No-Drama Leadership

How Enlightened Leaders Transform Culture in the Workplace

Marlene Chism

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781351861021
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Choice. Power. Speed. Today's leaders continually face these forces. But with too many choices, too much power, and too much speed, leaders often make decisions in a heightened state of emotion (and drama). Hasty decisions are often poor ones and in this climate there is no place to hide. Privacy is a thing of the past; the days of covering up or ignoring a problem are over. In today's transparent culture, the decision making of leaders is more vulnerable then ever-and it is more critical than ever to get it right. Marlene Chism's No-Drama Leadership introduces just the model the corporate world needs. Using case studies, checklists, and examples from various levels of hierarchy in leadership and from a variety of industries, Chism introduces the mindset shifts and practical skills needed to develop enlightened leaders, whose decision making flows from a much more grounded and aligned place. You will learn how to: Identify the signs of misalignment Increase your leadership effectiveness Use four quadrants of change as a catalyst for leadership growth Increase employee engagement Tap into the gifts and talents of your employees Communicate strategically Create a culture of accountability Increase innovation and productivity through empowerment Today's leader needs more than position, power, or business acumen. Today's leader needs more than self-management, communication skills, or emotional intelligence. We need leaders who are aligned, aware, and accountable, who balance choice and power with wisdom and responsibility-leaders who embrace and embody both the inner game of leadership growth with the outer game of business results, modeling both the mindsets and actions that transform the cultures they lead.

Part 1
The Will to Be

The final forming of a person’s character lies in their own hands.

—Anne Frank

Mark’s high- driving personality made him a high- earning sales star for his global pharmaceutical company. When he was promoted to district manager, he had the will to be a great leader. He knew everything about motivating his new sales team. After his first year, when Mark received the results from his team’s evaluation of his leadership abilities, his first response was shock. His feelings then turned to anger. What worked for him as a salesman had not worked for him as a leader. At first Mark resisted the feedback. Then something changed.

The turning point was Mark’s combination of will plus willingness. Will is about desire. Willingness is about the decision to do what is necessary. Desire without willingness equals an entitlement mentality. Willingness without desire is compliance.

A company can offer personality tests, assessments, training, and coaching, but all of these leadership development opportunities are useless unless the leader-to-be has the will to be and the willingness to do. Mark invited the team to his home for a private meeting where they had permission to “criticize to their heart’s content,” which they did.

The painful feedback gave Mark a new level of awareness. He learned that his methods of leadership did not align with teamwork. Mark now realizes that leadership is a journey that takes alignment, awareness, and ongoing accountability. Mark regularly seeks feedback to keep himself accountable as he practices new relationship building and leadership skills. Today, his team loves him and always meets or surpasses its goals.

There is a place where resistance ceases and movement commences. I call this place the fulcrum point of change, meaning that when we are actively seeking change, there is a signature quality or state of “being” that is present right before the change. That state is willingness. Nothing happens until there is willingness.

I have learned that, no matter how great my coaching skills, I have absolutely no influence or power over someone who resorts to blame or who simply has no desire and no willingness to change. The same is true for companies that offer leadership development. If the leader doesn’t desire growth and is not willing to learn, nothing happens.

The good news is that anyone who has the will to be a leader can make the decision to take charge of her own development. The desire to become a leader and the willingness to do what is required, whether or not the company provides the development, reflects the epitome of responsible aligned leadership. Blaming the company for not offering leadership development demonstrates an unenlightened perspective that feeds workplace drama. By contrast, you show an enlightened perspective when you make the decision to develop yourself.

The foundation for enlightened leadership is alignment, awareness, and accountability. Each requires the will to be, along with the willingness to do. In the next three chapters, you will begin to understand why alignment, awareness, and accountability are core qualities of enlightened leaders, and what happens when these qualities are missing.

Chapter 1
Aligned

There are only two ways to align: Tell yourself the truth or course correct.

