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Good leaders are basically positive people.  They dream of a better future.  They see opportunities within problems.  They inspire people to team well and follow a vision.  They create great solutions to challenges.  That positivity can transform an organization to perform at very high levels.

Yet, as they dream, brainstorm and plan, leaders often miss data points about reality that aren’t so positive, but are critical to deal with.  These data points will keep them from making large mistakes.  But the “always positive” leader often minimizes or ignores these realities, to the organization’s detriment.  Here are some realities that you do well to align with and adapt to.

• Negative market realities.  The market is always speaking, and you need to always be listening to it.  People’s needs and interests change, and you need to know when to make the changes necessary to it.  When I owned and operated a healthcare company, the market shifted because of a disruptive technology called HMO’s.  That new insurance entity changed the landscape of health care forever.  We, the owners, adapted to the new market for a while, until we realized that our model of health care was unsustainable with the new normal, and we sold the business.  It was not a fun move, but it was the right move, and time proved that.  Just because you love your product or service doesn’t mean that the market does.  Listen to the market.
• Problems due to tactics without strategy.  I see this sometimes  in companies I work with.  They are creative and forward-thinking, but are always in a cash crisis or a process/systems crisis.  Often it is because they are driven by a tactic (a new marketing plan, an improved comp package, or a new software commitment, for example), but not by a strategy.  Tactics are very helpful, but the strategic plan must rule the tactic.  Don’t get the two confused, I have seen companies lose great amounts of revenue in confusing the bright shiny objects from a well thought out, and adhered-to plan.  When this is a problem, what happens is the company is always patching itself up like an old leaky roof, and the longer it goes like this, the more expensive it is to truly fix it.  Spend time on the strategy plan and keep coming back to it.  Tactics must bend the knee to strategy.
• Cultural issues.  Research has shown that culture, or how people engage in the company, is just as important as strategy, if not more.  A poor strategy can be strengthened by a solid culture much easier than the reverse.  Yet growing a healthy culture means listening to lots of non-affirming negatives: people’s complaints about your leadership; their complaints about each other;  and their own struggles.  A poor leader will simply accuse these people of being SNL’s Debbie Downer and ignore them.  That is not a good idea.  A great leader will lean into the negative data points, explore them, respect them, and if necessary, make decisions based on them.

Align yourself with negative realities and don’t resist them.  They can save your organization.

Leaders who are out of touch with reality may need to “land the plane” as I refer to in the video below:

I was in Phoenix during Super Bowl weekend partnering with a ministry I work with, Athletes in Action (AIA), who have a very high impact sports presence.  I spoke and trained leaders, and also attended an AIA  breakfast where Peyton Manning received the Bart Starr Award.

Like all quarterbacks, Peyton Manning is a tremendous offensive player.  But to have a great team you must have great defensive players, too. The same holds true in leadership. When your offensive skills overshadow your defensive skills it throws the game out of balance. Good leaders and organizations are able to balance both skills to remain strong competitors in the game.

To use the sports analogy, organizations must be able to play both offense and defense to win. Both require different skills and attitudes from you as the leader.

Offense
Offense is the opportunity part of your job. It is the aspect of being able to move ahead and take initiative, and take the hill. Keep this in mind to become an offensively competent leader:

• See an opportunity that is not yet, before others do. In your industry, be constantly scanning the horizon for a new idea, product or service. You are tasked to literally see the future. You must see something that is not now, but could be in time. Lots of people in your area are doing that right now. Get to that next big thing before it’s the next big thing.
• Think leader thoughts. Seeing the future is very difficult when you are in the midst of the daily grind, or solving issues, or dealing with a crisis. This week, calendar 3 hours for yourself in which you can do what I call “thinking leader thoughts” with no distractions. Do what only you can do from the 50,000 foot level. Think about what is not yet, that could be.

Defense
No company or organization is without problems. They are part of reality, and must be faced. But the defensively competent leader goes beyond this, and takes action to deal with problems.  Use the following to develop your defense skills:

• Anticipate speed bumps before they become major accidents. Look for problems, kinks, weaknesses and threats in your organization.
• Analyze, review, evaluate, and ask people about all the bad news. You do not want to be blindsided by a storm because you didn’t pay attention to it.    

