Practicing Values & Principles

This post explores the second area of personal development in Authentic Leadership: Values.

Bill George and Peter Sims wrote True North: Discover Your Authentic Leadership. I’ve shared many of the concepts in previous posts. As before, I recommend that you visit Bill George’s web site, read the articles, watch the TV and videos, and download the study guides to enhance your study of the book. You will especially want the study guide on chapter five for today’s post.

In the previous posts  we analyzed several aspects of authentic leadership (The links on each will allow you to download the study guide for that particular chapter). They included the following:

•  Leadership is a journey with three phases: beginning, peak leadership, & mentoring
• Why leaders lose their way including 5 archetypes that contribute to losing their way: Imposters, Rationalizers, Glory seekers, Loners, and Shooting stars
• Transforming from “I” to “We” leadership
• The first area of personal development to authentic leadership: self-awareness

Practicing Your Values and Principles

The five areas include the following. I explained the first on Monday. I will explain 2 today, & 2 more on Friday. The questions listed with each area will help you discover your authentic leadership:

1. Self-Awareness; What is my story? What are my strengths and developmental needs?
2. Values: What are my most deeply held values? What principles guide my leadership?
   • “In gaining a clear awareness of who you are, you must understand your values and the principles that guide your leadership. Several leaders referred to their values as their moral compass…Staying centered on our values is not easy. You can easily drift off course as the temptations and pressures of the outside world pull you away from your moral center. But if you are centered through/a high level of self-awareness, your compass can help you get back on track.”
   • Values: The relative importance of the things that matter in your life.
     • “It is under pressure—when our success, your career, or your life hangs in the balance—that you must decide what your values are. When you are forced to make trade-offs between your values under difficult circumstances, you learn what is most important in your life and what you are prepared to sacrifice for.
     • Those who develop a clear sense of their values before they get into a crisis are better prepared to keep their bearings and navigate through difficult decisions and dilemmas when the pressure mounts.”
     • The authors illustrate the importance of values with stories from David Gergen, Jon Huntsman, and Keith Krach.
   • Leadership Principles: A set of standards used in leading others, derived from your values. Principles are values translated into action.
   • Ethical Boundaries: The limits placed on your actions based on your standards of ethical behavior.
     • “Your ethical boundaries set clear limits on what you will do when you are tempted or are under pressure or when you start rationalizing a series of marginal decisions. If you establish clear boundaries early in life, your moral compass will kick in when you reach your limits and tell you it is time to pull back, even if personal sacrifices may be significant.”
3. Motivations: What motivates me? How do I balance external and internal motivations?
4. Support Teams: Who are the people I can count on to guide & support me along the way?
5. Integrated Life: How can I integrate all aspects of my life and find fulfillment?

Combining self-awareness with values and motivations begins to balance our personal development. However, authentic leaders add solid support teams and integrate all five areas to achieve authentic leadership.

Join me on Friday when we examine the third area of personal development: motivations

Self-Awareness & Leadership

This offers another segment in our series on Bill George’s Authentic Leadership. I strongly suggest you buy the book and study it using the downloadable study guides..
Developing and practicing leadership skills can help you get a better job whether in management, union, or civic organizations.
Bill George wrote in True North: Discover Your Authentic Leadership “Discovering our authentic leadership requires us to test ourselves, our values, and our beliefs through real-world experiences. This is not an easy process as we are constantly buffered by the demands of the external world, the model of success that others hold out for us and our search to discover our truth.
Use a Compass to Stay on Track to Authentic Leadership
I quote the authors again “Because there is no map or direct path between where you are no and where you will go on your leadership journey, you need a compass to keep you focused on your True North and get back on track when you are pulled off by external forces or are at risk of being derailed.”
The compass is a dynamic tool that you can update and calibrate after every experience to ensure that each step you take on your leadership journey is consistent with how you want to lead your life. Because your circumstance, opportunities, and the world around you are always changing, you will never stop calibrating your compass.”
5 Areas of Personal Development for Authentic Leadership
Authentic leadership finds root in each person differently. Your authentic leadership differs from mine or your neighbors. They key to discovering your authentic leadership lies in exploring 5 areas of personal development. The answers help you determine your authentic leadership. Once again, I recommend you read the whole book. The authors illustrate their principles with stories from famous leaders
The five areas include the following. The questions will help you discover your authentic leadership. I will explain one today, 2 on Wednesday, & 2 more on Friday:

