The Thoughtful Leader's Blog
Posted by Robyn McLeod on July 30, 2010
Over many years of work in the corporate arena, most of us can recount in detail the pain and suffering of working for a terrible boss – outbursts, taking credit for others’ work, micromanaging, playing favorites… the list goes on. But what about your favorite boss? How was it to work for someone who made it pleasant to wake up in the morning and head to work? My favorite boss was one of the first people I worked for not long after college, and here’s five things I learned from him about being a great boss:
1. Be tough but fair –
Set clear standards for performance and expect the best from the people who work for you. If you have a poor performer, address the situation right away by having a two-way conversation. Revisit your expectations for performance, share what you are observing about their work, ask questions to learn more about their perspective on the situation, and agree on a plan for improvement.
2. Create an atmosphere of hard work and fun –
Take opportunities to celebrate accomplishments, wins, personal achievements, and team results. Allow time for working hard – and playing hard to ease pressure and create a team spirit. My favorite boss was great at finding ways to bring everyone into the fray. Whether you were extroverted or introverted, single or married with kids, he created opportunities to bring everyone together to learn a little more about each other and enjoy time together.
3. Instill self-confidence–
My favorite boss was a great teacher and a great cheerleader. He freely shared his knowledge and experience and took time each day to focus on developing his employees. I could always count on ten or fifteen minutes with him to show me a better way to do something or to fill me in on information he received at a directors’ meeting. A caring approach, shared knowledge and information, and lots of positive feedback helped all of us on the team to feel good about the work we were doing and to feel confident in our abilities. We knew we were good – even when we made mistakes!
4. Open your door and really listen –
An “open door” policy is more than just keeping your door open and hoping that no one comes in to bug you. Be accessible to your team by keeping your door open, getting up and walking around, and truly listening when someone is speaking to you. If you really are too busy or preoccupied to pay attention, then take a moment to let the person know that and say when you will be free to speak with him or her.
5. Focus more on the “what” not the “how” –
Be clear on goals and objectives for everyone on your team. Make sure that they understand what they are expected to do, what results they are expected to achieve, and what deliverables they are expected to produce. Once they know that, give them room to exceed those expectations in the way that works best for them. There’s no bigger confidence killer, creativity blocker and motivation crusher than a boss who tells you what they want, and then proceeds to tell you exactly how they want it done. My favorite boss was great at focusing on the “what” and letting us determine “how” to get it done. In fact, if you came to him with an issue, you’d better also come with a creative solution to solve it. He knew that the best way for people to grow is to have plenty of opportunities to try new approaches and come up with new ideas. That makes you look forward to another day in the office.
What did you learn from your favorite boss?
Posted by Ben Dattner on July 28, 2010
Henry Ford reportedly once complained that all he wanted from a worker was a pair of hands, but that he had to deal with the whole person instead. Each of us brings our whole self to work each day, whether or not we realize it.
As much as we might like to believe we can adapt our personality or our style as needed at work, and as much as some of us do to a small degree, to an outside observer, we are likely to have many of the same strengths and weaknesses in the workplace that we have outside of it. Whether we suffer from a lack of assertiveness or from too much confidence, whether we are accommodating peacemakers or contentious resisters, or whether we are supportive and empathic or businesslike and formal, who we are in our personal lives is inextricably linked to who we are in the workplace. And who we are in our personal lives and in our professional lives is always a function, at least in part, of our early life experience.
As an executive coach, one of my most important roles is to help my clients understand what they are bringing to work each day. To help clients be aware of where some of their approaches to life may come from, and to thoughtfully, or intentionally, choose how they want to act going forward. To be proactive, rather than reactive. I often find that people use language to describe bosses or co-workers that sounds as if they are describing parents or siblings. For example, bosses can be “supportive” or “”critical” and peers can be “competitive” or “favored.” There are times when someone’s early life experience is clearly affecting his or her interactions and causing relationship difficulties in the workplace.
