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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.

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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Local Focus Pays Off for Arizona State Credit Union

Peter Stark — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 19:48:26 +0000

By Paul Stull, senior vice president, strategy and brand, Arizona State Credit Union, Phoenix.

In October 2011, Arizona State Credit Union received its highest monthly membership growth in more than a decade. We did it by focusing on local roots. We’ve been monitoring consumer sentiment for some time and knew there was a strong preference to buy local. Even big chain grocery stores feature locally produced products. It was clear this was a trend that could serve credit unions well. We created a campaign featuring television, radio and newspaper ads around the values of being part of a credit union. That campaign was running when Bank of America announced in infamous debit card fee, so we benefited from already having a positive message out there.

Continue reading original article from Credit Union Magazine for more about their strategy.

How to Communicate Your Vision Like Steve Jobs and the Best-of-the-Best

Peter Stark — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 23:02:29 +0000

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

For nearly thirty years, executives, managers and employees alike have marveled at Steve Jobs’ ability to innovate. After all, Jobs did not only foresee the future of technology (and music, and animation), he created it. It’s clear that Jobs was one of the most visionary leaders of our times. But, what most people don’t realize is that if it were not for his dedication to communication, the way we interact with technology today would be vastly different. His excitement when introducing new products mesmerized customers. His commitment to specifically communicating what he envisioned motivated employees at all levels and made revolutionary products and services possible.

With poor marketing and ineffective organizational communication, his visions would have remained just that: visions.

Looking at the way that Jobs’ visions were turned into reality serves as a reminder of the importance of communication. The picture he had in his mind for the future was brought to life by his ability to trickle communication of his vision down to all levels within his organizations. It is difficult, if not impossible, for employees to arrive at their destination if you, their boss, are not crystal clear in providing them with the directions and road map detailing their journey.

Steve Jobs’ clear communication of his vision is also consistent with what we have found in our employee opinion survey results.

In our twenty years of conducting employee opinion and engagement surveys, we have collected data from 100,000 employees and have noted significant variances between the Overall PBS Benchmark (all employees surveyed) and the Best-of-the-Best PBS Benchmark-the top 25% percent of organizations surveyed. (Click here for more information on PBS Benchmarks)

One thing that has remained consistent over the years is that the Best-of-the-Best PBS Benchmark is significantly higher than the Overall PBS Benchmark in the communication category. Here’s what the Best-of-the-Best organizations do better:

First, leaders in the Best-of-the-Best organizations do a better job of telling employees about their vision for the future. Like Jobs and the leadership at Apple, the Best-of-the-Best leaders clearly define goals and ensure that each employee understands how their contributions help the leader and organization achieve the vision. For example, executives at Apple who met with Jobs as frequently as once a week, gave every junior level designer direct regular feedback on projects. This way the junior designers had a direct line to the top to ensure the project’s alignment with the overall goals. Here’s how our two Benchmarks compare on the question regarding clarity of the organization’s goals and future direction:

Percentages in the benchmarks are the number of employees who either “strongly agreed” or “agreed” in response to a statement in the survey.

Second, not only do employees need to be clear on the organizational goals, they also need to be clear on how their job relates to those goals. Even though Apple has about 50,000 employees, each employee is crystal clear on how their job relates to the organization’s vision and what exactly they are expected to do next. According to Forbes.com, “Internal Applespeak even has a name for it, the ‘DRI,’ or directly responsible individual. Often the DRI’s name will appear on an agenda for a meeting, so everybody knows who is responsible.”

Apple’s organizational structure is relatively straight-forward which employees have said makes communication and projects more efficient and successful. According to one insider, “It’s not synergy that makes it work. It’s that we’re a unified team.”

Looking at the results from the statement below, it’s clear that employees at the Best-of-the-Best organizations also understand the importance of employees seeing themselves and their tasks within the big picture.

Third, although most companies hold regularly scheduled management meetings, when the Best-of-the-Best leaders exit the meeting, they are significantly more likely to make sure they communicate important information to their employees.

Fourth, although vision is usually the responsibility of senior leaders like Steve Jobs, the challenge for these leaders is that they will never be fully effective at getting the message down to the front line unless supported by managers and supervisors who place a high value on keeping their employees in the loop.

