The Most Courageous Act of Leadership
The flying monkeys on the Wizard of Oz scared the crap out of me. But, flying monkeys are nothing compared to the terror of yielding.
Yielding feels weak but it reflects courage, power, and heart. Anyone can fight. Great leaders yield.
Leaders who don’t yield beat down.
Kevin Eikenberry writes that great leaders surrender the need to:
- Be right.
- Speak first.
- Decide.
- Control.
- Take credit.
(From: “What You Must Surrender to Lead Best”)
Every item on Kevin’s list represents troubling, terrifying transitions, on every leader’s journey. Some never get past the need to be right. Because they don’t, they speak first, decide, control, and take credit.
Leaders who yield lift up.
Leaders who yield:
- Extend influence. Failure to yield, on the other hand, becomes manipulation and coercion.
- Elevate others. People feel respected when you yield.
- Endorse alternatives.
- Enable action. People dare to contribute when leaders yield.
- Energize passion. Yielding fans fires.
But, yielding all the time is weak!
Successful leaders never yield:
- Forward focus. All leaders always press into the future. Even when they step back, it’s so they can step forward.
- High standards. Yielding isn’t accepting mediocrity. Leaders look at themselves and others and say, “You can do better.”
- Ethics.
- Optimism.
- Passion for mission and vision.
What’s challenging about yielding?
When do you yield? Not yield?
Dear Dan,
I think the challenging about yielding is about intention. When leaders think to yield, it questions what do you want to yield. And it decides the concerns and intention. There could be yielding resources which can be stepping stoned for people to succeed. And there could be yielding that can maximize ones resources. So, I believe, it depends upon intention and need for yield. And when leaders’ intention is self, then it is the challenge.
Leaders try to yield when they seed the need. But they do not yield when desire to yield can divert the attention and direction. I think the most courageous act of leaders is the desire to succeed than the fear of failure.
In many cases, yielding is equated to weakness as indicated in the article, but it is so essential to harmonious or congenial co-existence. As the saying goes, “he who fights and run away, lives to fight another day” when a leader realizes that there is always an alternative, or a counter argument to their own hypothesis, it allows them to learn, and that is what makes the difference between a leader and a boss.
Dan,
I’m an educator as you know by now. When is it time to yield? When someone comes up with any idea that is better for the students. When students profit, our profession improves. Student success is our bottom line.
Dauna
Khan Academy now
Everything else concerning education in America….dreadful.
We spend how much per kid for these results! Wow!!!
Just check the report card. Where do we rank in the world in our kids abilities in math and science.
Dreadful
The better way is what they are doing at Khan Academy. Check it out, just google!
Or get mad at me cause I am telling the truth and stick your head in the sand!!!
Who do you figure that helps?
It works better for who it is all about the kids.
SP Back To The Present
Hey a thumbs down, guess someone else don’t like the education report card either. Cool!
Or is it that I brought it up?
Yeah peoples, they hate the truth I have found!
Ok they do not hate the Truth till it is something about THEM!!!! LOL
Under those circumstances they seem to be all for it!!!!!
Hehe
Now ask why it bothers you and check out
Khan Academy!
Use the energy of your angst to better your understanding.
Check it out Bill Gates did and gave the dude 150 million bucks to get it going faster!
Be like Bill Gates! Get into Kahn Academy it serves the kids better.
SP Back to The Present.
Poll taken in 2009 USA students ranked 25 out of 34 countries in science and math.
Check out Article from July
23 huffington post about US kids lagging behind in education. Thumb down them!!!! I am just the messenger.
Now thumbs down with your head in the sand if you wish?
You tell me how do we solve these problems if we do not have the honesty to admit we got a problem?
Do you thumbs down are the 3 of you saying 25 out of 34 is GREAT? We are America darn it!! We got to do better.
I love this country and feel it is the best in the history of civilization.
For our kids to be 25th out of 34 is dismal.
My mother was a life long teacher so I am saying that about dear old mom too.
The results might not make u happy but they are what they are.
We stink and we need to admit it so we can start the process of getting better.
Khan Academy is out if left field and works better! Don’t take my word for it go look for yourself.
For everyone here if you could you would find not one of those three people who thumbed down googled Khan Academy.
Bet they know Nothing About it but in their ignorance have decided they don’t like it.
See Contempt Prior to Investigation in action?
Do not mind disagreement at all. I welcome it maybe I am wrong and I can learn something? What does that say about people who do not welcome disagreement?
SP Out. Like me or not, cool, don’t like these test scores of our kids more. Care about them. Our educational paradigm stinks and needs a changing. Based on the results.