1. Self-Awareness; What is my story? What are my strengths and developmental needs? “Leaders sad that gaining self-awareness was central to becoming authentic leaders. For this reason it is at the center of your compass. When you know yourself, you can find the passion that motivates you and the purpose of your leadership.”
• While intellectual intelligence, or IQ, has long been thought of as an essential characteristic for managers, EQ (emotional intelligence) may be more important for authentic leaders.
• Leaders stated several reasons why knowing yourself was so important:
• Finding the right role
• Increasing self-confidence
• Being consistent
• Connecting with others
• Identifying complimentary skills
• Peeling back the onion: “Knowing yourself can be compared to peeling back the layers of an onion as you search for your true self. Understanding your outer layers is a necessary first step to going deeper into what lies beneath, because they provide the access to your inner core.
• “Next in the process of gaining self-awareness is taking time for personal reflection and introspection. Reflecting on your life story and your experiences can help you understand them at a deeper level00and so you can reframe your life story in a more coherent way as your future.direction becomes congruent with the knowledge of who you are and the kind of person you want to become.
2. Values: When are my most deeply held values? What principles guide my leadership? /
3. Motivations: What motivates me? How do I balance external and internal motivations?
4. Support Teams: Who are the people I can count on to guide & support me along the way?
5. Integrated Life: How can I integrate all aspects of my life and find fulfillment?

Once you master self-awareness, you move to the next areas of authentic leadership: values and motivations. We will analyze them on Wednesday and finish the last two Authentic Leadership traits  on Friday. In the meantime, read chapter 4 of the book and use the downloadable study guide to increase your self-awareness.

Share what you discover about yourself as you read the chapter and answer the questions

“I” vs. “We” Leadership

This continues our discussion on how to stay on True North or Authentic Leadership to earn the biggest raises & best promotions. I suggest you buy the book and study from the source.

In previous posts we reviewed Bill George’s comments that we journey through three phases of our leadership: our beginnings, peak leadership, and giving back to others as mentor or coach. In our first post on Authentic Leadership we also introduced the 5 areas or points on the compass that allow us to get back on track. Our last post presented 5 archetypes that cause leaders to lose their way.

Today we will analyze the transformation from "I” to “We” centered leadership—a transformation vital to becoming an authentic leader.

Transforming from “I” to “We” is Vital

First, George and Sims help us understand the need for authentic leaders to shift emphasis from themselves to empowering those they lead. George writes “Most of the leaders we interviewed had transformative experiences on their journeys that enabled them to recognize that leading was not about their success but, the success they could create by empowering others to lead.”

The authors highlight that most of us, in our early years, must provide evidence of individual achievement. Early leadership opportunities allow us to lead on our own. Inability to empower others to lead, however, blocks continued leadership opportunities.

“To become authentic leaders, we must discard the myth that leadership means having legions of supporters following our directions as we ascend to the pinnacles of power. Only then can we realize that authentic leadership is empowering others on their journey.”

“This shift is the transformation form ‘I’ to ‘We.’ It is the most important process leaders go through in becoming authentic. How else can they unleash the power of their organizations unless they motivate people to reach their full potential? If our supporters are merely following our lead, then their efforts are limited to our visions and our directions about what needs to be done.”

Shifting Usually Requires a Transformative Event

Most leaders require some transformative event to trigger their evolution to we-centered leaders. Once again I share from the authors, “A transformative experience may come at any point in your life. It could result from the positive experience of having a wise mentor or having a unique opportunity at a young age. Bus as much as we all want positive experiences like these, transformations for many leaders result from going through a crucible.”

