Sunday, November 18, 2012

Leaders as Architects

A handful of family and friends may remember my early aspirations to study architecture. Throughout my junior and senior high school years I passionately pursued my interest in designing buildings, even participating with a group of classmates to create and build a scale model house as a class project. Penn State University was the destination of choice to prepare for my lifetime career.

There are many reasons why this dream remains unrealized but that’s not the reason I'm sharing this story. Instead I want to consider the architect role leaders need to play within organizations. In many ways my unfulfilled dream of designing buildings has been replaced with an equally important role of designing the systems that will allow employees to flourish. Let me explain.

Success in any enterprise often rests on the pillars of organization, management, process, and culture. Yet few managers and leaders acknowledge and develop these four areas simultaneously. In fact, the importance of culture is widely ignored when mergers or acquisitions are considered. The new company that emerges may have streamlined expenses but often at a human cost outweighing any perceived benefits.

A variety of books and articles have touted the value of engaging employees yet very few leaders seem to know how this works in the real world. Instead of truly listening to employees and incorporating their ideas into process improvement, leaders often create bureaucracies that stifle the very insights they hope to hear.

That’s where the concept of leaders as architects makes sense. Architects are the chief builders during a construction project. They must question their client extensively to understand the needs and requirements for the project. Architects coordinate the various roles within their design team as the project takes shape. Later they advise the general contractor while the building is being constructed. In each of these roles the architect enables others to operate at a high level while they ensure that the overall project vision is fully realized.

If leaders behaved like architects they would spend more time assessing the needs of employees and clients. They would know how to assign project team roles to the persons best suited to carry them out. As leaders they would spend less time actually constructing their personal empires and more time designing systems that would allow everyone in the organization to contribute their very best effort each day. The architect leader would leave a legacy of simplicity, where processes and standards are followed. It would be a place where everyone felt like they belonged, a place where the mission was clear and easy to understand.

Perhaps my early interest in architecture has found a new home in my current role as a leadership development trainer and coach. I may not be designing innovative homes and towering skyscrapers but that doesn’t mean my work is any less important. Plus, I can do it all without a slide rule or calculator.

Sunday, November 11, 2012

Choices

I doubt if anyone reading this blog (with perhaps the exception of a few political junkies) is sorry the recent national election cycle is over. Well, if I owned a television or radio network I might be lamenting the absence of all that commercial advertising revenue! Regardless of which side you supported it’s obvious that the tone of this campaign was more nasty than many in recent memory. So how do leaders respond after a slug fest that resulted in a nation divided by ideology, with nearly half of the voters choosing to “stay the course” and the other half wishing for immediate change?

The leadership I have observed in politics and business over the past numbers of years all have one thing in common - they fail to inspire. Don’t misunderstand, I’m not suggesting that our leaders are not well-educated or experienced. Many of them work hard and seem to care about the people they lead. But an inspiring leader does more than that.

Author Lance Secretan outlines the secret to inspirational leadership in his book, “ONE: The Art and Practice of Conscious Leadership.” He shares these five ingredients: courage, authenticity, service, truthfulness, love, and effectiveness. If you pause to think of leaders you know who inspire, they all possess these characteristics.

Where was authenticity, truthfulness, and love demonstrated during the recent political campaigns? It seemed both sides spent most of their resources on slinging mud, character assassination, and lying about each other. Every word seemed calculated, every appearance orchestrated, every gesture prescribed. What was missing? How about real, authentic behavior.

Voters left without a clear vision of inspirational leadership choose to blindly follow a cult of personality or to protect a given ideology. The result is a hollow victory where being right only means our side won and nothing more. To change an organization or rally a nation to greatness takes more than this “win at all costs” mentality.

The elections are behind us but the most pressing problems of our nation and the world remain in the hands of politicians and business leaders who seem content with the status quo. Who will have the courage to make principled decisions? Which of these leaders will model authenticity in the midst of difficult conversations? Who will adopt a servant attitude toward those they disagree with and those they serve? When will these leaders practice truth-telling and behave in loving ways? At what point will we notice these leaders being effective in the jobs we have asked them to perform?

The voters have decided, but now it is the elected leaders who face the biggest choices. I pray they will choose wisely.

Sunday, November 4, 2012

Sandy’s Leadership Lessons

Like most large weather events these days, the hype for Hurricane Sandy had been building for days. When she actually made her now notorious left turn and headed for New Jersey and New York City you could sense excitement in the newscasters’ voices.  Sandy didn’t deliver on the predicted rainfall but successfully pounded the area with record storm surge and persistent wind. The aftermath of Sandy’s wrath will likely be felt for years to come.

Leaders are expected to step up during a crisis. Many times they fail to understand the importance of their roles and the results can be deadly. Without decisive action, communicated with clarity, the best plans will be poorly executed. So what leadership lessons might a crisis like Sandy’s arrival and aftermath have to teach us?

First, disaster planning is mostly about logistics and few leaders have the vision or proclivity to actually translate warnings into workable action plans. How can a wealthy and sophisticated city ignore the threat of flood-triggered electrical and transportation nightmares when the vast majority of such infrastructure is underground? In spite of adequate lead time, how can a federal agency still fail to pre-stage water, food, and blankets to meet the most basic human needs of storm victims?

Second, leaders are too often focused on rebuilding what was destroyed instead of asking what might we do differently to minimize future destruction. In some cases that may mean no longer allowing residential and commercial construction in flood-prone areas or along the most vulnerable coastlines. In other situations it could involve more creative public-private partnerships. A business that can open its doors soon after a disaster strikes (because it had a plan) won’t benefit if employees can’t get to work or customers are living in communities that have been disrupted.

Finally, leaders must resist the temptation to offer quick-fix assessments or to minimize the hard work and difficult challenges a crisis usually brings. It’s nice to show up and offer hugs and encouraging words, but these same leaders must have plans in place to follow-through or this goodwill gesture will actually harm their long-term credibility. Hope must be tempered by realism.

Sandy’s most potent leadership lesson should be that we are not as prepared for disaster and crisis as we might imagine. It’s not enough for leaders to focus only on what is wrong and how to fix it. Dealing effectively with any crisis requires thinking differently about the future and how to reduce the risks. It will mean courageously prioritizing resources and educating the public. If we fail to learn from Sandy’s leadership lessons the next disaster will only bring more of the same death, destruction, and misery.