Cycle through the 12 Steps for Effective Leadership, each time with greater nuance, on a higher level.

• By Robert Pater
• Nov 01, 2011

You’ve likely heard about 12-step programs to combat a range of addictive behaviors. These interventions have helped millions, including several people I know whose lives have turned around with their support. Similarly, there are many in leadership positions who appear mired in repetitive and self-destructive actions; perhaps they might benefit from such support. These dysfunctional leaders seem sucked into the lure of “The Dirty Dozen,” 12 patterns that significantly limit or even sabotage their efforts:

1. Ambiguity: Not communicating clear expectations of who, what, where, when, why.

2. Insincere delegation: As in, “I’ll pretend you can decide as long as you read my mind and do it my way.”

3. Micromanaging: ”I’m closely watching — and maybe overriding — anything you do.”

4. Unevenness: Demeanor seems arbitrary, so others can’t tell whether they’ve done something wrong (even when the leader’s just having a bad day and taking it out on the world).

5. Motivational emptiness: Not regularly delivering tangible feedback that helps others stay on track and improve.

6. Tyrannosaurical: Seeking to stomp out the most from others long-term by roaring out stress and fear. Doesn’t adapt to changing environments.

7. Blame shifting: Championing honesty and responsibility — for everyone but themselves. All problems are always someone’s/everyone else’s failing.

8. Not squared away: Planned changes fizzle due to not getting needed permissions, nor arranging for critical details in advance.

9. Overly mechanical:Assuming people are — or at least “should be” — orderly machines and behave as such.

10. Too cloudy: Only looking far ahead while never getting anything useful done now.

11. Me-ness: Unbalanced emphasis on covering their rear or playing politics, rather than building positive actions. Taking as much credit for everything, everywhere from everyone with a main thrust on shining bright.

12. ”It’s Good To Be King”: Leadership means only one person — the leader — is the moving force; others’ roles are compliant followers at best. Underestimating the power and import of actively engaging everyone.

On the other side, with due respect, here are 12 Steps for Effective Leadership to help elevate leaders’ effectiveness. Higher-level leadership can, in turn, ripple out to others becoming safer, healthier, and more effective and productive.

1. Develop. Start with yourself; effective leaders set the tone by leading from the front. Before you expect others to change, ask where and how you can improve, then continue to work towards on these. Only second, look to develop others as leaders, rather than compliant followers. Some will rebel against being treated as highly programmed robots; even others who try to do as they’re told will often forget or get complacent. And even willing followers are unlikely to seek or try out potentially creative solutions absent from their pre-written script.

2. Vision. Best leaders employ many kinds of vision. Look around (horizontal vision) as well as to the past and future (vertical vision.) Looking back can help you glean patterns of action and culture for assessment; looking around helps illuminate blockages to objectives, what competitors are doing, current opportunities.

3. Culture your culture. Providing the right nourishment is critical to achieving desired changes in culture, and small-yet-significant shifts can definitely occur in even relatively brief time spans. When biologists culture an organism, they provide the conditions (nutrition, warmth, space) necessary for that colony to grow. Remove or limit needed nourishment, and the new-grown culture will atrophy.

4. Expect people to continue to take steps towards improved safety actions. But don’t expect them to drop everything, be totally different, or ignore their current obligations. For example, cumulative trauma injuries take time to develop — and time to reduce. Don’t squash budding successes by impatiently acting on too-short demands for major turnarounds or return on investment.

5. Communicate without protracted delay. Alert others about small shifts in direction as well as timelines, progress towards objectives, their and your parts, reasons for changes. Even if this isn’t your personal style (“I keep my lips sealed until everything is worked out in advance”), understand that others’ needs and fears are what are most important to them.

6. Energize everyone. Draw them together toward desired objectives. Show them how it’s in their personal interest to make positive action improvements. Focus on benefits they can reap by applying the rights tools and techniques to their favorite off-work hobbies and activities.

7. Involve. Involvement is both an indicator of company improvement and a tool for accomplishing better and lasting performance. Look to question more, “tell” less. Find ways to invite everyone to become a part of a change effort, no matter how small. Inclusion leads to buy-in.

8. Customize. When bringing aboard any new system, procedures, training, or other interventions, be sure to adapt these to your culture. To propel change that’s less likely resisted, start from where you currently are, rather than trying to leap too far ahead to where you wish you’d end up.

