The Foxhole

I once worked with a high school basketball team. At the beginning of the season, the coach named one of his players team captain. The coach later revealed to me that he chose the team captain based on the boy’s character and leadership potential.

About a month later, after weeks of intense practice preparing for the upcoming season, the coach led his team through an exercise called “The Foxhole.” It is an exercise that I encourage all teams to execute.

The Foxhole is based off of military jargon. In trench warfare, members of the same team would dig a hole dubbed a “foxhole.” The team would live in the foxhole, eating, sleeping, and fighting together. There was no world outside of the foxhole. The men inside that hole lived and died as one. They became closer than brothers and literally trusted each other with their lives.

The Foxhole exercise run by this coach was for each member of the team to imagine they were in battle and dug into a foxhole. In their foxhole would be three other members of their team. In this exercise, each team member had to choose three teammates to accompany them in that foxhole.

The coach had his team take ten minutes to think about their answers without speaking to anyone. Then, when the time was up, he had them write their foxholes down and submit them.

On a team of a dozen kids, there were a dozen different combinations of foxholes. There was, however, one similarity in each of the foxholes: every single member of that team included their team captain in their foxhole.

The coach later told me that it was at that moment, when he saw this, that he realized that he had made the right choice in team captain. In a life-or-death situation, each member of his team wanted their team captain at their back.

Leadership is about your team knowing that you have their back.

What trust looks like

If things are ever going to go sideways, a team needs to trust that their leader is going to have their back. That’s the kind of trust that leadership requires.

I have talked to many people about leadership, and one of the complaints I hear far too often is that people don’t trust their leaders to have their backs. They see their leaders as middlemen rather than leaders. These are the managers who will throw their team under the bus in order to curry favour with the CEO. These are the principals who will ignore the complaints of their teachers because they only care about input from their Board of Trustees. That does not garner trust. That is not leadership.

So how do you build that kind of trust? I have a few suggestions for you.

Trust requires:

1. Building caring relationships

Stop and think for a moment about the people in your foxhole. This is a great exercise that you should do in-depth, but for now just quickly think about the top three to five people who would be in your foxhole. Got them? Great. Now, what do they all have in common?

If you are like most people, the people in your foxhole all share one important characteristic: they are people who care about you and your well-being.

This seems obvious, but it is important to building trust.

We trust people who care about us.

If you build a positive relationship and that other person knows that you actually care about their well-being, they will want you in their foxhole. And that is a leadership win.

2. Practicing competency

Go back and think about the people who are in your foxhole. I bet you didn’t choose people who are incompetent. We don’t trust incompetent people. Think about it. If your neck is on the line, you want to be able to trust someone who knows what they’re doing.

If you want people to trust you, they need to trust your ability.

3. Demonstrating integrity

Think about your foxhole again. These are the people who you trust with your life. Are any of them particularly untrustworthy? Probably not. You trust them because they have demonstrated in the past that they are trustworthy.

In other words, we naturally trust people who demonstrate that they are trustworthy. Again, it seems obvious, but it’s easy to forget. If you want people to trust you, walk in integrity. That means doing the right thing, even when nobody is looking.

Dynamic lessons

In short, if you want people to trust you, you have to prove that you are worthy of their trust.

We looked at three ways you can earn your team’s trust:

1. Building caring relationships. People will naturally trust people who demonstrate that they care about them, so build trust by showing that you care.
2. Practicing competency. You don’t have to be the best at everything that you do, but if you want people to trust you, you have to demonstrate that you know what you’re doing.
3. Demonstrate integrity. People are usually pretty good judges of character. So do the right thing, even when no one is looking. Then, when people are looking, they’ll see someone who is trustworthy.

What are your thoughts on building trust in the workplace. How do you build trust?

Books that influenced this article:

The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You by John C. Maxwell

Leadership is an Art by Max De Pree

The post Lessons from a Foxhole: The Importance of Trust in Leadership appeared first on Great North Dynamics.

We have all worked with someone — or for someone — who was inconsistent in their communication or expectations. Not only is it annoying, it can also hurt morale and undermine your team. A team requires consistent communication and clear expectations in order to achieve set goals.

While we can all think of someone who has failed in consistent communication and/or expectations, we are all guilty of it too. Whether stress, apathy, lack of vision, lack of time, or otherwise, we have all been inconsistent at some point or another in the way we communicate with others or in our expectations of others or ourselves.

This post identifies three important areas of communication in which leaders must be consistent (and how they can achieve consistency), and then discusses how to set consistent expectations for your team and for yourself.

Consistent communication

I have met many leaders who are strong communicators — and some leaders who are not. Communication is a key to your success as a leader (more on that in another post).

The problem is generally not that leaders do not communicate, it is that they communicate inconsistently.

