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What sabotages more leadership efforts, holds back more good teams, and derails more leaders’ careers than anything else? Lack of self-awareness!
Maxwell explains that the finest executive coaches tell him that lack of self-awareness is the single greatest problem they see in the leaders they coach. No leader can be too self-aware. The better you know and manage yourself, the better you will be able to lead and serve your team.
Become Good at Leading Yourself
Whether we’re looking at King David, George Washington, Mahatma Gandhi, or Martin Luther King, Jr., we can see that they struggled to lead themselves well.
Maxwell reflects that he sometimes avoids difficult people issues. As he recalls, “In 2001, our organization was having conflict that involved a staff member whom I needed to let go. I delayed the decision when I shouldn’t have, and my unwillingness to make that difficult decision cost me many dollars and some key personnel. Once again, I was the source of the problem.”
If you want a better team in a better organization that produces better results, you need to become better at leading yourself.
We Don’t See Ourselves as We See Others
That’s why Maxwell’s book Winning with People starts with the Mirror Principle, which advises, “The First Person We Must Examine Is Ourselves.”
Human nature seems to endow us with the ability to size up everybody in the world except ourselves. We tend to judge others according to their actions and results. However, we judge ourselves by our intentions.
1. Learn Followership
Only a leader who has followed well knows how to lead others well.
2. Develop Self-Discipline
As King Solomon remarked, “The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.” When we are foolish, we want to conquer the world. When we are wise, we want to conquer ourselves.
3. Practice Patience
4. Seek Accountability
Good leaders know that power can be seductive, and they understand their own fallibility. To be a leader and deny this is to put yourself in danger.
A Chinese proverb says, “When you see a good man, think of emulating him; when you see a bad man, examine your heart.”
The willingness to seek and accept advice is a great indicator of accountability. And of a leader who is maturing and improving.
When Harry S. Truman was thrust into the presidency upon the death of Franklin Roosevelt, Sam Rayburn gave him some fatherly advice: “From here on out you’re going to have lots of people around you. They’ll try to put a wall around you and cut you off from any ideas but theirs. They’ll tell you what a great man you are, Harry. But you and I both know you ain’t.”
Know and Work Within Your Strengths
Maxwell’s dad used to tell his brother, sister, and him, “Find out what you do well and keep on doing it.”
Success is: Knowing your purpose in life, Growing to your maximum potential, and Sowing seeds that benefit others.
People’s purpose in life is always connected to their giftedness. It always works that way. You will not be called to do something that you have no talent for. You will discover your purpose by finding and remaining in your strengths.
British poet and lexicographer Samuel Johnson said, “Almost every man wastes part of his life in attempts to display qualities which he does not possess.”
1. Ask, “What Am I Doing Well?”
People who reach their potential spend less time asking, “What am I doing right?” and more time asking, “What am I doing well?” The first is a moral question; the second is a talent question.
2. Get Specific About Your Strengths
Peter Drucker, the father of modern management, writes, “The great mystery isn’t that people do things badly but that they occasionally do a few things well. The only thing that is universal is incompetence. Strength is always specific! Nobody ever commented, for example, that the great violinist Jascha Heifetz probably couldn’t play the trumpet well.”
The more specific you can get about your strengths, the better the chance you can find your “sweet spot.” Why be on the fringes of your strength zone when you have a chance to be right in the center? What are your strengths within your strengths?
3. Listen for What Others Praise
4. Check Out the Competition
Former all-star baseball catcher Jim Sundberg advised, “Discover your uniqueness, then discipline yourself to develop it.”
In her book Hesselbein on Leadership, Frances Hesselbein, President and CEO of the Frances Hesselbein Leadership Institute at the University of Pennsylvania, writes, “Peter Drucker reminds us that organizations exist to make people’s strengths effective and their weaknesses irrelevant. And this is the work of effective leaders. Drucker also tells us that there may be born leaders but there are far too few to depend on them.”
You must increase your ability to develop people in their areas of strength. How do you do that?
