Leadership at the frontline

This past week was one of those weeks where a number of unrelated events came together to build a theme in my mind about leadership.  I've consciously tried to pay less attention to the healthcare world from whence I came over the past year while expanding my executive coaching and consulting practice.  However, I can't help but see the headlines and twitter feeds describing another change in healthcare senior leadership in Alberta.  The best analogy I can paint is slowing down to see a car accident even though it really doesn't involve you.  That being said, this is not a entry about healthcare per se.  What's said here applies in many other industries and sectors.

AHS replaces interim chief executive after only one month

Leadership at Alberta Health Services in state of flux

By Jamie Komarnicki and Reid Southwick, Calgary Herald November 16, 2013

I've also been taking a coaching course and this week we were tasked to post a review on an article of our choice.  I choose the article "Silence Kills - The Seven Crucial Conversations® in Healthcare.  Those in healthcare are probably quite familiar with the content and those in other industries have their own experience with the reality described by the article - mistakes, incompetence, broken rules, lack of support, poor teamwork, disrespect and micromanagement all tolerated and accepted in silence.  The consequence of this culture of silence is a range of adverse patient episodes, including medication errors, hospital-acquired infections, and other mishaps.  Similarly the workforce is afflicted with poor morale, low employee engagement, and high turnover.  Pick another industry or business and you liable to find a similar version of this healthcare study.

At the same time, I continue to experience enthusiasm and energy from a number of my coaching clients dedicated to making a difference in their chosen field.  Most of them are approaching their work with very aspirational goals and objectives.  It is important to note, though, that they are not just aspiring to achieve leadership positions or new roles simply for the sake of personal advancement.  Rather, they are quite sincere and committed about making a difference for the system and for the clients or customers they serve.  They are optimistic, idealistic and passionate in their hopes and dreams for their respective organizations.  This is despite - or perhaps even because of - the current challenges in their work environments.

The last piece of the puzzle in this confluence of unrelated activities was finally getting around to reading "Strengthening Credibility - A Leader's Workbook" by James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner.  I've read their previous works, was impacted by their perspective and have been using their lessons ever since.  I was also extremely fortunate to personally learn from James Kouzes in a healthcare leadership seminar in the early 90's.  Some key statements out of their recent work struck me and ended up providing context to all of the above circumstances.  Excuse me while I quote at length from the very beginning of their latest book:

"...we found that credibility is not based on job titles or hierarchical positions but with the

human being in the leader's shoes.  Above all else, we found that leadership is personal.  It's not about the corporation, the community, or the country.  It's about you and your relationship with others.  If people don't believe in the messenger, they won't believe the message.  If people don't believe in you, they won't believe in what you say.  And if it's about you, then it's about your beliefs, your values, and your principles.  It's also about how true you are to your values and beliefs." 

This one paragraph put into perspective all of the seemingly unconnected circumstances and events noted above.  What it told me is that, despite the turmoil in any industry or sector or business or organization, we all still have the opportunity to lead in the positions we are in.  As a leader at the frontline of any organization, and perhaps as close as possible to the C-suite without actually being in it, you have the leadership opportunity to positively impact and support those staff who work with you.  You have the power to lead them to the best of your ability.  Yes, your information is imperfect and incomplete.  Yes, you may not have access to all the resources you would like or require to do the best job you believe you and your staff are capable of.  Ultimately, however, you can still make a positive difference in your sphere of influence.  And maybe, just maybe, through your authenticity, integrity and consistency you can extend that sphere of influence and move the needle of performance just a little bit every day.

Is this just pie-in-the-sky thinking?  Some would have you think so.  Some would have you buy into the notion that as a frontline/mid-level leader you really are nothing more than a sailor in a rowboat simply trying to survive the North Atlantic during a tempest.  If you happen to make progress from Canada to England it's only by sheer determination and luck. That you have no power to impact your surroundings and the best you can hope for is to not get fired.

By contrast I have seen very good frontline leaders achieve remarkable things under the most adverse circumstances.  Frontline leaders who had to work with very poor building infrastructure, either crumbling around them because of age or far too small for the volume of work they had to deal with.  Frontline leaders who didn't get all the budgetary resources they needed or had to deal with ongoing staff shortages.  Frontline leaders who had to deal with a variety of "difficult-to-deal-with-yet-powerful" people.  Frontline leaders who had to navigate the realities of strong unions and all that potentially entails about managing staff performance.  Yet these leaders, had fully engaged staff, on budget performance and higher customer satisfaction ratings than any of their peers.  Why?  How?

What accounted for these remarkable results?  I believe it goes back to the very heart of the Kouzes and Posner quote.  The staff of these leaders believed in the "message" because they believed in the "messenger".   These messengers/leaders had (and have) credibility with their followers because they have truly engaged and partnered with their staff, have a set of shared values that they adhere to consistently when making decisions, have worked on supporting and developing staff over time, and ultimately have helped to foster a sense of purpose and hope despite all the challenges.  Above all the messenger and leader has been amongst and with their followers during their trials and tribulations.  There is a personal connection and even a camaraderie with their staff.

Ultimately that's what leadership is all about.  It's personal, it's about you and it's about how you show up every day.  Show up and be authentic.  That is your real leadership challenge.
______________________________

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.

It's not Them, it's You - Redux

A lament that I've often heard from many leaders is "Why don't my staff get what we are trying to do?"  The context for this can relate to many things - a focus on developing new products or service offerings, a desire to enhance customer service capability, a shift in emphasis in strategic direction, or any number of other "big-ticket" ventures that a leader undertakes.  Regardless, the long and short of the story is that things are not going right and certainly not as well as the leader expected.  In fact, rather than succeeding the initiative is actually failing.

The leader's frustration - and mystification - at the lack of success arises because in his/her mind the initiative should be moving forward rapidly, smoothly and with a minimum of bumps along the way.  From the leader's perspective the reasons for moving forward assertively and confidently are so self-evident that there should be no reason for confusion or lack of action.  From the leader's perspective all steps that should have reasonably been taken to communicate the importance of the initiative have been taken.  From the leader's perspective implementation of his/her brilliantly conceived idea should be proceeding easily and smoothly because...well...it's just so bloody brilliant!

