Leadership

More books have been written about Abraham Lincoln than any historical figure save Jesus Christ. So, there is not much I can add to what has already been said about our 16th President. What I want to do instead is apply one aspect of his wisdom to modern-day leadership.

David Reynolds’ 2020 book, Abe: Abraham Lincoln In His Times, is a biography of Lincoln that details the various cultural forces present in his day. The most obvious being the battle between abolitionists in the North and slave holders in the South. By the time Lincoln became a relevant national figure in 1858, this debate was at a fever pitch and the country was on the brink of war.

One aspect of the book that makes it worthwhile for leaders is its demonstration of how Lincoln used language to pursue his belief that slavery needed to be abolished. Unlike some of the more arduous abolitionists of his day, Lincoln often clothed his rhetoric in moderation. He did this for two reasons. First, he wanted to ensure that he could attract the most people to his side. Leaders, as I write often here, are those others follow. So, what good would it do Lincoln to use language that could possibly alienate those on the fence? Admittedly, those of us in the twenty-first century have a hard time understanding how anyone could be on the “fence” with slavery, but history details how many there really were.

Next, Lincoln also used language of moderation to advance his own agenda. We don’t think of Lincoln as a politician, but in reality he was. Lincoln was “political” in the sense that he understood how his words would either attract, or detract, others. So, in the political sense he had to ensure that he could attract enough votes to gain the positional authority—the Presidency—to achieve his aims. While historians still debate whether the Lincoln of 1860 believed in the full emancipation of slaves, or whether it took three years of civil war for him to get to that point, what is apparent is that Lincoln was intentional in the years leading up to his Presidency with regards to the slavery issue.

The point for modern leaders to consider is that of language. Does the language unite, or divide? If it is the latter, not only are followers lost, but influence is also lost. To that end, we need to consider what is worth losing influence over and what is not. For example, is it worth losing influence over the political issues of our modern day? Or, is there a deeper cause worth fighting for that people can unite to? Only the leader can answer that question.

What is apparent in our day is the power of language. Admittedly, I am free speech advocate. This means I welcome debate, especially the kind that I do not agree with. To that end, I am troubled by the silencing that is going on in our country even though, often times I do not agree with the views of those being silenced.

My encouragement to those people, however, would be to use language in a more effective matter much like Lincoln did. Please note, history states that many still disagreed with Lincoln. After all, the bloodiest war in our country’s history was fought after he was elected President, but, he made every attempt to unite the nation with conciliatory language, as evidenced in his second inaugural:

“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

Despite Lincoln’s best efforts, however, he was gunned down 41 days later by someone present when he said the above, John Wilkes Booth.

I close here because despite our best efforts, our language may still divide. As leaders, however, we are responsible for making effort to unite and bring people together. Our nation has progressed because this is what Abraham Lincoln did.

The other day I was walking through our plants and noticed that a few presses were running slow. In our business, a slow cycle hurts profitability and delays orders. It should always be addressed. Yet, when the Plant Manager walked up to me and asked how things were going, I did not mention the slow cycle time. Rather, we talked about some general work things and then pivoted to our shared interests outside of work.

Walking back to my office I felt like a failure. I knew what I should have done, yet I did not do it. The difference between knowing and doing is often the difference between poor, and good, leadership. In this moment, I was obviously a poor leader.

I later shared this story with Sarah and reflected on why I did not do my job. For starters, I value the relationship I have with this Manager and placed that priority above doing my job. But, this is the unloving thing to do. As Sarah pointed out, if I truly cared for this person shouldn’t I have had the conversation with him to help him get better? Isn’t that the loving thing to do, rather than leaving him to fend for himself?

Worse, I did not have the conversation because of my own comfort level. I could list a bunch of excuses here: this happened in the middle of December and I was tired from all the demands of year-end, this mold was running in a press that is problematic or this Plant Manager has had to deal with more personnel problems this year than any of our other Managers — see, I had rehearsed them all in my head. But, these were all excuses! The truth is that I was being selfish and putting my own comfort first over doing my job. The truth is also that leadership is about doing the things that nobody else wants to do because they are uncomfortable (and often not fun to do).