You will find yourself better at one of these than the other. No one’s needle is right in the middle. But spend some time and energy creating a balance. It’s much better to be able to think in both directions, and be agile enough for any reality, good or bad. Don’t get caught missing an opportunity, or being surprised by a crisis.

Have you ever walked on eggshells around someone, been over concerned about how bad they will feel if you give them bad news, or avoided constructive confrontations as a leader?  If you have done any of these, are “fragilizing”, and it will hinder your leadership power.

Fragilizing is the tendency to treat another person as if they are brittle and easily derailed, thus a “fragile” person.  The result of this attitude  is that leaders do not bring important truths to their directs about performance problems, attitudes, goal issues and cultural meltdowns.  Problems don’t get solved, and the person is actually done no favors. He becomes, actually, more defensive, disempowered, in denial or entitled.  And your mandate is decelerated, not accelerated.  Fragilizing is a common leadership problem, and it is destructive to your goals.  Here are some tips to help you move toward a healthier engagement with those in your organization.

•  Own the problem.   The person you are walking on eggshells around is not the problem, it is some trigger inside your head. Spend less time worrying about how to say something “just right” so they won’t be disappointed, and spend more figuring out where your tendency came from (family of origin?  an important person in your life?  School?  Church?  Another organization?).  This will give you more reality, so that you are not so worried.  A leader should never harm anyone, but she must hurt people (that is, bring them out of their comfort zone) on a regular basis.  The more you own this, the better your behavior will become.
• Draw the line.  There is a big difference between someone who is fragile, and someone who is sensitive or reactive.  A truly fragile person simply cannot handle tough realities, and literally falls apart.  I’m talking about nervous breakdowns, not being able to get out of bed to go to work the next morning because they are clinically depressed,  or having to be hospitalized in a psychiatric facility.  As a psychologist, I have dealt with many fragile people, and, even if they want to hear hard truths, they are too damaged to hear them, and need intensive healing over time.  A sensitive or reactive person, however, has deep feelings and may get upset easily, but he can still rally, adapt, function, perform and stabilize his feelings.  So draw a line between the two. Sensitive and reactive people need to be understood, but they also need to take responsibility for the sensitivity and work on it themselves.  To give them special treatment because they have emotional reactions is not a good thing in an organization. Point this out and offer resources:  HR, a book, counseling or a support group.  Sometimes, simply being aware of the tendency is enough for the person.
• Think about how you respond to negative realities.  When someone gives you bad news, disappoints or confronts you, how do you  yourself handle it?  When the fast food restaurant didn’t have your french fries, did you drive off a cliff or have to take off  work for the rest of the day?  Of course not.  You were disappointed, had some bad feelings, then adapted and found another way to behave.  In other words, you were resilient.  If you can handle negative realities, so can they.
• Respect others enough to give them the truth.  Simply put, telling the truth means “I respect you that you can handle this.”  No directness means “I don’t respect you and think you’re weak.”
• Make healthy confrontation one of your cultural norms.  High performing organizations are supportive, productive and also confrontative with each other.  They simply tell the truth directly, but with warmth and no harshness.  Simply start doing this behavior, several times a week, in your sphere of influence.  You will find that people respond well, perform better, and best of all, feel empowered to not fragilize those who are also reporting to them.  Build the muscle of telling the truth as simply “what we do” in your organization.  Let it become viral.

Fragilizing in leadership is resolved by simply treating people as adults:  kind, warm but direct and to the point. This works. For more info, my and Henry Cloud’s book How to Have That Difficult Conversation You’ve Been Avoiding is a good resource as well.

Best to your leadership.

 

 

Leaders who are frank, candid and honest are sometimes called harsh, critical or cold.  While no leader should be the latter, there is a great deal of value in being a truthful leader, while also being a warm person.  In the video below, I discuss how organizations benefit and perform better when the leader is honest.

Video footage courtesy of Fellowship of Companies for Christ International (FCCI).