Results not ingredients. How can anyone have a problem with that?
Khan Academy is really amazing, as is The Independent Project. It’s your delivery that it off-putting. Has nobody told you yet?
Well in our condition being spiritual beings having a human experience we live our lives based on the illusions of our ego.
Frank Morgan…..the actor who played The Wizard knows what I speak of!!!! Hehe
So we think about with our magic magnifying minds in three ways and then there is the solution .
They are as follows
1. Resentment. We did not get our way in the past
2. Anger. We are not getting our way right now.
3. Fear. We do not think we are going to be getting our way shortly
Solution. Live in NOW. The present moment is Gods present to us!!! Duh!!!! How simpler could she make it?? Too simple huh, yea my initial thought too!
There is one problem that includes all problems. There is one solution to all problems. Isn’t that a relief?
I know it doesn’t seem so, it just is!!!
That problem is a conscious separation from God and Solution conscious contact with God.
Now I won’t disrespect you telling you who God is, that decision is left for you to decide. Just consciously contact what you think she/he is.
God has no insecurity complex, he/she knows her name is Alice even if you call her Patti. Hehe. So you are confused about who she is, not her.
So continue battling the illusions of the ego or do what Emmett Fox suggests in his Golden Key…think about God instead.
Anything else is just messing around.
My Y word. Yo. Means wake up!!
You know what in my mind helping folks with The Solution. Leadership
Anything else just trying to wrest satisfaction out of this life only if you manage it well! Duh!!!!
Challenge of yielding…..the illusions of my ego seem very real!!!! Where is Toto to go behind the screen and bite The Wizard on the leg and reveal it is all an illusion projected in my mind?
I Concur. The Dude Abides and
Shifterp Back to The Present. The coolest place to hang there is!!!
Ps if what I shared bothers you just substitute I everywhere you read we so you can make it easier to swallow as if I am just talking about me!! Lol
Ok real slowly now for the slow thinkers……………
What did you not like about what Scott just shared?
Do not think practicing the Presence of God sounds cool?
Do think chasing satisfying your ego sounds cool?
Come on slow thinking thumb downer, share!!!!!!!!!!!
Or don’t! LOL
Shifterp BACK TO THE PRESENT!
Amazing a person can have a thumbs down with the strategy every Spiritual Master who has ever drawn a breath would agree with!
Is that why the Buddha is Laughing cause people who are not aware don’t even know they are not aware? it is kind of funny actually now that I think about it. LOL
Wow I wish those thumb downers would share, it has got to be a dazzling intellectual display, don’t it? hehe
Again.. you seem to have interesting things to share, but you say it like the biggest jerk at the office while stumbling drunk and angry at the office Christmas party. Also, it seems that this isn’t your blog, so to come on here and address all of us as though you’re instructing and informing us comes across as kinda douche-y (I’ll admit I’m doing it now too and feel awkward doing so). I always thought, ALWAYS, read your comments now because you do bring up interesting ideas (most of which I’ve already heard of) and I’m always curious what you’ll bring to the table, but I never finish reading because you sound like an a**. Sorry, but you did ask. Maybe just state your ideas calmly and conversationally as though you’re talking to intellectual equals?
My perception of non-yeiding leader is they’re fear of looking weak and not worthy of thier position or authority. These leaders are frustrating to work for. They can have excellant people and strong teams yet never utilize thier skills and talents. Unyielding leaders make it extremley difficult for thier employees to get to comfortable with them. They are rarely approaachable which stiffle’s problem solving and sharing of ideas. Building a solid sence of community under these leaders can be next to, if not imposible. Yeilding actually shows strenght of self and confidence in your people. “Yieding sounds strikingly familiar to one of the concepts of Empowerment doesn’t it Dan”? Happy Friday my friend!
Love Kevin’s point about what leaders give up. In my mind, the most important “give-up” (and sometimes the most difficult) is the right to take credit! A true leader exhibits humility by praising and extolling the efforts of his team– even to his boss!
A true Leader in my opinion IS HUMBLE, they exhibit it by BEING Humble.
Trying to show others how humble I am by praising others is STIIL JUST TALK!!!!!!!!
I suggest less talking, more BEING to MYSELF!
If I be just right, I ain’t got to say ANYTHING TO ANYONE, just smile.
SP Back To The Present.
What’s challenging about yielding, you ask? Well, it takes great self-confidence and self-control to yield.