After talking about this with Sarah, we prayed as we do every night after the kids go to bed. I use a helpful acronym (C.H.A.T.: Confess, Honor, Ask, Thanksgiving) to guide my prayers, so I began confessing all the things I had done wrong this day. This started with confessing the lack of love, and selfishness, I exhibited above. Whether or not you are one who prays, I would encourage all leaders to have daily reflection so they can own, and then take action on, their mistakes.

After asking God for forgiveness, I moved on with the night. But, the story does not end there.

The following day, I did what I should have done the day before by acting. Not only was the conversation short and respectful, the Manager even laughed and said he was relieved I brought it up. Together, we devised a plan to get the mold into a press that would allow it to run at cycle.

The reality is that I will mess up again in the future. I suspect that you will too. All leaders make mistakes. Owning the mistakes, when they happen, and taking action to correct them, are the things that make leaders people others want to follow into the future.

My leadership in 2020 quite possibly pivoted on one, single conversation. While there were countless important conversations in 2020, one outweighed them all. It outweighed all the others because had it not happened, the door would have been shut to possibility.

The conversation was one I had on ZOOM with my Executive Coach. It was sometime in the Spring, at the beginning of the pandemic, and I was outlining where the business was. Without thinking about it in advance, the words came out of my mouth that, “we probably would not be profitable for the next few months because our business had taken a downturn.” There is so much wrong in that statement that it is embarrassing to write in this blog, but it is what I said in the moment. Without hesitation, my coach immediately pushed back and asked, why?

I had more reasons for “why” than I care to share here. I had rehearsed them while I worked out, while I vented to my wife about what the politicians were doing, and even to my sisters as we talked about the downturn. I was proficient at this question, but I knew what my coach was getting at. He did not want to hear any of those lame excuses. What he wanted was extreme ownership.

I paused before responding.

I thought for a second.

Deep down inside me I knew I had already errored by surrendering leadership to circumstances. This kind of blaming, and lack of responsibility, is the birthplace of lousy leaders. As dark as the current situation was, and our company had just taken a loss, I had to turn on the flashlight and begin crawling out of the darkness.

I had to believe.

Before going on further, some of you are rolling your eyes at the word believe because you have been punched in the face one too many times. I get it. I am a driven, type-A leader. Belief on its own won’t get you to the promised land. Like Joshua and Caleb, we are going to have to work hard to enter the promised land. But also like Joshua and Caleb, we are going to have to believe the promised land is where we need to be.

Without belief, the only guarantee is failure. With belief, opportunity arises.

So, I responded back to my coach that I knew what he was going to tell me. After he asked me what that was, I told him that I could not open the door to disbelief. Rather, I had to LEAD our team with the BELIEF that we COULD be profitable.

A few days later, someone on our operational team asked whether we could reforecast our sales and profit goals. My immediate answer was no.

The team pushed back.

I stood my ground.

We must hold the line, I told them. While we did not choose the pandemic, it is what we are dealing with. Further, if we gave an inch, everyone would take a mile — not because they are lazy, but only because they are human and had multiple demands being placed on them in, and out, of the workplace. I repeated, we are holding the line.

We had to collectively believe profitability was possible.

I do not have time to go into all the things we did, but rest assured the hard work was done by our various teams. They worked harder than ever before. They are the heroes in this story. Because of their hard work, we handed out more in bonuses in December than we had the year before. Our operational team now believes they can reach higher goals in future years because of how everyone came together.

They believe now too.

Leaders, your team will rise or fall to the level of your belief. This starts with your attitude about everything and everyone.

Believe in your company.

Believe in your teammates.

Believe everyone can get better, starting with you.

Believe you can overcome when things get bad.

Believe you can work whatever the problem is.

Believe.