Yet, success is not forthcoming.  And maybe that means it's time for a change in perspective.  Maybe its not about them.  Maybe it's about you.

It's often far easier to blame others for a lack of success or progress in moving an organization forward than in taking a hard look at what we are doing or not doing as the leader.  It's personally challenging to start asking some hard questions about what role I as a leader played in not setting the organization up for success.  What steps did I not take?  What warning signs did I ignore? 

So maybe your leadership is getting in the way.  First off, like anyone else, leaders can develop tunnel vision.  We may have become so engaged with our day-to-day work that we start to lose perspective.  Despite the fact that we are specifically tasked with maintaining that 50,000 foot view - or maybe as a result of it - we can lose a sense of what else might be happening in and around the rest of the organization.  In essence, we have become trapped by our own mental box and simply can't conceive of factors or issues that might impact successful implementation of our ideas.  The facts may even be staring you right in the face but you simply are no longer able to see them.  Here's where developing a true climate of trust and confidence in your team can pay huge dividends.  The more objective eyes on the ball the better.

Related to the tunnel vision noted above is a phenomenon that I'll describe as the speed trap.  As leaders we can easily get caught up in the desire to move forward as fast as possible.  Time is money, we have to get out ahead of an issue, we have to be first to market, we have to move, move and move faster.  This driving sense of urgency, however, can cause us to plan in a superficial fashion and gloss over challenges.  More importantly, as we try to solve a problem the anxiety we feel to get on with things can actually prevent us from truly understanding the issue before us. As a result, we may not actually be tackling the real problem but only just dealing with its most noteworthy symptoms.  The adage of pay now or pay later bears listening to.  Only in this regard the currency in question is time.  Slow down to move faster and more effectively.

Leaders can also be confounded by an overconfidence in their ability to communicate.  Effective communication is never simply about getting the memo(s), emails, or newsletters out or having a grand launch event.  For any significant initiative, the leader and his most trusted lieutenants have already spent a considerable amount of time coming to grips with the whys and wherefores of the initiative.  They understand the importance of the effort not only at an intellectual level but more importantly at a visceral level.  Leaders are therefore surprised and amazed that the rest of the organization doesn't have the same level of understanding and commitment.  The reality is that nobody else has been able to spend as much time on this idea as the leader already has.  They truly don't yet "get it" because they have not yet been given the time to understand the rationale for the effort.  A leader and his support team must not only communicate but allow time for the idea to be digested.  In addition, effective communication will ensure and incorporate a feedback loop that allows a check on understanding of key messages and expectations.

Success in implementing past initiatives may also cloud judgment on a go-forward basis.  A lack of planning, preparation, and good communication may not have confounded success in the past.  A leader may have succeeded in spite of himself for a whole variety of reasons.  A fact-based analysis may not have been undertaken to help identify key learnings.  Perhaps we were saved by even worse planning and preparation of a competitor.  Perhaps we were saved by the extraordinary efforts of some of our staff.  The truth is we don't really know what factors supported success or what that success actually cost us.  The result is that a leader is unduly confident in his own ability or otherwise complacent relative to what the next effort is really going to take. 

Finally, the ability to move an initiative forward may be most fatally confounded by the organization's assessment of the leader and his/her motivations.  Ultimately, I believe that words and actions of a leader must line up over the long run.  Staff and stakeholders will commit more strongly to something if they believe it serves the achievement of the organization's stated mission, vision and values.  They will commit if they can see benefit for them as individuals and for the organization as a whole.  If, however, past experience has informed them that the leader is first and foremost concerned about his/her personal gain an integrity gap will develop and grow.  In these circumstances, the leader may gain compliance but he will not gain true commitment to future endeavours.  Staff and stakeholders will ultimately see through the motivations of a self-absorbed leader.  It may take some time, but eventually organizational performance will suffer.

There could be probably be a few more warnings posted here about not rushing to judgment on one's staff.  The cautionary tale is one of making sure to look at yourself in the mirror first before casting aspersions on the skills, abilities and motivations of your followers.  Have you done enough to set the stage for success?  Have you provided the right tools to support effective implementation?  Have you looked at the issue from all perspectives?  In the end, it may be that it's not them that failed you.  Maybe you failed them.
______________________________

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.

Fortes Fortuna Adiuvat

The title of this blog entry comes from an image my wife and I had an artist create for our daughter's room a few years ago.  This Latin phrase roughly translates into "Fortune Favors the Bold" and so far has been a very apt description of the persona of our now three-year old girl.  She excels in finding new, innovative and bold ways to test the patience of her parents on a daily if not hourly basis.

The phrase, however, is also a very apt description for the mentality and qualities it takes to be an effective leader.  Opportunities to lead or to be successful rarely just fall into our laps.  However, too many people have exactly that expectation.  There is a notion that at some point others will recognize our skill or ability and magically anoint us "leader" or give us that next big promotion.  This is truly the lottery ticket version of leadership - one day my number will be called.  As many of us know, however, the odds of winning the lottery are somewhat less than the chance of getting struck by lightning.

Fortune does indeed favor the bold.  Opportunity rarely comes in a nicely wrapped package.  More often opportunity presents itself in a form more akin to a lump of coal.  Perhaps we are overlooked for a leadership opportunity we thought was rightfully ours.  Even worse, perhaps we are let go from an organization and are now at a loss as to where to go next.  Not many people would describe these circumstances as an opportunity.  But they are.  No different than if your own organization fails to win a lucrative contract or fails to break into a new market.  At this point of failure, rejection, and overall ugliness you - either personally or as a leader for your organization - have the choice to grow, learn and reload OR become bitter, mope and blame circumstances for the current predicament.  You can either be a victim of circumstance or take charge of your future.  It takes not a small amount of courage to take the harder path.  Adversity is opportunity.  Fortune favors the bold.

