31 Days to Becoming a Better Leader

Day #11: Skills and Gaps

The greater our knowledge increases, the greater our ignorance unfolds. – John F. Kennedy

The popular narrative on leadership is to focus on “Strengths” and “Weaknesses.” As you might have come to expect, my calling is to change the paradigm by changing the language. Many of us don’t think that we are “weak” just because there’s a particular skill that’s not at the top of our competency list. And being transparent and open about defining weaknesses is not a particular passion for me or for some other leaders I know.

For example, I’m a visionary and I develop concepts. I write about those concepts. My passion is not in editing or proofreading my documents. That’s a piece I can delegate and have done so for over a decade. That works for me because I can focus on what I do best. I can do the editing, however, that’s not where my passion is and it’s certainly not my top skill. I delegate this task to a person on my team who has editing and proofreading as a top skill and likes doing that task. Delegation is a leadership skill and is certainly not a weakness as some may have been led to believe.

Just because I don’t do some things at the highest level does not mean that I am weak. I let go of things others can do to focus on things that only I can do.

When I interviewed Cal Turner for my podcast, “Orchestrating Success,” his story of empowering his leadership team at Dollar General spoke to me loudly. I use his example of effective leadership in keynotes and workshops. You can find that on the podcast, “Orchestrating Success, Episode 15” where you subscribe to this podcast. Or read the transcription on my website at https://hughballou.com/podcast-15-legacy-interview-with-cal-turner-jr/

Take inventory of your skills (competencies) and rate each one with a number from 1-10, with 10 being a perfect score. Define which of those need to be your priority for growing (remember that learning is a life-long journey) and which should be delegated. I suggest that any skill with a score below 5 should be delegated unless you want to grow that particular skill.

Make a list for yourself and then get feedback from a peer – not your team…yet. It will be good to use yourself as a model when you roll this process out to your team members. It’s helpful to realize that we don’t need to be good at everything. And it’s good to talk to team members about this particular thinking. Team members should have an awareness of building their skills and realize that they don’t need to master everything they think they might be expected to do. If team members have nobody to delegate to, then this is a chance to develop collaborations in the team.

By the way, your strategy defines the competencies that are needed to complete the work. Pay attention to which of those belong to you.

Here’s my perspective… “Nobody is perfect. But parts of me are excellent.” I go with what’s excellent.

Next: Day #12 – Personal Growth Plan

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Day #12: Personal Growth Plan

Income seldom exceeds personal development.– Jim Rohn

Jim Rohn influenced many, many high-income earners in his lifetime. He almost always said to work on yourself harder than you work on your business. The older I get, the more I resonate with that statement.

I constantly hear from entrepreneurs, especially, that they have read about leadership and want to focus on something important, implying that leadership isn’t as important as “getting things done.”

Let me be clear: NOTHING HAPPENS WITHOUT LEADERSHIP.

We have been taught leadership incorrectly and we have inherited systems that aren’t working. It’s time to reframe leadership and work on our skills to lead the organization we are responsible for taking forward to the fulfillment of its mission.

Hugh’s four leadership principles will empower you to lead any type of organization more effectively.

Here are my principles, expressed in general principles and in a musical conductor’s terms:

• Foundations: Know the Score
• Articulate your vision
• Know your plan
• Build your skills
• Relationships: Hire the Best
• Create good relationships
• Learn to delegate
• Be the influencer
• Systems: Rehearse for Success
• Conduct effective meetings
• Evaluate constantly
• Correct as needed
• Balance: Value the Rests
• Work and rest
• Have a life
• Always pace yourself

These principles are how a Transformational Leader influences and transforms ideas into results and people into high-performing cultures.

Here’s my list for maintaining a personal growth program:

• Read Constantly: All the best leaders I know or know of are avid and faithful readers many of them reread books and articles with a highlighter that’s a different color than the original marker. They find that different passages are jumping out to highlight because they are ready to learn the next thing.
• Hang Around Winners: The old saying is, “If you want to remain broke, then hand around broke people.” Associate with people who are successful and learn from them. They can also learn from you. Make sure that the people you hang with are smarter (by your opinion) than you feel you are.
• Hire a Coach: There’s nothing better than having a paid confidential advisor who asks you difficult questions and assists in exposing your blind spots. We can’t find those blind spots alone. You might need a different type of coach for different stages of your personal growth.
• Keep and Open Mind: I love the old saying, “The mind is like a parachute. It has to be open to work.” Be open to different ideas than yours. Consider conflict and disagreement a creative tool rather than a personal attack. Lack of awareness is the biggest barrier to success in my view.
• Never Stop Learning: Work on yourself constantly even more than you work on your business, either for-profit or for-purpose. There’s no ultimate arrival point for leadership development. The more we learn, the more we discover we don’t know. It’s difficult when we don’t know what we don’t know.

