San Francisco Bay Area Executive Coaching

Creating a Culture Driven by Purpose and Passion

Creating a Culture Driven by Purpose and Passion

I’ve learned over the years that my most effective executive coaching and leadership development clients know the “why” of what they are passionate in achieving. They get excited in my office telling me inspiring stories of their hopes and struggles. They have a growth versus fixed mindset, and are optimistic and forward thinking. They live and work on the edge and flourish.

Successful organizations are driven by an over arching sense of purpose.  Operated by people with a strong sense of personal and professional passion, they view profit (or shareholder value, or the bottom line) as a result, not a reason for being in business. 

Shift your thinking and focus on what matters most - your organization's reason for being - and a culture that puts human capital first. These are the building blocks for success in a new era of relentless competition where the rules of the game have all changed. 

Take an inspiring journey through the principles that will drive success for companies in today’s economy. Identify your organizations over arching purpose and ignite passion on your team. Create a happy company where people can unleash their creativity and do their best work.

Emotionally intelligent leaders know that people need a sense of purpose to engage their enthusiasm and to be part of a greater cause and nobler endeavor. Mindfulness training can help you create a purpose-driven corporate culture where fired-up people collaboratively execute a well-designed strategy. Envision not what is possible or probable, but what your less innovative competitors think is impossible.

Creating an Execution Culture – A Leader’s Most Important Job

 “Execution is the great unaddressed issue in the business world today. Its absence is the single biggest obstacle to success and the cause of most of the disappointments that are mistakenly attributed to other causes.” ― Ram Charan, author of What the CEO Wants You to Know and Boards that Work.

In the year 2000 alone, forty CEOs of the top 200 companies on Fortune’s 500 list were removed – fired or made to resign. When 20 percent of the most powerful business leaders lose their jobs, something is clearly wrong.

Leaders make big promises… and then there are big gaps in what their organizations actually deliver. They have problems with accountability– people aren’t doing what they’re supposed to do.

Execution is not just something that does or doesn’t get done. Execution is a culture with specific set of behaviors and techniques that companies need to master in order to have competitive advantage.

Execution is not only the biggest issue facing business today, it is something nobody has explained satisfactorily. Execution is not just tactic – it is a discipline and a system. It has to be built into a company’s strategy, its goals, and its culture. And the leader of the organization must be deeply engaged in it.

“Many people regard execution as detail work that’s beneath the dignity of a business leader. That’s wrong … it’s a leader’s most important job.” ― Larry Bossidy, former chairman and CEO, Honeywell International

According to Ram Charan and Larry Bossidy in their book Execution (2002), a lack of focus on the discipline of execution is the main reason companies fall short on their promises. It explains the gap between what leaders want and what they deliver.

It is a system of getting things done through questioning, analysis and follow-through. It is a discipline for meshing strategy with reality, aligning people with goals, and achieving the results promised.

It should be a central part of a company’s strategy and goals and the most important job of any leader. It requires a comprehensive understanding of the business, its people, and its environment. An execution culture links the three core processes of any business – the people process, the strategy, and the operating plan – together to get things done on time.

The execution phase forces the leaders to translate the broad-brush conceptual understanding of the company’s strategy into an action plan for how it will all happen: who will do what in which sequence, how long those tasks will take, how much will they cost, and how they will affect subsequent activities.

Execution is a systematic process of rigorously discussing “what, how, and why”, of questioning, tenaciously following through, and of ensuring accountability. In its most fundamental sense, execution is a systematic way of exposing reality and acting on it. Most companies do not face reality very well. That is the basic reason they can’t execute.

Execution Questions

• Which people will do the job– and how will they be judged and held accountable?
• What human, technical, production and financial resources are needed to execute the strategy?
• Will the organization have the resources it needs two years out, when the strategy goes to the next level?
• Does the strategy deliver the earnings required for success?
• Can it be broken down into doable initiatives?

People engaged in the processes argue these questions, search out reality and reach specific and practical conclusions. Everybody agrees about their responsibilities for getting things done, and everybody commits to those responsibilities.

3 Core Processes:

People, Strategy & Operations

The heart of execution lies in the three core processes: the people process, the strategy process and the operations process.  Every business uses these processes in one form or another. The three core processes of people, strategy and operations are familiar to practitioners of the Balanced Scorecard and the Strategy-Focused Organization management approaches.

In a study of winning companies that spanned more than ten years, professors William Joyce and Nitin Nohria found that there were four primary management practices that directly correlate with superior corporate performance, as measured by total return to shareholders. Winning companies achieve excellence in all four of these primary practices: execution, strategy, culture and structure (What Really Works, 2003).

However, more often than not, these three core processes stand apart from one another like silos. Typically, the CEO and his senior leadership team allot less than half a day each year to review the plans – people, strategy, and operations. Typically, too, the reviews are not particularly interactive. People sit passively and watch PowerPoint presentations.

They don’t debate, and as a result often they get few useful outcomes. People leave with no commitments to the action plans they’ve helped create. This is a formula for failure. What is needed is:

• Robust dialogue to surface the realities of the business
• Accountability for results – discussed openly and agreed to by those responsible for getting things done
• Rewards for the best performers
• Follow-through to ensure that progress tracks to the plans

Robust Dialogue

You cannot have an execution culture without robust dialogue – one that brings reality to the surface through openness, candor and informality. Robust dialogue requires that an organization has the information it needs to understand reality, and has the ability to  make the right decisions.

