Posts Tagged management
Creating Margin in your Leadership
Posted by Dr. Bill Donahue in Business, community, Group Life, Leadership on May 17, 2013
Carving out space for refreshment and renewal is essential for lasting leadership. Here is a great way to monitor your life and create space in your schedule.
Creating Margin in your Leadership – Transcribed
Are You Ready for Shared Leadership?
Posted by Dr. Bill Donahue in Business, community, Leadership on May 16, 2013
I am a proponent of a flatter leadership culture. I believe in teamwork, shared responsibility, very little hierarchy and a more collaborative approach. Not only does it work – it works better. While a number of leadership “gurus” continue to act and teach like the Big Dog Leader model is a given (most then are well over age 50), a rising groundswell of leaders are opting out of the model. They are dropping like flies from organizations that thrive on hierarchy and the Command and Control model espoused at most Leadership Conferences.
So I am thrilled to see the changes that are coming. But here’s the question…
Are we – are YOU — ready for shared leadership?
Here are a few things that shared leadership implies. And you might have a few more so join the conversation.
1) Shared leadership means shared blame. Ok, I know that you intellectually agree, but are you willing to take your share of the heat when things get hot? Or even more than your share? When I coach organizations building a flatter leadership structure, the “underlings” are thrilled to be handed an oar or two, to row with the crew. But I wonder if they are just as willing to grab a bucket when the boat takes on water in the storm? Are you willing to take the criticism, the blame for the loss or the downturn, or be confronted about the misfire?
2) Shared leadership means deeper communication more often. The more people involved in a process the more talking you need to do. That might mean more emails, more updates, more quick “check-in” meetings like Lencioni advocates in Death by Meeting. You ready for that?
3) Shared Leadership means longer decision-making. I think this is generally good, but it takes some getting used to. I would advocate that, in the long run, you get better decisions and have less “clean up” to do when the solo leader goes rogue and makes a lousy hire or a bad decision “from the gut” (which is often code for “Let’s do it my way because I’m always right and I am in control). But decisions by a team take longer than solo leadership decisions.
4) Shared Leadership means giving in and sometimes giving up. Of course, “real leaders” NEVER give up. Mandela is a great one to speak to this. In his book “Mandela’s Way” he has a chapter entitled, “Leading from the Back.” You need to read it. It comes after “Leading from the Front” so he is not opposed to being our front at times. But a willingness to step back and let other leaders have their way is an art that requires patience, trust and humility – a quality lacking in many “Big Dog” leaders. Are you ready to play second fiddle…or no fiddle at all?
5) Share Leadership means shared success. Are you ready to share the glory, the rewards, the perks, the status symbols, and the “corner” office(s)? Many are not. If you have worked in a place where many people work longer and harder than the “point leader” but they get the special trips, income, organizational resources, power, freedom, vacation time, public recognition, and “benefit of the doubt” when stuff goes wrong, you know how that feels. It is a real demoralizing situation, especially when they pretend to be “a leader among equals” which again is code for “let’s share the problems but I get the goodies.” So are you willing to share the goodies equally among the leadership team? Even bonuses, and other rewards? We’ll see.
Shared leadership is more than an ideal. It is a commitment to becoming a real community of leaders with mutual accountability, vision, goals, trust, responsibility, blame and rewards.
It takes work, but it is really worth it. The team is stronger, the cause is more compelling, the results last longer and the process of “leadership succession” is virtually seamless, because there is no “mega-leader” to replace with another one. Instead, the team grows, changes, and new leaders are added as others move on. It is driven by much more than a person.
Are you ready for that?
Responding to People in Pain
Posted by Dr. Bill Donahue in community, Group Life, Leadership, relationships on April 18, 2013
“We can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain
Responding to People in Pain – Transcribed
Want to talk to you today about responding to people in pain. In light of the recent events, the tragedy that has taken place around the Boston Marathon, there a lot of discussions and feelings and thoughts and emotions that people are experiencing. I happen to be attending a funeral later today for a friend’s mother and again in that situation there’s emotion and some suffering and pain and sadness as well as some joy obviously around someone’s life she lived a full life. But it makes us think about important things and I just want to address this today whether you’d lead in the marketplace or in a non-profit organization or in a ministry setting or in a non-profit organization or in a ministry setting, you’ll deal with people who have pain and you yourself will have it. So how do we respond, how do we deal with it and how do we gauge one another when we’re feeling these things?