Finally, reward innovative ideas. Communication, vision and innovation are three strong components of a successful business in any industry. Every year at Apple, Steve Jobs chose the Top 100 employees to accompany him to a three day strategy session. This Top 100 were not chosen based on rank, but on individual contributions and it was considered a privilege to attend. The Best-of-the-Best organizations are clearly in agreement with the importance of rewarding contributions based on our findings:

To ensure that you are on the right track to successfully communicating your vision to employees, follow these tips:

Make sure the vision is more than a framed document hanging on the wall. Employees are more apt to act off what they see in the hall versus what they read on the wall. It’s not good enough for senior leaders to develop a powerful vision. They need to make sure that the vision is clearly communicated to every employee, along with the goals that will help bring the vision to life. When people are clear on their destination, and are given a map to get there, as well as a tour guide communicating along the way, they will not only support the expedition, but usually will really enjoy the trip.
Meet often. Every Monday Steve Jobs would meet with his executive management team to discuss strategy and current projects and on Wednesdays he would meet with his marketing and communications team. It’s not always necessary to hold meetings this often but it is important to keep the lines of communication open.
Plan a positive delivery. Part of the reason behind employees’ and customers’ excitement over Apple’s products were due to Jobs’ delivery of his vision to employees and his delivery of the product itself to customers. He was always positive and excited, which is contagious. Your attitude, when delivering the message, will in a large part determine the response of your employees. If you present the idea as positive and exciting, your employees will be more positive in their response and more apt to buy-in to what is being proposed. If you express doubt, we guarantee you that your employees will quickly support you in finding ways to prove that “it” won’t work and is just another one of management’s off the wall ideas.
Place a high value on two-way communication. Get in the habit of actively seeking employees’ thoughts and opinions, especially prior to making decisions that impact their work. You’ll experience fewer surprises along with greater employee engagement and productivity if you consistently encourage your employees to think and provide their input to help you and your team make the best decisions possible. Look at the significant difference between responses to the following statement:
Over-communicate. In this interconnected, global market place, keeping pace requires change after change. Most employees understand that to be successful, plans will frequently change. What they don’t like is being blindsided because they did not know that the plan had changed. Make it a high priority to provide timely updates when plans change.
Choose your words carefully. Know your audience and appreciate their background and level of understanding. While you would never knowingly “talk down” to employees, make sure that the examples you use and the words you choose are understandable and appropriate. Words and concepts that you routinely use in management circles may not be the right ones to use when talking with employees. Check for understanding and make adjustments to your delivery, when needed.

Great leaders do a great job of communicating vision and values. Make it your personal responsibility to tell the right people, the right information, at the right time – all the time.

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The Great College Myth

Peter Stark — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 15:00:40 +0000

You Don’t Always Need a Formal Education to be a Success

Throughout your primary education, how many times were you told that your success in life, or in business at the very least, was tied to going to college? 10? 50? Lost track? Us too. Looking at unemployment statistics, we see that as of July 2011, the unemployment rate for High School graduates was at 9.5%, while the unemployment rate for those with a bachelor’s degree or higher was 4.4%. These figures speak about the importance of a higher education, but don’t necessarily prove that higher education is a prerequisite for great success.

Would you say that Steve Jobs, Rachel Ray, Richard Bronson, Glenn Beck, Mark Zuckerberg, Coco Chanel, Jay Van Andel and Joel Osteen are succesful? Each of the people above has achieved great success in their career without ever graduating from college. And they certainly are not counted in the unemployment rate.

I am not one to put down a formal education. For thirteen years, I taught at San Diego State University in the College of Extended Studies. To this day, I highly recommend a formal education. It is my hope that each of my three children will achieve a higher education. It is important to note that the success stories that are listed above are exceptions and not the norm. There are a lot of professionals who cannot even open a door without the highest grades from a top-rated university. If you want to be a pediatric thoracic surgeon…start studying now and be willing to work hard, be paid little in the beginning of your career and rack up huge student loans for years to come.

But, more than ever today, people can no longer use the excuse they do not have a college degree as their reason for not achieving great success. In fact, many people who hold a college degree today find themselves in the unemployment line.