When mistakes are made, openness is preserved and blaming avoided. The information is used for course correction. Candor and honest conversations foster creativity and ultimately leads to competitive advantage and shareholder value.

Emotional Fortitude

It takes emotional fortitude to be open to whatever information you need, whether it is what you want to hear or not. Such fortitude gives you the courage to accept opposite points of view and deal with conflict. It takes a special kind of confidence to encourage and accept challenges in group settings. It is necessary to be able to accept and deal with your own weaknesses and vulnerabilities, to be firm with people who aren’t performing, and to handle the ambiguity inherent in fast-moving, complex organizations.

4 Core Qualities

Bossidy and Charan point out four core qualities that make up emotional fortitude:

1. Authenticity
2. Self-awareness
3. Self-mastery
4. Humility

Clearly these four qualities should be well-developed by the time an executive reaches a top position within a corporation. However, often one or two of them may appear to be underdeveloped. Leadership development at this level requires the services of a professionally trained executive coach to provide focus and guidance in enhancing these four qualities.

Execution Is the Main Job

Leaders often bristle when they are told they have to run the three core processes themselves. “You’re telling me to micromanage my people, and I don’t do that.” Micromanaging is a big mistake because it diminishes people’s self-confidence, saps their initiative and stifles their ability to think for themselves.

But there’s an enormous difference between leading an organization and presiding over it. The leader who boasts of a hands-off style or puts faith in empowerment is not dealing with the issues of the day. He or she is not confronting the people responsible for poor performance, or searching for problems to solve and then making sure they get solved.

Leaders – at all levels – must become passionately engaged in the organization, recognizing that execution is their main job. Putting the right people in the right jobs and ensuring that rewards and recognition reinforce performance are essential.

Bossidy and Charan emphasize that leaders must build and sustain a “social operating system,” involving continuous review meetings that make up the day-to-day execution management and that link performance and rewards. Review meetings provide the framework needed to create common ways of thinking, behaving and doing.

The Leader’s 7 Essential Behaviors

What exactly does a leader in charge of execution do? How does she or he keep from being a micromanager, caught up in the details of running the business? There are seven essential behaviors that form the building blocks of execution:

1. Know your people and your business
2. Insist on realism
3. Set clear goals and priorities
4. Follow through
5. Reward the doers
6. Expand people’s capabilities
7. Know yourself

Most executives and managers don’t understand the “discipline” of execution. It is not simply a matter of trying harder or paying more attention to details. Execution involves a specific set of core processes built on a foundation of leadership behaviors; it’s a culture unto itself.

Recommended reading:

Execution: the Discipline of Getting Things Done (2002) by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan. Crown Business, New York, NY.

Three Keys to Effective Execution

Here are three recommended keys to translating strategy into action, from Melissa Raffoni, “Three Keys to Effective Execution” (Harvard Management Update, Feb. 2003).

1. Maintain your focus. What characteristics are necessary to stay in focus? You can’t go wrong if you think about maintaining a realistic attitude, simplicity and clarity. How realistic are your plans given your resources? How realistic is this plan given the marketplace and the target customers?

The strategy must be as simple as possible. Usually only a few goals can be pursued effectively at any time. Simple, clear objectives that are commonly understood throughout the organization are best. Distilling strategy to its essentials can deepen employees’ understanding.

2. Develop tracking systems that facilitate problem solving. Develop measures not only for planning but for the execution phase as well. Do your measures really tell you whether you’ve accomplished the objective? Does the tracking system get to the heart of the problem you’re trying to fix? The right measures help make expectations clear.

Don’t let the data get in the way of discussing why things aren’t working. Facing reality makes the difference. It is up to the leader to see that meaningful conversations take place after all the numbers are reported.

3. Set up formal reviews. Successful execution of plans means continual reviews. Meetings should track objectives and variances with a critical eye towards corrective action.

People and resources should be a top priority at review sessions. The right people need to be in the right roles. This means continual evaluation.

Resources must be in place to execute successfully. Do your people have what they need? Managers who excel in execution rely on dashboard tools or summary documents to track resources and objectives. Some firms use quarterly action booklets that list major objectives, key actions, resources and dates. The goal is to balance simplicity with thoroughness. You must get a clear picture of the primary initiatives, the key metrics they are impacting, and who is accountable for each, in order to have a true measure of your progress.

Resources for Execution

Bossidy, L. & Charan, R. (2002). Execution: the Discipline of Getting Things Done. Crown Business.

Bruch, H. & Ghoshal, S. (2004). A Bias for Action. Harvard Business School Publishing.

Collins, J. (2001). Good To Great: Why Come Companies Make the Leap and Others Don’t. Harper Business.

Collins, J. & Porras, J.I. (1994). Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies. Harper Collins.

Contrada, M. G. (2003). The Discipline of Execution. Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation.

Joyce, W., Nohria, N., Roberson, B. (2003) What Really Works; The 4 + 2 Formula for Sustained Business Success. Harper Business.

Pfeffer, J. & Sutton, R.I. (2000). The Knowing-Doing Gap: How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge into Action. Harvard Business School Press.

Raffoni, M. (Feb. 2003) Three Keys to Effective Execution. Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation.

Transformational leaders can create a full engagement culture driven by purpose and passion by working with an executive coach and culture change expert.The investment is well worth the reward: your ability to influence the future, your career and your personal-development capabilities.