For example, consider the story of a successful finance professional who was having difficulty managing his team. A brilliant technical expert, he did not enjoy supervising others and was widely resented by those who reported directly to him for his curt and brusque answers to their questions. In the course of our work together, he realized his direct reports were bringing back to him childhood memories of having been distracted and discouraged by his siblings, who lacked his academic talent and usually bothered him with requests for assistance with their homework.
By realizing that he was having a kind of flashback and was viewing his present direct reports through the prism of his past experience, this finance guy developed greater patience with his staff. Although he never fully embraced the role of manager, he was able to foster a sense of loyalty and cohesion on his team.
It’s not only sibling relationships that provide an unconscious framework within which workplace relationships and interactions are evaluated. I’ve also worked with many clients for whom parental relationships provide a template for boss-subordinate relationships. Much of our identity and sense of self can be either helped or hindered by our bosses, in a manner strikingly similar to how our parents either encouraged or discouraged us as children.
Whether or not we like to admit it, our self-esteem can be profoundly affected by the positive or negative regard of our superiors in the workplace, and they can confirm our hopes or our fears about ourselves every day. One client described how much more important it was that his boss viewed him as competent and valued than it was to get a salary increase.
Despite having seen many examples of people who have the same issues at home and at work, I have also come across clients who have quite different issues at home and at work; sometimes it even seems that they are opposite issues. An attorney who may be energetically contentious in the courtroom can be calm and friendly with her friends. An overachieving research scientist can forget to balance his checkbook at the end of every month.
However, I find that even in situations where someone has opposite issues at home and in the workplace, the fundamental character issues are related. In fact, the expression of opposite attributes at home and in the workplace makes a kind of sense-things that are overused in one area of life may be underused in another, or in order to compensate for a lack of opportunities to express part of your character at home, you might express it in the workplace.
Whether you are the same person at work and at home, or whether you experience and express different aspects of yourself in your personal life than you do in your professional life, you should consider how your early life experiences provide a prism from the past through which you are evaluating situations in the present
Posted by Chatsworth Consulting Group on July 26, 2010
“We must be the change we wish to see in the world.” Mahatma Gandhi
A neighbor stopped me the other day to complain about construction vehicles traveling through the area. She was concerned about the noise and safety of such large trucks going past her house. “Someone should get a neighborhood association started so that we can have a stronger voice,” she said. I agreed. We talked about the weather and then continued on our ways.
Whenever we hear the question, “Whose responsibility is it to do something here?” we answer, “Yours. And yours. And yours.” It’s human nature to think “someone should really do something about that,” but the truth is, we can’t count on anyone else to do something – we can only count on ourselves. The responsibility lies with each one of us to take the action, make the difference, be the first one to take a stand and act on our beliefs. If we want to see a better world, we can ask ourselves what we are doing to help that world come about. If we want a relationship to be better, we can be the first one to act in a way to make it better. If we want things to be different at work or at home, we can take the first step to making it different. We can be and bring about the change that we desire.
What is the greatest change you long to see, and what can you do today to help make that change happen? Choose one small, specific thing that you want to change about how you live your life and make that change. And then celebrate and revel in your change.
Posted by Lisa Kohn on July 23, 2010
My brother and I almost broke up over email. Well, instant messenger and then email.
We IM all the time. We joke. We play. We tease. It’s what we do. Only I joked with him one day, while we were discussing a tough family issue, and he misconstrued it and it went outrageously, quickly downhill from there. The IMs got tenser. The emails got curter…and meaner.
I teach this stuff. I tell clients all the time that email has no “tone” and can therefore be easily misread and misunderstood. IM is the same thing. My brother read my joke as serious, immediately got serious, and the next thing you know we were slamming each other. Our relationship nearly soured, if not actually ended, at least for awhile.
It’s extremely easy to get off-target when we use electronic forms of communication, and can be really tough to get back. The good news is that he and I finally managed to get on the phone to “work things out.” The not as good news is that we apparently both have a habit of interrupting each other, especially when a conversation is emotional. Our phone call was also going steadily downhill and the break up between us was becoming more imminent.