There are a few areas where leaders communicate with inconsistency. As a side note, these communication tips are good for mass communication as well.

1. Messaging

You need to use consistent messaging when interacting with your team. What you say to one team member does not need to be verbatim what you said to another, but the message should be identical. In the same way, the message you tell a team member on Monday and what you tell the same person on Friday should be the same. If your messaging is inconsistent, you will give mixed messages to your team, which leads to confusion and distrust.

2. Transparency

Leaders should always seek to be transparent with their team, except under circumstances that require confidentiality. If you commit to being transparent with your team, that is all the more reason to act with transparency. Again, with the exception of confidential or secret information entrusted to you by others, you should not give some information while with-holding other information from your team. Be consistent in your transparency so your team can trust you.

3. Timing

If you commit to regular communication your team — whether it is a project update, a check in, or anything else — you need to be consistent. As a leader, you should be checking in with your team members regularly anyways, so the commitment should not even have to be made. Be consistent in the timing of your interactions with your team. Don’t meet with each team member individually once every two weeks for a month and then wait three months before scheduling another meeting. Your team is judging you as a leader, and it is far more professional to have a consistent meeting schedule than not. If, on the other hand, you commit to only holding meetings when they are necessary, then do just that. Don’t waste your team’s time with unorganized meetings.

 Consistent expectations

All leaders should have clearly defined expectations from their team. If you expect your team to behave in a certain way or meet a certain goal, that should be made clear to them. If you, as a team member, are given a set of expectations, you should work hard to meet those expectations.

Leaders should also have expectations for themselves. These expectations should be higher than those they have for their team. If you expect your team to achieve excellence in their work, your work should be more excellent; if you expect your team to be punctual, you should be early. The same goes for leaders who are not in a leadership position (what I call “everyday leaders”). If you are a leader among your peers or wish to become a leader, you need to have very high, yet realistic, expectations for yourself.

In order for your expectations to be effective, they must be consistent.

Whether you have expectations for your team or for yourself, you must keep them consistent. If your team (or you) meets your expectations, they deserve congratulations. Don’t ignore their achievements; doing so will undermine the importance of your expectations.

Let me put it this way. Your expectations exist only because you make them so. It is your words that have created these expectations in your mind and the minds of your team. But words have a shelf life. You need to reinforce them. You could choose to continually remind your team of your expectations, and you probably should; however, it is far more effective to congratulate excellence when you see it. At the same time, if someone continually fails to meet your expectations, you need to address that.

No matter what, your expectations should be consistent. Your team needs to know exactly what is expected of them. If your expectations are not concrete, your team will suffer for it, because they don’t know what defines success for them. It is also important for you to have consistent expectations for yourself. You cannot expect excellence for yourself and then shrug it off if you miss that goal; on the other hand, you cannot expect yourself to put in three days of overtime in a week and then get upset if you reach three but fail to meet four.

There will be times when your expectations have to change. This is okay. When the time comes, make these changes very clear to your team (and yourself). If possible, give a reason for the change in expectations.

You may realize after you set out your expectations that you expected too much (or too little). You can change the severity of your expectations as well, but again make sure that your team is fully aware of these changes. They need to know what is expected of them, and in return they will expect that you will inform them if anything changes.

Dynamic Lessons

Even though leaders and their teams must be flexible and adaptable, people still thrive on a certain amount of consistency. As a leader, your communication with and expectations of your team should be consistent.

When exercising consistency with your team, you use the same principles that you would use to ensure consistency in mass communication with the public. First, ensure you have consistent messaging; the message you give to your team should be consistent (unless circumstances change, then you should communicate that change to your whole team). Second, you should have consistent transparency; your whole team should know the same thing (unless confidential information pertains to only a select group). Third, be consistent in your timing; check in regularly with your team members and ensure constant flow of communication.

It is also imperative that leaders keep their expectations consistent, both for their team and for themselves. Your team needs to know exactly what is expected of them. On the other hand, you need to know exactly to what standards you are holding yourself, and ensure that you hold yourself accountable to those standards.

Have you ever worked with or for someone who was inconsistent in their communication or their expectations? How did you handle that?

Books that influenced this article:

The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You by John C. Maxwell

The post How to Drive Consistency in Communication and Expectation appeared first on Great North Dynamics.

I think it goes without saying that leadership is hard, but there is so much more to leadership than that.

Being a leader involves much more than leading other people; it requires a lifestyle that, quite frankly, does not fit everyone.

That is not to say that we should discourage people from becoming better leaders, but our leaders should know what leadership has in store for them.  This post will describe just four of the difficulties faced by leaders.

1. Leaders are lonely.

It’s lonely at the top of the pyramid.  Now, most leaders are not all the way at the top of their organizations or not even necessarily in a position of leadership (more about this in an upcoming post), but they are at the top of their respective pools.

