The Frustration Factor

Hogan, Robert. Personality and the Fate of Organizations. New York: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., 2007.

…all managerial jobs have one important feature in common: They help accomplish the work of an organization through other people. This means that managers are responsible for the performance of their staffs.

The word leadership has two meanings. On the one hand, leadership refers to a certain kind of position in an organization--a leadership position. On the other hand, leadership refers to a kind of performance--behaving in a leader-like way.

By definition, managers are in positions of leadership; whether they exercise it appropriately is another question.

The published literature on leadership is immense--actually overwhelming--and growing daily.

Effective leaders tend to be resilient and handle stress well, they promote a vision and develop strategies to translate the vision into reality, they solve tactical and strategic problems, they set high goals and work hard to achieve them, they project a sense of self-confidence, they build relationships, they build teams, they follow through on their commitments and treat people fairly, and they plan and organize work. These attributes are no guarantee of success, but they improve the odds of a person being able to build a high-performing team that achieves results.

…bad management is the primary cause of employee dissatisfaction--the best predictor of employee dissatisfaction is poor leadership.

…bad managers create turnover--people do not quit organizations, they quit bad bosses. …

…perceived integrity--keeping one's word, fulfilling one's promises, not playing favorites, not taking advantage of one's position, and not claiming special privileges.

…visionary—they [leaders] can explain why the team's activity is important and how it contributes to the future success and well-being of the members.

Leaders are leaders are leaders, even when they are bad.

…the primary task of leaders is to build a group, persuade the individuals to work together, and then maintain their performance.

Leaders with imagination can project a vision that participants find attractive, morally compelling, and worthy of allegiance, whereas incompetent leaders unwittingly project visions that are distasteful to people.

…leaders must be perceived as having integrity, decisiveness, competence, vision, persistence, and humility.

Give people clear, frequent, and accurate feedback.

This unusually complex strategy starts with being as quick to tell people what they have done right as you are to tell them what they have done wrong. That does not sound difficult, does it?

What if the order is reversed though?

Be as quick to tell people what they have done wrong as you are to tell them what they have done right.

Now it sounds odd. It seems like I am suggesting that equal attention needs to be given to both what's right and what's wrong. There you go. That is exactly the point.

It is not necessary to go into a lot of detail about leaders who only relate to team members in terms of problems and things they have done wrong. They also point fingers and know every problem is someone else's fault. Their major activity is finding someone, anyone to criticize or blame. You are also well-aware of leaders who appropriately point out problems but seldom point out good work. It is not unusual to see the compliment criticism balance favoring criticism. …

I certainly recommend that leaders carefully attend to keeping the balance in balance.

For a proactive leader, finding and keeping the balance is based on taking it for granted that people are trying to do a good job. They do not intentionally screw things up, make mistakes, or perform below their abilities. Even more, most everyone on the team consciously and intentionally gives the little extra that moves good work into the excellent category. Their commitment to excellence is a major reason why they are on the team, and excellence is what you get from them, the first time, on time, every time.

Here is the rub. With highly successful teams, the expectation is that team members perform at the excellent level every time, no exceptions, no excuses. People are extraordinarily good at what they do. With teams like this, compliments and praise are plentiful and lavish. Even when people are not being complimented directly, they receive indirect compliments and praise from customers and others in the external environment. They are among the best and they know it. It helps to attend to direct praise and acknowledgment of superior performance, but this is merely an extra quality touch in an already self-reinforcing environment. If a team is not doing well, compliments and praise will not, by themselves, help much. If it is doing well, additional praise and compliments will not add much to its success.

The real issue here is criticism. Of course, a proactive leader praises publicly and only criticizes in private. He also is very careful to assure his criticism is an exact fit with the problem or issue, not overdoing it or under doing it. Criticism, no matter how well it is managed, introduces a negative element into a fast-moving, stressful environment where people are already on edge and pushing themselves to their limits. The affect is the person who is criticized and those who are coincidentally in the immediate environment become apprehensive and less productive, at least for the moment.

The point is that criticism is always temporarily counterproductive. For this reason, a proactive leader is quick to praise but very cautious when criticizing anyone, for any reason.

