I recently went with some friends to Venice, Louisiana to do some gulf fishing. Those who know me are right now asking themselves what sort of alien has taken over my body, since they know well that I’m no fisherman. Not even a little bit.
But gulf fishing with a charter is different; there’s a crew on the boat that does the myriad things that need to happen to make fishing a success. Passengers just get to do the fun stuff. Essentially, we have no responsibility whatsoever, except reeling in fish.
So, a-fishing we went. One day inshore (not far from bunkhouse) and one day offshore (way the hell out there).
Good times had by all. Fish caught, fish eaten, cigars smoked, maybe even had a drink or two. Lots of laughs. But, much to the chagrin of some of my fishing partners (…”don’t you ever turn that off?”), I also noticed some appropriate leadership lessons from our days in the boat. Some things that apply to us once we get back onshore and return to our real worlds, where responsibility and accountability seems to run amok.
Lessons learned from my fishing trip:
Leaders are responsible for specific results, not simply effort. Our boat captain, Ronald, took us inshore fishing the first day; the expectation was to catch our limits in red fish. Well, the reds weren’t exactly biting, but we still had a good time catching sheepshead, bass and flounder, along with just a few reds.Only that wasn’t the expectation. So, though Ronald accomplished something, which is nearly always better than nothing, it was not the result we set out to accomplish, and that’s on him.
Real talent can do what mediocre talent cannot. Last year, same trip, our boat captain got us stuck on a sandbar while tentatively trolling in shallow waters. That’s a little too inshore for me, as we bailed out to help push. “Get out and help push” is not a conversation expected when fishing in a chartered boat.This year, Ronald said “hold on and don’t look down,” then slammed the throttles. We hurtled across waters more shallow than last year (inches deep) at breakneck speed. No running aground, no hopping out to push. A marked difference in boat leadership.
Leaders decide, evaluate, then decide again if necessary. During our offshore day, Ronald was having difficulties finding tuna that would bite. We continued to do what always worked for him, until he realized it wasn’t; then we started doing things differently.While we were trying new methods, the environment (weather) shifted, and Ronald immediately pivoted back to his original process, and we started catching fish. Ten tuna in about 90 minutes, to be exact. Not huge, but I can already attest to their eat-ability.Decide, evaluate, decide again.
There is always a bigger fish. Though we were ultimately successful in our tuna quest, we actually caught more than ten, only to have 2-3 dismembered by barracudas before we could get them in the boat. Disappointing, though not altogether surprising.You see, we were using bait fish (hardtails) that we caught earlier using a sabiki rig. Those small fish were just going about their business, not bothering anyone, looking for a simple meal. When we later used them for bait, the tuna would see these hardtails in unexpected waters, decide to be opportunistic and jump on ‘em. The barracudas, unable to run down a tuna in open water, would see the tuna on the line, in trouble, and attack from behind.Much like at work, you have (a) those just going about their business, doing their job, hoping to get paid; (b) those who are opportunistic, looking for a chance to get something they probably shouldn’t have had access to; and (c) those who see others in trouble, and capitalize on their misery for their own gain.
Admit it – you know some workplace barracudas.
There was also the lesson I learned about not trying to drink a beer in the face of a boat going 50 mph, but I’ll save that for another time.
Word Synonym Bossy controlling
Fair unbiased
Honest trustworthy
Handsome kevin
Intelligent smart
Mean bad-tempered
We use a lot of words interchangeably. Sometimes we’re accurate, and the different words mean substantially the same thing. Other times, to paraphrase Inigo Montoya from Princess Bride: “I don’t think that word means what you think it means.”
In this brief article, I’ll introduce five word pairs of words that many managers use as synonyms. The problem is, they simply are not synonymous, and the real meanings matter. In some cases, bigly. In future articles, I’ll address each word pair in detail, fleshing out some of the nuances and meanings, and providing examples for relevance and application.
Today, however, I’m just going to give you the word pairs and a teaser description to get you thinking. Plus, it’ll be fun to imagine your head exploding when you disagree with my abbreviated descriptions. More to come…
Let’s start with the big kahuna:
Leadership == Management
In all fairness, I believe the absolute argument between these is largely academic; specifically, however, it’s important to know the difference, if only so we can better understand who does what to whom.
Leadership is about positively influencing others toward a shared vision.
Management is predetermined and repetitive. It’s controlling a process.
Both are necessary, but they aren’t synonyms.
Accountability == Responsibility
This pair is probably the most abused of all. They sound so… so… similar. They must be synonyms, right?
Yeah, no. And the difference is huge.