Certainly (and hopefully) you need not wait for some adverse episode or outcome to seek out opportunity.  An effective leader - whether focused on personal growth and development or the success of their organization - is always scanning the environment, evaluating not only risk but considering new ventures and angles to improve, to build new markets and products.  Leadership is about actively prospecting for opportunity.  Leadership is about being ready for and initiating change. 
Too often we hold ourselves back with our own fear of failure and other self-imposed barriers and limitations.  The current business environment may in fact help promote this risk-adverse approach.  Better to manage carefully, slowly, get all the information and try to make the perfect, mistake-free decision.  Unfortunately, while seemingly safe, this approach likely means that somebody with a bit more courage and fortitude has already beat us to the punch.  Fortune favors the bold.

The reality is that we rarely have all the information we think we need to make the best decision possible.  The world is simply too messy and complicated to expect all the information to be at hand at a time and place of our choosing.  Opportunity is won or lost on the ability to take decisive action with imperfect information.  Similarly, we delude ourselves that we will ever have the perfect plan in place that guarantees success or conversely can mitigate every risk.  An old military adage is that no plan survives contact with the enemy.  As a leader you must have confidence in your goals but flexibility in your plan if you are to be successful.  Beyond that you must also have the courage to learn, to change and adapt.  You must have humility in the face of changing circumstances and be prepared to adjust as you go. 

Above all successful leaders - and successful people in general - are not passive in the face of circumstances.  They are not content to let the currents of fate dictate their future or their level of success.  While they may be afraid, concerned, and anxious they are prepared to dive in, take the plunge, seize the opportunity.  They are prepared to struggle, to learn, to make mistakes, to adjust and make the best of their opportunities.

Make the best of your opportunities.  Push yourself.  Challenge your self-limiting beliefs.  At the end of day whether in your personal life or for your leadership role, Fortune Favors the Bold!
______________________________

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.


Taking your Leadership to the Next Level

What does it take to move up the ladder of leadership?  That has been a frequent point of focus from a number of my coaching clients.  The questions often presume one best path to the next leadership level.  The challenge with charting the course, providing some advice, or giving clear answers is that there is no one right path.  This is particularly true in today's constantly changing environment.  What may have seemed a sure path to the c-suite yesterday gets confounded by organization restructuring, the loss of a key senior level support and mentor, or other significant change that makes a once well thought out path irrelevant.

All that being said, I believe there are a number of steps that can be taken to position oneself for the next level of leadership.  Moreover, many of these same steps remain relevant once a desired leadership position has been obtained, including that of CEO.  In no particular order, here is my Top Ten list of what to do to position yourself - and maybe hold on to - that next level of leadership.

One: Solidify your own personal mission, vision and values.  Be clear about who you are as a person and as a leader.  Develop a clear and intimate understanding about how you want to lead and what legacy you want to create.  Don't just focus on the "business" side of the equation.  Equally as critical in this process of personal introspection is going to be identifying for yourself how your personal and family life fits into your overall view.

Two: Be sure of your own motivations and commitments to becoming a CEO or other senior leader.  How will this role fulfill you? How clear are you on the benefits - and costs - associated with the next step up?  Are you pursuing the next role because others expect you to or want you to?  It's lovely to be courted and wooed as a leadership candidate but make sure you objectively evaluate your readiness and desire to take on the challenge.  Be true to yourself.

Three: Excel at your current role.  Personally, I find it hard to take somebody seriously as a candidate for their next desired role when they are not blowing me away in the performance of their current duties.  Paraphrasing a baseball term, "Keep your eye on the ball".  In this case that means doing an outstanding job where you are right now.  If you neglect your current role because you are too busy sizing up the furniture in your future fantasy office I suggest that you'll slip on your own stardust.

Four: Connect with other leader's in your targeted role.  Learn from them - both good and bad.  What was their path?  What steps did they take?  What mistakes did they make?  Keep in mind that their path should not be your path (particularly in the mistake category).  These won't be your answers but they will help inform your options and decisions.  Have the humility to listen and learn and you may find a few gems that work for you.

Five: Related to point four above, be open to learning from anyone and everyone - even those who are not in defined or recognized leadership roles.  Those who are being led can give you as much value and insight about what makes for a good leader (and what makes for a poor leader) as any formal leader will.  All perspectives are valuable. 

Six: Network, network, network - find ways to become known (for all the right reasons).  You might be an excellent leader in the making and have excellent leadership characteristics but that's only of value if others know that.  Many of us are shy about networking or personal marketing but it is a critical skill to master.  I guarantee that in any competition it is of more than passing consequence to be known beyond what shows up on your resume - which is on pile with a host of others.

Seven: Get involved in relevant professional and community ventures - community causes, charitable organizations, professional association, etc.  I believe this is only effective if done from a place of genuine and authentic interest.  Do not engage with a venture simply for personal gain and the exposure that you might get as a result.  Do it because you believe in the particular cause or venture.  Your passion and integrity will shine through and I believe you will showcase your skills and abilities to a greater degree as a result.   

Eight:  Continue to learn and develop.  I have often said that remaining relevant is directly proportional to one's ongoing energy and enthusiasm for continuous learning, development and improvement.  I'm not just talking about formal education that can come from a university, college or one's professional association.  Your mind and your leadership perspective is likely to benefit from a change of pace and opportunity which will arise by learning how to swim, how to use a telescope, climbing a mountain, or learning a musical instrument.  Plus, by undertaking new activities you'll learn to overcome your anxiety in taking on new challenges and more than likely meet people with perspectives quite different from your normal experience.

Nine:  Look for leadership opportunities no matter how small.  You want to build a track record of success that might look good on a resume, will help build your confidence, stretch your abilities, expand your perspective on future leadership opportunities and demonstrate to others what you are capable of.  As with point seven, there is a need to be strategic in targeting, selecting or volunteering for leadership opportunities.  If you don't have a passion for a particular initiative your lack of enthusiasm is likely to show through in your effort.  You also want to make sure that the opportunity is aligned with your personal plan for where you are headed as a leader.

Ten:  Continuously and consciously evaluate your strengths and weaknesses as a leader.  As leaders, we may be doing an OK job in looking at our organizational financial statements and other metrics on a monthly, quarterly or annual basis.  As leaders or aspiring leaders we need to apply the same vigor to an assessment of our leadership skills and plan.  Nobody is perfect.  There is always room for improvement.  There is ongoing need for adjusting and modifying plans based on a variety of changes in our personal and organizational demands.  This real, introspective work takes humility, courage, and discipline, but it is also a mark of an excellent leader.

