Loss of a Mentor

Loss of a mentor.

Recently an old mentor and former high school teacher passed.  I've thought a lot about crucial moments in my life, single points that cascade and create your life and my experiences with Sergeant Major Gunter is such a point.  

Over twenty-six years ago a frightened young man walked into a class room on his first day of high school.  There stood a man who may have only been five foot six actual feet but commanded a full seven feet in presence.  A Vietnam War veteran and Green Beret who wore his class A uniform with a pair of jump boots that shined like liquid glass.  

I learned so many valuable lessons from him over the next twenty six years of my life.  He taught me more about leadership in three years of high school than I have learned since.  Leadership is self control; how true this seemingly simple sentence is.  I've learned as a leader that control, external control that is, is largely an illusion.  As leaders we allow ourselves to believe we are in control but it is a lie we tell ourselves.  In fact all I can ever control is myself.  

As a supplemental lesson he would tell us, "relax to the point of self control".  I used to have an incredible fear of heights and part of our class involved rappelling.  The act of hanging onto a pair of strings and hang off the side of a rock or building and jumping down to the bottom.  Learning to rappel was about more than just tying knots and Swiss seats.  It was about learning how to relax  to the point of self control.

Rest in Peace Sergeant Major.

The measurement or the measured.

I've thought a a lot recently about metrics.  I've heard the phrase, if it can't be measured it isn't worth doing. While I don't disagree what I have found is, when you focus only on the measurement the important thing we are measuring is lost.

The activity matters more than the measurement. The measurement should reflect the activity and provide meaningful insight.  Rather too often we just focus on the measurement because it is easier. There are so many things to measure.  Technology allows us to measure more and more each day.  We have so much data that we don't even know where to begin or what we are actually measuring. Meanwhile managers get smarter on manipulating the measurement, so that the measurement becomes meaningless. We are measuring how well managers can manipulate the measurement process not how well the manage the process.

As leaders we should focus instead on what measurements are important and ensuring we communicate this to our management teams. The value of the measurement is in assessing the efficacy of the process. We have to allow our managers the ability to report bad metrics free of fear, confident that leadership will help address the underlying process issues. Otherwise we are lying to ourselves and worse creating am environment where we encourage our managers to become dishonest.

When we focus on putting the right people in the right place with the right process and the ability to react the measurement takes care of itself.

Complacency Kills

     One oft repeated phrase in the Army is "complacency kills".  The idea refers more to the tactical aspect of the Army.  Soldiers assume key events; they are secure, their weapon works, they are safe.  The fact is when a soldier becomes complacent in the field they make mistakes that ultimately prove fatal to themselves, others or both.  Complacency in leadership is also fatal.  The fatality is innovation, vision and communication. 

     Innovation requires constant commitment.  One can never assume that their inbuilt processes bring new, better ways to the table.  Rather we build new boxes, while the box may appear radically different than anyone else's boxes what was once innovative becomes eccentric.  Leaders are chaotic; they drive change in organizations.  They must be the innovators and drive the change within their organizations.  Managers are sources of stability.  If leaders become complacent, they become managers.  Innovation is how organizations remain relevant.

    Vision is the reason leaders innovate.  While the vision for an organization should remain consistent leaders must constantly revisit their vision.  Leadership is a process because the world is not constant.  Leaders must constantly assess the relevance of their vision against the backdrop of their world.

    Communication is the media, the method and too often the madness.  Leaders must be able to create innovation, share vision with others.  Communication is how the process happens, the means by which abstract becomes concrete.  When communication works ideas are shared both the leader and the led are transformed and vision becomes reality.  Complacency kills communications.  When we assume others can "finish our sentences" because of long acquaintance gaps occur.  Shared vision is lost and we now have two different ideas and wasted effort. 

      Leaders must never become complacent.  You must reinvigorate yourself and your organization.  Innovation, vision and communication must never be assumed.  Complacency kills.

The Leadership Spectrum

Leaders don't often plug nicely into a single hole.  In my experience they operate along a range, sometimes achieving excellence and other times noterity.  I developed the idea of a spectrum from the numerous articles I've read over the course of school and in the Army. 

The leader categories, Transformational, Transactional, Laissez faire and Management by Exception are taken from the transformational leadership model.  I feel they best capture the basic levels most leaders operate from.

Management by exception is the leader who only finds fault.  There is no attempt at concensus building, they are often micromanagers who are focused mainly on themselves. 

Laissez faire leaders are those who provide little to no guidance.  In my experience these are "scalded dogs".  Leaders who don't give guidance, make few decisions and put off the decisions they do make till the last moment.

Transactional Contingent leaders are the most common.  These leaders focus on the carrot and stick approach.  While it can be very pleasing to operate for a contingent boss they are not going to change the world. 

