7 Questions, a Drawing and a Prayer for Leaders

I recently had the honor of facilitating a leading edge cafe discussion table at the Barrett Values Centre International Conference. Our table topic was our personal leading edge for level 7 values. If you are not familiar with the Barrett values model, level 7 represents the highest spiritual values of humanity; such things as wisdom, ease with uncertainty, ethics and future generations. My task was to distill 3 major themes that came out of our discussions. Well, spirit cannot be contained nor neatly summed up, so instead we offered our fellow conference attendees 7 questions, a drawing and a prayer.

The drawing was the work of Tom Boardman, a wonderful leader and the former CEO of Nedbank South Africa. Tom turned the Barrett model in on itself, offering a spiral rather than the traditional hierarchy of levels, noting that all value levels are present at all times and a true leader knows how to seamlessly shift to what is present and needed in the moment. Below are the seven questions and the prayer.

• Who am I?
• Where do I stand?
• Can I express in fearless humility the beauty, peace and love I wish to be and truly am?
• Can I mirror the wisdom of All-That-Is back to itself?
• How do I call to and inspire my fellow beings to their highest self?
• How do I learn and listen to reveal what is next?
• Can I play in the spiral of consciousness to serve the planet, humanity and future generations?

The level 7 leaders prayer:
May the pain of playing small
inspire me to fearlessly express
who I really am
To boldly proclaim
This is where I stand
and to humbly ask
How may I serve?

What Will be Your Legacy?

I just wrote my Mom's eulogy so I have spent the last several days contemplating her legacy. It made me realize the true value of keeping legacy in mind every day- for each decision, each action, each time we interact with one another. It can be easy to lose sight of these truly important things in our fast-changing and complex world.

What will be your legacy? Mom was a teacher and grade-school librarian so her legacy was much more far-reaching than her immediate family and friends. One thing was clear to anyone whose life she touched, she always gave her best and expected the same of those she loved, cared about and watched over. Her grade-school students not only learned proper grammar and how to write a paper, they also learned discipline and respectful behavior. They learned to always do your best, try your hardest and make someone you love and respect proud. Those lessons are her enduring legacy, and for that I will always be grateful. I imagine the same is true for her students.

As a leader, what will your legacy be?

Shifting Collective Consciousness

Transforming organizational culture begins with transformational leadership, which was briefly defined in our last blog post. What we are talking about here is a shift in individual consciousness from a primary concern about the self to a broader concern for the common good. As leaders in an organization shift their consciousness, the culture of the organization shifts with them. We know the effects of individual transformation can be dramatic within a relatively small eco-system like organizational culture. But do individual shifts in consciousness affect the larger community, or even the global community?

The Institute of Noetic Sciences is a pioneer in leading-edge research into the potentials and powers of consciousness - including perceptions, beliefs, attention, intention, and intuition. The Institute explores phenomena that do not necessarily fit conventional scientific models, while maintaining a commitment to scientific rigor. These folks are definitely on the leading edge, and their research findings challenge many of our traditional beliefs. They recently released a short animated video, starring Dr. Dean Radin, a world-renowned researcher of psychic (or "psi") phenomena, as Jedi Master Oh Be One Kenobi, as he takes viewers on an amusing foray into quantum entanglement and planetary fields of collective consciousness. Click here to learn more about research findings into how our collective consciousness shifts with world events.

They are also running a special Trial Month of the Shift in Action program for a $1 donation to the Institute of Noetic Sciences. May the Force be with you in 2009!