Are you working in a company where executive coaches provide leadership development to help leaders put positive leadership into action? Does your organization provide executive coaching for leaders who need to be build a company culture built on trust? Transformational leaders tap into their emotional intelligence and social intelligence skills to create a more fulfilling future.

One of the most powerful questions you can ask yourself is “Am I a transformational leader who inspires individuals and organizations to achieve their highest potential, flourish at work, experience elevating energy and achieve levels of effectiveness difficult to attain otherwise?” Emotionally intelligent and socially intelligent organizations provide executive coaching to help leaders create a culture where respect and trust flourish.

Working with a seasoned executive coach and leadership consultant trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-I, CPI 260 and Denison Culture Survey can help leaders nurture mindful conversations in the workplace. You can become an inspiring leader who models emotional intelligence and social intelligence, and who inspires people to become fully engaged with the vision, mission and strategy of your company or law firm.

Working Resources is a San Francisco Bay Area Executive Coaching Firm Helping Innovative Companies and Law Firms Assess, Select, Coach, Engage and Retain Emotionally Intelligent Leaders; Executive Coaching; Leadership Development; Performance-Based Interviewing; Competency Modeling; Succession Management; Culture Change; Career Coaching and Leadership Retreats

...About Dr. Maynard Brusman

Dr. Maynard Brusman

Consulting Psychologist and Executive Coach|
Trusted Advisor to Executive Leadership Teams
Mindfulness & Emotional Intelligence Workplace Expert

Dr. Maynard Brusman is a consulting psychologist and executive coach. He is the president of Working Resources, a leadership consulting and executive coaching firm. We specialize in helping San Francisco Bay Area companies select and develop emotionally intelligent leaders.  Maynard is a highly sought-after speaker and workshop leader. He facilitates leadership retreats in Northern California and Costa Rica. The Society for Advancement of Consulting (SAC) awarded Dr. Maynard Brusman "Board Approved" designations in the specialties of Executive Coaching and Leadership Development.

“Maynard Brusman is one of the foremost coaches in the United States. He utilizes a wide variety of assessments in his work with senior executives and upper level managers, and is adept at helping his clients both develop higher levels of emotional intelligence and achieve breakthrough business results. As a senior leader in the executive coaching field, Dr. Brusman brings an exceptional level of wisdom, energy, and creativity to his work.” — Jeffrey E. Auerbach, Ph.D., President, College of Executive Coaching

For more information, please go to http://www.workingresources.com, write to [email protected], or call 415-546-1252.

Subscribe to Working Resources Newsletter: http://www.workingresources.com
Visit Maynard's Blog: http://www.workingresourcesblog.com 

Connect with me on these Social Media sites.

http://twitter.com/drbrusman
http://www.facebook.com/maynardbrusman
http://www.linkedin.com/in/maynardbrusman
http://www.youtube.com/user/drmaynardbrusman
http://google.com/+maynardbrusman

 

 

The Power of Noticing: An Elusive Leadership Skill

Noticing: An Elusive Leadership Skill

“Leaders often fail to notice when they are obsessed by other issues, when they are motivated to not notice, and when there are other people in their environment working hard to keep them from noticing.” ~ Harvard Business School Professor Max Bazerman,  The Power of Noticing: What the Best Leaders See (Simon & Schuster, 2014)

As a leader, you’re responsible for making key decisions each day. But how confident are you in your ability to notice all pertinent information?

If you’re like most leaders, you probably believe your perception skills are keen. As convinced as you may be, it’s possible that you’re overestimating your aptitude. What’s in front of you is rarely all there is.

Even if you have a superior grasp of common blind spots, you must remain alert for unplanned surprises and acknowledge your cognitive biases. Even the most venerated leaders make egregious mistakes, failing to notice—or even ignoring—essential data. As they handle an emerging crisis, they may ask: “How did this happen?” or “Why didn’t I catch this sooner?”

They should really be asking themselves:

• “What information should I have gathered, beyond the basic facts?”
• “What information would have helped inform my decision?”

More than a decade of research shows that successful leaders take no notice of critical, readily available information in their environment. This often happens when they have blinders on, focusing on limited information they’ve predetermined to be necessary to make good decisions.

What YouTube Can Teach Us

In a popular YouTube video, viewers are asked to watch a basketball game and tally the number of passes made.

The social scientists behind the video don’t really care whether you accurately record the passes. What truly interests them is whether you notice the man in the gorilla suit who walks onto the court. (In earlier research, they featured a woman with a red umbrella.) You can search for similar experiments on YouTube using the terms intentional blindness or selective attention.

Many viewers are so focused on counting passes that they miss seeing the gorilla or red umbrella. The same phenomenon frequently occurs when we problem-solve and make business decisions. We see only what we define as the “important information”—something 1978 Nobel Prize-winning economist Herbert Simon termed “bounded rationality.”

More recently, Daniel Kahneman, a 2002 Nobel Prize winner, demonstrated that systematic and predictable biases affect even the best and brightest among us. Even when we strive to be ethical and rational, we miss—or fail to seek out—critical information that’s readily available in our environment.

The Rule of WYSINATI

Successful leadership requires vigilance. Leaders often fail to notice when:

• They are obsessed with other issues or crises.
• They are motivated not to notice.
• Other people work hard to prevent them from noticing.

Responsible leaders notice when things are going seriously wrong in their organizations. Failure to do so is unacceptable. We must ask the right questions to anticipate avertable catastrophes.

