Behind the Mike

Servant leadership is not a new concept, but it is one that is rarely practiced not only in the workplace but also in other settings such as the home, the church and the community, the four typical settings where rules apply to all.

I often address audiences on the subject of leadership ranging from areas of middle management on up. My newest book, “Rules from the Leader Ship” is almost complete and will also focus on these areas. My keynote address, “Eagles or Buzzards, Which Are You?” questions outright the differences in leadership styles.

Servant leadership boils down to five main phases. The difference between great leaders and average leaders is not a lot unlike the differences between the eagle and the buzzard.

From a distance, the eagle and the buzzard look very much alike. The eagle has a straight neck and the buzzard has a bit of a crook in its neck. Their wing span is almost identically the same. The buzzard is a scavenger and only picks at the remains of another’s kill. The eagle, on the other hand, kills its own lunch and the buzzard picks at the remains. Which are you?

Leadership is not about taking a poll, finding out how people think or feel and then galloping out to the front to lead the mob. Servant leaders understand two basic principles. First, the price of leadership is loneliness. If you’re trying the win a popularity contest, you’re in the wrong position. Second, you can’t be concerned with what other people think about you. In fact, what they think is none of your business.

The five major thrusts of servant leadership are so simple that I wonder why they need to be reviewed at all. The first premise is to be a good example. If you adopt the philosophy “BE WHAT YOU SEE IN ME” and then live the message you “serve” as a role model, be it in the home, the church or whatever setting. If you say one thing and do another, those who follow you will immediately question you.

The second premise is to “SHOW THEM WHAT TO DO AND HOW TO DO IT.” There is a tremendous misconception in corporate and non-profit circles today about the difference between leadership and management. They are not the same. People don’t know what they don’t know. It’s up to servant leaders to “serve” as an example.

The third premise is to “MEET THE NEEDS OF YOUR PEOPLE.” Your team members, family members, congregation or whatever setting you’re in have legitimate needs. In fact, they wear huge metaphorical billboards that scream out what those needs are. We have to interpret and understand them.

· When they say “love me” they want you to love them as much as you want them to love their role in your relationship with them.

· When they say “notice me” they want attention for the efforts they have made on behalf of those they service.

· When they say “recognize me” they want genuine appreciation for a job well done. No one takes the time to send simple thank you notes any more. A note should be done quickly and specifically. It should be short and to the point and it should be written personally.

· When they say “include me” they are pleading to be a part of the overall team effort. Let them take that responsibility, even if they fail.

· When they say “believe in me” they want to accomplish; they want you to believe in them, especially after they fail.

If it’s understood that failure is the process by which we succeed, in order to have more success, we need to have more failure. We should be teaching people to fail faster so they can learn the errors of their ways.

The fourth premise of servant leadership is to “EXPECT A LOT AND YOU’LL GET A LOT.” And then you must “inspect” what you “expect.” That’s good management practice to check up on the process.

The final premise is to “BELIEVE IN THEM AND THEY’LL BE MORE LIKELY TO BELIEVE IN YOU.” This is the difference between eagle leadership and buzzard leadership. Which are you?

In my new book “It’s the Customer, Stupid!” (John Wiley & Sons/January 2011), I cite one of the hallmarks of effective leaders. They see their role as one that is constantly unfolding. Customer driven leadership is about helping people make some memories.

“If you’re coasting, you’re heading down hill.”

One of the big misconceptions about any customer driven leadership position is that you can get to a point where you can coast.

Coasting is not even an option for the leader. The efficient leader is always looking for ways to build a better mousetrap. They constantly question the status quo, rather than accepting it as the reality of the situation.

Many times we coast at the expense of making a decision. Coasting is about not being able to decide. And a “no decision” is, in fact, a decision.

Judge the leader neither by the number of times that they made a bad decision nor the number of times they made a good one. Success or failure should be measured in direct proportion to the number of times you fail and keep trying.

Babe Ruth, for many years, was the home run king of major league baseball. He was also the strikeout champion. The great ones never rest on their laurels. If you rest on them, you could rust on them.

“Great customer driven leaders are patient for reasons of self preservation.”

“If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow,” according to the old Arabic proverb. Leaders who jump to conclusions may regret their decision 24 hours later. It’s okay to vent your frustrations both verbally or in writing, but do it to yourself in the privacy of your own office.