Join the online Community for Community Builders to support your leadership growth at http://NonprofitCommunity.org

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Relationships

Day #13: Team Competencies

Don’t tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results. – George Patton

You have created your strategic plan, right? If not, stop and go back to doing it now. It’s important to have the end in mind before starting the journey. Be sure that you are on the right pathway and have laid down the tracks for the journey.

In the template you got when you purchased the action guide, there’s a title for each component in the strategic plan. One of those titles is “Competencies.” If you want to accomplish your goals, then inventory the skills needed to make those goals happen.

Are you seeing how important having a strategy is for getting to where you want to be…for how you make your vision become reality? It’s what I call, “Paying the upfront cost.” This upfront cost is far less than the backend cost when you have to undo things that were done in error and backtrack to where you started and begin again, which is a waste of time and money.

In this action guide, there’s a template for recruiting team members for any type of group. You can certainly make your template and use it for boards, committees, staff, advisory groups, and other types of teams.

Down one side of the page, you list the specific skills needed and draw a line down the middle. On the other side, you list the names of potential candidates for the particular group. The skills list is numbered. Go down the list of people identify the skill they bring to the organization and put the corresponding line number by their name. Some names will have more than one number. Prioritize the people with the most needed competencies and begin to make an offer to join your team.

Here’s the outline for the process:

• Describe the position – on a staff, it might be something like marketing director, and on a board of directors, it might be treasurer, etc.
• Identify the specific role and responsibilities for that person – to create and implement marketing strategies that will increase our revenue by 25% with no increased costs, as an example for a marketing director.
• Determine if there’s a culture fit – review your values and guiding principles and see if they match the candidate’s values and principles. This step is often skipped with dire consequences.
• Establish the performance expectations – describe what this person will accomplish in a specific period of time. This element gives an opportunity for mentoring and correcting along the way.

Assimilating and leading a high-performing team means that you become a high-performing leader.

Next: Day #14 – Roles and Responsibilities 

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Day #14: Roles & Responsibilities

However you envisage your role in life, all you can do is perform it as best you can.

– Brian Aldiss

The price of greatness is responsibility. – Winston Churchill

It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and tell them what to do. It makes more sense to hire smart people and train them enough so they start telling you what to do.

– Steve Jobs

Defining roles and responsibilities is key to understanding what individuals will do and accomplish inside any leadership container.

A role is not a job title and is certainly not the same as a responsibility. A role is a general nomenclature, and a responsibility is a specific results-based language. Roles come with responsibilities.

Job titles might come with a specific role. One person has a title, however several people might have the same, or similar, roles in the organization. Several people may have the same role, but a different discipline within that role – IT, design, analyst, etc.

Responsibilities define specific accomplishments or results. Individuals are responsible for their outcomes and are mutually accountable to others on the team independently, with a mind on the interdependence of the work. One person’s accomplishments impact the work of others on the team. Even though each person is responsible on their own, there’s an impact on others in meeting or not meeting deadlines or other expectations of quality and/or quantity.

In the old model of a “Job Description,” the practice has become making a list of tasks to complete, which is a form of micromanaging. It’s better to define the results of the work than to define the activities intended to achieve results. Each person needs to utilize their specific skills in accomplishing their deliverables.

Remembering the Steve Jobs quote at the top of this section, it’s important to empower team members to think on their own, using the best thinking skills, such as creative thinking, problem-solving, cognition, memory, and originality. These are all parts of J L Guilford’s Structure of Intellect theory. We want to measure more than mere IQ.

Here’s the process:

• Define the goals
• Create skilled teams
• Develop position descriptions 
• Define monthly milestones
• Implement action planning
• Teams create actions
• Members are accountable 
• Measure progress weekly

You are the leader and not the doer. You define and manage processes and lead people. Over-functioning by the leader (doing the action plans for them) results in the under-functioning of teams.

Lead, and don’t do. That’s your role and responsibility, your duty and delight.

