Every month I participate in a leadership carnival with several bloggers whose work I respect. Each blogger selects one of their best blog posts over the course of the prior month and submits it for inclusion in the carnival. Below are links to the blog posts for the July leadership carnival.
Who Has Your Back?
A couple summers ago, I shot the above photograph of the William Seward statue in New York City’s Madison Square Park knowing that one day I would write about him. Seward was a onetime political rival of Abraham Lincoln’s who became a member of Lincoln’s cabinet and one of Lincoln’s best friends. Doris Kearns-Goodwin wrote about their friendship in her wonderful book Team of Rivals. Frequently, Lincoln went to Steward’s residence in Washington D.C. where the two men talked for hours. Seward’s friendship was a lifeline for Lincoln during his struggles with depression, challenging periods he faced during the Civil War, his wife’s mental illness and the grief he felt following the death of his son.
I’m dedicating this post to one of my best friends, Jason Pankau. Here is a picture of us when we spoke recently at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas (Jason is on the right side of the picture). We are standing in front of the Mission Control center for the International Space Station.
The Need to Respect Legitimate Authority and One’s Colleagues
With the recent firing of General McChrystal as commander of American forces in Afghanistan over his insubordination, I thought it would be an ideal time to reproduce here what I wrote in Fired Up or Burned Out about one of the greatest military leaders in history, America’s Army Chief of Staff, General George C. Marshall.
Marshall created a culture that stands in stark contrast to the culture created by General McChrystal as reported in a Rolling Stone magazine article entitled “The Runaway General.” Defenders of McChrystal argue he was speaking truth to power. General Marshall was known for speaking truth to power but, unlike McChrystal, he recognized the need to respect legitimate authority and to always be respectful in dealing with the people he interacted with whether they were fellow soldiers, diplomats or representatives of foreign governments.
Because Marshall possessed humility of character, he knew that he was not always right and had to defer to the decisions of his superior in the chain-of-command then put extra effort into executing such decisions. As a result, Marshall had the complete confidence of the leaders he reported to such as General John “Blackjack” Pershing and President Franklin Deleno Roosevelt.
Marshall should be one of the role models all leaders strive to emulate. The title of the chapter I wrote about General Marshall was “Soldier of Peace.” You can read it below.
Obama’s Good Call: Replacing Disrespectful Leader with One Known for Competence and Character
We teach leaders to hold “Knowledge Flow Sessions” to hear the opinions and ideas of others; doing so will help leaders make optimal decisions. We also teach leaders that disrespectful behavior is intolerable because it reduces “Human Value” in a culture, and leaders and/or individual contributors who exhibit disrespectful behavior need to be removed from the organization if they fail to change.
President Obama’s recent action to replace General Stanley McChrystal is an excellent example. Here is an article about President Obama’s decision-making process and here is the Rolling Stone magazine article entitled “The Runaway General” that brings General McChrystal’s character into question. Replacing McChrystal with General David Patraeus was also wise. Whereas McChrystal’s leadership style brought compliance out of fear, General Patraeus by all accounts appears to have the competence and character necessary to inspire the best efforts and aligned behavior of the soldiers he now leads.
If you are a leader or aspire to be one, ask yourself if you have developed the competence and character necessary to inspire others to follow you? In terms of character, you should reflect on whether or not your behavior reflects the following character strengths:
- Persistence
- Perspective/Wisdom
- Purpose
- Work Ethic
- Hope/Optimism
- Citizenship
- Love of Learning
- Bravery/Courage
- Integrity
- Prudence
- Curiosity
- Open Mindedness
- Kindness
- Love of People
- Fairness
- Self-Control
- Forgiveness/Mercy
- Gratitude
- Humor
- Humility/Modesty
- Appreciation of Beauty and Excellence.
Which of these character strengths are most important to your success? Which character strengths need more focus? Now take action by finding a mentor or coach you respect and who will help you develop these character strengths.
For more on Knowledge Flow and Human Value see articles we published entitled “Encouraging Knowledge Flow” and “Strengthening Human Value in Organizational Cultures.”
What U2 and the US Navy Have in Common: Connecting with Core Employees
Has Jim Goodnight Cracked the Code of Corporate Culture?
Today, The Economic Times in India published an article I wrote about Jim Goodnight and SAS Institute. The article is based on an interview I conducted with Goodnight at Giant Impact’s Leadercast conference in Atlanta. You can read my article at The Economic Times‘ website or below.
Creative Conversations: Boosting Creativity in Meetings
How do you boost creativity in meetings? The key here is to tap the “corporate mind.”
The root work of “corporation” is the Latin word “corpus.” It means “body.” The definition of “corporation” is “a body of people acting as a single entity and authorized as such under the law.” To maximize creativity requires getting a group of people together who in a sense represent the corporate body then helping them feel safe so that they will share their ideas and opinions.
Because individuals have diverse thinking styles, experiences and temperaments, they will naturally have different perspectives and come up with different ideas that contribute to constructing a creative new solution, product, process or new business opportunity. As such, it is ideal to have a group that is large enough to generate diverse ideas but not so large that it becomes unwieldy. Eight to ten individuals should be sufficient for most issues. With issues that are more complex, and/or require broader support and implementation, you may want to have broad participation (an issue I will write about in a later post).
Here are few ways to structure a meeting and create a safe environment so that creativity will be maximized:
June Leadership Carnival
This month’s Leadership Carnival is hosted by Chris Young at MaximizingPossibility.com. It includes favorite blog posts from leadership bloggers. It’s a terrific group of leadership thinkers and I encourage you to check it out. Below is Chris’ post on the June Leadership Carnival.
The Role of Business in the Pursuit of Happiness
Delivering Happiness is the rare book that gives us an inside look at one individual’s journey to find happiness and as a leader in business. Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos, has written a thoughtful account of what he has learned from experiences in life, in business and from his studies of the fast growing field of positive psychology.
I highly recommend this book to leaders and others who want to see what an engaging work environment — or “Connection Culture” as I’ve described it in my writings — looks like. Not only will you learn about Hsieh’s thinking, you’ll see how he puts ideas into action.
John Wooden and the Power of Virtue in Leadership
Many thanks to Michael Hyatt for featuring my guest post entitled “John Wooden and the Power of Virtue in Leadership” on his blog. Michael’s blog was recently recognized and the #1 leadership blog. Not bad considering his day job is CEO of America’s 7th largest trade book publishing company, Thomas Nelson.