The Greatest Leadership Role Model for All Time

To whom do you look to as your leadership role model? Perhaps you’ve studied the leadership styles of Jack Welch, former chairman of GE or Doug Daft, chairman at Coca Cola, or Leo Mullins at Delta or Bob Nardelli at Home Depot. If you have, you are not alone.

Dan Cathy, President and COO of Chick-fil-A says that in his efforts to stay relevant in a rapidly changing world, he like many of us, spent a great deal of time studying these corporate success stories. Cathy says, “All of us need to stay relevant to the world in which we live. When the rate of external change exceeds the rate of internal change, disaster is imminent and we lose a sense of relevance with the organization that we are in.”

On April 29, 2002, Cathy found a new perspective on leadership and relevance in his Christian faith as a result of a brush fire accident in which he suffered first- and second-degree burns. After his son Ross poured five gallons of gasoline onto a brush pile, Cathy struck a match. The vapors ignited. Seconds after being engulfed in a wall of flame, Dan Cathy was on the ground with his face in the grass and a searing pain spreading through his arms.

Writing about the accident, he said, “I lit that pile of brush with fresh gasoline when the fumes were all around me. It could have been not only permanently tragic for me, but also for my son, Ross. But God used this experience to take me into waters; just deep enough to receive a rich blessing from the experience, but not so deep that I was of no use to others.''

While in the hospital, as a nice gesture someone sent Cathy an audio copy of the Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. His wife brought in a boom box and for the next ten days he listened about what the Bible had to say about the life of Jesus. As a result, he experienced a deep conviction over the way he spent his time trying to stay “relevant” by studying the corporate giants instead of listening to what Jesus has to say. He asked himself, “Is He really my leadership model and does He stand up to the others that are out there?”

Ken Blanchard is recognized as a premier thinker and writer on leadership, he has authored or co-authored more than thirty five books including The One Minute Manager, Raving Fans and Gung Ho! Ken lifts Jesus up as the greatest leadership role model and co-founded Lead Like Jesus in 1999 whose mission is “to glorify God by inspiring and equipping people to lead like Jesus.”

Blanchard says, “I realized that Christians have more in Jesus than just a great spiritual leader: we have a practical and effective leadership model for all organizations, for all people, for all situations. The more I read the Bible, the more I realized that Jesus did everything I ever taught or wrote about over the years and He did it perfectly. He is simply the greatest leadership model for all time.”

Setting the spiritual component aside, what kind of leadership role model is Jesus?

As a leader, Jesus set clear goals and motivated His followers to the degree that they left their homes, families and jobs to walk with Him. He altered His leadership style as necessary to meet the needs of those He influenced (situational leadership). He always told the truth, stood up for what He believed, and demonstrated and taught the principles of servant leadership. He always has the best interest of His followers in mind and equips them for success. He touched the lives of many and left us a legacy that continues to have a positive impact on all those who believe in Him. Jesus truly is the greatest leadership role model for all time.

Lead Like Jesus Encounter Workshop

The Leadership Encounter Workshop

"But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant. And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.' --Matthew 23:11 (KJV)

Overview:

A Leadership Encounter is a one-day workshop in a collegial environment with a trained facilitator and others seeking to Lead Like Jesus. Packed with action-oriented learning and reflection, the workshop closely examines Jesus as a leader and a model while equipping participants to lead as He led.

Whether you seek a relevant and effective model for day-to-day leadership or want to learn more about leadership skills, you will be challenged like never before to look at Jesus in a new and life changing way. Throughout the day-long event, you will not only discover your own personal barriers to effective leadership, but you will also learn about the power of the heart, head, hands, and habits of Servant Leadership.

Participant Benefits:

• A new appreciation for Jesus as a viable role model for leadership in the 21st century
• Insight into the common struggles and strategies of leaders trying to walk their faith at home, work, church, and in their community
• Direction on the path of discovering or refining your leadership point of view
• Meaningful experience with five of the ways that Jesus stayed focused and on purpose with His leadership assignment from the Father
• A feeling of support from a faith-based community
• A recommitment to a better way to lead – with Jesus as your model and the Holy Spirit as your teacher
• Tools to assess your current leadership motivations and behaviors and a method for re-aligning them daily in the way that Jesus would want

Workshop Developers:

Ken Blanchard, co-author of The One Minute Manager, is the co-founder of Lead Like Jesus and is also the Chief Spiritual Officer of The Ken Blanchard Companies, a full-service global management training and consultant company. Ken and his longtime friend, Phil Hodges, co-founded Lead Like Jesus “to inspire and equip people to Lead Like Jesus.” Phil has many years of experience in corporate America but his current passion is inspiring and equipping others to Lead Like Jesus. Phil is also the Chief Content Officer for Lead Like Jesus

To discuss further or plan an encounter of your own, please contact me at vfont@nc.rr.com or 919.604.5828.

Taking AIM at Organizational Change Management – Part 2: Cultural Fit

To fully realize a change management strategy, make sure the change fits your culture. You’ll also need detailed reinforcement and communication plans. Cultural fit is as individual as companies themselves. Every organization has its own variety of cultures and sub-cultures. Most businesses establish a target company-wide culture through their mission statement, vision, values and leader behaviors. Senior management demonstrates the cultural norms as they interpret these tenets. How these creeds flow down and become the organization’s cultural norms may differ from group to group within a company just as strategic goals start at the top and evolve to fit each group’s contribution to the overall strategy. There is no one-size fits all approach to cultural fit. There are tactics however that can guide your moves.

First, define the cultural dimensions of each group impacted by your change. For the SDLC, this is your entire IT organization, senior management and your business users and customers. The SDLC represents a broad sweeping change. It is important to first focus on the “low hanging fruit.” Exploit the aspects of the change that produce the highest yield and lowest risk. Take advantage of any opportunity to lead with results rather than rhetoric. Altogether avoid or reduce the initiatives that are more about image and not reality.

Each of your target groups need to have sponsors who are capable of identifying the cultural characteristics that support the change as well as the values, behaviors and “unwritten rules” that resist the change. Positively reinforce and emphasize the behaviors that support the change. Provide high visibility rewards and recognition for attaining the desired state.