An Integrative Definition of Leadership

Leadership has many definitions. At Leadership Beyond Limits, we subscribe to the efficacy of transformational leadership as presented by Bass and Avolio (1994). This leadership definition implies that leaders lead followers to levels of higher morals. In addition, transformational leadership implies that the followers are better off with the four I's of:

1. Idealized influence - does the right thing for the right reason
2. Individualized consideration - treats each person as an individual and with care and compassion
3. Intellectual stimulation - offers employees stretch goals and encourages creativity and innovation
4. Inspirational motivation - lives from his/her values and inspires employees to build on the vision

I recently came across an excellent scholarly article that painstakingly researched the various definitions of leadership. The authors identified 92 discrete dimensions of leadership, along with a 93rd miscellaneous list of 20 more leadership characteristics. The authors believe that researchers, scholars, consultants, and leaders have helped create confusion around the definition of leadership in that we have examined the parts of leadership but not the whole. They draw on the story of the blind men describing the elephant and the different accurate descriptions that each blind man gave, yet each was insufficient to understand the whole.

The article is definitely worthwhile if you haven't yet read it, you can find it here:
http://www.regentuniversity.org/acad/global/publications/ijls/new/vol1iss2/winston_patterson.doc/winston_patterson.pdf

If you find that interesting, you will likely also appreciate their longer working paper, which includes the above analysis, along with a more in-depth discussion of servant leadership:
http://www.regent.edu/acad/global/publications/working/integrativedefinition.pdf

I admire the authors effort at creating an integrative definition of leadership, and appreciate their metaphor that reminds us that leadership is a large, complex animal.

Can Your Innovators Breathe?

Nurturing the innovators within an organization is key to growth. An article in the December 2008, Harvard Business Review, Finding and Grooming Breakthrough Innovators, by Cohen, Katzenbach and Vlak explores corporate America's inability to identify and utilize people in the workplace with these vital skills. The authors sum up the problem, "Most companies do a magnificent job of smothering the creative spark." They have studied 25 organizations over the last five years and have found that,"Companies usually develop leaders who are replicate rather that innovative."

Most large organizations utilize competency based leadership development systems. These systems create cultural understanding of what it means to be a leader within that organization and they provide a structure for appraisal and development systems. They offer consistency to the appraisal process and conformity to the development process. Is this what organizations need?

While there are benefits to competency systems, brilliant innovators rarely fit the mold and are stifled by the system. According to Cohen, Katzenbach and Vlak, only 5-10% of the high potential leaders within an organization have the skills and abilities to become innovators. These people rarely surface within organizations because they have unique skill sets.

Focusing on employee strengths is a solution to the innovation crush. Organizations with a strengths focus support the identification and nurturing of each employee's strengths. Leaders in these organizations work with employees to determine how to invest in and capitalize on their unique strengths. Employees who are natural innovators are given opportunities to put their strength to work.

Investing in employees' strengths is a generative solution; employees flourish and both the employees and the organization reap the rewards.

Does Your Leader Inspire You?

Think about your current leader or supervisor. What thoughts or feelings immediately surface for you? Does this person inspire you? Are you excited to spend time with her sharing new ideas and working toward a common vision; or do you dread every interaction? Does she give you energy or suck the life out of you; or perhaps its somewhere in-between?

I'm guessing it was easy to assess your leader's impact on you. If you've been in the work world for a while and had several leaders, it doesn't take long to figure out if the current one is one you truly want to follow or whether you are going to have to pull from your own energy resources to find inspiration.

Most of us instinctively sum up a relationship based on past history, categorize it and expect the same from that person in the future. Guess what? From that stance, that's all we'll ever be able to experience from her. This is a great example of getting what we focus on. Once we have developed a narrow perception of another person, it takes intention to see the individual outside of that mental model. If your experience of your leader is positive, that's not a bad thing. If your experience of your leader is negative, it will wear you down.

Whether your current experience of your leader is positive or negative, I challenge you to take a moment to reflect on her gifts and talents. Every human being has beauty and gifts. It is there to see, if you look for it. What is it about her that is unique and special? Make time to focus on her gifts before every planned interaction and those gifts will reveal themselves to you in an even bigger way.

People will never change when we set out to change them, but science has shown that magnificence springs from people when we focus on their gifts. Perhaps you've heard of the research done by Rosenthal (R. Rosenthal, 1991) documenting the fact that the intelligence of randomly selected children increased when their classroom teachers were told that the children were gifted. The childrens' intelligence increased, as measured through an IQ test, because the teacher was looking for their gifts.