Whether you have a college degree or not, here is what you need for success:

Belief in Yourself: All of these success stories had a compelling positive vision that they not only could make it in this world, but also a vision that they could make a significance difference in this world.
Hard Work: To accomplish anything great, it takes hard work. If it was easy, everyone would accomplish the same thing and no one would say, “Wow, that was great.”
Time to Think: To accomplish anything great, you need to be able to carve out time to think. I recently interviewed one of the top ten cardiologists in the nation. When I asked him how he receives this great reputation, he replied, “Early in my career, I spent a lot of time writing papers and speaking at conferences to build my reputation. The problem with today’s medical reimbursement system is that I need to spend 70 hours a week in the operating room and I no longer have the time to think.” To create anything great, we need time to think about solutions to problems that others have ignored or deemed unsolvable.
Accountability: Successful people don’t blame their place in life on others, but rather take accountability to learn what they need to know and then take the actions to make their success happen. I will never forget a wonderful statistics professor in my MBA program, Dr. Milton Chen, who told me after I failed a test, “If you get an A in this class, you will end up teaching statistics. If you get a B or C in this class, you will end up becoming an entrepreneur and own your own company.” He looked at my test and asked, “What business are you going to start?” It was my first lesson that a formal education does not have to be your reason for not creating great success in this life.
Willingness to Outlearn the Competition: In today’s world, anything you need to learn, including an MIT education, can be found for free online: all it takes is just a few keystrokes. As fast as new knowledge is generated in our universe, it is important to note that universities will be behind the learning curve. If you realize this and put this concept into action, you can outlearn universities and your competitors.
Ability to Spot New Trends: You can either work in a declining industry like the United States Postal Service or you can align your skills and knowledge to an industry or job that is just beginning to blossom. Which track are you on?
Be Highly Motivated by Obstacles: Along the path to accomplishment, successful people will be, and have been, told, “No,” or, “It can’t be done,” many times. For whatever reason, successful people are born with a switch in their brain that makes them go into full gear, watch me mode, when told something is impossible. These are the people who are motivated to do today what others refuse or overlook, and enjoy success tomorrow that the others will not.
Associate with the Right People: You can have a great vision and be highly motivated to overcome obstacles, but if you don’t hire the right people for your team, your ability to accomplish great things will be inhibited. Some people feel it is their mission in life to tell others what can’t be done. Don’t put yourself around people like this. You need to surround yourself and listen to the people who will encourage you and help you figure out how to get things done.
Produce Significant Results: Degree or no degree, it’s hard to argue with great results. Results speak multiple languages. If you don’t produce results, people can always point to your lack of a degree. When you produce significant results, no one will ever mention your lack of a formal education as the reason you achieve superior results.

These points make it sound so simple, but if it really were that simple, the number of successful entrepreneurs would be infinite. Tenacity is always consistently evident in these self-taught, highly successful people. The lesson they have to teach us is: work hard, tackle big problems, never stop learning and surround yourself with smart people. A college degree is not always a prerequisite for success in today’s world.

Image courtesy Jeff Foust, flickr.

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Getting Leadership Buy-In

Peter Stark — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 15:00:10 +0000

How to Get Leaders on Board with a Change

There is no such thing as organizational change. Organizations don’t change. The only thing that does change in an organization are the people within it: when enough people have bought into the change, we then see the changes happening.

Any change that impacts our life is uncomfortable. If you don’t believe that, just move your watch for one day to the opposite arm. Most of us like the comfort of predictability. When organizational change impacts us personally, it rocks our status quo. If given a choice, we’d typically rather keep on doing it the way we’ve always done it.

How do organizations successfully lead organizational change? They don’t, until their leaders champion the change. Organizational leaders have the power to lead the change, or sabotage it. Employees grow immune to the flavor of the month when it comes to accepting change and will look closely at their leaders to see if they are walking the talk when it comes to buying into the change being mandated.

The following tips will help ensure that your organization’s leaders are role models for leading the change being proposed.

