Exceed Your Expectations

This past weekend I finally watched the movie "Invictus".  Despite the movie having been released in 2009 I had successively put off watching it until such time as I read the book.  Yes, I'm one of "those people".  In this case I bent my rule as I was 75% through the book before I relented and allowed myself the pleasure of watching the movie.

It is, of course, rather obvious that there is much to learn and discern from the life of Nelson Mandela and the leadership he showed to a fractured, hate-filled, and fearful country.  The fact that a man who had once espoused violence against the apartheid regime of South Africa, spent 27 years of the best part of his life in prison, and could then walk out and not merely renounce vengeance but become an icon of forgiveness is an astounding story.  It certainly would have been easy - and understandable - if he had chosen to simply lead his ANC supporters to a new future.  Instead he chose to become the leader of all 40 million South Africans regardless of skin color or tribal affiliation.

In this case, I found the movie quite consistent with the contents and key events recounted in the book.  If such is the case, what I came to understand about Mandela's leadership was that he was most powerfully effective and impactful not in large gatherings speaking to thousands but rather in small groups and one-on-one encounters.  In those situations he could connect with people at an individual level.  He sought that human connection, to build on authentic relationship and understanding of who sat across from him whether they be adversary or ally.  And it was truly the measure of the man and his leadership that he had an astounding ability to effectively and rather immediately disarm an adversary as well as any ally.

One of the scenes in the movie that had particular impact on me was the first meeting between President Mandela and the captain of the Springboks - the South African national rugby team.  An intimidating meeting for the captain, Francois Pienaar, to be sure.  Mandela immediately set the tone for a deeper conversation by showing authentic interest in the person before him.  This short exchange sets the stage for a more in-depth and meaningful exchange on leadership philosophies.  In this discussion on leadership, Mandela poses the challenge of how does a leader convince his followers, his team, to be better than they think they can be - "How do we inspire ourselves to greatness when nothing less will do."  How can a leader convince his followers to stand tall when all they want to do is rest?    

Mandela did not simply foist an impossible task on Francois Pienaar.  Mandela did not, as so many "leaders" are wont to, throw out shallow exhortations to "do better" or "win whatever the cost."  Rather, Mandela showed that he carried a common burden with Pienaar and that as President he held himself to the same high expectations, and would make the same effort, that he was placing on the Springboks.  Mandela stated clearly and directly that as President he too needed to exceed his own expectations in order to help South Africa fully realize its potential.  He shared his personal burden with Pienaar of having to not only unite a long-fractured nation but also lead it to the potential he saw in it.  In doing so, he also confided in Pienaar that there were days where he felt his efforts had not been enough and that even the President needed inspiration to do better.  As part of realizing the full potential of his nation and his people he believed in the need to leverage every possible avenue to achieve true unification.  In this case, he looked to inspire national unity by converting a reviled symbol of apartheid - the Springboks - to a shared symbol of unity.  In not so many words, he tasked Pienaar to lead his team to victory in the 1995 Rugby World Cup to be held on South African soil.  This after years of banishment from international competition and objective assessments that did not see the team advancing past the quarterfinals.

The fact that South Africa did not devolve into bitter civil war - and that the Springboks did in fact win the 1995 Rugby World Cup against all odds - is a clear testament to Mandela's unique leadership style.  Unlike what we might expect in the type of circumstances he faced, he was no grand orator in the tradition of Churchill.  He was authoritarian only when necessary, preferring to influence and build consensus wherever possible.  Fundamentally, he presents to me as an extraordinarily thoughtful, far-sighted and quiet leader.  He set grand goals that continued to guide his actions despite short-term setbacks.  He was prepared to make significant personal sacrifices - of his time, of his salary, and in wearing the hated colors of the Springboks to promote national reconciliation.  He was prepared to share his doubts and vulnerabilities with his followers.  In this regard, he was able to demonstrate his true understanding of the challenges that everyone faced in building a better future.  However, rather than use this as a reason to hold back from the challenge, he used it to build common bond with this followers.  His hope was that by common and extraordinary effort that he and his people could believe more of themselves and exceed their expectations.