Unfortunately, leaders often act as though “what you see is all there is,” according to Kahneman. They neglect to identify and obtain the additional information they need. Complacency lulls them into acting on only the most basic data provided to them.

In The Power of Noticing, Bazerman coins the term WYSINATI: What You See Is Not All There Is. With forethought and knowledge, we can learn to identify when and how to obtain missing information.

Unintentional Blindness

While it is always easy to spot problems in hindsight, we usually don’t recognize them in our own organizations. While we may see ourselves as scrupulous and well-intentioned, we’re usually averse to noticing our own potential for questionable ethics. This can lead us to make improper and even immoral decisions.

When a situation doesn’t seem quite right, we cannot afford to ignore data that flies in the face of commonly accepted values. This is not the time to accept insufficient evidence, refuse to raise questions, be unwilling to badger people or avoid upsetting the apple cart.

Silence and complacency promote corruption. Nonetheless, we tend to wait. We hope we’re not being overly sensitive or alarmist. We trust that others will notice and speak up for us.

Faulty Attribution

The best leaders are skilled at detecting deception, including patterns of indirect action and errors of omission. They also have a noticing mindset. They detect slow, gradual changes that may indicate the start of a slippery slope. They’re aware of overconfidence traps, optimism biases and positive illusions.

The human brain is fallible. It can lead us to make cause-and-effect attribution errors. Most crises can be attributed to both internal and external causes, but to which are you more likely to pay attention?

Most of us are prone to a fundamental attribution bias: When we think of our successes, we tend to come up with internal attributions and focus on what we did right. By contrast, when we think of our failures, we tend to come up with external attributions. We blame others, or the context, the economy and/or circumstances beyond our control. This can lead to dire consequences in decision-making and strategic planning.

How to Develop Better Noticing Skills

Leaders often fail to notice when their systems encourage misaligned goals. When we incentivize the wrong achievements, we often experience ineffective outcomes (for example, rewarding booked sales instead of actual profits).

Encourage employees to notice the gaps between the right actions and right results. Work teams are often in a better position to spot discrepancies, yet they may be reticent to speak up.

Develop your abilities to:

• Pay attention to what didn’t happen
• Acknowledge self-interest
• Invent the third choice
• Realize that what you see is not all there is (WYSINATI)

Transformational leaders can create a full engagement culture driven by purpose and passion by working with an executive coach and culture change expert. The investment is well worth the reward: your ability to influence the future, your career and your personal-development capabilities.

Are you working in a company where executive coaches provide leadership development to help leaders put positive leadership into action? Does your organization provide executive coaching for leaders who need to be build a company culture built on trust? Transformational leaders tap into their emotional intelligence and social intelligence skills to create a more fulfilling future.

One of the most powerful questions you can ask yourself is “Am I a transformational leader who inspires individuals and organizations to achieve their highest potential, flourish at work, experience elevating energy and achieve levels of effectiveness difficult to attain otherwise?” Emotionally intelligent and socially intelligent organizations provide executive coaching to help leaders create a culture where respect and trust flourish.

Working with a seasoned executive coach and leadership consultant trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-I, CPI 260 and Denison Culture Survey can help leaders nurture mindful conversations in the workplace. You can become an inspiring leader who models emotional intelligence and social intelligence, and who inspires people to become fully engaged with the vision, mission and strategy of your company or law firm.

Working Resources is a San Francisco Bay Area Executive Coaching Firm Helping Innovative Companies and Law Firms Assess, Select, Coach, Engage and Retain Emotionally Intelligent Leaders; Executive Coaching; Leadership Development; Performance-Based Interviewing; Competency Modeling; Succession Management; Culture Change; Career Coaching and Leadership Retreats

...About Dr. Maynard Brusman

Dr. Maynard Brusman

Consulting Psychologist and Executive Coach|
Trusted Advisor to Executive Leadership Teams
Mindfulness & Emotional Intelligence Workplace Expert

Dr. Maynard Brusman is a consulting psychologist and executive coach. He is the president of Working Resources, a leadership consulting and executive coaching firm. We specialize in helping San Francisco Bay Area companies select and develop emotionally intelligent leaders.  Maynard is a highly sought-after speaker and workshop leader. He facilitates leadership retreats in Northern California and Costa Rica. The Society for Advancement of Consulting (SAC) awarded Dr. Maynard Brusman "Board Approved" designations in the specialties of Executive Coaching and Leadership Development.

“Maynard Brusman is one of the foremost coaches in the United States. He utilizes a wide variety of assessments in his work with senior executives and upper level managers, and is adept at helping his clients both develop higher levels of emotional intelligence and achieve breakthrough business results. As a senior leader in the executive coaching field, Dr. Brusman brings an exceptional level of wisdom, energy, and creativity to his work.” — Jeffrey E. Auerbach, Ph.D., President, College of Executive Coaching

For more information, please go to http://www.workingresources.com, write to [email protected], or call 415-546-1252.

Subscribe to Working Resources Newsletter: http://www.workingresources.com
Visit Maynard's Blog: http://www.workingresourcesblog.com 

Connect with me on these Social Media sites.

http://twitter.com/drbrusman
http://www.facebook.com/maynardbrusman
http://www.linkedin.com/in/maynardbrusman
http://www.youtube.com/user/drmaynardbrusman
http://google.com/+maynardbrusman

 

 

 

 

 

Growth to Great

Business growth is a blessing but it can also be stressful when deciding how much additional talent you’ll need to manage that growth. Consider hiring a chief operating officer and/or chief financial officer if you’re growing fast—even if only on a part-time or consulting basis. Get comfortable in your critical leadership role as the strategic thinker —in other words, the CEO.”