Regardless of how effective your positive reinforcement is, you will face cultural resistance. Someone once asked me, “Why is it necessary to have a company-wide SDLC? We all do things now that are effective for us, why change?” This individual was a member of one of the working teams building and vetting the SDLC processes. His question caught me off guard. He didn’t understand the big picture even though he was serving as a change agent and involved with the very construction of the SDLC. As I thought things through, I realized this question is a direct result of my failure to effectively communicate the vision to the change agents.

For each major source of cultural resistance, you need to discover the answers to these three questions:

1. What are the values, behaviors and “unwritten rules” that are motivating the resistance?
2. What is it about the culture that reinforces the “unwritten rules?”
3. What is it about our system that rewards the “bad” behaviors?

Armed with this intelligence, you can then work to define and implement specific changes that reduce or eliminate the cultural dimensions that reinforce change adversity and execute those that reward the new behaviors. Develop a positive reinforcement plan that is stronger than the motivation to keep the status quo. It requires significantly more sponsorship attention, discipline and stamina to inspire a group to move from “discomfort and resistance” to “opportunity and need.” The sponsors must “walk the talk” and visibly display the new behaviors even if they are individually painful.

Consider offering financial rewards as part of your positive reinforcement plan such as a salary increase, bonus, prize or perk for demonstrating the new behaviors. Apply the positive rewards immediately after observing the performance of the new behaviors. Celebrate early successes and wins. Do whatever you can to make it more difficult to continue to operate in the old state.

Build an effective communication plan that explains the objectives and rationale, the time frame and the cost of not changing. Implement the communication plan early and communicate often. Send out frequent progress updates. Focus the organization’s attention forward and generate an excitement about the new changes to the SDLC. Commission surveys or walk around the floor to learn if people understand the message. Are they getting it? Keep your communications credible, comprehensive and clear.

We’ve only touched upon a few aspects of organizational change management. There are a lot of moving parts to any organizational change, but especially so when rolling out a SDLC. An organizational change management strategy is much broader than the few examples I’ve presented here, but for a SDLC implementation, it is absolutely essential.

Taking AIM at Organizational Change Management – Part 1

I am a student of the AIM Methodology of organizational change management. AIM is an acronym for the Accelerated Implementation Methodology, a proprietary approach developed and perfected by Implementation Management Associates, Inc. (http://www.imaworldwide.com). Pfizer included me in a pilot AIM training program after their Learning and Organizational Development group decided to deploy the methodology to the Research and Development Division. I became a vocal advocate and champion of the process, even sending one of my direct reports to school to become an instructor

Don’t confuse this AIM with the other popular AIM, Oracle’s Application Implementation Methodology. Oracle’s AIM is essentially a legacy SDLC for the Oracle applications platform. The two AIMs couldn’t be more different. Also, don’t confuse organizational change management with project change management. Change management in a project context is very different from organizational change management. Project change management is a process by which changes to projects are formally introduced, vetted, approved, tabled or denied. An organizational change management method is not typically part of a SDLC or project management method although elements of organizational change management, such as communications plans, may be.

Organizational change management is about people’s behavior. Organizations are comprised of people and their behaviors formulate the accomplishments of the organization. Organizational change management explores behaviors to achieve greater results in performance which in turn drive bottom line value.

Just as IT system development methods share commonalities, so do change management methods. Regardless of the method you choose to follow, the core fundamentals of organizational change management are the same and must be observed if you want to achieve success.

Change management starts at the very top of the organizational structure. For IT, this starts with the CIO or CTO as he or she defines the strategic vision and goals. The CIO’s goals are aligned with the overall strategic goals of the organization as determined by the Board of Directors and the CEO with his/her senior staff. To successfully deploy an organizational change such as implementing a SDLC, it must be a strategic goal of the senior most leaders. As strategic goals cascade throughout the organization, it creates alignment with a clear and common language and understanding for the change.

Once goals are defined and distributed, assessing the organization’s readiness for change is the next step. How do you do that? Surveys are a good method. The goal of an organizational readiness survey is to uncover the barriers that exist within your organization’s climate, both current and historical. Barriers that may have impeded the progress of previous changes must be discussed to capture lessons learned. You’ll also want to uncover implementation strengths. What has gone right in the past that we can do again?

Identifying the approach you’ll take to implementing change follows the readiness assessment. You really only have two choices here. You can force your hand and generate compliance using the hammer approach or you can choose to build commitment and buy-in by managing the transition. On the surface, you may think the hammer approach is a little heavy handed and it may not be a good fit with your personal values. There are reasons where the hammer approach is the right approach. What if the change is due to regulatory, HR or safety compliance?

The second approach, transition management, requires more time to adapt a change. The organization becomes increasingly focused and the additional time allows for course correction along the way before implementation. You’ll gain greater buy-in, produce less waste and achieve greater precision in your implementations. Transition management is particularly effective when implementing changes in customer service, quality assurance and developmental paradigms such as the SDLC.

Organizational change will not happen efficiently without the right sponsorship. We’ve already talked about strategic goals cascading from the top down. Sponsorship is making certain the right people are doing the right things at the right times to demonstrate their commitment and ownership of the change. You’ll need an Executive Sponsor who has sufficient authority to authorize the change and commit the resources to make it happen. Then you’ll need Champions who can influence the organization’s commitments levels and Change Agents who’ll plan and execute the implementation.

Tomorrow, we’ll take a look deeper look at one of the most significant key success metrics of organizational change management: cultural fit. So stay tuned for Part 2.

When Outsourcing, Multi-cultural Training Means the Difference between Success and Failure

In a May 2004 study entitled “Leading Causes of Outsourcing Failures,” the Outsourcing Center[1] surveyed 305 buyers and providers in North America, Europe, Asia and India to assess their experiences and opinions about outsourcing failures. One-third of respondents were buyers, two-thirds were providers. They concluded that 25% of the reasons for outsourced project failures are due to poor communication (16%) and cultural fit (9%). If you believed 25% of your outsourcing projects would fail because either you or your provider didn’t understand each other, even though you both speak the same language, or innocently offended each other because you didn’t understand each other’s cultural mores, you would do something about it wouldn’t you?

