Leading in HR: The Power of a Professional Conduct Policy

Posted on June 10, 2013 by Monica Wofford

Professional Code of Conduct

There’s not much in the way of employee behavior that would surprise an experienced Human Resource Manager.

What is far more surprising is the amount of time a leader will put up with behavior that makes them need HR in the first place.

At times, it’s the policies in place that prevent any other viable option. However, there is one policy that will keep you more out of HR than in it.

Addressing Workplace Issues

In most companies a policy exists for everything from punctuality to the use of profanity. The Federal Government even dictates break times to maternity leave. With all clear policies, measurement of performance and termination is made easy and they usually started as merely good guidelines.

When guidelines are not made into policies and clear guidelines don’t exist, managing performance is a real problem.

Managing the attitude about the problem is even worse.

In fact, the number one problem new leaders seem to face is how to address those subtle challenges such as:

  • Attitude
  • “Milking the system”
  • Doing just enough to stay employed
  • Gossiping
  • Backstabbing
  • “Stirring the pot”
  • Or even “quitting,” but forgetting to tell anyone…

Professionalism, Defined.

Address those subtle or not-so-subtle issues with what is called a Professional Conduct Policy. Enumerate how one would successfully conduct themselves on the team you lead or in the office you manage.

Perhaps it will not be the policy that, when broken, is a key firing factor, but it sure beats assuming they know how to behave based on the guidelines you live by that usually remain in your head.

Creating a Professional Conduct Policy

Here is what the mere creation of a Professional Conduct Policy can do for you and the team and their performance.

Allows for Low-Level Intervention

This is a term used in training classes that refers to participants managing each other. For example when two people are talking while the instructor talks and another student “shushes” them, you’ve just seen Low-Level Intervention.

The instructor didn’t have to say a word.

The same will happen on the team you lead when you invite all to participate in the creation of the Professional Conduct Policies. Spend a staff meeting coming up with these “rules” or “housekeeping guidelines” or “Rules that Guide our Behavior with Each Other and our Customers.”

What you call it is not as important as the discussion that will occur when you are creating the list. Magical dynamics are when colleagues all mutually agree on the “rules.” As none of us argue with our own data, so to speak, allowing each team member to have input will help them to own the rules.

The rules they own will be ones they agree to and want to abide by and will thus, defend, when others break the rules. You may create situations in which fellow employees begin to manage each other to some extent and thus, take some of that burden off of the leader.

This doesn’t mean you get to now be “hands off”, but it will be a nice benefit of having spent the time to make the list of behaviors.

Provides a Metric for Behavior

When given the choices of attitude, behavior, or performance problems, participants in our leadership training courses repeatedly rank attitude problems as the most challenging to resolve and address. These are followed closely by behavior issues that are not tied to some quota or performance review objective.

The reason for both being more difficult than performance is that neither is readily measurable by the average company.

Most managers assume far too much of the way others will behave. Then the managers are  surprised when someone acts unethically or has lesser initiative or has no issue at all with showing up to the meetings but doing nothing in the way of making progress on a team project.

These are each behaviors that can be part of the Professional Conduct Policy. For example, look at these:

  • Always do your best
  • Follow up within 24 hours
  • Make ten minutes early your “on time” mark
  • Maintain confidentiality of anything that could be considered gossip

Once they’re written down, they become measurable.

Provides Clarity in Coaching

If a leader wants to address a behavior not listed on that team member’s performance review, and there are no consequences for the behavior, other than talking with the boss, little change occurs.

With a Professional Conduct Policy, created by their peers, coaching to the policy can now include the consequence of letting down their peers. It also gives you a reference point in history when they agreed to abide by the behaviors listed.

Not only are you able to be clear about which policy has been “broken”, but you now have precedent, previous conversations, and a frame of reference from which to coach for improvement.

Asking questions like:

“Was this not something you really agreed with when we came up with these in our meeting?”

