Leaders often fall into the Imposter Trap when making decisions.  The Imposter Trap is one in which an individual brings about the exact failing they wish to avoid.  In the case of decision-making, leaders often feel that since they are the leader they must know everything and make all the decisions.  As a result of this kind of thinking they do not allow themselves the opportunity to ask all the questions that they should or gather all the necessary input from other people in making their decisions.  Naturally, if they did this, it would demonstrate to everyone else that they do not know everything and are therefore incompetent (a bit of sarcasm there).  Consequently, they do not accumulate all the information they need to make a particular decision and they make the wrong decision.  They cause themselves to fail and become incompetent…the exact thing that they sought to avoid.

The question becomes, how does one avoid this trap?  The answer is simple and involves a couple of steps.  First, never be too proud to ask questions.  I once had a boss, the Chairman and CEO of a Fortune 100 company, who asked questions all the time.  He never let anything go that he did not understand.  The first few times I heard some of his questions I thought, “Wow, I can’t believe he doesn’t know this.”  In a very short time I found that he never expected himself to know everything.  He never worried that people might think he was stupid or inexperienced.  He was expert at asking the right questions, getting all the information he needed, and then drawing the right conclusions.  The ultimate outcome was that people respected his decisions because they were well thought out.

The second aspect of this approach involves hiring well and surrounding yourself with people who are excellent at their jobs.  By hiring people who are better than you are at their job you can rely on getting the best input possible for making decisions and leading your business.  If you hire people that are less competent than you in their role, then you end up doing their job more often than they and you will not have the support you need to lead the business and make the right decisions.

The final step requires involving the right people in accumulating the information you need.  This changes from one decision to the next and, therefore, must be thought through each time.  Going back to our post on Inclusion, the simple approach to identifying those whose input you should seek requires simply asking yourself “Who has a stake in this decision….who is going to be effected by it?”  They are your constituents.

Remember, being the Leader does not mean that you have to know everything.  It simply means that you must employ effective processes that enable the organization to move in the direction in which you want to go.

Leaders, generally speaking, do not give enough credit to their employees.  They seem to forget what it was like as they moved up the ladder themselves.  They seem to forget how aware they were of the problems facing the business.  They seem to forget what it was like to be on the front lines and deal with the problems facing the business every day. 

Leaders also tend to believe that they are the first to recognize the symptoms of something being amiss in their organization.  They seem to think that the symptoms they are seeing about business performance have not yet become visible to the average person in the office. 

Leaders learn early to withhold information…sometimes due to confidentiality…sometimes to maintain power…and sometimes to manage the impact on employees…making it least disruptive to the business.  The great fallacy is that, in reality, it creates further distraction by creating a general sense of distrust. 

Finally, leaders also tend to think that there is alot of information which they should not share with employees.  In most cases this is because they feel that employees are not able to handle the information.  They feel that panic would ensue and employees will flee the sinking ship, or that some bad message would get out to the customer.  So they hide it, they gloss over it, and they talk around it.

The irony is that generally the leader is NOT the first to know about many of the problems in the business.  In fact, by the time the leader informs the general populace of these insights, the employees already know, and have known for some time.  In many cases they were the first to know.  During that time, in which the leader has chosen to NOT acknowledge the existence of the problem, he/she has been deemed by the employees to be unobservant or, worse, incompetent.

It once took me 2 years to earn the trust and commitment of the people at one facility of mine.  I remember the day I finally did.  I had just completed a quarterly Town Hall meeting.  In that meeting I reported on our progress toward key goals and pointed out that we were not achieving the goals.  It was not a pretty picture.  Most of the news that day was bad, and it was the first time I had had to report bad news to that team of people.  After the meeting the General Manager of that facility came up to me and said, “Today you earned their trust.”  I asked him, “Why today?”  He said, “Because you were up front with them about the bad news.  Your ability to recognize and speak about the bad news means to them that they can also believe you about the good news.  They already knew the things you spoke about.  Had you avoided the subject they would not have felt that you were not being forthright with them and they would have questioned the validity of the other news you had to report.”

Leaders learn early to withhold certain information from employees, customers, regulators, owners, etc.  It is learned under the guise of being a means of managing the impact on them and couching the dissemination of the information in such a way as to make it most palatable and least disruptive to the business.  It is meant to keep them from being distracted and to keep them focused on their goals and objectives.  And keeping focus is an important aspect of leadership. 