Clear, accurate, and frequent feedback is certainly important.

a proactive leader knows as well that providing constructive and effective criticism is the most delicate area of the feedback balancing act. If this feedback is inappropriate or excessive, the person will overreact or withdraw and the outcome is often worse than the original problem. If criticism is not forthcoming when it is appropriate or is not focused enough, the problem or issue persists and likely will get worse. Getting criticism just right, the first time, on time, every time is critical for any leader and an es...

To the inexperienced observer, “crisis” and “the individual in crisis” represent nearly equivalent notions. We say that an individual is “suicidal.” Why? Because he is depressed. We say that an individual is nervous and shaking. Why? Because he is upset. When we take the next step and ask why the individual is depressed or upset, the assumption is that the answer will point to there being something wrong with the individual or with his situation. “You are just being silly.”… “If I were you, I would get out of that situation and not put up with it anymore.”… “If you would just straighten up and deal with it, things would be better.”… “You can’t blame yourself. It’s not your fault. If they didn’t act the way they do, things would be okay.” By the inexperienced observer, then, the ‘crisis’ is interpreted to be something that is either in the individual or in the situation.

As we examine the conflict state in this chapter and focus more specifically on the crisis state in Chapter 3, we will find that the “crisis” is neither within the individual nor within the situation. The crisis lies in how you are or are not getting along within your situation.

Frequently there is conflict between the individual and his world. This situational conflict is an everyday thing. Life is full of its hassles, difficulties, and annoyances. Sometimes, though, the conflict becomes intensified to such an extent that we can accurately think of it as “a crisis state.” Understanding the crisis state and helping the people who are caught up in it is our objective. First, however, we want to carefully examine and come to understand the conflict state from which crises develop. Figure 1 illustrates conflict in terms of the individual, the situation, and the interaction between the two. A careful look at each of these three perspectives is, then, where we will start to develop an understanding of and a feeling for the social interaction approach to crisis intervention. …

THE INDIVIDUAL

Basic to an understanding of the individual in relationship to crisis is the recognition that physical development and physical health are important to everyone at every stage of the developmental process. From birth to about the age of three, children are primarily concerned with physical development. They learn how to sit, walk, talk, use the bathroom, feed themselves, manipulate objects, run, climb, and do all the things they will need to do as they grow and mature. For people of all ages, physical skills, abilities, capacities, needs, and so on, are very important to their sense of who they are and to their ability to cope with their life situation. We can see, then, that whenever an individual is experiencing some physical difficulty he also will have problems in coping with his responsibilities and opportunities. This difficulty in coping may at times be more than the individual can handle. For example, children with serious physical difficulties may become overwhelmed with feelings of inadequacy and helplessness when they are unable to participate in normal activities, do the kinds of things other children do, be accepted by other children as equals, and so on. Adults may suddenly find themselves in a position where they are unable to work, unable to drive, unable to carry out their day-to-day responsibilities, unable to cope with simple routines like getting to the store, and generally feeling inadequate and useless. Elderly people frequently become depressed and overwhelmed by their recent inability to hear, see, walk, and so on. Throughout the life cycle, physical difficulties and health problems represent a serious liability and frequently contribute to social and emotional crises.

Similarly, emotional development is an important dimension. An individual’s emotional makeup receives its primary developmental structure during the preschool years.

This episode of the Audio Tidbits Podcast is an eight-minute lesson in leadership. It shows us that leadership comes last, always. Perhaps it might have been better named as the five prerequisites to leadership. Either way, leadership is at the end of the learning curve, not where it starts.

Hesselbein, Frances and Rob Johnston. On Mission and Leadership: A Leader to Leader Guide. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2002.

Intellectual capital is an organization's primary asset. Knowledge workers seek meaning and purpose in their work, a climate of trust and optimism, and results.

Technical competence: business literacy and grasp of one's field

Conceptual skill: a facility for abstract or strategic thinking

Track record: a history of achieving results

People skills: an ability to communicate, motivate, and delegate

Taste: an ability to identify and cultivate talent

Judgment: making difficult decisions in a short time frame with imperfect data

Character: the qualities that define who we are

… constituents seek four things: meaning or direction, trust in and from the leader, a sense of hope and optimism, and results. …

Effective leaders bring passion, perspective, and significance to the process of defining organizational purpose.

…constituents want not just a vision of where we're heading but also where they've been and where they are now.