Remember, you get what you focus on. Look for the best in your leader and others and you will find it in abundance.

Source: R Rosenthal, Journal of Research in Education, 1(1991): 3-12

The Leader as Coach - Adopt the Marathon Mindset

Yesterday, I completed the Nationwide Columbus Half Marathon. I was prepared for what I wanted to accomplish and it felt great to run and finish with a friend.

What I've noticed in preparing for long running events is that preparation is key. That preparation involves my own creation of a long-term plan made up of short-term goals. I notice that once the plan is set, my mind prepares for it and the mind-body connection is enacted.

If I plan to do a short 3 mile run, I run it with ease; but I find it might be difficult to run more that day. If I plan a twelve mile run, I knock out each of the twelve miles, but don't ask me to run one step more. The phrase "set your mind to it" seems to have real meaning.

What I know about reaching goals is that when we harness the self-regulatory powers that reside within us versus it being externally enforced, we have a much greater chance of success followed by a sense of accomplishment.

Having a sense of choice and autonomy in goal setting, a feeling of competence and experiencing relatedness with those around us enhances our intrinsic motivation. When those around us attempt to motivate us through threats, deadlines, demands, external evaluations and imposed goals, intrinsic motivation is diminished.

The adoption of a coaching leadership style invites leaders to trust their followers and capitalize on their strengths; thus enacting intrinsic motivation or inspiration. The leader pulls the best from her employees by inviting them to set interim goals that fit within the context of the organization's vision. The employees enjoy creative autonomy and are reinforced by their leader's trust.

As each goal is accomplished, the employees' confidence in their own competence grows. The ultimate outcome is a healthy relationship, employee growth and success. By experiencing a coaching leadership style and adopting a marathon mindset, employees find success and both the employee and the company win!

What Engaging Leaders Do

Employee engagement is dependent on leadership style. There are leaders who inspire their teams and bring them to life and there are those who perpetuate presenteeism and disengagement.

Recent workplace surveys tell us that one of the most important drivers of employee retention and engagement is a competent and visible senior leadership team that is invested in the well-being of the company's employees. Today's employees want to work for transformational leaders. The four characteristics of transformational leaders are:

1) Idealized influence: they do the right thing versus what is the most expedient, simple or cost-effective.

2) Inspirational motivation: they work from their values and can articulate a vision for the organization that holds meaning. Followers become greater through stretch goals and growth.

3) Intellectual stimulation: they ask the right questions that challenge the intellect, beliefs and creativity of followers.

4) Individualized influence: they believe in their followers and offer them care, compassion and support. They see their followers as human beings with full lives, not just as resources.


These leaders lead with a coaching style and give their employees space to perform. Their team relationships are steeped in trust and that trust inspires employees to be their best for the team.

Typical leadership skill building will not develop transformational leaders. Transformation comes from the inside out; it's a way of being. Companies on the cutting edge of leadership development are investing in the personal development of their leaders including exploration of personal values, life purpose and character strengths.

Organizations transform when people transform.

The Most Important Thing Your Leadership Team May Be Overlooking

Is employee happiness at the top of your leadership team's agenda? It will be. As the plethora of evidence mounts regarding the benefits of happiness in the workplace, astute companies are taking notice. What do they know that you don't? Read on.

Sonja Lyubomirsky, psychologist at the University of California has concluded that there are multiple personal benefits to happiness - too many to list in this blog, and there are a larger number of benefits related to the workplace. As compared to their not-so-happy counterparts, happy people are better corporate citizens. They take fewer sick days, receive better supervisor and customer evaluations, stay loyal to their employer longer, show more helpful behaviors and are more creative.

