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The Secret to Inspiring Others? Optimism

Peter Stark — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 17:54:10 +0000

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Research has conclusively shown that engaged employees are more productive and satisfied. John Maxwell, America’s noted authority on leadership, said, “An organization cannot rise above its level of leadership.” This means that leaders’ attitudes set the tone for those who follow them. Therefore, if you find that many of your employees are not motivated, it’s time to do some self-reflection. Employees will not thrive under negative leadership. Now, we don’t know anyone who would refer to themselves as negative, but people who would be considered negative often call themselves realists. These self-proclaimed realists seldom have many motivated people following them.

On the flip side, employees don’t want a Pollyanna who ignores reality and believes that despite all the evidence, everything will turn out just fine.

Whether you describe yourself as a realist or an optimist, leaders today need to be positive, self-confident, have high-expectations, take initiative, be resilient and accountable. Most employees want to work for a leader who truly believes that tomorrow is going to be even better than it was today, and is taking the necessary actions to turn those beliefs into a reality.

The following are nine keys that will help you become a more positive leader; a leader who makes even the realists excited about tomorrow.

Have belief and confidence in yourself. Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft and one of the world’s most generous philanthropists, said in a presentation, “I am an optimist. I think any tough problem can be solved.” Before describing his financial contribution and solution, Gates spent the first part of his presentation citing breakthroughs that have occurred over the last century that have either increased life spans and/or reduced the spread of disease. In every challenging, problematic, or uncertain situation, people want to hear three things from the leader:
1. A candid assessment of the problem
2. A strategy to overcome the challenge or create certainty in an uncertain situation
3. An optimistic vision of the future
Jim Stockdale, the Navy Admiral, was the highest ranking POW during the Vietnam War. After spending 7 years in the Hanoi Hilton, he was released and provided with insights into the importance of one’s belief in self. Stockdale discussed how the POW’s who survived accepted the terrible situation for what it was and had a deep belief that they would prevail in the end. Those who lost hope and belief that they would survive, lost their will to live and died.

People will not follow leaders who lack confidence in their ability to survive a negative situation and improve the condition of the organization.
Set high expectations and expect to win. The self-fulfilling prophecy is alive and well. People tend to rise to the level that others expect them to perform. If you set high expectations and then trust your people to perform, most likely you will be right. On the other hand, if you do not trust your people and micro-manage their work, you will likely be correct: you will find that people don’t function well on their own, which in turn, confirms the belief that you cannot trust people.
Practice positive self-talk. Your words will become your thoughts. Your thoughts will become your beliefs. Your beliefs will control your actions. Saying to yourself either, “There is nothing I can do in this situation,” or, “If anyone can figure this out, I can,” will determine whether you take action to improve the situation or concede defeat. As a leader, the words you choose to communicate to yourself will most likely be verbalized to the people you work with. Most people want to work with a leader who is able to verbalize a positive, can-do, winning attitude.
Hire positive people. Although leaders have a lot to do with creating an organization’s culture, it sure helps to hire people who already have a positive attitude about life. People who are self-confident, want to win, focus on multiple solutions when challenges arise and like to have fun, are a lot easier to lead than people who see the glass as perpetually half empty. As a leader, when you hire positive people, it changes your job from one of helping people be optimistic to one of not saying or doing anything to undermine your people’s optimism.

Focus on people’s strengths, not weaknesses. Great leaders know where to put their energies when working with people. They see potential in everyone and they focus on helping people identify their strengths and align talents to benefit the employee, team and organization. Research has shown that managers who focus on team member strengths received much better performance from their teams than managers who focus on weaknesses.
Express gratitude and appreciation. Great leaders give credit and praise to others in their life for work well done. They provide gratitude and appreciation both publicly and privately and they do it often. It must be noted that the praise and appreciation must be heartfelt and genuine or it will actually have the opposite impact than the desired goal.
When you encounter a negative situation or setback, outlearn your competition. Albert Einstein said, “In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.” Never see failure as failure, but only as an opportunity to learn how you need to do things differently. Remind yourself that although you may not be able to control others or the situation, you can control what you learn and how you will respond differently in the future.
Promote cooperation and teamwork. One of the greatest leadership turnarounds in the history of the National Football League happened to the San Francisco 49ers. What was that? The team changed leaders from Mike Singletary to Jim Harbaugh. In 2010, the 49ers win-loss record was 6 wins, 10 losses. In 2011, the 49ers logged 13 wins with only 3 losses. Mike Singletary was famous for his negative halftime rants and raves (such as an obscene gesture towards his team as a motivation ploy) as well as encouraging players to publicly call out each other’s mistakes. Even Disney’s Thumper taught most of us growing up, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothing at all.”