In short, every exemplary leader that I have met has what seems to be an unwarranted degree of optimism--and that helps generate the energy and commitment necessary to achieve results.

Emotional intelligence is more important to successful leadership than I Q or technical expertise. Emotional intelligence includes self-awareness and the abilities to manage one's emotions and impulses, motivate others, show empathy, and stay connected.

A leader who is self-effacing and lacks charisma may fail to inspire confidence. A charismatic leader who believes that he or she is more important than others eventually will lose followers. To inspire both loyalty and excitement, a leader needs to couple humility with charisma.

Leaders must communicate their organization's mission to all parts of the organization. The mission provides a reference point, an anchor, and a source of hope in times of change. When it connects with people's values, it brings purpose and meaning to those who are fulfilling the mission and provides the impetus for creativity, productivity, and quality in the work and in personal development.

The first responsibility of a leader is to manage his or her own character, integrity, humility, knowledge, words, and acts. Refuting the idea that management is an exercise of authority over those below, chaordic leadership is based on follower ship -- a voluntary response to a clear, constructive purpose and compelling ethical principles. Chaordic leaders focus upward and sideward as well as downward. They do not dictate; they modify conditions that prevent synergy and accomplishment.

Managing quietly involves knowing that a leader is not the sum total of an organization. It involves inspiring, encouraging, and enabling others by creating a culture of openness, trust, community, and energy. Quiet leaders are low-key but engaging and interactive. They tend to their organizations and spend more time preventing problems than fixing them. They infuse values and slow, profound change for which everyone takes responsibility while holding other things steady -- a natural continuous improvement.

Hackman, Richard J. Collaborative Intelligence: Using Teams to Solve Hard Problems. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc., 2011.

A team is akin to an audio amplifier: whatever comes in, be it Mozart or ear-grating static, comes out louder.

To perform well, any team must include members who have the knowledge and skill that the task requires; it must recognize which members have which capabilities; and it must properly weight members' inputs--avoiding the trap of being more influenced by those who have high status or who are highly vocal than by those who actually know what they are talking about.

The benefits of teamwork come only when capable people work together interdependently to achieve some collective purpose.

Face-to-face teams are indicated when creating a high-quality product requires coordinated contributions in real time from a diversity of members who have complementary expertise, experience, and perspectives.

We have seen that the five common types of teams discussed--surgical, coacting, face-to-face, distributed, and sand dune--are appropriate in some task and organizational circumstances, but not in others.

The social processes the team uses in carrying out the work enhance members' capability to work together interdependently in the future.

An effective team is a more capable performing unit when it has finished a piece of work than it was when the work began. …

here is the rub: research has shown that leader behavior makes the most constructive difference for teams that are reasonably well structured and supported in the first place. If a team is poorly composed, has an ambiguous or unimportant purpose, and operates in an organization that discourages rather than supports teamwork, there is no way that a leader's hands-on interventions with that team can turn things around.

The six enabling conditions are: creating a real team , specifying a compelling direction or purpose for the team, putting the right number of the right people on the team, specifying clear norms of conduct for team behavior, providing a supportive organizational context, and making competent team-focused coaching available to the team.

If what holds members tightly together is a shared wish to maintain harmony and good interpersonal relationships, the risks of dysfunction are high. But if cohesiveness stems from a shared commitment to accomplishing the team's task, it can unleash members' energies and talents to generate synergies that never would be seen in a loosely bounded group.

One way to lessen the likelihood of purpose-related problems in managerial and professional teams is to establish, as a team's first and most important task, the development of an agreed-upon statement of the team's main purposes.

Someone who is internally motivated feels great when he or she has done well, and feels bad when things have gone poorly. It is those internally generated feelings that fuel motivation, not extrinsic rewards or prods from a supervisor.

…leaders often put too many people on the team in the first place, either to make sure the team has enough members to accomplish the work or to include at least one representative of every constituency with a stake in the outcome. The perverse result can be such an excess of members than the team has little chance to perform at a level that will please those same constituencies.

Psychological safety is a shared belief that the team is a place where one can take personal and interpersonal risks. Members of psychologically safe teams are better able to admit mistakes, more likely to ask for help from teammates, more open about what they do and do not know, and more likely to learn from the expertise of others.

PLEASE HELP ME!