“Is there something that has caused you to change your mind on the importance of this behavior to our work?”

will help you get to the heart of the matter.

Any of this kind of detail is more effective in a coaching scenario than the leader saying “Would you just cut it out?”, which is what happens when one doesn’t have much to go on.

Moving Beyond Policy

Once you create it, consider hanging your Professional Conduct Policy next to the Mission Statement and Values Declaration. Just remember that much like those other documents, the work that it took to create them is far more valuable than the space they take up on the wall.

And if all you want is for people to look at the list, the last thing on your list needs to say “buy frame.” If you want them to actually abide by these guidelines, “buy frame” gets delegated and your first two “to-dos” are coach them when they don’t and reward them when they do.

So, do you have clear, concise, and open access to a professional code of conduct policy booklet? Or is your just informal and not well documented? When issues arrive, is your policy guidelines booklet referenced properly and professionally, or does your management team need training in this arena? I would love to hear your thoughts!

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Monica Wofford
Monica Wofford, CSP, is CEO of Contagious Companies, Inc.
She serves her clients by getting business results and ROI for training functions
Email | LinkedIn | Twitter | Web | Office 1.866.382.0121

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Authentic Leadership: Living and Leading Outside-the-Box

Posted on May 19, 2013 by Michael R Stanford

Inside-the-Box

I have worked for a long time only to find too many people with little passion for change. They simply want to “stay inside their box.” There are also too many leaders and managers that look at their way being the correct one.

Very rarely do these types want to listen to new ideas or embrace the ideas of others (or even their own.)

Inside and Outside the Box Thinking

I am a very passionate leader who loves to help others. I love to teach, train, educate, and live out dreams.

So here is my perspective on leadership. It boils down to living and leading in a state of low risk/low reward that I call Inside-the-Box thinking,  or living and leading in a state of higher risk/higher reward that I call Outside-the-Box thinking.

Living Inside-the-Box

Living and leading with an inside-the-box mentality allows one to feel that the world is safe and secure; there is uniformity, control, and routine. Most people would prefer to stay inside-the-box because change only exists in small doses. This box is a symbol of how one’s world does not have to be perceived differently beyond basic vision.

Although there is perceived safety, comfort, and control, this thinking has its downsides, too.

Staying inside a box restricts growth and a the ability to branch out and meet new people developing great ideas, taking great leaps and doing amazing things. The world would be a boring place if everyone lived inside the box. The box is where dreams stay dreams instead of becoming a reality.

L2L Reader Survey 2013

Living Outside-the-Box

Stepping outside-the-box requires courage and willpower. Outside-the-box is a place of the unknown and frequent changes, where new people can be met and great accomplishments can become achieved. Stepping outside-the-box can be a scary and unconformable place for those who are used to living with an inside-the-box mentality.

A person usually will step outside of the box only to take a “giant leap” to a different box, or just to another box that is just bigger.

Rarely does one leave their box with enough courage, determination, and fight to really increase their influence and live a bigger dream.

But however the risk, living outside-the-box is a place of creativity and desire. This place is completely new and exciting all of the time. It is where change is like a rapid river moving from mountain to valley allowing for exploration and mistakes to happen. Those who live with little fear will thrive in this space allowing for dreams to become reality and for great progress to exist.

This place is a great platform to teach, train and experience what the world has to offer.

Are Leaders Born or Made?

Free Downloadable PowerPoint:

Authentic Leadership comes from those who live and lead outside-the-box.

To understand this, answer this question:

Are Leaders born or Are They Made?

  • There are those who are born with the ability to live without the need for a box, they live freely outside-the-box and naturally influence others.
  • There are those who have lived in a box and have taken a leap by listening to those whose passion for outside-the-box ways have inspired them. They found an inner passion to live among those who thrive outside-the-box.
  • Then there are those who were designed or taught to live inside-a-box and follow the world build for them to tell the tales about the possibilities that are outside-the-box they wish not to leave.

