LeadershipConneXtions

Leaders Who Live on Different Planets (Jobs and Behar)

A few weeks ago I did some blogging about Steve Jobs and Apple and the tension I felt as I read about Jobs' leadership style. To say it bluntly, Jobs exemplifies most of what I think is wrong with leadership today. I won't list all those things again. Unfortunately (for me), by being the wrong kind of leader, Jobs gets extraordinary results and he has gained the world through the production of a truly superior computer product.

And soon after I finished that book, I read Howard Behar's book about Starbucks. And Behar represents just about everything that I think is right about leadership. And he also has a superior product and great success.

Two leaders.  Two leadership ways that are polar opposites. Both eminently successful. One I respect and the other I "almost" despise (that is the leadership ways, not the people).

I guess this is my question. Is there a place for Jobs' style of leadership, even if it is all wrong?

And: Does the end (a superior product that makes tons of money) justify the means (the leadership way of Jobs)?

Here is one more question:

What good will it be for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?(Matthew 16:26)

Brian Rice

Leaders Who Care (and the Followers Who Believe Them)

Caring, it is what life is all about. We talk about professional care, health care, home care aids, pastoral care and so on.

Here is a paraphrase of a well known quote: 

Followers don't care how much a leader knows until they really know how much the leader truly cares.

On June 10 I did a post on caring and empathy and while reading  Behar's book about Starbucks (see the sidebar- CURRENT READS) it really hit me again. Caring is vital to leadership.

Jim Collins talks about moving from good to great. Howard Behar wold say that "caring" is part of that move and part of the essence of great leadership.

When I read Behar, I think he either has had some significant Christian worldview imprinted on him at some point, or that he is just the blessed recipient of an unusual amount of common grace and natural revelation.

Behar talks about the leader caring for others proactively (do it first), unconditionally (whether it is returned or not) and sacrifically (take the heat and take the bullet aimed at others). Hey - that is a three point message right there. Although the best messages are lived for a season before they are spoken.

Caring for others in this way is at the heart of great people leadership and great organizational leadership. Behar thinks that MBA programs ought to offer Love and Caring 101 in their curriculum.

The point of this is to do some reflection and assessment:

• Do you really care for the people you lead?
• In what ways do your actions line up with your answer?
• Who don't you care for?
• And - if you asked those around you (and if they would give honest answers) would they name you as a caring leader?

It is important for leaders to remember that the definition of care changes somewhat (much like the Love Language idea) from person to person.  We have to be "careful" to understand what others really need in terms of care.

Maybe it is time to come up with your Personal, 2008 Gift of Caring Project.

Brian Rice

The Fundamental Task of Leaders . . . (a la Goleman and Blanchard)

When we teach the Leadership  Foundations Course at Living Word Community Church, Becky Rice is one of the presenters. One of her areas of specialty is emotional intelligence. One session she does is Emotional Intelligence and Self-Awareness.

Here is a quote she uses from Goleman that always gets a reaction and heated discussion from the participants:

The fundamental task of leaders, we argue, is to prime good feelings in those they lead. That occurs when a leader creates resonance - a reservoir of positivity that frees the best in people.  At its root then, the primal job of leadership is emotional . . .

Great leadership works through the emotions . . . No matter what leaders set out to do - whether it's creating strategy or mobilizing teams to action - their success depends on how they do it. Even if they get everything else just right, if leaders fail in this primal task of driving emotions in the right direction, nothing they do will work as well as it could or should . . .

When leaders drive emotions positively . . .they bring out everyone's best. We call this effect resonance. When they drive emotions negatively . . . leaders spawn dissonance.

Now, the obvious reflection question is this:  What kind of emotions are you projecting, imprinting, and leaking on to your team and on to your organization and on to your mentorees?

Many years ago Blanchard and Johnson, in The One Minute Manager told us that people do better work with they feel good about themselves. Leaders have a significant role to play in creating places of work and ministry where people can feel good about themselves, know they are valued and loved.

So - how are you doing with all this?

Hmmm - how am I doing with all this?