The book and movie, as a testament to Mandela and his ability to help others exceed their own expectations, inspired me to reconsider my own leadership and the leadership of those I coach.  If a political prisoner of 27 years can overcome decades, nay hundreds of years, of racial divide and can inspire a nation to rise beyond its differences through his leadership and personal sacrifice then what can I - what should I - strive to achieve in my personal leadership endeavors??

What can you do to exceed your expectations?  What will you do to exceed your expectations?
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Greg Hadubiak, MHSA, FACHE, CEC, PCC
TEC Canada Chair/Executive Coach/Senior Consultant
hadubiak@wmc.ca

Helping leaders realize their strengths and enabling organizations to achieve their potential through the application of my leadership experience and coaching skills. I act as a point of leverage for my clients. I AM their Force Multiplier.

What's in Your Back Pocket?

An economic downturn such as many people and industries are now facing in my province of Alberta or have faced in every other part of the world brings to the fore some very challenging questions.  As individuals we start to feel our shirt collars tighten a notch or two as we contemplate how we will weather the downturn, how long the downturn will last or indeed whether it will result in loss of job or our business.  Unfortunately, for too many of us, there can be a lot of whistling in the dark that manifests as wishful thinking or simple denial.  We hope that somehow the "grim reaper" will pass us by (again) this time.  We haven't established a contingency plan or a safety net that will confidently carry us through a downturn or possibly even a complete change in our career path. But, as I have often been told, hope is not a strategy.

I speak from personal experience in this regard.  I've been through many a restructuring and belt-tightening in my previous profession and quite frankly would have to admit that other than being flexible in terms of where challenge and opportunity took me I can't say that I had anything remotely that looked like a contingency plan.  Three years ago, when I completely changed careers, I didn't have a Plan B anything close to mapped out.  The fact that I am succeeding in making the switch is truly a combination of factors that probably have less to do with planning than with good networks and personal determination. I don't believe I'm unique in this regard.

If you will, consider the parallels to having your own emergency preparedness or disaster recovery kit for your household.  How many of us have alternate sources of power and water supply, adequate stocks of food and medicine to get us through several days of recovery from a natural or mad-made disaster, or a plan to ensure communication is sustained with family members in the event something causes you to be separated?  I hazard a guess based on what we have seen in our own backyards or not too distant communities that most of us are entirely unprepared for any significant disaster that could cut us off from a range of modern conveniences that we have come to rely on for our survival.  In like fashion, I suggest that most of us are entirely unprepared to suffer a modest or complete loss of our income overnight.

At this point, if you haven't established your leadership or career emergency preparedness kit, you might need to white knuckle it through the next change coming your way.  Perhaps if you are fortunate enough you already have sufficient funds in your savings account to get you through the next number of months or even a year until you secure the next job or can see your business venture recover.  Maybe all this time will be is another scare and you'll manage to get by with only suffering a few sleepless nights of worry.

All that being said, I believe there are a number of "tools" or "supplies that we should all have in our personal leadership emergency preparedness kit to allow us to navigate unplanned change as effectively as possible.  First, I believe we each should have our own strategic plan in place.  As leaders we often expend enormous time and effort leading strategic planning efforts for our own organizations or businesses, yet we spend relatively little time if any considering our own long-term plan.  Much like an organization's strategic plan, our personal plan should benefit from a regular period of objective and intensive self-reflection - what's important to us, what are our key goals, what are our forecasts, what are our strengths, what are our areas for investment or even divestment.  Most importantly, how will we equip ourselves to make the right change for the right reasons or how will we make the best of a bad situation thrown our way that still allows us to live according to our personal values and in pursuit of our life goals?  In short, are there multiple ways to obtain the same goal or set of goals.  Lacking any personal strategic coherence we will be as a ship tossed about on a storm-swept sea without a rudder.