Multi-cultural or cross-cultural training is a key success factor when considering outsourcing. Gerard (Geert) Hendrik Hofstede is an influential Dutch sociologist whose life’s work includes the study of the interactions between national cultures and organizational cultures. Hofstede defines five dimensions of culture in his study of national work related values which are:

• Individualism vs. Collectivism: measure of how greatly members of the culture define themselves apart from their group memberships
• Long vs. Short Term Orientation: A society's “time horizon” or the importance attached to the future vs. the past and present
• Masculinity vs. Femininity: the value placed on traditionally male or female values
• Small vs. Large Power Distance (PDI Scale): A measure of how widely the less powerful members of society expect and accept that power is distributed unequally
• Weak vs. Strong Uncertainty Avoidance: A metric of how extensively members of a society are anxious about the unknown and try to cope with anxiety by minimizing uncertainty

Having an understanding of the Hofstede PDI scale provides insight into one of the foremost causes of cross-cultural communication failures—the difference between high context and low context communication. The low context communicator expects straightforward conversation. If there is a problem, s/he expects a straightforward answer with specifics. In high context countries, subordinates acknowledge the power of others based on their formal hierarchical positions. The subordinates offer their superiors great respect. Out of respect, the high context communicator doesn’t directly inform their superior of project issues due to the concern that the superior may suffer an offense. Neither person is doing anything wrong. They are merely observing the cultural norms of their respective countries.

Effective cross-cultural training solves the issues that resulted in the 2004 survey’s 25% of project failures. Preparing employees to work outside of their native country or to work with offshore outsourcers is extremely important for outsourced project success. Basic multi-cultural training includes:

• Action plan for living abroad
• Communication characteristics and role
• Doing business in the country
• Eating and drinking
• Education, studies and professional training
• Introduction to culture and history
• Laws, norms, taboos and values of the society
• Leisure activities and customs
• Social contacts, friends and acquaintances
• Relations at work and management
• Women’s life and role in society

Without understanding those cultural norms, communication breakdowns lead to project failures. One of the greatest mistakes any IT organization can make is to enter into an outsourcing agreement without first subjecting its key players to basic multi-cultural training.

 

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[1] The Outsourcing Center is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Everest Partners, L.P.; Two Galleria Tower, 13455 Noel Road, Suite 2100; Dallas, TX 75240; PH: 214-451-3000 FAX: 214-451-3001; http://www.outsourcing-center.com/

Closing Thoughts on Servant Leadership

As I close this series on Servant Leadership I am compelled to say that Servant Leadership is definitely not for everyone. First and foremost, it requires a personal relationship with God and an extraordinary love for others that extends beyond ourselves. Without the love of God and the Holy Spirit guiding us, anyone attempting to commit to Servant Leadership in their own strength and on their own terms is doomed to fail and cause frustration in their life and the lives over whom they influence. Committing to Servant Leadership requires doing things God’s way, in God’s timing, as taught in the Bible, if there is to be any hope of true success.

I believe with every fiber of my being there is a God and my life is in His hands. I encourage readers to do what I did at the age of twenty-one, invite Him into your heart to take control…then see what He does to get you through life’s challenges. I’m thankful to Him for the blessings He has bestowed upon us and the gifts and talents He has given us in order to be munificent to others. Leadership is one of these gifts and I pray this series of blog posts is profitable to you and to your career.

As a registered facilitator of the Lead Like Jesus Encounter Workshops, I am available to lead groups from your church, business or non-profit in a one-day discovery journey where you will learn from the Bible what it truly means to be a Servant Leader. If this sounds like something that is of interest to you or your organization, please feel free to contact me so we can discuss.

The 5th Habit of Servant Leaders: Maintaining Accountability Relationships

Do you remember the saying, “It’s lonely at the top?” Leadership is a lonely business. We often rely on our own perspectives of how we are doing; and when we do, it’s easy to develop blind spots and rationalize our behaviors in ways that can quickly undermine our credibility, integrity and trust with those who look to us for leadership.

I’ve written before about how surprised I was the first time I received a 360-review when I worked at Warner-Lambert. The review was a surprise because the anonymous feedback was brutally honest and pointed out that I had blind spots to certain behaviors that failed to reflect the intentions of my heart. As a result, my credibility with those I led suffered.

When faced with the honest assessment, I had a choice of either one of two paths to take: allow myself to become a victim and martyr or accept the feedback as a gift and work to improve myself. If I chose the former, I could have permitted my feelings to blossom into resentment or self-justification. This would have been my downfall and I would have failed as a manager.

Instead, I chose the latter and committed to a detailed diagnostic and developed an action plan to overcome the negative perceptions with my leadership. I asked everyone I influenced to hold me accountable and within one year my 360-feedback was a complete reversal from the year before. The negative feedback was gone. People were now saying I was the best manager they ever worked with. If it wasn’t for my truth tellers, I might never have been able to climb the corporate ladder. My career would have come to a standstill.

We all need trusted truth tellers who can help keep us on course. Having people we trust who will tell us the truth we might not always want to hear is one of the greatest resources for growth that we have. If you bring truth tellers into your inner circle and let them know you are willing to listen, they will speak honestly to you. It doesn’t mean you have to do everything they tell you, but hear them anyway. They want to be heard and know you care about what they have to say. And don’t be afraid to share your vulnerabilities with them. Being open to feedback is only one way to grow. Willingness to disclose our vulnerabilities with other people is another way to grow. We are all human. We are all vulnerable. We all fall short.

The Servant Leader challenge for today is to identify at least one person you trust and ask them to join you as a truth teller about your effectiveness and style of leadership. Truth tellers protect us from ourselves by being always ready to listen, giving advice when asked and being trusted to love us anyway, warts and all. Eventually, invite three others and form a supportive group of accountability relationships.