This last month I have focused on some of the essentials of leadership: accountability, vision, and courage. There are countless other traits necessary for a leader to be someone worth following —integrity, positivity, humility, to name a few—yet today, I want to wrap-up this mini-series with something that I think is often overlooked: predictability. In an environment that is changing faster than ever before due to new technology, innovation, and countless other societal forces, people gravitate more and more to leaders that are predictable. This happens because moving an organization from point A to point B is what leaders do, and people are naturally inclined to resist such movement; therefore, it is essential for leaders to be predictable so that people trust them enough to follow them. Hang with me while I explain…

Predictable behavior is essential because it is clear. What I mean is that when “x” happens, the organization knows that the leader’s response will be “y.” For example, team members at Apple knew that Steve Jobs demanded 100% excellence in the products they produced. So, it was extremely predictable that he would erupt, maybe even taking it too far, when the design team at Apple failed to execute even the smallest of details on a new product launch. While we can evaluate the methods of Steve Jobs’ leadership, it is hard to argue that his reactions were not, at least to a certain degree, predictable. And, this is one of the reasons people stayed on the Apple team, even after suffering through one of his eruptions.

On the contrary, one of the basketball coaches I played for growing up had multiple reactions for various situations. The most alarming came during our practices where fighting was sometimes allowed — we had multiple fist fights during our “no rules” practices. Our coach was a really good strategist — I learned many basketball lessons from him — but no one on the team wanted to follow him. So, even though our team was was tougher than nails and was very successful (26-5), many of us chose not to play organized basketball again after that experience.

Similarly, it is often cited that people do not leave organizations, they leave managers. If this is true, how many of these people cite a manager that is too predictable as the reason they leave the organization? For example, “my boss at my old job was such a jerk because every time I did something wrong he called me into his office to have a conversation.” Think about it, people never cite this. Rather, they say something along the lines of, “my boss at my old job was such a jerk because one day I would be praised for something and the next day I was criticized for the exact same thing. I could not take it anymore.” The lack of predictability destroys trust and when trust is gone, people leave.

A couple of clarifications before wrapping up. I am not suggesting that leaders should never change their minds on things. One of the things that make leaders worth following is their willingness to seek new information and ideas. I am not talking about that above, but rather that the process (behavior) leaders go through as they change their minds should be predictable. Further, predictability is often equated to as “boring” so people resist it. “Spontaneity,” for example, may be great during the early stages of a dating relationship —a female acquaintance twenty years ago called me boring because I was so predictable (truer words have never been spoken — LOL) —but, you will find that when a relationship becomes serious, good luck if your behavior remains “spontaneous.” The point again being that, people follow, or in this example, commit, to predictability. So, lead your spouse to a spontaneous activity, but never waver from your predictable behavior. See the difference? – (Love advice in this week’s post is free of charge!)

Obviously, I have gone on long enough if I have already shared two high school stories in one post.

In closing, I am committed to this blog continuing to focus on encouraging leaders to be someone worth following. As you can see, this blog too is predictable. So, to that end, I encourage you again toward accountability for your actions. The buck stops with us as leaders. Further, let’s paint a picture of a place worthy of our effort, and let’s lead people to that place. Doing so will be hard, but let’s face it, being a leader means that we get the privilege of doing the things no one else wants to do. Let’s courageously embrace this. And finally, let’s be predictable in how we behave so that people know what to expect from us on the journey.

Craig Groeschel ends each podcast charging leaders to: “Be yourself. People would rather follow a leader who is always real rather than a leader who is always right.” Authenticity is vital to leadership and the only way to be fully real with others is to be vulnerable.

I make this assertion because vulnerability is the quality or state of being exposed. From a leadership perspective, vulnerability is the force that exposes a leader’s true self to their followers. Because vulnerability does expose leaders to their followers, some argue that leaders should not be vulnerable, but, this is only true from a top-down authoritarian perspective of management. Leadership, conversely, is always about influence, and it takes trust to build influence. Thus, to come full circle, people tend to follow people that are always real rather than people that are always right. To be someone worth following, we have to be comfortable being exposed.