- Become Secure in Your Own Leadership
- Study and Know the People on Your Team
- Communicate to Individuals How They Fit on the Team
- Communicate to All Team Members How Each Player Fits on the Team
- Emphasize Completing One Another Above Competing with One Another
Working on a weakness in your strength zone will always produce greater results than working on a strength in a weak area.
Put Your Team Ahead of Your Own Career Advancement
You can’t create progress by staying on a plateau. Leaders are naturally wired to climb. They can be aggressive. Good leaders initiate. They see opportunities and seek them before others do.
If you want to be an effective leader, you must take responsibility for helping your team win. How can you do that? By connecting with team members, getting to know who they are, learning to care about them, and finding ways for them to succeed individually and as a team. Most leaders naturally fall into either the climber or connector camp. Consider these observations:
- Climbers Think Vertical—Connectors Think Horizontal: Connectors put the good of the team ahead of their own personal gain.
- Climbers Focus on Position—Connectors Focus on Relationships: Positional people desire to climb the ladder; relational people are more focused on building bridges.
- Climbers Value Competition—Connectors Value Cooperation
- Climbers Seek Power—Connectors Seek Partnerships
- Climbers Build Their Image—Connectors Build Consensus: Connectors worry more about the unity of the team than standing out from the crowd.
- Climbers Want to Stand Apart—Connectors Want to Stand Together
If you look at the top reasons people fail at work, you will find that they are frequently due to an inability to get along well with others. In a recent article in Inc., executive John White wrote about the top seven reasons people lose their jobs. Five of the seven were related to difficulties in getting along with others. People skills are important for success at every level.
Judith Tobin suggests the value of five qualities that can assist you to connect with others:
- Appreciation allows for differences in people and considers them interesting.
- Sensitivity understands personal feelings and quickly takes into account the moods of others.
- Consistency has the quality of being “real,” not phony, and gives only sincere compliments.
- Security doesn’t try to be “top dog”; it knows that helping others win isn’t a loss for you.
- Humor laughs at itself; it is not overly sensitive.
Over the last one hundred years, what has been valued in leadership has constantly shifted, and many management fads have come and gone in that time. A hundred years ago, teams worked under command-and-control practitioners: leaders who proudly swore that they didn’t get ulcers; they gave them. That later shifted to various management systems. Teams have functioned under management by fear, management by objectives, and participatory management.
In the sixth century BC, the Chinese sage Lao-Tzu said, “The wise leader is like a midwife, not intervening unnecessarily, so that when the child is born, the mother can rightly say, ‘We did it ourselves!’”
Look at Yourself When People Quit
Some sources estimate that as many as sixty-five percent of people leaving companies do so because of their managers. We may say that people quit their job or their company, but the reality is that they usually quit their leaders. So what kind of leaders do employees quit? Most often they come in four types:
1. People Quit Leaders Who Devalue Them
Malcolm Gladwell, in his book Blink, writes about a relationship expert named John Gottman who was reliably able to predict the potential success of a couple’s marriage based on their interaction with one another. What was it that indicated that a marriage relationship was headed for disaster? Contempt. If one of the partners treated the other with contempt, the relationship was usually doomed to fail.
It is impossible to add value to someone we devalue! So, what is the solution? Look for people’s value and express your appreciation for them.
2. People Quit Leaders Who Are Untrustworthy
When leaders break trust with their people, it is like the breaking of a mirror. And while it may be possible to recover all of the pieces and glue them back together, the mirror will always show cracks. The greater the damage done, the more distorted the image is.
The best ways for leaders to build trust include:
- Maintain integrity
- Openly communicate vision and values
- Show respect for fellow employees as equal partners
- Focus on shared goals more than personal agendas
- Do the right thing regardless of personal risk
3. People Quit Leaders Who Are Incompetent
The Law of Respect in The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership states, “People naturally follow leaders stronger than themselves.” People whose leadership ability is a 7 (on a scale of 1 to 10) won’t follow a leader who is a 4. Instead, they quit and find someone else—somewhere else—to lead them.
4. People Quit Leaders Who Are Insecure
Exceptional leaders do two things: they develop other leaders, and they work themselves out of a job. Insecure leaders never do that. Instead, they try to make themselves indispensable.