Brian Rice

Empathy and love for people (it's at the heart of servant leadership)

Here are some pretty amazing words.

Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches. Who is weak, and I do not feel weak? Who is led into sin, and I do not inwardly burn?  (2 Corinthians 11:28-29)

Now, I don't know what your initial impression is of the Apostle Paul. Maybe you see him as this brilliant theological genius... or perhaps as an intense, no-holds barred debater when it comes to matters of truth... or maybe a task driven, High-D, Type-A, "I love the world, it's people I don't like" kind of a guy.

But read 2 Corinthians (one of my favorite books in the Bible and a Core Book for my understanding of leadership) and the true picture of Paul emerges.

He deeply loves people.

He has high levels of empathy.

The pain and suffering and struggles of people are what keep him up at night.

Take a few minutes and look closely at the Rembrandt. I look at this and see 2 Corinthians 11:28-29. Deep concern for people is etched on his face and is calling forth a letter.

For leaders who are more task driven, we just need to keep on thinking about this pretty basic thing called - LOVE and empathy, the back half of the Great Commandment.

Brian Rice

The Four "Voices"

N.T. Wright in Simply Christian lists what he believes are four longings of the heart (he calls them VOICES).

    The longing for JUSTICE.

    The quest for SPIRITUALITY.

    The hunger for RELATIONSHIPS.

    The delight in BEAUTY.

I think the work of leadership is to help people connect with the deepest longings of their heart. We do this through our teaching, through our imprinting of our own fullness of life, and through the systems and structures we shape in our organizations.

It might be worthwhile for you to sit down and reflect on how well you are doing in leadership when it comes to these four longings.

Brian Rice

The Leader as "Dealer in Hope"

I recently read a very short article by John Ortberg on the power of hope and this article got me thinking about how important hope is. Here are a few of my observations.

We live in a world where there are a lot of "hope drainers." Life itself, certainly the ministry, and obviously difficult people are just some of the hope drainers we must deal with.

Some times, we move into cultural, historical seasons where hope is in shorter supply.  (We may be living in one of them now.)

Some of us have personalities that have components that work against hope. Negativity, pessimism, cynicism, sarcasm - these are internal hope drainers.

In the absence of hope people become physically lethargic, spiritually lukewarm, and emotionally stagnant. And those things breed even more hopelessness.

People are looking for hope and they are attracted to leaders who offer hope.

In one sense, hope is a resource that a leader has to give away to others. We empower people when we give them hope.

So every leader must have sources of hope that flow into her or his own life.

Here are two questions worth some reflection time.

1. How well am I doing as a leader in the "dealing hope" department?
2. What are the sources of hope that are flowing into my life and replenishing me in the face of my own hope drainers?

Brian Rice

Invigorating Leadership

Here is a great translation of Proverbs 16:15 from the Message.

Good tempered leaders invigorate lives; they're like spring rain and sunshine.

What an image and what a privilege... to be like both the spring rain and the sunshine that invigorates those we lead.

People need encouraged, refreshed, appreciated, empowered, loved, nurtured, (you get the idea). They need an invigorating leader who invigorates (adds vigor - energy, life) to them.

How invigorating were you yesterday for the key people around you?

And how invigorating will you be today?

And . . . is anyone being invigorative for you?

Brian Rice

Dealers of Faith, Hope and Love

I did a lot of reading on the flight over to Holland and then to Ethiopia. A thought in one book got me thinking that leaders are "dealers."

The world knows all about dealers. There are drug dealers, munitions dealers, art dealers and so on. To be a dealer means you provide the other person with the "thing" you are dealing.

Well, this thought hit me:

Leaders who serve Christ are dealers in faith, hope and love. That (along with other great things like truth, trust and grace) is the "substance" that we have to offer others.

I pray that today you will have (or make) the opportunity to "deal to another" the faith, hope and love they need. And if you ever run out, you can always go back to your supplier Jesus for some more.

Blessings,

Brian Rice

p.s.  I fly out of Addis Ababa about 11:00 Friday night, to Frankfurt, and then back to Philadelphia, take the train back to Lancaster and then home by car to York. Pray for my transit time and connections.