Eleven:  OK, I said Top Ten but here's a bonus action to consider.  Get yourself an Executive Coach.
I've had the privilege of acting as an Executive Coach for a variety of clients and for over the past 3 years I have benefited from having a coach myself.   A coach can support your leadership development - either in moving to the next level of leadership or maintaining efficacy in an existing role - by surfacing and challenging assumptions, helping to clarify required actions, or simply by providing space to listen.  In how many other places can a leader be assured of complete confidentiality and unbiased perspective as they explore their own doubts, misgiving, hopes and dreams?

There is no one right path to the next level of leadership and what you see here are only my humble musings on what it takes to move up.  As a leader, let me know what resonates with you or what advice you would provide to others to chart their path.
______________________________

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.

Constancy of Purpose

One of the first blog entries I penned over a year ago focused on the work of Dr. W. E. Deming - one of the key figures in the foundation of total quality improvement.  In that entry I focused on only a few aspects of his work and his famous fourteen points.  What was clear then and is still evident today is that his work still holds truth for us in today's business environment even though he expounded his framework over 60 years ago. 

Last week, while I was in San Diego with other TEC Canada/Vistage chairs I learned of yet another round of personnel and organizational changes in Alberta's health care system.  At this point I've lost track of how many changes this makes for the health care system since the creation of Alberta Health Services in 2008, much less the changes since the mid-1990's.  This latest change had me reflecting on Dr. Deming's first point in his fourteen points - "Create constancy of purpose for the improvement of product and service."  What Deming was responding to and was trying to address in this point was the fixation on issues of the day by those in leadership positions.  He saw long-term planning and a focus on the future being sacrificed to a number of factors - need to produce immediate results, desire on the part of some leaders to rapidly climb the corporate ladder and hence change positions or firms on a constant basis, or rapid involuntary turnover in leadership roles when those people were not seen as being responsive enough to "crisis" issues.

While Dr. Deming might have had corporate USA in mind when he wrote in the 1950's it seems to me that his same commentary can hold true for the public sector - in the US, Canada and other nations - as well.  Too many of our public sector entities - and the governments that fund/direct them - are focused on tomorrow's newspaper headlines or public opinion poll results, meeting "expectations" of stakeholders, balancing the budget or minimizing the deficit, or otherwise meeting some limited metric of success that may or may not have anything to do with true system performance.   "The future is ninety days at most," said Dr. Deming, "or non-existent. There might not be any future. That is what occupies people's minds. That is not the way to stay in business [or provide publicly funded services]. Not the way to get ahead."  Dr. Deming commented, "It is easy to stay bound up in the tangled knots of the problems of today, becoming ever more efficient in them."

Dr. Deming recommended that any organization that was serious about pursuing its long term goals should focus intently on fostering innovation, invest in research and education, be relentless in continuously improving its product and services offerings, and continuously invest in its capital, equipment and other means to support production and/or service delivery.  Each of these is important, but more fundamentally, what constancy of purpose also implies to me is establishing and sticking to a plan. Establish and follow through on a well thought out, long-term strategic plan that recognizes that there will bumps along the way but ultimately holds the course based on well articulated and strongly held values.  At the end of the day this strength of commitment and consistency of direction - constancy of purpose - will allow all employees to connect with and drive forward on key actions.  Failing that, the organization becomes a rudderless ship that starts to define success as mere survival.

Following on this requirement for constancy of purpose, I believe that my blog entry from last year remains relevant.  With minor updates owing to current circumstances, I append them again here as key conditions for helping move an organization forward.
 

Point Seven - Institute Leadership. 

Dr. Deming calls upon management to lead rather than manage.  Simple statement but what does it really mean for us as leaders?  Well I'm pretty confident that if you were to talk to many of our frontline staff and management personnel they would provide you with countless examples of where they felt they were being "managed", not "led".  This bias towards "management" is without doubt enhanced by the immense pressure the health system is under to perform and achieve better results.  An unfortunate "management" response is to exercise greater control and oversight to make sure results get better.  More often than not efforts of this nature only seem to put more barriers in the way of getting good work done - more reports to generate, more signatures to get, more unreasonable timelines to meet, multiple and conflicting demands, and failure to hear and act upon input and recommendations from staff. 

Point Eight - Drive Out Fear.

Maybe fear appears an effective tool to get results in the short-term, but not if you are trying to create a high-performing organization for the long-term.  With fear in an organization there cannot be open communication, innovation, and teamwork - and these are all required for an organization to achieve the full measure of its potential.  Leadership of any organization - and at all levels of the organization - must actively model open communication, encourage appropriate risk taking and innovation, and promote teamwork from the board room, to the executive suite through to the front lines of operations.  With fear in place an organization shall continue to squander the full potential of its people and the organization to the detriment of the those it purports to serve.

Point Ten - Eliminate Slogans, Exhortations and Targets for the Workforce.

Everybody needs to measure performance.  Deming did not intend, nor do I suggest, that system performance not be evaluated on an ongoing basis.  Rather, what Point Ten addresses is the notion of trying to assess an individual's performance without reference to the system in which that individual works.  If an individual is prevented from achieving higher levels of performance by a system (that leadership has created or allowed to be created) then performance managing an employee, setting new targets for them to achieve, and giving them "motivational" speeches will have little impact on performance.  It is far more likely that such efforts will actually cause frustration, demoralization and reduced performance.  Deming's red bead experiment is a great illustration of this principle - given an equal number of red and white beads, an employee is tasked with collecting only white beads with an employer-provided scoop or paddle.  Inevitably, the employee collects some red beads in their assigned task.  As a result of "failing" in their assigned task, the employee may be given further direction by their supervisor, there may be encouragement to do better, they may be applauded if their red bead count has gone down, or they may be chastised if their red bead count goes up.  Regardless, their individual effort and various interventions at the personal level will have no impact on actual outcome.  It's like expecting employee engagement scores in an organization to go up simply by saying that the target is 10 out of 10 on the next engagement survey.  Only by changing the system and the organizational environment will better, more consistent results be achieved.  I see a strong correlation between Point Ten and the need to Drive Out Fear from an organization as noted earlier.  In fact, I believe that what leaders often create by exhortations to do better is an environment in which results and information are hidden through fear rather than being actively discovered.  And only by discovery can we improve.