Recipe for Retention
1. I take responsibility for my relationships with others.
2. When people leave me, I do an exit interview.
3. I put a high value on those who work with me.
4. I put credibility at the top of my leadership list.
5. I recognize that my positive emotional health creates a secure environment for people.
6. I will have a teachable spirit and nurture my passion for personal growth.
Listen More Than You Talk
Steven B. Sample, in his book The Contrarian’s Guide to Leadership, writes, “The average person suffers from three delusions: (1) that he is a good driver, (2) that he has a good sense of humor, and (3) that he is a good listener.”
A study that stated that we hear half of what is being said, listen to half of what we hear, understand half of that, believe half of that, and remember only half of that. If you translate those assumptions into an eight-hour workday, here is what it would mean: You spend half your day—about four hours—in listening activities. You hear about two hours’ worth of what is said. You actually listen to an hour of it. You understand only thirty minutes of that hour. You believe only fifteen minutes’ worth. And you remember less than eight minutes of all that is said. That’s a pretty poor average track record. And it shows that we all need to work much harder at actively listening!
The impact of good listening related to leadership:
1. Understanding People Precedes Leading Them
In Maxwell’s book The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, he writes about the Law of Connection, which states, “Leaders touch a heart before they ask for a hand.”
2. Listening Is the Best Way to Learn
3. Listening Can Keep Problems from Escalating
A Cherokee proverb says, “Listen to the whispers and you won’t have to hear the screams.” Good leaders are attentive to small issues.
To be an effective leader, you need to let others tell you what you need to hear, not necessarily what you want to hear.
Gordon Bethune, former CEO of Continental Airlines, took this idea a step further when he advised, “Make sure you only hire people who will be willing to kick the door open if you lose direction and close it. You may be able to ignore somebody’s opinion if you don’t like it, but if the person has the data to back it up, your intellect should be able to overwhelm your vanity.”
The higher people go in leadership, the more authority they wield, and the less they are forced to listen to others. However, their need to listen becomes greater than ever!
4. Listening Establishes Trust
David Burns, a medical doctor and adjunct clinical professor emeritus in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Stanford University School of Medicine, points out, “The biggest mistake you can make in trying to talk convincingly is to put your highest priority on expressing your ideas and feelings. What most people really want is to be listened to, respected, and understood. The moment people see that they are being understood, they become more motivated to understand your point of view.” Author and speaker Brian Tracy says, “Listening builds trust, the foundation of all lasting relationships.”
5. Listening Can Improve the Organization
Nicolo Machiavelli, author of The Prince, wrote, “Minds are of three kinds. One is capable of thinking for itself; another is able to understand the thinking of others; and a third can neither think for itself nor understand the thinking of others. The first is of the highest excellence, the second is excellent, and the third is worthless.” To be a good leader, you must be able not only to think for yourself but also understand and learn from the thinking of others.
Handle Criticism with Grace
Leadership means going first, standing out, taking risks, trying to take ground. Others notice you, and not everyone will agree with how you lead.
When you’re getting discouraged as a leader, think of Moses. He led a million complaining people for forty years and never arrived where he was supposed to go.
Some days as a leader, you can probably sympathize with Moses. If he had it to do all over again, would he have made this note to self, “Next time, don’t tell Pharaoh to let all my people go.”
The following four-step process has helped Maxwell deal with criticism:
1. Know Yourself—This Is a Reality Issue
When a leader is being criticized, it’s often really the leadership position that prompts the negative remarks, not the individual leader.
As Founding Father Benjamin Franklin observed, “There are three things extremely hard: steel, a diamond, and to know one’s self.” However, the effort is worth the reward.
2. Change Yourself—This Is a Responsibility Issue
Author Aldous Huxley remarked, “You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you mad.”
Constructive criticism is always easier to accept. But even destructive criticism needs to be mined for truth.
Management expert Ken Blanchard is right when he says when something goes wrong, some leaders are like seagulls: “Seagull managers fly in, make a lot of noise, dump on everyone, and then fly out.”
Maxwell explains that whenever he is criticized, he tries to maintain the right attitude by:
- Not being defensive
- Looking for the grain of truth
- Making the necessary changes, and
- Taking the high road.
