Decisive Leadership -- a Story

I've been asked to be involved in the leadership development task force for a major business school, so I'm diving back into leadership development materials. An interesting book I just ran into is Decisive Leadership: The Vision to See Beyond by Anthony Jackson.

Like a number of other leadership books, it communicates its message through a story based, partially, we presume, on the author's experience. A small firm is struggling after years of success. Revenues are down and profits are down even more. The CEO is frustrated and doesn't know what to do. The COO seems to be undermining the CEO, even though they've worked together for over 10 years, since the founding of the company. What to do?

The CEO happens to have read a book by a leadership coach and reaches out to him. The coach comes in, faces the typical rejection by the troops, etc. You get the picture.

While somewhat predictive, this is an excellent book to communicate the value of clear decision making. How to make those decisions? It's a question of balance in one's life. This is a quick read (an afternoon) but highly entertaining and informative.

"Radical" Reading

In support of one of my clients I'm digging back into my leadership readings and recently re-read a couple of excellent books that, using an allegory, provide an interesting perspective on leadership.

Steve Farber's The Radical Leap and The Radical Edge tell stories of how, Steve, in a fictional situation based on his prior consulting experiences, helped a couple of organizations improve their leadership while at the same time learning a lot in the process. The focus of these two books is on the power of personal commitment and support of followers.

These books provide a different approach than the traditional command-and-control leadership styles that, unfortunately, continues to be prevalent in many organizations. A key part of this approach is the ability to eliminate fear while at the same time committing yourself and your organization to some audacious moves.

If you want to learn how to develop outstanding organizations, these are good books to read. While quick reads, they provide a lot of value.

Lessons from Leadership Schools

As a West Point graduate I feel I received one of the best leadership trainings available to any college-age student. And it is not just leadership that is valuable in the military. It is leadership that is valuable in every day life.

But West Point is not available to everyone for numerous reasons. Yet there's another, some times maligned, leadership school that does an outstanding job: the scouting organizations, in the US the Boy Scouts of America and Girl Scouts of the USA. Both my children went through their programs, one becoming an Eagle Scout (Boy Scouts) and one receiving the Gold Award (Girl Scouts). I did a couple of years in the Dominican Republic Scouts (could not continue due to relocation) and have been actively involved as an adult with both organizations although the majority of the time has been with the Boy Scouts.

I've seen boys grow from ackward, clumsy youth to people who others notice when they walk in; people who take initiative and lead when needed. A great book about what Eagle Scouts have accomplished is Legacy of Honor: The Values and Influence of America's Eagle Scouts. Alvin Townley, the author, set out to travel the USA meeting with Eagle Scouts and getting their stories.

There is a lot we can learn from this great leadership schools. While some of us may be too old to be scouts, we can still join as adults to help (they have training for adults too!) develop young people. And if you don't have time to do that, consider grabbing this book at the library or at your local bookstore or at the link above take a read. It is an outstanding book.

Back to leadership

After some time away from leadership topics, doing mostly project and program management activities, I've come back to leadership. Not that I was totally absent from the leadership world: I taught some leadership classes at Cornell's Johnson Graduate School of Management over the last two years and have emphasized the importance of leadership in my PM blog http://www.pmlead.org and in my site http://www.pmlead.com.

So, why am I back here? Well, one of my current clients asked for some guidance on how to improve the performance of his team. I quickly came back to the leadership discipline, recommending to him that he read It's Your Ship, a book previously discussed here. I also gave him 25 guidelines on how to lead, which I'll discuss here later on.

But another story triggered the return. The May 25, 2009 issue of Business Week has an article on "Selling by Storytelling". The story, while marketing-focused, describes how Jeff Gomez has been successful at creating stories for companies such as Mattel and Disney. This story triggered a thought about a book I read in the last year of so about the importance of using storytelling to sell your ideas: The Springboard: How Storytelling Ignites Action in Knowledge-Era Organizations by Stephen Denning. The book relates the struggle that Mr. Denning had at the Wrold Bank, where he worked, in selling the concept of knowledge management and knowledge sharing. While he presented it as a business proposal, no one listened to him. He then ran into some situations where through stories people had been able to accomplish major successes and he started pulling stories into his effort, which turned it around. So, if you want to light a fire under the initiatives you are leading, consider what story you can tell to sell it. Get this book as a good primer.

