Empathy

This is my second post examining Larry C. Spears' list of the ten characteristics of servant leadership in his on-line article "On Character and Servant-Leadership: Ten Characteristics of Effective, Caring Leaders". His second bullet is this:

"Empathy: The servant-leader strives to understand and empathize with others. People need to be accepted and recognized for their special and unique spirits. One assumes the good intentions of co-workers and colleagues and does not reject them as people, even when one may be forced to refuse to accept certain behaviors or performance. The most successful servant-leaders are those who have become skilled empathetic listeners."

Anyone who has worked as an employee has undoubtedly discovered just how challenging this is for most leaders. The weak self-image of most leaders is so pronounced that it has become one of the most stereotyped and parodied concept of leadership. Dilbert's pointy-haired boss is just one of the many obvious examples.

Being a "boss" or a "manager" has virtually nothing to do with leadership (the argument of author Paul Glen in "Leading Geeks" notwithstanding). Managing is oversight of specific processes and procedures focused on a linear output. In a world of knowledge work, it is of significantly less importance than leadership, although still important from the perspective of making sure that accomplishments are aligned with organizational objectives.

Leading, rather, has much more to do with people, how autonomous they are, and what it is that compels them to work together. Empathy is a significant contributor to the discovery of dynamics that allow people to work together in synergy.

In Spear's explanation of empathy that I quoted above, there is a key word: strives. According to Dictionary.com, a principle element of striving is exerting great effort. This means that empathy isn't merely being open to obvious observations about others, but is rather an intense, intentional, and consistent study of others: Who are they? How are they special and unique? What do they do especially well? Where are their challenges?

Empathy requires listening. How well are you doing?

Playing to Strengths

After reading my Listening post, blog reader and friend Mark Townsend of Enterasys dropped an e-mail to me expanding on his thoughts about listening and teamwork. In it, he drew a parallel to a recent best-ball golf tournament in which he played. He described the team as four guys, each with unique strengths and talents. As they learned to play to the strengths of each, they found that each member participated, contributed, and benefited. As a result, they were successful together in ways that they could not have been alone.

This is the ultimate goal of any good team, and therefore must be among the primary goals of the leader.

Mark then outlined his bullet points for management:

• Communicate the vision for the department and company clearly
• Engage each team player's individual strengths - but also allow fair competition to stretch outside and make the shot
• Each team player should feel that they contributed - player fulfillment sustains teams
• Each team player should not be typecast to a single role - in the golf analogy, a person making a great drive might later in the round make the winning putt. Allowing players to play outside their comfort zone can lead to team success (must be managed though!)
  

Furthermore, he mentioned, "In our round - we let our "champion" shoot last. It took the pressure off of the lower-skilled players and if we secured a great shot early - it let the champion take a more riskier shot than he normally would have. It also alleviated "performance anxiety" for the lesser skilled golfers. They weren't trying to beat a great shot made by a team member."

There is a lot to be learned from these insights, and the best leaders will consider the parallels with their team and their leadership. One difficulty might be in viewing skills and talents that you don't have with an objective eye. Another might be valuing the various benefits each member brings to the table. Developing this perspective is vitally important for optimum performance.

How about you?

Listening

As I mentioned in my earlier introductory post about Servant Leadership, I've been thinking about leadership and what it takes to lead in the 21st century for quite a while. Robert K. Greenleaf's insights into servant leadership are very powerful, and Larry C. Spears' list of the ten characteristics of servant leadership in his on-line article "On Character and Servant-Leadership: Ten Characteristics of Effective, Caring Leaders" is a worthy starting point for conversation.

The first characteristic is Listening: "Leaders have traditionally been valued for their communication and decisionmaking skills. Although these are also important skills for the servant-leader, they need to be reinforced by a deep commitment to listening intently to others. The servant-leader seeks to identify the will of a group and helps to clarify that will. He or she listens receptively to what is being said and unsaid. Listening also encompasses getting in touch with one's own inner voice. Listening, coupled with periods of reflection, are essential to the growth and well-being of the servant-leader."

If you think about your own historical view of leadership, would listening be one of the primary characteristics of the leaders that you've encountered?

Interestingly, during the Leadership Summit this week, I listened to Colin Powell espouse similar ideas under his principle, "Trust People in the Trenches."

There's a lot to listening. It's difficult work. It forces you to consider your own perspective and how others may differ from it. It stretches your concepts of "fact" and "opinion." And it introduces you to ideas and approaches that may stretch you our of your comfort zone.

That said, the results of leadership that embraces persistent listening are multiplied as a result. Team members who know they are heard respond much better to the needs of the team than those who wonder. And those who know that they aren't heard seldom stick around to see anything through to the end.

I remember walking into a board room to discuss options for a company on a rapid trajectory some years ago. We had all been studying the various options for next steps, discussing them in the hallways, meetings, offices, and during our frequent business trips. We had some exciting ideas and were eager to share them and get buy-in.

And then the CEO entered the room.

It didn't take long for us to realize that he had already decided. All of our thinking and effort was irrelevant. It was a waste.

As you might expect, it didn't take long for that leadership team to effectively disperse to other organizations. The company didn't last, either. It was unfortunate, because it had a great future and could have served millions of people. But, it never got the chance.