Some business leaders are so confident in their abilities that they don’t consider getting an outside opinion. With growth comes new and unfamiliar challenges, so mindful executives will talk to an expert consultant to discover issues i.e. culture change they may have overlooked. Emotionally intelligent leaders know that fully engaged people need a sense of purpose to be part of a greater cause and nobler endeavor.

Transformational leaders can create a full engagement culture driven by purpose and passion by working with an executive coach and culture change expert. The investment is well worth the reward: your ability to influence the future, your career and your personal-development capabilities.

Are you working in a company where executive coaches provide leadership development to help leaders put positive leadership into action? Does your organization provide executive coaching for leaders who need to be build a company culture built on trust? Transformational leaders tap into their emotional intelligence and social intelligence skills to create a more fulfilling future.

One of the most powerful questions you can ask yourself is “Am I a transformational leader who inspires individuals and organizations to achieve their highest potential, flourish at work, experience elevating energy and achieve levels of effectiveness difficult to attain otherwise?” Emotionally intelligent and socially intelligent organizations provide executive coaching to help leaders create a culture where respect and trust flourish.

Working with a seasoned executive coach and leadership consultant trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-I, CPI 260 and Denison Culture Survey can help mindful leaders grow their business. You can become an inspiring leader who models emotional intelligence and social intelligence, and who inspires people to become fully engaged with the vision, mission and strategy of your company or law firm.

Working Resources is a San Francisco Bay Area Executive Coaching Firm Helping Innovative Companies and Law Firms Assess, Select, Coach, Engage and Retain Emotionally Intelligent Leaders; Executive Coaching; Leadership Development; Performance-Based Interviewing; Competency Modeling; Succession Management; Culture Change; Career Coaching and Leadership Retreats

...About Dr. Maynard Brusman

Dr. Maynard Brusman

Consulting Psychologist and Executive Coach|
Trusted Advisor to Executive Leadership Teams
Mindfulness & Emotional Intelligence Workplace Expert

Dr. Maynard Brusman is a consulting psychologist and executive coach. He is the president of Working Resources, a leadership consulting and executive coaching firm. We specialize in helping San Francisco Bay Area companies select and develop emotionally intelligent leaders.  Maynard is a highly sought-after speaker and workshop leader. He facilitates leadership retreats in Northern California and Costa Rica. The Society for Advancement of Consulting (SAC) awarded Dr. Maynard Brusman "Board Approved" designations in the specialties of Executive Coaching and Leadership Development.

“Maynard Brusman is one of the foremost coaches in the United States. He utilizes a wide variety of assessments in his work with senior executives and upper level managers, and is adept at helping his clients both develop higher levels of emotional intelligence and achieve breakthrough business results. As a senior leader in the executive coaching field, Dr. Brusman brings an exceptional level of wisdom, energy, and creativity to his work.” — Jeffrey E. Auerbach, Ph.D., President, College of Executive Coaching

For more information, please go to http://www.workingresources.com, write to [email protected], or call 415-546-1252.

Subscribe to Working Resources Newsletter: http://www.workingresources.com
Visit Maynard's Blog: http://www.workingresourcesblog.com 

Connect with me on these Social Media sites.

http://twitter.com/drbrusman
http://www.facebook.com/maynardbrusman
http://www.linkedin.com/in/maynardbrusman
http://www.youtube.com/user/drmaynardbrusman
http://google.com/+maynardbrusman

 

 

 

 

 

How to Discover Your Leadership Purpose

The Quest for Leadership Purpose

“Great leadership has the potential to excite people to extraordinary levels of achievement. But it is not only about performance; it is also about meaning.” ~ Robert Goffee and Gareth Jones, Why Should Anyone Be Led by You? (Harvard Business Review Press, 2006)

Great leaders have a profound impact in their communities, families and key societal realms (i.e., sports, politics). Nowhere is good leadership more important than at work, where we devote considerable time and energy.

If you want to drive a high-performance organization, you must find ways to make employee performance meaningful. Sadly, many executive teams focus on numbers instead of words when trying to motivate people to achieve more. Carrots and sticks may work in some situations, but leaders must engage hearts and minds to truly excite people to give their all.

There is a deepening disenchantment with traditional-style management. We are increasingly suspicious of the skilled and charismatic boss who echoes corporate mission statements and jargon. The search for authenticity in those who lead us has never been more pressing.

While concepts such as quiet leadership and servant leaders are popular in business bestsellers, corporations are slow to change selection criteria. Leadership continues to be about results. Organizations are not immune to the lure of the heroic CEO.

While great results aren’t achieved by inspirational leadership alone, they may not be possible without it. Employees choose to come to work and give their best—or not. Leaders who excel at capturing hearts, minds and souls provide purpose, meaning and motivation.

Know Your Leadership Purpose

How can we expect our leaders to provide a sense of meaning and purpose when they themselves struggle with self-knowledge, purpose and identity?

“We’ve found that fewer than 20% of leaders have a strong sense of their own individual purpose,” confirm Nick Craig and Scott A. Snook in “From Purpose to Impact,” published in the May 2014 issue of Harvard Business Review. “Even fewer can distill their purpose into a concrete statement.”