They cite Warren Bennis and Robert Thomas from their book Geeks and Geezers “the concept of the crucible as an experience that tests leaders to their limits. A crucible can be triggered by events such as confronting a difficult situation at work , receiving critical feedback, or losing your job. Or it may result from a painful personal experience such as divorce, illness, or the death of a loved one.”

  Several leaders share their experiences with transformative events including Dan Vassala of Novartis, Oprah Winfrey, Jim Thompson of the Positive Coaching Alliance, Nelson Mandela, and others. Their individual stories illustrate the various ways and times transformative events may enter our lives.

Gaining and improving leadership skills helps us get better jobs. Learning “We” leadership becomes essential to achieve our potential. I hope these excerpts on leadership help you develop skills that will lead you to your potential. Once again, I encourage you to read True North: Discover Your Authentic Leadership by Bill George with Peter Sims. I also suggest you download the great guides for taking notes. You can get them at no charge from Bill George’s web site. You will also benefit by watching his TV and video clips on the site.

Monday will add detail to the five areas you must align to find your True North. Join us!

You will improve our conversation if you shared your transformative event. Please comment!

Why Leaders Lose Their Way

Today, we analyze why Bill George’s leaders to lose their way from true north

Monday we began our exploration of  Bill George and Peter Sims’ principles of authentic leadership found in True North Discover Your Authentic Leadership, Authentic Leadership, Finding Your True North, and True North Groups. Hopefully, you looked at Bill George’s wonderful collection of articles since 2003. Most of this post contains quotes directly from the book.

Five Archetypes to Lose Your Way

Unfortunately, many leaders lose their way along the journey. Too many leaders never achieve their full potential or sabotage their journey. They fail to stay true to their authentic leadership. Sometimes they fail to pass through the crucible of their trials and failures. Other times they lose sight of their bearings from one of the five archetypes:

1. “Imposters rise through the ranks with a combination of cunning and aggression. They understand the politics of getting ahead and let no one stand in their way…Having acquired power, Imposters may not be content about how to use it. They are beset with doubt about handling the responsibilities of leadership…Paralyzed by doubt, they are unable to act decisively. The inaction leads to poor results and external challenges, so they attack their critics and cut themselves off from internal feedback.”
2. “Rationalizers always appear on top of the issues. When things don’t go their way, they blame external forces or subordinates or offer facile answers to their problems. They rarely step up and take responsibilities themselves…As they advance and find themselves facing greater challenges, they transmit pressure to their subordinates instead of modulating it…Unfortunately, their actions only make the future worse. So they turn to more aggressive schemes, such as reporting future revenue streams in quarterly sales or filling customer warehouses with inventory…Ultimately they become victims of their own rationalizations, as do their depleted organizations.”
3. “Glory seekers define themselves by acclaim of the external world. Money, fame, glory, and power are their goals, as they pursue visible signs of success. Often it seems more important to them to appear on lists of the most powerful business leaders that it does to build organizations of lasting value…Their thirst for fame is unquenchable…Sometimes the emptiness creates envy of those who have more, a quality that is hard for outsiders to comprehend from someone who seems to have it all.”
4. “Loners avoid forming close relationships, seeking out mentors, or creating support networks. They believe they can and must make it on their own. Not to be confused with introverts. Loners often have a myriad of superficial relationships and acolytes, but they do not listen to them. They reject honest feedback, even from those who care about them. Without wise counsel, Loners are prone to make major mistakes.”
5. “Shooting Stars lives center entirely on their careers. To observers, they are perpetual motion machines, always on the go, traveling incessantly to get ahead. They rarely make time for family, friendships, their communities, or even themselves…They move up so rapidly in their careers that they never have time to learn from their mistakes. A year or two into any job, they are ready to move on, before they have had to confront the results of their decisions…One day they find themselves at the top, overwhelmed by an intractable set of problems. At this point, they are prone to irrational decisions.”