3. Accept Yourself—This Is a Maturity Issue
Jonas Salk, developer of the Salk polio vaccine, had many critics in spite of his incredible contribution to medicine. Of criticism, he observed, “First people will tell you that you are wrong. Then they will tell you that you are right, but what you’re doing really isn’t important. Finally, they will admit that you are right and that what you are doing is very important; but after all, they knew it all the time.”
Professor and author Leo Buscaglia counseled, “The easiest thing to be in the world is you. The most difficult thing to be is what other people want you to be.
As psychologist Carl Rogers remarked, “The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.”
And as executive coach and consultant Judith Bardwick says, “Real confidence comes from knowing and accepting yourself—your strengths and limitations—in contrast to depending on affirmation from others.”
4. Forget Yourself—This Is a Security Issue
Live out a sentiment expressed by Pakenham Beatty, who advised, “By your own soul learn to live. And if men thwart you, take no heed. If men hate you, have no care: Sing your song, dream your dream, hope your hope and pray your prayer.”
A Chinese proverb says, “Blessed are those who can laugh at themselves. They shall never cease to be entertained.”
Admit Your Mistakes and Learn from Them
After getting blindsided for the fourth or fifth time, Maxwell started asking experienced leaders for help. One of those leaders told him something that changed his leadership. He said, “John, the biggest mistake you can make is to not ask what mistakes you are making.”
If you want to learn to fail successfully and handle the mistakes you do make with maximum profit, then you need to do the following five things:
1. Admit Your Mistakes Quickly
You assume that your people don’t know your weaknesses or that they don’t see your mistakes. When you admit your mistakes, it is not a surprise to them; it is a reassurance. They’ll be able to look at each other and say, ‘Whew! He knows. Now we don’t have to keep pretending!’”
Former U.S. Navy captain Michael Abrashoff writes in his book It’s Your Ship, “Whenever I could not get the results I wanted, I swallowed my temper and turned inward to see if I was part of the problem. I asked myself three questions: Did I clearly articulate the goals? Did I give people enough time and resources to accomplish the task? Did I give them enough training? I discovered that 90 percent of the time, I was at least as much a part of the problem as my people were.”
2. Accept Mistakes as the Price of Progress
Pro Football Hall of Fame quarterback Joe Montana remarked, “As if screwing up on the field in front of millions of TV viewers wasn’t enough, the Monday after every game I got to relive my mistakes—over and over again, in slow motion and with commentary from the coaches! Even when we won, we always took time to review our mistakes. When you’re forced to confront your mistakes that often, you learn not to take your failures so personally. I learned to fail fast, learn from my mistakes and move on. Why beat yourself up about it? Just do better next time.”
3. Insist on Learning from Your Mistakes
Author and leadership expert Tom Peters writes, “From the smallest branch to the corporate level, there is nothing more useless than the person who says at the end of the day, as their own report card, ‘Well, I made it through the end of the day without screwing up.’”
As author William Saroyan observed, “Good people are good because they have come to wisdom through failure. We get very little wisdom from success.”
4. Ask Yourself and Others, “What Are We Missing?”
Elizabeth Elliot, author of All That Was Ever Ours, points out, “‘All generalizations are false including this one,’ yet we keep making them. We create images—graven ones that can’t be changed; we dismiss or accept people, products, programs and propaganda according to the labels they come under; we know a little about something, and we treat it like we know everything.”
The value of asking, “What are we missing?” is that it causes everyone to stop and think.
5. Give the People Around You Permission to Push Back
English philosopher-statesman Sir Francis Bacon observed, “If a person will begin with certainties, he will end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he will end in certainties.”
Stop Micromanaging People and Start Managing Your Priorities
If you want to be a better leader, you need to learn what needs your attention and what doesn’t.
General George S. Patton: “Don’t tell people how to do things; tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.”
Ask three questions:
- What gives me the greatest return?
- What is most rewarding?
- What is required of me?
