Archive for September, 2010

A young and inexperienced supervisor I know expressed a desire to become more of a leader in his organization. He felt it wouldn’t ever be achievable because he was an introvert.  He believed that all the best leaders must be extraverts. This belief held him back, because he didn’t have a desire to “act extraverted”, and it was against his nature to do so. He found it surprising that many of the best leaders I knew were introverts who learned to lead in an extraverted world.

We all have beliefs that hold us back.  Yet some of the simplest activities can allow your humanity to shine through whether you are introverted or extraverted – or anything else - to create connections that are good for you and your organization.

Instead of trying to be something you’re not, how about letting others see you as human? The best way to do this is to connect with others on a regular basis. This is not difficult, but it does take willingness and consistency (and may be a little out of an introvert’s comfort zone).

Get out and converse

Get out of your office and visit with your stakeholders on a regular basis. Informally visiting with your direct reports, your employees, and your peers often doesn’t require a lot of effort or time. Block time on your calendar – fifteen to thirty minutes 2-3 times a week or an hour once a week may be adequate. If you have a geographically disbursed team, you can also blog, have conference calls or use a web cam between actual face to face visits.

Casual conversation during these visits is encouraged, and it can be mixed with more work-related discussions. Ask others about their weekend or their hobbies; let them know, in small doses, about your own interests outside of work.  Ask them how they see their job as connected to the bigger mission or vision or what your organization could do better.

Listen a lot and allow your curiosity about others to help you to formulate and ask some questions to move the conversation along. Discover areas you can unite with others on – agreement on similar interests or like mindedness on a topic will help develop connections. Allow people to get to know you through the stories you tell (but be careful to do more listening than talking).

Remember what you’ve heard  to create deeper connections

Remember what you’ve heard.  Thank the people you’ve talked to for spending some of their time with you and let them know that you enjoyed the conversation.  On your next visit, refer to something they said; this will help them to know that you listened and create a bond because you remembered something about them.

Connecting through being seen and having conversations will help you to learn about others views of the organization and help them to get to know you. It provides a venue for discussing to connect people with the work of the organization and it helps people to see you as human.

Although the labor movement has changed significantly since the first labor day in 1882, one thing has not changed. Work – labor – is a huge force in most people’s lives and in our society as a whole. Work can be a source of joy and celebration or it can be a source of sadness and obligation. Workforce leaders have a central role in helping to define how people feel about their work.

Most leaders are unaware of the intensity of their ability to shape the climate of the workplace and to influence the attitudes of the people who work there. They may choose to influence in such a way that the people working there feel as if they are making a contribution or just taking home a pay check. Every action, every gesture and every word out of a leader’s mouth can influence in a positive or a negative way; either way impacts the bottom line.

Like you, I’ve known (and sometimes worked for) leaders who are able to instill a sense of pride, accomplishment, and fun into even the most mundane tasks. On this Labor Day, I give homage to those who shaped my own early career:

Mom: Who taught me the art of domestic engineering: how to wash dishes, vacuum floors, make beds, and do the laundry with a sense of pride in the finished product. She was excellent at praising a job well done and discreet in letting me know when I could have done better.

Helen: The woman who owned and operated the historical lodge where I worked as a maid in my teenage summers, who told vivid stories about summers gone by. She helped me to see that the people who stayed there loved a place to connect and celebrate with others, and my role in keeping it clean was one way to carry on that tradition.

Dr. Smith: Who treasured microbiology better than anyone. He felt a need to take me under his wing in the research he was doing for the Michigan Blueberry Grower’s Association. Although I was charged with the less-than-exciting task of cleaning and sterilizing Petri dishes, his love and dedication of the research helped me to see the connection between what I was learning in class and what the world offered to me when I graduated from college.

Supervisors too numerous to remember when I worked in factories during the summers of my college years. Working as a riveter, a punch press, and extruder operator could be some of the most mind-numbing work I would ever do. The supervisors seemed to know this, and were very patient with this college kid who couldn’t wait for summer to end. Most of those supervisors had done the work I did at one time and helped to ease the routine by organizing shop-wide picnics or potlucks at break times.

Paul: Who was on a mission to eradicate atherosclerosis, diabetes, and obesity within his lifetime, and quickly passed his infectious enthusiasm on to anyone who came in contact with him. He brought everyone carrots from his garden for Christmas (yes, he dug into the frozen ground to get them; he said they tasted sweeter at this time of year). He is the guy who made Quail Tuesday special. He told me and anyone who would listen that hiring me was the best thing he’d ever done, giving me confidence in the work I was doing.

There are many more leaders in my life who helped to instill a sense of meaning in the work I did. Who are the leaders who have given your work meaning?

Make sure you take a break from this weekend’s football games to stop over to Dan McCarthy’s Great Leadership blog to check out the wide array of posts on the topic of leadership. Dan has scored a touchdown this month, including some of the most popular leadership bloggers out there. I’m grateful and humbled that he included on of my own, “On Being a Coach“.

I’ll be hosting next month’s Leadership Development Carnival on October 3. I hope you’ll stop by.

Every Thursday, we provide you with a thoughtful way to coach yourself – something all leaders need to do. So take five and enjoy something different this week; questions that have inspired and solved important things in our world. Finally, reflect on the final question.

“What would the universe look like if I were riding on the end of a light beam at the speed of light?” ~Albert Einstein; the question that led to the theory of relativity. 

“What might DNA look like in a 3D form?” ~Watson and Crick; the question that led to the discovery of the double helix.

“What is the most ethical action we might take?” ~Johnson & Johnson leaders; the question that helped them to successfully deal with the Tylenol crisis in the 1980’s.

“Where can I get a good hamburger on the road?” ~Ray Kroc; the question that led to the development of McDonalds.

• What is the question that you haven’t yet asked?