Heroes of Their Own Journeys

“All five archetypal leaders described here frame their life stories in the model of an all-conquering hero…If fails utterly when one leads a team, precisely because being a hero is not empowering to teammates or subordinates…The role of leaders is not to get other people to follow them but to empower others to lead. They cannot elicit the best performances from their teams if they are in the game primarily for themselves.”

Join us Friday when we conclude our examination of Bill George’s authentic leadership.

Authentic Leadership

Today our series on leadership reviews Bill George’s concept of Authentic Leadership

Bill George and Peter Sims wrote True North Discover Your Authentic Leadership. Bill George studied leadership for decades. He practiced it as CEO of Medtronic. He teaches leadership at Harvard. He’s authored best sellers on leadership. He focuses on helping leaders discover or rediscover their true north, their authentic leadership. He recently released a new book called True North Groups.

Bill George wrote “The reality is that no one can be authentic by trying to be like someone else…Leaders are highly complex human beings, who have distinctive qualities that cannot be sufficiently described by lists of traits or characteristics.”

Keep Your Leadership Compass Pointing to True North

George and Sims interviewed 125 leaders including Jon Huntsman Sr. Oprah Winfrey, Howard Schultz, Ellen Breyer, and more. They researched their background, leadership successes and leadership mistakes. The book weaves their stories—both complimentary and cautionary—into the five key principles of authentic leadership:

1. Knowing your authentic self
2. Defining your values and leadership principles
3. Understanding your motivations
4. Building your support team
5. Staying grounded by integrating all aspects of your life

The authors use the compass model at the top of this post. All five facets must be balanced to point you to your true north, your authentic leadership. Stories from George’s dream team of leaders illustrate each of the facets. Exercises help readers ponder and apply the principles to define their true north.

Our Journey to Authentic Leadership

The authors compare leadership to a journey with three phases:

• Phase I: We learn the principles of leadership. We practice our leadership, and amass a following not of people who support our “glorious ascension”, but people we have empowered on their journeys. We journey in phase 1 until about age 30
• Phase II: Defines our best leadership, our prime years of leadership. We step into leadership prepared by phase I and deliver our most active leadership. If we work hard, we stay true to our authentic leadership without losing our way. Phase II typically runs from age 30 to about age 60.
• Phase III; Provides our opportunity to give back, mentor, and coach upcoming leaders. Many leaders move from for-profit endeavors to non-profit or charitable boards and leadership.

So we begin our study of authentic leadership. We will continue with 2 more posts. In the meantime, I strongly encourage you to visit Bill George’s web site. You can begin a great study on leadership by reading the articles he has posted since 2003 until now.

On Wednesday, we analyze 5 archetypes that can help you lose your way as an authentic leader

Collins’ 5 Levels of Leadership

Jim Collins evaluated a number of companies for his book Good to Great. They looked at 1,435 over 40 years. The looked for companies with 15 years of steady growth, a single point of change, and 15 years of phenomenal growth. They evaluated the financial records to find great companies.
Collins and his team of researchers did not begin their research to find level 5 leaders. In fact, he frequently states in his book that he told the team to ignore the executives. Yet, the evidence consistently indicated the need to evaluate the leadership of those companies that went from good to great. The research indicated that ten of the eleven companies that became great possessed level 5 leaders at their helm.
5 Levels of Leadership
Jim Collins describes 5 levels of leadership within corporations. Quoting from page 20 of his book Good to Great:

• “Level 1 Highly Capable Individual: Makes productive contributions through talent, knowledge, skills, and good work habits.
• Level 2 Contributing Team Member: Contributes individual capabilities to the achievement of group objectives and works effectively with others in a group setting.
• Level 3 Competent Manager: Organizes people and resources toward the effective an efficient pursuit  of pre-determined objectives.
• Level 4 Effective Leader: Catalyzes commitment to and vigorous pursuit of a clear compelling vision, stimulating higher performance standards.
• Level 5 Executive: Builds enduring greatness through a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will.”