Self-confidence is something that most of us who like to call ourselves leaders THINK we have, but when it comes right down to it, we often “yield” to our egos. And self-control is a characteristic that may not always be so common among leaders. But it takes both of these to be able to surrender our need to be right, to speak first, to be the decision maker, to be in control, and to take credit.
Context and wisdom and the wisdom to know the context…that should tell us when or when not yield, right??:)
Yielding to make headway is a good quality of a great leader because it allows your subordinates to humanize you rather than vilify as this power thirsty leader. Be a recalcitrant leader that does not yield to subordinates or other ideas makes you an opinionated leader.
As Scott Powell suggested, yielding clashes against our fear. We fear losing leadership. We fear inexperience or immaturity of subordinates. We fear exposure as inept leaders. So we struggle to yield, and we too often yield only to our fear.
Awesome! Awesome! Another promoter of growth…YIELD but responsibly!
Great comment – “yield responsibly”. A very profound post, especially what NOT to yield. Those are sacred.
Yes, Dan Rockwell is awesome. I really enjoy his wisdom.
Variation on a theme…yield, but verify first.
The challenge in yielding may be when we are too wrapped up in ourselves we don’t see that our investment/ego/ has taken over and become a gnarly hairball to let loose (sorry, perhaps too graphic). That may bring us unwillingly back to Ajay’s point about intention.
When to not yield…whenever safety on any level (physical, emotional, spiritual, intellectual) is involved and certainly whenever shared hope is involved.
Okay Dan, usually I find your posts to be bang on, and I often use them with my team, or to reflect on my own leadership skills – but this one doesn’t do it for me. I know this is a generalization, but I think there’s a gender-based component here – as a woman in a leadership position, the last thing I need to learn how to get better at is yielding – in fact, my challenge is the complete opposite.
Check out this recent post by Dana Theus: http://smartblogs.com/leadership/2013/07/22/3-leadership-truths-women-should-ignore/
I’d be interested in your thoughts on this, Dan. Thanks for provoking the discussion!
Interesting take! I’m glad I read though the comments now. Thank you for the link. It’s definitely harder for us because women who yield are seen as “typical”, women who are strong are seen as “bitches”, men who yield are seen as “weak” but if strong they’re seen as “strong men”… I think it’s a matter of having a psychologically informed and healthy workforce that doesn’t generalize and stereotype, working with people who are as evolved as you are as a leader. I find that whenever I discuss these ideas with the workers here in Saudi it’s always new information and interesting new ideas for them and they subtly change their actions/reactions from the expected to the more evolved.
Most every major religion points to ego and a preoccupation with self as the origin of most all wrongdoing. Refusal to yield dovetails beautifully with such teachings. I have witnessed sharp executives, who suffered from ‘the alpha dog syndrome’. Their sole focus was themselves and they took every opportunity to make it clear who was in charge. This is how they understood what leadership (and life) was about and the environment this mentality created sidelined strong teams as well as talented individuals which cost their employer dearly in terms of productivity, morale and keeping rare talent. To the insecure leader, doing things their way is the only permissible behavior. Yielding to anything is just too threatening and requires they see others as contributors to a corporate goal and not to making the boss look good. Because of the wreckage I’ve witnessed from unyielding managers, I have become firm believer ego is to be consciously set aside to allow a space for yielding when good ideas present themselves which allows others to feel free to invest themselves in a project and to be fearlessly brilliant. To echo the comments of the other readers, humility is an intrinsic part of good leadership.
Bravo!!!!
Hey thumbs downers why not his stuff?
Anonymous and not consistent!!!
I am really not having concerns about these folks BUT if I was to choose to there is plenty of evidence to think they might not be too bright.
Hehe
Anyway sounds to me you are crystal clear Fuzzy. Thank you for ego bad, selflessness and honesty good.
Got some thumb downers here who don’t agree with that stuff at all.
Take care,
Party on Wayne!
SP back to the present
You know, these fine points of “Leadership Lifts Up” could also be applied to the makings of a successful marriage…which is another form of partnership. Great advice Dan.
Yielding as mentioned is thought to show weakness, and the 5 things that leaders should yield to (every once in while) are taught as the things you should always do as great leader. This is a great topic that shows that the things that are taught aren’t always completely right.
This post is spot-on. You’re exactly right. What is interesting is how noticeable it is 360-degrees from all sides when a leader is not yielding. The air in the room changes, as does the behavior. Great post.
Great info!
There is a difference between always yielding and always knowing that you can yield. There are times when a leader must lead and there are times when the team or individuals should take the lead. The wisdom is in knowing the difference and then giving up the “need to be right” (as noted in your Twitter feed).