SERVANT LEADERS: COMMUNICATION IS THE GLUE

When I meet with the employees and leaders who work in the organizations I consult with the major common denominator is usually the need for improvement in communication and resolving conflict. Not because people are bad or don’t want to; it's because they haven’t been taught how or they are always too busy in the “fire drill mode." Why are they too busy, they aren’t communicating or resolving conflict.

Leaders complain their people are lazy or not doing their jobs right, or they the leader is so busy they don’t have time to spend with their people.  The workforce complains their leaders don’t set expectations, don’t ask for feedback and don’t really care about them. Then we wonder why companies have a gap between their vision and the results they are achieving. Everything in life and business revolves not just around communication but the “right kind of communication.”

  I believe that communication is the # 1 problem in almost all businesses:

•      It keeps the people and the organization from reaching their potential.

•      It’s not because people aren’t talking each and every day, but in most cases, it’s the “wrong kind” of communication or a “lack of the right kind.”

•      Talking at each other, but not getting through.

Servant Leaders have learned that great communication is about:

Ø  Setting Goals

Ø Helping people understand what is expected and why?

Ø What they will be measured by?

Ø Performance reviews—how they are doing, what are they doing well and the areas they need to improve on.

Ø Asking people for their ideas and suggestions.

Ø Providing, inspiration, encouragement and motivation.

Ø Discipline

Ø Conflict Resolution

Ø I’m your “coach not your boss.” I’m here for you.

Servant leaders know it’s their goal to “help both the people and the bottom line  grow." It's not an either or. You need both for a business and its people to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

Leaders need to realize that communication and conflict resolution:

•      It’s what leaders do every day. If you’re not, potential is being wasted.

•      A business thrives on communication with its people and customers.

•      Communication moves the company forward, stops it in its tracks or slows it down to a crawl.

•      It creates or removes barriers that prevent people from accomplishing their work.

•      Without good communication decisions cannot be made, tasks cannot be carried out and goals cannot be achieved.

•      Done poorly it creates stress and frustration between leadership and the people they have been called to lead.

•      Silos are created if there is not open and honest communication.

•      If done poorly mistakes and problems are hidden.

•      If communication between leaders and their people is non-existent, often people’s minds are left to guess why things are the way they are.

•      When times are bad or there is uncertainty, more communication is needed not less. Too many leaders hide when trouble comes.

•      Actions must match your communication.  If not it will make things worse.

Servant leaders have learned if you want to build relationships with your people, and help them grow you must “really get to know them.” Their goals, their talents and skills, their potential and how you as the leader can help them grow. For this to happen real communication needs to take place. Not just a hello in the morning or a once a year performance review.

Thought Of The Month

As A Leader You Will Achieve Most Of What You Need In Life If You Help (Right Motives) Enough People Discover And Reach Their Potential

Self-Awareness: The Key For Staying Grounded As A Leader

Having self-awareness helps servant leaders develop self-control, set goals and priorities, live with less stress, and recognize selfishness as it begins to first appear in our personal lives, leadership style, and in working with those we lead and our peers. Our toughest job as a leader is to learn how to lead ourselves. Servant leaders have good skills and abilities to recognize selfishness in others, but to become an effective leader, we need to be able to recognize it in our own lives, so we can stop it and stay real to our team and associates. If we don’t, we will start to look like a hypocrite, as we try and help others stay on the right path. Lesson Learned: It’s the biblical perspective that states, we should start with the plank in our own eye before complaining about the speck in someone else’s eye.”

HOW CAN SERVANT LEADERS STAY GROUNDED?

·         Take inventory of the things that you have done or said that hurt someone.

·         What kinds of people cause you to lose your temper or patience?

·         What brings you fear as a servant leader?

·         What brings you the most joy as a servant leader?

·         When you meet people who cause you to struggle, how did you overcome it?

·         When you find yourself in a place that causes you trouble or can bring temptation, ask yourself, why am I here?

·         In what areas of your life do you need to improve?

·         What actions will you take to make those improvements?

·         What upsets you the most?

·         What makes you the happiest?

·         Do you count your blessings every day?

·         Do you have trusted mentors and coaches who can help hold you accountable?

·         Remember, God is in control, so give him the steering wheel and hang on.

When you start to fill overwhelmed or sense trouble stop, ask yourself these questions, and they might help to give you some clarity and understanding of the situation. People don't expect their leaders to be perfect, but they do expect them to be real. Want to be real, look in the mirror every morning and be honest with yourself. Why, because you aren't really fooling anyone.

