Tag: Negative Leadership Traits

But

I like what you said, but say this next time. I really liked the way you did this, but in future could you watch out for that. This has been a great day, but if only it didn’t rain. I loved that movie, but it was a shame that it finished so early.

Does but have a place in your leadership conversation? Do you notice the but in language around you? Maybe you’re a but person.

Giving empowering feedback, being positive when you can be are really important parts of growing leaders. Following it up with an empowering message about how to take the next step to grow even more is encouraging and a coaching opportunity to grab hold of when you can.

Adding a but after the encouragement is negative and makes the next part of the conversation sound like the real reason for the conversation. Which it probably is if you’re a but person.

And don’t think you can simply change but for however! I won’t let you off the hook and neither will the person receiving the feedback.

A short blog about a short word.

Watch out for it – if but is coming out when you could be empowering, ask yourself – what am I trying to do here?

I’d say it’ll say more about you than the other person.

No ifs or buts about it! (sorry had to do that)

Stephen

Really glad you took our talk about getting on the bus to heart and next time we could even try to get the strategy going without buying a bus

So out of touch

This is the darkest week in our recent history. A favourite and much-loved city devastated with loss and destruction on an appalling scale. I feel pained and I am sure most Kiwis do. The international community has come to our aid with generous and unconditional support. It seems like the New South Wales Fire rescue were there almost as quickly as our people. It’s heart-warming.

Last week the Independent Police Conduct Authority released its report into the failure by the police to investigate child sex complaints. Is is just me, or is it that every time a significant report is realised by the IPCA they’ve already worked out with the police that the situation was “historical” and “new procedures have been put in place”? If that’s the case, what’s the point of the IPCA? I think that the police are careful and concerned enough to make appropriate changes without a bloated bureaucracy reminding them years later. If that wasn’t enough did you notice that they never even bothered to interview the policeman who was apparently at the centre of the allegations!  This is not the first time this has happened – they once told a complainant that they had reviewed all available evidence in the case. Turns out the IPCA hadn’t spoken to one single witness they had been told about.  The person concerned left soon after.

But that’s just the beginning. In this week of grief, sadness when even the most cynical will probably be holding fondly the work of our police and other services as they pick through the carnage that is Christchurch, the IPCA open their files:  this is the week that they decide it’s a good time to announce that they recommend the police should apologise to Tony Veitch for releasing material to the media. That’s right – our guardians of the police have the most astonishingly bad taste and irrelevant contribution to this dreadful week. Ignore for a moment the rights and wrongs of the Veitch case – that’s not the point here.

This is the week that all those involved in the Maori Party problems, the Limo replacements, welfare reform and other seemingly pressing problems, have been gracious and tactful enough to recognise that this is the time to reflect on our community in Christchurch. And support our boys and girls in blue.

Sometimes the moment is big enough to say that a failure in leadership is fatal. When leadership is so, so out of touch with the community it seeks to serve, it should go. And now.

So let’s show we care for Canterbury. I’m sure most of us do.

Stephen

Hitting the spot

I had two significant conversations last week talking about authenticity and meaning in our work. We don’t always see the obvious. Someone who presents as confident, capable, even strategic can be as empty as can be. Yes, full of the right words, strategic linkages, linear flows and other deliberately important but shallow phrases. They might have an important job, looking after many people and a major division and a family who’s on the fast track to societal bliss.

And it may be perfect. But it may also be that you feel something is not congruent. As one of my colleagues said, “there’s nothing in here”, stabbing his heart. I remember being a cynical boy listening to stuff at a religious service about loving with all your heart and thinking “isn’t this just an organ that pumps blood!”.True, but we also now know that the wiring in our bodies is as big in our brains as it is in our gut. A gut feeling then perhaps, though that’s not the entire point of this.

If your organisation is only focussed on a limited range of number-driven KPIs then what? Happy investors? Possibly, but can the numbers only come from looking at the numbers? If you’re reading this then you probably don’t think so, but I challenge you to ask yourself if there aren’t times when the leadership and authenticity that drives business success is put to one side, because we really need to focus on the numbers. Maybe that always happens. If it’s true that corporate spending on leadership development slows during a recession, then that’s evidence enough I reckon. Say it again, spending on leadership development slows during a recession. That’s okay, but don’t pretend you think leadership development is a key driver of success. The manager with no heart has taken over. And a body without a heart is well, stuffed really, the brain will soon die along with all the other organs. And you won’t even know if you’re bleeding without a heart.

Enough of the metaphor! When I engage with an authentic person who has meaning in their life I know it and I can connect, whatever they do. Can you? Look around you at work. Who hits the spot?

Are you leading with something in the spot? That something is everything you are. A happy authentic space.

Stephen

Sorry officer, I never usually speed

“There is a lack of faith in Police leadership because rhetoric does not always align to action” reads the second to last sentence of the body of the latest report into the police’s change management programme following the Commission of Inquiry into police conduct.

Commissioner Broad in his blog commenting on the unfortunate negative focus of the report, records himself as satisfied as to progress on the culture issue. Police union boss Greg O’Connor says that this report will to more harm than good.

My latin scholar son Thomas would be proud of me: argumentum ad consequentiam meaning X is true/false because of how much I like/dislike its consequences.

So is the report wrong? A listing of things ticked off as Commissioner Broad has done on his blog and Greg O’Connors “telling bad news will only do harm!” is enough to convince me all is not right. Then there’s the report.

I’d like to see leadership from the police and its union that even occasionally acknowledged that they aren’t perfect. Then we’d know that there was a willingness for change. If every problem is minimised as a bad apple or “we’ve already got procedures in place to cover that” or “it was the fault of the other driver” then we can be sure that nothing is changing.

Because the first step in changing a culture or for that matter, a behaviour, is to want to. And that means accepting that what’s going on is wrong.

The police should reflect our tolerant, secular and largely peaceful population. Not the bullying and harassment that is obviously still happening inside the police – even if it’s only in small numbers it’s not good enough. If we can’t trust what they do with each other, how can we trust them to deal with us?

So, sorry sir,  I’ll be issuing you an infringement notice – even one act of carelessness like this can cause a tragedy.

Stephen