When interviewed at work about what gives their lives meaning, executives parrot the latest corporate propaganda:

• “Increasing shareholder value”
• “Delighting customers”
• “Becoming the best in product innovation”
• “Delivering worldwide more ‘X’ than our competitors”

When asked the same questions at home, executives admit to profound symptoms of meaninglessness, work-related stress and dysfunctional family lives. They typically fall back on generic and nebulous catchphrases when asked to describe their purpose:

• “Help others excel”
• “Ensure success”
• “Empower my people”

Just as problematic, hardly any have clear plans for translating purpose into action.

Defining “Purpose”

Most of us go to our graves with our music still inside us, unplayed. ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes

“Your leadership purpose is who you are and what makes you distinctive,” note Craig and Snook. “Whether you’re an entrepreneur at a start-up or the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, your purpose is your brand, what you’re driven to achieve, the magic that makes you tick.”

It’s not what you do, but how you do your job and why—the strengths and passions you bring to the table, no matter where you’re seated. While you may express your purpose in different ways and contexts, it’s what everyone close to you recognizes as uniquely you.

At its core, leadership purpose springs from your identity: the essence of who you are. Purpose is not a list of the education, experience and skills you’ve gathered in life. It’s definitely not some jargon-filled slogan.

Purpose should be specific and personal, resonating with you, and you alone. It doesn’t have to be aspirational, cause-based or who you think you should be. It’s who you can’t help being.

Find Your Purpose

Finding your leadership purpose is not easy. If it were, we’d all know exactly why we’re here and be living it every minute of every day.

You can begin to find your purpose by:

        1. Developing Your Stories. Mine your life story for common threads and major themes. Your goal is to identify your core strengths, values and passions—the pursuits that energize you and bring you joy. The following prompts may prove helpful:

• What did you especially love to do when you were a child, before the world told you what you should or shouldn’t like or do? Describe how a key moment made you feel.
• Identify two of your most challenging life experiences. How have they shaped you?
• What do you enjoy doing now that brings out the best in you?
  
  2.  Working with a Coach or Mentor. It’s almost impossible to identify your leadership purpose alone. You need help from people who act as mirrors. Retain the services of an experienced executive coach, or find a qualified mentor. You can also seek feedback from a small group of trustworthy peers.
  
  3.  Writing a statement of purpose. After completing the first two steps, take a shot at crafting a clear, concise and declarative statement of purpose: “My leadership purpose is _______.” The words in your statement must be your own. Don’t pull buzzwords or clichés from a business book or article. Your statement must capture your essence and call you to action.

As you review your stories, you’ll likely find a unifying thread. Pull it to uncover your purpose, and then begin to share it with others. Your payoff will be an increased comfort level as you articulate your purpose. You’ll build trust by creating the authenticity that followers seek in their leaders.

The Quest for Authenticity

The demand for authentic leadership has never been more evident. As hierarchies dissolve, only truly authentic leaders can fill the void. Power, trust and followership depend on leaders who know their purpose, express it in words and deeds, and help others find and implement their own raison d’être.

We are beginning to realize that we need personal meaning and purpose to guide us. No corporation is going to provide it for us. We must also communicate our purpose more openly if anyone is going to follow us.

Without a clearly articulated purpose, meaning is elusive. People may know what’s expected of them, but they may not recognize why they should care. Leaders who know themselves and what truly matters express authenticity and inspire others to follow suit. Authentic leadership has become the most prized organizational and individual asset.

While these truths may seem evident, little training and development are devoted to helping leaders discover their sense of purpose. Instead, leadership training encourages conformists or role players with an impoverished sense of what really matters.

If leaders fail to express what they stand for, followers aren’t going to join them. Leadership can never be taught as something we do to people, but rather the way we interact with people. Leadership must always be viewed as a relationship between leader and follower.

As Goffee and Jones state: “Effective leaders have an overarching sense of purpose together with sufficient self-knowledge of their potential leadership assets. They don’t know it all, but they know enough.”

Unique Leadership Qualities

While theories abound about good leaders’ characteristics and traits, our search for the right qualities may be all wrong. There may not be any universal leadership characteristics. What works for one person may not work for another.

Instead, we need to pinpoint each aspiring leader’s distinctive assets and effectively mobilize them. What’s special about each leader? How can individual strengths be deployed as powerful leadership skills?

Three Leadership Axioms

Goffee identifies three fundamental axioms about leadership:

1. Situational. What’s required of leaders will always be influenced by the situation. An effective leader observes and understands existing situations, a skill called situation sensing. Great leaders excel at this. They’re in tune with what’s going on beneath the surface, adapting and selecting their skills to form the most effective response. At times, they may choose to conform; in other situations, they’re unafraid to risk being different. They deploy their best personal assets according to context. Not only do they reframe situations; they influence and reshape them to benefit the organization and the people they lead.

2.  Nonhierarchical. Authority alone is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for exercising leadership and driving performance. Effective leaders exist at all levels, and successful organizations seek to build leadership capability widely.

3.  Relational. Leadership is always a social construct created by relationships. You cannot lead without followers. Followers, in turn, want their leaders to express feelings of excitement, meaning and personal significance; they want to be part of something bigger. That’s why we seek authenticity from our leaders. We need to be able to trust.

12 Vital Questions

Developing as a leader isn’t easy; there aren’t any secret recipes. In fact, all the leadership books, theories and volumes of material may confuse people who attempt to expand their leadership skills.