Point Twelve - Remove Barriers to Pride of Workmanship.

In this point, Deming was referring to unclear expectations, lack of timely feedback (or any feedback), lack of training and support, and systems that focused on short-term results rather than long-term goals.  Staff and front-line managers are often frustrated by multiple tasks or changing priorities (see Point Seven) as leaders change focus or react to external stimuli without, it seems, due regard to long-term objectives or stated core values.  And unfortunately, more than one of us can relate to the fear that the performance evaluation process creates in us - either as provider or receiver of the experience.  Too often this is because we establish the evaluation process as a one-time event, not as a continual process of discussion, engagement and opportunity.  There is a need too to ensure that the evaluation process becomes an opportunity for leaders and staff alike to identify and invest in skills and intellect.  It is also a great opportunity for leaders to model desired behaviours and reinforce common goals.  On this latter point, I firmly believe that there must be a high degree of visibility and sincere engagement with internal audiences on par with leadership visibility and engagement with external audiences.  Without the kind of internal alignment that I believe comes from such effort the ability to deliver on commitments to external audiences and customers stands on shaky ground.

Deming's principles were valid guideposts when penned 60 years ago.  They were valid guideposts last year.  They remain as valid guideposts today.
______________________________

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.

Charisma and Leadership

Over the past couple of months in my executive coaching practice a few of my clients have expressed a desire to be more charismatic.  They see this as a necessary and required personality trait or skill that will allow them to become a better leader in their current position or to advance to the next stage of their career.  As they present this thought they express a desire to be like other leaders they have seen or experienced - leaders that stride powerfully into a room, articulate clearly their thoughts and directions, and apparently energize others to move forward on an initiative.  On the surface my clients seem to equate being charismatic with being an effective leader.

In my role as executive coach I have explored this perspective in some depth - what is it about being charismatic that equates to effective leadership for my clients?  As we probe these expressions of how they want to be as a leader other words and phrases come to the surface.  Those terms include "confident", "articulate", "inspiring", "competent", "energizing" and so forth.  Personally, I find these expressions of leadership more comforting, insightful and useful than a desire to be charismatic.  My point of view is that charisma may not be a true reflection of leadership acumen.  Rather, it can too often mask a lack of competence or character that in the long-term is detrimental to organizational success.  In my experience, charisma can simply be glitz and glam, whereas competence and character sustain and inspire long-term personal and organizational success.  Worse yet, charisma or charm can hide a lack of skill, some truly flawed personalities or an ugly agenda - no shortage of charismatic dictators in our world's history that have ultimately led their organizations or nations to an inglorious end.

The reality in recruitment and promotion to leadership positions does, however, lend some credence to the perspectives put forward by my clients.  We can all identify examples of leaders who have been selected or chosen because of how powerfully they present themselves in an interview or in a variety of public forums.  They are extremely effective in engaging with and making strong impressions on others.  They often hold strong opinions and are not afraid to push their positions forward.  They often possess a strong personality that in many cases simply overwhelms those around them.  They are crystal clear about what they want and what it will take to get there.  They also are usually quite effective in managing up.  As a result they do in fact often achieve positions of leadership or influence.  Why wouldn't my clients want to aspire to emulate these role models?

Don't get me wrong.  Being likable, charming, and charismatic are great qualities to have. This type of skill set and ability to connect with and convince stakeholders and decision makers is a critical business skill.  Being comfortable in being "on stage" and networking is certainly an asset when it comes to achieving an organization's objectives.  To the extent that a leader can galvanize their followers or stakeholders around a common and laudable cause or objective well that's a skill to be fully exploited. 

However, I suggest that charisma is not nearly enough to be an effective leader.  At least not over the long haul.  A charismatic leader without competence, character, compassion and commitment can be a destructive and dangerous force.  This is particularly the case when the goals of the leader are focused more on personal gain than organizational success.  Relying solely or heavily on charisma without some deeper substance, skill or commitment may work for a while.  It may be particularly effective if a strong team can carry a leader for some period of time.  However, once that initial grace period is over I believe effective leadership has to be supported by a more complete skill set.

So nothing wrong with aspiring to be charismatic and inspiring.  However, no leader is effective with only one arrow in his quiver or one tool in her toolbox.  So for my clients and for other aspiring leaders I encourage you to continue to work on developing other required leadership skills and capacities.  In addition, as and when you have the opportunity, whether as part of a governing body or a manager looking at a leadership hire, I implore you to look beyond a well-written resume and strong interview skills.  Dig deeper to understand the track record of your prospective leader.  Dig deeper with references and other means of validation to understand the true leadership skill set that is presenting to you.  Above all else, look for and test whether your prospective leader is going to be a strong representative of your mission, vision and values.  Your leadership choice will certainly define your organization - hopefully in the way you would want.
______________________________

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 Your Bottom Line?

The public sector in Alberta is again facing significant financial challenges.  The result of which is that we are seeing some agonizing changes in program and service delivery offerings.  These changes are certainly impacting staff and in some cases impacting students, patients, and others who have come to expect certain things from these organizations.  These issues and concerns are certainly not just the purview of the public sector, nor are they unique to Alberta.  We have all seen a variety of headlines over the years about downsizing in the manufacturing sector, boom and bust within oil and gas, and the dramatic changes in the auto industry.  No sector or organization is immune to changes in markets or funding that causes it to rethink how it does its work.

Even in the not-for-profit sector, where I have spent much of my career, one iconic phrase that has gained currency is "No margin, no mission."  The message being reinforced through this phrase was that if an organization couldn't turn a profit or manage to its budget it could cease to exist and thus be in no position to live its values or achieve its purpose. This phrase came to hold some currency and was subsequently used to justify difficult and even harsh decisions through to and including program changes, staff layoffs, facility closures, mergers and consolidations.  Regardless of industry, for many leaders, revenue, cost, black and red became (and is) the strategic imperative.  The bottom line was and is the bottom line.