Transformational leaders are about changing the world.  These are the charasmatic leaders who define organizations.  They have the ability to communicate vision in a way that makes others excited.  They don't need a carrot or stick.

Management by exception could also be called Toxic.  These leaders can achieve goals and look good to thier bosses but at a cost.  Their teams seldom function well or autonomously.  The ultimate goal is to make the leader look good. 

Contrasted to transformational leaders who are in fact mentors.  They develop teams and share their successes with thier teams.  They impact the organization for years, even after they have left. 

Leadership is a process.  Where do your processes place you in the spectrum?

Comunication and the Fundemental Attribution Error

Chip and Dan Heath wrote an amazing book Switch.  In which they describe a phenomenom known as the fundemental attribution error; when leaders assume thier followers are lazy, incompetent or otherwise disinclined to follow direction.  While there are certainly those whom these labels apply to it is certainly not true for the majority of your employees.  This error usually comes into play when a new policy or procedure is being implimented, a new time sheet, billing protocol or other change in the status quo.  Rather than complying your staff seems to be stalling, making errors and otherwise not meeting the new standard.  Many leaders will make snap judgements.

The problem is most likley with the leader, the new process is poorly defined, the directions or expectations are unclear.  The leader has failed to communicate the process properly.  As leaders the single most important thing we can do is to communicate effectively.  We often forget that we see a bigger picture than our followers.  We have access to information that they do not.  Therefore we can make connections they cannot.  As leaders we must remember that communication is a two way street, that in addition to sending information we must also recieve and process information from both higher and lower. As leaders we must listen, critically analyze and react to what our subordinates say with the same intensity that we lisen to our own leaders.  Our job is to eliminate ambigutiy, share a common vision and in doing so build concensus. 

The Heath brothers list numerous ways to help overcome the fundemental attribution error; all deal with steps leaders can do to simplify the process.  I believe they miss one very important piece of the solution; communicating need.  Working in health care I deal with doctors, nurses, medical assistants, EMTs and administrative people.  The vast majority of my healthcare providers are focused on providing great care.  They truly care about thier patients and understand the importance of patient care documentation.  However, when it comes to other paperwork many tend to fall short.  They often view these extra demands on thier time as detracting from thier work, patient care.  While administrators see this paperwork as being crucial to the growth and development of the organization.  Leadership must explain better the value added to the extra work.

For example as a new platoon leader I found numerous problems with the maintenance of my ambulances.  The medics were going though the motions of maintaining thier vehicles.  After all they were "medics not mechanics".  After numerous issues, I finally came up with a solution and a phrase.  The manual for maintaining the vehicles was confusing.  So we developed a simple check list and required an initial by each point on the checklist by the medic doing maintenance.  We made the required steps easy to understand and comply with.  I then tied why vehicle maintenance was important to the medical mission with a simple question, "how many patients can a deadlines ambulance evacuate per hour?"  0.0 patients per hour.  This actually had an effect on most of the medics and I started seeing less maintenance issues.  The problem wasn't that my medics were lazy or incompetent.  The problem was that it wasn't clear to them why a job was important.  They viewed maintenance as a detractor from their primary mission of patient care not as an enabler. When I took the time to communicate with the medics I gained concensus.

As leaders we must communicate effectively both up and down.  Rather than seeing non-compliance as a lack of motivation or ability we should rather assess if we have effectively communicated first.

Leadership vs. Management

Too often are the terms management and leadership used interchangeably, when in fact they are diametrically opposed.  They are the ying and yang of accomplishment.  A leader is a chaotic force within an organization, creating change and looking for new ways to do business.  Managers focus on stability and routine.  The manager uses stability as the standard for good performance. 

To be successful an organization requires managers and leaders.  Without leaders any enterprise is doomed to failure, it will not adapt, it will not learn new lessons.  Managers favor stability, familiar over change.  However, an organization of leaders cannot thrive either.  Constant change creates ambiguity, uncertainty.  Employees cannot thrive if they are required to learn a new way to do thier jobs everyday.  There must exist a balance between those forces that change and improve with those that embrace the status quo.

I do believe that one can transition between being a manager and a leader.  In fact in many situations one may be required to act as a manager/leader.  Improving thier organization within the constraints of thier manager's guidance. 

Leadership and the Led

   As I went through Grad school and worked I came to a realization; that Leadership is a compact between the leader and the led.  Each party owes a duty to the other; the leader owes it to the led to be responsive to the needs of the led.  In exchange for following the led have the right to expect that thier leaders be individuals of worthy of the trust they have for thier leaders.  Contrawise the led have a duty to follow thier leaders and trust that they are doing the right thing for both the led and their employer. 

    Great leaders seem to realize this implicitly.  Poor leadership occurs when the leadership fails to meet its obligations.  Examples include the leader who focuses solely on themselves, the leader who doesn't care about thier employees.