Jim Harbaugh, an eternal optimist, knows the importance of teamwork and speaking positively about his team members; even the players that fans and Singletary had publicly doubted. Knute Rockne, the great football coach said, “I have to get the most energy out of a man and have discovered that it cannot be done if he hates another man. Hate blocks energy and he isn’t up to par until he eliminates it and develops a friendly feeling (toward all of his teammates).” Harbaugh knows that when team members are fighting and undermining each other, they have started to play against each other rather than forming a team united in one purpose: beating the competition.
Have fun! Most people enjoy working in an environment that is fun. In fact, we are fond of saying that when you are doing what you love, and are having fun doing it, you are one of the privileged few who are fortunate enough to not have a ‘job.’

To be a pessimistic, realistic, or optimistic leader, the choice is yours. However, when it comes to leading an engaged, productive team, we’re betting on the optimistic leader.

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Peter Barron Stark Companies is a nationally recognized management consulting firm that specializes in employee opinion surveys, executive coaching, and leadership and employee training. Send Peter Barron Stark Companies an email at info@peterstark.com for more information about how we can help you create an organization where your employees love to come to work and your customers love to do business.

Keep Yourself Uncomfortable

Peter Stark — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 17:29:59 +0000

Change Brings Discomfort – Even to Leaders

I have a challenge for you today. Take your watch off the wrist on which you normally wear it, place it on the other arm and leave it there for the rest of the day. How does this feel? Count how many times during the day you look at the arm where you normally wear your watch, only to find that it is no longer there. Even this most simple of changes is uncomfortable to fully incorporate into your life. Since you’re reading this, you probably realize how difficult change can be on a scale much larger than wrist watches.

Change is not possible without discomfort, and because of this, great leaders keep their people uncomfortable. The most successful leaders also keep themselves uncomfortable. It is the job of the leader to improve the condition of their organization or the causes for which they are working. Improving something means creating change. Whether it is improving a process, implementing a new idea, lowering costs, improving quality or taking customer service to a level that challenges just about everyone in the organization, change is uncomfortable.

Before leaders can be successful at improving organizations, they must first take a look at themselves and identify ways in which they must change. The following 6 tips will help you become more comfortable with the discomfort caused by realizing that in order to lead change, you must first be able to change yourself.

Crystallize your positive vision. Because you see yourself as someone who is able to lead others through change, it only makes sense that you will be leading the way in implementing the change. Also, when you have a positive vision, it will overcome the obstacles and hurdles that present themselves along the way.
Set goals. A goal is something you want to improve or accomplish, preferably written with a specific timeframe. To accomplish goals, you have to change the way in which you currently spend your time, energy and resources. This is why most diets fail. Most people are not willing to do things differently over an extended period of time because they don’t have the vision and are not willing to deal with how uncomfortable the change is to incorporate permanently into their life.
Think possibilities. Any time you think about a situation and resolve, “There is nothing more I can do,” you limit your ability to change and carve out a way to keep yourself comfortable. Instead, ask yourself something like, “What could I do to help our team take the level of service to a place that would WOW our clients?” This opens up a lot more possibilities which can create positive change.
Get excited and move. The average life expectancy for men is 75.7 and for women it is 80.8 years. Most people do not like thinking about their own death but when you realize that you are on this Earth for a limited time and the countdown is on, it makes you want to implement actions a little quicker, including accomplishing the goals on your bucket list.
Acknowledge your weakness. Everyone is really strong at something. Some can sell, others can build businesses and still others are outstanding at managing a process or efficiently completing tasks. But, everyone has weaknesses that hold them back from rising to their full potential. Understand your weaknesses and challenge yourself by pushing past them. If we only did things that we are comfortable with, we would never grow. Discomfort equals growth. When it comes to implementing change, it almost always means there is going to be a conflict somewhere… because change is uncomfortable. If you are not comfortable resolving conflict and working on your weaknesses, you won’t reach your potential. What is your weakness?
Celebrate your successes. When you incorporate new changes into your life, some are going to work successfully and some will miss the mark. Keep a list of the successful changes you make in your life, and the goals you have achieved in a place for quick reference. You are not going to be remembered in this life by the number of times that you fail, but by the number of times you succeed. Focus on your strengths and celebrate your successes.

It is difficult to get others to change if you, the leader, don’t first personally change. By following these six tips, you will find it is easier to lead others through the uncomfortable parts of change because you are the role model for what you are asking others to do.

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The Case for Introverted Leaders

Peter Stark — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 17:50:51 +0000

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A quick search for introvert on Thesaurus.com retrieves synonyms such as brooder, egoist, loner, self-observer, solitary and wallflower, while the synonyms for extrovert include character, gregarious person, life of the party, show-off and showboat. Neither of these references paint a completely positive or accurate picture of either preference but perpetuate the overall misconceptions floating around about introverts and extroverts.

This explains the question I have been asked on several occasions: “Can introverts make great leaders?”

My response? “Yes!” Introverts and extroverts can both make great leaders, but for introverts, leading others requires more effort towards adapting their natural style.