People are naturally attracted to leaders, but tend to congregate with their peers.

In other words, leaders are normally well-liked and respected, but are rarely invited to social gatherings outside of the workplace.  If you are taking on a leadership role, be prepared to suffer for it socially.  And you need to be okay with that.

2. Leaders are responsible.

When things go wrong, you are the one who has to answer for it. Regardless of whether you are actually responsible for an outcome, you must take responsibility for whatever happens under your watch.  If your team is held to a strict deadline, it is your responsibility to make sure that it is met.  If someone on your team drops the ball, it is up to you to fix it.  I cannot tell you the number of times I have had to do extra work to make up for someone else’s mistake in order to ensure a project is finished on time.

3. Leaders go first.

This seems obvious, but leaders lead. That means that leaders go first.

That means that leaders have to get their hands dirty.

Whether you are the CEO of a Fortune 500 Company or the manager at your local gas station, you cannot ask your employees to stay late to work overtime on a project if you have not already cancelled your dinner plans. Though being the first one in the door in the morning and the last one to leave at night may seem simple enough, bear in mind that leadership is not just about showing up, it is about working your butt off.

Leadership is 90% perspiration.

4. Leaders rarely receive recognition.

If you want a career in the spotlight, leadership is not for you.  Sure, there are some leaders who are publicly recognized.  Steve Jobs comes to mind, or Tim Cook, the past and current CEOs of Apple Inc.  But what about Phillip W. Schiller?  Ever heard of him?  He is the marketing director at Apple Inc., and the man behind the public image that is Apple.  So, if you have an iPhone or iPad or iWatch or iPod, your product’s packaging, display, and branding were all designed by a team under Schiller’s leadership.  Almost everyone in North America has experienced the branding power of Schiller’s team, but most have never heard of him.

Leaders rarely receive recognition, even from the very people whose lives they affect.

Dynamic lessons

After reading all this, there is a very simple conclusion: nobody should ever want to be a leader.  This is, however, the wrong conclusion.  What you should take away from this is that leadership is sacrificial.  You will not just have to work hard and give up your time; you will have to make sacrifices that might seem like too much. But if leadership was easy, everyone would do it.

Leadership is not about the easy way; it’s about doing it the right way. You will never attain your leadership goals if you aren’t ready to make sacrifices.

What kinds of sacrifices have you made to be a leader? Are they worth it?

Books that influenced this article:

The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You by John C. Maxwell

The post Leadership Difficulties: Four Reasons Not to Be a Leader appeared first on Great North Dynamics.

Leaders adapt to change.

We have all heard someone say that leaders adapt to change, but there is a huge disconnect between believing in adapting to change and actually going through with it. Adapting to change can be the hardest thing you have to deal with as a leader, especially if you have to lead other people through a change.

1. Don’t make it personal

When change happens, a good leader does not take it personally. Often, change is outside of our control. Something happened in the outside world that has affected the way you do your job. If the change is part of a bigger trend, either in your organization or in the larger world outside of your corporation, there is nothing you can do about it and you need to accept that the world is not out to get you.

In other circumstances, change might be completely within your control and you have had to make the choice to make a change in your organization or team. It might be a change to a structure or a process, but it heavily affects the way you do your job. Even if it is within your control, change can still be difficult. As a leader, even if it is a difficult choice, you still have to own it, but that does not mean you make it personal. If someone disagrees with your change, do not make it a personal vendetta. I will be talking more in a future post about how to win your team over on large-scale changes.

Sometimes change comes from someone in leadership over you. Whether a boss, manager, or Board of Directors, this leadership figure dictates a change that directly impacts you and your team. Regardless of whether this change has a positive or negative impact on you, remember again to not make it personal. Business decisions are rarely (and should never be) made based on personal feelings toward someone else. Your boss is not out to get you, so don’t think that he/she is.

In very rare instances, a change might be made that affects you that is, indeed, personal in nature. For example, you may get laid off simply because you have a personality clash with your supervisor, or you have an emotionally-unstable boss who has made a rash decision based on personal feelings rather than reason. This is so rare that if you think this has happened to, it probably hasn’t and you took a business decision far too personally. But, in the rare cases where this does happen, my advice is, again, don’t take it personally.

When you make change personal, you are building emotional walls and attachments that have no place in leadership. Emotional responses lead to people getting hurt. If you make a personal connection with changes occurring in your organization, not only do you risk hurting yourself, but you risk hurting your team. Yes, you should take ownership and buy into the mission and vision of your organization, but do not make changes personal.

2. Remember to breathe

Change often brings stress. After all, people are hard-wired to be cautious of change and to desire consistency and routine. There is security in familiarity, and when your security is threatened, you experience stress.