First, I want to say pain presents an opportunity for personal growth.
Anytime we feel pain we can either medicate it or we can enter into it and process it a bit. Some of that gets processed with others, some just for ourselves, but I want you just sit and reflect on what you’re feeling and thinking about perhaps this national crisis or pain you’re experiencing in your own life. Where does it come from, what causes it, how do you talk about it and engage it? And maybe reflect on who could help you process that whether that’s a professional of some type of just a close friend. But it is an opportunity to look into our own hearts, our own souls and say, “Who is this person?” Why do I respond the way that I do? What do I do with these feelings? What do I do with these reactions? How do I do my work in the marketplace today knowing you have these feelings with me? Again, it may not be about the national tragedy it can be something in your own life that you just have to bring with you because it is with you and you can’t run from it. So we try to enter into those things. Pain gets our attention C S Lewis famously said running again more from the spiritual perspective that, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, He speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts to us in our pain, that it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” So it’s kind of an attention getter whether you come from that perspective in life or you don’t, maybe have a different perspective, but a psychologist, sociologist, others would agree pain is an attention getter. So what do you need to pay attention to around that emotional or physical or spiritual or other level of pain that you’re feeling?
Second, when you’re working with people who are experiencing pain and trying to engage with them remember that your presence is more important than your words.
Now wrong words can hurt, superficial words, trite words, trivial things that you say to try to medicate someone’s pain they’re not helpful. But don’t worry about trying to fix someone’s pain with your words. Your presence is what’s important. Take someone a coffee, sit with them, and attend the funeral if it’s that kind of situation. Or just simply reflect back to them say, “Sounds like this is really disturbing you this situation that’s going on right now,” and let people talk. But being present with someone is far more important than trying to know exactly how to respond or to fix or to do a number of things. So again as a leader as someone who deals with others in you’re setting recognize that sometimes it’s just even maybe a minute or two with someone, just pausing, sitting with them, letting them know you care about what’s going on in their life will go a long way.
And finally, shared pain builds teams, builds community.
When you provide an opportunity for everyone to talk about a shared pain, a national crisis, an event in the community, or someone at the workplace who has experienced a loss or a tragedy or is very ill or is maybe diagnosed with cancer, whatever, a chance to just sit and say, “Hey we all recognize this is happening we need to deal with it right now by just being present with each other and naming it and letting one another know we care.” That shared pain forms a deeper bond in any kind of place in which you work or in friendships in marriages and other kinds of relationships.
So look for that, one of those maybe three things, an opportunity for personal growth, who can you be present with and how, and then how can we share tough times together as a community so that we all grow and we face this reality of life and do it with courage as we lead well.
Image Sources: http://images.sodahead.com
Leading through Change and Chaos
Posted by Dr. Bill Donahue in Business, Leadership on April 5, 2013
Leading through Change and Chaos – Graph Detail
Referred to in Video
Leading through Change and Chaos – Transcribed
Hey talking today about the tension leaders face in managing chaos in change. Both of those things are inherent in any group or team or organization that’s moving forward to accomplish its mission.
If you’re looking to create high change in other words new initiatives, new risks, new vision you’re looking for Entrepreneurial Leaders.
If you look on the diagram that accompanies this video you’ll see I put them in the upper left-hand corner. Because they are high change-oriented people and really don’t like a lot of chaos. They create a lot of chaos but they don’t thrive in the chaos because there are too many details flying around and sort of stall them. But they love change, they love the new initiative. They love a blank sheet of paper to try the new sales territory, to create a new product, to think of the new ministry initiative if you’re in ministry work. These are people that say,” Hey, go out and try this or explore this or give us some fresh ideas of thinking in that area,” so entrepreneurial leadership is essential to push change forward.
At the opposite corner the lower right you’ll see Managerial type Leader.