9. Bridge. Build bridges across organizational chasms of positions, departments, site cultures (different shifts, multiple locations), and diverse employee groups.

10. Make it easy for others to lead. Reduce obstacles to others’ actually accomplishing visible changes — and provide “keep going” feedback when others lead effectively.

11. Nurture. Initial changes have to be supported. Just as shielding a seedling makes it more likely to take, protect changes in actions from the pests of doubt and negativity and the droughts of disregard or distracting demands. One way to do this is to have a senior manager be the visible spearhead/lead on any controversial initiative.

12. Consider. Make time for reflection, to sculpt plans with your mind. Don’t get so totally submerged into the daily grind you develop repetitive mental trauma.

Remember, this these 12 steps are not a one-and-done. You don’t go through them only once. Life, change, improvement, leadership — none of them is linear. Cycle through these steps, each time with greater nuance, on a higher level. Best leaders sidestep traps — often of their own making — to create firm footings for action change.

This article originally appeared in the November 2011 issue of Occupational Health & Safety.

This blog comes to you from the United States …where the Occupy movement is real and still relevant.

Make no mistake about it there is a BIG difference between the majority of those keeping the Occupy movement alive down south and those Occupy pretenders in Vancouver/Victoria who have co-opted and stolen the original cause.

In the US, the Occupy masses are the real thing:  thousands of individuals, single parents and families who, for years and years, were hard-working people, but who have fallen on hard times and unemployment due to the sagging economy; home-owners who were foreclosed upon because of the criminal …yet never charged … ponzi-scheme actions of deregulated US banks and mortgage lenders; and working people fed up with the growing gap between the rich and the poor in a republic, where the government is all but paralysed by a political process run amok.

The Occupy movement may have started out with those ideas in Vancouver and Victoria too … but has largely deteriorated into just the “usual” unemployables and homeless raising hell for a whole different set of reasons; trying to get more free housing (without work, of course); and, a large group of activists and anarchists with few aims beyond having a party and sticking it to “the man” any way they can.

And what has made it all much worse in Vancouver is that the lefty Vision mayor and council can’t tell the difference.

So rather than enforce city bylaws forbidding anyone without permits to erect structures on city property (not even a tiny Falun Gong one-person hut, not bothering ANYONE except the Communists in the Chinese consulate), the Vancouver politburo has decided to abandon its own laws and try to mollify the anarchists and homeless unemployables, while the taxpayers pay and pay and pay.

But the truth is the Vancouver Occupiers, in their present format, will accomplish nothing for the real working people or unemployed. Just make revolving parts of the city look like hell.

I support the US Occupy movement and deemands fror a better, fairer and more equal society. And readers of my blog know I have ranted before it became fashionable, about the unfair growing gap between the poor, the working class and the very wealthy.  And when I was working, I particularly enjoyed doing stories on the topic, so the rich would know their greed and selfishness was being noticed and reported. Even if not acted upon by their friends in government.

So I’m no right wing enemy of the workers.

But the truth is the situtation, economically, job-wise,mortgage-related and  and just financially in Canada is NOTHING CLOSE to the disaster befalling the US.

Nevertheless, just because of the widening gap between the wealthy and the rest of us up north, I regarded the Occupy movement in Vancouver and Victoria and Toronto as being quite laudible and legitimate.  And the REAL protest to narrow the gap, increase workers’ pay, shift the tax burden from the middle class to the wealthy again, should continue.

But the roving Occupy homeless, unemployable face-tattooed, spiked nose, ear, tongue and lip crowd and their mentally-troubled coterie and anarchist organizers (who have insulted passersby, forced WORKING food cart operators to move away,  and disrupted and insulted media just trying to cover their “protest”) have ruined the Occupy brand.

Time for them to pack up their tents …until the next excuse they can find.

And time for the real Occupy people to find some other way of continuing their struggle.

Harv Oberfeld is a blogger and retired journalist. This column originally appeared in his blog, Keeping It Real.

Painting by Micheal Edens

What happens to a mind that gets lost? Awareness and the ability to process daily the numerous details of life whittles away into the sawdust. A blankness envelopes the mind in a subtle sense of confusion, numb to something undefinable.