Next: Day #15 – Team Agreements

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Day #15: Team Agreements

Unless both sides win, no agreement can be permanent.– Jimmy Carter

Leaders set up problems in many ways. One clear way we set up conflict in teams is by assuming that everyone knows what you want and you know what they want. There is a personal satisfaction factor in working together. When we don’t clearly define our overall expectations with the position description and overall satisfaction, we create conflict.

We have conflict in every group. Conflict is a sign of energy and creativity. We never solve conflict. We manage conflict. We principally manage conflict by managing ourselves. The leader must approach conflict calmly and directly, addressing the facts and engaging the other person or persons in dialogue about the differences in expectations and involving them in problem-solving. Failures are then a learning opportunity. Our job as leaders is to address the issues directly and promptly. I’ll talk more about this in the next session.

Much of the conflict arises in groups due to the lack of a clear understanding by everyone of what’s expected. I learned about creating agreements from the “Revolutionary Attorney” Stewart Levine. He’s the expert in creating mutually beneficial agreements. There are 10 steps in his model for creating agreements. They can be found in his book, The Book of Agreement: 10 Essential Elements for Getting the Results You Want.

In this book, Stewart teaches you how to create agreements that keep conflict at a minimum and make conflict manageable when it does happen. We have conflict. We manage conflict. Being a leader means you deal with it.

Stewart’s agreement format ensures that everyone is on the same page, so to speak. After we discuss all the points 1-9 and we arrive at point 10, Agreement, then we know we all are in alignment and we have an agreement.

Here are the elements for agreement:

1. Intent and Vision
2. Roles
3. Promises
4. Time/Value
5. Measurements of Satisfaction
6. Concerns and Fears
7. Renegotiation
8. Consequences
9. Conflict Resolution
10. Agreement

As you see, there are topics on his list that most leaders never consider exploring. Having a direct conversation with a partner, employee, or board member is a discovery process and a clarification process. It’s the leader’s job to listen with eyes and ears and to listen for intent in addition to content. Skipping this step sets up an unnecessary conflict.

Lead from the front and not from the back, trying to catch up when you didn’t cover what’s important and needed for a healthy group process.

Next: Day #16 – Group Dynamics

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Day #16: Group Dynamics and Conflict

Peace is not absence of conflict, it is the ability to handle conflict by peaceful means. – Ronald Reagan

In human emotional systems, we see the good, bad, and ugly of others in good times and in times of stress. We show up like we showed up many times like we did and do in our family of origin. We have developed behaviors and responses over time, and sometimes are not aware of these behaviors or responses. This is not a judgment of good or bad. It is just recognition of reality. We are influenced greatly by our family of origin.

In learning about ourselves, we learn about how we influence others. If a leader is anxious, then that anxiety is contagious and spreads throughout the team. If we remain calm, then others respond calmly or limit their emotional state and might be able to limit their responses. Leaders influence others by their state of being.

Over the past 10 years, I have been studying the work of Murray Bowen, M.D. His work as a psychiatrist with families is important to leaders in any field. His body of work is referred to as Bowen Family Systems. Eight concepts guide our thinking and our discovery process of learning about ourselves. We learn to manage ourselves.

Groups are like families. We behave like we do in our family. We respond to others and they respond to us as we do and did in our family or origin. Learning about ourselves takes us out of responding emotionally and into thinking about group emotional systems and discovering our role in that system. We impact the system.

Learning about ourselves isn’t changing who we are. It’s discovering how we can manage ourselves. If you review the podcast about Guiding Principles, you will discover how personal guiding principles help us to manage ourselves. To manage conflict and other group dynamics, we must understand ourselves and what guides our behavior.

Here’s a list of the eight Bowen Concepts and how those are useful in observing group dynamics.

8 Concepts of Bowen Family Systems

1. Triangles– Triangles exist when there are three people in a relationship. Triangles are neither good nor bad – they are. Anxiety moves around the triangle.
2. Differentiation of Self– Strong grounding in personal guiding principles in which a person does not depend on the approval of others for decisions makes a differentiated person. Each person in a group’s emotional system thinks for themselves, rather than opting into the will of the group in what’s called “group think.”
3. Nuclear Family Emotional System– The basic family unit is where we learn patterns and behaviors. By observing our family, we learn about ourselves and gain abilities to observe other emotional systems.
4. Family Projection Process– We all inherit problems and strengths from our parents who have projected their fears and hopes onto us. Observing these patterns frees us to be independent and function in basic self.
5. Multigenerational Transmission Process– We all possess learned behaviors that have been taught to us knowingly and unknowingly through multiple generations.
6. Emotional Cutoff– This is where we avoid or minimize contact with people with whom we have unresolved tension.
7. Sibling Position– Bowen continues the research of Walter Toman on the patterns of sibling position. Being aware of our position, as well as the position of others in our emotional systems, provides insights on behaviors.
8. Societal Regression/Societal Emotional Process– There are parallel patterns in society and family systems.