I have seen passionate people stop from leaving the confines of their box because they didn’t want to “risk it all.” I have seen people fall and not want to get back up. I have seen people succeed and never look back.

But for me, I live and lead outside-the-box. I live and lead in a world not yet created.

Future leaders need not ask the question “Are Leaders born or made?” They simply lead the answers they wish to find. Leadership is not a focus on the question “why?” Leadership is the desire to find “the how?”

So many have asked the question are leaders born or made, what is your opinion?

One of my favorite answers is this:

“Leaders are born to be made.”

Change involves people of all types to coexist in a movement toward progression. What are some of the biggest challenges for change leaders today?

What will it take for a inside-the-box thinker to break the stagnation and become a great leader? What sort of courage is needed? How can you help others gain that courage and teach them to live outside-the-box? I wold love to hear your thoughts!

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———————

Michael R Stanford is Doctoral Learner at UOP
He does occasional motivational speaking for community colleges
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When Businesses Grow But Leaders Don’t: Become a Conductor

Posted on April 25, 2013 by Lee Ellis

Conductor

Have you ever thought of an organizational leader being a conductor of an orchestra? Or if you prefer, any type of team activity or sport creates the same set of principles. 

The Conductor’s Role and Method

As a small business entrepreneur, you have done most or all of the work yourself in your business. It was small enough that you could walk the hall or breakroom, give quick updates when needed, and then move on to the next task.

Your system of communication was largely one-on-one, and systems aren’t important in this early stage because only a few people are doing the work. Think of this scenario as a small music ensemble—just a few people making beautiful music together. There isn’t even a conductor standing in front the group in the traditional sense, but there may be a lead position playing an instrument (sound familiar?).   

Over time if you’re providing a great product or service, hopefully your business will grow. Your hard work is paying off with more business. At some point, though, you’ll face a barrier to future growth. You can’t do most of the work anymore, and there’s so much volume that you and your colleagues barely find time to talk with one another.

New systems and processes must be put into place to achieve that next level of growth; otherwise, quality will suffer and your growth will stop (or even decrease).

This is Your Moment

If you’re the leader of the organization, this is a critical moment in your career.

Either you learn how to grow and prosper as a leader, or you delegate the leadership to a qualified individual.

This new role may seem very alien and inefficient to you, but it’s essential that someone fill this spot. Now the business has grown from a small music ensemble to a 100-piece orchestra. The leader can’t sit in the group and play as he’s done in the past.

They must assume the role of standing in front and keeping the group on the same sheet of music (pun intended), keeping them on the same tempo, and ensuring that all parts are playing in harmony with one another.

Some Practical Principles

Here are just a few practical leadership lessons taken from my book, Leading with Honor –

  • Know Yourself – Know your personal strengths and struggles, and surround yourself with people that can balance your deficiencies.
  • Clarify and Build Your Culture – Creating a mission, vision, and values statement for your organization shouldn’t seem like a waste of time. This mission/vision/values musical score is the page that everyone will play from. It doesn’t have to be a complex set of statements, but it should make it clear who you are, how you do business, and what’s most important so that everyone in the organization has a clear understanding of expectations and results.
  • Over-Communicate the Message – If you believe that you’ve stated a point, process, or objective enough, you haven’t. Don’t needlessly have meetings for the sake of meetings, but find ways to disseminate information in multiple ways that fits with your culture. Also, make sure that the communication isn’t all top-down; it should be reciprocal, and the culture you’ve created should make it safe to do so.
  • Develop Your People – You must be in the business of developing your people just as much as the business itself. If someone needs more practice to perfect their part in the orchestra, give them the resources to do it and build in a method of accountability to hear what they’ve learned in the process. In an orchestra, the leader must teach them how to listen to each other.
  • Build Cohesive Teams – Create an atmosphere of collaboration instead of fear and self-preservation. Allow mistakes to be made, give supervisors the latitude to help their people, and incentivize all staff in a way that builds a closer team.