Managerial leaders are needed to manage the chaos created by the entrepreneurial types. They bring structure, order, some systems in place, management kinds of initiatives needed. They sort of bring some control to the chaos that’s been created. You don’t want to stifle change but the chaos that gets created can really disrupt an organization if not dealt with over time. It can wear people down and it can create some pretty crazy environments as you know. So as you start to create new initiatives you say what structures need to be brought into that to make sure that initiative continues to move forward, so managerial leaders are great for that.
If you look at the lower left-hand corner you’re looking at someone I would call a Stabilizer type of Leader or that kind of style.
In ministry work people call this the shepherding or the pastoral style of leadership, it’s low chaos, low change. These people are best, and they are leaders, but they’re best at bringing stability to an organization or to a team or to a group. They put some systems in place, they make sure the vision is being carried out appropriately; they hold dear the values of an organization and make sure those things aren’t compromised as you create new change and as you manage the chaos. Often areas of accounting, finance, maybe HR but these are areas that bring some stability to an organization or group when they have to be led well.
The fourth one in the upper right-hand corner would be the Strategist who has to bring tension or manage the tension between the chaos and the change, make decisions about how resources are allocated to foster the change or the new initiative, but also has to know what needs to be managed and who needs to be managing it.
So the strategic leaders are directional type leader saying okay where do we invest what we have into what areas, we want to keep things moving forward but we want to make sure we make the right decisions and put the right strategies in place.
So as you manage chaos and change think, “What kind of leadership style do we need for what areas or group or organization, and what kind of leadership style do I have that contributes to forwarding the mission where I work?”
Leading for the Long Haul
Posted by Dr. Bill Donahue in Business, Leadership on April 1, 2013
Leading for the Long Haul – Transcribed
I want to talk to you today about staying power in leadership or … resiliency.
How do we stay healthy while leading for the long haul?
Well this is a topic we continue to need to pay attention as leaders because the pressures that we face. Whether you’re leading students as a teacher whether you’re leading groups or teams, you’re a CEO, you’re a pastor, whatever, it doesn’t matter resiliency is critical to long-term effectiveness. I recently was talking with some leaders about some research that they’re still in the midst of and still refining but it was primarily with non-profit leaders and church leaders but as we looked at it we realized it applied to not only all leaders but to all people. So I’m going to talk about six areas that were emerging from that study that they’re in the midst of that they are discovering that if you don’t pay attention to these you can really get into trouble.
The first one was just personal growth your own formation, your own development, your own sense of character formation.
Leaders need to pay attention to what’s happening in our souls, are we centered, are we clear, do we know what we believe and why, do we pay attention to those areas of weakness, are we aware of some things about us that kind of bump up against others and so that we’re cautious and were careful about how we relate how we talk which is paying attention to character. That was number one.
Number two is self-care.
The idea that we don’t eat well, we don’t sleep enough, we don’t exercise enough, we don’t control sort of our boundaries in our margin in our life and that the self-care issue is one of the main ones that seems to emerge for leaders and people in particular. Busy, crazy lifestyles keep us from the appropriate care. I’m doing this from home cuz I’m taking actually about four or five days off right now. I’m getting ready to I’m getting ready in couple hours to hop onto a plane for some vacation time with my family. So I’m looking forward to a little self-care time it’s essential as a person and as a leader.
Another one is emotional intelligence.
I know it’s a phrase kicked around a lot. Maybe Intelligent intelligence isn’t the best word sometimes but it’s paying attention to relationships and emotional health, how we deal with anger, how we deal with fear, how we deal with loss in our life, broken relationships that affect us, are paying attention to those things. And are we paying attention on how we relate to people on our team and in the marketplace or the church or wherever we work? Are we emotionally savvy are we relationally savvy with others?
Forth one was cultural intelligence.
Knowing what’s going on around us, knowing the issues that are shaping our world, knowing the issues that are shaping the context in which we work? What’s the culture of like, what are the ethical and moral issues, where are the trends, what are the things we need to be paying attention to as we understand that were engaging culture at all times. We’re either trying to sell something to the culture, trying to learn something from the culture and sometimes we operate in a vacuum and can’t do that.
The fifth one was marriage and family, paying attention to those close dear relationships in our lives.
Neglected marriage and family a main, main killer of leaders and people in general and will wear you down if that’s not healthy and keep you from being a resilient leader.
And number six was just leadership and management skills.