Leadership Reading List

One of the things I've done in my job is run a leadership book and article club. We selected an appropriate book or article and discussed it on the phone during two or three sessions held at different times to accommodate the various time zones around the world.

Typically, while attendance was small, participation was intense. Some books hit closer to home than others. Here are some of the ones we've read that proved extremely popular.

It's Your Ship! by Michael Abrashoff has become an extremely popular book. Commander Abrashoff, of the US Navy, took command of a US destroyer, probably one of the worst ships in the US Pacific fleet. In less than two years, he turned it into the best ship in the US Navy! This book retells how he did it and it is an excellent read. Most lessons apply to civilian organizations as well as military ones.

If you prefer to listen to it, it is also available as an audiobook.

Abrashoff has gone on to write a new book based on research he has done with civilian and military leaders: Get Your Ship Together. I'm in the process of reading it at present and it is good.

Another book that became extremely popular, even with our IT staff members who rarely participated in the book club is The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable. This book, through the use of a fable, provides an excellent way to identify why teams do not function well together and, even more important, provides a way for team members to talk about it in a less threatening way than saying "you are not a team player!" As a matter of fact, our CIO purchased copies for his staff to read and discuss! The author, Patrick Lencioni, has developed Overcoming the Five Dysfunctions of a Team : A Field Guide for Leaders, Managers, and Facilitators to help in this process. Warning: I have not read this guide so I cannot comment on it.

For articles, we mostly used articles from the Harvard Business Review. The organization had a corporate license through our library group, so it was easy to have people obtain the articles. While it was assumed we would get more participation since the articles are much shorter than books (typically 8-9 pages), the number of participants stayed about the same.

Recently, we started using peers in our staff to conduct the discussions, rather than having me do them. This proved very popular, as employees could attend and hear their boss discuss a leadership concept presented in the book or article, hear his/her opinion on it, and be able to openly discuss it.

So, the article club was key in increasing leadership development awareness. Many other activities also took place (newsletters, classes, presentations, customized services) which I'll discuss in future blogs. I'll also talk about other books that we've found to be very relevant, in particular Thomas Friedman's
The World is Flat. Notice that this link is to the new and expanded edition. The previous edition is still available. If you haven't read this book, you must do it. Friedman's classification of workers in the developed world (read US) is worth the price.

Friedman's previous book, The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization is also an excellent read.

So tell me which are your favorite books? How about leadership movies? I look forward to your comments!

The buck stops here (with the leader)

I just came back from a cruise and was unimpressed with some of the gaffes that occurred during it: at the first port, there were not enough launches to get the passengers to land, making people wait hours; the newsletter had a number of errors, including telling passengers the wrong date when to change dates; one of our cabins had the luggage and clothing from the previous passengers...they were continuing it on the same ship but in a different cabin. It led me to think: why so many issues?

I sincerely think it starts and stops with the captain and the senior leadership. If gaffes like these are acceptable, they will occur. If the expectations and support are for exceptional execution, that is what will happen.

Don't believe me? Read CPT Michael Abrashoff's It's Your Ship: Management Techniques from the Best Damn Ship in the Navy on how he turned one of the worse destroyers in the US Navy to one of the best in about 18 months! You can find it at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, as well as many other bookstores. I highly recommend this book as a way of introducing the importance of leadership and how to apply it in your organization.

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What is Leadership?

I've been trying to address and get others to understand this question for the last few years. We all know it when we see it, but it doesn't mean we know how to do it or what it entails. How do you figure out how to build your leadership skills?

The typical answer: come to my class and I'll teach you. Not quite. A lot more is needed. Things such as practicing leadership (leadership is like swimming or driving. Are you ready just by sitting in a class and hearing about it? No!). And then you have to get some feedback.

I've found a number of excellent sources of information, some good books, etc. I'll be sharing some of these, as well as other things, as time goes on.

Let me know your thoughts on leadership?

BTW, a typical answer to what is leadership is "the ability to get other(s) to do something willingly." The last part is key, as we are all familiar with the drill sergeant style of leadership (or lack thereof!)