The Two Most Important Lessons a Leader Should Learn

     

“I learn something new every day. But, even more importantly, I learn the same things over and over again.” 

I was immediately struck when I heard these words. They were spoken by a world-renowned physician and neuroscientist, Dr. Steven Galetta, in his acceptance speech for a prestigious award recognizing his excellence in his profession.

Dr. Galetta said that he was always excited to acquire some critical piece of knowledge every day that he could apply to his research and in the treatment of his ailing patients.

But, even more critical to him was the opportunity every day to re-learn the fundamentals of his profession; namely in how he works with his patients. How to carefully listen to patients. How to take enough time with patients and how to ask the right questions to elicit accurate information.

You never graduate from the school of leadership because if you want to keep your leadership efforts vital and fresh, if you want to reach the heights of career success/fulfillment and stay there, then it is important to always be learning. But what exactly do you need to learn? 

Let’s use the example of Dr Galetta to set two goals for yourself:

1. BECOME AN AGILE LEARNER.

The most important skill a leader or any professional needs to master in order to succeed is that of becoming an agile learner. In that vein, create a Personal Learning Plan. Write down what you need to learn from the perspective of your direct reports and key stakeholders. 

Personal growth and by extension, leadership growth, does not happen automatically because people are living or necessarily because they have experiences. Leadership development must be planned, deliberate and consistent. In other words, if we want to realize our true leadership potential we have to work at it daily.

There are four primary ways to develop leadership capability.

The first is to study leadership and apply the lessons learned. In addition to Smart leadership classes there are plenty of great podcasts and videocasts (E.g. TED Talks), webinars, blogs, meet-up groups to supplement your company-sponsored formal leadership education.

The second way is to learn from your experiences at work. For example ask to be assigned to a challenging project that will provide you an opportunity to exercise your leadership. Remember that leadership is about influencing positive change. Also, stay alert. Observe situations from different perspectives. Watch how different people handle leadership challenges. Have a teachable spirit and ask for feedback and be open to criticisms about your performance. And above all don’t be afraid to fail. You’ll learn more from failing once or twice than from succeeding all the time.

The third way dovetails with the second which is to engage a professional leadership coach. The best leaders are a lot like professional golfers. The one thing that every elite golfer has, is a coach.The coach is there to watch the pro’s swing. 

Why? Because the golfer can't change what they can't see. Because the coach can see what the golfer can’t, change is possible. This kind of feedback builds champions and great leaders.

Check out our blog post: Coaching Works. Here's Why

The final way to develop your leadership ability is to find a true mentor. The mentor should have life and business experiences that you want to gain, a genuine willingness to help you along, and a positive relationship with you.

Click here to discover the origins of the word mentor.

Industry Expertise: What industry expertise should you acquire that will help you to provide necessary insights to your direct reports, peers, managers and stakeholders. Read books about your profession and industry. Follow specific LinkedIn discussion groups in your target industry and read the discussion threads to learn about key industry concerns. Pick a mentor who is successful in your field and learn from them to to absorb some of their knowledge and expertise.

Stakeholder Knowledge: Do your research into the stakeholder's organization, services, products, and customers. Set up Google alerts for every key stakeholder to facilitate this. Use tools like Nimble to track the conversations your stakeholders are having online. This can point you in the direction of new knowledge that you need to acquire.

Become A Source Of Value: The challenge you must set for yourself is the following: How do I become a source of value for my direct reports, manager, peers and other stakeholders? How do I acquire the knowledge, understanding and insights that will enable me to become the trusted adviser to my direct reports, manager and peers?

Use your Personal Learning Plan to set learning goals for yourself and to commit to the specific actions you will take to acquire that knowledge. Most importantly, share your Personal Learning Plan with a manager or a peer within your organization. You want their help to hold you accountable for achieving your goals. But, whatever it is, do at least one thing every single day. Even if it just reading for 30 minutes before you turn off the lights for the day.

2. LEARN THE SAME THINGS OVER AND OVER AGAIN

This is just as important as Lesson #1.

Never assume that you have learned everything there is to know about the fundamentals of your profession or as a leader. You can always ask a question better. You can always listen better. You can always prepare more thoroughly for the 1:1 conversations with your directs.

