7 Lessons for Leading in Crisis

I've just written a short review of Bill George's excellent new book (7 Lessons for Leading in Crisis) for the LeaderValues newsletter ..... here it is:

"Bill George, the former CEO of Medtronic, is the author of best seller "True North", in which he persuasively argued for the pursuit of "Authentic Leadership" - values driven, ethical, and with an eye to one's internal moral compass at all times.

In this short and very readable new book, Bill draws lessons both from well-worn examples (e.g. Jim Burke and J&J's Tylenol withdrawal) and from recent events, where leaders of all kinds have grappled both successfully and unsuccessfully with major influences on their industries. The book notes successful leaders like Anne Mulcahy at Xerox and Greg Steinhafel at Target, while also talking about the falls of Lehman Brothers' Dick Fuld and AIG's Martin Sullivan. As always, Bill does not pull many punches, naming names and pointing out flawed decsions - and his commentary adds an extra layer of understanding to what has gone wrong in the world in the past couple of years.

Of course, Bill also comments on his own experience, both at moments of success and times when his beliefs have been challenged by his actions. Both his own experiences and those of other leaders seem good examples of what Warren Bennis would call "crucible moments" - defining oneself by looking at the mirror and digging deep.

His 7 lessons?

1. Face Reality, Starting with Yourself
2. Get the World off Your Shoulders
3. Dig Deep for the Root Cause
4. Get Ready for the Long Haul
5. Never Waste a Good Crisis
6. You’re in the Spotlight: Follow True North
7. Go on Offense, Focus on Winning Now

Read the rest of the review ...

Questions Followers Have a Right to Ask Leaders

From the InsideWork blog by Dan Wooldridge ...

There is much in the news lately that has me thinking about leadership — business, political, religious, academic…

This morning, that led me back to Max DePreeʼs classic, Leadership Jazz. DePree makes the point that any follower has the right to ask many questions of a leader. He suggests this series as a starting point:

• What may I expect from you?
• Can I achieve my own goals by following you?
• Will I reach my potential by working with you?
• Can I entrust my future to you?
• Have you bothered to prepare yourself for leadership?
• Are you ready to be ruthlessly honest?
• Do you have the self-confidence and trust to let me do my job?
• What do you believe?

These are good honest questions. Answered in an honest and authentic way, they would tell a person quite a bit about what to expect from a leader.

But they aren’t answered honestly very often are they… In an age of tight image management, smart handlers do everything in their considerable power to suck the authenticity out of the relationships across which such questions could to be posed. So the answers we get most times are largely staged; the cosmetic equivalent of true disclosures, declarations and promises. It’s all about what the leader seems to be. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!

Read the rest of the article ....

The Horse, the Magpie, the Buffalo and the Hoop

I just received word of a fascinating "multi-media" post from Andrew Campbell, combining Lakota Indian wisdom and the thoughts of a Roman Catholic Priest (Patric). Patric has spent over twenty years studying the works of Maturana, Flores and Varela.

I am posting this because we only recently visited the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian - and my family and I were touched by the experience and our resultant better understanding of Indian views of the Universe.

As Patric wrote:

"One of the realizations today is this. I trust you.

The 'oar' (your background of human endeavour, human relationships and domains of expertise) are vast and beyond my capability to understand even if we lived together for next 100 years. I do not under-estimate the significance of what we are sharing and effective action is in taking the comment of Maturana and living it with others in real-time and pure-play.

My invitation to you is "open conversations of possible possibilities" within your network of trusted friends, associates and relationships.

In freedom let's see what emerges and I am always already with you in the 'speculative conversations' that may emerge. I am committed to entering effective actions in our heart's desire and I know that all of us are ready for some new 'surprises' to arise in our joyful concern to designing a new future together."

A thoughftul and thought provoking post .... read it here.

You Can Still Lie, Even Without Saying A Word

From the Slow Leadership blog ...

Authentic communication, the cornerstone of all trusting relationships, requires far more than speaking the truth.

Amidst all the articles and advice on being authentic, one area that isn’t looked at as often as it should be is how communication that isn’t authentic destroys trust. I don’t just mean lying — deliberately setting out to mislead or twist the facts. Communication can be just as inauthentic when every word and sentence is correct (factually at least), yet the overall impression left with the other person is derived from a false image of who you are, what you believe and where you are coming from.

In the words of the old song: “It’s not what you say, it’s the way that you say it.” The words you use, the tone of voice, the circumstances in which the ‘message’ is passed — even your facial expressions and body language — can all be used to create a false picture in the other person’s mind; one that will give your words a different meaning from their face value. When this happens, your hearers (or readers) are as thoroughly mislead as they would be if every word of what you said or wrote were untrue.

We are surrounded by people who deliberately use words in ways that conceal their true meaning. They add a gloss that changes the message, conceals a hidden agenda, or is designed to evoke specific emotions. All the time, they are calculating what will make what they say convey something other than the plain words express.

Advertisers, copywriters, PR people, spokespeople for special interests, lawyers, politicians: all are adept at using their words to conceal and manipulate. The authenticity of their communication is low because they are striving to create a specific impact, without revealing anything of themselves or what they truly believe. They show little, if any, empathy for those they are dealing with either. They care next to nothing about them, just so long as they react as required and buy, vote or believe in whatever way they are being told to do.

Once people understand what has been going on, they feel cheated and abused — even if the message passed was factually correct. These people — The Manipulators — cannot be trusted because they always have hidden agendas.

Read the rest of the article ....