Upsize Your Leadership

Last week we began parsing the definition of leadership which I developed 20 years ago: Leadership is the art of rallying people around a shared purpose, then motivating them and mobilizing them to achieve it..

In that episode, we examined the import of the terms "people" and "shared purpose." This week we take up a third term: "art."

Last week we examined two key terms from my definition of leadership. This week we take up a third term, "art." Leadership is far more akin to an art than a science.

And because it is, there are no objective measures by which to judge a leader's work, no more than there are objective measures by which to judge an artist's work. People either like it or they don't.

In fact, people might like the results a leader gets, but dislike the leader's style or personality. And since their judgment of the leader is entirely subjective, it is not easily refuted.

Leaders must therefore have a strong enough sense of self that they are not knocked off course by criticism that is uninformed, mean-spirited, or the product of personal prejudice.

A transcript of this episode is available at https://www.upsizeyourleadership.com/episodes/2403-leadership-as-art.htm,

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Any quick search on the internet will uncover dozens of definitions of leadership. Some are more appropriate to leadership at very high levels than they are to leadership in day-to-day life.

About 20 years ago, I developed a definition intended to capture the essence of leadership wherever its found: Leadership is the art of rallying people around a shared purpose, then motivating them and mobilizing them to achieve it.

At the heart of this definition are the words "people" and "shared purpose." Those two terms capture the essence of what leadership grounds itself in. It is ultimately about people -- rallying them around a cause, motivating them to lend their effort to it, and mobilizing them to carry it out -- and the cause itself, the purpose.

For leaders to be effective, they must never grow lax in either staying involved with their people and rivited to their purpose.

A transcript of this program is available at https://www.upsizeyourleadership.com/episodes/2402-leadership-anchor-points.pdf.

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In every arena of life, what once seemed like great decisions turned out, in hindsight, to have brought about unintended consequences. Often these consequences imperil the benefits which the decision was to provide.

As managers and leaders, finding solutions to problems is our daily task. But when a solution leads to adverse unintended consequences, at times (to quote an old adage) the cure is worse than the disease.

This episode explores a variety of scenarios in which otherwise good decisions led to negative consequences. Then it offers suggestions on how to minimize the frequency with which this development occurs.

No one can foresee every consequence which will flow from a decision. But careful application of these suggestions will reduce the number of unexpected problems which emerge once key decisions are implemented.

A transcript of this episode is available at https://www.upsizeyourleadership.com/episodes.

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In my management trainings, I often ask people to identify the things which have surprised them most about being a manager.

Toward the top of their list is often the problem of disruptions. They came into management unprepared for how many times a day their work on critical projects would be disrupted. At times they feel that they don't get one issue settled before three or four others are demanding immediate attention.

They can therefore go hours on end without spending more than a token amount of time on their primary responsibilities. The result is that their frustration builds steadily and they become increasingly impatient. They begin building resentment toward the party or parties responsible for the disruption. And the resentment spills over into their actions and their tone of voice.

In this episode, I share lessons which I've learned from letting disruptions frustrate me. It's certain that disruptions will never go away. But they don't have to aggravate us to the point of frustration and resentment.

A transcript of this program is available at https://www.usizeyourleadership/episodes.

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Have you ever read a book on management or vision which did not include a section on the importance of vision? It's hard to think of one. Vision-casting is a standard topic anytime management and leadership skills are discussed.

As a C-Suite leadership coach and a business consultant, I've coached scores of clients through the process of articulating their vision and mission. I've worked alongside hundreds of others as they put a corporate vision into effect.

From that experience, I've noted a pattern of recurring mistakes which people tend to make in vision-casting. In this podcast, I look at four of the most common ones:

Failing to have clarity on the distinction between vision and mission

Choosing a vision statement which is not particularly "envisionable"

Reducing vision to little more than a slogan, motto, or tagline

Not being rigorous in communicating their vision repeatedly

Because corporate vision is so vital to success, putting it together well and communicating it properly is essential in any mission-driven organization.

A transcript of the program may be downloaded at https://www.upsizeyourleadership.com/episodes.

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It's that time of year again. Time to set goals for the year ahead. Soon everyone will be putting together their New Year's resolutions.

But by this time in 2024, how many of those resolutions will have become reality? Odds are, most of them will not. Many factors contribute to the failure. One of the most common, however, is inadequate focus on the goal itself.