The most important thing you can do in a stressful situation is to take care of yourself.

Sometimes you just need to stop what you’re doing and focus on breathing. You need to deal with this stress before it burns you out. You have enough problems without adding mental health to the list.

I have written about mental health before and will continue to do so because your mental health is vitally important. You cannot be a leader if you cannot take care of yourself. Sometimes simple breathing exercises are enough to help you manage the stress. Sometimes you might need to seek professional help. The good news is that there are many options available to you in between breathing exercises and professional help.

3. Imagine the opportunities

It is easy to get stuck on the negatives when considering change. While this is a common conception, it is a narrow-minded view of change.

With change comes opportunity.

In a new environment, you will have new opportunities available to you. Consider the story of Andre De Grasse, Canadian Olympic sprinter and winner of two Olympic medals in the 2016 Rio Olympics.

Before he became a world-class sprinter competing with the likes of Usain Bolt, De Grasse was a high school basketball guard in Markham, Ontario. In his final year of high school, his school was unable to put together a roster for a basketball team, so De Grasse’s senior basketball year vanished.

Without basketball, De Grasse ended up competing at a track meet, something he had never done before. He ran the 100 metre sprint in 10.90 seconds. His performance caught the attention of a professional sprint coach, and De Grasse’s whirlwind ride to the top of professional sprinting took off.

Change is inevitable. There will come a time in your career that something will happen that dramatically changes your situation, or even your career. Always remember that with change comes opportunity. Andre De Grasse would never have won two Olympic medals in 2016 if he had chosen to mope about his school’s lack of a basketball team. Instead he accepted the change and took advantage of a new opportunity. Today he is one of the world’s elite sprinters.

4. Maintain your vision

At the end of the day, your vision is what defines your success. Everything else can change, as long as your vision remains absolute.

The organization with which you work should have an overarching vision. Any changes made to organizational structure or processes should be made in order to better achieve the goals set out in the corporate vision. If you are bought into your organization’s vision, you need to frame these changes in a way that asks, “How will these changes help us achieve the goals set out in our vision?”

This can be a huge roadblock for some people. I have been in a situation where an organization I was working with went through a structural change that I did not support (this has happened to me several times, but I am thinking of one instance in particular). At the end of the day I had to get past my personal biases against the change and ask if these changes would help us better reach the goals we had set for ourselves. When I realized that the changes would have a positive impact on the vision, it was easier for me to accept and embrace the changes.

You should also have a personal vision for your own life, a place that you want to be with goals of how to get there. Ask yourself, “Will this new change have an effect on my personal vision?” If the change provides new opportunities, it may even help your personal vision.

There is still the possibility that this change will have a negative impact on either the corporate vision or your personal vision.

If the changes affecting your organization do not harmonize with the corporate vision, you should expect your organization to face an identity crisis in the near future.

This is an issue that needs to be addressed by the leadership, either in amending the corporate vision or removing the change. If you are not in a decision-making capacity, it is still your responsibility as a leader to express your concerns to someone who does have the authority to make these decisions.

If corporate leadership decides to not address the issue, your corporate identity and vision could be in jeopardy. At that point it is up to you to decide if you want to continue working with the organization.

In situations where your personal vision conflicts with the new corporate policies/environment, you face a similar crisis. It is up to you to decide if you want to compromise your vision, change your vision, or leave the organization.

There are times, too, when your vision must change. For Andre De Grasse, he had to change his vision from basketball to sprinting. Even Walt Disney changed his vision several times; he began with cartoon shorts, which evolved into cartoon feature films, which eventually evolved into designing and building his own theme parks.

As long as you remain true to yourself, your vision can change.

Just remember that changing your vision will take a lot of work and a lot of soul-searching.

If you are in charge of a corporate vision, then there may be certain situations where your corporate vision must be altered to accommodate a new situation. Once again, such a change should only take place if it is in the best interest of the organization and if it maintains the spirit of the corporate vision.

Dynamics Lessons

In conclusion, I presented four ways that strong leaders adapt to change:

1. Don’t make it personal. The world doesn’t have it out for you, so don’t act like a victim.
2. Remember to breathe. Take care of yourself and your mental health.
3. Imagine the opportunities. With changes come new opportunities. Don’t miss out on them just because you were focused on the changes.
4. Keep your eyes on the vision. At the end of the day, your vision is what sustains you. The changes you are facing could have a positive, neutral, or negative effect on your vision. If you have to change your vision, make sure that you remain true to yourself (or your organization).

Have you had to adapt to a massive shift in corporate culture, environment, or processes? How did you deal with it?

Books that influenced this article:

The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You by John C. Maxwell

The post Four Ways that Strong Leaders Adapt to Change appeared first on Great North Dynamics.