—Marlene Chism

Misaligned values caused Bob Funk to leave the company where he had worked for seventeen years. “I would have worked there for the rest of my life,” he said. “The owner was a fine man with strong principles. When he passed away, his son took over the company, and the culture changed.”¹

The new owner’s values clashed so much with Funk’s that he had no viable choice but to leave and start his own company, which he called Express Employment Professionals. Speaking of his decision to leave his former employer, Funk said, “The new owner, the president’s son, was an accountant by trade, so the financial statements were the most important to him. What he didn’t realize is that when you’re in business, it’s all about relationships, and good relationships build good financial statements.”²

Today, Express Employment Professionals is the largest franchised staffing organization in North America, with over seven hundred franchises in the United States, Canada, and South Africa, employing more than 450,000 people in 2014. Thus, Funk’s company is fulfilling his vision to help as many people as possible find good jobs by helping as many clients as possible find good people.

Many leaders have difficulty aligning the people and profit equation, and thus operate from an either-or mentality; however, Express Employment Professionals is a great example that shows how leading from alignment translates to business success. Since the end of the Great Recession in 2009, Express Employment Professionals achieved 152 percent growth, surpassing the staffing industry growth of 54 percent.

Although there are as many definitions for leadership as there are companies that have leaders, at the core, leadership is about alignment. Leaders leave companies when their personal values clash with the corporation’s values. Leaders lose their jobs, their reputations, and sometimes even their freedom when their actions are misaligned with the law. Today’s leaders can’t get away with fooling the public as they might have in the past. The past decade has proven that their misalignment will eventually show up on the evening news or in social media.

The late Joe Paterno, former head coach of the Penn State football team, turned a blind eye to the fact that his assistant coach was sexually abusing players in the locker room. Paterno, considered one of the best coaches in history, was fired from Penn State, and the NCAA vacated all of his wins from 1998 through 2011 as punishment. When Paterno died in 2012, he left behind a stained legacy. John Edwards was at one time a top contender for the U.S. presidency until the public discovered he had fathered a child with one of his campaign workers. Bernie Madoff received the Congressional Medal of Honor for “unusual valor” in bringing hope to thousands. The world held him and his family in high esteem until it was discovered he had tricked investors by paying them their own money rather than profits. Lance Armstrong was considered one of the greatest athletes of all time until he finally admitted to taking performance-enhancing drugs to win races.

These examples of human beings who allowed themselves to move out of alignment have four things in common: they fooled the public; their actions eventually caught up with them; they experienced embarrassment and shame; and they hurt many innocent people, including their families.

What Is Alignment?

Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines “align” as “to arrange things so that they form a line or are in proper position; to change something so that it agrees with or matches something else.”³ When you buckle your seat belt, drive the speed limit, and use your signals properly, you are aligned with the law. When you drive under the influence of alcohol and ignore the speed limit, you are out of alignment with the law and with common sense.

Most people don’t stop and think much about what alignment means. We talk about alignment a lot but haven’t done much reflecting. Even less thought is given to being aligned with the mission and values of the company. My belief is that, because values live in the invisible realm of ideals, we tend to discount the importance of how behaviors and language either align or misalign with what we say we value.

If you say you value trust, then you must keep your commitments in order to stay aligned with that value. If you say you value kindness, then every time you are rude you are out of alignment with the value of kindness. If you say you value safety, then every time you consciously put yourself at risk, you are out of alignment with the value of safety. When you do something that is against your values, you are out of internal alignment. When you make a decision that does not match the mission and values stated on the company website, then you are out of alignment in your leadership. Integrity and alignment are identical twins.

Alignment is about making sure your walk matches your talk. Leaders who have thought seriously about their own values have a very good BS meter. They can tell immediately when someone is out of alignment. Those who have a strong internal alignment are not usually quick to believe everything they hear or see in the media, and they aren’t prone to hero worship, whether that hero is a sports figure, a politician, or a business leader. Enlightened leaders have the eyes to see that everyone is subject to temptations that potentially diminish their integrity and take them out of alignment. That is why they value accountability, which we will talk more about in chapter 3. Enlightened leaders are quick to learn from the mistakes of misalignment.

The national news provides what I call a “drama perspective,” focusing on the obstacle instead of the lesson. People love to talk about what everyone else is doing wrong. We view and then criticize high-profile leaders, sports figures, movie stars, and politicians who lose alignment with their constituents, with their family, or with the law of the land. Every single day people waste valuable time on social media arguing, debating, giving opinions, and making judgments while missing the point entirely.