The funny thing is, I’m married to one of the best truth tellers anyone could hope for. I could have saved Warner-Lambert thousands of dollars in leadership training if I had only listened to my wife in the first place! Don’t overlook your spouse as one of your most trusted inner circle.

The 4th Habit of Servant Leaders: Accepting God’s Unconditional Love

For Servant Leaders, the question becomes, “Where do we place our trust and hope?” There are going to be many times during our season of leadership where our decisions will reveal the answer to this all important question. Have no doubt about it. There will be many times when we take a stand and face the fear of negative consequences or we’ll be tempted to rely on our own self-accumulated resources and efforts as our source of self-worth and security.

The world we live in fuels the fires of pride and fear. As much as we might want to believe that we can find security, safety and meaning in acquiring more and better goods and services, the absolute truth is, we can only find security, safety and meaning in a relationship with God. If we place our trust in the unconditional love and promises of God, we’ll find a never-ending supply of what we need to live and lead as Servant Leaders.

We live in a performance based society. Our performance is constantly being evaluated by those with whom we interact. At least once a year we go through a performance evaluation process. Our salary increases are called merit increases. Do we merit a raise based on our performance? Exemplary performance can lead to more money, promotions and more responsible titles.

Accepting the reality of God’s unconditional love and promises is a struggle for us. With a performance–oriented mindset, it’s hard to grasp that God’s unconditional love for us is not premised on our performance. It’s promised for our acceptance and response to it. His unconditional love and promises are very specific, meant for us personally. Surrendering our reservations to His love can be one of the hardest things we’ll ever do. Look at these following promises:

“For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” –Romans 8:38–39 (KJV)

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” –John 3:16 (KJV)

To lead as Servant Leaders we need to learn to love as Servant Leaders. As Servant Leaders, if we do not love God, we cannot love the people we lead. Nothing but the love of God will compel us to cheerfully go through the difficulties and discouragements we experience as leaders.

All individuals need to be heard; they need to be praised; they need to be encouraged; they need to be accepted. As Servant Leaders, we need to practice these expressions of love. Why? Because we express our love for God by loving those He puts in our path. Think about all of your interactions with people within the past 24 hours. If how you treated them is a reflection of your love for God, how much do you really love God?

The 3rd Habit of Servant Leaders: Study and Application of Scripture

Mark Twain once said, “Most people are bothered by those passages in Scripture that they cannot understand; but as for me, I always noticed that the passages in Scripture that trouble me the most are those that I do understand.”

2 Timothy 3:16–17 (KJV) says, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.”

Skeptics of God’s Word argue that it was written by men and is therefore fallible. It is true that God’s Word was recorded by men, but it originated with God. In fact, it is God’s personal letter to those He loves and it provides tremendous benefit for His people. It teaches us, corrects us, trains us and transforms our thinking so we can be more like Him in our leadership roles.

Four of the Ten Commandments deal with our relationship with God and six of them deal with how we interact with each other. When Jesus was asked what is the greatest commandment, He responded with “to love God with all of our being.” The fact is that God’s Word is built upon a simple foundation: love God and love other people. If you only use the Bible to study and apply the practical wisdom it contains about dealing with people and overcoming our internal challenges, it absolutely stands on its own as the greatest book ever written. The Scriptures are God’s Holy Word, delivered by holy men, to teach holy truths and to make people holy.

There are five steps required for the Servant Leader to cultivate the third habit of Knowing and Applying Scripture: Hear, Read, Study, Meditate and Memorize. As Servant Leaders, you probably know these steps already, but are you practicing them? If not, it takes time to develop them as habits. If you haven’t stored away God’s Word beforehand, it is impossible to bring its power into play when you are faced with the hard choices of the day. You can’t give what you haven’t received.

Perhaps you can remember a time when you were about to make a big mistake by giving into some temptation and God’s Word pulled you back from the precipice. Perhaps you remember a time when a burden was almost too hard to bear and you found comfort in God’s Word. Or perhaps you remember a time when you weren’t too sure of the path your life was supposed to take and things appeared to be very scary, yet you found courage and confidence in the promises of God.

The Servant Leader’s challenge of the day is to go and make new memories with God’s Word. As you prepare for the challenges ahead by studying scripture, ask yourself the following three questions to help guide your progress:

• In what area of use and application of God’s Word do I feel most confident?
• In which area do I feel the weakest?
• What will it take to increase my level of effectiveness in my weaker areas?

And Servant Leaders, keep the following in mind as you take up this new challenge: “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” - 2 Timothy 2:15 (KJV)

The 2nd Habit of Servant Leaders: Prayer

If solitude is the most difficult servant leader habit to acquire, habitual prayer falls right behind as number two. Prayer is an essential act of the will that demonstrates whether we are really serious about living and leading as servant leaders. The servant leader’s prayer life is the most instructive indicator about how and where they might take their followers. Without prayer, we’ll never be able to connect our plans and efforts with God’s plan for our lives. Seeking God’s will through prayer, waiting in faith for an answer, acting in accordance with that answer and being at peace with the outcome, all call for spiritual maturity in your leadership.

Philippians 4:6–7 (KJV) says, “Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”

The term “be careful for nothing” means not to worry about anything. The cure for worry is prayer. All too often prayer becomes an act of desperation, the option of last resort, the foxhole promise to God, when it should really be the first step for anything we do. What is it that causes you to worry? Do you ever pray about it? How often is prayer your first response to temptation or a challenge rather than your last resort? What is it that leads you to prayer? What do you most often pray for? Which of these phrases accurately reflects your attitude toward prayer: “Well, all we can do now is pray” or “The first thing we should do is pray?”

James 5:16 (KJV) says, “…The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much” and James 4:2 (KJV) says, “…ye have not, because ye ask not.”

Prayer should be our natural first response instead of our last resort. In prayer, God has given us the most powerful, most immediately available resource for responding to the moment-by-moment challenges of both good and bad events. Finally, prayer honors God. Servant Leaders are called to honor God in all that they do.

The challenge for Servant Leaders is to begin keeping a prayer journal so you can be reminded of the daily prayers God is answering in your life. Pray for everyone you know, your work, your passions and God’s guidance for your life and leadership.