Mrs. A is crying, and her voice quivers as she talks. “I guess what really got me was that when I got home he was there. He was still up, and he said he had to get some sleep. I said, ‘All right,’ and asked him if I could talk with him. He said he didn’t want to go to sleep in bed, but wanted to sleep on the couch. I said, ‘All right, if that’s the way it has to be.’ I said, ‘Isn’t there any chance at all for me?’ He said no. He keeps asking me why I’m making it hard. I told him whatever he decides, I’m not going to stand in the way. I told him that I wanted him—I was honest—that I didn’t want to lose him, but if he decided that he wanted her or if something fell through with her and he still didn’t want me, I could accept it.

“He said, ‘Even if it fell through and I came back to you, I’d probably think about her the rest of my life.’ And I said I could even accept that. I know I’ve made a lot of mistakes, and I just didn’t realize things are as bad as they are. Whenever I thought things were bad, he’d say things are okay. I’d say, ‘But they are not for me.’ But he’d always say they are going fine for him. I guess I just didn’t understand.

“I wanted to talk to him. I wanted to know if I had a chance. I told him that I thought he really didn’t know me, and I thought I ought to have a chance with him like she has. I thought I’d have a chance to be myself around him, and he said he’d give me a chance, but that didn’t mean that there is a chance for our marriage to work or that he would want me back.

“He slept on the couch, and I went into the bedroom. It just—it hit me all at once. I have to do something. It hurts too much. I can’t stand it.”

Mrs. B is talking in a very matter-of-fact way, almost as if she were talking about someone else. “My husband still has a lot of doubts about things. He still feels like he can’t trust me. I don’t feel like I can go back to him as long as he feels that way. Yesterday he said he still has his doubts about whether things are going to work out for us or not. I really tried to show him I mean what I say, but it doesn’t seem like anything I’ve said or done helps matters any.

I don’t know what’s going to happen to the kids. I’m getting to where I can’t stand them, especially the youngest one. It’s the way he cries all the time. I feel like I could smash in his head sometimes. It’s terrible. I think they should take him away from me before I really do hurt him. …

“I see their daddy every day, but my mother says he is just using me. I suppose he is, but I don’t know what else to do. I need some attention, too. Mother thinks I should tell him he has to stay away and I should just stay home and be with those kids. He gets done at the office late, and I wait for him and go for a drink. I don’t really care about it—I just do it to please him. I think he is getting a drinking habit that I’m not really crazy about.

“For me, I’ve been thinking a lot about what to do. It’s all on me—him, the kids, my mother. It’s too much for one person. At least it’s too much for me.”

Mr. C is quite tense and talks quite rapidly, with a cutting quality to his voice. “Well, I’m about ready to give up. It’s like this. I can’t find a higher-paying job, and the job I have now I got sick at yesterday. I had to go home. I had a splitting headache. Things are beginning to stack up on me.

“I’ve been working my tail off, and now my daughter is running with some white boy. I’ll kill that son-of-a-bitch if I catch him messing with her. I was having a drink at a bar the other day, and I saw this white man with his hand and mouth at this black girl. I asked him to lay off, and he asked if I wanted to fight. I broke my hand on his face. I think I’m cracking up. I don’t know what’s going on. I’m losing it; God help me!

I remember vividly the first time anyone asked me to become involved in a crisis situation. I was an undergraduate at Ohio University, and one of my friends came charging into my room, saying, “Come on, you have to help Jerry! You have to help, come on!” Even then, I intuitively knew that you don’t just stick your nose into every dogfight you happen to come across. The alarm and urgency of my friend, though, was nothing to ignore or take lightly. When I got to Jerry’s room, he was doing nothing. I mean absolutely nothing. He was not talking, he was not looking at anyone, he was not responding when people touched him, he was simply doing nothing, and it was scary. I would like to be able to tell you how clever and effective I was, but the fact is, I really screwed up. I acted scared, then I acted concerned, then I ignored him; then I got angry and went back to my room, figuring, “The hell with it.” For that matter, the guy who came barging in so upset about Jerry handled the situation in about the same way. The next we heard, Jerry had been taken by the emergency squad to the University Health Center. Fortunately for Jerry (and for me as far as that goes), he had one friend who had stayed with him, who had somehow got him to talk a little, and who realized that something had to be done by someone. In Chapter 3 we will talk specifically about our right and responsibility to intervene in crisis situations, and about the criteria for deciding whether or not to intervene. My memory of Jerry tells me, though, that people in crisis need help more that they need to be left alone; that it is better to do too much than not enough, and that just because things sometimes work out on their own does not mean that they always will.