Particularly those in the non-profit area sometimes lead with passion but not with leadership savvy and skills. So we need to be managers of our teams and our organizations, know how to do that well and have the skills necessary to do it and we need to be able to lead effectively not just believe in what we’re doing that have good leadership skills.
So look at those six areas and see … Where is that I need some growth? What do I need to pay attention to? Jot em down on a list and look at them frequently because they will help you stay in the game for the long haul.
Leadership Transitions – 4 Realities to Navigate
Posted by Dr. Bill Donahue in Business, Leadership on March 15, 2013
I’d like to talk to you today about leadership transitions.
Leadership Transitions – 4 Realities to Navigate - Transcribed
I’d like to talk to you today about leadership transitions. Even as I speak three major ones have taken place in my world and in our world even in the last two weeks. We have had a president of our university announced his resignation, a transition that will be happening in leadership up here. The second one is a global and huge one and that is the election of a new pope which is a great and huge transition for the Roman Catholic Church. And finally, a friend of mine just moved from one nonprofit organization that’s quite substantive to leading an even larger global nonprofit organization and is in the process of that transition. Transitions happen and there are things that affect us, affect our teams, affect our groups, and affect our leadership. So I’ll make a few comments about this and then I’d like to do a little more writing and blogging about this over the perhaps weeks and months ahead from time to time because I think it’s such a huge and essential area to understand in your leadership.
First of all transitions our normal they occur in everyday life both in family and in relationships as well of course in organizations and institutions and that’s the first thing for leaders to do is name that reality that this transition is normal. It’s not odd it’s going to happen again at some point in time so let’s learn from it now. I’ve learned a lot from William Bridges in his book Transitions, Making Sense of Life’s Changes. Bridges advocates kind of a process through which transitions go and that sort of my second team it’s not just that they are normal, they have sort of a pattern to them and they have an ending, a period of uncertainty and a new beginning. That’s how Bridges describes it. There’s this sense of what is the ending how do we process that what is this transition time of awkwardness that he calls the neutral zone and then what about going into the future into the new beginning? Sometimes these things overlap sometimes there’s great distance between the ending and the new beginning. The point is to recognize that there’s a pattern to change and transitions. So let’s process ending’s well, do the relational work we need to do, make sure things are closed out, let’s not leave a lot of loose cannons. Make sure things are as best as we can leave them as we leave and not leave things in a mess, it’s really awkward in an organizational when a leader just takes off and leaves a mess behind. To have integrity in this is the process the ending well but also to live in the ambiguity of the uncertainty before the new fully gets functioning. It’s an awkward time so we need a name that reality as well.
Another thing about transitions is they can be highly emotional in an organization or relationship. That can create anger, frustration, sadness, disappointment and some people don’t understand why the leader is leaving even if it’s for great and legitimate reasons. Sometimes a leader leaves under darker circumstances that create a lot. Sometimes it’s a very positive change even for the leader but that’s emotional too even the joy and the enthusiasm can create some awkwardness. So it’s important for you to allow your people or people in the process to process the emotion, journal it down, create a meeting or retreat or environment to sort of get things off your chest. Don’t ignore the emotional components, don’t try to stuff all that, you’ll just simply create tension in the organization that you do not need.
And finally, when transitions are processed well they’re great times for personal growth and change even though it doesn’t feel that way in the moment. Those periods of ambiguity and frustration challenge our leadership. We are required to step forward. Just talked to a friend yesterday where a leader was leaving a small organization. His comment was, “Everyone in the organization has stepped up to a new level to make that organization work well until the next leader comes in. I think that’s healthy, we get new responsibilities we take new ownership. So if we process transitions well we can learn from them, grow in them and help our groups, our institutions, our teams function more effectively.
Even as I speak three major ones have taken place in my world and in our world even in the last two weeks. We have had a president of our university announced his resignation, a transition that will be happening in leadership up here. The second one is a global and huge one and that is the election of a new pope which is a great and huge transition for the Roman Catholic Church. And finally, a friend of mine just moved from one nonprofit organization that’s quite substantive to leading an even larger global nonprofit organization and is in the process of that transition. Transitions happen and there are things that affect us, affect our teams, affect our groups, and affect our leadership. So I’ll make a few comments about this and then I’d like to do a little more writing and blogging about this over the perhaps weeks and months ahead from time to time because I think it’s such a huge and essential area to understand in your leadership.