These benefits are simply too significant to ignore. When we spend eight plus hours a day in an environment, that environment has a significant impact on our overall well-being - another word for happiness. There are very specific things that organizations can do to create a culture that supports employee happiness, but the most important thing is developing engaging leaders, starting at the top. Our next blog will review the characterictics of transformational leaders - the most enaging leaders.

Creating workplaces where employees feel happy and fulfilled is the right thing to do and it is good for your business.

RIP George Carlin, and thanks for vuja de

The recent passing of George Carlin has meant the loss of one of our generation's sharpest observational critics. Many people mainly remember Carlin for his more notorious comedy bits, but I often found his jokes as insightful as they were funny.

I was recently reminded that he is credited with coining a term that has a unique value for business: "vuja de". The bit went something like this:
"Do you ever get that strange feeling of vuja de? Not deja vu, vuja de. It's the distinct sense that somehow, something that just happened has never happened before. Nothing seems familiar. And then suddenly the feeling is gone. Vuja de."

Doing a bit of internet research, I found that The Fast Company Blog commented on this a few years back. "Vuja de happens when you enter a situation you've been in a thousand times before, but with the sense of being there for the first time. As French novelist Marcel Proust said, "The real act of discovery consists not in finding new lands but in seeing with new eyes."

It may be a bit of a stretch to put Carlin in the same class as Proust, but if vuja de is synonymous with seeing with fresh eyes, then it is a skill that should be taught in all MBA programs. It is a key prerequisite for creativity and innovation, and it is a central hallmark of healthy, adaptive corporate cultures.

Too often leaders can fall into the trap that "we have seen this all before...", effectively shutting down any opportunity for fresh analysis or innovative approaches.

The next time you find yourself in a familiar business situation, take a minute or two to see if you can summon up vuja de. Ask yourself what might be going on beneath appearances. See if you can see things from a fresh perspective, a new angle. George would love it.

The Richest Man in Town

This story has mainly been told in the Midwest, where a motivational speaker V.J. Smith was so touched by a Wal-Mart cashier that it ended up changing his life, and the lives of thousands of others. Smith was so impressed by the warmth and genuine personality of Aaron "Marty" Martinson that he began to talk about him in his speeches to businesses, schools and other organizations. Eventually, he was so inspired that he wrote a book about Marty, which is sure to reach a much wider audience now that he has teamed up with Mac Anderson at SimpleTruths.com

I encourage you to take the time to visit some of these links and listen to the story of how a humble old man, now deceased, is still making live better.

Here is the link to the inspirational movie:
http://www.richestmanmovie.com

Here is a link to a news clip showing how children respond to this story:
http://www.lifesgreatmoments.com/kdlt.htm

Here is the link to a speech about Marty by V.J.
http://www.lifesgreatmoments.com/video.htm

Anyone can be a leader. Marty sure was.

Follow Passion - Find Fulfillment and Excellence

Norman Plate remembers sitting in his first-grade class, appreciating the gifts of his teacher and knowing that he was called to teach. Yet subtle messages throughout his early years led him to believe that the field of medicine would be a more appropriate career choice.

Finding himself with less aptitude for the sciences than liberal arts, Norman steered his career toward law, another highly regarded field. He attended law school and had a successful law career serving the Utah Attorney General's Office followed by the Ohio Attorney General's Office, where he rose to the position of Senior Deputy of Attorney General/Chief of the Corrections Litigation Section. While Norman had found success, he had not found satisfaction. His work felt like work. He recalls that he always knew when payday was - the reminder of why he was working.

One day, a colleague who was teaching at Capital University Law School suggested that he pursue an Instructor opening there to teach Legal Research and Writing. This colleague obviously saw Norman's natural teaching gift.

Norman pursued the opportunity with the support of his leader at the Attorney General's Office. Once he began to teach, he tapped into those latent feelings that he was meant to teach. He loved teaching; it brought him to life. It truly wasn't work.

Before Norman's one-year contract at Capital had ended, he received a call from a friend who teaches at Thomas M. Cooley Law School, in Lansing, Michigan. An opening existed for a Visiting Professor in Research and Writing. Norman ended his career with the Attorney General's Office, and with the blessing of his leadership at Capital, he accepted the position at Cooley, with a sense that he was finally following his calling.