At times, a questioning energy surrounds the cloud looking for a way in or out, wondering what has happened to the real me. Nothing happens though. Days, weeks, months slip by, while a new seeking questions every little detail trying to ascertain the cause and effect that might be undone and a sense of normalcy will return.

With vague memories of better days, seen through a distorted and faded fog, when an opportunity appears a bold step faltering walks forward. The strain and the torment hidden from view, no one is the wiser. Step-by-step, is the hope each day, that tomorrow will be new, and in time something comfortable and near will replace this uncertain fear.

Canadians celebrate Thanksgiving a month earlier than their American cousins. Sitting at the computer screen realizing I hadn’t posted anything for a couple of days, I figured I better find something to say. Being single, the holidays don’t mean that much to me and they sort of sneak up unnoticed, and thankfully, will often slip past unnoticed as well. I keep myself busy in many other ways.

As I recalled Thanksgiving, I wondered about the month separating the Canadian and American thanksgiving holiday. Not one to obsess over such trivial matters, a thought occurred that seemed to fit. Up here in the north of the Americas, our winter comes sooner, as does our fall, as does our harvest, and hence, our Thanksgiving. Seems plausible.

This isn’t the theme though is it? Just a curious side-note. Thanks for humouring me.

Thanksgiving is a time to express gratitude. There are so many things, even in spite of the hardships and difficulties I may be experiencing, or have experienced.

After a serious accident, while I may never be the same solid structural human I once was, I am solid and fit and the injured joint is recovering well with good mobility and strength. I suspect this trend will continue.

Here is one that is big and juicy for my world. I love people, and I love to be connected to some friends. What have I got to be Thankful for? This year has seen incredibly wonderful people show up in my social circles. I’m talking about people who inspire and bring out the best in me, people who support the me that I am and encourage the gift of my life to be realized for the benefit of everyone. What a supercharged gift of gratitude that brings to my heart.

With all the struggles of the past years, the broken shoulder of last fall, and the potential outcomes, I’m pretty glad I’m here writing this to you today. Things can happen that will leave you wondering, worrying, and fearful. These things can be an undoing. Somehow, I found the light and kept going to the light (bad metaphor but hey). The worst fears were parked and put away. The faith muscle grew.

How about a little gratitude for sitting there reading this right now. What do you want to be grateful for this Thanksgiving?

Some days are brutal! I know you know what I mean. We’ve all had them! I’ve had so many metaphors run through my head for how this feels.

• Keeping your head above water when the world is pushing you under. (I thought it sounded to much related to cash)
• When you feel like a bobbing yo-yo. (a what?)

That’s enough of that, the title says enough – like that song, “I get knocked down, but I get up again. You’re never going to keep me down.”

This is where it gets challenging. Now I’m supposed to tell you how. But what if? What if the advice I give you, that works for me, and works for six other people, doesn’t work for you, nor 567 others? Oops.

Screw it. I’m not here to tell anyone what to do. I’m just telling some stories. Your truth will speak to you, maybe the writing will help call it out. Let’s give it a try.

Entrepreneurship is a challenging road, and here’s the thing: Life is tough enough without any of us wanting to make it harder. But who knew when we were young, ambitious, courageous, naive, trusting, and invulnerable? I didn’t know; I lived and breathed optimistic spontaneity. It is true – anything is possible – provided . . . . . .

Ha! What is that about?

Timing, opportunity, location, and a whole host of variables exist beyond our control. Anything can happen, and one decision can take you so far from experiences that may be extraordinarily beneficial at some later date in your life. And yet, who knew? Who knows? I’ve found myself, at 43, looking back upon one decade or another and seeing how small choices have had extraordinary results – both positive and negative – in my life. As for getting knocked down, I’ve been knocked down hard – a few times.

These days, great things are happening. The odd part of that is the vulnerability that I experience. Imagine I could fly.

In order to fly I must leap out off a cliff into open space spread-eagle. Yes, that is exactly what I mean by this vulnerable experience. Now, once I’m out there, I must remain spread-eagle in order to soar and stay aloft. Yes, I’m floating in space, defying gravity, soaring above the earth, and I feel an instinctual impulse to withdraw myself into a cannonball in some crazy response to the alarm of defying gravity.