Sell Problems
As you roll out the change, give the why behind the need for the change. Sell the problem that is resulting in the need for change. Rather than saying, “We need to give a service guarantee because all our competitors do it,” say instead, “Our competitors are advertising that they will complete the entire process on the same day or the service is free. If our competitors have a service guarantee and we do not, is it possible that our customers will migrate to our competitors? Do you see that as a problem?”
Communicate a Clear Vision and Goals
Multiple times, in multiple formats, communicate to every leader and employee the desired outcome is, as well as what the goals and milestones are to fully implementing the change. Your communication should leave no room for fabricating facts, cloudy visions or unclear goals.
Clarify Actions
Once the problem has been analyzed and the root cause determined, design actions to address the problem, assign who is responsible for those actions and specify when the actions will occur.
Hold Leaders Accountable
The successful implementation of any change is tied directly to the leader. Leaders need to be on-board with the change, even if they personally don’t think it is best for the organization. It’s okay for them to communicate their concerns to their boss, but once the boss and the senior management team has decided on the change, these leaders have the responsibility to make the change happen. Once a clear course of action has been identified, individual leaders need to be held accountable for taking ownership for positively driving the change within their area of influence.
Demonstrate Support for the “First Team”
When it comes to leadership support of change efforts, there is no middle ground. Leaders need to be positive, both verbally and non-verbally, in their support of the change. They need to demonstrate their commitment to the success of, not only the change, but support of the leaders above them who are driving the change. They need to be supportive of the goals that the leadership team decides are best for the organization.

If they don’t support the change, and are vocal about their opposition, they’re sabotaging the change effort. In today’s competitive market, there is no excuse for stonewalling a change effort, unless of course a leader can’t ethically support the change.

If you, yourself are ever asked to support a change that is in direct violation of your values, it would be best that you look for another job where your values are more in alignment with the new organization. Until then, be a role model for others by embracing the change, regardless of whether it was initiated by you or another leader in your organization. Your positive vision of the outcome will be contagious.

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To Lead Others, Start with Yourself

Peter Stark — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 15:34:23 +0000

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

Today’s successful organizations are led by talented leaders who have high expectations for their organization, their employees and most importantly, for themselves. In many cases, long before they received their title, these leaders were demonstrating their leadership capacity by leading themselves. What do we mean when we talk about leading yourself? When you are a successful self-leader, you typically achieve the following:

A Compelling, Positive Vision:

There are three types of vision:

A positive vision: Today is good and tomorrow will be even better.
A status quo vision: I hope tomorrow is as good as today.
A negative vision: If you think today is bad, just wait until tomorrow when…

Before you lead others, you need to have a compelling, positive mental vision of where you are going. What are your goals with your organization, your team and yourself? The only leadership vision that energizes a team is a positive vision that paints a picture of the intended destination and focuses individual effort on team outcomes.

A Passion and Bias for Action

As Joel Barker put it, successful leaders realize that “a vision without action is merely a dream.” Continually set measurable goals for yourself, not just your team, and ignite your passionate about taking the actions needed to turn your vision into a reality. When you work towards something that you are passionate about, you have the motivation to continue your efforts, long after others would have given up. This same passion provides inspiration and motivation to others around you.

A great example of vision and perseverance comes from a client of ours’, WD-40 Company. The ’40′ in their name signifies that the successful product came about after the 40th attempt – Water Displacement, 40th Attempt. It certainly takes vision, action and whole lot of passion to keep at something for 40 tries.

Walk Your Talk

The most important part of being a self-leader is holding yourself accountable to a consistent set of principles and values. People follow leaders who have clearly stated values; leaders who walk their talk. You won’t have to preach about integrity, ethics, honesty, accountability, etc., because your actions line up with your core values on a daily basis. Over time, your consistency and predictability builds trust and makes you easy to read.

One leader that is legendary for sticking to his core values is Tony Hsieh of Zappos.com. From the outset, Tony has been so passionate about his, and now the organization’s, core values that their team doesn’t make a hire until the applicant has passed a strenuous screening process. This screening process is not for technical knowledge or experience, but for cultural fit. Zappos’ leaders drive their culture with ten core values woven into every aspect of their organization. Three values for which they are best known for are: “Deliver WOW through Service;” “Create Fun and a Little Weirdness;” and “Be Humble.” Ensuring that all new hires are a good cultural fit for Zappos values and that the world know what they stand for, demonstrates the commitment of Tony to live out his and the company’s core values on a daily basis.