Your success is more dependent on your successful execution of leadership fundamentals than in mastering specialized leadership skills. Why? Because if your fundamental leadership skills and habits are lacking, then you’ll never get the opportunity to demonstrate your advanced knowledge. 

The first step you can take to start learning the fundamentals over and over again is to turn-off your autopilot and start paying attention. You’re not perfect. There’s always room for improvement. Take the time to ask the right questions of direct reports and then really listen to their answers. 

Remember: learn something new and big and exciting everyday. Look at the fundamentals of your leadership with a fresh eye every single day and be conscious of what you can improve in order to better serve and deliver more value to your direct reports, manager,  peers and other stakeholders.  The reward will be that you’re a better leader. And, a better person.

Click here to read a related post: Leaders Like Great Athletes Never Stop Practicing the Fundamentals

To your greater success and fulfillment,

Peter Mclees, Leadership Coach, Trainer and Performance Consultant
SMART DEVELOPMENT

Take the Next Step...
Interested in learning how to develop your organization's leadership capability, culture, and employee engagement ? We begin with a collaborative discovery process identifying your unique needs and business issues. To request an interview with Peter Mclees please contact: Email: petercmclees@gmail.com  or  Mobile:323-854-1713

Smart Development has an exceptional track record helping energy and facilities management, service providers, ports, sales teams, restaurants, stores, distribution centers, food production facilities, wealth management services, real estate services, nonprofits, government agencies and other businesses create a strong culture, leadership bench strength, coaching skills and the teamwork necessary for growth.

Having worked with several companies throughout their growth cycle, we have valuable insights and strategies that would help any late stage startup, small or medium sized company achieve sustained growth and prosperity.

 

The Two Most Important Lessons a Leader Should Learn

    

“I learn something new every day. But, even more importantly, I learn the same things over and over again.” 

I was immediately struck when I heard these words. They were spoken by a world-renowned physician and neuroscientist, Dr. Steven Galetta, in his acceptance speech for a prestigious award recognizing his excellence in his profession.

Dr. Galetta said that he was always excited to acquire some critical piece of knowledge every day that he could apply to his research and in the treatment of his ailing patients.

But, even more critical to him was the opportunity every day to re-learn the fundamentals of his profession; namely in how he works with his patients. How to carefully listen to patients. How to how to take enough time with patients and how to ask the right questions to elicit accurate information.

You never graduate from the school of leadership because if you want to keep your leadership efforts vital and fresh, if you want to reach the heights of career success/fulfillment and stay there, then it is important to always be learning. But what exactly do you need to learn? 

Let’s use the example of Dr Galetta to set two goals for yourself:

1. BECOME AN AGILE LEARNER.

The most important skill a leader or any professional needs to master in order to succeed is that of becoming an agile learner. In that vein, create a Personal Learning Plan. Write down what you need to learn from the perspective of your direct reports and key stakeholders. 

Personal growth and by extension, leadership growth, does not happen automatically because people are living or necessarily because they have experiences. Leadership development must be planned, deliberate and consistent. In other words, if we want to realize our true leadership potential we have to work at it daily.

There are four primary ways to develop leadership capability.

The first is to study leadership and apply the lessons learned. In addition to Smart leadership classes there are plenty of great podcasts and videocasts (E.g. TED Talks), webinars, blogs, meet-up groups to supplement your company-sponsored formal leadership education.

The second way is to learn from your experiences at work. For example ask to be assigned to a challenging project that will provide you an opportunity to exercise your leadership. Remember that leadership is about influencing positive change. Also, stay alert. Observe situations from different perspectives. Watch how different people handle leadership challenges. Have a teachable spirit and ask for feedback and be open to criticisms about your performance. And above all don’t be afraid to fail. You’ll learn more from failing once or twice than from succeeding all the time.

The third way dovetails with the second which is to engage a professional leadership coach. The best leaders are a lot like professional golfers. The one thing that every elite golfer has, is a coach.The coach is there to watch the pro’s swing. 

Why? Because the golfer can't change what they can't see. Because the coach can see what the golfer can’t, change is possible. This kind of feedback builds champions and great leaders.