In a recent poll of executives who are our clients, approximately 40 percent described themselves as introverts. Are you an introvert? If you can answer “yes” to the majority of the statements listed below, there is a good chance you are an introvert:

You believe that if everyone just did their job, there would be less need to communicate and there would be no need to go to a team building session.
You would prefer to communicate by email rather than by phone or in person.
You work hard to minimize the amount of time you have to spend at social events.
You are more comfortable being with people you know well, rather than in situations where you have to hold a conversation with people you do not know.
You actually re-charge your batteries by spending time by yourself.
You believe that since you do not need a lot of praise and recognition, others should be content and not look for acknowledgement for just doing their jobs.
You do not like to speak your mind until you have listened to all of the options, both pro and con, and then have the opportunity to prepare a well thought out response.
You prefer to dig deep into an issue rather than focus on someone else’s vision. To you, depth is more important than breadth.
You prefer to work with people and in situations where people are calm, objective and there is an absence of emotion.
You really enjoy calmly analyzing challenges and solving problems that are troubling to others.

If you are a leader who is an introvert, you are in good company. Great leaders who have classified themselves as introverts include: Bill Gates; Warren Buffet; Douglas Conant, the former CEO of Campbell Soup; Mahatma Gandhi; and Abraham Lincoln.

For many people, the stereotype that you need to be an extrovert to be a great leader still exists. In a study published by USA Today, 65 percent of executives stated that they perceive introversion as a barrier to leadership, and only 6 percent said they believe introverts make better leaders. The University of Notre Dame, in an analysis of approximately 70 leadership studies, found that extroversion was a major predictor of a person’s leadership potential. Most likely, these findings are because extroverts, through their comfort of networking and their ability to build relationships, are more likely to be noticed and considered for promotions.

The reality is that there are about an equal number of introverts and extroverts at the executive level of the organization who are great leaders. What makes both extroverts and introverts great leaders is the ability to adapt their style—even when it is uncomfortable for them to do so—when that is what is needed for their people or for the situation within which they are leading.

Although remaining introverts to the core, successful introverts learn to adapt when certain behaviors are necessary for influential leadership. If you are an introvert, the following six tips will help you in becoming an even more successful leader:

Get out of your comfort zone. If you are most comfortable being in your office responding to email, then set a goal that three times a day you are going to make the rounds. Ask each person you talk to the following questions: How are you doing? What are you working on? and What support do you need from me? The best part about asking these three questions is all you need to do is listen, possibly take notes, and take action if needed.
Connect with others. Introverts have the habit of walking by others and just hoping that no one will try to connect with them. Stop it! Start walking by others and greeting them with, “Good morning,” or ask how their day is going. When you ask a question, it is then important to stop and listen to the response. This reminds me what our 91-year-old dad has preached since we were kids, “People like you so much better when they do the talking.”
Participate in meetings. Don’t just sit in meetings looking at others (and thinking in your own mind how stupid people can be and what a complete waste of your time this really is). Get involved. Ask questions. Acknowledge people’s contributions. Ask what you can do to help the team or to help others be even more successful.
Acknowledge other people’s emotions. Recognize when people tell you what they are looking for, they most likely are feeling some emotion, whether it is pride or frustration. If someone is telling you about their family or children, acknowledge the emotion by saying something like, “You have to be really proud of what John has accomplished in sports.”
Prepare in advance. If you are going into a public setting, have your presentation/questions prepared in advance. As an introvert, the more prepared you are, the more confident you will be.
Honor people’s need to be valued and appreciated. While introverts do not have a high need to be valued and recognized, most people do, whether it is at home or at work. Don’t be like the man whose wife said, “You never tell me you love me,” to which he responded, “I did on the day we were married. If anything changes, I will let you know.” Set a goal to let three to five people know each day that you appreciate their contributions, recognize their success and are grateful that they are involved in your life.

Introvert or extrovert, your preference doesn’t determine your leadership ability. What makes you a great leader is the flexibility to adapt your behavior so that you can bring out the best in others and connect with your team members in such a way that they are motivated to follow you.

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The Beauty of Failure

Peter Stark — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 16:30:37 +0000

Sometimes, despite your best effort, things just don’t go as planned. You experience challenges, setbacks and outright failures. You look back at your life and begin to count the few failures, losing sight of your many successes. What you forget is that so many success stories have resulted from failure to accept failure as an end result. If everyone gave up at their first failure, no one would learn how to ride a bike, read or tie their shoes. Accomplished people realize that failure is just a part of the path to success. Here are few examples of famous individuals who had a taste of failure before succeeding:

J.K Rowling, famed author of the Harry Potter series was penniless, recently divorced, and a single parent when she was writing her first manuscript – on a manual typewriter. After twelve rejections, a publisher agreed to publish the book, but recommended that J.K. keep her day job, as there was no money in children’s books. When speaking to Harvard’s graduating class in 2008, she said, “You might never fail on the scale I did, but it is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all—in which case you fail by default.”
Albert Einstein didn’t speak until he was four. His teachers described him as mentally handicapped, slow and anti-social. He was expelled from school and refused entrance to the Zurich Polytechnic School. He may have been a slow starter, but he ended up winning the Nobel Prize and changing modern physics forever.
Walt Disney was fired from a newspaper because he lacked imagination. He went on to start a number of businesses that all failed, ending in bankruptcy. Not to be deterred, he kept his vision of a place where young and old could enjoy a land of delight and enchantment, despite being turned down hundreds of times for loans to finance Disneyland. He persevered, despite a succession of early failures, and the rest is history.
Orville and Wilbur Wright started a bicycle shop and began experimenting with flight. After years of hard work, experimentation and hundreds of crashes and failed prototypes, they finally created a plane that could get airborne and fly.
Michael Jordan, who might be the best basketball player of all time was cut from his high school basketball team. On the topic of failure, Michael Jordan has said, “I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to make the game winning shot, and I missed. I have failed over and over again in my life. And this is why I succeed.”

All these talented contributors who so positively changed our lives, had the same thing in common – persistence and the undying belief that through their failures they would ultimately achieve success.

The fear of failure is a profound force limiting many people from reaching their full potential. Of course, there are valid reasons for fearing failure. We live in uncertain times: We are still reeling from the recession; markets are unpredictable; job security is a thing of the past and countless other worries tell us to “play it safe.” But, playing it safe, while insulating you from failure, will surely limit your potential for success. Yet to fail big, like all of our previously listed heroes, is the hallmark of success. To maximize your potential for success, read on for some tips on how to overcome your fear of failure:

Put Things into Perspective: Despite caution and best efforts, failure sometimes happens. Don’t dwell on the past and what happened. Will it matter a week from now, a month from now, next year? Acknowledge that failure is part of the learning curve and look forward, not backward. Looking back and dwelling on your failure sucks your energy. Instead, look forward to what will be and figure out what you will do differently to create a successful outcome. It’s the looking forward and taking action what will energize you and beat back your fear of failure, which is immobilizing.
Identify what You Learned and Take Action: Every failure is an opportunity to learn, even if it is just to identify what doesn’t work. Ask yourself, “What did I learn?” and “What should I do differently next time?” Don’t be afraid to try again. Quitting and accepting the failure will not only prevent you from reaching your goal or dream, it will demoralize you, limiting your ability to take risks in the future. Instead, keep wrestling with the problem. Each time you tackle it in the future, you’ll learn more. Try a different approach. Take baby steps, but keep on trying.
Research Alternatives: It’s often not fear of failure that limits our potential, but fear of the unknown. We procrastinate taking action because of all the “what ifs.” Get rid of the unknown. It’s never been easier to do research and identify your alternatives. Play out a “worst case” scenario and identify the pros and cons of each solution or approach. Have a contingency plan. That way, when things don’t go well, you can say, “I thought that might happen. Here’s what I’ll try next.” As you research alternatives, you will find that while some of your fears may be valid, some may actually not be that rational. Knock down the fear by filling the unknown void with facts.
Hang Out with Positive People: To up your chances of success and increase your tolerance for failure, hang out with successful people and find out their secrets for success. Most will tell you that they didn’t become overnight successes; that their success was the result of persistence, hard work and picking themselves again and again after multiple failures. Most successful people will share freely and can be a great source of support and inspiration for you.
Remain Optimistic: Create a positive, compelling vision, get excited and then go for what you want. Don’t miss opportunities and reaching your full potential because of being held back by fear of failure. Reflect on all your past successes and believe in yourself. Tell yourself, “I can do this” and then be steadfast in taking actions that will get you closer to your goal. Keep your eye on the target and understand that achieving great success is usually the end product of surviving equally spectacular failure.

Life is short. You don’t get many opportunities for “do overs.” As we start the new year, don’t let fear of failure limit your full potential for success. Seize the moment to create all the success you deserve in life. We will be cheering you on from the sidelines!

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10 Steps Toward Balance

Peter Stark — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 22:11:47 +0000

By Jake Weyer of FenderBender.com

Creating a symbiotic relationship between work and the rest of a life can be a challenge, to say the least, especially in a small repair facility that is dependent on the owner’s regular involvement.

When there’s money to be made, backing away from the daily grind can feel impossible—and some operators are perfectly happy (or perfectly resigned) to that kind of lifestyle. There is no universal definition of work-life-balance; it could be described as finding a way to accomplish your goals both at work and at home while maintaining an overall sense of happiness. WorkLifeBalance.com, a company that offers training and support programs on the subject, describes work-life balance as “achievement and enjoyment every day, both on and off the job.”