Know Your Strengths and Leadership Limitations

Taking time to reflect can make you an even stronger leader because it will give you a realistic image of your strength, and an accurate appraisal of areas where you may want to continue improving. Reflecting helps to give you the ability to identify areas where you are confident, but remain humble and continuously work on actions to address your imperfections. We are all a work in progress. Great self-leaders see themselves as having the ability to continuously improve and are committed to taking actions each day that get them closer to their leadership objectives.

Learn Continuously

When you lead yourself, you understand that in most cases, you are in charge of your own professional development, especially in today’s competitive market. Instead of waiting for formal training, commit to learning on a daily basis, whether it be on-the-job training, Internet research, networking or any other approach that will get you what you need. Keep pushing yourself to challenge the status quo and strive for even better outcomes.

To truly lead yourself, you must be disciplined and acknowledge that continuous learning presents continuous challenges. There is never enough time. There are always barriers. There are always those who say, “It can’t be done.” Rise to the challenge. Self-leaders are often energized by the difficulty of the task, but know unequivocally, that with discipline and perseverance, they will succeed. They are thinkers who get excited about breaking through barriers to find solutions.

Hold Yourself Accountable to Your Own High Standards

If you are a true self-leader, the standards you set for yourself are typically higher than standards set for you by others. Strive for hard to reach goals and persevere until you achieve the goal. In other words, be the person that you would want to follow. Thomas J. Watson, the former chairman of IBM, said, “Nothing so conclusively proves a man’s ability to lead others, as what he does from day to day to lead himself.”

You can tell people that you are their leader, but that won’t guarantee that they will follow you. Leadership is based on trust, and your employees determine who they trust and who they don’t: a lot of this is based on your actions and attitude. Without trust, it is difficult to lead others. No amount of personal reflection or learning will guarantee that others will want to follow you, but maintaining hope and having a positive vision; knowing your core values; walking your talk; being a continuous learner; and holding yourself accountable to high standards, will point you in the direction of leadership success.

Remember: the smallest crowd you will ever lead is you. For your success as a leader, it’s the most important one.

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Through employee satisfaction surveys, training and leadership development, Peter Barron Stark Companies builds organizations where employee love to come to work and where customers love to do business. Send Peter Barron Stark Companies an email at info@peterstark.com for more information about how we can help you.

How to Sabotage Your Team

Peter Stark — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 15:30:53 +0000

12 Leadership Traits That Are Guaranteed to Sabotage Your Team and Lower Morale | Quest for Leadership Excellence Newsletter (sign up)

We have spent the last 20 years identifying the traits that make leaders successful. This has led us to strongly believe that there is a significant difference between leaders and managers. Managers always have a title and a formal position on the organizational chart. Leaders may or may not have a title but they always have a relationship with people who make a conscious decision to follow them.

Over the past several weeks, we have conducted executive coaching for leaders who were in jeopardy of losing their jobs. Our prediction is that they will lose their jobs… it is just a matter of time. Based on our work with leaders, here are 12 leadership actions we have found that undermine a leader’s ability to build relationships where people are highly motivated to help the leader accomplish goals:

Refuse to take personal accountability. Instead of being responsible and accountable to solve problems, these leaders tend to blame others for their department or office problems.
Incorrectly diagnosis the problem. When turnover is high in the organization, and it almost always is with these leaders, the leader will tell you the problem is the hiring of lousy employees.
Have a negative vision. A vision is a clear mental picture, described with words, of your department’s or office’s future. There are three types of visions. Positive – you believe tomorrow will be even better than it was today. Status quo – you hope that tomorrow will be like it was today because you survived today. The third vision, which most of the leaders who sabotage their team have, is a negative vision. Leaders with a negative vision believe that today was bad, but tomorrow will be even worse.
Disrespectful communication. The fastest way to lower morale is to not listen to your team members and ignore their contributions. Disrespectful leaders sometimes communicate in a manner that uses foul language, is condescending, or implies threats.
Withhold positive recognition. Negative leaders tend to believe that if they are not communicating with you, then you must be doing a great job. With this philosophy, they don’t have time to give you positive feedback, but always find the time to tell you what you are doing wrong.

