3 Shifts that Bring Stability to Chaos
Environments created by out-of-touch leaders are filled with frustration, distrust, and defeat.
Disconnected decision-makers create distress.
Deeper concerns:
New systems and processes help, but the deeper concern of organizational distress is leadership.
- What do current patterns say about your leadership?
- What do nagging issues call you to change about yourself?
Chaos is a leadership problem.
New bandages:
New bandages over infected wounds won’t heal nagging issues.
Solutions are rooted in hearts, heads, and hands.
Successful change begins with people.
The big shift:
Disorganization, mismanagement, and organizational chaos are people problems before they are organizational issues. Yes, structure and systems matter. But solutions begin with shifts in attitude, thinking, and action.
Nothing changes until leaders change.
Frances Hesselbein wrote, “Leadership is a matter of how to be, not how to do.” Warren Bennis wrote, “Becoming a leader is synonymous with becoming yourself.”
Leadership is about who you are, before it’s about what you do.
Shifts that stabilize organizations:
#1. Self-protection to vulnerability.
Pretending to be something you aren’t invites disrespect, not loyalty.
- When you aren’t sure, get curious.
- Explore the challenges others face.
- Seek input. Explore feedback.
- Run pilot programs. Don’t expect perfection on first attempts at change.
- Be humble enough to try simple solutions.
#2. Pointing fingers to going first.
Worry about changing yourself before thinking about changing others.
- Practice every new behavior or attitude that you expect from others for three months before expecting it from others.
- Share your experiences with your team.
- Learn, adapt, and support each other as you grow. (See #1 above.)
#3. Secrecy to openness.
Stressed organizations have too many secrets.
Disconnected leaders:
- Huddle in secrecy.
- Exclude people from decision-making processes.
- Reject input and feedback.
- Expect others to change while they stay the same.
- Pass down inadequate decisions.
What leadership attitudes, thinking, or behaviors propagate instability in organizational life?
What shifts in attitude, thinking, or behavior move organizations toward greater stability?
Good morning Dan;
Todays blog reignited unpleasant memories of am otherwise stellar outstanding career.
In 2012 I was invited to speak with the leader of one of Pennsylvania’s largest departments, (18,000+ employees). The task was to redesign all Leadership Development Training Curriculums. Given a staff of five, finale content authority, along with the work location of my choice we began immediately. Unfortunately so did the nay sayers and anonymous behind the scence individuals who consistently created road blocks.
I started with a clean slate. After dismissing an old ineffective Autocratic stlye of leadership development I began designing a fresh new Democratic program focusing on Character Based Leadership and Asset Based Management.
Almost imediatley my character and reputation came under fire from every direction. From the beginning of my career every Annual Employee Performance Review I received was either Commendable or Outstanding. Foolishly I believed my credentials, work history, titles held, and importantly my character and reputation could weather this storm. “It could NOT.”
I continually made every effort remain humble and objective regarding how I was being received by my superiors making changes along the way in an attempt to gain support for the task I’d been given. I had the absolute support of many in the Leadership areana, John Maxwell-the worlds #1 Leadership Consultant, John Rogers- CEO Dale Carnegie Pittsburgh, Mark Miller- head of Leadership Development at Chik fil a, you Dan-(The Leadership Freak). However, “Nothing worked.” There was nothing I could do to stop this cancer that was jeopardizeing this critical project.
Alas, I followed my own advice I’d given others in the past. “Leave your employer for sanities sake.”
I decided to share my story Dan so that others might realise that just because you are ‘doing the rite thing’ it does not mean others will be supportive. Today’s organizational hierarchy is not always open to change no matter how positive or promissing that change may be. At the end of the day there are times we have to asl the hard question, “is this really worth risking my health and sanity or is it time to walk away?”
Cheers Dan
P.S. Career #2 starts Monday with Harrisburg Marketing.
Thanks SGT for sharing your story and congratulations on starting career #2. I wish you success.
What leadership attitudes, thinking, or behaviors propagate instability in organizational life?
Individuals who seek to disrupt the “Apple cart”! Risk takers which affect others safety and health through their own miss-conduct, they need to be removed like a Cancer. Your part of the solution or your the problem
What shifts in attitude, thinking, or behavior move organizations toward greater stability?
Leading by example and showing the successful side if we follow the plan. Establish the plan and get them on board. Be open to suggestions good or bad! Most importantly is communication, we don’t we are destined for failure.