Check out our blog post: Coaching Works. Here's Why

The final way to develop your leadership ability is to find a true mentor. The mentor should have life and business experiences that you want to gain, a genuine willingness to help you along, and a positive relationship with you.

Click here to discover the origins of the word mentor.

Industry Expertise: What industry expertise should you acquire that will help you to provide necessary insights to your direct reports, peers, managers and stakeholders. Read books about your profession and industry. Follow specific LinkedIn discussion groups in your target industry and read the discussion threads to learn about key industry concerns. Pick a mentor who is successful in your field and learn from them to to absorb some of their knowledge and expertise.

Stakeholder Knowledge: Do your research into the stakeholder's organization, services, products, and customers. Set up Google alerts for every key stakeholder to facilitate this. Use tools like Nimble to track the conversations your stakeholders are having online. This can point you in the direction of new knowledge that you need to acquire.

Become A Source Of Value: The challenge you must set for yourself is the following: How do I become a source of value for my direct reports, manager, peers and other stakeholders? How do I acquire the knowledge, understanding and insights that will enable me to become the trusted adviser to my direct reports, manager and peers?

Use your Personal Learning Plan to set learning goals for yourself and to commit to the specific actions you will take to acquire that knowledge. Most importantly, share your Personal Learning Plan with a manager or a peer within your organization. You want their help to hold you accountable for achieving your goals. But, whatever it is, do at least one thing every single day. Even if it just reading for 30 minutes before you turn off the lights for the day.

2. LEARN THE SAME THINGS OVER AND OVER AGAIN

This is just as important as Lesson #1.

Never assume that you have learned everything there is to know about the fundamentals of your profession or as a leader. You can always ask a question better. You can always listen better. You can always prepare more thoroughly for the 1:1 conversations with your directs.

Your success is more dependent on your successful execution of leadership fundamentals than in mastering specialized leadership skills. Why? Because if your fundamental leadership skills and habits are lacking, then you’ll never get the opportunity to demonstrate your advanced knowledge. 

The first step you can take to start learning the fundamentals over and over again is to turn-off your autopilot and start paying attention. You’re not perfect. There’s always room for improvement. Take the time to ask the right questions of direct reports and then really listen to their answers. 

Remember: learn something new and big and exciting everyday. Look at the fundamentals of your leadership with a fresh eye every single day and be conscious of what you can improve in order to better serve and deliver more value to your direct reports, manager,  peers and other stakeholders.  The reward will be that you’re a better leader. And, a better person.

Click here to read a related post: Leaders Like Great Athletes Never Stop Practicing the Fundamentals

To your greater success and fulfillment,

Peter Mclees, Leadership Coach, Trainer and Performance Consultant
SMART DEVELOPMENT

 

Take the Next Step...
Interested in learning how to develop your organization's leadership capability, culture, and employee engagement ? We begin with a collaborative discovery process identifying your unique needs and business issues. To request an interview with Peter Mclees please 

contact: Email: petercmclees@gmail.com  or  Mobile:323-854-1713

Smart Development has an exceptional track record helping service providers, ports, sales teams, restaurants, stores, distribution centers, food production facilities, wealth management services, real estate services, nonprofits, government agencies and other businesses create a strong culture, leadership bench strength, coaching skills and the teamwork necessary for growth.

Having worked with several companies throughout their growth cycle, we have valuable insights and strategies that would help any late stage startup, small or medium sized company achieve sustained growth and prosperity.

 

The Staggering Cost of Managers Who Are Unskilled People-Leaders

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Employees are 100% People

Customers are 100% People

If you don't understand people, you don't understand business."                                       --Simon Sinek

When managers who are unskilled people-leaders are allowed to run free, everyone suffers.

Employees suffer — Employees feel unsupported, undirected, bullied, confused, unmotivated, unappreciated, frustrated, and constantly questioning, “is it me?” So they are not engaged and they are not productive. 

Executives suffer — When executives lack confidence in the team beneath them, they have to cover for, or recover from poor work and decisions from ineffective managers. They become overloaded because they have to do their job AND the job of their managers. 