Who said I couldn’t fly? Who said you couldn’t fly? I can see many people who’ve suggested such things to me in the past, growing up and in adulthood. Did that necessarily stop me? Rarely. Most often I would dig my heels in and hear this spirited internal response, “I’ll show you,” or “I’ll show them.” So could I honestly buy the idea that it is people today that are slowing me down or blocking my way? Partly, but very minor in their roles, as the power choice is wholeheartedly my own.

So what happened? I freak out sometimes, I panic, I worry, I cry, I get angry. Okay, I admit it: I’m human. Yes, there have been experiences in my past that haunt my todays. You see? That’s it, right there. On up days, it’s full steam ahead. On low energy days, those ghosts from our past tease at us.

When life is overall running quite smoothly, we weather these transitions with the ups and downs much more easily. When there is some big stuff going on, or has been for a while, this can become progressively challenging. And it is always boiling down to how you respond, in order to determine the outcome of each life chapter. Things getting more negative? Take a close look at your thoughts and patterns. Things improving? You know what I mean.

Whether knocked down, getting up, or staggering along, just remember to do just that: stagger along, keep focused on here and now. Push the feelings, fears, worries aside, and look at you and your choice to experience goodness. Let go and enjoy where you are, while learning to relax into the unfolding of the next moment. This isn’t always easy for a worrier – trust me, I know – but putting a conscious effort to it, becoming aware of it, builds up the ability.

And don’t beat yourself up over it. I used to beat myself up for having lost what I once had. Life, she’s a grand and demanding mistress, offering the ride of a lifetime.

I get knocked down, but I get up again. You’re never going to keep me down.

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I am struck by the realities that exist in a place of work. I’ve worked solo for so many years now, that I’ve forgotten what it can be like within the social web and office structures that exist. Joining the “team” my goal was to experience success and growth and to be part of the same philosophy within the company culture. It’s disappointing to see that this ideal is not held by others, and that teamwork is a mere abstract idea instead of a sound business decision. So what is one left to do at this point?

It’s not such a difficult decision to make and the goal can remain unchanged. However, the timeline and process to realize the dream takes on new proportions and the perseverance to keep to the high ground must be maintained. It’s not about what the company will do. It’s about what I will do.

What more can be said?

I don’t know what it is that makes it work, but giving begets receiving. There are times when it feels the deck is stacked against your forward progress, that others are getting a better deal, and that you’re somehow always falling behind. I’m in one of those situations now. Outward appearances aren’t always what they seem.

With different personalities, a history of a company culture, and policies and procedures that have become set in stone, change is something that can only come about slowly. There may be elements that are obvious and unfair, however, we always seem to have to go through a “testing” period before we break on through to the other side.

In my own scenario, my efforts are not going unnoticed. Better yet, the ability to rise above the pettiness has a positive affect upon others around me. I still struggle with my own feelings about the inequities, so I am grateful to see these “positives” showing up and letting me know that I’m on the right path. Allowing for what is, working for what might, and doing all you can, is bringing about positive results, and in other ways my rewards are being experienced.

It’s a tragic tale that repeats itself in many families; a child learns that survival depends upon running away. Without an adult to fight or stand behind/beside, the safest recourse is run and hide. These lessons are in themselves not too bad, as the reality in life does yield better results once we’ve learned to walk away. But this tragedy with the child suffering at the hands of bullying or child abuse, has created many broken-winged angels to land upon this earth, knocking them half-senseless.

In the real world, the school of hard-knocks and the business arena of shark-infested pools, one has to learn to both fight back and to stand their ground. I don’t suppose that these deeply injured souls neglect fighting, but I’d wager that many, if not all, have a threshold where they simply back down. Those who’ve sustained unhealthy spans of isolation, even alienation, in their adult lives, are likely suffering from a brokenness that keeps them from reaching any fulfillment of any kind. Instead, they live quiet lives of agony, hoping and wishing that others won’t see it, and that they won’t be exposed; even though they may be completely unaware of what it is that might get exposed.

Fear, is a primal trigger, with thousands of years of success behind it. Not only does the human race thrive, so too are many species alive in their habitat relying upon instinct driven by the need for survival.

When is the time right to recognize we have the ability to stand our ground, and still avoid conflict?

“Let me see your list of questions,” I asked. I could tell by the quick look that Claire didn’t have a list.