The 1st Habit of Servant Leaders: Solitude

We live in a frenetic, fast-paced world. From the time we get up in the morning until the time we rest our heads upon our pillows for a well deserved sleep, we are tugged in dozens of directions, many of which threaten to drive us off course from our mission and vision. It’s often been said we live in a rat race. Comedienne Lily Tomlin once said, “The problem with a rat race is that even if you win, you’re still a rat.” The first habit of highly effective servant leaders is making time for daily solitude. This is the time we spend alone with God, feeding upon our source of spiritual nourishment and refreshment, helping us to focus on the tasks ahead and to discover His plan for our life by listening for His “still small voice.” (1 Kings 19:12)

Solitude is countercultural. Almost every waking moment is bombarded by the media, social networking, text messaging, email, cell phones, putting out the fires that arise in our lives and the interruptions from those competing for our time. This is not a new problem. Jesus suffered from the same time demands we face in life. The methods by which those demands were delivered are different, but the demands themselves are the same. He ensured solitude was a key habit in His life for a variety of reasons. As the role model for serious servant leaders, we need to take our cues from Him.

• When preparing for the tests of leadership and public ministry, Jesus spent 40 days alone in the desert (Matt. 4:1-11)
• Before choosing His twelve apostles, Jesus spent the entire night alone in the desert hills (Luke 6:12-13)
• When He received the news of the death of John the Baptist, Jesus withdrew in a boat to a lonely place (Matt. 14:13)
• After the miraculous feeding of the 5,000, Jesus went up into the hills by Himself (Matt. 14:23)

Whether He was preparing Himself for leadership, making important decisions, mourning the passing of a dearly beloved friend or dealing with the tasks of His daily walk, He found time for solitude. It kept Him in tune with His mission and vision for His life here on Earth.

What is it that keeps us from spending time alone with God? What are we afraid of? Why is it so difficult to make Him a priority in our lives? What changes do we have to make in our daily routines to make time for solitude? What activities stand between us and our alone time with God?

Here’s a challenge for you. Spend 30 minutes alone with God today. Turn off all the distractions, no electronics, cell phones, PDAs, radios, televisions, etc. Don’t even talk to anyone during the 30 minutes. Close your eyes and think about the things that excite you and concern you. Place them ceremonially at the feet of Jesus, then turn your attention to Him. Think of the attributes of God such as His Holiness, His love, His mercy, His kindness, and His great gift of salvation. Listen in your heart for His still small voice directing and guiding you. It could be the most difficult 30 minutes you’ll ever spend in your life, but it could also be the most rewarding. To develop a habit, it has to first become a discipline. To become a discipline, it has to first be accomplished as a task. Are you will to take the challenge?

The 5 Habits of Highly Successful Servant Leaders

Most everyone who has ever begun a study in leadership has probably heard of Stephen Covey’s “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” first published in 1989. Each chapter of his book is about one of the seven habits which are:

1. Be Proactive
2. Begin with the End in Mind
3. Put First Things First
4. Think Win/Win
5. Seek First to Understand, then to be Understood
6. Synergize
7. Sharpening the Saw

The first three of Covey’s habits are about self-mastery and moving from dependence to independence. The second three are about working with others or interdependence. The last habit is about self-rejuvenation. As interesting and popular as the seven habits are, they fall short in terms of guiding the habits of Servant Leaders. Servant Leaders have a higher calling and must develop vastly different habits to be successful on a daily basis. We live in a rat race and as we move through our season of leadership, we are under constant pressure and temptation to be drawn off course by the failings of our friends, our families, our enemies and ourselves.

The role model for our servant leadership, Jesus Christ, was under the same pressures as we are as He walked the Earth. Through it all, He modeled 5 key habits to help Him stay on track with His mission and vision. These habits are the primary antidote He applied to counter the opposing forces in His life:

1. Solitude
2. Prayer
3. Knowledge and Application of Scripture
4. Accepting and Responding to God’s Unconditional Love
5. Maintaining Accountability Relationships

Adopting these habits is essential for the Servant Leader. The greatest role model for Servant Leadership didn’t try to lead without them and neither should we. Each of the next five blog posts will be dedicated to one of the habits. Please look forward to them and prayerfully seek the guidance you need to adopt them.

Performance Coaching, the Work of a Servant Leader

So far we’ve taken a look at the heart and mind of a servant leader and talked about Leadership EGO. Today, we’re going to discuss the work of a Servant Leader. Are you a Self-serving Leader or a Servant Leader? One of the greatest distinctions between a self-serving leader and a servant leader is the fact that servant leaders thrive in their care for people and their desire to help them succeed in their unique purpose and calling. Self-serving leaders thrive in their care for themselves and focus on their own success, pointing failure on anyone but themselves.

As servant leaders, one of the key activities we must engage in is performance coaching. Performance coaching is the most important servant leadership element in helping others achieve their goals. As performance coaches we need to recognize where those we lead are at a task level and alter our leadership style to meet their needs to help them succeed.

If you have children, have you ever sat down with them to help them study to get an “A” on an exam? I don’t know many parents who haven’t. We pour our hearts and souls into our children to make sure they have the opportunities and successes in life that we didn’t. This is servant leadership performance coaching in action. As servant leaders we want to help those we influence achieve all “As” on their exams.

There are three parts to becoming a performance coach: performance planning, day-to-day coaching and performance evaluation. Performance planning is you setting the goals. Day-to-day coaching is observing people’s performance, praising progress and redirecting efforts when they get off track. Performance evaluation is looking back on the effort someone expended to achieve a goal. If there isn’t clear communication of what a good job looks like, either you or those you influence will become frustrated and eventually fail.

One of the greatest examples we can set as leaders is to demonstrate our commitment to the success of our leadership vision by investing our time and energy into day-to-day coaching and reinforcing our values. Yes, it is time consuming, but when you care enough for the people you influence to make a positive difference in their lives, the payback is enormous. This is the legacy of a servant leader. It’s not about what we do for ourselves. It’s all about what we do for others. How do you want your leadership to be remembered by your coworkers, at home, in your church and in your community? What is your leadership legacy?