Characteristics of Level 5 Leaders
Collins team of researchers identified several traits of a level 5 leader. (Once again, I summarize from chapter 2 Level 5 Leadership of Good to Great pages 39-40 First Edition 2001):

1. Exhibit a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will
2. Ambitious on behalf of the company, but not themselves
3. Set up their successors for greater success in the next generation
4. Display a compelling modesty, are self-effacing, and understated
5. Fanatically driven, infected, with an incurable need to produce sustained results
6. Show a workmanlike diligence—more plow horse than show horse
7. Attribute success to others, but accept blame for flaws

Interestingly, Collins states “I believe that potential level 5 leaders exist all around us, if we just know what to look for, and that many people have the potential to evolve into Level 5.” (Jim Collins, Good to Great, 2001, page 39).
Great leaders cannot imitate or fake the traits described above. You can evolve into level 5 by nurturing the traits within yourself. I strongly suggest that current and potential leaders study Good to Great and How the Mighty Fall. I also suggest you study the articles on leadership listed on Jim Collins web site.
Join me next Monday when we discuss Kotter’s leadership principles

Novation Leadership

Doctors Gene Dalton and Paul H Thompson published Novations Strategies for Career Management in 1993. They originally researched “technical obsolescence” to see why some “information workers” advanced in their careers and why others seemed to stagnate.

Career paths for other occupations solidified during the early 20th century. For example, the trades clearly defined career paths from apprenticeships, to journeymen, to masters. The decrease of manufacturing and trade positions into the 80’s created an increase in jobs dealing with knowledge: programmers, accountants, call centers, customer services, and others. Dalton and Thompson found that, contrary to common belief, similar career paths existed for these information workers.

Four Stages of Career Development.

Dalton and Thompson identified four stages to career development. They labeled the four stages as follows:

1. Apprentices are new to the organization. contribute little on their own because they are learning about the organization. The future success of an apprentice frequently depended on the person who became their coach (stage 3). Novations highlighted that CEO’s brought in from outside the organization went through an apprenticeship period.
2. Independent contributors successfully transitioned from apprentice to independent contributors. Independent contributors worked on a small portion of the overall project. They no longer needed to work under the direction of a coach. They work independently to produce their portion of the project.
3. The Coach or Idea Leader help apprentices transition into the independent contributor stage. Coaches see the overall picture of the organization or project. Coaches help generate ideas to improve the overall performance of the organization. Coaches must be able to contribute through others.
4. The Organizational leaders (also called the directors) influence the direction the organization moves. The research indicated that organizational leaders could influence from both formal and informal channels. In other words, several people in stage 4 had titles of director or vice president. Others in stage 4 lacked the titles, but maintained the influence. Organizational leaders also sponsored others in the organization. They also maintained an extensive network of contacts both inside and outside the organization.

Barriers to Transition

Novations also outlined what you need to do to transition from one stage to another. The book also identified those behaviors that prevented upward movement and could trap you in each stage.

For example, you need to demonstrate the following traits to move from stage 2 to stage 3:

• Obtain greater technical skills and apply the skills in multiple facets of the business
• Build a network of relationships inside the organization, but outside the workgroup, and use the relationships to further the work of the group
• Develop others in the organization

A major skill that you need to develop to move from coach to organizational leader involved contemplating long-term timeframes. The organizational leader considers changes and directions that will last much longer than the leader’s connection to the organization.

Learn More About the Four Stages of Leadership

While Gene Dalton and Paul H. Thompson published Novations a decade ago, it’s principles stand the test of time. I suggest you read the original work by Dalton and Thompson.

Gene died of cancer seven years after publication. Paul was promoted to dean of the Marriott School of Management and later to President of Weber State University. They did not continue their research. Their consulting firm Novations Group merged with Global Leadership to form Global Novations. Global Novations continued some of the research. They renamed the four stages as (1) Contributing Dependently, (2) Contributing Independently, (3) Contributing Through Other, and (4) Contributing Strategically. You may wish to review their white papers and articles.