Resent feedback. Since sabotaging leaders tend to not take responsibility for their actions, they are likely to resent those who give them feedback meant to help them improve. I once told a leader, “You may not agree with what others are telling you on your 360 Leadership Development Assessment, but, if fourteen people are telling you that you have a tail, you might find it valuable to turn around and take a look.”
Do not ask for help. Leaders who sabotage their teams tend to believe that the less people know about them and their department or office, the better off they are. Hence, they refuse to ask for help and don’t get others involved because others may learn too much about the root of the problems.
Leave employees out. These leaders tend to believe that they need to set the goals, make the decisions and tell people what needs to get done.
Lack of team member accountability. These leaders are always quick to give you a reason why they cannot hold their team members accountable. Some of the excuses include: the employee is a top producer; the employee has been with the organization for a long-time; the employee has a strong relationship with someone in power; and last, if they deal with the performance problem, the situation may get worse or the employee will quit. When leaders do not hold employees accountable for both outstanding results and working well with others as a team, almost always, morale and productivity are guaranteed to suffer.
Lack of trust. When a leader lacks trust in their team members’ ability to do their jobs, they will not allow team members to take responsibility and make decisions regarding their work. Rather, they find it necessary to micro-manage the work and decisions of their team members.
Display inconsistent values. Leaders who sabotage their teams tend to want people to do what they say and not what people see the leader do. They may tell others not to gossip but then speak poorly about another team member.
Stay. You would think that anyone who had a bad vision of the department or organization’s future would leave the company and find another job. These bad leaders do not leave. Rather, they tend to feel it is their mission in life to tell people how bad things really are, and if it were not for him/her, the organization would be even worse off. In this bad environment, all the people in the office and/or department are not happy, even the leader.

It is important to remember that even great leaders exhibit some of these demeanors once in a while. What sabotages a team is when a leader repeatedly exhibits one of these behaviors or consistently practices several of these behaviors. Most people are quick to forgive if a leader slips once in a while and demonstrates an undermining behavior. They are even quicker to forgive if the leader quickly apologizes and never practices the behavior again. Nevertheless, be sure to keep these behaviors in check to ensure an engaged, successful and highly motivated team.

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We are a nationally recognized management consulting firm that specializes in executive coaching, employee engagement surveys and leadership and employee training. 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, send Peter Barron Stark Companies an email at info@peterstark.com.

Reinvent or Die

Peter Stark — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 15:57:11 +0000

Globalization, dazzling advances in technology and increased customer demands drive organizational change. To remain competitive, your organization and its people must be willing to adapt, or even completely reinvent, to stay relevant.

As opposed to waiting for the market to force you or your organization to change, why not try leading the change?

For inspiration, keep the following case studies in mind. For over 150 years, these companies have survived a dynamic, competitive market, the ups and downs of business cycles and the whimsical nature of customers. In an economy of constant change, they’ve figured out where they need to be next and how to get there.

In 1850, American Express began as an express mover of goods, securities and currency throughout New York state. Realizing that it was difficult for people to obtain cash outside of their immediate banking area, American Express introduced large scale travelers’ checks in 1891, and, in 1958, began issuing travel charge cards.

The first cards were merely pieces of paper with the cardholder’s name and account number printed on them. Noticing the increasing profits from the charge cards, American Express introduced the Gold Card (1966) and the Platinum Card (1984) to targeted audiences who were willing to pay fees for the premium service associated with the cards.

While American Express completely changed their strategic direction to stay relevant, Levi Strauss & Co’s strategic direction has stayed relatively the same over the past 150 years. The key to Levi Strauss & Co’s success was that their product’s marketing, positioning and fashion sense has been almost intuitive, keeping their denim flying off store mannequins long after Mr. Strauss ran the company.

Levi Strauss began producing denim overalls in the 1870’s, then created jeans designed for cowboys, lumberjacks and rail workers in the 1920’s. This jean design was eventually adapted to attract the greasers of the 1950’s and a great portion of the world has not dreamed of parting with their Levi’s since.

Despite facing stiff competition from overseas and a decade of declining sales, Levi’s jeans are still a strong presence in the world market. Although Levi Strauss & Co claims that their popular “Shrink-to-fit 501s” are still made from the original, unaltered design, they have clearly figured out how to stay in existence through decades of fashion and competitive market conditions.