The People You Need to Suceed

Phil Hickey reminds us of what we all know, but tend to take for granted:

"Success, in business as well as life, is directly dependant on the quality of people you surround yourself with."

Brian Newman and I know that Leadership ConneXtions International will be successful to the degree that we are able to surround ourselves with the right people. Our partners, sponsors and supporters are all very important to us. Our faithfulness and fruitfulness is directly dependent on you.

Thanks for surrounding us with your support, your ministry and your prayers. It is because of you that we are able to follow through on "the long obedience in the same direction."

Brian Rice

The "accountability" word

I heard an eye-opening leadership experience recently. I was speaking with a staff member about acountability, i.e. that I would be holding them accountable for some ministry activity (it sounded better than that when I first said it!). They said they were fine with that, but only because they had begun trusting me on some level.

Here's what I realized: Accountbility without trust in a relationship is a recipe for disaster. I have made this mistake in leadership before: putting the cart before the horse in a sense.

Forewarned is forearmed!

- Brian Newman

Criticism and Praying for Your Critics

One of the topics that the LWCC Leading Edge team worked through recently was the issue of criticism. As leaders, how do we deal with criticism when we are on the receiving end of it . . . and how do we do offer constructive criticism to others.

A friend of mine, Randy Reimold, passed on to me a prayer from St. Nikolai Velimirovic (pictured to the right). Velimirovic was a 20th Century Serbian Orthodox Bishop who opposed Nazism and wound up in Dachau.

His prayer for his enemies is simply profund. In one sense, our critics often act like (or are viewed by us) as enemies. This prayer helps us look at them with entirely different eyes.

Velimirovic seems to use Romans 12:14 as his foundation for this prayer.

"Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse."

This is as counter cultural as it gets. This is Sermon on the Mount kind of Christianity for leaders. I hoe you will be as moved and challenged by it as I was.

Download criticism... prayer for dealing with.pdf

Brian Rice

Maximizing Your Leadership Influence

A few weeks ago, the Leading Edge training course spent two weeks looking at the issue of the kinds of influence we have on others.

I have attached a PDF file that was one of the handouts that our small group discussed.

Download TwelveSuggestionsForInfluence.pdf

Brian Rice

Trust

I've been thinking about trust again.

I've been thinking about it because I am in a situation where trust levels between certain team members is not real high.

I've been thinking about it because when I taught on team building in India, BUILDING TRUST was one of the big items on the agenda and we had "vigorous"discussion about trust and the lack of trust.

I've been thinking about it because I just read some good words on trust from Max De Pree. Here are those words:

Earning trust is not easy, nor is it cheap, nor does it happen quickly. Earning trust is hard and demanding work.  Trust comes only with geunine effort . . . It's much more difficult to rebuild trust then to build it in the first place. Once we have built it, we should treasure it and protect it. Turst can be won only slowly; it can be lost in the twinkling of an eye.

If you are part of a team that is struggling - take another look at the levels of trust on your team.

If you are leading a team - be sure to constantly monitor the "trust dynamics" and to keep the trust issue on the front burner.

If you have lost the trust of some people - start to rebuild that trust. Get started by having an honest conversation with the person who doesn't trust you.  Go into that conversation with the words of Stephen Covey in mind:  Seek first to understand, then to be understood.

Brian Rice

The importance of TRUST

I am reading "The Speed of Trust" by Stephen M.R. Covey, the son of the slightly more famous Stephen Covey of the 7 Habits. Covey argues that at the heart of effective leadership is a deep, enduring trust between leader and those he or she leads. I could not agree more.

I have had the privilege of working with people I trust deeply, and who have chosen to trust me as well. We have gone through the joys and struggles of life and ministry together. Sometimes there were incredibly difficult and painful circumstances, and great leadership challenges. And yet because we trusted each other so deeply we got through it and our relationships even strengthened.

Unfortunately, I have been in a couple of situations where trust was eroded. What I found was that without trust the relationships and the ability to lead deteriorates very fast. As fast as the speed of light it seems.

- Brian Newman