Tuesday, May 3, 2016

Leadership Doesn’t Have to Be Hard

Whenever I think about leadership, I think about Eric Jacobson. Today, I would like to welcome Eric back to my blog. We met through our work with MicroMentor in 2009, and since then, Eric has appeared on my blog twice as a featured guest and countless other times with quotes. Eric has more than a quarter-century of experience in successfully leading employees and teams through periods of revenue growth, new product development, and re-engineering. He is an experienced mentor and coach and holds an MBA Degree from Keller Graduate School. Eric’s passion is helping individuals to become effective leaders at work, within organizations, and wherever they are called upon to lead and inspire. Recently, Eric and I had a conversation about the changing nature of leadership, and highlights follow below. For more about Eric, visit his Blog and follow him on Twitter.

QUESTION: I had a discussion with a fellow customer experience colleague (@AnnetteFranz) and she mentioned that heads of businesses should refer to themselves as executives rather than leaders. This comment has remained with me. Why do you believe there is such a lack of quality leadership today?
ERIC: There is a lack of quality leadership for a couple different reasons. Often, people who excel at a technical level within an organization are promoted to a management position only to discover that they either have no desire to be a leader and/or lack the skills to effectively lead. They hold the “executive” title but aren’t effective leaders. At other times, individuals who start out as effective leaders become less effective when they focus their attention on meeting the needs of Boards and investment bankers rather than their employees. These often conflicting situations keep these executives from truly LEADING their businesses.

QUESTION: There's a new book entitled "Superbosses" by Sydney Finkelstein. The book received the following praise from Millard Drexler, Chairman and CEO of J. Crew Group: "A smart leader surrounds himself with smart people. Through the book, Finkelstein showed the surprising ways leaders actually find, develop, and grow a team of curious, talented individuals." What are three ways YOU think a super boss grows a team of talented employees?
ERIC: Here are my three:
1. Ensure that each team member clearly understands his or her role on the team and understand the team’s mission. Discourage any one team member from “being a hero.”
2. View disagreement as a good thing and allow team members to constructively express their viewpoints. Encourage the team to steer away from groupthink.
3. Ideally seek to allow each team member's success dependent on another team member's to foster collaboration across all functions.

QUESTION: One of my favorite quotes about leadership is from author and consultant Mark Herbert (@NewParadigmer): “Leadership is a gift, not a position. It doesn’t require you to be the smartest person in the room. It requires you to trust and be trusted – and block and tackle for others.” What does this quote mean to you?
ERIC: This is a great quote and such important advice for leaders. To me, it means trust your employees and get out of their way so they can do their jobs. Don’t sidetrack them from getting their most important work done by injecting tasks that don’t support the primary task at hand. Allow them to take risks and to fail. Then, use those situations as learning opportunities. It also means to me, remove obstacles within the organization. Remove outdated and no longer needed policies or processes. And when it comes to being trusted as a leader, do what you say you will do. Deliver on your commitments. And, don’t promise something you aren’t going to provide.

QUESTION: When President Obama introduced Janet Yellen as the new Federal Reserve Chair in October 2013, he said, “Janet Yellen is a proven leader who knows how to build consensus, the kind of person who makes everybody around her better.” What three tips can YOU provide to create this type of leader?
(Here's the link to my post about this news: http://debbielaskey.blogspot.com/2013/10/what-kind-of-leadership-legacy-are-you.html)
ERIC: Here are my three:
1.  Listen to all sides of an issue and provide individuals with a safe environment to express their opinions.
2.   Help educate and inform those you work with so that they, too, can understand the fullest spectrum of the collective viewpoints.
3.   Share and explain how coming to a consensus nearly always wins out over making no decision.

QUESTION: How can a CEO/President define or set the direction for his or her company's culture?
ERIC: Explain it. Believe it. Be it. Live it. In other words, walk the talk. Lead by example. Clearly demonstrate your support of the culture.  Fully support the employees who, and the actions that, contribute to the desired company culture.

QUESTION: What have you learned from your three favorite leaders?
ERIC: From my favorite workplace leader, I learned to listen to both sides of an issue because the truth is likely in the middle of the two sides. From a fellow Rotarian, I learned to lead with a “can-do” attitude. That positivity and enthusiasm is contagious. It drives success. From all leaders who do this, I learned to be decisive. Make decisions. Don’t stalemate yourself or your employees by being indecisive.

My sincere gratitude to Eric for sharing his leadership insights again on my blog. Check out his two previous appearances at the links below:

http://debbielaskey.blogspot.com/2011/03/importance-of-training-customer.html

http://debbielaskey.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-importance-of-mentorships.html

Image Credit: Stuart Miles via FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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