Second, we should prepare for the inevitably of stormy seas with constant investment in ourselves as leaders.  Ongoing (and relevant) professional development and training has never been more crucial than in today's constantly evolving and dynamic business environment.  Knowledge, techniques, and technologies that were cutting edge yesterday are just as rapidly replaced or made irrelevant tomorrow.  Just as important, is understanding and appreciating the changing expectations and requirements of an ever more diverse workforce.  Long story short - as a leader you will have to continuously reinvest in your leadership and technical skills if you hope to be relevant, valuable and salable to your followers or customers.  Standing pat is falling backwards.  Leadership agility is today's guidepost.

Third, networks are a critical currency in today's ever-changing world.  Take advantage of opportunities to network and more importantly to build and maintain relationships with others within and outside of your current business environment.  As challenging and as time-consuming as it can sometimes be, it's important to appreciate that well-established and well-maintained relationships should be viewed as an investment in future opportunities.  Even though society has advanced there is still no doubt in my mind that "who you know" is just as important, if not more important, than "what you know".  In a time like this when leadership and technical roles now have hundreds of candidates applying for an opportunity - with many of them equally qualified - it won't simply be experience or knowledge that carry the day for you.  Rather, it may just come down to the strength and quality of relationships you have built with others over a period of years.

In like fashion, I also believe there is a tremendous benefit in "paying it forward", in the form of mentoring, connecting, and supporting others in your sphere of influence.  And in many of these circumstances, this means there could be no immediate - or any - form of payback to you.  Rather, I believe there is a service above self mentality that should come into play here that can amount to a form of planting seeds for a harvest to come later.  Just as with networking, however, for investments in others to truly pay off it really does have to be delivered as a genuine and authentic interest in others.  Nobody is going to give you much credit or future support if you take a very mercenary tone with them or explicitly set out the assistance as a "loan" to be recalled with interest at a later date.  It would be much like me telling my kids that while I will support them financially for the first couple decades of their life I expect at least that much support at the end of my life.  I doubt that this type of "support" would work and more likely would drive a wedge between us.

Those are what I consider to be some of the basics of your leadership emergency preparedness toolkit - a well-articulated personal strategic plan, constant honing and expansion of your skill sets, effective networking and relationship building, and an investment in the success of others.  Together - along with some sound financial planning - I believe not only can a leader weather the inevitable storms and tempests, they can come out stronger as it relates to their highest goals and aspirations. 

Management of unplanned change doesn't just have to be about survival.  It can be about softening the blows and being ready to come out the other side quicker and stronger than if you had just whistled a better tune in the darkness.
____________________________________________________________________

Greg Hadubiak, MHSA, FACHE, CEC, PCC
TEC Canada Chair/Executive Coach/Senior Consultant
hadubiak@wmc.ca

Helping leaders realize their strengths and enabling organizations to achieve their potential through the application of my leadership experience and coaching skills. I act as a point of leverage for my clients. I AM their Force Multiplier.

Leading with Integrity

I was compelled to open up my Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary to re-familiarize myself with the book definition of Integrity.  There were several reasons for doing so at this point in time most notably some of the political noises coming out from my provincial legislature in the past several months.  I was also reminded of some past and current realities afflicting colleagues in a former career that had also caused me heartburn and personal angst.

Further to Integrity then this is what I found:

in-teg-ri-ty  n 1: an unimpaired condition : SOUNDNESS  2: firm adherence to a code of esp. 

moral or artistic values:  INCORRUPTIBILITY  3: the quality or state of being complete and undivided:  COMPLETENESS  syn  1 see HONESTY  ant duplicity  2  see UNITY

I have to admit that this particular definition left me a bit flat.  Wasn't quite the passion or fire that I associate with the word Integrity.  Maybe it had something to do with my dictionary having been published in 1981.  Maybe integrity was now a dated concept??  But I preserved and went to today's font of all knowledge - Wikipedia - for an "up-to-date" definition:

Integrity is the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles; moral uprightness. It is generally a personal choice to uphold oneself to consistently moral and ethical standards.^[1]

In ethics, integrity is regarded by many people as the honesty and truthfulness or accuracy of one's actions. Integrity can stand in opposition to hypocrisy,^[2] in that judging with the standards of integrity involves regarding internal consistency as a virtue, and suggests that parties holding within themselves apparently conflicting values should account for the discrepancy or alter their beliefs.