First of all transitions our normal they occur in everyday life both in family and in relationships as well of course in organizations and institutions and that’s the first thing for leaders to do is name that reality that this transition is normal. It’s not odd it’s going to happen again at some point in time so let’s learn from it now. I’ve learned a lot from William Bridges in his book Transitions, Making Sense of Life’s Changes. Bridges advocates kind of a process through which transitions go and that sort of my second team it’s not just that they are normal they have sort of a pattern to them and they have an ending, a period of uncertainty and a new beginning. That’s how Bridges describes it. There’s this sense of what is the ending how do we process that what is this transition time of awkwardness that he calls the neutral zone and then what about going into the future into the new beginning? Sometimes these things overlap sometimes there’s great distance between the ending and the new beginning. The point is to recognize that there’s a pattern to change and transitions. So let’s process ending’s well, do the relational work we need to do, make sure things are closed out, let’s not leave a lot of loose cannons. Make sure things are as best as we can leave them as we leave and not leave things in a mess, it’s really awkward in an organizational when a leader just takes off and leaves a mess behind. To have integrity in this is the process the ending well but also to live in the ambiguity of the uncertainty before the new fully gets functioning. It’s an awkward time so we need a name that reality as well.
Another thing about transitions is they can be highly emotional in an organization or relationship. That can create anger, frustration, sadness, disappointment and some people don’t understand why the leader is leaving even if it’s for great and legitimate reasons. Sometimes a leader leaves under darker circumstances that create a lot. Sometimes it’s a very positive change even for the leader but that’s emotional too even the joy and the enthusiasm can create some awkwardness. So it’s important for you to allow your people or people in the process to process the emotion, journal it down, create a meeting or retreat or environment to sort of get things off your chest. Don’t ignore the emotional components, don’t try to stuff all that, you’ll just simply create tension in the organization that you do not need.
And finally, when transitions are processed well they’re great times for personal growth and change even though it doesn’t feel that way in the moment. Those periods of ambiguity and frustration challenge our leadership. We are required to step forward. Just talked to a friend yesterday where a leader was leaving a small organization. His comment was, “Everyone in the organization has stepped up to a new level to make that organization work well until the next leader comes in. I think that’s healthy, we get new responsibilities we take new ownership. So if we process transitions well we can learn from them, grow in them and help our groups, our institutions, our teams function more effectively.
We would like to encourage your feedback as it helps us to identify the issues that are important to you. It also helps others who are searching to develop new creative ways of leading. Thank you in advance for your comments.
Leadership Friction
Posted by Dr. Bill Donahue in Business, Leadership on March 14, 2013
I want to talk about leadership friction.
I want to talk about leadership friction. Transcribed
You know friction like when we rub our hands together on a cold day gives us warmth, but when you rub those same hands against sandpaper … goes beyond warmth to something destructive. So too much friction, too much banging up against each other as leaders trying to get something done causes some problems wherever we work. I see three areas in which leadership friction develops and I’d like to address those.
- The first is conflicting personalities and we all know we have different personalities and those tend to bump up against one another, the proverbial abrasive personality the person that just seems to “rob us the wrong way” a kind of interesting expression. They kinda get too much into our space or they just seem to push too hard or their words are more toxic than supportive and instead of just challenging us they kinda get abusive with language or demeaning with language. These can be abrasive personalities and that certainly can rub up against other leaders saying, “Whoa, you know, where you coming off here?”
- Sometimes it’s the direct person, the person who’s eager to simply communicate faxed and data or to tell you what to do with their supervisor. “Bob make three sales calls by three o’clock and report back to me.” “Susan, can you put that over there?” “Steve, I need to set up two meetings.” They never smile, they never crack a joke, they are just always direct and they don’t see this as abrasive but constant just pure direct can feel like a little bit of a poke over and over and over and begin to clash with other maybe warmer personalities in the leadership circle.
- Then there’s the condescending or elitist type person, again may not recognize it fully. They tend to look down on us so they tend to feel superior because of the performance or socioeconomic background, maybe there’s racial stuff going on. The point is they kind of look down there nose a little bit and that kind of personality robs up against those of us to don’t like that and we may perceive that that’s some sort of a one-upsmanship going on.
