• Defines leader and leadership; performance, and morale
• Specifies the functions of leadership in affecting an organization and individuals
• Explains the critical relationship between the systems of leadership that are supported or thwarted by an organization, and the efforts of the individual leader
• Declares the relationship of leadership competencies to the level of organizational responsibility, and the relative importance of capacity for dealing with complexity 
• Lists the prime actions that effective leaders take to positively impact results
• Challenges the idea that deficiency of performance is related to individual effort — and suggests four areas of inquiry for a systemic view of performance assessment 

Also included, a mind map of the specific actions that managers and leaders can take to build workplace trust. The diagram lists more than 40 specific actions implementable by an individual manager. These actions are grouped in five major areas of activity focus (based on workplace research conducted around the world) — that managers can take to build trust among their colleagues.  

Those five critical areas of managerial attention: 

• Competence –– meaning not technical knowledge or skill, but your capacity as a manager or leader to give people what they expect of you in that role. 
• Risk-taking — which means the degree to which you increase your own vulnerability by extending trust.
• Openness — which must be fulfilled in two basic varieties: Access and Disclosure.
• Integrity — which means the actions you take to demonstrate your commitment to clearly discernible values, ideally that are shared by your colleagues.
• Goodwill  (or Benevolence) — which means how much you treat your colleagues like humans you value, and not like mere objects of production.

In the private sector the overwhelmingly popular answer, of course, is to the stockholders. “Maximize shareholder value” has become a ubiquitous managerial mantra and rallying cry sung in unison across all industries, reverberating throughout corporate corridors the world over. 

The ethos of serving the interests of a business’s stockholders has become so commonplace, it is veritably self-evident. Unless you’ve read the thinking of the late Sumantra Ghoshal of the London Business School. Consider his argument about appropriate corporate loyalty and see if you don’t reconsider your reflexive response.

The [prevailing economic] theory assumes that labor markets are perfectly efficient—in other words, the wages of every employee fully represent the value of his or her contributions to the company and, if they didn’t, the employee could immediately and costlessly move to another job.

With this assumption, the shareholders can be assumed as carrying the greater risk, thus making their contribution of capital more important than the contribution of human capital provided by managers and other employees and, therefore, it is their returns that must be maximized (Jensen & Meckling, 1976).

The truth is, of course, exactly the opposite. Most shareholders can sell their stocks far more easily than most employees can find another job. In every substantive sense, employees of a company carry more risks than do the shareholders.

Also, their contributions of knowledge, skills, and entrepreneurship are typically more important than the contributions of capital by shareholders, a pure commodity that is perhaps in excess supply (Quinn, 1992). As Grossman and Hart (1986) showed, once we admit incomplete contracts, residual rights of control are optimally held by the party whose investments matter more in terms of creating value. If these truths are acknowledged, there can be no basis for asserting the principle of shareholder value maximization. There just aren’t any supporting arguments.   [Source: Ghoshal, S. (2005). Bad management theories are destroying good management practices. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 4(1), p. 80.  Emphasis added.]

Then there’s all the research showing that how a company treats their employees eventually translates into customer behavior, loyalty, and profit.

When you’re assessing priorities and the proper allocation of your fidelity, you might think past the first mantra that springs to mind.

Here is a chapter for a forthcoming book on EBM that I wrote with Dr. Ruth Zaplin, Assistant Director of Key Executive Leadership Programs at American University in Washington, DC.

We suggest that managers likely will find EBM to be an elusive objective, much more difficult to implement effectively than one might expect. Moreover, we claim that the EBM concept may not be as desirable as it would appear at first glance.

Undermining EBM’s promise, we suggest, are the natural mental processes that managers and leaders would need to overcome when considering the value of “evidence.” We advocate for a more holistic and systemic approach to management, and champion the helpful role of dialog-based executive development such as executive coaching.

The chapter is: “Believing is Seeing: The Impact of Beliefs on Evidence-Based Management Practices.”

Zaplin, Ruth T., Blohowiak, Don. In press. “Believing is Seeing: The Impact of Beliefs on Evidence-Based Management Practices.” In Evidence-based public management: Practices, issues and prospects, eds. Anna Shillabeer, Terry F. Buss, and Denise Rousseau. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.