“I don’t have them written, just in my head, but I could probably write the questions down for you, if that would help,” she responded.

“How many questions do you have in your head?”

“Well, none really prepared, I have the resume, so I just ask questions from that.”

It’s not Claire’s fault. No company ever trained her to conduct a job interview. No company ever trained her to create interview questions that reveal valuable information to make a hiring decision. Effective hiring interviews are a critical management skill for the successful manager.

Many managers conduct the hiring interview solely from the candidate’s resume in their hand. Change this one thing to make your interviews better. Craft your interview questions from the role description rather than the person’s resume. Every question should have a specific purpose to give you data about the candidate relative to the role you want them to play in your company. It’s not what the candidate has done (though it may be fascinating), but what the candidate has done related to the role.
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We are currently taking registrations for our next online program, Hiring Talent. You can find out more information about the program, here.

There are lots of reasons for living a more minimalist life. By owning less you reduce your impact on the environment, you spend less, and you live more simply.

For Henry David Thoreau, the reason for spending less boiled down to a simple formula. It’s what I call “the life calculation.” Here’s how Thoreau describes it:

The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.

Why live more simply? Because the more stuff we buy, the more we end up exchanging our life for the things we own. This is a radical way of thinking about cost. Normally, we think of cost as a measure of dollars and cents. The latest iPhone costs $399. A new Toyota Prius costs around $25,000. A house on the beach in Malibu costs $20,000,000. You get the idea.

Thoreau’s key insight is that the things we buy don’t just cost money, they cost us time, effort, and sacrifice. They cost us our life.

Example. Let’s say you decide to buy a million dollar house. Thoreau would say that the real cost of the house isn’t one million dollars. The real cost is the number of years of work required to pay it off. So if it takes you 40 years of long hours working a job you hate to pay off that house, then it’s real cost is not one million dollars, it’s 40-years of life.

How can we apply Thoreau’s “life calculation” to our daily lives? Here are three steps that might help:

1. What’s Your Work Time Worth?
   The first step in applying the “life calculation” is to calculate the value of your working hours. Let’s say you make $50,000 a year working 40 hours a week. After taxes, you end up actually seeing $35,000 (this will depend on where you live, number of dependents, etc.). Assuming you work 50 weeks a year, the monetary value of each working hour is around $17.

 

• The Shift From Dollars to Life.
  Once you’ve nailed down the rough value of each working hour, you can begin shifting away from thinking dollars to thinking life. You do this by calculating the life cost of all those things you wish you could buy. So that new MacBook Pro you wish you had no longer costs $1,800. If each hour of work is worth $17, it now costs 105 hours (almost three weeks) of life. That new house you wish you could buy no longer costs $500,000, it costs 29,411 hours of life (roughly 14 working years of life, and that’s assuming that the house is the only thing you spend your money on).

 

• Consider trading things for life.
  Once you’ve calculated these actual life costs, think seriously about the trade-off between things and life. For Thoreau, the trade-off was simple. He always chose life over new things. As he says, “There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his living.” But you may decide that certain things are worth the life sacrifice. This doesn’t mean you’ve failed at spending less and living more. Quite the opposite. It means that you have made a reflective choice to sacrifice a portion of your days and hours for the things you own. You’ve made a conscious choice. The real danger Thoreau points to arises when we lose consciousness of this choice, when we buy without ever considering the amount of life exchanged for our latest purchase.

 

Of course, many of us work on a fixed schedule. We cannot call in one day and decide that we are going to exchange the next month of earnings for a month spent walking through the woods.

This may be true. But it’s also true that employers are becoming more flexible. I just had lunch with a CEO who told me, “I would be happy to let an employee take a few more weeks off for a cut in pay. But nobody has ever asked for it.”

What do you think about Thoreau’s “life calculation”? Would it help you spend less and live more?

Written on 5/18/2011 by Nate Klemp. Nate earned his PhD at Princeton and is a professor at Pepperdine University. He founded LifeBeyondLogic.com, a website dedicated to exploring philosophy as an art of living. You can follow him on Twitter @LifeBeyondLogic and on Facebook. Download a free copy of his new ebook, Finding Reality: Thoreau’s Lessons for Life in the Digital Age.

Photo Credit: Fred Sheahan

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