I remember another time and another CEO. One of his mantras was, "If I have all the ideas, we're in big trouble!" And he meant it. He listened. We all did. As a result we did amazing things. I still do work for him.

What about you as a leader? How do you make sure you're listening? What are your methods for drawing out your staff and listening closely?

Think about that...

My last iPhone Entry for now

Finally, a reviewer who really understands what's important. Check out Two Weeks With An iPhone for a view of the iPhone from the perspective of someone who has spent a lot of time with many alternatives. Most importantly, he understands how to measure the value of tools in terms of what they accomplish for the human using them.

If you are a leader and need to keep your productivity as high as it can be, it's definitely worth a read.

The Servant Leader

Servant Leadership has long been a focus of mine, taking insights from Robert K. Greenleaf and Ken Blanchard, among others. Recently, I came across a page on the site for the Robert K. Greenleaf Center for Servant-Leadership entitled "On Character and Servant-Leadership: Ten Characteristics of Effective, Caring Leaders" by Larry C. Spears, Chief Executive Officer of the Center. In it, Spears identifies the following characteristics that he has gleaned from Greenleaf's work and his own experience:

1. Listening
2. Empathy
3. Healing
4. Awareness
5. Persuasion
6. Conceptualization
7. Foresight
8. Stewardship
9. Commitment to the growth of people
10. Building community

Over the next few posts, we'll step through each of these points and take a look at how they show up in day-to-day leadership. Feel free to drop in your thoughts as you read along.

Are They Really Missing It?

I have been off for a week in the downeast area of Maine, spending time in Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park as well as hunting some great lighthouses. And learning that it's hard to find good tea in that part of the country. But we did find a great teahouse in Freeport on our way back to Portland yesterday. Jacqueline's Tea Room was a great capstone to our time away.

Interestingly, I was able to keep current with my e-mail and some web work while away using the iPhone. I was quite pleased that I did what I needed it to do to keep me in touch with clients and work that I have going, even though I did my best to disconnect for much of each day. One of the things that I noted was the on-going surprise from many quarters regarding the success of the iPhone. Frankly, I think most of the people discussing it do not understand the real issue.

The real issue is this: all of the sophisticated phones on the market today stink for one reason or another. They are too big, too limited, too unreliable, or too difficult to actually use when you are mobile. The market has longed for anything to grab that would resolve these issues, giving them an intuitive interface to the functions that they need in a mobile device.

That is why the iPhone has been so popular. It does what Apple said it would do. All of the complaints are about functions that Apple said that the phone would not do, or complaints about the design decisions that Apple made (such as using a soft keyboard instead of hard keys). They all miss the point that it lives up to the promises that Steve Jobs and Apple made, starting last January.

So, what is there to learn from this? Simple: underpromise and overdeliver. It's a well-known truth of business and leadership, but most people try to take a shortcut. They overpromise and then underdeliver.

This past week, I had to hold to a commitment even though I was off in the woods. I had promised a work product to a client by Friday, so I spent some time huddled over my iPhone getting it off to them late Friday after spending the day along the Maine coast. But many (perhaps most) producers of products don't keep their commitments and few take seriously their communications with customers and prospects.

The same holds true for leaders. Do you follow through? Do the members of your team know that they can count on you? Are you sure?

Ask them in a way that allows them to be transparent and honest. Then listen to what they say. You'll gain a great opportunity to grow, and if you follow through on changes, the benefits you'll reap will be astounding.

What do you think?

Second Impressions

I have now used the iPhone for a few days, and while it isn't perfect by any stretch, it is quite a capable mobile system. The phone works as advertised, and the so-called "hype" wasn't a set of over-promises, but rather an honest assessment of capability. As a phone, it has the most intuitive interface I have used. For example, when starting a call while having a BlueTooth headset active, the phone pops up a dialog that allows you to change the active audio device. The way that the phone displays options for incoming calls, call waiting, and other situations is quite clear. There do seem to me to be times when the call and hang-up buttons change places in different modes.

I am finding that the keyboard is becoming easier to use, and I think I'm already faster than I was on the Treo, primarily because the system corrects mistypes and the virtual keys are actually larger than the keys on the Treo as the system guesses the words. The maps application is very useful and amazing in its appearance and function. I'm about to take a trip where that will come in very handy. I'll report on that later.

Today, I had an issue recording a new voicemail outgoing message. The iPhone is different from other phones in that the message gets recorded onto the phone, then transmitted up to the voicemail system. The advantage is obvious: the sound quality is of a local recording, not a message recorded over the cellular network.

However, today I couldn't update it after my lovely bride suggested I could make it sound better. So, I called AT&T. They put me on hold for quite a while, and when they answered again it wasn't AT&T... it was Apple! The tech suggested I reset the iPhone (touch and hold home, then hold down the power switch until the gray apple appears). After I did that, the iPhone worked just fine. And interestingly, a stubborn SMS message finally decided to be sent, too.

So, clearly, it's not quite perfect, and I'm sure that others will find reasons to complain. However, its combination of size, weight, human interface, capabilities, and upgradability put it head and shoulders above any other mobile device available today...

...from the perspective of this pragmatic technologist, at least.