Leadership EGO is Not What You Think

This past week’s lesson in leadership for the teen group was based on Leadership EGO from the Lead Like Jesus program by Ken Blanchard and Phil Hodges. Leadership EGO is not what you think it is. EGO is in all capital letters because it is an acronym. What the acronym means depends on what type of leader you are. Are you a self-serving leader or a servant leader? For self-serving leaders, it means Edging God Out. For servant leaders, it means Exalting God Only.

Self-serving leaders Edge God Out for the two primary causes of pride and fear. Pride is an overly high opinion of yourself. It is an exaggerated esteem of yourself which manifests as haughtiness and arrogance. This stands in stark contrast to the servant leader who manifests Romans 12:3 (KJV), “For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think;” and Philippians 2:3 (KJV), “Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.”

Fear is a God given mechanism that can either be live-giving or life-threatening. Life-giving fear leads to a worshipful attitude toward our Creator and a gratitude for what we’ve been given in life. King Solomon, the wisest man to ever live, concluded the book of Ecclesiastes with these words: “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.”

Life-threatening fear is toxic fear. As with pride, toxic fear leads to separation from God, separation from others and even separation from ourselves. Toxic fear is steeped in the fear of man. Proverbs 29:25 (KJV) says, “The fear of man bringeth a snare: But whoso putteth his trust in the Lord shall be safe.”

Self-serving leaders always separate themselves from God, other people and themselves. They always compare themselves to others on a material basis and are never happy with where they find themselves. Self-serving leaders always distort the truth into a false sense of security or fear. Separating ourselves from God and other people is self-explanatory. If you are a self-serving leader, you know this is happening in your life. Separating yourself from you takes a little explanation. We separate ourselves from self when we are too sensitive to other people’s opinions to listen to our own heart. We’re too busy fixing other people’s problems to recognize the mess in our own lives. We make too many excuses and spend too little time turning from our bad behaviors. We are too full of our own agendas to wait for God’s answer.

Servant leaders measure success in terms of how well they are following God’s plan for their life. They build community and fellowship; are content and generous with their material blessings and time; trust God and the truth of His Word; and are inspirational and committed. The good news is that if your are a self-serving leader today, you can become a servant leader of tomorrow if you commit to altering your Leadership EGO. Here’s how to go about it.

Embrace an eternal perspective of the here and now in light of the then and there. Seek to lead for a higher purpose in life. This means to seek to lead beyond success or significance. Seek to lead to obedience and surrendered service to God.  Feedback is always a gift. Conscientiously assess your level of trust and surrender to what you believe about God, His Kingdom and His claim on your life and leadership. And seek the promised guidance of life’s ultimate coach, the Holy Spirit. Remember what Jesus said in Matthew 6:33 (KJV), “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” My prayer for you today is that you develop into the leader God means you to be.

The Mind of a Servant Leader

Servant leadership begins with the motivation and intent of the heart. Motivation and intent drive a leader’s belief system and role perspective. A common point of interest among all great leaders is that they have a specific leadership point of view that defines how they see themselves in their roles as leaders and how they influence and teach those with whom they’ve developed relationships. Servant leaders view themselves as having two roles. The first is that of a visionary. The second is that of an implementer.

By now, we should understand that leadership is a process of influence, but what is it that we are influencing? Leadership is a process of influence that leads to some destination. The destination is the picture painted by the leader’s vision. Proverbs 29:18 (KJV) says in part, “Where there is no vision, the people perish:”

According to Ken Blanchard and Jesse Stoner in their book, “Full Steam Ahead: The Power of Vision,” a compelling vision has three parts:

1. Your purpose. What “business” are you in? Where are you going and why? In terms of your family, what is your family all about? Where is your family going and why?
2. Yoru picture of the future. What will your future look like if you are accomplishing your purpose?
3. Your values. What do you stand for? On what principles will you make on-going decisions?

By creating a compelling vision, the leader tells those within their sphere of influence who they are, where they are going and what guides their journey. Once the followers clearly understand the leader’s vision, the leader takes on the role of implementer, in effect becoming a servant to the vision. The servant leader equips and motivates those they lead to succeed in accomplishing the goals of the vision. A self-serving leader believes the sheep are there to serve the shepherd, which is quite the opposite of servant leadership. This is where many organizations get into trouble with their leadership.

Leaders are either going to energize their followers or sap their strength. With self-serving leadership, the energy of the followers flows upward to satisfy the demands of the leader. When the energy flows upward, it is drawn away from the customers. With less energy to serve the customers’ demands, a business struggles. Servant leaders get the energy flowing in the right direction. By energizing their people, the energy flows outward to the customers which leads to greater results and success.

The Heart of a Servant Leader

One of the greatest issues with servant leadership is that most believe it is about behaviors, style and techniques that can be taught as with other leadership styles. In fact, most of the books you’ll read on the subject of servant leadership focus only on those topics. Servant leadership requires a change in the heart of the practitioner; and a heart motivated by self-interest is the greatest barrier to becoming a successful servant leader.

People are inherently self-focused and self-centered. It is the nature with which we are born. As we grow and mature into adults, we learn that life is not so much about what we can get, but rather, what we can give to others.  In Philippians 2:1-4 (KJV), the Apostle Paul counsels us to look to the interests of others and not to focus on our selves.

“If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies, Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.”

Leaders motivated by self-interest place their agendas, safety, status and gratification above those of the people they influence by their thoughts and actions. Are you a self-serving leader or a serving leader? Why not take a little test to find out? Answer the following three questions:

1. Do you believe negative feedback is a gift or a criticism and threat?
2. Do you plan for your successor?
3. Who leads and who follows in your life?

Self-serving leaders see negative feedback as a criticism and threat to their leadership. They often believe that negative feedback means people don’t want them to lead any longer. Servant leaders view negative feedback as a gift because they realize someone cares enough about them to help them through a course correction.