I also see some things that cause friction around contrasting styles of leadership. Bill Hybels did some good work in Courageous Leadership, a book he wrote about a decade ago to focus on ten kinds of leadership styles that he observes. And it’s important to look at those, matter of fact we’ve posted as you can see them on the site.
You have people for example with visionary styles or entrepreneurial or re-engineering styles go-getter start-up take the hill those kinds of styles, bumping up against people that are bridge-building, team building, collaborative, encouraging, motivational styles. So different styles of leaders can bump up against one another by virtue of we just lead differently. Now, we might get the same result done but we go about different ways but our styles can cause a little friction.
A third area is just competing visions in other words we see things differently. Get a group of leaders together in a circle and some may report to others or whatever but when you get those leaders in a circle they all have a sense of vision, there are all leaders, and they see a future that can happen and it may not be the same. One way to help with that a little bit I say is being together is seeing together. There is something about working on vision collaboratively that really helps that process and create more unity around the vision verses we each individually come with our own separate view of reality and then compete with one another to see whose vision wins.
So these are areas I see of friction or tension developing. How you address it, it’s pretty simple but it takes work and it’s simply saying let’s look at the strengths of each of these. What are the strengths that my vision brings? What are the strengths I bring in my style of leadership? What are the strengths I bring in my personality? And what do each of you bring? Focus on strengths, not the differences that kind of rub us a bit but let’s say okay the driver what’s good about that personality? The leadership style that’s team building what’s a strength we can leverage to get the job done from your leadership because your that kind of leader?
So work on your strengths, leverage those together, name the realities of the tension that you see and the friction that may be there and then get on the strengths side and see if that helps you lead better as a group of leaders.
We would like to encourage your feedback as it helps us to identify the issues that are important to you. It also helps others who are searching to develop new creative ways of leading. Thank you in advance for your comments.
Burnout Warning Signs
Posted by Dr. Bill Donahue in Business, Leadership on March 8, 2013
Some years ago good friend of mine pointed out some signs of erosion or warning signs on the pathway to burn out, pointed them out to me and a number of leaders. It really resonated with me. I actually taught them at a conference I was at recently. I shared with a group of leaders those same warning signs and it resonated with them. I think they will resonate with you and I want to cover three of them that are indicators that you may be drifting toward burnout.
Burnout Warning Signs – Transcribed
Some years ago good friend of mine pointed out some signs of erosion or warning signs on the pathway to burn out, pointed them out to me and a number of leaders. It really resonated with me. I actually taught them at a conference I was at recently. I shared with a group of leaders those same warning signs and it resonated with them. I think they will resonate with you and I want to cover three of them that are indicators that you may be drifting toward burnout. The first one is words without action. “Hey let’s do lunch we will have to get together on that.” “Hey, I will call you next week.” “My team will have to get together and discuss that.” “You know someone needs to put a strategy retreat together or a planning session.” “Yeah, we’ll do that; I’ll get back to you on that.” All of this sort of activity in words and clichés with no action behind and no follow-through is an indicator that maybe your filling space with words and avoiding true meaningful conversation where there’s real dialogue and real engagement. And I think you gotta pay attention to that. Sometimes it’s better not to say anything there’s an old Jewish proverb that says, “Even a fool, when he’s silent, is thought to be wise.” So pay attention to how you’re using words. Are you creating a lot of space that’s filled with words and clichés and da, da da da? People are like. “Whoa, you know she talks a good talk or he talks a good talk but there’s walk there. There’s no follow through, your integrity will be compromised. A second one is busyness without purpose. Shuffling the papers on the desk again, reorganizing the files, doing yet another search checking, did I get liked on Facebook, who’s looking at my profile on LinkedIn? After all it has been three minutes since I checked. This sense of I need to constantly be active and busy in finding out information. Researchers at Purdue did a study of television watching in light of the proliferation of tablets, mobile devices, the internet; they expected to find a drop in television watching as we spend more time looking at these other screens. Just the opposite happened. Television watching increased during the proliferation of all these devices. And they made this comment; People are spending more time looking at screens than they are into one another’s faces. Instead of doing meaningful relationships, instead of having purpose to our activity, we’re filling it with distractions. And it’s something to be aware of, the more and more you do that the more it says there’s something breaking down here, just busyness for the sake of busyness will lead to burn out. A third thing, there’s relationships without reciprocity or relationships without a return. I give, I teach, I serve, I help, I care … I never get back. So to have relationships where you’re always on the giving side of the equation and never on the receiving side is going to lead you to emotional breakdown. You need to be filled up in relationship you need mentors and friends and others to speak into your life not just for you to serve and teach and help others. So how you use your words, how you spend your time, just busyness for the sake of busyness and how you connect in relationship are three factors to pay attention to help avoid a drift toward burnout.