The familiar cliché claims that “people resist change.” But that’s not accurate. Pull back the curtain on this over-worn folk wisdom and take a look at the change management dynamic with fresh eyes.

Sure, most people don’t rush to “embrace” change. But that’s true for two reasons:

1. People change at different rates.

2. Most of us are skeptical of change because we don’t know what will happen to us when the change comes. Taking a wary stance toward change means we are exhibiting a perfectly normal, completely understandable, and entirely justifiable set of self-protection behaviors.

Note that being skeptical or assuming an attitude of assure me toward impending change is very different from resisting change. Only a very small percentage of people actually resist change — in the sense of opposing it.

It’s a safe bet that most of your colleagues will eventually adopt changes specified by your organization, and adjust to them more slowly than what you might want. Plodding along and reluctance (forms of passiveness) are not the same thing as resistance (an active form of opposition).

Often a slow rate of change by individuals is rooted in their genuine uncertainty about the changes swirling around them. Or their personal temperaments. Slowness to adopt new methods is innate in about 40-percent of the population who like predictability and certainty in their lives (ritual and habit protect one from anxiety).

Because managers tend not to be a patient lot, they try to force a fast-forward change adoption rate.

What’s the typical impatient—and ineffective—managerial response? Hammering people with edicts and implied threats (a “burning platform” message strategy — no matter how positively it is couched — essentially is a threat designed to motivate by fear).  So they communicate messages such as: You’d better get with it or get left behind. Get on board before the train leaves the station. If you’re not part of the new solution, you’re part of the problem… Would any of those motivational phrases inspire you? Or scare you?

When people are scared, they withdraw or defend. Neither of those are change-positive behaviors.

Rather than putting your reluctant colleagues on the defensive, engage them. How? By conversing with them and asking questions to draw them into a meaningful conversation about your change effort.

Here are some questions to further a dialog about your change initiative:

• What do you know about the reasons we’re making these changes?
  
  
• In light of these new circumstances, what is your understanding of how your job needs to change?
  
  
• What are your feelings about that?
  
  
• What suggestions do you have?
  
  
• What do you need from me to help you be effective in this new environment? What can I do to help this change process be as smooth and comfortable for you as possible?

Note that all these questions are open-ended. They beg for a meaningful exchange; they open the door for your associates to give you useful information about their personal perspectives.

In engaging in such conversations, you might learn that people misunderstand the reasons for the change initiatives. Or that they misconceive the potential impact. Or have reservations that are easily addressed.

Remember, in almost every change effort there are misunderstandings, misconceptions and outright distortions that circulate through the rumor mill. Unless you a) find out what these are, and b) address them directly, people will act in accord with these false premises. And waste a whole lot of time and energy unnecessarily.

If there’s one meaningful change you can make that will have lasting impact, it’s to involve your associates in conversations that will change the way you manage — and they implement — change.

Here are some guidelines to help you know when you should raise your own alarms about potential problems with business ethics in your workplace.

Danger signs of potential ethical violations include:

• • Directives that violate the law, vary significantly from accepted practices, or are contrary to your organization’s own policies or values statement
    
    
  • Pressure, subtle or overt, to mislead, lie, cheat or steal
    
    
  • Instructions to change, falsify, hide or destroy documentation; or to keep no records of something that ordinarily should be documented
    
    
  • Requests or demands for you to swear loyalty or secrecy
    
    
  • Whispers, closed doors and secret meetings
    
    
  • Midnight shredding parties
    
    
  • People saying phrases such as:
    
    
    • Don’t be such a saint, Scout, or goodie two shoes!
    • No one will even notice.
    • Go along to get along.
    • Everyone does it.
    • Just this once.
    • Do it for the good of the company.
    • It really doesn’t hurt anyone.
    • Come on, nobody really cares about this stuff.
    • The ends justify the means.
    • This isn’t what it looks like.
    • This goes no further than this room…
    • This meeting never happened.
    • I’m counting on your loyalty.
    • Technically, this isn’t illegal.
    • No one else needs to know about this.
    • In the grand scheme of things, this really isn’t that big a deal.
    • Let’s get our stories straight.
    • If we stick to the company line, everything will be fine.
    • It may not seem like it, but this really is for the best.
    • If you repeat this, I’ll deny it.
    • I’m not telling you to do this, but…
    • Just following orders.
    • The boss wants this / says it’s okay / does it!