This version still left me thinking there was a void in the definition.  It struck me that the words lacked practical examples or parameters to make the picture of integrity come alive.  After all, in today's world doesn't every organization and leadership candidate tout integrity as a core principle?  If not prominently trumpeted in an organization's mission, vision and values statements it is usually given prominence in other public statements, codes of conduct, policies or other regular pronouncements.  Most leaders - like myself - usually identify integrity as being one of their top values.  Integrity is all around is and yet many find it wanting in so many or our leaders and organizations.

Do we - as leaders - truly demonstrate integrity when it counts?  When the going gets tough do we firmly adhere to our stated moral and ethical codes of conduct?  For example, if you have struck a deal with another party are you prepared to hold true to that commitment when circumstances change?  It's certainly one thing to be true to your word at the moment the agreement is signed or when times are good.  Do you have the strength of your conviction when your "business climate" changes?  Do you back away from your commitments or obligations?  When the going gets tough do you find reason or excuses to back away from this obligation entered into in good faith by both parties?  Isn't that the true test of integrity?  I'm left wondering how one can tout personal or organizational integrity when at the first sign of stress we stand ready to abandon our previous - voluntary - commitments.

I also find some leaders wanting in the integrity category when they "boldly" impose sacrifices on others they themselves are not prepared to make.  Numerous examples abound, both in the private and public sectors, of CEO's looking for ways to cut costs that intimately and significantly impact the vast majority of the workforce they lead and yet, when such efforts are successful, result in the maintenance of leadership perks or bonuses for the CEO.  And some CEO's have an amazing capacity for rationalizing how their benefit is really to the benefit of their organization.  Unfortunately, I have personally encountered some egregious examples of veritable shell games played by executives to justify or protect their income and perks.  Integrity under such circumstances - along with leadership credibility - are the clear losers.

Finally, I have to proffer my view that just as no great venture or successful organization is the result of the efforts of any one individual so too is it true that no one leader can violate self-stated or organizationally-touted codes of conduct without a little help from one's colleagues.  If we consider some historical precedents it is the rare occasion when a "rogue" leader acts alone to bend or break organizational codes of conduct, policies, procedures or, in extreme cases, even the law.  How many of us conveniently ignore or dismiss any missteps as "honest" mistakes or minor lapses in judgement?  Perhaps at times we honestly believe that.  Perhaps it's just easier to turn a blind eye.  Worst of all, perhaps we are actively complicit in the larger violations of our leader because some personal gain accrues to us - we too can share in getting a bonus or keeping our current position.  Perhaps our calculation is one that comes down to the simple perspective that to speak up or stand up runs the risk of becoming a martyr for doomed and idealistic cause - we rationalize our action (or lack of action) as being a meaningless sacrifice.

I leave you with an honest question - are you prepared to hold true to your stated values in good times but particularly in bad?  Is your word your bond or merely a device to suit a moment in time?

Are you a leader with and of integrity?  Or is integrity just an out-moded concept in today's age and am I but a modern-day Don Quixote tilting at windmills??
____________________________________________________________________

Greg Hadubiak, MHSA, FACHE, CEC, PCC
TEC Canada Chair/Executive Coach/Senior Consultant
hadubiak@wmc.ca

Helping leaders realize their strengths and enabling organizations to achieve their potential through the application of my leadership experience and coaching skills. I act as a point of leverage for my clients. I AM their Force Multiplier.

Are you in the battle for your talent?