The great fallacy is that, in reality, withholding information serves to cause distraction because it creates a general sense of distrust among employees.  It IS a form of deception and people FEEL it that way.  They know what is really going on.  When you tell them something different they begin to lose trust in you and then they begin to wonder what else is being “sugar-coated”.  They then start to spend more time trying to figure out what is really going on rather than on doing their work. 

Moral of the story…be straight with your employees.  They know more than you think, and they can handle ALOT more.  Spend your time being up front about the issues your organization faces and the plans to address them.  This will serve to maintain trust and also enlist their support.

As we discussed in our last post, leaders cannot achieve their business goals without the commitment of their constituents. This commitment is essential because, in fact, it is those constituents that actually achieve the goals, not the leader. The leader may set the target, but the constituents make it happen. The leader enables teams of people to work effectively together to achieve those goals. The Pharaohs of Egypt did not build the great pyramids. They said what they wanted done but it was the effort of many constituent groups that got it done. The US President Kennedy did not put a man on the moon. He set the target but it was the effort of many constituent groups that got it done.

So, who are these constituents whose commitment leaders must earn? Very simply, they are any group of people who have a stake in what you are doing. They are the people who will be affected by the direction in which you, as the leader, are taking them. They are the people who will contribute to getting there. They are the people who will be asked to give something to the effort of achieving those goals, and who will also be likely to gain something by achieving them. Equally important, and frequently not considered, is that any one of those groups of constituents has the power to derail the effort if they so choose. So, managing their commitment is essential to success.

The most obvious group of constituents is Employees. Through most of your career Employees will be the group of constituents to whom you will pay the most attention. They produce the products and services you sell. They are the group you will see and interact with the most.

An equally important and obvious group of constituents is Customers. They buy the products or services you sell. In any function, at any level, we all have customers. This includes internal customers as well as external. At any level we all have a boss. That boss is a customer. That boss is paying us for performing a service as does any other customer.

Perhaps somewhat less obvious is the constituent group of Owners. Owners provide you the capital to operate your business. Certainly in a publicly traded company everyone has Owners because of the existence of Shareholders. Privately owned companies do not have shareholders but certainly have owners. An exception to this concept may exist in a privately owned company in which the CEO is also the sole Owner of all interests in the company. He/she may not have any Owners as constituents. That is a rare case that most of us will not have to worry about.

Another less obvious but very powerful constituent group is Regulators. This constituent group allows you to operate your business. Every business is regulated in some way if by nothing more than the local tax authority. What may also be true is that some leadership positions at very low levels may not have to deal with external regulatory authorities. However, there are also internal regulatory authorities that set the policies and guidelines by which the business operates.  All employees must operate in accordance with company policies and procedures and so are subject to the interests and concerns of their internal regulatory authorities.

Finally, the least obvious constituent group is the Community in which your business is operates. This constituent group gives you a place in which to conduct your business. Depending on the type of business you are in determines the extent to which you will interface with the community.

…any one of those groups of constituents has the power to derail the effort if they so choose. So, managing their commitment is essential to success.

Employees, Customers, Owners, Regulators and Community are the constituents whose commitment is so critically important to the success of your business. There are, of course, exceptions to each of these descriptions. More importantly, there are subcategories of each constituent group. For example, assume for the moment that you are the CEO of an organization. Your Employees, as a constituent group, means everyone from the Senior Management Team to the entry-level production worker just starting out his/her career. There are many different layers of people within that constituent group who have a different perspective and understanding of the business. Awareness of this distinction is important.

Understanding and meeting the needs of each of these constituent groups is essential to earning their commitment and achieving the goals and objectives of the business.  So, what are their needs?  That is a subject of a future post…stay tuned.

There seems to be a trend developing among a growing number of leaders that Leadership is about demanding performance and beating people until you get it.  It is the belief that if they yell loud enough and stamp their feet, fire a few people and are publicly mean and nasty, people will perform - behaviors based on the premise of fear being the best motivator. 

Historically, of course, that IS where we came from.  In eras gone by leaders were often in an unchallenged position.  They were the central figure in their kingdom and could do as they pleased, from killing unruly serfs to banishing them from the kingdom.  Ruling was all about demonstrations of power.  Individuals had no power against these rulers.  They had few choices of places to live.  They had little education and skills to take elsewhere.  It has only been in the last one hundred years or so that concepts and theories of leadership have evolved to focus on the means of utilizing interpersonal and technical business skills to influence and motivate people to achieve goals.