Accountability is ownership of a specific result. It’s one-deep; no multiple people accountable for the same thing.
Responsibility is accomplishing a task(s) leading to a result. Lots of folks can be responsible for things, only one is accountable.
Empowerment == Delegation
I used to believe these were on the same continuum. I was wrong, they are entirely different, and that difference is significant and important.
Empowerment is bigger, added autonomy in existing work.
Delegation is more, doing someone else’s task or job.
Both are useful, and effective developmental tools. They aren’t synonyms.
Passion == Emotion
These can be confusing, since some errant dictionaries include as synonyms. In leadership parlance, they certainly are not.
Passion is controlled reactions.
Emotions are uncontrolled reactions.
Close, but no cigar.
And finally, Teams == Groups
In all fairness, people don’t often use these interchangeably; they just use them incorrectly, calling something a “Team” when they should be saying a “Group.”
A Team requires trust that another person will contribute to your success.
A Group just requires an org chart.
These two aren’t even on the same planet, yet “Team” is one of the most frequently misused terms in any organization. Most teams, simply put, aren’t. We like the word, but resist the heavy lifting required to make it accurate.
These are just a few, and my descriptions are far from complete, though I believe them to be defensibly accurate. I’ll flesh them out in future editions of At C-Level.
Email me at kevinb@triangleperformance.com with comments; I’ll address one or two of the specific word pairs next month, and it would be interesting to hear your inputs.
Based on the way I read the latest engagement surveys, the number of bosses missing the opportunities their leadership positions are providing is almost mind-numbing. It certainly appears to be numbing the minds of the people working for them.
The storyline doesn’t deviate much regardless of what industry or government service sector I talk to: 1) new boss comes in or is promoted from within; 2) boss gets stressed by pressure to deliver; 3) boss stresses team to deliver; 4) team members burn out and get demoralized; 5) team members disengage or leave. The time spans to get from 1 to 5 vary, but it’s the same old song.
If you haven’t heard the song, that doesn’t mean it’s not being sung in your organization.
Disclaimer: I did not do research for this article. Occasionally I get pushback for stating as fact information that is obvious to me but not to the recipient. Did I do research to reach my conclusion? Do I have data? What was my sample size? Yada? Yada? Yada?
My answer is usually something to the effect that 58% of all statistics are made up. Or is it 72%? Maybe 37%? Anyway, the average American has one breast and one testicle… you get the idea.
I digress.
Leaders have an incredible opportunity to improve the lives of the people who work for them. Imagine if your employees get up looking forward to the workday and go home happy with their efforts. What effect might that have on their productivity? On the time they don’t spend at work? On their interactions with family and friends? On their sleep?
Bosses who don’t particularly care about the out-of-office time aren’t leaders. They’re just bosses, managers, micromanagers, supervisors, or taskmasters.
What we (the royal we) know about employees that like their jobs is that they’re more engaged and productive. And the converse is true. Why a boss wouldn’t want to learn how to effectively lead, encourage, and empower his or her organization to produce and deliver quality results is beyond me, and yet we in the leadership development space run into that exact scenario time after time.
Please help me understand what I’m missing. In fact, email me and educate me: Why is it like this? Which part of the Leadership Triangle is the boss missing – the They Don’t Know How, the They Don’t Want To, or the We Won’t Let Them?
Bosses tell me: “I’m under pressure to deliver.” Duh! Who’s not? Leaders don’t pass the buck, so those bosses must work for bosses who do (who probably work for bosses that do, who work for bosses that do, etc., etc.). I waive the BS flag at that. Just because the jerkishness starts higher up doesn’t mean it has to be passed down to a lower level. As Kevin Berchelmann likes to say, “Leadership can hurt; wear a helmet.”
Plain and simple, I can only conclude that bosses who don’t make the effort to be good leaders are self-centered. They care about themselves more than they care about the people who work for them. Not a new phenomenon, but certainly curable. As an example, look no farther than Coach Tony Bennett of the 2019 NCAA Champion Virginia Cavaliers basketball team who turned down a sizeable salary increase to provide additional opportunities for his basketball program and players.
I like the way Coach Bennett explained it, and I’m going to plagiarize and adapt part of his speech so that it applies to your particular business sector:
If it’s just about winning – if it’s just about being the best – then you’re running the wrong race. That’s empty in the long term. But if it’s trying to be excellent and do things the right way, to honor and benefit the organization that hired you, the human being you work for and the men and women who work for you, then that’s the right thing.
It’s a mindset shift: a boss has to understand that he or she can’t be successful unless their team is successful. A leader like Coach Bennett has a desire to elevate others above himself – the sure sign of a leader who others want to follow.