No matter how you describe work-life balance, one thing is clear: If you can’t find a balance between work and life that works for you, the stress of that situation can lead to slumping business performance, conflicts at home and numerous other issues.

That’s why management consultant Peter Barron Stark has worked with Fix Auto, ABRA Auto Body & Glass and other collision repair companies on this very issue. Stark, president of Peter Barron Stark Companies, has spent two decades helping organizations build stronger work cultures.

How I Went from Being a Boss to a Leader

Peter Stark — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 17:39:08 +0000

From the December 2011 Quest for Leadership Excellence Newsletter (sign up)

Are you a leader or are you the boss, supervisor, manager, director, general manager, vice president or president of a group of people?

What’s the difference?

Supervisors, managers, directors, vice presidents and CEOs all have a title and a place on the organizational chart that gives them permission to tell a group of people what needs to be done. A leader may or may not have a title, but they always have a relationship where people make a conscious decision to follow them.

When did you realize you are a leader and not just a boss? For me, it happened in 1985. Between 1981 and 1990, I co-owned Photomation West, a commercial printing company. We had 17 employees and specialized in printing high quality brochures and fliers. I was 27-years-old and because I had no technical expertise in printing, everyone on the operational side of the business had very little respect for me. To be blunt, no one listened to me and seldom did people do what I asked them to do…even though I was the owner. If I wanted something done, I had to go ask my business partner – Paul Cartwright, who, to this day, remains one of my great friends – to go tell the people in operations what I needed them to do. You might be asking, “What value did Peter bring to the business?” I was an expert in sales, marketing, developing and bringing new clients into our company.

My moment of enlightenment came one rainy day in March, 1985 when I went to the back of the shop and told Frank, our lead Heidelberg pressman, what job I wanted him to run first that day. This was a simple request coming from the person who owned the company. When I went to the back of the shop two hours later, I found out that Frank had his own priorities for the day and was printing a different job. I was livid. I stormed off to my business partner, Paul, with one goal: fire Frank. Paul is a wise man who always did the right thing when it came to leadership. Paul stopped me and said “Before we go fire Frank, who is the best Heidelberg pressman we have ever had,” he went on to add that Frank can print a lot better drunk on the job than most people can sober, “I want you to think about a few questions.” Paul asked me the following:

Have you ever asked Frank for his opinion about the best order in which to run the jobs?
Have you ever told Frank he is doing a great job and you really appreciate him and are grateful he is on our team?
Have you ever told Frank you care about his personal and professional success?
Have you ever asked Frank about what we could do as owners to make the operational part of our company even more efficient and profitable?
Have you even thought about asking people questions, rather than telling them your orders when you have absolutely zero expertise in their areas of influence?

I could have said, “Paul, this is great feedback and all of these questions are really good. I need to think about it and get back to you with a new leadership development action plan tomorrow.” I did not respond like that. I was pissed. This was confirmation that, not only did I have a forty year printing pressman veteran who did not respect me as the owner, my own co-owner did not respect me as the owner. My immediate thought was to quit. Pull the trigger on our auction clause and enter into a buy sell agreement. I did not do that. Like most times in my life when things go really wrong, I ask myself a simple question, “What if it’s me?” What if Frank and Paul are both right and I don’t deserve or have not earned that level of respect?

I realized the answer to every one of Paul’s questions was “no.” The old adage that no one cares how much you know or what your position is until they know how much you care is so true. The day I started to ask for Frank’s opinion and recognizing his contributions to the success of our Company was the same day that Frank started to come to me and ask for my opinion and what he could do to help me better achieve our goals.

There is one more story I need to share about Frank that, in 1989, helped define who I am as a leader. Frank was an efficiency guru. To be even more efficient, he bypassed the safety stops on our state of the art Heidelberg press. This allowed him to lift up the safety cage and have access to the rollers without stopping the press. With 40 years of experience, I felt he must know what he was doing. Maybe it was even an industry standard for the greatest of pressman. But, in my mind and heart, I knew the safety stops were there for a reason.

One night, after everyone had gone home, I was in my office and Frank was finishing up a job. I heard Frank scream for help and found him with his arm caught up to his elbow in the press. Frank coached me on how to pop rollers out of this press so we could free his arm. When I popped the last roller, he literally dropped to the ground. The next morning, Frank showed up with a black and blue arm that looked like it had been through a rolling pin. I went out to the pressroom and told Frank to sit down with me on the side of the press. For four years, I had built up a relationship with Frank by valuing his opinion and asking him great questions. This time, I had a short speech. I said, “Frank, last night you really scared me. Because I care about you and love you for who you are and what you have done for our business, I am now telling you this. If you don’t fix the bypass on the safety cage before you start work this morning you can’t work here.” He looked at me and said, “It’s already done.”