This is despite the fact that if you were to talk to many leaders about what their organization's greatest asset and resource is many of them would respond with an emphatic "Our People!"  They might tout how much investment they have put into recruiting and training staff, how important their intellectual capital is to developing and sustaining their competitive edge, how staff in all types of positions are the face of the organization and create so many "moments of truth" with a range of stakeholders and clients on behalf of the business. 

Yet the reality of actions taken seems to fly in the face of these strongly stated commitments.  There do not seem to be many organizations that don't react with strength, urgency and conviction to slash budgets, reduce costs, or enhance profit when push comes to shove.  Often the first cuts fall on education, training and travel.  Salaries and benefits may also be tackled.  For unionized staff this may take the form of attempts to reopen collective agreements.  For non-unionized staff it may take the form of wage freezes.  More often than not that doesn't deal with all or even most of the financial requirements and staff changes rapidly follow.  This despite the fact that the human resources of the organization have been touted as the organization's greatest asset. 

This pattern of investment and divestment takes on a degree of regularity that makes for great fodder for a Dilbert cartoon.  I've been through more cycles of this than I can now recall in my former healthcare career where we would often invest significant time and resources in recruiting staff - even engaging in heavy overseas recruitment - and then within a year or two start a round of layoffs to meet a new budgetary challenge.  The larger economy parallels this experience.  For example, business media is starting to note recovery in the US economy and with this rebound the topic of employee retention is getting more play. 

So what should the true bottom line for one's organization be?  To me it hardly seems logical to manage any enterprise, to sustain forward momentum, and achieve long-term objectives by divesting and then reinvesting in staff every couple of years.  I may be cynical, but it appears that too many leaders take more care in the investment and maintenance of the physical assets of their organizations (e.g., buildings, equipment) than they do in their staff.  And yet without skilled, qualified, motivated and committed staff those physical assets stand idle or are not used to best effect.  I don't believe most leaders would make millions of dollars in investments in buildings and equipment only to idle or shutter them only a couple of years later.  It would seem that doing so on a regular basis would start to call into question leadership competence...or so one would think...

I have already shown my bias as to what I think an organization's bottom line should be.  I do believe that we should truly commit to the principle that, as leaders, we so often espouse.  Namely that our staff are our greatest resource.  What are the implications of making this type of commitment real?  For one, I believe as leaders we need to exercise diligence on both sides of the equation of creating/expanding programs, services or product lines as we do in reducing/ eliminating them.  As leaders our goal should be to create some semblance of stability and measured response to environmental pressures.  I believe we should endeavor to create a plan for product, program and service delivery that is sustainable and is informed by our past experiences and future - realistic - expectations. 

Have I just crafted a fairy-tale scenario?  Is this a realistic perspective on how to handle pressing financial considerations?  Is this at all doable?  For some organizations the answer is evidently yes.

Just this week, CNN Money (August 27, 2013) reported that Starbucks would not be following the lead of other US companies in cutting staff or benefits as a result of healthcare reform south of the border.  Starbuck's CEO, Howard Schultz, took a stand for its company and said that its current benefits and commitment to staff was non-negotiable.  This is no small commitment.  In 2010, benefits cost the company $300 million.  That's more than the chain paid for coffee in the same year.  Starbucks has made their commitment to staff - their bottom line - real.  I expect that this commitment puts them at some advantage in recruiting and retaining the most important asset in any enterprise - it's people.

So what's your bottom line as a leader?  Do your words as a leader match your actions?  Does your vision extend beyond the next quarter's financial results? 
______________________________

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.

Change - Only Effective if you Make it Stick!

The only constant in life is change.

Amazingly enough this quote comes from a Greek philosopher by the name of Heraclitus (500 BC) and not from a thought leader of our present day.  Regardless, I expect that most of us can relate to the sentiment expressed by Heraclitus and in fact might consider it to be an understatement in today's environment.  As organizations, leaders and individuals we seem to be constantly bombarded by and responding to change.  Just as frequently, leaders see or believe in the need to proactively initiate change to better position their organizations for future success - or even survival. 

One would think with so much at stake for organizations in these change initiatives that nothing would be left to chance in ensuring success.  The track record, however, is not so encouraging.  A variety of sources identify the success rate for major change initiatives as being between 20% and 40%.  Put another way, fully 60% to 80% of change efforts fail to achieve or sustain the objectives for which the change effort was established! An abysmal figure given the significance of the resources devoted to these initiatives.  Add on to these direct costs the lost opportunity cost to an organization (e.g., what else could have been done with that time, energy and money) and the impact can truly be staggering.  Indeed, some organizations fail so completely at implementing change that they cease to exist.

What accounts for this staggering rate of failure?  And what are the critical factors in making sure that change can be managed and the gains sustained?  This latter question was recently tackled by several of my colleagues and myself within the context of an academic exercise.  We could all bring to bear our personal experience of success and failure in organizational change initiatives. 

Not surprisingly (maybe particularly so for a blog focused on leadership) the first critical success factor identified was the need for sustained, visible and credible senior leadership commitment.  Too often - in my experience - senior leaders are great at calling out the need for change, are visible at the launch of a change initiative, or can tell others what new behaviors are expected but fail to stay intimately involved in the change initiative for the duration.  Major change initiatives need constant engagement of leaders, role models and executive sponsors.  Major change initiatives take time to fully realize their potential and success does not come without overcoming bumps and barriers along the way.  If senior leadership is only fleetingly or superficially engaged failure of the change initiative is a near certainty.  (For additional perspective on the importance of executive sponsorship check out http://www.wmc.ca/ebooks/sponsorship/)

Directly related to the need for senior leadership commitment is a requirement for a compelling vision for change - why is the change necessary, what are the expectations for the change initiative, what will success look like, what steps must be taken, how will people within the organization be impacted, and so on.  If leadership of an organization cannot develop and articulate a compelling vision for the initiative natural resistance to change will take over and the odds of successful implementation will be significantly diminished. 