Enlightened leaders understand the connection between personal and business integrity. Unenlightened people see a high-profile individual blatantly showing bad judgment, poor character, and misalignment in his personal life but conclude, “That is their personal life, and has nothing to do with business.” Character is character, whether it’s exhibited in business or in one’s personal life. You cannot be misaligned in your personal life and be perfectly aligned in your leadership role. If leadership is about anything, it is about alignment.

Regardless of your definition of leadership, you won’t achieve it without the will to align yourself to that definition. I had the privilege of interviewing one of the greatest leaders of our time, Frances Hesselbein, former CEO of Girl Scouts of the USA, and Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient. Hesselbein defines leadership as a matter of how to be, not how to do, saying, “We have spent half of our lives learning how to do, and teaching other people how to do. But we know in the end it is the quality and character of the leader that determines the performance— the results.”⁴

The will to be aligned comes before alignment. If the will to be aligned is in place yet there is misalignment, the division is usually due to one or more of these three things: lack of awareness, lack of accountability, or competing values. We often see a clash of values when the drive to win at all costs takes over in sports, politics, or business.

Culture and the NFL

According to an October 2014 USA Today article, “Domestic Violence in Detail,” NFL players have been investigated for more than fifty domestic violence cases under the leadership of Commissioner Roger Goodell.⁵ The most prominent profiles of bad behavior to date include NFL star Ray Rice caught on video punching his fiancé; Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher killing his girlfriend, then committing suicide; and New York Jets linebacker Bryan Thomas punching his wife. No doubt a blind eye is often turned where sports are concerned. Perhaps it’s difficult to align civil behavior with a sport that requires muscle, speed, and rough aggression to win, as football does.

The easiest out is to blame the top leader, Goodell, but the issue is much more complex, and belongs to all of us. As long as businesses promote the sport with their sponsorship dollars, and as long as football fans turn a blind eye and continue to watch the sport and buy tickets to the games, the problems will continue. As long as money, entertainment, and hero worship are the top values, nothing of substance is going to change. These are values issues, not policy issues. Policy is of no use unless the policy aligns with the corporate values.

What our society seems to value most is money and entertainment. As long as money is being made, there’s not enough pressure to put a stop to the behavior. As long as people identify more with a team than they do with their own values, there’s no reason for anything to change. This is a snapshot of how the values of the masses shape a culture. Businesses that sponsor the sport have the most leverage in influencing the behavior. Unfortunately, we often do not see the connection between that which we support and the values we claim. Each of us plays a role in what is tolerated, but until we become more enlightened, we will continue to look out of the window to see what everyone else is doing wrong instead of learning and leading from our own values.

Just as the official policies regarding behaviors that occur outside the NFL are overlooked, they are overlooked on the inside as well. When the Miami Dolphins suspended guard Richie Incognito in 2013 for bullying Jonathan Martin, who quit the team, the fallout included a legal investigation, a massive report, and millions in legal fees. As a result, the individuals involved suffered financially, but perhaps as important, they suffered emotionally. Incognito’s cell phone text messages were made public, and both he and Martin suffered the emotional distress that comes with public exposure to private matters.

The locker-room culture of professional football is obviously different from corporate culture. Behavior and language that would never be tolerated in the average workplace are accepted and expected in the world of professional football. Bullying, hazing, harassment, and disrespect are part of the culture—and are downplayed as harmless fun—part of what it means to be a rookie, and so on. However, sports is still business, and there is much that companies can learn from studying alignment as it relates to both the world of sports and the world of business.

The first lesson is that policy that is not enforced doesn’t matter. A policy that exists but is not enforced is a red flag of misalignment. These very same issues happen in all types of businesses every day.

The Miami Dolphins had a policy against harassment, bullying, and disrespect, but no one took the policy seriously. Most likely, none of the players even knew the policy existed. The policy and the reality of the culture were miles apart. To pretend the culture was anything but supportive of bullying is simply a matter of denying what is and has been true for decades—there is a lack of willingness to align with stated values.

Whether because of a lack of willingness or a lack of awareness, when the talk does not equal the walk, there is misalignment. We show our commitments not by the words we use but by the choices we make. When the mark...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction
• PART 1 The Will to Be
• PART 2 The Eyes to See
• PART 3 The Power to Create
• Notes
• References
• Acknowledgments
• Index
• About the Author