Actions speak louder than words. Here’s a couple of signs I use to distinguish the difference between your run-of-the-mill, worried-about-themselves boss and someone who’s trying to be a leader:
A boss says – and may believe – they care about their employees, but it rings hollow to the people she’s ordering around. A leader doesn’t have to say she cares; people know she cares by the way she demonstrates it.
A boss passes tasks down to the next level. A leader describes the results he’s looking for, describes success clearly, then asks what support is needed – and provides it.
A boss assumes expectations are understood because no one asks questions. A leader ensures expectations are clear by asking questions.
A boss does what he asked someone else to do because he doesn’t trust them. A leader trusts his people to do what has been asked by the established deadline and verifies accomplishment without micromanaging.
A boss makes employees feel guilty when emergent, high priority needs require time away from work. A leader finds ways to make her team flexible enough to react to unplanned adversity and deliver success.
A boss accepts credit for his team’s success. A leader gives credit to those who actually accomplish the success.
As I look back through my mental book of good leaders and bad bosses, it’s easy to categorize them. Yet thinking back about the hundreds of people who’ve worked for me, I’m not as confident about which category I fell into for them. It’s a shame I didn’t use such an easy rubric on myself at the time.
Not too long ago, I worked with a group of executives for a fast-growing client.
Two things struck me as interesting, and somewhat of a paradox: First, they were all reasonably successful in their jobs (and their jobs were substantially the same, just different geographic regions). Second, they were all incredibly different. Yes, they each had similar core characteristics, such as intelligence and work ethic. In other areas, such as sales, marketing, people management, organizational skills, strategy, planning, and so forth, they were all over the charts.
So what? Well, I’ll tell you “so what.” You hear a lot about understanding your “strengths and weaknesses,” then you’re supposed to work on your weaknesses, right?? Sort of like the big Superdude combating kryptonite, right??
Bunk.
Let’s look at it differently. Let’s assume that succeeding in a position can be done in any of several different ways, using a variety of skills. With that reasoning, you don’t have strengths and weaknesses; you have learned skills and skills you have yet to learn.
Wow!
So, then, we should then simply “learn more skills,” right??
No, no, no…
We should, instead, clearly identify our skills, since we know that we can succeed with them, and work on improving our strengths! That’s right, improve our strengths, since we already know that they work for us. Learning new skills is time consuming, and depending on application, may or may not work for us the way they work for others.
Now, this logic assumes current success, so don’t confuse this with those managers who are clearly unsuccessful, though I would argue this could help them with their improvement also. In other words, as Bum Phillips (retired Houston Oilers coach) would say, “Dance with who brung you.”
Use the skills you have — improve and hone them to a razor’s edge — and continue your increasing levels of success. Over time, identify some additional skills you would like to pick up, and develop a plan to learn them in a reasonable time and fashion.
Like many consultants, I sometimes struggle to follow the great advice I give other people. Okay, more than sometimes. The whole ‘physician, heal thyself’ thing comes along like a spiritual two-by-four upside my head pretty often.
But the situation where ‘do as I say, not as I do’ really gets my goat is during a leadership development engagement when the boss is uninterested or disengaged from the effort.
And I’m not talking about one-and-done engagements (I don’t do those). These are six- to twelve-month, multiple group- and individual-session engagements, so there are some talented people doing heavy lifting trying to be better leaders. But I know it will be an uphill slog when the CXO who signs my check wants the team to improve but doesn’t want to be involved.
For instance, a few years back I worked with the team of a CXO who complained that everyone – despite his best efforts – suffered from the same leadership shortcomings. It bears mentioning that these senior managers had exactly two things in common: they had the same boss, and they all breathed air.
I politely suggested to the CXO that if it smelled like dog crap everywhere he went, he should probably check his shoe, after which he made it clear that he was NOT one of the people who needed coaching.
You’ve heard the old saw: “What if I develop my people and they leave?” “But what if you don’t and they stay?”
Exactly!
It was de ja vu all over again during a follow-up phone conversation with an exec about an additional engagement with some of his bright-and-shineys. After he assured me that everything was going great, he said something that could have come from a Wall Street movie spoof (and I’m not making this up). He said he had neither the time nor the inclination to do leadership development.
At least he was truthful.
Now, I’m not claiming to be able to waltz in and waive my magic around and “fix” a team’s problems or instantly improve their leadership skills, but it doesn’t take a rocket surgeon to figure out what’s behind his department’s struggles.