I hope that this doesn’t seem like an insurmountable task to you. Many of the leadership lessons that I’ve described above have been tested, proven, and implemented many times over. Find a successful organizational plan or successful business, and build on an existing strategy.

And please, don’t re-create the wheel.

You Can Do It

As you begin for create your own plan incorporating the lessons above, the over-arching leadership lesson that must be applied is courage—that is, doing what you know is right even though it doesn’t feel natural and safe. There will always be some element of risk in building your business, but being risky within a set of guidelines and principles is much better than being reckless with no plan or direction.

Once the orchestra begins playing a piece of music, it takes courage to keep going. They can’t stop and must press through with confidence, watch the conductor, listen and communicate with each other, and collectively give the audience the best performance possible based on their passion, skill, training, and experience.

You can grow as a leader of expanding business. Put the right pieces into place, and enjoy the fruits of your labor. Trust me—you’ll have a team that can enjoy it with you and have the trust and confidence to follow no matter what challenges you face.

So, have you been in the position where you needed to become a conductor of your own “symphony” at your business? Or, is this something that you are facing now or in the future? What are some concrete steps you can take to insure that this shift goes smoothly? I would love to hear your thoughts!

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Lee Ellis

Lee Ellis is Founder & President of Leadership Freedom LLC & FreedomStar Media.
He is a leadership consultant and expert in teambuilding, executive development & assessments
Email | LinkedIn | Web | Blog | Book | Facebook | Twitter

His latest book is called Leading with Honor: Leadership Lessons from the Hanoi Hilton.

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Secrets of Succession Planning: Don’t Hide Your Talent

Posted on April 19, 2013 by Katrin Kaehler

Hiding Talent

If you are in an organization, it is wise to understand that the people you have on board are the reason you are getting the results you are getting. 

Sometimes this is a good thing, and other times, well, it’s not so good.

Planning Ahead

But whether you like the results you are getting from your people, or not, it is also wise to understand that employment at your place is optional for almost everyone there. People can mostly come and go as they please.

Consequently, being prepare for open positions makes sense to think about and is something for which you should plan.

Do’s and Dont’s of Succession Planning

So why should your organization do succession planning? Let’s start with the basics. The classical reasons would be the impending retirement of baby boom generation employees or to have a backup plan for emergencies like accidents or serious illness of some of your key players.

But there’s more to it than this simple outlook.

For instance, look at the vacancies in your organization and think about these questions:

  • How many do you fill with internal candidates?
  • How often do you need to recruit outside talent?
  • Hiring externally is costly and it takes time for the new employee to get up and running.
  • And oh, what about your current employees?

Without sufficient possibilities for growth and development within the company, they are more likely to leave.

Beating Around the Bush

I’ve steered and implemented succession planning in several companies and I’ve experienced that this topic is very often loaded with emotions. It’s not uncommon that managers fear to lose their talent to other business units. As a consequence, they try to hide their best people and nominate their second -or third- best instead.

HR and business unit leaders are afraid that the potential successors will be frustrated if the succession possibility they’re being groomed for won’t happen in the end. To avoid that from happening, they introduce non-transparent succession planning processes.

In final outcome, you end up with a process that is just very awkward for everyone

Leading in a Quagmire

Given the restrictions of said process, as a manager, you can’t really talk to your talent, but you’re supposed to groom it for a future assignment that she cannot know of.

Peers don’t officially know that this person is a talent, but I assure you this: they’ll find out in time.

Your “talent” likes the extra development and attention, but will surely ask you where this journey is going. And then there are people like me, the “people developer,” having to implement a sub-optimal process for political reasons. But these are not just my personal experiences.

In a 2012 study, AMA Enterprises, a division of the American Management Association, found that  succession planning is one of the least transparent processes in HR.

But Transparency Works!