A study of thirty-nine midsized companies found that the characteristic that differentiated the successful companies from the unsuccessful was simplicity. The companies that sold few products, to fewer customers, and who worked with fewer suppliers than other companies in the same industry, were more profitable. Simple, focused operations were more profitable. As Warren Buffet observes, “The business schools reward difficult, complex behavior more than simple behavior, but simple behavior is more effective.”
Change from a doer of many things to a leader of a few things. Maxwell notes that the key to this transition were five decisions he made that helped him become more focused and productive.
1. Determine Not to Know Everything
Successful leaders don’t know everything. But they know people who do.
Remember that most tasks don’t need to be done your way. What’s important is that the work be done in a way that most benefits the organization.
2. Determine Not to Know Everything First
No leader likes to be blindsided. However, good leaders can’t afford to be caught up in every little detail of the organization.
What’s the solution? Deciding that it’s okay not to be the first to know everything.
3. Determine to Let Someone Represent You
4. Determine to Stay with Your Strengths and Not Work on Your Weaknesses
These are words from the Gallup Management Journal: effective leaders have an acute sense of their own strengths and weaknesses. They know who they are—and who they are not. They don’t try to be all things to all people.
5. Determine to Take Charge of What Takes Your Time and Attention
The final major step to managing yourself better is by taking control of my calendar.
Become the Best Learner in the Room
People don’t reach their potential by accident. The secret to success can be found in our daily agenda. If we do something intentional to grow every day, we move closer to reaching our potential. If we don’t, our potential slowly slips away over the course of our lifetime. If you want to be a self-aware leader, you’ve got to be an intentional learner.
HOW WILL YOU GROW?
1. Invest in Yourself First
As leaders, our limitations put lids on the people we lead. As long as people are following you, they will be able to travel only as far as you do.
President Harry S. Truman said, “You cannot lead others until you first lead yourself.”
2. Be a Continual Learner
Rick Warren, author of The Purpose Driven Life, says, “The moment you stop learning is the moment you stop leading.”
In Winning with People, Maxwell describes the Learning Principle, which says, “Every Person We Meet Has Potential to Teach Us Something.” Maintaining an attitude of teachability is essential for being a continual learner. Contrary to popular belief, the greatest obstacle to discovery isn’t ignorance or lack of intelligence. It’s the illusion of knowledge. One of the great dangers of life is believing that you have arrived.
People fall into one of several categories. They live in one of three zones:
- The Challenge Zone: “I attempt to do what I haven’t done before.”
- The Comfort Zone: “I do what I already know I can do.”
- The Coasting Zone: “I don’t even do what I’ve done before.”
As Phillips Brooks asserted, “Sad is the day for any man when he becomes absolutely satisfied with the life he is living, the thoughts that he is thinking and the deeds that he is doing; when there ceases to be forever beating at the doors of his soul a desire to do something larger which he seeks and knows he was meant and intended to do.”
3. Create a Growth Environment for the People You Lead
Walt Disney remarked, “I am a part of all that I have met.” The secret to your growth can be found in the people who surround you.
It’s said that whenever the great poet Emerson saw the great essayist Thoreau they would ask each other: “What has become clearer to you since last we met?” Each wanted to know what the other was learning. Great people desire to bring out the greatness in others.
It’s said that the Tatar tribes of central Asia used to have a curse that they would use on their enemies. They didn’t tell them to get lost or to drop dead. Instead they would say, “May you stay in one place forever.” What a horrible thought!
Judge Your Leadership by the Success of Your Team
Lee Roberson was a speaker, who made a statement that inspired Maxwell and changed his life. Roberson said, “Everything rises and falls on leadership.” By that he meant that leaders have the power to make things better or worse for the people who follow them.
In the 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, the Law of the Lid states, “Leadership ability determines a person’s level of effectiveness.”
As leadership expert Max De Pree says, “The signs of outstanding leadership appear primarily among the followers.”
Earl Weaver, the former manager of the Baltimore Orioles, was known for continually baiting and arguing with umpires. One of the standard questions he asked of umpires in the first few innings of a game was, “Is it going to get any better, or is this as good as it’s going to get?”
If you want to judge how you’re doing as a leader, do so by asking the following four questions:
Question #1: Are the people on my team following me?