A common message and reality that all businesses have become accustomed to hearing and experiencing is that they face an imminent or current shortage of all types of personnel - including leaders - as the demographics of our population and our workforce go through significant change.  However, in the battle for talent is your business cultivating and managing its own home ground?  Does your organization know what talent it already has?  Are you taking steps to cultivate and preserve that talent as your existing leaders leave or retire?  Based on what I've seen and experienced in my work I'm going to suggest the gap between the perception of a talent gap and actions to close that gap are significant and growing.

One of the first challenges facing any organization is understanding not only the leadership requirements they face today but, more importantly, the leadership requirements they will require years into the future.  A fundamental need then is for an organization to ensure some base level of understanding of the entirety of its business environment into the murky future.  All the more challenging when business cycles are shorter, more dynamic and unpredictable than ever before.  Who would have predicted oil at under $50 a barrel just a few weeks ago?  Too often within the context of this downturn a common business reaction is reduction or elimination of leadership development and other training programs if not outright layoffs.  Leadership development in this context is not seen as an investment, rather it is seen as a forgo-able cost.  The longer-term cost to the organization - lost talent, lost capacity for mentorship and succession planning - is outweighed by short-term considerations.

Another challenge that organizations face - perhaps particularly if large and well-established in their industry - is recognizing and accelerating the development and upward movement of its internal talent.  Often time this is because a "future" leader doesn't look anything like our current leaders.  Essentially, organizations become biased or blind to the prospective leaders in their midst.  Senior leaders and mid-level managers are inclined to look for their mirror image - whether defined by age, educational background, or other variables.  They are unable, or unwilling, to appreciate that the leadership of the past or of today is going to be significantly insufficient for the challenges being experienced today and into the future.  Even worse, current leaders can be sufficiently threatened by the up and comers to consciously hold them back.  The results can be a loss of future talent to a competitor that comes calling.  The battle for talent lost even before it starts.

How can organizations make sure they are competitive in the battle for talent?  How can they ensure they stand a chance of not losing the talent already in their midst?  First, there must be a clear understanding of the business demands, realities and strategies to be implemented in the mid- to long-term future of the organization.  As noted above, this is a daunting challenge all its own which likely means that an organization must be particularly attuned to identifying and developing innovative, creative and highly adaptive prospects in their midst for whatever skills and abilities one might anticipate needing in the future.  Moreover, it is just as likely that new skills and abilities will be required beyond the current line of sight.  Organizations are advised to seek out and foster leaders that are not only comfortable but can thrive in an environment of constant change and ambiguity.

Organizations should also ensure alignment of all systems that may support or impinge upon retention of prospective leadership talent.  In particular, incentives and structures should be established or adjusted to ensure that existing leaders can identify and support the next generation of leaders.  This also entails some level of investment in current leaders to assist them in identifying and supporting future leaders.  Just as not all current managers make good mentors we should not hold out expectation that they have the ability to identify future leaders.

Similarly organizations need to structure a variety of learning and development experiences that transcend traditional classroom settings.  There must be dedicated and protected time for top prospects to gain experience beyond their current roles.  The top prospects must be afforded the ability to develop and widen their skills and perspectives within the broader canvas of the organization and its business environment.

How seriously are you taking the battle for talent?  Are you even aware of the battle you are in?  Are you more likely to bend to short-term cost considerations versus sustaining a long-term investment in your talent pool?  Can you overcome your own biases and preconceptions about what future leadership looks like or needs to be?  Can you mentor and foster leaders who don't look like you? Can you effectively pass the torch and win THE race?

The success of your organization depends on your leadership vision and your ability to foster the leadership that will carry you forward.  It is ALL about leadership.
____________________________________________________________________

Greg Hadubiak, MHSA, FACHE, CEC, PCC
TEC Canada Chair/Executive Coach/Senior Consultant
hadubiak@wmc.ca

Helping leaders realize their strengths and enabling organizations to achieve their potential through the application of my leadership experience and coaching skills. I act as a point of leverage for my clients. I AM their Force Multiplier.