Studies showed that the most mature talent and succession management approaches are not only transparent, but also interactive, i.e. an employee can nominate herself to be considered for a high-potential development program. I’ve tried to accomplish two things when introducing succession planning:

1. Promote a change of thought in managers from hiding talent to a company-wide giving and receiving.

2. Work towards a culture of ongoing and open feedback in which managers and employees talk about their strengths, development needs and possible future assignments.

Leading People is About Them

In an environment like this, employees understand that transitioning into a succession role is only one of several possibilities for their future development in the company.

Knowing that an employer wants to invest in you is such a big motivator!

Employees who are not currently nominated as successors will have a clear understanding of which aspects they’ll need to work on in order to get to the next level.

In essence, I believe that companies with an open feedback culture should choose a transparent approach to succession planning. If you don’t have that culture, choose an approach that works for your company and consider working towards an environment that supports a more transparent approach.

Linking Strategy, Succession and Development

You don’t do succession planning just for the sake of it, so make sure to get the most out if it.

Take these steps to link your strategy, succession goals, and the personal development of your people:

  • Look at your business strategy and develop a clear understanding where your company wants to be in, say, three years.
  • Then deduct which skills your employees need to build today to be able to perform tomorrow’s tasks.
  • Ask yourself which jobs are likely to be created, which business units likely to expand?
  • Then ask which skills do your employees need to build today to be able to perform tomorrow’s tasks?
  • After you nominated the successors, make sure to have individual development plans in place to start preparing them for their possible next career step.

This exercise will help you a great deal in making your succession planning relevant and useful for your organization. William J. Rothwell states in his article on the “Future of Succession Planning” how important it is to “integrate top-down succession planning with bottom-up career development.”

And I wholeheartedly agree with this! So don’t hide your talent! Grow them!

In summary: don’t fear to be transparent, create an open feedback culture and link strategy to career development.

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Katrin Kaehler
Katrin Kaehler steers Organizational Learning and Development
Before moving to the US, she worked in International Roles in Europe
Email | LinkedIn |  Web

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Leadership Formula: Learn, Connect, Influence

Posted on April 9, 2013 by Michael R Stanford

Time to Learn

Over the past four years I have analyzed people and processes to develop a better leadership model. This leadership training formula can be used personally and/or professionally and is known as the LCI model.

LCI is a fairly basic model that stands for:

  • Learn
  • Connect
  • Influence

These three pieces put together form a strong foundation for leadership.

Learn:

Education and life learning are the foundation for personal growth. The lessons we learn and retain are what make us grow up as opposed to just growing old.

Classroom learning is important to enhance the mind so that we can better develop and learn about new possibilities and progressive growth toward the future.

The classroom can be:

  • Staged in a school. whether it be physical or digital
  • In the workplace or at home
  • It can be anywhere one develops knowledge in an interactive setting toward understanding and growth

Learning from others experience is a part of human growth that sometimes goes unrecognized. I have learned more from listening and collaborating with others, to integrate methods with past, present and future ideas toward innovation masterpieces.

Risk and failure are a part of learning and growth, when life happens people are forced to learn lessons. The idea that generation integration in the workplace has become an issue due to an increased gap in differences blows my mind; integration takes and open mind and willingness to change in order to learn and grow.

Leading by understanding the strength of learning concepts will lead to endless possibilities.

Connect:

Relationships are important to grow a network that expands to include many by touching only a few. The concept of “it’s not what you know, but who you know” is a myth.

Who you know will help advance a person, but you need knowledge and self- promotion in order to advance.

An example would be that someone you know can get you an interview, but you have to sell yourself in order to land the position.

Networking takes time energy and self-promotion, but will help one spread their individual message. As a leader I look to educate and influence as many people as I possibly can to ensure continued growth; this takes hard work, dedication, and communication.

Communication is commonly seen and understood as passing a message. What we miss in this understanding is that communication is more of a listening skill than a speaking skill. When connecting with others I have found that if I listen more I can understand them better and convey an unspoken message, the message that I care.