We would like to encourage your feedback as it helps us to identify the issues that are important to you. It also helps others who are searching to develop new creative ways of leading. Thank you in advance for your comments.
Warning: This is Hazardous to Your Leadership!
Posted by Dr. Bill Donahue in Business, community, Group Life, Leadership on February 26, 2013
Warning: This is Hazardous to Your Leadership!
This is something every leader must avoid because it will destroy everything you are working for.
Warning: This is Hazardous to Your Leadership!
Transcribed
Hi. Today I want to talk to you about something I think is quite destructive to relationships, robs people and organizations of innovation, foster cynicism, can crush morale, and can create a culture of fear and anxiety.
That problem, that issue, is legalism. It rears itself in business and education and religious institutions, sports, arts it doesn’t really matter wherever you have organizations and people working together you have the potential for legalism.
Let me give you three signs that deal legalism‘s rearing its ugly head.
1. When people begin to value rules over relationships that would be the first one. Just recently financed, I should say refinanced my home in the current climate of the mortgage challenge in our country. I have solid credit, solid financial standing the numbers were right but there are so many rules, so many hoops to jump through that it became difficult to go through the process. It took months, it was very frustrating to me and it was frustrating for some of the people trying to work with me the bankers and others involved in this. It’s just there were so many rules that it seemed that my relationship to the institutions I’d had for so many years in the trust that had been built didn’t matter … rules mattered more. That’s where things get a little too legalistic.
2. A second sign is when we value being right over being righteous. When someone says no, my opinion, my point of view matters more than our integrity as an organization or my integrity as a person. That’s what I mean by righteous it’s not just the religious terms think of it in terms of integrity. A group once wrote an article against an organization I was a part of misrepresented facts, distorted data, were trying to find things to manipulate and use for their own purposes and their own agenda. I confronted them on this particular article and pointed out the discrepancies in it, in light of reality and gave them the real facts. They eventually acknowledged that yes they were wrong and I said, “Great would you print a retraction in your next issue?” They said, “No.” Because it was more important for them to be right, to appear that they were right. It’s frustrating; their integrity to me was compromised in that situation.
3. A third sign would be protecting our own reputation instead of being able to name a reality, whatever the cost for that might be. Looking at myself instead of looking at the problem or the issue and letting that kind of rule the day. So a drug company makes a mistake and what do they do? They manipulate the government or other legislation or the political arena or the legal arena. They do something to try to cover up or act like it wasn’t there a problem because they care more about protecting their brand. In reality they destroy their brand because they destroy the reputation.
So legalism is everywhere and you’ll find it as I said in business, in arts, in education any institution you’re a part of. The place you need to watch out for the most is in the mirror.
Do you care more about your rules instead of the relationships you’re forming?
Do you care more about being right than having integrity and being in right standing with others?
Do you care more about protecting your own reputation or your organizations then you care about reality?
If that’s happening you’re becoming a legalistic Don’t let that happen, lead well today and watch out for legalism.
6 Shifts Happening in Your Organization
Posted by Dr. Bill Donahue in Business, Group Life, Leadership, Uncategorized on February 18, 2013
Your organizational culture is shifting – are you prepared to lead in these new realities? The following video discusses the 6 shifts happening in your organization and how you can engage these shifts in your leadership role.
Transcribed
I get to speak with and work with organizations and institutions whether they be larger churches, businesses educational institutions; I’ve observed these institutional and organizational movements over the last few years. Many have been written about, some of already taken place, some are emerging. I’d like to talk about a few of them and maybe some implications for your leadership related to those.