Have you ever considered your leadership legacy? What are you going to leave behind? Servant leaders plan for others to carry on in their role when their season of influence is over. Not only do servant leaders leave behind their accomplishments, but they leave behind a legacy in the hearts and minds of those they’ve been given the opportunity to teach and to work with. In my Leadership Framework I write:

”From each of my direct reports, I request that if they’ve ever learned anything at all from me in managing and developing people, that they in turn impart what they’ve learned to their future direct reports. After all, it’s a fact of life for anyone in Information Technology that the only lasting value we bring to the table is that which we do for others. Every system we touch and every computer program we design is destined for retirement before the project begins. Only what we do for people lasts. People, and how we touch their lives, are our legacy.”

Who leads you in your life? Are you driven by pride, fear, self-promotion and self-protection? Or, are you driven by the characteristics of servant leaders: humility, confidence, community, fellowship, contentment, generosity, trust, truth, inspiration and commitment? Self-serving leaders can only be changed from the inside-out through a transformation in their heart’s attitude. It’s impossible to change a self-serving leader from the outside-in through behaviors, style and techniques. It’s like constructing a new facade on a crumbling building for curb appeal. It might look good on the outside, but inside it’s a real mess.

Servant Leadership

The balance of the youth group’s Sunday school lessons in leadership are designed to teach an appreciation of the principles of Servant Leadership. My first introduction to servant leadership took place as I was leaving the Leadership Development Program at the Center of Creative Leadership. The CCL bookstore is strategically placed near the main doorway of the building. You can’t walk in or out of the place without passing the bookstore. As I was walking through the hall, I glanced over to the store and one title on the shelf jumped out at me: “Servant Leadership.” I had to go in to find out what that meant.

Servant leadership encompasses Biblically based leadership principles. Hank McKinnell, former Chairman and CEO of Pfizer, is a strong proponent of servant leadership. He wrote several articles about the topic that were posted on the internal, employee only web site. I always found his perspectives fascinating. When I found the book at CCL, it started me on a journey of discovery that absorbed much of my learning time over the following year. By this time, I had been teaching an adult Sunday school Bible class for about 10 years. Never during that time did I study servant leadership. We discussed all kinds of other things such as doctrines and life’s lessons, but the understanding of servant leadership escaped me. Servant leadership is based in part on the teaching found in Matthew 20:25–28 (KJV) which reads:

“But Jesus called them unto him, and said, Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them. But it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister; And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant: Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.”

In the New Testament, the word “Gentiles” is used to describe non-believers. To distinguish between the leadership principles of the Gentiles and His leadership principles, Jesus uses the phrase, “But it shall not be so among you.” As He goes on to teach His disciples the leadership principles we call servant leadership, He leaves no room for misunderstanding. If you are a follower of Christ, servant leadership is the right and effective leadership style to pursue. It isn’t an option, it’s a mandate. There is no plan “B.”

Servant leadership does not mean abdicating your authority and allowing the inmates to run the asylum. Remember,  leadership is a process of influence. Anytime you seek to influence the thinking, behavior, or development of people toward accomplishing a goal in their personal or professional lives you are taking on the role of a leader.

I believe that people want to succeed; my job as a servant leader is to create an environment where that can happen. As a servant leader, I fully support those entrusted to my care as they endeavor to reach their full potential. As their steward, I entirely expect that some of these people may in fact climb the career ladder faster than I will and be more successful than I am in business. That’s fine with me. My job is to help them recognize their potential and reach for their goals.

To sum it up, servant leadership is a nurturing leadership style in which the leader equips their subordinates for success. When we provide the education, tools and techniques to those we lead to help them become successful, guess who else gains success? The leader of course! Success flows upward for the servant leader.  Servant leadership when coupled with an understanding of situational leadership makes a powerful leadership one-two punch, promising an increased chance of success for its practitioners. 

Situational Leadership

This morning I began preparing my slide deck for Sunday’s lesson in leadership. Before moving onto the topic of Servant Leadership, I decided to explain Situational Leadership more fully to the class. As I was thinking about it, I realized that after the experience of the Leadership Development Program at the Center for Creative Leadership, there isn’t a more impactful leadership training program that I have gone through than situational leadership. In fact, I believe it’s as impactful as the LDP because it can be applied to virtually every aspect of our lives, both personally and professionally.

When I became an IT Director at Pfizer, I attended their management training programs called The Leading Edge and Sharpening the Edge respectively. Each program is a week long and both are based on Ken Blanchard’s Situational Leadership II program. The Leading Edge is situational leadership in a manager/subordinate relationship. Sharpening the Edge is situational leadership applied to the group dynamic. Before being allowed to attend the Sharpening the Edge program, we had to put Leading Edge practices into place for a full year.

The basic premise behind situational leadership is that there is no single “best” leadership style. Effective leadership is task-relevant. The most successful leaders are those that adapt their leadership style to the capability level of the individual or group they are leading. Effective leadership varies not only with the person or group that is being influenced, but also depends on the goal, task, job or function that is to be accomplished.

The pre-work for The Leading Edge program was a lot of fun. About six to 8 weeks before attending the program, they sent me an interactive DVD. This wasn’t your standard training DVD, this was actors in a high-quality movie responding to your leadership inputs. The scenario is a 19th century gold mining operation in the old west. You are the mine’s operations manager. If you respond to a situation with the incorrect leadership style, all kinds of bad things happen. Once I was responsible for blowing up the mine and putting my workers in the hospital. I was lynched, jailed and shot all because I used the wrong leadership style with my subordinates. Eventually, I did make it through because I learned from my mistakes and made a small fortune in the process. It was a real hoot!

But truth be told, some managers experience frustration almost every day because they’ve never learned to lead people differently based on the situation. Followers also experience frustration because their managers don’t lead them appropriately. You may not blow up the mine or get lynched, shot or jailed, but when frustration reaches high enough levels people look for new opportunities. I’ve heard it said that workers don’t leave their jobs, they leave their bosses. Situational leadership is a simple to understand process, but it takes practice to develop a high level of competency. Do what you can to learn more about it and put it into practice for yourself. It can make a world of difference for you and those you lead.