I used to sit through management meetings about communication and nothing ever got better because everyone had a solution, but no one listened to each other in order to make progress. When I spent time with my groups outside the meetings, I would listen 95% of the time and speak 5% which produced a bond with my team.

When people want more communication, what they are asking for is someone to listen and guide while providing information that is important and relevant to them.

Leaders need a following which takes strong networking and communication skills.

A strong leader has the ability to influence others with only having to speak to and interact with a few people.

Influence:

In order to influence people a leader must understand how to educate, embrace, and empower others.  Leadership takes continuous learning as well as educating; sharing information is important in order to develop others while creating a collaborative atmosphere to create new information.

When educating people one must be open to the ideas of others and innovative information, collaboration expands minds while creating a learning environment for the leader and expanding the network which they influence.

Leaders should empower others to be creative and become great. This act of empowerment will develop an atmosphere of innovation which requires a selfless attitude and an open mind.

When a strong foundation is built, the foundation will last no matter what changes occur above. The combination or learn, connect, influence allows for leaders to grow personally and professionally one the same foundational concepts.

Leaders of the future need inspiration from the leaders today.  How can we better integrate generations when the majority of leadership images that surfaces on the new age platforms positioned in a negative light? Do you think that the public school system would benefit from more collaborative style learning? Why?

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Michael R Stanford is Doctoral Learner at UOP
He does occasional motivational speaking for community colleges
Email | LinkedIn| Facebook| Web

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A Leader and a List Lover

Posted on March 18, 2013 by Alexsys Thompson

Working Parts

As human beings, we all have natural strengths, and we all have areas where we lack in skill.

And most of us are even quite terrible at more than a handful of things.

What is important for organizational health is that they have an understanding of this and make sure that they have their people in places that are playing to those strengths and not in roles that are not a good fit.

Michael Jordan the Athlete

Imagine if, instead of rejoining the NBA, Michael Jordan had continued to play for the Birmingham Barons, a minor league baseball team in Alabama.

Instead of the 6 NBA championship titles and record-breaking 72 regular season wins to his name, the final statistics of his athletic career would look more like 114 strike outs to 436 at bats. Though Jordan’s stint in baseball was brief, it’s a great example of what can happen when someone isn’t playing to their strengths.

Sure, he’s a superstar athlete, but his best performance came in one certain sport and not in another.

The same type of performance gap can occur when leaders place people in roles that don’t utilize their strengths. In fact, they may even be in a role that forces them to operate in their weaknesses, which ultimately sets them up for failure.

Working with Kryptonite

You wouldn’t put Superman to work in a Kryptonite mine and expect him to succeed, so why would you do the same to your employees?

This is where Strengths-Based Leadership comes into play.

  • Strengths-based leaders choose to utilize their employees in ways that exploit their strengths.
  • They focus on replicating processes that work and creating best practices rather than forcing a square peg into a round hole.
  • They recognize that their human capital is their most valuable asset, and seek to create an environment that employees are proud of and enjoy being a part of.

Imagine if you were a watch maker and thought that you could use just any part in just any place within the watch. How silly would that approach be? How accurate do you think that watch would be if you didn’t have the right parts working together in the right place with the other components?

It’s probably best to let the gear be a gear and the spring be a spring.

The same goes for the people in your organization.

They need to be in the right place working smoothly with others in order for the trains to run on time.

Strengths-Based Approach

An integral step in becoming a Strengths-based leader is the ability to identify your employees’ strengths, as well as your own. One of the most effective tools used to identify strengths is Clifton StrengthsFinder.

According to Gallup (the company who developed the assessment), StrengthsFinder is based on positive psychology, and presents 177 paired self-descriptors, of which, the tester picks the one that best suits them.

They only allot 20 seconds per pair in order to encourage ‘gut’ responses, and discourage people from over-thinking the assessment.

At the end of it all, the tester is provided with a list of their top 5 strengths out of a total of 34. Though it’s possible to see the ranking of all 34 strengths in the assessment, the top 5 are the strengths that should be focused on, as they are, in fact, their strengths.