Business suffers —  When managers are not stepping up to do their jobs — making clear, good decisions and building a strong, capable team beneath them — then executives can’t fully do their jobs because they keep getting dragged down. Business progress slows or stops.

The Costs

Humu, the workplace software company led by former Google HR chief Laszlo Bock, points out that bad managers cost US companies at least $960 billion per year. This is according to Gallup data from 2019—and it likely underestimates the true cost, Bock adds. (More recent data from Gallup’s 2021 State of the Global Workplace report (pdf) show that a lack of engagement—a result of poor management—costs the global economy $8.1 trillion in lost productivity each year.)

Even if some of the costs listed here can’t be tracked by the finance department directly, they still have real impact. And it doesn’t take much imagination to see how each can lead to real dollar costs.

• Turnover. The number one reason people voluntarily leave a job is that they fire their boss.  Even when they cite other reasons (like pay), they would be less likely to be looking if they had a great relationship with their immediate leader.
• Reduced engagement. Seen by many organizations as the solution to organizational problems, employee engagement won’t be solved solely by EAP programs, job and work flexibility, great facilities or even top quartile pay. Most people will be immediately more engaged in and committed to their work with they have a skilled and effective manager.
• Reduced productivity. Productivity typically tracks engagement, but additionally when people have a mediocre boss, people may be less focused on the work, take more sick days, and generally be laxer about their job responsibilities.
• Increased health care costs.  Beyond more “sick days” (whether actually sick or not), one real cost of poor managers is an increase in stress-related health care costs.
• Poor decisions.  Even if the manager is brilliant, if they make decisions with little or no input from team members, they will have less perspective and may make poorer decisions – or at least make decisions that have less commitment from the team to implement.
• No decisions. Some of the poor bosses you’ve encountered may make no decisions or take no action on issues brought to them.  This is equally ineffective, may lead to missed opportunities and broken trust.

This is just a short list.  Your experience with a poor boss might give you other examples and issues. Ultimately, they will likely roll up to the big three – increased turnover, reduced engagement, and reduced productivity.

The Business Value of Managers Who Are Skilled in People-Leadership

The research in this HBR blog post by Randall Beck and James Harter, Why Good Managers so Rare, shows that the quality of the managers impacts the success of the business more than anything else.

Here are some highlights:

• Gallup has found that one of the most important decisions companies make is simply whom they name manager.

• Bad managers cost businesses billions of dollars each year, and having too many of them can bring down a company.

• Businesses that get it right, however, and hire managers based on talent, will thrive and gain a significant competitive advantage.

• To make this happen, companies should systematically demand that every team within their workforce have a great manager.

• If managers who are skilled in people-leadership seem scarce, it’s because the talent required to be one is rare. Gallup finds that great managers have the following talents:

• They motivate every single employee to take action and engage them with a compelling mission and vision.
• They have the assertiveness to drive outcomes and the ability to overcome adversity and resistance.
• They create a culture of clear accountability.
• They build relationships that create trust, open dialogue, and full transparency.
• They make decisions that are based on productivity, not politics.
  

Imagination and permission

I find that the key manager skills above listed in the HBR article — motivating, driving outcomes, clear accountability, building trust, and good decisions — are indeed rare but can be improved.

Many managers end up in management positions for reasons other than these. The mistake I see many companies make is to expect people to automatically turn into good managers simply because they are in the job.

They miss the key step of telling their managers what makes a good manager, or setting clear expectations about what the job is.

Managers tend not to step up on their own because of issues with either imagination (they don’t know they are supposed to), or permission (they are not sure they are allowed to).

• Imagination: You need to get it into the mind of your managers that they need to be good at and do these new manager-things. Some poorly performing managers will do better, simply be being made aware of the game.

• Permission: Some people don’t think they have the permission to step forward and lead in this way — especially if no one has ever talked to them about it. You need to make it clear that not only is it OK, it’s required. And if they don’t have the skills or a plan to lead in this way, you need to train and coach them or let them go.
  

Make your company stronger

My favorite line in Why Good Managers so Rare is this one:

 "Companies should systematically demand that every team within their workforce have a great manager.”