If you find yourself confronting any of these warning signs in your organization, heads up! You’re treading on thin ice, wandering into quicksand, plodding through a mine field. Choose your favorite metaphor, it could be very serious trouble ahead.

Proceed with extreme caution, courage, and conscience. Remember, you’ll never regret having no regrets.

Actionable advice about how you can take a practical approach to doing business ethically (one of my absolute favorite topics to teach in participatory seminars), will continue to be a recurring focus of this site.

The challenge to keeping that appealing idea alive and propagating was simply this: No one really could define a learning organization, much less tell you how to successfully create and sustain one.

Still, the capacity to learn remains an essential characteristic of every organization—and every individual—striving for success.

There is a progression to effective learning. It is a definable process.

Here is a lean description of the sequence behind effective learning.

1. Becoming Aware (Knowing about)
2. Understanding (Intellectually grasping the Concept)
3. Wanting to Apply the Learning (Desire / Motivation)
4. Applying (Trying)
5. Refining (Adjusting performance based on insights from consequences and feedback)
6. Producing Desired Results (Getting what’s expected from applying the learning)
7. Mastering (Developing proficiency in method; obtaining high quality output)

Download a one-page diagram of the many steps between initial awareness and mastery, here.

If you find that you—or the individuals with whom you work—are blocked in learning effectively, assess the processes behind the attempt to learn. Review the steps outlined above and honestly answer this question: How well are we (am I) executing this part of the process?

Big hint: Much corporate learning and personal learning aimed at self-improvement gets no further, in my experience, than Step #2.

That gulf between understanding and successfully applying is one of the largest in the universe.

Not an idle question. Organizations of all types—yours included, most likely—collectively spend literally billions of dollars every year on management development.

Are those dollars well spent? Are executives getting their money’s worth?

For her Ph.D. dissertation, Doris Bowers Collins, asked those very questions (in 2002). Bowers, associate vice chancellor for student life and academic services at Louisiana State University, and former president of the Association of College and University Housing Officers International, analyzed the results of 83 studies of “managerial leadership development interventions.”

She determined that: Leadership Development certainly does help managers learn more about leadership and management.

Okay. But what about: affecting bottom-line results?

Good question. With a frustrating answer.

Dr. Collins basically concludes: We just don’t know.

There isn’t, you see, very much data to analyze on that subject.

In her words:

[E]ffectiveness of managerial leadership development programs across studies measuring financial outcomes could not be estimated, and conclusions cannot be drawn regarding financial outcomes until adequate empirical studies are performed.

Few studies are available perhaps because financial performance (or overall profitability) would be less responsive to individual behavior change in the short time period typically needed to train individuals, evaluate the training program, and report the results in the literature.

Evaluations of programs with a financial outcome would require longer periods of time than many companies are willing to devote. In addition, organizations are typically resistant to publishing financial outcomes as a result of training programs, especially when the results are negative. Therefore, organizations are more likely to measure knowledge or behavior outcomes that are thought to be responsive to leaders’ behaviors within the time frame of the study.

So, as has been the case for a very long time, Leadership Development remains an idea that seems eminently reasonable. But, truthfully, remains essentially an act of faith for many in so far as quantifying actual return on investment.

It doesn’t have to be that way. There are ways to calculate return on investment (ROI) for leadership development and executive coaching (and we happily deploy such tools at Lead Well for clients who want them).

If you have an academic bent or intellectual curiosity about meta-analysis of management development studies,
check out Doris Bowers Collins’s dissertation.

The answer: a series of queries.

These suggested questions, intended for private, one-on-one conversations, are appropriate not only to the manager who’s orienting herself to her new associates, but they are also quite useful to a long-entrenched manager.

Try asking the following questions—a few at a time—over time.

• What were your early hopes, aspirations, and anticipated high points that led you to this line of work?
  
  
• What first attracted you to this organization?
  
  
• Without being too humble, what strengths do you bring to this organization and its mission to “_______________” ?
  
  
• What keeps you here? What do you most value about your association with this organization?
  
  
• What accomplishments here are you most proud of?
  