Mentoring a Future Generation of Leaders: Leader Behaviors

The final part of our first Sunday school lesson in leadership is a discussion of leader qualities or behaviors. It was a bit revealing to watch a couple of the teens display facial expressions and other body language signals indicating that they were uncomfortable with portions of the topic. Some of them shifted in their seats, one bounced his leg up and down as if he wanted to run out of the place and one young lady’s facial expression spoke volumes about her sometimes mischievous behavior. Keep in mind, I don’t know these young people well, but the message their body language conveyed convinced me they were uncomfortable because they realized don’t always live up to the expected standards of behavior. We discussed the following fourteen behaviors:

• Ability to encourage and nurture those around us—delegate so people will grow
• Charismatic inspiration—attractiveness to others and the ability to leverage this esteem to motivate others
• Cooperation—work well with others
• Empathy—Understanding what others say, rather than listening to how they say things
• Environmental Awareness—the ability to understand the environment they lead in and how they affect and are affected by it
• Optimism—very few pessimists become leaders
• Picks Winners—the ability to choose winners - recognizing that we cannot (in general) teach attitude
• Preoccupation with a role—a dedication that consumes much of a leader’s life - service to a cause
• Rejects determinism—belief in one’s ability to “make a difference”
• Results-orientation—directs every action to complete a mission
• Role model—leaders may adopt a persona that encapsulates their mission and lead by example
• Self-awareness—the ability to “lead” one’s own self prior to leading other selves similarly
• Technical/specific skill at some task at hand
• Vision—A clear sense of purpose (or mission) - clear goals - focus – commitment

The teens understood most of this without much explanation with the lone exception of “rejects determinism.” Determinism is a philosophical view that every event is causally determined by previous events and that they are out of our control to change them. If you believe you can make a difference in this world, you must reject determinism.

Integrity is foundational to authentic leadership, but not in its common everyday definition of honesty. I purposefully left it off of the list of leader behaviors in order to explain it in the following way:

• Self-awareness leads to integrity
• Integrity is the integration of our outward actions and inner values
• Outward actions are called our personas
• Inner values are our characters
• When our persona and our character are integrated as one (integrity) it is authentic leadership

In stark contrast to the list of leader behaviors we examined Romans 1:28-32 for a list of anti-leader behaviors that are diametrically opposed to leader behaviors and must therefore be constrained by leaders.

“And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, Without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.” (Romans 1:28–32, KJV)

Finally we talked about what to expect when they arrive in the working world. None of them had ever heard of performance evaluations or 360 reviews. They were surprised that “report cards” don’t end when you finish school and that so much of our success depends on what others think about us. We closed with this question:

If we were to ask six people who know you very well to give us honest, anonymous feedback about you, what would they say about you? Would they say:

• You are a good Christian?
• You are a leader?
• You can be a real brat at times?
• You are disrespectful to your parents and teachers?
• You try to get away with bad behavior when you think nobody is watching?
• You enjoy argument and debate?

The kids gave great feedback as did some of the adults that sat in on the class. They seem to be looking forward to the next two weeks as we examine the greatest leadership role model of all time.

Mentoring a Future Generation of Leaders: Leadership Styles

As astute as the students in the Sunday school class are in defining their limited understanding of leadership, there was one word glaringly absent from the list they came up with. That word is “influence.” Leadership is a process of influence. Anytime anyone seeks to influence the thinking, behavior or development of people toward accomplishing a goal in their personal or professional lives, they are taking on the role of a leader. There are formal aspects of leadership such as can be found in political and business arenas or through positional authority; or informal aspects as in one who influences a group of friends. The term leadership usually implies some “leadership skills” or competencies. Of course, the teens weren’t familiar with the word “competency” so I needed to explain that it means the skills, knowledge and ability to do something.

We discussed how everyone has a particular leadership style and that no matter what that leadership style is, it is going to fall into one of three categories:

• Authoritarian or autocratic
• Participative or democratic
• Delegating or Free Reign

This is where we began to play our next game. I posted the words authoritative, participative and delegating on the board and asked them to decide for each of the twelve common leadership styles I was going to present, which ones fell into which category and that some leadership styles may belong to more than one category. Out of the twelve categories, they guessed 11 right. These are the leadership styles we discussed:

• Autocratic Leader: has total authority; has the sole power to make decisions
• Bureaucratic Leader: very structured; follows all procedures as they’ve been written
• Charismatic Leader: leads by infusing energy and eagerness into to their team members
• Democratic Leader: studies team members’ ideas and makes the final decision; everyone contributes to the final decision
• Environment Leader: nurtures a group or organizational environment; uses organizational culture to inspire individuals to and develop leaders at all levels
• Laissez-faire Leader: “Leave it be” leadership; gives no continuous feedback or supervision; associated to leaders that don’t lead at all
• People-Oriented Leader: supports, trains and develops his personnel
• Servant Leader: accomplishes goals by giving team members what they need in order to be successful
• Situational Leader: uses different leadership styles depending on the situation and the type of employee that is being supervised
• Task-Oriented Leaders: focuses on the job and concentrates on the specific tasks assigned to each person; shows no involvement in the team’s needs; also known as a micro-manager
• Transaction Leader: power to evaluate and correct team members; rewards or punishes the team’s performance
• Transformation Leader: is highly visible and uses chain of command to get a job done; motivates the team to be effective and efficient; focuses on the big picture

For some reason the term Laissez-faire Leader generated a lot of laughs. I told them it was probably easier to remember this type of leader as the Lazy-faire leader. They might also remember this leader as a “LOSER!” The one they had the most difficulty categorizing was Charismatic Leader. They believed a charismatic leader would be a good delegator, when the opposite is true. With charismatic leaders, the organization or group they lead rises and falls on their personality and ability to motivate. If the charismatic leaves, the group falls apart because there isn’t anyone equipped to take over and lead. The charismatic leader likes to hold all the power. In my mind this is authoritarian, passive-aggressive perhaps, but authoritarian nonetheless.

So how did you do in categorizing these leadership styles? Did you do better than the teens? If you want the answers as we discussed in class, send me an email and I’ll shoot them out to you.