Amen!

A Cost Reduction Plan

If you want to reduce the cost of managers who are unskilled in people-leadership, you need better managers. 

There are three major ways to improve the overall skill and effectiveness of leaders in your organization: 

• Fire and replace 
• Have better selection and hiring processes 
• Develop the managers already in place

The most egregious examples might warrant immediate replacement or reassignment.  If you simply replace one bad boss with another, you didn’t really improve anything (but you did further lower the morale and hope of the team).  Certainly, you can work on your hiring and selection practices (for both internal and external candidates, but that doesn’t give much immediate help.

The single best way to reduce the cost of poor managers is to help them develop into good managers and people-leaders. That happens with feedback, coaching and training. Many organizations have reduced their focus and investment in leadership development during the turbulence of the past couple of years. That turbulence has made the job of a leader even more complex. The mix of a harder role with less support is a recipe for more bad bosses.

It is time to look carefully at the skills and results of our managers and provide them with the support they need to grow and improve.  Doing this will create positive ripples beyond what you might image and cut operating costs at the same time.

 To your greater success and well-being,

Peter Mclees, Leadership Coach, Trainer and Performance Consultant
SMART DEVELOPMENT

 

Take the Next Step...

Interested in learning how to develop your organization's leadership capability, culture, and employee engagement? We begin with a collaborative discovery process identifying your unique needs and business issues. To request an interview with Peter Mclees please 

contact: Email: petercmclees@gmail.com  or  Mobile: 323-854-1713

Smart Development has an exceptional track record helping service providers, ports, sales teams, restaurants, stores, distribution centers, food production facilities, wealth management services, third-party maintenance providers, real estate services, nonprofits, government agencies and other businesses create a strong culture, leadership bench strength, coaching skills and the teamwork necessary for growth.

Having worked with several companies throughout their growth cycle, we have valuable insights and strategies that would help any late stage startup, small or medium sized company achieve sustained growth and prosperity.

Moving the Needle When Participating In a Learning Event

 

 

 

 

 

What is your goal when you attend a company-sponsored leadership training, conference, seminar, or webinar?

Is it a life-changing idea or insight, or something else?

I have experienced the big aha-moments in all those settings, and that is wonderful. But that is a high bar.

I’ve also heard people be a bit cynical after and even before a session saying things like “I knew most of that material,” or “there wasn’t much new here.”

Light-bulb moments are wonderful. But attending learning events focused only on the big, new ideas will keep you from getting the most from those opportunities.

Focus on moving the needle. Learning and growing by 1%.

Going from 0-60 is great but moving the needle from 40 to 45 and creating a new average or base line is more realistic and can have a huge impact on your long-term performance and success.

The big insight is a bonus, but moving the needle to a new level – even if the change is small – can change everything.

Look for the little gains. When you look for them, you are more likely to find them – and added together, they will change everything for the better.  Small differences accumulate into significant competitive advantages.

Whether during a leadership training class or just going through your workday – look for ways to move the needle today.

Check out a related post: Experimentation is Vital for Leadership Excellence. ( 5 min read)

Stay curious, stay hungry,

Peter Mclees, Leadership Coach, Trainer and Performance Consultant
SMART DEVELOPMENT

 

Take the Next Step...
Interested in learning how to develop your organization's leadership capability, culture, and employee engagement? We begin with a collaborative discovery process identifying your unique needs and business issues. To request an interview with Peter Mclees please 

contact: Email: petercmclees@gmail.com  or  Mobile: 323-854-1713

Smart Development has an exceptional track record helping service providers, ports, sales teams, restaurants, stores, distribution centers, food production facilities, wealth management services, facilities and energy management,  real estate services, nonprofits, government agencies and other businesses create a strong culture, leadership bench strength, coaching skills and the teamwork necessary for growth.

Having worked with several companies throughout their growth cycle, we have valuable insights and strategies that would help any late stage startup, small or medium sized company achieve sustained growth and prosperity.

Having worked with several companies throughout their growth cycle, we have valuable insights and strategies that would help any late stage startup, small or medium sized company achieve sustained growth and prosperity.