Following immediately on the need for a compelling vision is the need for a real and substantive plan for the change initiative.  It's not just that a major change initiative needs to have a detailed plan from initiation, through to key milestones, conclusion, evaluation and ongoing monitoring.  It also won't be just enough to make sure that there are change champions in place or training initiated as required.  Leaders must also ensure that the change initiative is complemented by and coordinated with other ongoing organizational initiatives or existing systems or ways of doing things.  A lack of internal alignment means that organizational gears will grind against each other slowing if not entirely defeating hoped for results. 

Communicate, communicate, communicate.  There cannot be enough communication in all phases of the change initiative.  A communication plan must be created and implemented in lock step with key milestones of the overall change initiative.  This plan must take into account the appropriate role for senior leaders, middle managers, front-line supervisors and other change champions - each of whom will play a different but critical role in keeping information flow alive and rumors at bay.  There will certainly have to be internal consistency to the messages being sent.  However, timing and tailoring of content to a variety of stakeholders will have to account for different needs, perspectives and capacities of the different audiences.  This is no small job.  And the communication should be two-way, allowing for feedback/evaluation as the initiative is rolled out.  This feedback loop can help identify problems quickly and reduce points of resistance.

Target and celebrate early wins.  It's important to demonstrate as soon as is possible some of the success that the initiative is achieving.  People will need positive reinforcement for the effort they are putting in and for the sacrifices they are making.  Reward and recognize along the way.  Failure to do so will at best induce apathy in change management efforts and at worst will lead to entrenchment in the old way of doing things.  A couple of cautionary notes though - make sure the win is real and the reward authentic.  We are all intelligent enough to sniff out a lack of reality when we are being falsely complimented.  Credibility is key.  Just as important is making sure that leadership does not prematurely announce "victory" for the change initiative.  Any major change requires a significant investment of time before it truly supplants past behaviors.  Don't get distracted and complacent only yards from the finish line.  You will find yourself back at start before you know it and wondering what happened. 

One last note.  It may, again, seem self-evident but I believe that an organization can only sustain so much change at any one time.  Self-evident as it may be it appears that too many leaders still try to defy the odds and take on all comers.  So what's the answer to how many change initiatives?  I don't have a magic number but I believe there are a couple of parameters to be considered.  First, if we reconsider  the critical role of the senior leader or executive sponsor a key question should be how many change initiatives can these individuals effectively lead.  I suggest that this number is realistically not more than two.  If we are talking about major change initiatives - stacked on top of regular, operational responsibilities - I don't believe any leader/executive sponsor can effectively manage more than that.  Second, just because an executive team might be comprised of 6, 10 or 15 individuals it should in no way imply that 12, 20 or 30 change initiatives can be managed/tolerated by the organization.  Again, if we are talking about major change initiatives, it can be expected that more than one senior leader and department in the organization will be impacted by or play a role in supporting each initiative.  So as a leader you are not just leading two initiatives but also being looked to for support in perhaps another six.  And staff of the organization are going to have to somehow manage, navigate, and prioritize all of these "critical" demands from their senior leadership.  A truly unenviable task.

The only thing that is constant is change.  This may be particularly true if as a leader you don't do change right.  Do it right, do it well, and make it stick.

______________________________

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.

Tolerating Mediocre Leadership

I've been hearing more and more the lament of "where is the leadership?" from a variety of quarters over the past few years.  I'm sure most would not be surprised that much of that concern is often focused on the top echelons of our organizations.  Most often it is easiest to critique to those in the C-suite as they are the most visible, are paid the most, and are the ones that shoulder the blame for things gone wrong or not quite right in their organizations.  Just as frequently, they are the ones most under scrutiny by the media and the public in general. This is true for all types of organizations - political parties, large private sector companies, and public sector and not-for-profit ventures. 

What might be surprising to hear, is that many of our top leaders express similar discontent with the caliber of leadership demonstrated by those who report to them or that lead business units throughout their organization.

Despite these laments, misgivings and general feelings of discontent our organizations are seemingly prepared to tolerate this leadership mediocrity.  If not, rather than complaining about the situation wouldn't they have taken concrete steps to change or improve leadership in their organization?  And that doesn't mean just instituting a leadership development program, rather it means modeling and rewarding desired leadership behaviors.  A recent quote from Chief of Army Lieutenant General David Morrison (Australia) has been making the rounds of late and seems appropriate in this context - "The standard you walk past is the standard you accept."  Worse yet, I believe that not only do we walk past or tolerate mediocre leadership but many of our organizations unconsciously reward sub-standard leadership.  We support blind adherence to rules and regulations, support a risk management and avoidance approach rather than one of risk taking, and appreciate those who play it safe while holding back those who would be creative and innovative.  We may pay lip service to a desired level of leadership but our actions speak louder than our words.

So why does this situation exist?  In some circumstances, it is evident that as leaders in our own right we have not laid out clear expectations for leadership performance.  To the extent that this doesn't happen the natural inclination of many new leaders/managers is to play it safe.  The rationale approach is "don't make too many mistakes" in our first few days on the job.  Moreover, in large organizations - unless there is an existing dynamic of innovation and risk-taking - the prevailing work culture tends to force a new manager to a pre-existing norm and standard of performance.  Conformity is at the very least subconsciously rewarded and enforced.  This hidden or not so hidden culture can also often be reinforced by a variety of formal organizational structures (e.g., compensation systems) that have not been reformed and changed to support a style of leadership that the organization says it wants.

Just as important as this lack of clarity of expectations is the inability or unwillingness of leaders to have honest conversations about performance or lack thereof.  This includes a willingness on the part of any leader to interrogate their own reality, assess their own leadership performance, and be open to feedback from their direct reports and others.  This unwillingness and unease to confront the gap between words and actions brings us back to Lieutenant General David Morrison's statement above.  In many respects, we get the leadership we deserve as much through our inaction as through positive engagement with our constituents.  Our lack of action speaks volumes.  If we are to raise the standard for leadership in our organizations we must recognize a need to be clear and assertive about our expectations.  This doesn't mean being engaged in perpetual conflict and performance management conversations (I hope) but it does mean having the courage of your stated convictions.  That's really what effective management and leadership is all about.