The first is from a focus on the organization to focus on the organism. You see that now with less focus around all the little slots and things that relate to the organization as something in and of itself to be maintained and more emphasis on what is happening inside the culture of where we work or where we minister or where we live. What’s happening with the people, what’s happening with emerging ideas and systems and the integration of those things? So it’s more organism oriented the culture itself the vibe that is coming from within that if you will than around maintaining the organization or putting too much emphasis on the structure of the organization.
That leads to a second one which is instead of being institutionally, driven being institutionally supported. The institutions important but what’s the role of the institution? Is it to drive everything and pass everything down or is it to support emerging ideas, new leadership developing, new teams, new formats, and new engagements? I use to have this mantra still do but for many years the structure serves the people, the people don’t serve the structure and so what we’re seeing is more of a shift to moving structures that can accommodate what’s happening within the organization, so to speak, or for the organization’s mission and shaping the institution to support people versus to make them support the institution.
That’s related to another one I’ve observed and that’s obviously the move from out more of a hierarchical to a flatter structure. I don’t think we’ll ever be totally flat in many institutions and organizations. I don’t want to be overly idealistic about that but I think there definitely is a movement away from strict oppressive sometimes hierarchies where power is centered in only a few and the many are just left as implementers. And you’re going to see a flatter leadership as we become organic as we continue to become more are shared in resources and in other strategies that we have. And frankly a younger emerging leadership corps desires that and I think you need to accommodate that. Another one is what I would call a shift from content to value. In other words it’s not just our message and what we think about it and how we deliver it, but what value we bring and what are the underlying values behind that? It’s more important for us to understand as a working culture, what are the core things at the heart of who we are verses simply what’s the message we’ve given, always given, how do we keep giving it, how to get the same message to more people? There’s truth in some of that and a need for some of that but what are the underlying values behind the message? People need to hear that and be motivated by it. It’s also the sense of a movement from an event to a lifestyle. Whether you’re in business or non-profit or whatever, this is particularly true in I think a lot of ministry situations but it’s not limited to that. Where the event for example in a church, the Sunday service or in a business, the sales transaction perhaps it’s not all about just the event it’s about a lifestyle. In other words we don’t just gear up to present something we’re trying to become something and as leaders and as an organization the emphasis is on how are we living out these values and beliefs that we have?
Another thing I see is a shift from creating just distribution channels, again core product or ideas being disseminated, to what I would call missional hubs, where ideas are being generated all around the organization and out in the culture so that we’re not just a centralized group finding more ways to create more distribution channels, that’s valid when we have a quality product or service, but it’s how do we create more hubs that are themselves generating product and ideas so it’s not always all coming from sort of central base.
And finally, from being more silo to being more integrated. I think we’ve seen that across a number of kinds of institutions and organizations instead of it’s just sales and marketing and distribution and R&D and so on in the corporate areas. Or in education where we just have administration and then there’s faculty and then or the disciplines I teach history you teach science or you teach theology, we don’t talk to each other. That’s breaking down to where we see more integrated aspects because educationally, developmentally we need the integration of ideas, we need to expose people to one another so more and more cross-functional teams, more ad hoc teams, more conversations around the lunch table from people from various disciplines helps each of us grow and develop in our leadership. The implications of these shifts are, as I mentioned, I think a flatter leadership, people who are more relational in their leadership, more able to build teams and connect with them. I think in general people who are more interested in modeling the values than simply disseminating again the information. So I think for us as leaders whatever my organization or institution is I need to embody that first and foremost. It’s more important that I live in the world of being what I am advocating not just doing some things around the principles and values.
And finally I think that we’re seeing ideas come at the core of leadership not just mandates and control and management but ideas. That’s the ideas for the future that will drive the future organization, the future institution.
So these are some of the things I think in our leadership which as it becomes more collaborative the more shared, not without authority, now without power, but I think these movements and shifts demand that kind of leadership.
I’m interested in what you think about these 6 shifts happening in your organization. So let me know, as I work with leadership teams and teach and do conferences I understand that these shifts are happening and I’m trying to help leaders and engage those things.
What are you doing to engage these shifts?
I’d be interested in hearing from you. So have a great day!
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