Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Leadership Patterns have Roots

I read a great quote the other day from Parker Palmer. He said, “A leader is a person who must take special responsibility for what’s going on inside him or herself, inside his or her consciousness, lest the act of leadership create more harm than good.”

When I spend time thinking about this quote I quickly concur that the act of leading oneself is far more demanding than leading an organization or any group of people. If I fail to look inward, evaluating my own habits and ways, I will have moments of uncontrolled outburst in front of those I lead that are rarely rooted in the present, but in the past, in some recess of my sub-conscience.

Ruth Haley Barton puts it well in her book called Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership. She says, “Part of the reason that leadership is crucible is that if we stick with it past the initial euphoria, the demands of long-term leadership usually push us to a place where our patterns are clearly revealed. The demands of leading an organization keeps our face pressed up against the mirror until we are able to acknowledge the hidden dynamics that are driving us.”

What has been your experience in connecting the dots between your leadership behaviors today and your past experiences that helped form you, be that good and bad?

jp

Monday, October 5, 2009

Decisions Decisions

Just finished a book that I started a few months ago and had a couple of chapters to complete. It’s called How We Decide by Johan Lehrer. I really enjoyed reading this book and thinking about how our brain works when it comes to decision making activities.


I enjoyed figuring out my own patterns on decision making and thinking about those of the people that I lead. The other day I was sharing with a colleague about my decision making habits and it brought to mind this book and that I had not completed it yet.

The way my particular brain works is that I am quite analytical about things. I am always for more details, more information so that I can make the right choice. This is just fine for those of us analytical types, but the book talks about when landing on the decision, your best decision will usually be from the gut and not from the raw data. After reading and evaluating the way I come to decisions, it’s not too far off what the book is talking about. While I drive those crazy around me looking for all the inputs to a problem, I still respond to the solution with my gut instinct.

The book is telling me that this is actually the best way to go! It doesn’t mean I ignore all of the inputs, on the contrary, I take them all into consideration. What I have learned from reading this book is that most of our intuitions are based on sub-conscious knowledge. So if you and I perform due diligence on fact finding, then follow our gut instinct, we will find more often than not that we choose right.

How do you make decisions? Fast, slow, never? What is the biggest thing you wrestle with when making decisions? The aftermath of second guessing?

jp

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Leadership In View

I’ve called this blog Leadership in View because I am amazed that every time I think about my leadership skills and experiences, I realize just how much I have yet to learn. Looking back is a good thing, and we will do that most of the time because that’s where the lessons are found. But the main reason we look back and is so that we can see the way forward. The next leadership challenge for a leader is just lurking around the corner waiting to pounce. I know! Gets the adrenalin going doesn’t it!

Enjoy. Enter into the conversations often so that we can all navigate the way forward from each other’s experiences and learned ways.

jp

Leaders look long


At noon today I had a wonderful opportunity to hear Rick Hillier speak at a local fund raiser for the Red Deer Food Bank. Rick Hillier is a retired general from the Canadian Forces, once holding the highest rank possible from 2005 through to 2008. He witnessed firsthand the efforts currently underway in Afghanistan and has been the most vocal Chief of Defence Staff in advocating for increased defence funding than any one that previously held that position.


He told us many stories of heroism and gave us a good picture of life on the ground in Afghanistan for our soldiers. Throughout his talk he highlighted a few points of what it takes to be a leader in today’s world.

The one that stood out for me is that leaders have to look long. Only by having a clear long term objective are you able to make quick, concise and effective short term decisions that will not impact the long term view. Without the long view your current decisions will be all over the place and have the potential to greatly impact the future in unknown ways.

This fit in nicely with some of my thinking over the past while where I’ve come to a good understanding of the term “cause and effect” when it comes to leading and making changes in an organization’s culture. Cause and effect are not to be considered as a quick way to solve problems. Large problems are usually solves by small incremental solutions. As leaders we are in the tinkering business rather than the wholesale “out with the old, in with the new” business. Consider every move forward and the impact it will have on the whole. Every small move should be done with intent and thought. It will pay off big time down the road.

Would you share with us all how you made a simple little change to solve a huge problem that resulted in a huge win down the road, or, if you are even braver, share with us your story of thinking short term and making a quick decision that negatively impacted the long term view?

jp