There are a couple of other explanations about why leadership is the way it is in many of our organizations.  One disturbing conclusion comes from an assumption that leadership mediocrity has become more the norm than the exception and as a result we no longer really distinguish between good and bad leadership.  A bit of the boiled frog analogy.  A frightening thought from my viewpoint.  In fact, perhaps we are simply looking for managers and leaders to fill a slot on the org chart, get along with as many people as possible and help us create a "no news is good news" culture. 

An even more disturbing thought from my perspective is that perhaps the definition of leadership truly has shifted.  Perhaps the collective "we" really does not want or value courageous leaders - those leaders who have bold vision, are prepared to take on the sacred cows, embrace and foster change, recognize that past approaches can't solve current problems and future challenges, and actively seek to disrupt the status quo through innovation, creativity, transparency and engagement.  I hope I am wrong!

It is my sincere - and maybe naïve and idealistic - hope that our leadership lament DOES imply a collective desire to recruit, support and develop leaders who are willing to challenge the status quo, offer new ideas and energy, authentically engage all constituents, and ultimately are prepared to take on a servant leadership mantle to co-create better organizational responses to pressing requirements of our new and ever-dynamic reality.  Mediocrity in leadership at all levels clearly is not going to move us beyond our current challenges.
______________________________

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.

Credibility and Integrity

This past week I was pleased to have the opportunity to connect with two people at the opposite ends of the career spectrum.  My first meeting was with a young man starting to chart his career course, having recently completed some academic upgrading and in the throes of a job search.  A man focused and intent on making his mark in the world.  Later that same week I renewed acquaintances with a colleague of mine that I had last worked with 10 or more years ago.  From my perspective, an accomplished leader, somebody who has made key contributions in his home province and across Canada.  A man who has already made his mark but remains focused on continuing to do so.

Two people at quite different stages of life and career.  Yet we ended up covering a least one topic in common.  How to maintain one's credibility and integrity during challenging times, when to stand up for what you believe in and when is a battle important enough to justify standing up and bearing the potential cost - including a radical change in one's career path.  There certainly has been more than enough in the news over the last few weeks to bring up this topic for discussion.  This includes the relatively unprecedented resignation of a Member of Parliament from the governing party and the battle between the Board of Alberta Health Services and the Minister of Health over senior executive compensation and, more particularly, at risk pay or bonuses. 

In both cases, the protagonists took a stand on a principle - transparency, democracy, autonomy, integrity, authority, accountability - to justify a stand and an action.  A high price was paid by the principals in each case.  The MP now sits as an independent, has lost access to government resources, and likely faces a huge uphill battle to be reelected if he chooses to run in the next federal election.  The ruling party faces the dilemma of being accused by one of its former stalwarts of turning away from its fundamental values and principles that first brought it to power.  In Alberta, the Board of AHS was summarily dismissed from their roles by the Minister of Health.  The Minister of Health and the provincial government now face public scrutiny and political attack for making such drastic move.  It is likely that each group or individual would identify that they acted on a fundamental principle, took a stand to maintain their personal or organizational integrity, and further needed to do so to maintain their credibility.

I'm not going to use this forum to land on either side of these particular issues although I do have a decided view in both circumstances.  Instead, I see value in using these stories as a base from which to address a question posed to me by my young colleague - when is the right time to take a stand on an issue?  No small question.  A similar topic came up in conversation with my senior colleague.  However, in that discussion we did not need to deal with hypotheticals.  We had both lived the experience of dealing with challenging situations that called us to make choices - could we live with and be party to a particular decision or direction OR would we advocate for something different, even if we could reasonably expect negative consequences to our current positions?  Both of us could recount in clear detail the circumstances in which we had held true to core beliefs and values.  All the more memorable no doubt since the outcome was indeed a radical change in our employment status.

My senior colleague and I both agreed that there was no "scientific method" by which we had determined which hill to die on.  The decision was arrived at more subjectively.  We did agree, however, that there were fundamental values at play for the both of us.  Moreover, these values did not simply exist or demonstrate themselves in our work environments.  We both saw a consistency and authenticity at play as we brought our whole selves to work that was a product of multiple experiences in our personal and professional lives.  It was clear as well to me that both of us were in fact clear on what our personal lines in the sand were.  We knew what was important to us and were not prepared to pay any price to sustain our positions.  It boiled down to what was the "right thing to do " based on our core beliefs.

When I tried to answer the question of my young colleague in this regard I immediately suggested that I perhaps wasn't the best person to ask for advice on when or when not to take a stand.  While I wouldn't describe myself as somebody who sees issues in purely black and white terms I definitely have a pronounced sense of right and wrong, and maybe more particularly a perspective on what seems fair.  So, the reality of that for me has been a decided willingness to tilt at windmills, being a champion of difficult causes and being the first one over the hill to take the spear - really prepared to make a difference in my sphere of influence. 

What I did recommend was that my young colleague seek clarity on his personal values.  I have spoken to this in some of my previous blog entries (e.g., Courage...or calculation, Charting Your Leadership Course) and would continue to emphasize that if you don't clearly identify what's critically important for yourself you will likely be making compromise after compromise in your life.  A key symptom of having sold away yourself to the decisions and values of others is that you will no longer find joy in your work.  In fact, I would suggest that you could be downright miserable, disenchanted, demoralized and fatigued as you consider each day's work.  You no longer serve a purpose, your purpose, with credibility and integrity.

Finally credibility and integrity aren't created overnight or simply because one holds high position or ultimate power.  Credibility and integrity come from a well-established set of values, consistently articulated AND ACTED UPON, over a long period of time.  An individual or organization rapidly loses credibility and does damage to the perception of integrity if decisions take on the character of convenience or expediency.  I have often suggested that credibility and integrity can be looked upon as a personal credit rating.  It takes a long time to build up your credit rating.  However, make too many withdrawals or miss too many payments and you rapidly throw that good work out the window.  It all catches up to you at some point. 

Be clear about your values and what's important to you, act consistently with those values in your personal and professional life, and be prepared to take YOUR stand when you are being pushed away from your core self.  Others are watching you, evaluating your strength and your convictions, but you are in control of your personal credit rating - your credibility and integrity. 

It's all about you and your 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.