Make sure you give yourself 24-48 hours of time to evaluate your choice of words. Revisit the recording or printed document a day or two later to see if you still feel that way about the issue. Evaluating your decision is more objective. You might want to soften it or strengthen it, but at least you can now approach it more objectively.

“Customer driven leaders understand that nothing big ever came from something small.”

The great achievements in the world always came from a bigger picture. Small-minded leaders think only about the “here and now” and only “themselves.”

Adolph Hitler, on the other hand, thought “VERY BIG” in his book Mien Kamph (meaning My Struggle). Unfortunately, he also got a lot of other people to think the same way.

Hitler was able to accomplish this principally with his verbal skills. He was a master orator even if his goal was not noble.

But in the end, Hitler’s mission was very small and destructive. Nothing big ever comes from anything small.

“Customer driven leaders minimize the worst and maximize the best.

Leaders who understand that bad things happen to good people are keeping their eyes open for ways to minimize the bad and maximize the good in every situation.

“Customer driven leadership is a lot like love- you either have two winners or none.”

Leaders who love the people they lead are infinitely further along than those who simply tolerate others.

Love is more about respect than tolerance. It’s been said that the most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.

Perhaps the most important thing a leader can do for his troops is to love the profession of which they are both a part and always do the right thing.

This concept is found in the presence of love. Leaders who make it difficult to do the wrong thing are recognizing their value system and taking a position.

“Customer driven leaders don’t just look for the right people, they become the right people.”

It’s certainly not fair to expect to give away what you don’t own. If your company sells widgets for a living, as their leader, you should be one of the best widget sales people there are. You don’t have to be the best, but in order to help others learn how to sell your product, you should at least have walked that path.

One of my big complaints about the speaking profession is that there are lots of speakers giving book reports. They’ve never sold, yet they speak on selling. They’ve never run a company, yet they want to tell other people how to run theirs.

“Good enough never is!”
- Debbie Fields, Founder Mrs. Fields Cookies

Every great institution looks for ways to improve their product or services.

“Customer driven leaders don’t point fingers; they lend a hand.”

They love showing people what to do and how to do it and they lend a helping hand. Their value is in their love for others.

(Part 3 of the leadership series)

Great leaders learn to love others.

Great leaders sense the need to build others up, many times even at their own expense. They can fire you and make you feel good about the process.

The reason: They always deal with the performance and never the performer. Love the person, regardless of the person’s behavior. If they behavior is unsuitable, then speak to that, but never the performer.

My grandfather, Eli Mack, Sr., was a great mentor in my life. A mentor loves you enough to tell you what you’re doing right and what you’re doing wrong.

He told me as a child to “Listen to the criticism of others, but don’t support them. There is no such thing as constructive criticism. Most criticism is destructive because, more often than not, the person doing the criticizing is criticizing the performer and not the performance.”

You must always separate the two. It’s okay to hate the performance, but not the performer.

I was standing in a bank behind a young mother. She had her little son Henry with her. How did I know his name was Henry? She called him down 15 times… “Henry, get in line; Henry, straighten up; Henry, you better behave or I’m going to give you to that man (pointing to me).”

Frankly, I didn’t want him, but I would have taken him after her next comment. “Henry, if you don’t straighten up, you’re going to end up in jail one day.”

It broke my heart to hear that mother say that. “Garbage in – garbage out.” The late great John Savage, one of the champions in the insurance industry, used to say, “You don’t strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.” Always build others up; never tear them down.

Great leaders accept responsibility.

They keenly seek the role of leadership because it carries with it the awesome burden of responsibility.

1. They are not drawn to power nor do they shrink from it. They see it as an incidental by-product of the leadership role.
2. They always hold themselves accountable and never blame outside factors like interest rate or the stock market.
3. They understand that if you fail in school, it’s not the teachers who fail you; they just deliver the bad news. If you fall behind in the marketplace, it’s not the market that failed you; it’s simply reflecting your latest performance rating.

Great leaders are in a constant state of change.

The trouble with the future is it ain’t what it used to be! Great leaders are in a constant state of innovation that forces them to look at old problems with new solutions. They view “state of the art” as state of necessity.

They spend thousands of dollars on training and working with their people. They adopt the philosophy that “you can’t have rabbit stew until you catch the rabbit.” You can’t dispense information that you haven’t got. How would you like to be operated on by a surgeon that hasn’t been to school in ten years?

Great leaders are amazingly flexible.

The stock market has fluctuated over the years; those adjustments brought the best out of many of yesterday’s great performers. Fate dealt them a severe blow but they persisted.