Norman began teaching as a Visiting Professor at Cooley in May 2005 and was promoted to a tenure-track Associate Professor position in January 2006. The second term he taught he received the highest ratings on student evaluations of any professor in the law school, and he has repeated that performance since. While the student ratings are somewhat meaningful to Norman, he says that the ultimate reward is "knowing you've made a difference in someone's life. You've helped them progress to be a better writer, a better lawyer."

We can view work in one of three ways; as a job, a career or a calling. A job is a means to an end, such as a paycheck. A career entails a greater investment of oneself and achievement is marked not only by wages, but advancement and prestige. A calling has deeper intrinsic meaning as performing in the service of a greater good.

Norman's work with the Attorney General's Office fit somewhere between a job and a career. His work with Cooley is a calling. He speaks of how quickly time flies; he never knows when it's payday. He is not working for the money, but the intrinsic rewards and he's in flow. The hours and days connect together weaving a meaningful web. Norman recalls a colleague expressing the same feeling, "I get to teach. But they pay me to grade papers."

Norman could have spent may more years practicing law and ignoring his calling to teach. It takes courage and sacrifice to step off the treadmill and follow our hearts. Norman gave up the Chief position at the Attorney General's Office to take his first teaching job at Capital. He also moved away from his life partner for a year to take the role at Cooley. He acknowledges the support of colleagues and loved ones as an important ingredient to making a transition.

Norman's story is evidence that when we find the courage to transform our lives, the rewards are great. When we are serving in the way we are meant to serve, from our strengths and passion, we find excellence.

As a leader, it is our prerogative to serve those we lead by helping them discover their calling. If it means that they need to leave us, no harm done. An opening exists for someone who is called to work with us. Imagine a workplace where all employees consider it their calling to serve there; everyone is in flow. What in energizing place that would be to work!

Employee Strengths: Pure Untapped Potential

I remember hearing a colleague talk about the last performance appraisal she received when working for a large bank. She had made a contribution that year and she felt on top of her game.

The colleague recollected how the appraisal began. Just as she had suspected, her leader acknowledged her accomplishments, praised her talents and recognized her contribution as substantial. She glowed as she recalled what a great feeling it was to be recognized.

As she told the rest of the story, the glow diminished. Like every preceding year, the appraisal discussion eventually turned to her weakness - form completion. She was a gifted facilitator, who struggled with the paperwork that justified her work. Unfortunately, her impactful contribution was overshadowed by her inability to complete follow-up reports to her leader's satisfaction.

She recounted how she held her breath through the entire "fixing me" session. The memory was fresh; she swallowed, buried her frustration, signed the form and walked away demoralized.

Later she crossed paths with her leader in the parking lot on her way to the car. Her leader asked her how she felt about her appraisal, obviously expecting a gush of gratitude. What she witnessed instead was a complete meltdown.

As my colleague recounted the incident it again brought emotions to the surface. "Why couldn't she get it? It's not who I am. I was not going to meet her expectations in this area no matter how many years in a row we discussed it."

Leaders focus a lot of energy on fixing their employee's short-comings. The problem is that fixing weaknesses does not lead to excellence, even though Gallup statistics reveal that 51% of working Americans believe that it does. The truth is that capitalizing on strengths leads to excellence.

A significant opportunity exists for leaders to expand the amount of time employees spend playing to their strengths. The science of Positive Psychology has revealed strengths use as a pathway to human flourishing. We are so much more effective and efficient when we are functioning in an area of strength. The right mix of strengths use and challenge puts us into flow. Yet, Gallup tells us that employees feel they spend 12% of their time playing to their strengths. This correlates to pure untapped potential.

Every leader has the opportunity to spend less time on employee weaknesses and more time developing employee's strengths. By maximizing employee potential, an organization maximizes its potential.