 

 

Google's Discovery About the Secret to Success at Work

 

 

 

 

 

 

I wrote this title because people will likely read it – we love secrets to success, and if they are surprising, all the better. Depending on your beliefs and experience, this post may be neither. Either way, what I am about to share will make a difference for you professionally and for the organization you serve.

A Washington Post article I read got me thinking about this topic. The article was about what Google  learned about the most important skills they need to succeed as a company. The surprise, at least to Google, was that technical skills weren’t at the top of the list. 

To quote from the article:

"In 2022, Google decided to test its hiring hypothesis by crunching every bit and byte of hiring, firing, and promotion data accumulated since the company’s incorporation in 1998. Project Oxygen shocked everyone by concluding that, among the eight most important qualities of Google’s top employees, STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Math) expertise comes in dead last. The seven top characteristics of success at Google are all soft skills: being a good coach; communicating and listening well; possessing insights into others (including others different values and points of view); having empathy toward and being supportive of one’s colleagues; being a good critical thinker and problem solver; and being able to make connections across complex ideas."

This is significant; one of the organizations that most relies on and had until that point focused hiring on the very best technical ability says that those abilities are the 8th most important to their organizations success.

To put it in another way, technical skills are the admission to the game, but winning takes far more than that.

Look at the rest of that list…

• Coaching skills
• Communicating and listening well.
• Possessing insights into others.
• Empathy.
• Critical thinking and problem solving.
• Making connections across complex ideas.

The first four of those are 100% interpersonal and people skills; what the article calls the soft skills. And since businesses (even Google, the technical giant) are made up of people, it makes sense.

The Forest and the Trees
You’ve heard the metaphor of not being able to see the forest for the trees – this situation is informed perfectly by this metaphor. Our organizations want the technical skills, whatever they are: finance, engineering, marketing, sales, operations – name the technical expertise that is important to your organization.  These are the trees.  We must have trees in order to have a forest, but the forest is more than individual trees, it is a living system with all of the trees working together symbiotically for mutual success.

Hiring only for technical competence focuses you on the trees; but your organization is a forest.

It is easier to hire for technical skill – many of these skills are testable, tangible and resumes are filled with testaments to these skills. Easier – but not more effective.

It is harder to seek, suss out and select for the softer skills, like but not inclusive of those on the list above.  But if you want a successful resilient organization you must do the hard work of hiring for soft skills.

[Check out my blog post about how to hire for coachability--one of the most important soft skills. How to Hire People Who Repeatedly Succeed. 5 min read.]

The Message For You Personally
I’ve taken an organization focus so far, but let me make the point personally now.  Organizational success is about people skills, so your personal success must rest on that foundation.  You need to be focused on building your technical or job skills – and while those are important (you need to stay abreast of changes in your field of expertise), they aren't enough – again they simply buy you entrance to the game.

Technical skills get you in the door. Soft skills take you where you want to do. 

I think "soft" skills should be called "essential" skills. They're the deepest human skills. And the hardest to learn.

If you want to play the game at a higher level you must build your essential skills with the level of dedication and focus they deserve.

The Secret?
By now you know the secret.  The secret to success is being able to communicate with, interact with, collaborate with, and influence people.  Time spent investing in learning, improving and practicing the "essential skills" is the best investment you can make in your future success at work and in life.

To your greater success and fulfillment,

Peter Mclees, Leadership Coach, Trainer and Performance Consultant
SMART DEVELOPMENT

Take the Next Step...
Interested in learning how to develop your organization's leadership capability, culture, and employee engagement ? We begin with a collaborative discovery process identifying your unique needs and business issues. To request an interview with Peter Mclees please 

contact: Email: petercmclees@gmail.com  or  Mobile:323-854-1713

Smart Development has an exceptional track record helping energy and facilities management providers, ports, sales teams, restaurants, stores, distribution centers, food production facilities, food distribution companies, wealth management services, real estate services, nonprofits, government agencies and other businesses create a strong culture, leadership bench strength, coaching skills and the teamwork necessary for growth.

Having worked with several companies throughout their growth cycle, we have valuable insights and strategies that would help any late stage startup, small or medium sized company achieve sustained growth and prosperity.