A minister told me about one of his early crisis experiences. A very upset and frightened lady in her middle forties came to his home one evening in real desperation. Her husband was a successful physician in the community; his gambling had started innocently enough with a Tuesday night poker game and an occasional trip to the racetrack. He had gradually started gambling in amounts that far exceeded what he and his family could afford to lose, and the squeeze had come. He had borrowed against his house and everything else he had of value. Over a period of a year or so, his surgical practice had deteriorated because of his preoccupation with gambling and the resulting debts. That afternoon, he and his wife had had a terrible argument over the situation, and she was terrified about what might become of him and the family. “Will you please go talk with him,” was her plea to the minister. “I can’t help him unless he wants help,” was the stock reply. I’ve said the same thing, haven’t you? One of our employees or co-workers, one of our friends or neighbors, a member of our family, or even someone we don’t know very well, wants us to try to help. They want us to become involved in their problem and they ask us to try to talk with someone for them. It is my hope that this book will help you get to the place where you can tell the “dogfights” from the real crisis situations, and that you will be able to intervene effectively when intervention is justified. You will still get a little too involved once in a while, but you will rarely refrain from getting involved when you really should.

I was recently talking with a deputy sheriff and a city policewoman after one of a series of crisis intervention training classes that were part of a more broadly oriented police training school. It surprised me a little to learn how frequently police are called in to respond to emotional and social crises. For many people, the police are their first resource when they are involved in or observe severe arguments or blowups within families, apparent drug reactions by teenagers and young adults, heightened social tension within schools and community groups,

No man ever wetted clay and then left it, as if there would be bricks by chance and fortune. Plutarch

One may assume that Plutarch intended this rhetorically, since it definitely isn't literally true. It's hard to say about wetting clay specifically. but starting a job and not finishing it is certainly not uncommon. The fact of the case is that it's business as usual for far too many folks. They probably don't think what they start will be finished by chance and fortune. but they do figure that they won't be the ones who have to complete it. It's likely justifiable to conclude that they see this as good fortune, whether anyone else does or not.

Why do people do this? Why do they stop before the job is done? The famous Anon. has been sitting on the answer, The road to success is dotted with many tempting parking places. That's it. They start with the best of intentions but soon discover that intentions are to accomplishments as a hardy appetite is to breakfast. However you like your omelet, someone still has to crack the eggs and grease the skillet. …

Newt Gingrich figured out the why of it. He said, Perseverance is the hard work you do after you get tired of doing the hard work you already did. On the road to success, people get as far as Perseverance and then pull over and park. Perhaps they are too tired to continue, too bored to stay focused, or maybe just too trifling to take their responsibilities seriously. Whatever their excuse, they obdurately resist any suggestion that they should buckle down and take care of business. As Henry Ward Beecher expressed the principle, The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is that one comes from a strong will, and the other from a strong won't. and some people just won't.

Sure, sometimes you come up against can't and won't and can't wins. You don't have the knowledge, skills, or resources it takes to do what you want to do. At other times though, won't is clearly in the driver's seat. When you reach that fork in the road, Josh Billings has a little advice for you, Consider the postage stamp. its usefulness consists in the ability to stick to one thing till it gets there.

It's a postage stamp moment. When it's time to do it, don't hesitate getting around to it. Remember that you are up to it, so get down to it, and jump into it. and if you think others are blocking your way, Gen. Joseph (Vinegar Joe) Stilwell's motto is worth adopting as your own. Illegitimis non carborundum. (Don't let the bastards grind you down.)

This is the final section of the adaptive leadership series. Some may find it somewhat difficult to integrate into their leadership practice if they do not have the benefit of the earlier sections. Nonetheless, this section consolidates the leadership strategies from the earlier sections and incorporates the adaptive leadership philosophy when making decisions and working with the team to assure excellence performance and outcomes. Understanding that philosophy rests on a clear commitment to superior functioning and an unflagging faith in each member of the team.

 

Please listen and take the adaptive leadership philosophy to heart. It becomes who you are and how you do what you do, no exceptions, no excuses.