Another company that is a regular part of consumer’s lives more than a century after it was founded is Macy’s, which opened in Massachusetts in 1843. Between 1843 and 1855, Rowland Hussey Macy opened four retail dry goods stores. They all failed, but he learned from his mistake: he was not operating in a prime location.

To rectify his past mistakes, Macy moved to New York City and established R.H. Macy Dry Goods on Sixth Avenue in 1858. It was there that Macy’s flourished through insightful business and marketing moves such as displaying themed exhibits, lighting window displays and offering customers a money back guarantee to ensure their satisfaction. It wasn’t until 1983 that Macy’s began opening stores outside of New York. In 1994 they merged with Federated Department Stores and in 2005, Macy’s acquired the May Department Stores, giving them a commanding presence in markets across America.

All three of these companies, along with other giants like McDonalds, Hewlett-Packard and IBM are classic examples of companies that have been able to reinvent themselves over and over again to ensure their survival.

Whether you are a CEO or a front-line employee, look to the future, challenge yourself to think beyond what’s working now, and anticipate what will be needed to ensure your company’s success and your job security.

In some cases, this may even mean eliminating a product line. For example, Nokia recently made the bold decision to eliminate the operating system that made them the leader in the cellular business and move to Microsoft Mobile Network.

In other cases, inventing an entirely new product which may have little to do with your original business may be necessary. This will require that you anticipate your competitor’s next move and respond in a way that is both timely and accurate to the market’s need.

Considering the pace of today’s market, you will need to think beyond today and accurately anticipate what will be needed to not only survive, but to thrive in the world that is constantly evolving. A daunting challenge? You’re right, but predicting the future and getting it right is what makes work so much fun.

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Successfully Lead an Innovative Culture

Peter Stark — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 22:27:56 +0000

How to Empower Employees While Ensuring that Everyone is on the Same Page

We recently worked with the VP of a financial institution who was challenged by the fact that one of his managers was constantly trying to change the ways of the bank. Although many banks have had to change radically over the last 36 months, historically, banks have not been well known for rapid change and innovation.

When we talked with the manager, we found out that he had come from a consulting firm that specialized in working with banks and he felt that all of the ideas he shared and wanted to implement were proven strategies that would improve the organization. The VP felt that the current processes and products were working well, customers were happy and, if ain’t broke, don’t break it.

On this project, we made several recommendations to both the VP and the manager. First, our recommendations for the VP:

Clear vision and goals: Collaborate with the manager and create a compelling positive vision with clear goals and/or results.
Promote and expect innovation: Encourage the manager to keep thinking of progressive and innovative ways to help improve his department and the organization. To not acknowledge, honor and put to use this direct report’s innovative ideas will be a fast slide to lower morale and disengagement.
Set clear priorities: Work with the manager to prioritize the new ideas and develop a realistic timeframe for implementation.

The manager was perceived as an obnoxious pain by both the VP as well as his peers and direct reports. When he told everyone how he handled something at his old consulting firm, everyone wanted to make a point, then ask him a question. The point they wanted to make is that the Bank everyone works at is very different than the consulting firm. The question everyone wanted to ask this manager was, “If this consulting firm was so good, why don’t you go back and work there?”

Our tips to help this manager become successful at sharing and implementing his innovative and progressive ideas are:

Honor the past: To say anything negative about how the organization currently does something is indirectly saying something negative about the people who implemented the current task or procedure. When you put down the organization’s past, you are only guaranteed to do one thing: upset the people who have worked at the organization longer than you have. You will be better off honoring the organization’s past, and then helping people build a bridge to the future.
Ask Questions: Ask a lot more questions to better understand the organization and what other team members perceive as the opportunities and challenges. Gain their perceptions of what can be done for improvement.
Sell people on the problem, not the solution: Ask people, if our competitors are offering this product or service and we don’t, is it possible our customers may consider switching banks? You will be much more successful selling people on your ideas by exploring the problem before you try to sell the solution.

With these six recommendations put into action, we feel confident the VP will be creating an environment where his direct reports are working hard to improve their areas of influence and the manager will have the skills to put their innovative ideas into action.

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