Clarence Francis, who led the General Foods corporation in the 1930s and 1940s, asserted, “You can buy a man’s time; you can buy his physical presence at a given place; you can even buy a measured number of his skilled muscular motions per hour. But you cannot buy enthusiasm . . . you cannot buy loyalty . . . you cannot buy the devotion of hearts, minds or souls. You must earn these.” As a leader, you should never expect loyalty from others before you have built a relationship and earned trust.
Question #2: Are my team members changing?
President Harry S. Truman commented, “Men make history and not the other way around. In periods where there is no leadership society stands still. Progress occurs when courageous, skillful leaders seize the opportunity to change things for the better.”
Effective leaders are agents of change. They help to create a conducive environment for people to choose to do things differently or go in a new direction.
Question #3: Are my team members growing?
The responsibility for developing people falls on the leader.
Question #4: Are the members of my team succeeding?
Basketball coach Pat Riley, who has led two different teams to NBA championships, comments, “I think the ways a leader can measure whether or not he or she is doing a good job is 1) through wins or losses, 2) through the bottom line, 3) through the subjective and objective visual analysis of how individuals are improving and growing. If individuals are getting better results, I think the whole product is improving.”
Leadership is meant to lift up others. Peter Drucker observed, “Leadership is the lifting of a man’s vision to higher sights, the raising of a man’s performance to a higher standard, the building of a man’s personality beyond its normal limitations.”
Take the Longer Road that Leads to Higher Leadership
In Leading Without Power, Max De Pree writes, “By avoiding risk, we really risk what is most important in life—reaching toward growth, our potential, and a true contribution to a common goal.”
1. Choose Accomplishment Over Affirmation
2. Choose Significance Over Security
Staying where you are may give you security, but if what you’re doing doesn’t make a difference in the world and add value to people, it will never satisfy you. When you do work that really matters to you, it elevates you.
3. Choose Future Potential Over Financial Gain
4. Choose Personal Growth Over Immediate Gratification
5. Choose Focus Over Further Exploration
If you study the lives of great men and women, you will find that they were very single-minded. What one, two, or three things can you do better than anything else? Find them, and once you do, stick with them.
6. Choose Quality of Life Over Quantity of Life
7. Choose Excellent Over Acceptable
Leaders cannot rise on the wings of mediocrity. If something is worth doing, give it your best—or don’t do it at all.
8. Choose Multiplication Over Addition
In The 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork, Maxwell notes that one is too small a number to achieve greatness. However, there is another jump that is more difficult and has even greater significance—changing from adder to multiplier. Leaders who gather followers add to what they can accomplish. Leaders who develop leaders multiply their ability.
9. Choose a Second Half Over Another First Half
During the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln was asked by the army to raise an additional 500,000 recruits to fight. It was an action that was sure to be unpopular with the public. Lincoln’s political advisors strongly recommended that he turn it down since they thought honoring the request would prevent his reelection. But Lincoln’s decision was firm. “It is not necessary for me to be reelected,” he said, “but it is necessary for the soldiers at the front to be reenforced by 500,000 men and I shall call for them. If I go down under the act, I will go down with my colors flying.” Lincoln is considered one of our greatest presidents because he was willing to make hard choices for the sake of the people he led and served.
Credit Others for Your Success
If you want to be a successful leader, you will need the support of many people. And if you are wise, you will appreciate and acknowledge them, crediting them for your success.
Maxwell describes what’s interesting about mentors he’s had:
Some Mentors Who Never Knew Me Helped Me
They taught me through the books they’ve written or through biographies written about them.
Some Mentors Who Knew Me Never Knew They Helped Me
Some Mentors Knew Me and Knew They Helped Me
A Chinese proverb reads, “Behind an able man are always other able men [and women].” That has certainly been true in my life.
Conclusion
While self-awareness is a lifelong journey, with each step you take in knowing yourself, the better able you will be at leveraging your strengths and focusing on developing a leadership style that suits who you are. When you have the confidence to be yourself and allow your team members to be themselves, together you can become the team you were always meant to be.
May you play to your strengths and unleash your team, as you shoot for the stars!