Many lost a fortune on a Monday, but began to rebuild on a Tuesday. They possess flexibility and resiliency. They bend but never break. They give, but never completely.

Great leaders have a charming sense of humor.

They laugh at their failures and take their successes in stride. They take the light things seriously and the serious things lightly. They constantly have fun, finding the genuine humor in the tragedy of the situation.

They laugh at their shortcomings and accept them as part of the hand God dealt them. They possess an enthusiasm for life that transcends any problems they face.

Great leaders also expect measurable results in a reasonable period of time. A good question to ask: “How long is it reasonable for your child to spend in first grade?” The reasonable answer is one year, so expect reasonable results but measure often.

Great leaders are committed.

Quite simply, they persist in their cause with reckless abandon.

• First, they believe in what they are doing.
• Second, the word “quit” simply doesn’t exist in their vocabulary.
• Third, they have powerfully strong convictions about their cause, and see their cause as a part of a bigger picture.
• Fourth, they are self-disciplined beyond understanding.
• Fifth, they are uncomplicated and hang tough through good and bad.
• Sixth, they understand sacrifice.
• Seventh, they enjoy the process of work.
• Eighth, they have morals that they won’t compromise.
• Ninth they subscribe to the theory, “If it is to be, it’s up to me.”
• They know that the buck stops with them.

(This is the second part of a three part series on leadership.)

Great leaders love to fail.

They understand that failure is the process by which we succeed. They know that a certain number of failures must accompany every success.

The baseball hitter that’s hitting .333 is failing two out of every three times he travels to the plate. He earns over a million bucks a year. Yet the guy who’s hitting .250 only earns a fraction of that.

The difference between them is only one more hit in every twenty times at bat! As management guru Tom Peters puts it, people have got to learn to fail faster in order to keep up in the changing business world.

Great leaders aren’t concerned about what others think about them.

If leadership boiled down to someone taking a poll and deciding on what the majority thought at the very instant in time, then Mr. Gallup would be our president.

Successful leaders don’t make decisions based on what’s going to make them popular. They analyze the situation and decide what’s in the best interest of the majority concerned. Many times, that decision is very lonely.

Great leaders subscribe to a set of standards, values and disciplines on which they will not veer.

One of the truly great hallmarks of Ronald Reagan’s Presidency is the fact that, like him or not, you never have to question where he stood on an issue. He never once vacillated on the issue of abortion. You know right where he stood on taxation.

The lone wrinkle in the armor was his indiscretion in trying to bargain with the Iranians. Even that “high risk” venture could have landed on its feet, as did the bombing of Libya, had all the pieces of the puzzle come together.

He was within an inch of being a hero. This kind of hero/zero relationship is constructed on foundation that is based solidly on a set of standards, values and disciplines.

Conversely values and discipline are not the only factors in success in life. If they were, only the football teams with the highest ethical standards and conduct would succeed. When asked whether discipline and character were keys to winning football games, the great coach and philosopher Bobby Bowden once said, “If they were, Army and Navy would be playing for the National Championship every year.”

Values and discipline isn’t only thing, but they are a major piece in the puzzle.

Great leaders are honest.

There used to be a time when the word “honest” was considered sort of corny. Fairness and justice were never the issue — only profit. Today’s great leaders have found it profitable to be honest.

When some “crazy” sabotaged Tylenol, Johnson & Johnson didn’t say, “It’s not our fault.” Instead, they faced the issue head up, and this stands today as one of the great corporate leadership decisions of our time.

Because they respected the rights of their customers so much that they were willing to take a short-term $100 million-plus loss for the benefit of staying atop the world’s corporate leadership. It was, in fact, the right thing to do for all the right reasons, and Johnson & Johnson has rebounded nicely, proving again why it’s in fact one of the great corporations in the world today.

Great leaders expect a lot from their people.

If you expect a lot you’ll get a lot. Expect little, and you may get even less. And then, you must “inspect” what you “expect.”

Coach Vince Lombardi had a tremendous capacity to get more out of his players than any coach in his time. Ditto for the late John Wooden, legendary Wizard of Westwood, who led UCLA to so many NCAA championships. Both these men knew how to get their people to be team players — a critical part of the formula or expecting more.

Conversely, coaches like former Maryland mentor Lefty Driesell have been criticized for not getting enough, for never being able to win “the big one.” One ACC coach remarked about Lefty’s Maryland teams, “Never has so little been done with so much!”