The promise of that future, in which you as the leader are consistently understanding and meeting the needs of your employees, forms the foundation of commitment to you as a leader and to the goals and objectives of the business. 

Unfortunately, in recent years there has been a resurgence of the motivation by fear mentality among the less enlightened in leadership positions.  The flaw in this thinking is the belief that the populace will tolerate this type of behavior.  Not true.  Education, communication, transportation, and competition have enabled great mobility in the workforce.  Individuals have many options.  Movement between markets is easy.  Technologies are often transferable.  Competition has made skills salable and valuable.  So, individuals do not have to tolerate mistreatment and incompetence in their leaders.

As a result of this behavior, organizations are having to come to terms with the financial and operational impact of high turnover among employees.  Not only does it mean rehiring and training which costs time and money, but also high turnover sends a warning signal of instability and uncertainty to customers and investors. 

The leadership challenge has become how to build commitment among employees to the goals and objectives of the business?  Building that commitment brings with it stability, continuity and performance.  Building commitment among your employees is earned by understanding and meeting their needs. 

- The extent to which you meet their needs, in any given situation, satisfies those needs FOR THE MOMENT. 

- The extent to which you consistently understand and meet their needs over time creates a history and a pattern of meeting those needs. 

- With that history comes an expectation that you will continue to meet those needs in the future. 

- The promise of that future, in which you as the leader are consistently understanding and meeting the needs of your employees, forms the foundation of commitment to you as a leader and to the goals and objectives of the business.  Therefore, it follows that the primary objective of a leader is to manage the level of commitment of his/her employees to the goals and objectives of the business. 

Just to elevate this concept a step or two, now consider this…employees are only one set of several sets of followers or constituents whose needs must be met to achieve sustainable performance.  That is a subject for another Post.

A common reason for failure among leaders is the inability to adapt to change.  Ironically, most leaders see themselves as THE agent of change and believe that NO change will happen in the organization without their knowledge or direction.  That is absolutely NOT the case!  

Unfortunately, most of us do not recognize our limitations in this area.  We see ourselves as adaptable.  However, the truth of the matter is that we all have our comfort zones and we tend to operate within them as much as possible.  Even worse is the fact that the higher we are in the leadership hierarchy, the less flexible and adaptable we become…because we don’t have to be!!!  We are in control and we can manage the world around us to a significant degree.  If circumstances change in a manner adverse to our interests, we often have the power to change other variables to keep it all within our control and comfort zone.  This is not adapting to change, this is interpreting the change or limiting the reality of the change to something we can deal with.  It is like saying “I am not fat, I am just short for my weight”.  As a result, we remain fixed in our own perspectives and reliant upon those skills which have gotten us where we are.  It is this inability to adapt to change that can lead to our ultimate demise.  

This is an easy one to check with those around you.  Just ask them.  Do you think I am adaptable…easily able to cope with changing circumstances…easily able to modify plans due to unforeseen circumstances…not easily upset by changes in plans…willing to listen to and embrace ideas that are not my own? 

…being an effective leader does NOT mean making ALL the decisions but rather enabling the organization to arrive at the correct solutions by involving the right people at the right time. 

In this Post, I explore the importance of INCLUSION in developing the ability to be adaptable and sustain business performance in an ever-changing business environment.

When a leader begins working with an organization, they are faced with a set of goals or expectations.   They also face a set of underlying circumstances that stand in the way of them achieving those goals.  If they are lucky, or were well selected for the job, they have the skills necessary to address those problems.  In fact, they were likely selected precisely because of the skills they have demonstrated in similar positions or situations in the past.

However, all leaders have a limited set of skills.  The skills they possess are the ones that they have relied upon and been successful with over the years.  As with any other such asset, they have come to lean on those skills as their primary skills for leading a business - a cornerstone concept of the Peter Principle.  Unfortunately, as is often the case, they have not been required to “learn new tricks.”  If their role is a very limited one with a defined short term outcome, those skill limitations may not pose a threat.  “Hatchetmen” are a perfect example of such limited skill sets well assigned.  Hatchetmen are expert at coming into an organization and cutting expenses, repositioning the organization for profitable operations, and leaving.  They have no interest in the future of the business or the impact of the changes they are making in the sustainability of the business.  They need no other set of skills than finding all possible means of cutting expenses. 

