email

As a leader, do you read and respond to e-mail as much as you used to? Or are you starting to tune out? Over a year ago, Aditya Kothadiya posited that personal e-mail has become more of a notification medium and less of a communication medium. His argument looks even stronger today.

While Twitter and Facebook and other social media get more and more subscribers, e-mail is starting to feel a lot like snail mail. Leaders need to consider the short- and long-term implications. You need to know that the messages you send will be read, when, and by whom.

How much of your work do you conduct via e-mail? And have you begun to phase it out?

Below is the beginning of Kothadiya’s post:

“Now a days my personal inbox is primarily filled up with notification, alert or newsletter emails. Most of the emails I receive are about notifying me that someone has commented on my Facebook status or Blog entry, or someone has started following me on Twitter or Quora. Then there are alert emails from financial institutions or insurance agencies reminding me about paying my bills. And the third category is emails from companies or products about their promotions, offers or monthly newsletters.

In fact, now a days I receive very few personal emails. My friends are communicating with me on the social networks like Facebook and Twitter. My family is communicating with me using phone or similar VOIP services. Very rarely my friends or family members will send me a personal email asking about my whereabouts. If at all I receive email from them, it will be mostly related to some work only.

Over the past decade we’ve been believing that email is one of the most widely used communication medium, but I think it’s not entirely true anymore. The communication part of email is slowly dying down. The communication aspect now has been taken care by other social properties on the web, and email has become more of a notification medium for your communication activities on other services.

One problem with this trend is, even though our communication is happening on other services, we still spend similar amount of time on email services to manage these notification emails – we still have to open it, read it, and then delete it. And we also spend same amount time on other services to actually communicate with our friends and family. Now a days I don’t even open these emails and simply delete them based on their subject line.” To read the rest, click here: A Change in Email