Great leaders show what to do and how to get it done.

They never expect their people to do something that they themselves would not do. If one’s philosophy is sound, then there’s never a question about the decision. That is best reflected in the attitude and actions of the leader.

Great leaders listen.

When your people are crying out to be heard, they do so with huge billboards and almost literally flash certain signals to you. Both directly and indirectly they cry out “love me.”

Show them some affection. They scream out “notice me.” Learn to pay attention. They say, “Please, recognize me.” Reward them for a job well done. Admonish them when their behavior warrants correction. Great leaders understand and accommodate the needs of their people.

(Next week: Part III – Great Leadership is about Commitment)

(This is the first part of a three part series on leadership.)

In the mid eighties, while traveling in Europe with my wife, we found ourselves right in the middle of the conflict between the United States and Libya.

We had just entered what used to be West Germany, when a suspected Libyan terrorist blew up a pub, killing several Americans. Several days later, just as we were arriving in France, the United States responded by strategically bombing Libya.

While in France, I listened as 80% of the European world criticized then President Reagan for the retaliation. It occurred to me that the price of Mr. Reagan’s leadership must have truly been loneliness.

As we flew on to England, the criticism had grown, this time aimed at Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. According to the Gallup poll taken that day, 65% of her own people leveled some of the harshest criticism on her administration for allowing the American bombers to fly from England’s shores. The French, who refused our request for help, were praised for their so-called restraint. Mrs. Thatcher, that gutsy lady who made a gutsy decision, was, instead rebuffed by her own people.

In both cases, responsible leaders made courageous decisions. The decided what was in the best interest of freedom and responded accordingly.

Neither won the popularity contest, yet both, given the opportunity to decide again, would probably make the same decision today.

Some Common Misconceptions about Leadership

There are two major misconceptions in America today concerning leadership. The first is that many people confuse leadership with management. They are not the same. Leadership is deeply rooted philosophy. Management is the appropriation of certain skills to complete the tasks one faces.

The second misconception is that people are born with the skills necessary to succeed in life. They aren’t necessarily born with any skills. Skills are developed and learned. Leadership is all about developing those skills to their maximum level of efficiency in an organization.

As a student who has researched habits of prominent leaders, I have concluded that these people have a number of things in common. Whether by design or accident, it matters not.

Whether you are in sales or management or both, one of the most important characteristics for you to possess is good leadership skills.

I’ve learned two incontrovertible facts about leadership in my nearly three and one-half decades in the insurance business and on the platform:

1. The price of leadership is loneliness
2. You can’t be concerned with what other people think about you.

Successful leaders, both great and ruthless, have a number of identifiable characteristics. Here are just a few.

Great leaders gaze into life’s crystal ball.

There’s a line in the bible I like: “If the eye be single, the body is full of light; if the eye be evil, the body is full of darkness.”

What that says to me is if you know where you are going and are focused, half the battle is won. The most direct and shortest distance between you and your goal is a straight line. Leaders focus on the end result they seek.

They have a vision for the future that is founded on a sound set of personal goals and business principles. They know where they’re headed in life. More often than not, that direction is clearly marked in a written format that includes several key ingredients.

First, they know how they want to feel after the game is over. They have the capacity to imagine themselves in “victory lane.”

Second, their objective is quite specifically defined. If they wish to lose weight, for example, they know specifically how much they want to knock off. If they wish wealth, they know exactly what it is that they desire to have.

Third, they place deadlines on themselves. In short, they make a contract with themselves and they abide by cutoff dates.

Fourth, they clearly define the obstacles that stand in the way of the goal. Knowing what to overcome is half the battle.

Fifth, they hop in and just do it. They adjust from failure and do it again until they reach their objective — not by trial and error but rather by trial and success.

Great leaders are decisive.

Carnegie said if you’re right 51% of the time you’re going to be a winner. The biggest problem facing today’s leaders is to get them to make decisions.

The old expression “ready, fire… aim” might best describe the leadership philosophy among today’s current success stories in leadership. They make decisions, and then live with the consequences.

They’re risk takers, boardroom riverboat gamblers who are determined to get the most from their company and their product. They are well aware of the fact that indecision is, in fact, decision.

They don’t want critical decisions being left to fate, time, circumstances or default. They want the right to decide, even if they fail.

(Next week… part II… Failure Is the Process by Which Great Leaders Succeed)