What does this look like? While there are probably many examples, and even entire books written on vulnerable leadership —Brene Brown’s 20 minute TED talk is a good starting point — I want to share a simple example from my own leadership that anyone reading this blog can do. I make this assertion because you do not need to read a book, take a course, or listen to another podcast about vulnerability. More learning is not required, but courage is. Having the courage to be vulnerable is always about being uncomfortable because it exposes one’s self.

My story begins with a meeting that I was leading with our Plant Managers. I spent the majority of the meeting casting a vision about the rest of 2020 and fielding questions about our strategy. I always encourage the Plant Managers to voice their opinions and we have collectively created an environment where we all —the Plant Managers, our Directors in attendance, and myself — can be real. This particular meeting was much of the same, but I felt compelled at the end to say something extra. Admittedly, this feeling came from a podcast I had listened to that morning about how the worst jobs are those where people feel under-appreciated. So, I felt compelled to point out what I appreciated about the people in the room.

I started by telling the team that what I was about to do might feel weird for them and me. I don’t know if that is how a book on vulnerability would tell me to start, but it felt right to me, and remember, the trick is to be yourself. I then went around the room pointing out things I appreciated. For example:

• I told one Plant Manager that I saw him working hard in another Plant two Fridays ago. He was sweating, helping, and was all-in. I voiced my appreciation for that extra effort and dedication.
• I told another individual that every time I walk by his office on Friday mornings, I can see him coaching his Foreman. It leaves me with encouragement because I see the future developing in front of my eyes. I told him how much I appreciate his willingness to coach.
• I told one of our most seasoned team-members that I appreciate his help in ALL matters. I also told him that I appreciate that he has the guts to tell me things other people would not tell me. (The room laughed because we all knew it was true).
• And on and on I went through the entire room….

While this may indicate that I am an extremely vulnerable leader, the truth about me is that I often “chicken out.” I fail to say something to a sibling or co-worker because I lack the courage to have a conversation in the moment. There are sometimes things I feel prompted to say, but it feels a little too “emotional” for the workplace and I don’t say it. Or worse, I have a compliment to pay Sarah and I let the time go because the moment just did not feel “right,” in my own head ……. whatever that means. A little courage could go a long way and would dispel all of the above.

Yet, as the story also points out, I CAN be vulnerable when I choose courage.

My challenge is for you to choose courage as well. Aim to be someone that is real and vulnerable. You will become the kind of person others willingly follow and much to your own surprise, one of the most effective Leaders!

People worth following are leaders and, as I have written the last two weeks, these people are worth following because they are both accountable and have a vision. The next essential component of leadership is courage. If the buck stops with the leader (accountability), and the leader is the one that helps move the organization from point A to point B (vision), courage then becomes the necessary ingredient for action. Action, however, always leads to some form of conflict because individuals, organizations, and entities often resist it. This resistance stems from the change required to move from point A to point B. Thus, the need of the leader is to courageously embrace conflict.

The leader is compelled to the “land of conflict” because conflict is the pathway to the “land of what could be.” For the individual, the “land of what could be” might be a healthier lifestyle or mindset. To achieve this vision, the individual will have to overcome the resistance towards it —a new workout routine, a changed diet, or a new way of thinking—and courageously fight through this resistance in order to achieve the vision. Organizations are no different. Casting the vision is one thing, overcoming the resistance to change is quite another.

Overcoming organizational resistance begins with addressing it head on. Leaders should not bulldoze opposing views because doing so would make them no better than a tyrant —and no one willingly follows a tyrant. Rather, addressing resistance should be done with a notepad, pen, and an open mind. Leaders should ask questions, understand what the concerns are, and even research the concerns to see how valid they are. Above all, leaders should make sure people are heard and valued. Based on what is learned, the strategy and tactics may, or may not, change. The vision itself might change, or perhaps become clearer. Armed with these new insights, the leader can begin moving the organization towards point B.