For Pete’s sake, you don’t have to have an advanced degree or a special certification to develop leaders in your organization (I use my PhD to plant fence posts). You just have to be smart enough to realize that it isn’t what you do as a senior leader that makes you successful. It’s the efforts of the people who work for you. No success for them = no success for you.
And I’m okay if you don’t want to get your hands dirty making positive and lasting changes in your organization by developing your people. That’s not everyone’s forte, and there are plenty of senior leaders who are above that kind of touchy-feely stuff anyway. After all, I’m sure everyone at C-level models the behaviors they want to see in their employees. (That’s sarcasm if you missed it.)
But someone has to, because doing nothing isn’t a reasonable option. If your company doesn’t have a leadership skills development process that produces measurable leadership improvement, please, PLEASE hire someone from the outside who can help.
Oh, and senior leadership involvement in the process isn’t optional, either, unless no one’s serious about development in the first place.
So how about it, leaders? Are you intentionally engaged in developing your people, or are you going to hire someone who will be? Because doing nothing isn’t a C-Level option.
The conversation starts with: “Can I do something to help?”
And the reply is usually: “No thanks; I’ve got it.”
Sound familiar? At the office? At home? Yes, that short conversation takes place millions of times every day across this country in the workplace, in stores, in the kitchen, between co-workers, bosses and employees (both directions), spouses, and parents and their children – basically anywhere two people are interested in a particular outcome.
In the workplace, we certainly don’t expect our employees to know everything. Yet because many of them think and feel like we expect it, they’re hesitant to ask questions. And as leaders, we get frustrated with team members who wait until the last minute to ask for help – or don’t ask for help at all – and things go to hell in a handbasket.
What makes us think it’s any different for our boss? It’s not.
I’ve got the stick for a minute.
First, keep this in mind: you are not a failure because you ask for help. You fail when you need it and don’t ask for, and the consequences create a crisis. If we believe that, why is it so dammed hard to ask for help?
Easy… we all have egos.
Successful people are helpers, not helpless, right? And we think asking for help makes us look weak and undermines our credibility as a (insert self-description here). We may think that, but it’s not true! Our credibility takes a hit when it’s obvious we need help and we pretend that we don’t. Self-reliance can be both a strength and a self-limiting weakness, especially at senior levels. We develop this huge blind spot about letting someone else lighten our load.
I’d like to offer a hint on what your first clue that you need help should be: Someone says, “Can I do something to help?” They obviously see something we don’t.
Okay, I hear you. You don’t need help. All I ask is that you keep this in mind next time you get frustrated at someone who won’t ask for help.
Here’s an idea: What if we built a culture where people aren’t intimidated to ask for help by teaching them “when” and “how” to ask questions?
Let’s start with when. Here are five good times to ask for help:
When you don’t know – you encounter a new process, new situation, new technology, new project, etc. Again, the world doesn’t expect you to know everything.
When deadlines are in danger – someone else is usually depending on you to complete your part of the project or process on time; don’t disappoint them.
When you don’t understand what’s expected – when you accept an expectation, you own it. Sometimes you have to gain clarity about just exactly what is being asked of you.
When you’re curious – not in a judgmental way, but actually trying to learn why things are done in a certain way, where what you do fits into the larger effort, or when you don’t understand a decision. WARNING: watch your tone of voice when you ask.
When you see an opportunity to develop someone – asking your team to help when you’re overwhelmed (or when you’re not) is an opportunity for you to practice empowerment and for them to grow in the organization.
Great! We’re almost there. Now that your team knows when to ask for help, here are some tips for how to ask without sounding incompetent:
Make sure you need it – you want to have tried it before your boss offers a simple solution. Start the discussion with “I tried…”
Bring solutions, not problems – I wish I had a dollar for every time my daughters heard me say that. You don’t have to already have the answer (or you wouldn’t need to ask for help), but you need to be able to say “Here are the options I see…”
Be S-M-A-R-T – ask for the help you actually need, or you’ll get more help than you want. Make your request for assistance specific, meaningful, actionable, realistic and time-bound.
Don’t be a martyr – just because you wait until the last minute doesn’t mean it’ll only take a minute. The last thing you want to hear from your boss is “Why didn’t you come to me sooner?”
You didn’t ask for my help, but I’m not surprised. You already knew all of this. (I don’t think I’ll let my wife read this. I can already hear her rolling her eyes.)
How about you? Do you know someone who needs help?
We should, instead, clearly identify our skills, since we know that we can succeed with them, and work on improving our strengths! That’s right, improve our strengths, since we already know that they work for us. Learning new skills is time consuming, and depending on application, may or may not work for us the way they work for others.