SERVANT LEADERSHIP—THE PLATFORM NEEDED TO SUPPORT CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT

For several decades now continuous improvement programs have helped businesses around the world improve their productivity and efficiency by eliminating waste in their organizations.  Without continuous improvement initiatives many companies would have failed to remain competitive or survived during the poor economic climate we have experienced since 2007. Implemented correctly continuous improvement has also been a great process to get employees involved in the business; to bring people, their ideas, and improvement together for the good of all.

However many businesses today are finding it hard to keep the momentum and energy going for their continuous improvement programs.  The “low-lying fruit” as they call it has been picked.  I believe there are several main reasons why continuous improvement is running out of steam:

1.       Many employees feel they have been used by their company to increase profits while many lost their jobs through lay-offs and terminations due to the economic conditions of the last several years.

2.       Leaders often don’t recognize that if productivity and efficiency improves providing the business with increased capacity, and sales aren’t growing, jobs are usually eliminated. Leaving people to ask, “We did what we were asked but we lost our jobs anyway,” creating a loss of trust between the workforce and leadership.

3.      People are losing trust in leaders in all areas of our society. It seems almost daily we see examples of leadership failure on TV and in the newspapers.

4.        Many leaders are frustrated in their roles because they are not finding the joy and happiness they thought having a “title and telling people what to do would bring.”

5.       Many leaders are focusing on the wrong things, “tasks versus people.’ 

6.       Many companies do not have the “right training process” in place that can help leaders become the kind of leader that energizes, motivates ,mentors and helps their people discover and reach their potential.

7.       Middle management has a major impact on people and the results yet they are the least prepared and trained. I call it the "Tarzan Effect". We let them raise themselves.

8.       Many companies have forgotten that developing LEADERS takes a Purpose, Passion,  Plan and A Process. It is a journey that never ends. It is not accomplished through a couple days per year of training. The greatest athletes in the world practice constantly to improve their skills and potential. Business should be no different.

In the servant leadership training I conduct with companies and leaders there are several main points I want them to understand and think about first:

·         As leaders we get what we allow. Look in the mirror first.

·         People behave the way they do because we as leaders behave the way we do. If we want to change their behavior, we have to change our behavior first.

·         Leadership is about helping your people discover and reach their potential.

·         Most people don’t come to work to produce a bad product or provide poor service. It is up to leaders to create the environment that allows people to thrive not fail.

·         Leaders must transfer ownership for the work and results to those who do they work.

·         You cannot have your people waiting on you to tell them what to do. Help your people use their personalities, brains, passion and abilities. See their diversity as a strength.

·         Leaders today must become a ‘Coach”. Caring for, teaching, modeling behavior and building relationships with those they lead.

·         You must be developing the “right kind of new leaders.” 

Servant leadership development done right helps people feel they have a “Voice” in decision making and the work they perform. If that happens their commitment for the business and feeling responsible for the results will grow.

Servant leadership provides momentum by helping people develop new skills, new experiences, better communication between leadership and the people they lead. Leaders will listen more (one of the greatest skills a leader can ever have.) Greater team building will take place and a new trust and respect will be developed helping people give their hearts and passion, something that is missing in many companies today and is keeping organizations from closing the gap between their vision and results.

Simply put, servant leadership helps move your company and its leaders from the “making people do things model,” to the” helping people do things model”. It can truly make a difference in the lives of those who walk through the door each day to produce your product and serve your customers. The answer, help your people feel a part of something bigger than they ever thought possible. Then get out of the way and watch the excitement and results as they move mountains.

SERVANT LEADERS BUILD THE COMPANY EVERY PERSON DREAMS OF WORKING FOR AND EVERY PRESIDENT HAS A VISION OF LEADING.

Crisis In Leadership -- Is Servant Leadership The Answer?

When we look at the state of our economic climate, politics, and the decline in trust people around the world have for their leaders, it’s easy to see there needs to be a new direction and emphasis on the right kind of leadership. Why? Because, as the old saying goes, “If the results you are getting aren’t meeting your goals and expectations, it’s insane to keep doing the same old thing.”

Almost every night on TV, we see the despair people feel around the world because leadership isn’t working. In countries where leaders have used the power of the “big stick and control” leadership model to try and control their people, we see individuals willing to die in the streets to bring about change. In the United States, politicians are finding the old way of leading by creating new spending programs and trying to satisfy special interest groups and be all things to all people isn’t working either. People aren’t buying their speeches anymore, and the old way of spending our way to prosperity won’t work, because the piggybank is empty. The way our politicians have been spending money to make things better is like saying if you need to lose weight, the best way to accomplish that goal is to just keep eating more, and maybe it will work itself out someday.