Thanks Tim. I can see that some sectors are more vulnerable to risk gone wild. The other thing that comes to mind is the danger of leaders who don’t appreciate and respect the ripple effect of their attitudes and behaviors. Leaders who disregard their influence are dangerous.
Good morning Tim;
As always your comments are spot on. Unfortunatley at the end of the day I was unable to convince the naysayers to come aboard.
Thanks
SGT Steve
SGT Steve,
For every door that closes another shall open!
Wishing you the best on your new journey.
Tim
I think one of the biggest enablers of instability in an organization is a leader who does not exhibit trust and loyalty to his/her followers. Leaders instill loyalty and trust by being loyal and trustworthy. A second way a leader causes instability is to be unpredictable. There is nothing wrong with innovation and moderate disruption. But if a leader demonstrates consistently unpredictable behavior will damage the organization and its people.
Thanks Daryl. I appreciate your insights. Trust helps stabilize turbulent environments. On the other hand distrust creates more turbulence.
The second part of your comment got me thinking about the danger of following the leadership fad of the day.
I think one shift in ATB to move organisations towards greater stability or height is FOCUS. Focusing on the future with an align principle and creativity. The present is the foundation for the future and to keep the brand floating, you must maximise your focus by being present in odd modes.
Secondly: You must know your weakness. It’s obvious that a good leader try to be the perfect personality to avoid the nay-sayers. Your weakness defines, promotes and gives you hints on what, how and when to adjust and act. Richard branson once said, ‘My biggest weakness in life is that I can’t say No.’ I think this falls into the Humility angle of a great leader.. THANKS!
Thanks Goodwin. I’m a huge fan of forward-facing curiosity. It’s easy to get sucked into the past or drown in today’s problems. But leaders are curious about the future. What’s the next step? What can we do to nudge the ball forward? How might we create the future we aspire to create?
This is a great read. Not only does it apply to the leaders of the world but it applies to little old me. This is key information that I will study while building and becoming my brand. Thank you.
Thanks Denise. It’s great that leadership principles have broad application. 🙂
WOW! Talk about kicking our butts first thing in the morning. Great post. Going to read this about a dozen times to figure how many of the points are me. I will say curiosity is way under rated for leaders. I like to play that “what if” game. What if we change thing or move that person to this team. Sometimes it work and others not so much. You need to be willing to conceder that as a leader you are wrong, not every time but it could happen. right?
Thanks Walt. I respect your openness. It might help to know that I’m kicking my own butt too. 🙂
The word humility keeps bubbling up in my thinking.
“What leadership attitudes, thinking, or behaviors propagate instability in organizational life?”
Two things I repeatedly encountered during my career fit into this category:
1. Leaders who rush into major changes in organizational purpose, direction or strategy without sufficient preparation or “groundwork” to establish a sound foundation for the desired change.
2. Leaders who default (often interrupting without listening) to saying “No!” As in, “No, that will never work!” etc..
Thanks for yet another insightful post!
Cheers!
Thanks Jim. Impulsive gut reactions are painful to those we work with. I’m a “NO” if I don’t stay open! Plus, I think I like my own ideas the best.
Leaders think through a plan and then give everyone the end result. It might be better to include people in the thinking process too. Just a thought.
This one stands out, “Be humble enough to try simple solutions.” What I’ve found over the last 4-5 years is that I have to dumb down to extremely simple discussions the technical and other content I need to present in front of both internal and external people. Its as if the previous presumptions I had as to minimal competency is lost. I’m successful at that but brings into question the general education that workers are getting along the way. I have to continue to control my disdain to those that just don’t have the skill sets that others did in the past. Thanks for the good article discussion.
Thanks Roger. Assumptions are an issue. Plus, a simple solution just doesn’t feel important enough. We’re looking for solutions that feel big, when something like just asking a follow up question might take our listening to whole new level, for example.
Respect the system. Understand that it is bigger than you and naturally seeks equilibrium, therefore I have learned there is a difference in being on the leading edge and falling off the bleeding edge. I too learned this from experience. Understanding and leveraging this is the difference between good leaders and highly effective leaders. If you want to make change, make profound meaning that resonates and know when to be the calm in the chaos ( when the anxiety in the system rises.) It is a balancing act, for sure. As always, great article and discussion.
Thanks Carol. Your reference to the bleeding edge is important. Sometimes pulling back just a little helps with the bleeding. Cheers
Thats good stuff
Daryl…
SGT Steve