Category Archives: Leadership

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Neutralize “Killer Stress” to Boost the Bottom Line

Who experiences greater levels of stress: management or employees? Managers seem to think they do, but hard research data makes it clear: Employees experience greater stress, and that affects the company’s bottom line.

It doesn’t have to be that way: Effective leaders can create an organizational culture that reduces “killer stress” and encourages “challenge stress,” which produces gains in productivity and performance.

Despite its reputation, all stress is not bad. What we call “challenge stress,” actually stimulates people to perform at their best.

“Killer stress,” is the kind that comes from feeling like you don’t have control over your work. Killer stress is unhealthy and in many individuals triggers fight, flight, freeze or stalking behavior — not what good leaders want to find in their organizations.

Here are three actions you can take to reduce killer stress, increase challenge stress and boost your company’s bottom line. 

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Assessing Ballmer’s Leadership

Check out technology critic David Pogue’s “How Ballmer Missed the Tidal Shifts in Tech” which appeared on the New York Times’ website on August 24.

I believe the most relevant question to ask in assessing Ballmer’s leadership and why Microsoft missed the tidal shifts in tech is: did Ballmer and his leadership team develop a culture of control, a culture of indifference or a “connection culture?” (These are the three types of psychosocial cultures in organizations.) Connection Cultures are required to maximize innovation, employee engagement and productivity, a case we made in our book Fired Up or Burned Out: How to Reignite Your Team’s Passion, Creativity and Productivity. 

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Attention is Oxygen for Relationships

#2 Be Present in Conversations

It’s been said that attention is oxygen for relationships. When interacting with people, be present in conversations. Get in the habit of staying focused on them and giving them your full attention. Be engaged and curious by asking questions and then asking follow-up questions to clarify. Listen carefully to words and observe facial expressions and body cues. Don’t check your smart phone, don’t look at your watch, don’t look around the room or let your mind wander.

Want to learn more? Watch the video above as Katharine P. Stallard shares tips for being present.

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French Hero of the American Revolution

LafayetteVersallis

Since today is Bastille Day, I’m posting the chapter from Fired Up or Burned Out entitled “French Hero of the American Revolution.”  The subject of the chapter, Lafayette, was a key figure in both the American and French revolutions, and by his action he helped create and sustain Connection Cultures where cultures of dominance or indifference formerly existed.

French Hero of the American Revolution

Visiting historical sites in the state of Virginia, you might be surprised to see recurring tributes to a Frenchman whose name and story remain unknown to most Americans today. At Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s hilltop home near Charlottesville, you’ll find a portrait and sculpted bust of the Frenchman. At Mount Vernon, George Washington’s home on the Potomac River, you’ll learn that Washington thought of him as a son, and you will find the key to the Bastille on display, sent by the Frenchman to Washington after he ordered the notorious Paris prison torn down during the French Revolution. Perhaps most surprising of all, in the Hall of Presidents beneath the rotunda of the Virginia capitol where a statue of George Washington and busts of the other seven Virginia-born presidents reside, you’ll find a bust of the Frenchman who was neither a president nor born in Virginia.

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Connection Cultures Help Students Thrive

Greenwich High School (Greenwich, CT) was recognized in a New York Times article as a school in an affluent community that’s successfully integrating students from low income families. What the article misses is that a key contributor to Greenwich High School’s success is that it its Connection Culture.

The school’s headmaster, Christopher Winters, regularly talks and writes about the importance of connecting students, teachers, administrators and parents. He walks the talk, too. Chris greets students when they arrive in the morning and he easily moves about the student center connecting with students.  He encourages camaraderie among teachers and administrators and encourages parental involvement.

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Your Leadership is Killing Me!

Why do people react so strongly when they don’t have a voice in decision-making? Research suggests there is a rational biological basis for this reaction.  It comes down to this: feeling that we have little or no control is detrimental to our health.

The famous Whitehall studies in the U.K. established that there was an inverse relationship between level of hierarchy, power, control, status and cardiorespiratory disease/mortality rates in members of the British Civil Service.  More recently, a group of researchers found that participants in a Harvard Business School program for leaders had lower stress (as measured by cortisol levels and self-reported anxiety levels) versus people in the local community who didn’t manage others.  The researchers also found that leaders with more powerful positions had even lower cortisol and self-reported anxiety.  Here is a link to the published research and to a New York Times article about it entitled “It’s Easy Being King.” 

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Leader, Beware of Failing to Give People a Voice

John Sexton, the president of New York University, is been aggressively expanding NYU at home and abroad.  Now the faculty of NYU’s largest school, Arts and Sciences, have scheduled a no-confidence vote on Sexton.  An article in yesterday’s New York Times entitled “A Test of Leadership at NYU,” described the no-confidence vote as coming about because dissident faculty felt Sexton was acting like a maverick CEO.  How did this happen?  It appears that Sexton’s mistake was failing to give faculty a voice in major decision-making and failing to address their legitimate concerns such as increased teaching loads that require travel abroad and the impact of the expansion on student-teacher ratios. “Voice” is one of the three elements in a Connection Culture (the others are Vision and Value).  When a leader fails to give people a voice in decisions that affect them, he or she runs the risk that some people will organize and seek to have the leader replaced.  This article describes that scenario.  Note in the article that one astute observer comments: “had more faculty been involved in the process…few if any professors [would be actively opposing Sexton].”

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Wisdom in Seeking and Considering Opinions of Others

Seeking and considering the opinions and ideas of others reflects the character strengths of wisdom and humility. Today’s world is complex and rapidly changing so that we need to hear the perspectives of people who have had different experiences and who possess different thinking styles.  Doing so helps improve the likelihood we will make optimal decisions. 

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In a Crisis, Culture Matters: the Navy on 9/11

Within hours after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, U.S. Navy aircraft carriers, destroyers and cruisers were in place to protect America’s shores. Naval leaders anticipated what had to be done and took action before they received orders. At the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., planning for America’s response began while fires from the attack still smoldered nearby.

The rapid response of the U.S. Navy on September 11 was in part due to the culture led by Admiral Vern Clark who served as the U.S. Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) from 2000 until his retirement in 2005.  The CNO is the principal naval adviser to the President and the Secretary of Defense on the conduct of war.  The Navy achieved some impressive gains during Clark’s tenure as CNO and the naval leaders I’ve met or spoken with have praised his leadership and positive impact.  By the time Clark retired as the second longest serving CNO in U.S. Navy history, he had led changes that would have a positive effect on the U.S. Navy for years to come.  Learn about Admiral Clark’s leadership of the U.S. Navy in an article I wrote for Leadership Excellence that you can read at this link. 

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NYTimes: Why Coach K “Coaches Like a Girl”

Recently I was delighted to read a great USA Today article about Coach K of Duke leading the U.S. Men’s Basketball Team in the Olympics.  Coach K has won four NCAA college basketball titles as the head coach of Duke, a gold medal as an assistant coach of the 1992 Dream Team in Barcelona and a gold medal as head coach of the U.S. mens team in the 1998 olympics in Beijing.  He’s a servant leader who creates the “Connection Culture” where his players feel connected to him and to one another, a phenomenon we wrote about in Fired Up or Burned Out.  Coach K cares about task excellence and relationship excellence.  He cares about people and results.

To learn more about Coach K’s leadership style and the surprising story of how he evolved as a leader check out this fascinating New York Times Magazine  article entitled “Follow Me.”   In it you’ll learn why this extraordinary leader, a guy’s guy from an all boys Catholic high school, West Point and the U.S. Army, coaches, as the author Mike Sokolove says, “like a girl.”