Today, politicians are into protecting their own ideas and political parties by trying to eliminate real debate or new ideas and thoughts from getting through. Servant leadership is about working to eliminate conflict through good communication, listening to other people’s ideas, and being civil in the way we treat those with ideas we don’t agree with, so we can reach agreement for the good of the people we lead. In my sixty-three years, I have never seen a time in our country where we have so many leaders so out of touch with the people they are leading. It seems leaders today are more driven by their own selfishness, dreams, ideas, and agenda, leaving, “We the people,” wondering if it will ever get better. People are already talking about future generations, who will have to lower their expectations for the way life is going to be.

Leaders are forgetting that leadership is always about the people. That doesn’t mean people will always get what they want, because sometimes it will take a “new” medicine to heal what ails us. We found that out as children, when the medicine we took to heal us didn’t always taste good but made us feel better. We need leaders who really care about us, who will be honest, explain what needs to be done, and tell us the pain and the sacrifices we must go through and the actions needed to make things better. We need leaders who can develop a three-year strategy, instead of throwing abandon to the wind and coming up with a new program almost every day to satisfy special interests and try to give us false hope.

So, now that I’m off my high horse, let’s get back to business leaders and with what they are struggling. The business world has changed and continues to change rapidly. The old paradigms that many of us as leaders were used to are no longer working like they once did, which means leaders must find new ways to lead their people and companies. The power and obedience leadership model needs to be replaced with the caring, motivating, encouraging, and building relationships model. When people ask me why, my answer always is the same: “Which kind of leader would you rather be led by: one who demands, controls, and puts themselves first, or one who encourages, listens, and asks for your opinion, and is constantly working to build a relationship with you?” I think we all know the answer. Now, we need to convince leadership that is the path that needs to be taken.

Let’s take a little deeper look at the issues and struggles with which businesses and their leaders must deal.

BUSINESSES AND LEADERS ARE STRUGGLING TO

• Find new strategies to be competitive in a global economy.
• Develop a consistent strategy that works during tough and uncertain times.
• Deal with the tightening of credit by financial institutions.
• Lead a very diverse workforce (ages, nationalities, languages, and skill levels).
• Deal with the uncertainty of future government regulations and tax laws.
• Find good people in spite of high unemployment rates (their belief).
• Lead with very little in the way of leadership training.
• Overcome the stress and frustrations brought on by working more with less and watching their business struggle and deal with both the joy and heartaches that comes with leadership.

THE WORKFORCE IS STRUGGLING WITH

• Layoffs, less hours, terminations, reduced pay and benefits, and declining 401K plans.
• How to work with leaders they are losing respect and trust in.
• Being scared for their jobs and an uncertain future for them and their families.
• Having to work longer than planned, because they cannot retire due to their financial situation.
• Being unhappy with where they work and their perception of how they are treated by an uncaring leadership.

So, what we have are the leaders of a company and their workforce (their most important asset) all stressed and frustrated, and because of these struggles, a gap has developed between them that hurts how they work with each other and impacts the results of the business. When stress, frustration, and distrust develop in any relationship—whether a business, marriage, or with a best friend—things have a tendency to go downhill quickly.

How do we stop this spiral and get relationships back on track in our businesses and with our people? How can we get everyone to see through the everyday clutter that takes place in business and understand we truly need each other if our business is going to survive and prosper? What kind of leadership is needed to bring about the changes we desperately need? What is the best way for these two groups to understand they need to come together to create a competitive advantage that creates security for the workforce, leadership, and the business? Who will help them find that path and, more important, bring the encouragement, motivation, energy, and right motives to keep everyone focused and traveling on their journey together?

To Develop This Type Of Business Environment Requires Several Things

• Businesses must learn to embrace the vision and principles that servant leaders bring to a business and the people who work there. They must ask themselves what is the best way of leading: carrying a big stick and pushing and pulling, or building true caring relationships with the people they lead?
• Most businesses need to be taught what servant leadership is about and how it can make a difference. We have somehow convinced ourselves that business and our feelings in business and life should be different and separate, that what works in building relationships in life won’t work in a business setting. Leaders must realize that people are people and encouragement, caring, listening, relationships, and sense of community works everywhere.
• Businesses need to establish servant leadership principles and philosophies as a goal for their leaders and then hold them accountable for becoming a servant leader. It cannot be the flavor of the week. It must become a way of life and be sustainable.
• Only people with leadership ability and potential, who clearly understand the leadership expectations for them, should ever be put in leadership positions.
• Businesses must establish the training (teaching), coaching, and mentoring process that helps develop servant leaders. They must remember it is a journey and not an event. The training process must be one that is sustained no matter what is happening in the business.
• Leaders need to embrace servant leadership as something they aspire to become. It should be no different than accountants who desire to become CPAs or HR professionals who earn their SPHR credentials.