While the above paragraph sounds idealistic, I have discovered that it does not have to be. The problem is that there is internal resistance to listening to the resistance —“I don’t have time for this” is often a bogus excuse for “I don’t have the courage to spend the time necessary to do this relational work.” Or, “I am not really open to opposing views that will challenge my own view.” But, when we see it through, when we hear the resisters out, and when they feel valued, the worst case scenario is moving forward with a person that feels valued even though they disagree with the direction in which the entity is moving. This is always better than a disgruntled, unheard, and undervalued follower.

Before ending this post, there is one more point important to make. The above reality is why leaders need to surround themselves with followers who can, and will, lead themselves. This is vital on multiple levels. First, the leader is worth following because they are developing others and passing off responsibility to others. Again, dictators keep authority to themselves, whereas leaders are in the business of giving it away. This not only helps develop others, but also safeguards the organization. It is succession planning in practice.

Second, leaders need to surround themselves with followers that can lead because, as counterintuitive as it may sound, leaders need to be led themselves at times. What I mean is that leaders need help in refining the vision, and they may occasionally need to be held accountable to being courageous. After all, leaders are leaders because they are willing to do the things nobody else wants to do. Abdicating this responsibility for too long will do nothing less than destroy their credibility as a leader.

Finally, the last reason a leader must surround themselves with followers that can lead is for the purpose of organizational health. For the difference between a complainer and leader is subtle. Perhaps this oversimplifies, but the subtlety is often the courage to take action on that complaint. No leader can do this entirely on their own, which is why it is critical they surround themselves with people that can help shoulder the load.

Leaders always take action. Leaders do this because they have courage. And, to come full circle, this is one of the reasons people follow them.

Leadership is about moving from Point A to Point B. If the organization, person, or entity does not have to move from Point A to Point B there is no need for a leader. The leader, after all, is the one initiating the movement toward Point B. The leader is worth following for multiple reasons, but the primary being that the leader is moving towards something worth moving toward – in the case above, the aforementioned Point B —and others follow because of this. But what is Point B and why is it worth moving toward? These two questions comprise the building blocks for today’s topic of vision.

Before commenting further on these two essential components of vision, let’s clarify what vision is not. Vision is not a stretch goal. A stretch goal should be measurable and have a definite end, whereas a vision might never be reached fully. Similarly, a vision is not a set of beliefs. Beliefs are vitally important and assist in deciphering who should be on the team and how the team behaves. But, beliefs are beliefs and not the vision itself. A vision, on the other hand, is something worth pursuing with all your gusto because it is grand and unique to you and/or your organizaiton. It is the culmination of a worldview, or the way things ought to be in your life, organization, or world. Unlike goals, which are necessarily tactical, visions are emotional and inspirational. Goals engage your brain, whereas vision engages your heart.

To quote Simon Sinek, vision always “starts with why.” “Why” has two necessary elements: Point A and Point B. First, the leader needs to spell out why you cannot stay at Point A. Inside an organization, Point A might be “status quo” and doing things the way things have always been done. The key here is to spell out exactly why persisting this way will not work. The leader needs to take time doing so because unless people see the need to leave Point A they will stay there because human nature naturally resists change. Then, the leader needs to start simultaneously painting the picture of what Point B is and why Point B matters.

As an example of how to do this I will share how our organization summed up our vision for surviving the health and economic challenges brought on by COVID-19. Put concisely, we repeatedly told our organization that we wanted to keep as many people healthy and employed as possible. We started by explaining why this mattered: Our first core value is Family, so we drew a line in the sand and told the organization that no matter what ensued economically, our first tactic would be to keep as many people employed as possible. My sisters and I took reductions in pay first because leaders should go first. Then our Executive Team followed, and so did other volunteers in the organization. We also told our team that we would not do layoffs, or “right sizing.” While we understood how some organizations used the reality of the recession to do this — some were also forced to do this in order to survive — we decided this was not for us unless things got so bad we were forced to. Thankfully, our only bad month was April so this never came to fruition and we were able to quickly reverse course on many of the other sacrifices.