Getting it In Gear

So, leaders, now that you know your strengths, how do you leverage them effectively?

The best thing to do is to understand what each of the strengths mean, and how you lead someone using that strength.

Case In Point:

We will start with the first of the 34 strengths, achiever.

Achiever:

“People exceptionally talented in the Achiever theme work hard and possess a great deal of stamina. They take immense satisfaction in being busy and productive.” (As defined by Clifton StrengthsFinder).

Before we go into specifics, it’s important to note that this is the most popular theme! That means that, more likely than not, you will have a few people on your team that also have this strength.

  • If you leverage this strength appropriately, there won’t be a quarter that your team doesn’t meet, and probably exceed, expectations.
  • Achievers are highly productive; they are extremely driven and do well with lists.
  • They like to prioritize their work and get things done quickly and efficiently.

Knowing Yourself

As a leader, it’s vital that you don’t run over your team members who don’t have this as a top strength; they will quickly become dissatisfied and unhappy, which can have an exponentially negative effect on the team as a whole. Be aware of the high intensity you bring to projects, especially if there are other achievers on the team.

Your drive and determination to get things done could be perceived by others as overzealous, intimidating, or pushy.

If you are managing someone with the themes of Deliberative, Context, or Intellection, you need to be conscious of their needs to move through the processes more thoroughly; their goal isn’t to make sure the task gets done immediately, but to make sure they have all of the information and are able to make a solid decision.

Although this can be frustrating for you as an achiever, and as a leader, you can leverage these strengths to your advantage. They’ll be able to give your drive a focus and logical direction, which you can easily lack as an achiever.

Knowing Others

Once you are able to identify your employee’s strengths, set yourself the goal to learn as much as you can about their strengths and how you can utilize them effectively.

Your immense love of lists can also be used to your advantage; you will be able to set action goals for your employees, making it clear and easy for them to identify their role within the group as well as your expectations.

Don’t be afraid to make these lists visible to everyone!

As long as you approach your team with their strengths in mind (and tone down the jokes about ‘Work Saturdays’), you should easily be able to align your strength as an achiever to theirs.

Do you know your own strengths? Your team’s? If not, wouldn’t it be worth finding out? If you’re an achiever, I am sure you are adding it to your list right now.

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Alexsys "Lexy" Thompson HCS, SWP
Alexsys “Lexy” Thompson is Managing Partner at Fokal Fusion
She helps building Strong Leaders through Strong People Strategy
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Changing Corporate Culture To Enable Women’s Success

Posted on March 14, 2013 by Joan Kofodimos

Woman Competing

If you haven’t been living under a rock, you’ve been hearing the recent debate about barriers to women’s career success.

Debating Two Paths

This debate is personified by Anne-Marie Slaughter in one corner, arguing that organizations force women to choose between life balance and career success, and Sheryl Sandberg in the other corner, countering that women bear a share of the responsibility for this problem.

In Sandberg’s new book, Lean In, she says women need to assume they can have it all, and then get out there (or rather, lean in there) and press for what they need.

If you are a leader who wants to foster the career advancement of women, you must realize this is more than a women’s issue or a work-life balance issue.

Underlying the pressure towards work-life imbalance is a world view shaping common assumptions about what it means to be successful at work.

I call this world view the “mastery orientation.”

Taking Sides

This type of outlook privileges male leaders and leaders who embrace work-personal life imbalance. Also, it has unrecognized costs not just for life balance of the people working there, but also for organizational performance.

Only when you recognize how this world view hinders performance can you summon up the political will needed to change it.

The Mastery Orientation

Below are some of the mastery orientation’s assumptions. See if you recognize them. Perhaps they are so obvious that they’re invisible, like the “water the fish swim in.”

Work success is more valuable than personal life success.