My lesson: leadership is a balance. Doing the right thing is not easy, especially when you know the people you lead may not agree with your decision. When I saw the safety cage had been jeri-rigged, I knew it was not right but I did not want to resort back to my old ways of telling. In this case, it was the right thing to do. Frank and I were both lucky the only damage was a black and blue, flattened arm. If I had not been there, it could have easily been a much graver situation.

Leadership is a relationship that is built over time. Most likely, you are reading this blog because you have a title and a place on the organizational chart. Our quest for you is that not only you have a title, but you have the skills to build a relationship where people all around you are highly motivated to follow you in the direction you want to lead.

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Transparent Leadership

Peter Stark — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 16:00:39 +0000

Basic to leaders gaining followership are two critical leadership components: humility and transparency.

When you think of humility as a leadership attribute, it can connote a lack of toughness and resolve. You many think of a humble leader as a weak leader. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Humble leaders set their ego aside to best serve the good of the team. They are assertive, but not aggressive. They are confident, but not arrogant. They admit their faults and freely acknowledge that they don’t know it all. Consistently, they have the ability to set aside their ego and self-aggrandizement in the best interests for the success of the team, rather than the promotion of themselves.

Humble leaders lead with an unpretentious, outer focus. Over time, they find themselves surrounded by followers who clearly align themselves with the leader and contribute freely for the good of the team. These humble leaders are role models for we and not me or I.

Being transparent is at the heart of building trust with others. Transparent leadership has many definitions. The one that works best for us is that transparency is a process by which leaders consistently behave in a way that is predictable. No surprises. They are who they are, all the time. They walk their talk. This means they are candid, honest and genuinely express their thoughts and opinions. They are consistent. The message doesn’t change, depending on the audience. They tell the truth, and when they can’t divulge information, they let people know why they can’t disclose the information at that time. They keep commitments. They handle their own defeats well, owning them and not blaming others. They ask good questions, listen to the answers and remain open to new ideas. They value the feedback of others and are prone to ask, “How am I doing?” or, “What could I do to better support you?”

Humility and transparency are not just social niceties, but are essential to the foundation of leadership. Humble, transparent leaders are able to achieve great results because, over time, they have built solid relationships based on their integrity and character. They are trusted and easy to follow, allowing them to achieve their goals, if not change the world.

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Take Time Off Work – Your Success Depends on It

Peter Stark — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 15:35:00 +0000

From the November 2011 Quest for Leadership Excellence Newsletter (sign up)

Vacation. There, I said it. Many US workers treat this term as a bad word that must be avoided. What most people don’t realize is that long hours at work and mountains of unused vacation time are not synonymous with results. In fact, it is safe to say that the exact opposite is true.

On a recent trip abroad, I met a couple who truly knew the value of vacations. The husband worked a demanding job that came with a high amount of stress and a reputation for causing heart attacks. He managed a team of employees in an organization where working 60 hours a week was the norm and the main priority in life was the next promotion. When his wife was diagnosed with bone cancer in her mid forties, he took time off to care for her, and, once her cancer went into remission, they made it their goal in life to see the world. Ever year they take time off to travel and, so far, have been to over twenty different countries. While he’s gone, he still has to check into work every now and then, but taking time off has put his problems at work into perspective, lowered his work-related stress incredibly and shown his team that there is life outside of work. To get the benefits of vacation, we don’t all have to be world travelers, we just need to take time off to relax, do things we’ve been wanting to do and maybe even take in some different scenery.

As a leader, you most likely see the value in your employees taking vacations, but do you allow yourself the same privilege? If not, why is that? Are you worried that your team will encounter problems while you’re gone? Or, are you really worried that work will go on as usual while you’re away? Sometimes, that is the hardest one to admit. By taking time off, you show your employees that you trust them.

Here are other reasons that show us why vacations are paramount, especially for leaders:

Set an example: By taking a vacation, you show your employees that taking time off and practicing work-life balance is not just acceptable, but is necessary to being a good team member.
Recharge: Taking time off allows you to come back with a fresh perspective on work. This means that you’ll have a slightly different outlook on the problem you’re solving and will be more likely to bring new ideas to the table.
You are not needed as much as you think you are: If anything happened to you on the way home tonight, someone will figure out how to get your work done. And, at the end of your life, will it really matter if you seldom took time off as a token of your devotion to the company? As Paul Tsongas so famously said, “No one on his deathbed ever said, ‘I wish I had spent more time on my business.’”
Staff development: If you know that you have a vacation coming up, it forces you to do a better job developing your staff. You realize that they must be capable and trained to handle whatever may come up.
Trust: When you leave for vacation, your employees view that as a sign of trust in them. However, this only counts if you truly take a vacation and don’t check in constantly.
Life is short: This one applies to everyone, not just leaders. Get the most out of your time by doing things that you want to do and going places that you want to go.