You’re better served by taking time to reflect on the following questions from Why Should Anyone Be Led by You?:

1. Which personal differences form the basis of your leadership capability?
2. Which personal values and vision do you hold for those you aspire to lead?
3. Which personal weaknesses do you reveal to those you lead?
4. In which ways do you develop authentic relationships with those you lead?
5. How well are you able to read different contexts?
6. When influencing others, do you conform enough?
7. When influencing others, do you differentiate yourself enough?
8. Do you know when to hold back and when to connect with others on common ground?
9. How well do you manage social distance?
10. How well do you express tough empathy, offering people what they need rather than what they want?
11. How well do you communicate your personal differences, your weaknesses, your values and vision?
12. Do you consistently express authenticity across different roles, situations and audiences?

Ultimately, superior results over a sustained period make for an authentic leader. It may be possible to drive short-term outcomes without being authentic, but authentic leadership is the only way we know to create sustainable long-term results.

You can develop the qualities of a purposeful leader by working with a transformational executive coach. The investment is well worth the reward: your ability to influence the future, your career and your personal-development capabilities.

Are you working in a company where executive coaches provide leadership development to help leaders put emotionally intelligent leadership into action? Does your organization provide executive coaching for leaders who need to be more conscious, and tap into the intrinsic motivation of followers? Authentic leaders tap into their emotional intelligence and social intelligence skills to create cultures where trust thrives.

One of the most powerful questions you can ask yourself is “Am I a purposeful  leader who inspires individuals and organizations to achieve their highest potential, flourish at work, experience elevating energy and achieve levels of effectiveness difficult to attain otherwise?”

Working with a seasoned executive coach and leadership consultant trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-I, CPI 260 and Denison Culture Survey can help leaders nurture mindful coaching conversations in the workplace. You can become an inspiring leader who models emotional intelligence and social intelligence, and who inspires people to become fully engaged with the vision, mission and strategy of your organization.

...About Dr. Maynard Brusman

Dr. Maynard Brusman

Consulting Psychologist and Executive Coach|
Trusted Advisor to Executive Leadership
Mindfulness & Emotional Intelligence Workplace Expert

Dr. Maynard Brusman is a San Francisco Bay Area executive coach and leadership development expert. He is the president of Working Resources, an executive coaching and leadership development firm. We specialize in helping innovative companies select and develop emotionally intelligent leaders, and creating organizational cultures where people are fully engaged. 

Maynard is a highly sought-after speaker and workshop leader. He facilitates leadership retreats in Northern California and Costa Rica. The Society for Advancement of Consulting (SAC) awarded Dr. Maynard Brusman "Board Approved" designations in the specialties of Executive Coaching and Leadership Development.

“Maynard Brusman is one of the foremost coaches in the United States. He utilizes a wide variety of assessments in his work with senior executives and upper level managers, and is adept at helping his clients both develop higher levels of emotional intelligence and achieve breakthrough business results. As a senior leader in the executive coaching field, Dr. Brusman brings an exceptional level of wisdom, energy, and creativity to his work.” — Jeffrey E. Auerbach, Ph.D., President, College of Executive Coaching

For more information, please go to http://www.workingresources.com, write to [email protected], or call 415-546-1252.

Subscribe to Working Resources Newsletter: http://www.workingresources.com
Visit Maynard's Blog: http://www.workingresourcesblog.com 

Connect with me on these Social Media sites.

http://twitter.com/drbrusman
http://www.facebook.com/maynardbrusman
http://www.linkedin.com/in/maynardbrusman
http://www.youtube.com/user/drmaynardbrusman
http://google.com/+maynardbrusman

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Know Your Leadership Purpose

The Quest for Leadership Purpose

“Great leadership has the potential to excite people to extraordinary levels of achievement. But it is not only about performance; it is also about meaning.” ~ Robert Goffee and Gareth Jones, Why Should Anyone Be Led by You? (Harvard Business Review Press, 2006)

If you want to drive a high-performance organization, you must find ways to make employee performance meaningful. Carrots and sticks may work in some situations, but leaders must engage hearts and minds to truly excite people to give their all.

There is a deepening disenchantment with traditional-style management. We are increasingly suspicious of the skilled and charismatic boss who echoes corporate mission statements and jargon. The search for authenticity in those who lead us has never been more pressing.

While great results aren’t achieved by inspirational leadership alone, they may not be possible without it. Employees choose to come to work and give their best—or not. Leaders who excel at capturing hearts, minds and souls provide purpose, meaning and motivation.

Know Your Leadership Purpose

How can we expect our leaders to provide a sense of meaning and purpose when they themselves struggle with self-knowledge, purpose and identity?

“We’ve found that fewer than 20% of leaders have a strong sense of their own individual purpose,” confirm Nick Craig and Scott A. Snook in “From Purpose to Impact,” published in the May 2014 issue of Harvard Business Review. “Even fewer can distill their purpose into a concrete statement.”

When interviewed at work about what gives their lives meaning, executives parrot the latest corporate propaganda:

• “Increasing shareholder value”
• “Delighting customers”
• “Becoming the best in product innovation”
• “Delivering worldwide more ‘X’ than our competitors”

When asked the same questions at home, executives admit to profound symptoms of meaninglessness, work-related stress and dysfunctional family lives. They typically fall back on generic and nebulous catchphrases when asked to describe their purpose:

• “Help others excel”
• “Ensure success”
• “Empower my people”

Just as problematic, hardly any have clear plans for translating purpose into action.