We also over-communicated what we were doing from a safety standpoint in the building. Shutting down was not an option for us because much of what our customers did was deemed “essential.” So we provided PPE to everyone, wore face masks before it was mandated, did temperature checks starting in March, and so on. While these “whats” are important, we always communicated “why” we were doing them, which again, pointed back to treating each other well and being one big family. Admittedly, this view of culture is not for everyone. And, I am also not saying that it is the best way to run a business. I am only saying that it is how we run ours and thus, is integral to our vision for surviving COVID-19 and our grander vision of where we are headed in the future.

Make no mistake that outlining the “why” and “what” did not automatically make things easy for us. As we can all probably agree, 2020 has been many things, but easy is not one of them. Still, these two components provided the building blocks for a vision.

I will close by sharing that I often imagined what it would be like to get through the worst of the pandemic and recession without any forced layoffs. This was our ideal future. Thankfully, it has been realized to date.

I encourage leaders to dream big in their organizations and set out to achieve a better tomorrow. Not only will it energize your team, but it will also bring a renewed sense of purpose to you and them. This is what makes work both meaningful and noble. And, it is the kind of thing that makes leaders worth following.

Over the next four posts I want to turn our attention to the essentials of leadership, starting today with accountability. Here is today’s assertion:

You cannot create a culture of accountability while being unaccountable yourself.

I write these words the morning I am going to lead a meeting to discuss what went wrong with a production plan. I am going to start that meeting off telling the group that the predicament we are in is ultimately my fault. I am ultimately accountable for Sales and Operations at Hoffer Plastics, so this is on me.

Without going into all the details of a private matter, I can share that while this is a fixable problem, it will be a costly one. I can also say that it is a situation where I was not directly involved in the process of deciding what action to take. Meaning, I did not make the call directly (emphasis on the word directly). I was involved in other ventures when this decision was made. After all, I cannot be involved in every venture and neither can you — so do not misread this post as suggesting to never delegate—I share this, however, to explain that even when the leader is not directly involved in the decision making process, they are still accountable for the action taken.

Before going further, let me pause to acknowledge the leader’s temptation in a situation like the one described above. The leader’s temptation is to give lip service to “Extreme Ownership,” and practice “Extreme Blame-Shifting.” For example, I could blame those directly involved in this situation for making an incorrect decision. After all, I was not directly involved. But, this is problematic on multiple levels: it puts me “above” the situation which indirectly hurts my credibility and trustworthiness. It also teaches the team that blaming others is acceptable and this only tempts them to blame others below them when things go wrong — and things always will go wrong at some point. All of this is unproductive and portrays poor leadership.

The other choice is to follow what I will refer to here as the thorny path of the leader. It is thorny and many leaders avoid it because it will hurt. But, someone has to take out a machete and forge a path forward, so should it not be the leader? I am of course referring to the path of “Extreme Ownership,” which is nothing less than extreme accountability. In the above situation, this path acknowledges the mistakes I made in leading the group. For example, I should have challenged the decision making process more than I did since one of our Sales people had voiced a concern about this change in plan. I should have also asked the team for a contingency plan, which would have safeguarded us from being in the predicament we are in today. These considerations, and I could list more, are more apparent to one not directly involved (but still directly accountable!). Putting these “should haves” aside, the accountability still stops with me. This means that I have to set the new course by hacking away at the thorns my failed leadership created. There is no other choice for the leader to make.

If you find yourself arguing with this level of accountability, I would invite you to reconsider your views of what the word means. Could it be that this kind of accountability is modeled so poorly by most leaders these days that we have had to add the word “extreme” in front of “ownership/accountability” to let many off the hook?

I hope this is not so with us. Accountability is accountability. Period. The buck stops with the one others follow. For leaders cannot create a culture of accountability without accountability starting first with them. There is no other way, as painful as it might be.