If you hadn’t believed in the value of taking time off before, you might now agree that vacations are vital. Taking time off work to do things you’ve wanted to do is not just good for your health, but also for your performance at work. Unfortunately, because of their increased responsibilities, leaders are presented with a few more roadblocks to taking vacations than employees. Here’s how to navigate around those road blocks:

Start your bucket list today: Where are all the places in the world that you would like to see someday or things you would like to do? Relax on the beaches of Australia? Go sky diving in Britain? Or maybe even volunteer in your home town? Whatever your goals are, start planning.
Buy the tickets: Terry Paulson, a great author and speaker, tells everyone to buy tickets. If you wait for the perfect time, you will never go. By buying tickets, you plan ahead and make a promise to yourself that the vacation will happen.
Vacation at the right time: While there is never a perfect time, there is a wrong time to take time off work. Don’t plan on being gone if a major change is being implemented, or if your organization is in the midst of a crisis. For example, if your department/team/organization has recently overhauled an important part of the work process and most employees are just getting acclimated, right now may not be the right time. But, if you are confident in most of your employees or if there is another individual that can take the lead while you’re gone, it might be a good time to take a vacation.
Communicate with your team: As soon as the prospect of the vacation comes to fruition, communicate your plans with your boss and then let the rest of your team know. Leave no room for surprises.
Prepare: Because you have already let your team know, everyone will be able to plan ahead, handle the problems that could come up while you’re away and know what to do in a true emergency. Plan for your time away as if you were going to be vacationing in a remote cabin with no internet, TV or phone access. Everything will get handled without you.
Don’t call in: If you must check in, check your email only once midway in your trip. Unless the email is urgent, don’t respond. You are on vacation and your team can handle everything without you continually checking in.
Out of Office Assistant: Before you leave, turn on your email program’s Out of Office Assistant. Ensure that it presents the contact information for another person in your organization or department who can answer questions and address necessary issues while you’re out.

So, what will you be doing on your next vacation? Leave us a comment below and let us know.

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Successfully Saying ‘No’

Peter Stark — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 16:37:26 +0000

To be a successful leader, it is equally important to know when to say ‘yes,’ as it is when to say ‘no.’ In life, there are times when you have to successfully tell people ‘no’ in a way that builds a relationship even stronger. The challenge is that for some managers, the word ‘no’ is the equivalent of a four letter word. The managers who don’t like the word ‘no’ believe that telling someone a resounding ‘no’ could cause the relationship to deteriorate to the point that others on the team or in the organization will not like or support her as a leader.

A portion of your success as a leader is in telling people ‘no.’ The following are examples where it is most likely in your best interest to tell others ‘no.’

An employee wants a raise that is not justified
A customer or vendor asks you to do something that raises ethical concerns.
An internal customer requests a project completion date that you do not feel can be met
One employee asks you to share confidential information about another employee
Someone tries to sell you something that you do not believe you need
A manager wants to fire an employee without having completed the proper steps involving HR, documenting and communicating the performance discrepancies to the employee

Here are 8 tips to help leaders say ‘no’ and continue to build relationships where people are motivated to help the leader and the organization accomplish the mission, vision and goals.

Just say it: Although uncomfortable for some people, the easy way to say ‘no’ to someone, without any mixed signals is simply to look them in the eye and say, “No, I am not going to agree to that.”
Conditional ‘No’: This technique works exceptionally well for the amiable person who does not like looking people square in the eye and saying ‘no’ outright. Instead of telling a team member, “No, I can’t/won’t do that for you,” use a conditional ‘no’ and say, “I can’t get the project done for you this week, but I can work on it later this month, if that will work for you.”
Anticipate the Objection: Before someone asks you for something that you cannot agree to, say something like, “I know your union members feel they have earned the right to their health benefits. In today’s economy, though, with our margins shrinking to the lowest levels in our history, we can no longer continue to carry the full burden paying for the same portion of health care expenses.”
If-then: In some situations, if your counterpart was willing to meet certain conditions, you would not then have to say ‘no.’ For example, “If you could agree to get your members to pay $100 per month toward their health care, instead of the $150.00 we were originally asking you to do, then we could make this work.”
Selective Agreement: In this situation, you can actually agree to a portion of what your counterpart says without saying, ‘no,’ to the entire statement. For example, an internal customer states, “Your department is always late, you have missed every deadline.” Instead of agreeing to what was said, you might respond, “We did miss the XYZ project deadline we are discussing. I agree with that.”
If You Were Me: When your counterpart makes a request that makes no sense for you to agree to, one great way to say ‘no’ is to ask a great question like, “If you were in my shoes representing our shareholders, how could you agree to a health care concession that will bankrupt the business and leave everyone without a job?”
Ask for Clarification: Before ever saying, ‘no,’ to someone, don’t assume you know exactly what they are asking. Ask clarifying questions to gain a better understanding. With a better understanding, you may be able to use one of the above options rather than an outright ‘no.’
I will think about it and get back to you: In certain situations, it may be in your best interest not to say ‘no’ to someone. For example, if you are not sure if you have another option or a different way to resolve the problem, you may want to keep your options open. Let your counterpart know that you will think about it and get back to them. One caution with this option: amiable people use this option when they do not feel comfortable saying ‘no.’ They will tell you they will get back to you when they have no intention of doing so. They use this strategy to simply give them distance from their counterpart and buy time in saying ‘no.’