Defining “Purpose”

 “Your leadership purpose is who you are and what makes you distinctive,” note Craig and Snook.

It’s not what you do, but how you do your job and why—the strengths and passions you bring to the table, no matter where you’re seated. While you may express your purpose in different ways and contexts, it’s what everyone close to you recognizes as uniquely you.

Begin to find your purpose by:

       1. Developing Your Stories. Mine your life story for common threads and major themes. Identify your core strengths, values and passions—the pursuits that energize you and bring you joy.

2. Working with a Coach or Mentor. It’s almost impossible to identify your leadership purpose alone. You need help from people who act as mirrors. Retain the services of an experienced executive coach, or find a qualified mentor. You can also seek feedback from a small group of trustworthy peers.
3. Writing a statement of purpose. After completing the first two steps, take a shot at crafting a clear, concise and declarative statement of purpose: “My leadership purpose is _______.” The words in your statement must be your own. Don’t pull buzzwords or clichés from a business book or article. Your statement must capture your essence and call you to action.

The Quest for Authenticity

The demand for authentic leadership has never been more evident. As hierarchies dissolve, only truly authentic leaders can fill the void. Power, trust and followership depend on leaders who know their purpose, express it in words and deeds, and help others find and implement their own raison d’être.

Without a clearly articulated purpose, meaning is elusive. People may know what’s expected of them, but they may not recognize why they should care. Leaders who know themselves and what truly matters express authenticity and inspire others to follow suit. Authentic leadership has become the most prized organizational and individual asset.

Unique Leadership Qualities

While theories abound about good leaders’ characteristics and traits, our search for the right qualities may be all wrong. There may not be any universal leadership characteristics. What works for one person may not work for another.

Instead, we need to pinpoint each aspiring leader’s distinctive assets and effectively mobilize them. What’s special about each leader? How can individual strengths be deployed as powerful leadership skills?

Reflect on the following questions from Why Should Anyone Be Led by You?:

1. Which personal differences form the basis of your leadership capability?
2. Which personal values and vision do you hold for those you aspire to lead?
3. Which personal weaknesses do you reveal to those you lead?
4. In which ways do you develop authentic relationships with those you lead?
5. How well are you able to read different contexts?
6. When influencing others, do you conform enough?
7. When influencing others, do you differentiate yourself enough?
8. Do you know when to hold back and when to connect with others on common ground?
9. How well do you manage social distance?
10. How well do you express tough empathy, offering people what they need rather than what they want?
11. How well do you communicate your personal differences, your weaknesses, your values and vision?
12. Do you consistently express authenticity across different roles, situations and audiences?

Ultimately, superior results over a sustained period make for an authentic leader. It may be possible to drive short-term outcomes without being authentic, but authentic leadership is the only way we know to create sustainable long-term results.

You can develop the qualities of a purposeful leader by working with a transformational executive coach. The investment is well worth the reward: your ability to influence the future, your career and your personal-development capabilities.

Are you working in a company where executive coaches provide leadership development to help leaders put emotionally intelligent leadership into action? Does your organization provide executive coaching for leaders who need to be more conscious, and tap into the intrinsic motivation of followers? Authentic leaders tap into their emotional intelligence and social intelligence skills to create cultures where trust thrives.

One of the most powerful questions you can ask yourself is “Am I a purposeful  leader who inspires individuals and organizations to achieve their highest potential, flourish at work, experience elevating energy and achieve levels of effectiveness difficult to attain otherwise?”

Working with a seasoned executive coach and leadership consultant trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-I, CPI 260 and Denison Culture Survey can help leaders nurture mindful coaching conversations in the workplace. You can become an inspiring leader who models emotional intelligence and social intelligence, and who inspires people to become fully engaged with the vision, mission and strategy of your organization.

...About Dr. Maynard Brusman

Dr. Maynard Brusman

Consulting Psychologist and Executive Coach|
Trusted Advisor to Executive Leadership
Mindfulness & Emotional Intelligence Workplace Expert

Dr. Maynard Brusman is a San Francisco Bay Area executive coach and leadership development expert. He is the president of Working Resources, an executive coaching and leadership development firm. We specialize in helping innovative companies select and develop emotionally intelligent leaders, and creating organizational cultures where people are fully engaged. 

Maynard is a highly sought-after speaker and workshop leader. He facilitates leadership retreats in Northern California and Costa Rica. The Society for Advancement of Consulting (SAC) awarded Dr. Maynard Brusman "Board Approved" designations in the specialties of Executive Coaching and Leadership Development.

“Maynard Brusman is one of the foremost coaches in the United States. He utilizes a wide variety of assessments in his work with senior executives and upper level managers, and is adept at helping his clients both develop higher levels of emotional intelligence and achieve breakthrough business results. As a senior leader in the executive coaching field, Dr. Brusman brings an exceptional level of wisdom, energy, and creativity to his work.” — Jeffrey E. Auerbach, Ph.D., President, College of Executive Coaching

For more information, please go to http://www.workingresources.com, write to [email protected], or call 415-546-1252.

Subscribe to Working Resources Newsletter: http://www.workingresources.com
Visit Maynard's Blog: http://www.workingresourcesblog.com 

Connect with me on these Social Media sites.

http://twitter.com/drbrusman
http://www.facebook.com/maynardbrusman
http://www.linkedin.com/in/maynardbrusman
http://www.youtube.com/user/drmaynardbrusman
http://google.com/+maynardbrusman