Many factors contribute to this loss of focus. Life comes at us in torrents, engulfing us in countless distractions. A friend of mine describes it as "being nibbled to death by a duck." No one nibble takes much out of us. But collectively, they draw our attention away from the things which are truly important.

In this episode, I offer some guidance on implementing personal goals in a way that enhances their odds of success. In particular, I argue for limiting how many of goals which we set out to accomplish in any one-year period.

Further, I recommend sequencing the pursuit of those goals in such a way that, at any given moment, we are working on no more goals than we can focus on intently.

What I suggest is no panacea. It is, nonetheless, a simple and practical way to keep our most important personal goals in sharp focus at all times.

You can download a transcript of the podcast at https://www.UpsizeYourLeadership.com/episodes.

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Texts and courses on planning abound. And they all call for starting with a clear definition of the desired outcome. Once that eventual outcome is defined, they tend to use a methodology which calls for starting at the present and building systematically toward that goal.

In this episode I propose an alternate approach, one I've used for decades to great effect. It calls for beginning the planning process at the point at which the outcome is achieved, not at the present. Instead of building steps sequentially from the present to the future, this alternative approach starts at the end of the process. It then builds steps sequentially from the desired outcome back to the starting point. I call it "planning backward."

As conventional planning defines a step in the process, it asks, "What must happen next?" The approach which I'm suggesting takes an opposite tack. Once it defines a task, it asks, "Before this step can occur, what must be in place?"

In the podcast, I spell out the distinct benefits of this technique, especially when planning entails a large numbers of moving parts. With so many considerations to account for, planning forward from the present can easily fail to recognize and make provision for one or more critical components. Later, when these neglected elements are recognized, timetables for the plan are disrupted as accommodations are made to address them.

Planning backward minimizes that risk. This podcast explains why. A transcript of the program is available at https://www.upsizeyourleadership.com/episodes.

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The old adage "lonely at the top" has more substance to it than most people imagine. Although many leaders never combat pronounced bouts of loneliness, many do. I have been one of them.

And when I began talking about my loneliness with other leaders, I was amazed at how many of them wrestled with it, too.Yet, having discussed the problem with upwards of a hundred senior executives, I'm yet to find a single one who was forewarned it before they entered senior management.

And I should add that, while loneliness is not isolated to the top tiers of management, it's particularly common at that level. Or so it seems from my personal experience and observations.

Why is that the case? Much of it has to do with the nature of the job. When lower and middle level managers run into thorny situations, they have managers above them who can serve as a sounding boards or advisors.

As we move up the management ladder, however, the number of managers above us grows steadily smaller, until at the C-Suite Level, we have only peers to draw on. Experienced peers, no doubt. But not necessarily any with proven experience in our specialized field. And if the problem we face centers on problematic relationships with other members of the C-Suite, we are genuinely on our own.

I use this episode to examine the dynamics and ramifications of contending with loneliness as a leader. A transcript of the program can be downloaded at https://www.upsizeyourleadership.com/episodes.

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For thousands of years, hierarchical management styles reigned unchallenged. Then, early in the 20th century, a literate and often highly-educated workforce emerged. They were no longer content with the top-down management of traditional organizational structures. They wanted a voice in decisions.

This led to the first experiments with collaborative management styles. Very quickly, this new approach created impressive results in engagement, creativity, motivation, and morale. As a result, collaborative management styles have grown steadily in popularity for more than a century.

Yet, for all of its benefits, making decisions collaboratively does hold the threat of some distinct pitfalls. This podcast identifies five of them and highlights what managers must do to avoid them.

A transcript of this episode can be downloaded at https://www.leaderperfect.com/episodes/2323-collaborative-decision-making.htm.

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Genuine innovation unfolds through a process of trial and error. It takes time. It takes tireless effort. It takes money. In a word, it entails a lot of hard work.

The hard work begins, however, long before the trial-and-error process is underway. The initial hard work is creating a culture which is primed for innovation. Not all are.

Innovation always involves change. And to deserve the name "innovation," the change must be significant enough to disrupt the status quo -- either the status quo in general or the status quo within the organization which adopts the innovation. That was the theme of my previous episode.

However, not everyone is eager to embrace change. They prefer to keep things stable and predictable. When resistance to change is ensconced widely, it impedes or totally thwarts any effort at innovation.

Thus, for innovation to thrive, leaders must first cultivate the cultural soil. This episode identifies eight qualities which they should strive to embed in their corporate culture to make it a promising place for innovation to blossom.

A transcript of the episode is available at https://www.upsizeyourleadership.com/episodes.

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