However, if the role is to be long term, leaders must have the versatility and adaptability to recognize and address the changing needs of the organization.  They must recognize that as one set of problems is fixed others WILL emerge.  Chances are that these new problems will either be problems that they are not able to easily notice or will be problems that they are not accustomed to fixing.   This is true because problems are not likely to arise in a leader’s area of strength.  Leaders tend to be attentive to those areas in which they have particular skills, and they apply their skills in those areas more than other areas simply because it is their comfort zone.  Consequently, new problems that arise will likely be problems with which the leaders are less familiar and which they do not have the appropriate skill set to resolve.  It is at this critical juncture that the leader must adapt.  How do they do that?

There are many answers to that question…many ways to adapt to change.  But, one that is readily available is Inclusion.  In this case, inclusion means involving other members of the team.  By doing so leaders supplement their own set of skills and abilities, they use the insights of their team members to identify the ills of the business, and they draw on the strengths of their team members to find the best solutions.  As a result, those solutions also represent a broad array of perpectives which gains them support and makes them more able to stand up under scrutiny and challenge. 

Fundamentally, inclusion enables a leader to adapt to new situations by drawing on different skills - the skills of their team members.  This concept speaks to the importance of being open to differing opinions.  This concept requires the leader to put their Ego aside and recognize that being an effective leader does NOT mean making all the decisions but rather enabling the organization to arrive at the correct solutions by involving the right peope at the right time.

No doubt you have heard the maxim that great leaders surround themselves with a great team.  This does not mean that great leaders are lazy and find a group of experts to do the job for them.  It simply means that a leader cannot be expert at everything.  Therefore, they must have a strong team working with them.  They must recognize that their role as leader is to enable that team to arrive at the right solutions.  This is not consensus!  This is inclusion.  It enables leaders to adapt to an ever changing business environment.

Now, think about this…subject of a future Post.  How does a diverse workforce effect the Adaptability of a leadership team?

Many Leadership authors identify “Creating a Compelling Vision” as an indispensable leadership skill.  Where most leaders get hung up is “How do you do that?”  Some leaders feel as if creating a compelling vision comes from a random moment of creativity and inspiration that either happens or doesn’t.  It is not that they can say, “Okay, for the next hour I will invent an entirely new approach to this business from which we will derive our strategic direction for the coming decade.”  It just doesn’t happen that way, and leaders know that.  So, when you tell them that creating a compelling vision is a skill they need to have, they are lost.

Let’s face it, people think in different ways.  Some people tend to think in terms of the future and possibilities, while others tend to be more focused on facts and data and what is in front of them now.  It does not mean that the latter group is incapable of thinking in future terms.  Equally important, though, is that while the former group may spend more time thinking about the future and possibilities, it does not mean that they are any good at it.

So, how does one create this compelling vision?

Well, first, I don’t see creating a compelling vision as being an indispensible skill.  I see it as an being indispensable outcome!  It is the result of strong process employed by the leader.

In the case of Creating a Compelling Vision there are a few elements that need to be satisfied:

- it needs to be created;

- it needs to be a state that does not currently exist;

- it needs to be inspiring or motivating to the people who care about it.

So, what will get you there?  What actions on the part of a leader will result in that outcome?

Think about it.  It needs to be inspiring or motivating to the people who care about it.  Most leaders think that they have to know all the answers…that they somehow must be omniscient by virtue of their appointment to an exalted position.  They feel, therefore, that THEY must come up with all the answers.  Asking opinions, involving others, listening to and using others’ opinions, would be sign that they are not qualified…that they are an “imposter”.  Unfortunately, the end result of that line of thinking is that, in fact, they do try to do it all themselves, they invariably do not accumulate all the input they need, consequently they achieve outcomes that are substandard, and they, therefore, actually become the imposter they feared.

I don’t see creating a compelling vision as being an indispensible skill.  I see it as an being indispensable outcome!  It is the result of strong process employed by the leader.

The process of creating a compelling vision requires understanding the combined visions of all those who care about the business…your constituents.  As the leader you must believe in that vision in order to draw your own highest level of commitment to it.  However, it does not mean that it has to be yours and yours alone.  The “other people who care about it” must also be committed to it.  It requires knowing who those people are. It requires listening to them, understanding what that preferred future looks like to them, and incorporating their interests.  It involves incorporating your own interests.  And, it requires synthesizing all those interests into a single direction which strikes the best balance between them.

The result is a vision that is owned by all the constituents and supported by them.  That ownership and support make it compelling.  That ownership and support generate the energy necessary to make the vision a reality.