In my research several years ago, many male leaders who  reached high position, when asked why they spend so much time and energy at work, acknowledged that they enjoyed it. They focused on it, even to the detriment of their marriage, children, or health – because work success offers rewards, such as admiration and deference, which make personal life appear mundane by comparison.

Those who work long hours are “rock stars.”

Organizations reinforce the focus on work as productive and virtuous, rewarding those who work excessive hours and defining them as the most committed and capable.

“Winning, “being “right”, “smart”, “logical,” and “in control” leads to success.

The valuing of these traditionally male qualities disadvantages women (though many senior women leaders demonstrate them).  And, this style receives negative results at home.

A “strong” image is leaderly.

Competitive approaches to conflict, power-over approaches to influence, and “thinking alone” instead of “thinking together” are consistent with the image that many leaders feel they have to live up to. They believe that to ask for help, or to say “I don’t know,” is a sign of weakness.

Moving up through the hierarchy is a measure of one’s value.

Managers seek validation by working long hours and seeking higher position – regardless of whether this higher position fits with their talents or interests. Organizations reinforce this idealization of moving “up” by focusing career development on hierarchical progression.

The Alternative Path

Different ways of working are possible – ways which are more consistent with women’s leadership and work-personal life balance, and which also support broader commitment, empowerment, and performance for everyone.

What concrete interventions might you pursue in your organizations, to realize this possibility?

Teach managers collaborative skills.

If managers develop a collaborative mindset in areas such as performance management, decision-making, and influence, this perspective will bleed into their approach to control and delegation, their relative valuing of work vs. personal life rewards, and the macho culture of overwork.

Create structured opportunities for dialogues about role expectations.

People and their managers can use the collaborative skills in these dialogues, to negotiate for balanced commitments and clarify role expectations.

Re-frame career planning, and enable individuals to define their own paths to success.

This approach focuses on individuals’ talents, purpose, strengths and limits, and then defines roles that link individual purpose explicitly to organization goals. Growth is defined in terms of increase in capability, not movement on the “ladder.” This also enables individual ebbs and flows in work focus related to family and care-giving responsibilities.

Assign high potential women to visible work on initiatives of strategic importance.

In contrast to traditional mentoring approaches, strategic initiatives support women’s visibility in a way that’s tied to important outcomes – not to face time or the old boys’ network.

Bring employees together to identify opportunities to streamline work processes.

Collaborative re-design initiatives serve multiple purposes, giving employees a taste of empowerment and a broader context about organizational direction, eliminating unnecessary work, and reducing the stress of conflicting priorities. Women at middle and junior organizational levels, where they’re more equally represented, also gain visibility by actively participating in these processes.

Include emotional intelligence in leadership competency models.

Research supports the idea that dimensions of emotional intelligence such as self-awareness, ability to understand own and others’ emotions, ability to value others’ perspectives and build consensus contribute to leaders’ effectiveness. Also, active involvement in parenting, personal relationships, and participation in the community can promote the development of these capabilities.

Challenge behavioral norms and values consistent with mastery.

When you hear a colleague praising a “rock star” for pulling an all-nighter – stop him and ask him what message he thinks he is sending, and who that message excludes.

Reflect on your own role in supporting the current (or desired) culture.

What is the impact of your actions?  What behaviors are you rewarding, intentionally or not”?

The potential impact for an organization that chooses the alternative path is game-changing – getting the most out of all your female (and male) talent, becoming a magnet for new talent that won’t settle for less than having it all, creating the space for less-stressed employees to work more creatively and innovatively.

You, as a leader, are in a position to make it happen. Why not try?

So what can you do to take a close look at your leadership tendencies and really reflect on what you have been doing? How can you objectively evaluate if you are on the right path or not? Have you been toeing the old-school line? If so, would getting to a more collaborative path help your team? I would love to hear your thoughts!

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———————-
Joan Kofodimos
Joan Kofodimos is a partner in Teleos Consulting
She Coaches Leaders to Develop their Strategic Perspective
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