SERVANT LEADERS IN BUSINESS ARE

Men and women who bring their purpose, passion, and character, and when combined with their God-given skills and abilities for leadership, bring out the best in people, helping a business develop and implement a sustainable process for success.

They discovered that people come to work every day with their unique personalities, dreams, goals, skills, and hunger for achieving something bigger than themselves. What they need is the right style of leadership, communication, training, and guidance to help them reach their potential. People don’t come to work to fail, produce bad products and services, or have a bad day. It is a leader’s responsibility to lead by teaching, encouraging, and helping them discover and reach their potential.

SERVANT LEADERS BRING A VISION THAT BELIEVES

The best strategy to achieve organizational goals and create competitive advantage is by developing an environment of caring, mutual trust, and respect between the leaders and the people by focusing their efforts and strategy on developing the full potential of all associates and the business, therefore creating a winning partnership.

SERVANT LEADERS LIVE THEIR VISION BY

• Treating people as the most important asset in the company
• Seeing people not as they are today but their potential
• Realizing people are more important than tasks
• Measuring their own success by the success of those they lead
• Knowing leadership is about building relationships throughout the company
• Impacting people’s lives by mentoring and coaching
• Setting goals, objectives, actions, and measurements, with accountability for the results
• Leading not just with their words but with their actions and modeling the behavior
• Believing it is the responsibility of leaders to make a difference in people’s lives
• Encouraging, inspiring, and motivating their people

When you see the definition and vision of a servant leader, it seems it should be something every leader and every company would want to embrace. It’s hard to argue with developing leaders who exhibit such skills, abilities, vision, and philosophy for leading others. But for many, it’s hard for them to understand the importance and make servant leadership a way of life.

Often when companies have tried to start new initiatives to improve relationships with their people, it has failed, because there is no real strategy or plan for developing and implementing a process. Real change takes time, patience and perseverance to make the needed people and culture improvements. They look at it as a program and not as an ongoing process. Programs are usually looked at as something short term, while process-building is for the long term. If servant leadership is going to be successful, leadership must be committed to the journey and the changes that everyone in the company will need to make in the way they lead, interact, and think about the people they lead. Some of those changes will require a commitment that causes leaders to learn how to:

• Balance the leadership of the people with the stewardship of the company.
• Establish the expectations with their leadership for this new servant leadership style.
• Obtain support by all senior leadership (from the top), or it will not work
• Ensure leaders, supervisors, and middle -managers who won’t support it or cannot change leave the company.
• Realize it is a journey and not a quick fix.
• Communicate the process and the strategy to the total workforce, so they know what is happening and will hold you accountable for making it happen.
• Expect skepticism from some associates.
• Remove the barriers that keep people and the company from reaching their goals.
• Empower your people.
• Dramatically improve communication up and down the chain; communication will be the glue that makes it work.
• Build real relationships with those they lead.
• Make resolving conflict “job one,” because there will be plenty of conflicts as you implement this strategy.
• Move your company from reactive to proactive in its personality.
• Position people as problems solvers, not problems in the mind of all the leaders.
• Develop an atmosphere of innovation and imagination.
• Make motivating, encouraging, inspiring, and energizing your people the new normal.
• Train and teach to build your associates into a team of champions.
• See problems as opportunities.
• Concentrate on developing the potential of your people.
• Set goals, objectives, actions, and measurements, with accountability for the results. Build a sense of community, where everyone is pulling together to build your competitive advantage.
• Train, teach, and learn over and over.
• Remember there will sometimes be pain in the journey, but it will be worth it.

Change is never an easy journey. When the implementation of servant leadership principles isn’t going as fast or as well as you would like, there will be those who say it isn’t going to work. There will be leaders and people who won’t catch or support the vision, and they will need to change or move on. As we know, anything worthwhile is never easy. But if your team will truly work together to create a collaborative effort and develop their potential and that of the company, you will create a competitive advantage that will confuse your competitors, as they try and figure out how you are accomplishing your success, how you are beating them in the marketplace, and why your customers love you so much.

As you implement your servant leadership principles, you will begin to see people in a new way, and best of all, you will begin to see a new excitement among your people. Your turnover problems will start to improve, and your vision of becoming the best place in the area to work will become a reality. You will create the security for the workforce and the company that you have always desired. Not only will the smiles of your people become brighter, but the results of your business will begin to improve.

If you can capture this vision for leadership, you will notice a change when you lay your head on your pillow at night and go to sleep. You will start to feel less stress and frustration, knowing you and your companies are making a difference in the lives of people. This will give you the true joy and happiness all of us desire: the kind that is achieved by making a difference in the lives of the people God has placed in your path. This is the kind of joy and happiness money, job titles, power and fame can never buy!