Observe how these concepts enlighten your ability to observe the behaviors of others and your behaviors. We don’t change the behaviors of others. We change our behaviors and others respond to us.

Next: Day #17 – Corporate Culture

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Day #17: Corporate Culture

Culture eats strategy for breakfast.– Peter Drucker

 Here’s a process for establishing a high-functioning corporate culture for any type of enterprise. If you are starting a new venture, it’s better to focus on the culture from the beginning, since it’s much more difficult to go back and correct habits that have already been established. It’s difficult anyway since people are accustomed to a top-down, autocratic, tell-me-what-to-do type of arrangement. This establishes a culture, in which each person shows up as a leader in their various roles and at the level of their responsibility.

Leadership is an individual skill. It’s also a culture of high-performing individuals. In music, when the choir or orchestra learns the notes, then we work together to develop a synergy we call “ensemble.” This higher state of community comes through intentionality and rehearsal with everyone in the group paying attention and focusing all their efforts on the group functioning. No individual gives up their skill, however, that skill is merged with the skill of others to create a higher performance standard.

Here are my steps in developing a high-performing culture:

• Be clear about values and principles – Since you have already defined the organization’s values and principles, it’s time to communicate those. Every person must understand and embody both of these. Team members, such as staff, committee, or board, can continue to fine-tune the operational guiding principles with your guidance. Every principle must meet your approval, however when the team adds even one principle, then their ownership of the concept is solidified.
• Develop a team covenant – A covenant is not a contract. A covenant is a promise we give to one another. In this step, the team members articulate how the interdependence of the team is important to the team’s ultimate success and sustainable success. In Day #19, I provide the format for developing a team covenant.
• Focus on relationships – Leadership is based on relationships. Communication is based on relationships. Always value the individual and work on relationships.
• Meet regularly, but always with purpose – In the podcast about conducting power-packed meetings (#20), I provide a very different model for conducting meetings. It resembles how a conductor leads music rehearsals. It’s the key to developing the team’s high-functioning culture and the way to developing a fine-tuned ensemble.
• Develop action plans in teams – There’s a synergy, along with mutual accountability, when teams create action plans together. It’s a “New Architecture of Engagement™” for erasing the lines that create silos and territories within companies. Creating the plans together is a collaborative activity and, in that process, leaders discover ways of working together by defining what each of them needs from others and what they share with others.
• Meet with multiple teams to compare and collaborate – If the organization is large enough, the leaders of the different teams need to meet frequently to look at the cross-disciplinary opportunities for the work. In this step, we erase other lines that separate people within organizations.
• Model what you want to see in the team – The pace of the leader sets the pace for the team. The integrity…the work ethic…the engagement…the attitude… Get the picture? The team is a reflection of the leader.
• Coach for Success – In Day #23, I go into more depth about coaching. The leader needs to be a leadership resource, forming the culture and growing the engagement. Coaching is a specific skill, so master that skill. The goal of coaching is listening and asking good questions, and not telling people what to do.

Intentionality of purpose in creating a high-performing culture, along with mastering the skill needed, is the only way to build an excellent corporate culture.

Next: Day #18 – Getting Team “Buy-In”

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Day #18: Getting Team “Buy-In”

Great teams do not hold back with one another. They are unafraid to air their dirty laundry. They admit their mistakes, their weaknesses and their concerns without fear of reprisal. – Patrick Lencioni

Patrick Lencioni’s 5 Dysfunctions of a Team:

• Dysfunction #1: Absence of Trust
• Dysfunction #2: Fear of Conflict
• Dysfunction #3: Lack of Commitment
• Dysfunction #4: Avoidance of Team Accountability
• Dysfunction #5: Inattention to Team Objectives

To have a high-performing team, each member must have buy-in. All of the five dysfunctions above can be addressed with the following steps.

The buy-in begins with strategy. The leader (that’s you) holds and communicates the vision. It’s also your duty to forecast the future by defining the long-term strategic objectives. Now it’s time for the team to be engaged with the planning process.

It’s the notion of the leader (remember, we’re been taught things wrong and have inherited systems that aren’t working) to do all of the planning, and then hand out the plan with implementation details to the team.