Use these strategies to help you build strong leadership relationships even when you have to say, ‘no.’

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5 Tips for Managing Creative Employees

Peter Stark — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 15:00:07 +0000

We live in exciting times. The speed of innovation is moving so fast that no one can afford to be complacent. Sitting on the sidelines will guarantee only one thing . . . obsolescence. To keep your business at the forefront, thriving amongst a sea of competitors, you need creative, innovative team members.

Truly creative employees have been described as:

Self-confident
Optimistic
Enthusiastic
Risk takers
Uncompromising
Having an unusual ability to concentrate
Intensely absorbed in their work
Comfortable with ambiguity
Above average in intelligence
Averse being bossed or policed

In short, they are exactly what you need to keep your business viable. However, many of us would agree that supervising truly creative people is never easy and often stretches the limits of our managerial repertoire.

While we may love them and their unique contributions, we are often challenged by what we love most about these out of the box thinkers. . . they just refuse to conform to the same guidelines as the rest of the team. Policies, procedures, protocol, deadlines, etc.; they were all developed for other employees, not your ‘creative.’

As challenged as you may be, there is hope. Read on for tips on how to motivate, nurture and, yes, maybe even gently corral some of the creatives on your team:

Value Their Uniqueness

Although there are days when you say to yourself, “What was I thinking when I hired her?” Deep down inside, you know why you hired her. She thinks differently. She challenges your traditional approach. She chaffs at boundaries and questions why they should apply to her. In short, she can be high maintenance.

Instead of thinking about the migraine she just gave you, focus on her unique talent and the gifts she brings to the team. To the extent that you can, accommodate her schedule. Be flexible. And, remind yourself, in this case, being different is exactly what you need to complement your team’s talent. Keep telling yourself, “Different is good.”
Get Them Connected

Creatives are perfectly capable of going the distance on their own. The challenge is that sometimes, they are going down the wrong road. Early on in projects, make sure that they are connected to the team. Sometimes, in the interest of moving a project quickly, creatives are purposely left out of the planning stage, as they tend to take the team on tangents and slow down the process.

Bad decision to leave them out. Instead, get them involved early on and ensure that they are on board with the goals, scope and timeframes for the project. Yes, the questions that they ask and the challenges they present do take time. However, the resulting brainstorming, collaboration and synergy ultimately leads to a better outcome. Get them involved early on to ensure positive outcomes.
Back Off

Creative people don’t conform. That’s a positive, not a negative. They are wired differently and arrive at a destination via their own route. They are happiest when they receive little or no supervision. They work best in an independent and autonomous work environment, an environment where they have the ability to do what they do best; think, experiment, explore, create and have the freedom to make mistakes in their quest to improve or develop a product, process, or system.

To the extent you can, provide them the autonomy, space and time to do what they do best, create. Creative people tend to be self-starters, so providing them the autonomy they need to be successful can be incredibly motivating.
Critique the Work, Not the Person

Truly creative people are attached to their work. It is intensely personal and often their reason for being. When you give feedback, as you must in your supervisory role, do it with sensitivity. Choose your words carefully. Use words that question, teach or explain, but always tie it to the work, not the person.

It’s okay to tell the ‘creative’ that the team is waiting for their contribution, and provide some suggestions for how the deadline could be met. However, you’ll alienate your ‘creative’ by saying, “It seems like you’re not focused. Here’s what you’re doing wrong.”
Stroke the Ego to Fuel the Fire

Creatives want to be known for their talent and contributions. Although seemingly a solo-player, creatives care what their peers think, and value recognition given by the team. Receiving recognition for their success is a powerful intrinsic motivator.

Be encouraging. True creatives take risks and have more failures than other employees who take a safer and more traditional approach to their work. Provide meaningful recognition for parts of the work that did go well, and support for getting beyond the failure. Convey your positive vision of the employee being successful and ultimately reaching the goal. Your undying confidence in this employee’s ability to be successful will be motivation to continue the battle until the victory is met.

Managing creative people is not easy. It forces you to think differently. It challenges your assumptions about what good employee behavior looks like. It makes you become more creative in managing people to get the best from each team member. Following the tips above will help you inspire creative thinking, enhance team synergy and help you achieve the best possible business results. In addition, there is one other benefit… your stress levels will be reduced and you’ll sleep better at night.

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Peter Barron Stark Companies specializes in employee satisfaction surveys, executive coaching, and employee/leadership training. Send us an email at info@peterstark.com for more information about how we can help you create an organization where your employees love to come to work and your customers love to do business.