Teams and organizations benefit and perform better when the leader is honest.  After all, truthfulness is simply being aligned with reality.  When reality is avoided or “spun”, the organization, by definition, is psychotic.  It has broken from reality.  It is not anchored in what is fact and true.   And the fruit is not good fruit.  So be a leader who lives in, and conveys honesty, and everyone wins.  Here are some tips that will help you:

• Be the first one to deliver tough info.  The message may be about your organization’s performance problem,  financial challenge, or a personnel issue.  But don’t have someone else deliver it for you, and above all don’t wait until people come to you to find out the info.  Teams and employees feel secure when they know their leader will be calling or visiting them to tell them something that is difficult.  When a courier says it, or when they have to contact you, they lose faith and trust.
• Be the first to admit your own mistakes.  We all fail, and sometimes leaders fail spectacularly!  But don’t have someone have to ask you about your failure, or have to learn it from the break room gossip.  Go to your people and tell them as soon as possible that you dropped the ball.  It will not be fun, but your healthy people will respect you more.  A client of mine avoided telling one of his employees that she was not getting the bonus she expected, because he dreaded her response.  Finally, he went to her and told her two things:  she wasn’t getting the money she anticipated, and why, and why he had waited so long to tell her.  She did not enjoy the talk, but she respected him and his ownership.
• Inspire without derailing.  Good leaders vision their people and get them inspired to accomplish great things.  At the same time, don’t let your inspiration cause you to promise things that won’t happen, or deceive people for what they will be receiving.  Get them excited, but only promise what you will deliver to them.
• Say “no” on a regular basis. As a leader, you want your troops to be happy and positive.  You like them and you know a positive environment lends itself to higher performance.  It is often a temptation, when they ask you for time you don’t have, resources you can’t allocate, or permission you don’t want to give, to avoid saying no, or letting them down easy over time.  I even had one CEO whose team told me that when she said “I don’t know”, they had learned that she meant “no”, and that was not a good thing!  Instead, make a clear, respectful and full  eye-contact “no” a normal part of your day.  Normalize it, and your people will have clarity.

Ultimately, honesty wins in the long run.  Best to your leadership.

 

Leaders often have a struggle letting go, winding down, checking out and truly engaging in the holiday and “being there.” There are end-of-year financials, projections, plans for the next year, and projects to get closure on.  I’m sure you have heard something like the following words in January:  “We didn’t get all of you, you were still hooked in to work.  You disappeared for hours on your laptop.”  I have heard these words, and felt bad for my family and myself.

You need to really unplug during this Christmas for you, them and the season.  You’ll have more energy, creativity and mojo if you do these simple steps.  They have worked for me.

• Be part of the Christmas planning.  We engage in the things that we have taken responsibility for.  You are far more likely to “be present” at shows, ski trips, restaurants or family times around the tree, when you have had a part in planning them.  Don’t delegate it to your spouse.  You’ll end up being less intensely involved.  Take a leadership role in your family, have the brainstorming meeting, and do the logistics.  If you have a tough time with boundaries during the holidays please find a tip for dealing with tough relatives in the video below.

• Differentiate between important business priorities and a desire for closure.  Leaders have a tendency toward an obsessive need for closure.  They feel they must finish a task just because it is unfinished, not because it is critical.  It gnaws at them until they write it, or do the numbers, or make the call.  But be strict on yourself.  Tolerate the tension of things that can in reality go undone until you get back from the holidays.  You’ll get more used to it every day during the season.
• Have as many no-email/business text/business phone call days as possible.  Shoot for the whole holiday.  But if you have to have to have to check email, don’t do a little every day.  That dilutes your attention.  Check it every third day.  You will be able to relax, hang out, and love the people who love you.
• Tell the people you are with that this year will be different, and you will be accountable to them. People are impacted by your presence, absence, or half-presence.  They will remember great laughs, sentimental moments and vulnerable conversations much longer during the year than that business project that could have waited.  Give them permission to help, so that if you cheat, they can say, “OK, put the laptop/smartphone up and sit in the chair and talk to us.”
• Have a vulnerable conversation with the people that matter.  Christmas is a great time to tell people you love how much they mean to you, to affirm who they are in their character, and to talk about faith and God.  It will count and will stick with you and them.

I am grateful to all of you this year.  Merry Christmas from myself, from Cloud-Townsend Resources, from the Townsend Institute of Leadership and Counseling, and from Townsend Leadership Program!