Here’s where we cut them off at the knees…they have expertise, they have value in skills and as a person, they can solve problems and think creatively, they are subject matter experts, they have varying implementation skills…and so forth. So, why in the world do you think you have to create the entire plan in a vacuum? 

When team members create the plan they own the plan and they bring accountability to the plan. 

Develop Healthy Process:

Relationships becomesProcess

Process createsTrust

Trust formsCommunity

Community buildsRelationships 

Team process:

• Guidelines – Let the team define their own rules of engagement or working process guidelines.
• Goals – Set team goals for productivity and satisfaction.
• Action Plans – Create action plans to support the company goals as a team.
• Consensus – Learn and teach consensus.
• Power Meetings – No more boring meetings, which is the number one killer of power teams (Day #20).
• Communicate – Communication is based on relationship and not on data.
• Celebrate – Set aside time to celebrate milestones accomplished.
• Lead, lead, lead – That’s you.

Next: Day #19 – Team Performance Covenant

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Day #19: Team Performance Covenant

Making covenants is an expression of a faithful heart; Keeping covenants is a expression of a willing heart. – Bonnie D. Parkin

What a covenant is:

Merriam-Webster: a written agreement or promise usually under seal between two or more parties, especially for the performance of some action.

It’s important to create an operational profile of how team members function within this particular leadership container. To set up this process, ask team members to think about another group they were a part of, and to think specifically about what challenges they experienced in that group, such as how they wasted time, what set up conflict, whether each member had a chance to weigh in on ideas, if it was a safe place to disagree, or other factors causing dysfunction or limiting effectiveness. They can also identify systems or customs from other teams that worked really well. People must have a vision of how they work together that’s specific to the team, and that we don’t assume anything is normal. Each team has some different patterns.

Here are my process steps for creating a team covenant:

1. Start with each team member making an “I promise…” statement.
2. Share the statements with others by posting.
3. Look for common ideas that can be combined.
4. Transcribe the list and walk away for a few days.
5. Reconvene and review the list.
6. Ask if there are any points that everyone can’t agree on.
7. Convert to “We promise” statements and transcribe. Attempt to limit the number of points to 10-15.
8. Post the covenant points at each meeting and verbally review one by asking, “How are we doing with this one?”

This is different from the list of guiding principles. Principles are what we apply to decision-making. Covenant is how we function together.

Next: Day #20 – Meetings

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Systems

Day #20: Meetings

Meetings are at the heart of an effective organization, and each meeting is an opportunity to clarify issues, set new directions, sharpen focus, create alignment, and move objectives forward. – Paul Axtell

The Agenda is the enemy of productivity in meetings.– Hugh Ballou

Bad meetings are a killer of team empowerment. – Hugh Ballou

Here’s the module where I explain why a meeting agenda is the enemy of productivity. The agenda is a checklist of activities. I already have enough activities in my life. I’m looking for results in every activity. Therefore, focus on outcomes. Meetings either empower teams or kill team energy. It’s our choice which one we support.

Instead of using the old tried and untrue pattern of creating a meeting agenda, choose to define the desired outcomes for the time together using “deliverables.” The deliverables are specific achievements, or goals, for the session you are conducting. As Steven Covey has defined, “Begin with the end in mind.” In this case, define what you want to walk away with having completed in the time of the meeting.

Here’s a pattern for planning a meeting:

Overall Purpose– If you have an ongoing project or are meeting continuously, define the ultimate objective of the team and/or organization. This helps the group to keep perspective for the journey.

Deliverables for This Session– Define what you will accomplish in this one meeting. Be specific. When you come to the end of the time, everyone knows that the goals for this time have been reached.

Off-Limits for This Session– Groups get into the weeds or go down a rabbit trail that isn’t productive. It’s important to define what will be accomplished in this session and it’s also helpful to define what the group will not do! For example, to define the details of any initiative would be appropriate when setting major directions or defining projects. Do the details between meetings and report back.

Background– List the “givens” or the facts surrounding what you are working on. Do not assume that everyone has the same data. List things that you think are obvious, even if those facts are just perceptions. This helps to eliminate time wasted debating things.

Learn to facilitate group process, especially running meetings. Leaders influence others. Leaders ask good questions. Leaders let others on teams utilize their expertise. Leaders build high-performance teams. Effective meetings create a “New Architecture of Engagement™”that defines the culture.

Next: Day #21 – Team Action Planning

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