Ten Ways to Grow your Followers into Leaders
The Scenario: Frank and his new boss Phil are discussing an upcoming major project that Ann, the CEO, has tagged Phil to own. “Frank, we need to talk about Apollo. Ann is very focused on its delivery and has specifically asked me to be the project sponsor. “OK,” Frank said confidently, expecting Phil to empower him to lead Apollo. “I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and I’m going to ask Beth to lead Apollo.” Frank’s heart sank. “Beth?” “That’s right,” Phil said. “I know that you’ve been wanting to take on something big like this, but I just don’t think you’re ready for Apollo.” “What do you mean?” Frank asked. Phil leaned forward. “Frank, I’ve got no doubt that you’d burn the midnight oil to deliver Apollo. The truth is that I just don’t think your team is ready for it.” “My team? How so?” “Apollo is huge and it’s going to require a strong team to get it done. Beth has done an outstanding job of investing in her team and growing them to be able to take on challenges like Apollo.” Frank tried to appeal. “But you know I’d put everything I’ve got into delivering Apollo.” “Frank, that’s exactly the point. I believe you’d put your all into it. It’s not about just you, it’s about the team you’ve been entrusted to grow. They’re Just not ready for Apollo. There will be other big projects in the future; let’s work to help you get your team ready for them.” The Message: Perhaps you know a Frank (or maybe are one yourself); a leader who will work himself to the bone to get something done but fails to grow and leverage a team of followers to help deliver results. Common excuses like, “I’m the only one who can do it,” “My team doesn’t have the experience,” or “It’s quicker if I just do it myself,” may be true in the moment, but they do nothing to build and leverage the skills that the leader’s team can bring to the table. This is a primal failure of what I call followership stewardship; the cultivation of followers to help them grow into leaders so you as a leader can scale into a leader of leaders. It’s every leader’s responsibility to acknowledge that a core purpose of being a leader is delivering results and growing followers. A leader who isn’t intentional about both delivering results and growing followers won’t scale into a leader of leaders. At some point the leader will not be able to deliver on bigger problems because he lacks the leverage of well-equipped followers to deploy. Sadly, this usually becomes evident when a leader fails to solve a problem that is too big for him or her to solve. Do you need to work on being a better followership steward to deliver results and grow followers? Here are ten nuggets to consider:
The Consequences: Not being an intentional followership steward can lead to the following:
The Next Steps:
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Giving Back to the Next Generation of Leaders
The Scenario: Miguel and Carol, two executives who retired from MilanCo last year, are having coffee. “Miguel, what have you been doing with your time since MilanCo?” Carol asked. “Oh, get up, watch the news, play a little golf, run some errands. How ‘bout you?” “Gosh it’s so much fun. Some travel, seeing the grandkids, and I’ve got five women execs at MilanCo that I’m mentoring.” “Really.” Miguel said. “Most certainly.” Carol took a sip of coffee. “I’ve learned so much in my career, had some successes, and certainly some failures. I didn’t want all those learning opportunities to stay only with me, so I took it upon myself to reach out to HR and volunteer my time mentoring.” “You volunteer your time?” Miguel asked. “Sure do. It’s such a wonderful feeling to hear someone say, ‘Thanks Carol, you really helped me.’ More fulfilling than a paycheck. Have you considered doing something like that?” Miguel looked down at his coffee. “Nah, my working days are over, time to let the younger ones rise up.” “That’s exactly why I’m mentoring these women, Miguel. I want the younger ones to rise up; I’m just helping them rise up faster and with a greater likelihood of success.” After a few more minutes of chatting Miguel looked at his watch. “Well, gotta run Carol; was great catching up with you.” “You too, take care Miguel. I’m meeting up with one of my mentees in a few so I’m just going to hang out here.” “OK, bye,” Miguel said as he got up and left. “Same selfish Miguel,” Carol thought as she watched Miguel leave the coffee shop. The Message: Carol’s view of Miguel’s selfishness was formed years earlier. They shared many similar leadership characteristics except for one; Carol intentionally sought to give back and grow younger leaders (who I will refer to as mentees) while Miguel did only what was required of him by his management. Half the time Miguel canceled mentee meetings last-minute because of some crisis; for those that he kept he appeared preoccupied. Word of how Miguel and Carol viewed their responsibility to scale leaders through giving back got around among the younger leaders, with many of Miguel’s mentees seeking out Carol as a mentor. While Carol wasn’t surprised with Miguel’s attitude during their coffee chat, she was disappointed that Miguel, with all his years of learning, still chose to keep things to himself versus helping others. Want to be less of a Miguel and more of a Carol? Give this baker's dozen of tips a look:
The Consequences: Hoarding all that wisdom and not giving back by growing future leaders could lead to the following:
The Next Steps:
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Genuinely and Humbly Seeking Wisdom
The Scenario:
The Message: I can freely admit that this situation happened to me. I was Frank. It was painful. It was humiliating. It was also what I needed to accept that I wasn’t “all that.” I needed to be humble enough to listen to others when they were telling me the stove was hot and if I touched it I’d get burned. That’s not to say I have always put in motion any wisdom given to me, but I can say that I now genuinely seek wisdom from those equipped to give it. There have been countless times my path was altered because of wisdom given, and I’m thankful for it. Simply put, seeking wisdom is critical to your growth as a leader and can save you a lot of heartache. Give these nine principles a look and see if any resonate with you:
The Consequences: Not genuinely seeking the wisdom of others can lead to the following consequences:
The Next Steps:
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Your Swiss Army Knife Skills
The Scenario:
The Message: Over the years, the Swiss army knife has become a figure of speech for having the right tool for the right situation. The tools, which can include a nail file, large blade, wood saw, scissors, and screwdriver, are designed to solve a range of problems. Similarly, a well-balanced professional will have the right mix of skills to fit the needs of their current (and future) jobs. Those who understand and intentionally pursue the skills needed to advance their career know exactly the tools needed in their career Swiss army knife. They understand which tools are well-defined, those that don’t exist, and those that need to be sharpened to function well. A Swiss army knife that only has a screwdriver won’t do well when a saw is needed; similarly, skills that are applicable to a specific function (like the typewriter repair skill), may not be applicable to more pressing problems (like computer repair). Your job is to know what your Swiss army knife needs to contain and how to build the skills to complete your own Swiss army knife. Give these eight tips a look to see how you can intentionally build your Swiss army knife skills:
The Consequences: By not being mindful of the skills you need in your Swiss army knife you risk the following:
The Next Steps:
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Stresspensation: Evaluating the Impact of Stress in Career Decision Making
Brad was an incredibly bright young executive with a very promising future. Ever since graduating college, he seemed to take on increased responsibilities in his company like a duck to water. He married his college sweetheart, Nancy, right after graduation and has two small children. Brad's talent didn't go unnoticed in the industry, with several competitors approaching Brad about his willingness to join another firm. He steadfastly resisted, that is until the offer of all offers came his way. ACME Corp, a larger and more prominent competitor to his current company, wined and dined Brad and ultimately offered him a VP position with a higher salary and better benefits. The offer was too good to pass up so Brad talked with Nancy about the job and they both became enamored with how this was going to advance Brad's career and what they would be able to do with the extra money. Brad joyfully accepted ACME's offer, gave his current company two weeks' notice, and started in his new VP role. Within a year of joining ACME, he noticed some unexpected side effects of his new position. He was required to be in weekly global executive virtual meetings which could happen at any time of the day or night. He was routinely working 60+ hours a week, missing dinner with Nancy and the kids. He traveled at least once a week, many times to put out fires at clients. His eating habits were horrendous and he wasn't exercising due to his schedule. He began putting on weight. Nancy was frustrated with him not being around and his kids missed their daddy. The stress was unbearable and led to Brad one day grabbing his chest and collapsing during a customer meeting. While the above story about Brad is fictional, each one of us knows of a Brad (or perhaps is Brad) who made a career choice without considering the effects of the extra stress. The American Institute of Stress (yes there is such an organization) has quantified the cost of stress to employers at $300 billion annually due to things such as absenteeism, accidents, turnover, diminished productivity, and medical costs. Add to that the personal costs of stress (i.e., poor health, weight gain/loss, sleep deprivation) and the relationship costs of stress (i.e., fractured relationships, friends or loved ones alienation, missed school plays), and you have a perfect storm of negative factors which make any kind of work-life balance virtually impossible to attain. In my 30 years of working with career professionals, stress typically takes a back seat to compensation and when considered, it is usually only a slice of the true stress level that the professional will endure. In the first ten years of my own career I saw stress as a given and gave it no consideration when evaluating career alternatives. This was a big mistake and a lesson I learned the hard way. Fortunately I learned it early in my career and was able to make some positive changes. However, some professionals never get it. To help the professional evaluate the impact of stress when deciding on a career change, I've defined a comparative increase/decrease method to evaluate the impact of stress, based on three stress types:
For each stress type, a qualitative degree of stress is defined as follows:
In evaluating the impact of stress, each of the three stress types is assigned a value for the current and new job alternatives, then a comparative increase/decrease assessment is derived for each stress type. Let's put this to an example. Lets say that a systems analyst (I'll call her Ann) is currently in a job paying $90,000/year and she's been offered a new position paying $100,000/year. On the surface, Ann likes the idea of a $10k raise and looks at the three stress types for each job, as follows: Current Position
New Position
When you look at the three stress types the following pops out about the new position: Ann is now faced with the following decision: Is the salary bump of $10k worth the incremental relationship, personal and work stress she'll endure? Depending on whatever other decision criteria Ann factors into her decision, the answer could be yes or no. Whether or not she takes the job is still her decision; what the process has done is forced her to consider the three stress types and derive data points in which she can use in her overall decision-making. There are a number of important considerations for you to digest in using this methodology:
Your Go-Dos
Remember, the real benefit in utilizing the impact of stress methodology is in the discovery process you'll go through to understand relationship, personal, and work stress drivers for different career choices. Be real with yourself as to how a career choice will affect you and those you love. |