  
• Please tell me a story about a peak experience you had working here: a time when you felt a sense of pride and personal achievement, when you were particularly glad about working in this field or for this organization. What makes it stand out as such a high point for you?
  
  
• Tell me about an event, decision, or project that illustrates the essence of this organization…
  
  
• In your own words, describe the department’s vision for what’s truly important here.
  
  
• Based on your experience and your understanding of the organization’s mission, what is the most valuable work you should be spending your time on? To what extent are you in fact spending your time on this work? Why?
  
  
• Do you have a list of the department’s top priorities? Do you have a list of priorities for your own work here? How do you see your individual priorities supporting those of the organization?
  
  
• What would you truly miss if for some reason you no longer worked here?
  
  
• If we were to abandon all our traditions and reinvent the work we do here—and how we do it—what would you want the new stuff to look like? Why?
  
  
• If you were put in charge of the department, what three decisions would you most want to make?

Anytime is a good time to both (re)familiarize yourself with your colleagues at a deeper, more meaningful level, and to get fresh insights about your corner of the organization.

“Transferring or firing someone will hurt morale,” these managers reason.

And they are wrong.

Good employees are not fooled by their lagging or incompetent coworkers. They are not sorry to see misfits, malcontents, or incompetents go.

Most of the time, the best employees wonder about the competence of an overly tolerant manager: “What are you waiting for?!”

Now, that said, don’t assume the posture of “Ming the Merciless.” After all, your organization’s “work force” is not composed of interchangeable parts. “Employees” is a word that describes real people (many with families) who have bills and obligations and very much need their paychecks.

As a leader you have a moral responsibility both to the individuals who draw their livelihood from your payroll, and the organization that makes that payroll possible. You need to treat both fairly, while putting the needs of the organization ahead of individuals.

That means taking the time to carefully hire well in the first place. And then manage people so that their skills and effort are maximized. When you take seriously the awesome duties of hiring and managing well, chances are you won’t have to agonize over many dismissals.

And, then, on those rare occasions when you really do need to “pull the plug,” a good, healthy parting of the ways likely will not hurt morale. It may very well boost it.

You might be doing everything a good leader is supposed to do and still find yourself both frustrated and ineffective.

The reason is not obvious. In fact, most leadership advice-givers make a critical error in the way they address leadership. The underlying assumption is that good leadership results from the individual’s attitudes and actions.

That’s only half right.

The other half, as shown by the accompanying diagram (click it to enlarge it), is the role of the leader’s organization to either support or thwart the leader’s individual efforts at leading well.

When a leader is working very hard at exhibiting good leadership skills, but his or her organization does little to nothing to support those efforts, that leader is going it alone. And will end up in the upper left quadrant. Frustrated. And likely to leave the organization.

We strongly urge our clients to think past the outdated concept that good leadership is solely up to the individual. It’s just not true. And that’s why so many Leadership Development efforts fall flat. They are predicated on (essentially) “fixing” leaders but do nothing to address the critical role that the organizational environment plays in determining the true effectiveness of a leader.

Good organizational support systems (for hiring, firing, compensating, declaring clear priorities, and the like) can help a good leader more easily become a great leader.

And, as the lower right quadrant shows, force a lousy leader to act, at least occasionally, a little more like a good one.

Great leadership results from both individual efforts and the collective support systems in the leader’s environment.

Implications & Takeaways

In developing the leaders around you, evaluate the processes and the institutionalized habits that help or hinder your supervisors and managers. What policies and programs need strengthening? Which are long over due for an overhaul (or an execution)?

If you are convinced that your own leaderful actions are being defeated by corporate policy or culture, ask yourself:

• How can I modify what I’m doing to more effectively counter the opposing forces?
• What can I do to eliminate the very existence of such forces?
• Given current trends, what’s the likelihood of this situation improving in the near future?
• How long can I remain committed, motivated, and effective in this environment?
• What are my alternatives?

Remember, all leadership is contextual. Your effectiveness is, without question, as much tied to time, place, and other managers, as your own resolve and actions.

Leadership is not a solo sport, and it cannot take place in a vacuum. While you need not wait for ideal conditions to practice good leadership, you might find over time that suboptimum conditions could well detract from your potential contribution.

Do what you can. And consciously decide what that is.