Which is when I came up with this very bizarre and silly idea…but it worked. We decided that each of us would have to say “beep” when we were done with our comment or thought. The other person could not respond, reply, break in, or even ask a question until they heard the word “beep.” It was stupid, but it worked. It allowed us to give each other space to think and talk, and it allowed us to truly hear each other, and it allowed us to find a place to agree again and begin to rebuild our trust and love.
I don’t recommend everyone using “beep.” Maybe there is an easier way for two people to truly hear each other, even when emotions are high. But desperate times require desperate measures, and “beep” definitely worked for us.
Posted by Chatsworth Consulting Group on July 19, 2010
“Time has a wonderful way of weeding out the trivial.” Richard Ben Sapir
A colleague caught my ear the other day and recanted his horror story of a mishap at work. Everything had gone wrong; tempers had flared; fingers were pointed…at him. I listened attentively as he clearly needed to share what happened and to be heard. As he finished his account of what occurred, I then did my best to ask questions to pull him in a different direction.
“Five years from now will you even remember this?” I offered. He paused. “What’s really of importance here, of worth to you as a learning for moving forward?” I posed. He hesitated further. “How might you feel about this tomorrow, or even next week?” I suggested. He stopped, finally exhaled, and released the tension that had been coursing through his body.
So often we get stuck in the immediateness and intensity of a challenge or an issue that seems about to blow that we lose perspective. Everything begins to feel like a life or death matter and our emotions kick in, with that wonderful fight or flight response. What we need is the ability to pause, to reflect, and to wait for time to offer us another point of view – this brings clarity and a new outlook on the situation, and often on ourselves. To quote one of my favorite lyricists, “Someday we’ll look back on this and it will all seem funny”. Time truly has a way of putting things in perspective and weeding out the trivial so that we can focus on what really matters, what’s important in the long run, and what we’ll remember five years from now and learn from.
Stop. Pause. Give yourself some time so that the trivial can become obvious and you can pay attention to the important things. And see what’s funny, if you can.
Posted by Robyn McLeod on July 16, 2010
I learned a new acronym today – WAIT. It stands for “Why Am I Talking?” I have it up on the bulletin board in my office to remind me to talk less and listen more during my coaching and other important conversations. I am naturally more of a thinker than a talker, but there are times when I get so excited, passionate or incensed about something that I talk way more than I listen. I may even talk over or interrupt the other person as I look to get my point across or share my Very Important Bit of Knowledge.
How many times have you left a meeting or conversation and realized that you dominated the discussion with your talking? You then wonder if the other person or persons noticed it too. Or maybe you question why they were all so quiet and had nothing to add. Well, they may have been waiting for you to take a breath! 
I generally pride myself on my ability to actively listen, tap into the energy and emotions of another person, and really connect. I walk away with a lot – a new idea or approach, a better understanding of an issue, a totally new perspective on a situation, and/or a stronger tie to the other person. When I forget to listen and truly engage in conversation, I miss many of those things as the other person gets a lot less airtime.
Asking questions is a great way to ensure a balanced discussion. Not closed questions that elicit a “yes” or “no,” but open-ended questions, such as “How would you approach this issue?” or “What am I missing?” or “Why is that important to you?”
So, WAIT and listen!
Posted by Chatsworth Consulting Group on July 15, 2010
Time seems to be an ongoing challenge for so many people. We hear it all the time – “I don’t have time for this.” “There’s just not enough time in the day.”
As the number of hours in the day simply does not increase (in fact, sometimes it feels like there are fewer and fewer), we thought we’d share with you a brief article that offers tips and suggestions for getting more out of the time you actually do have, “Ten Steps to Doing More with the Time You Have.”
This article may be new to you, or you may have already downloaded it from our website. Either way, it is a quick read that can help you become more focused and productive, while actually feeling better about what you are doing and what you’re not. We invite you to visit this link and take a few moments to read (or reread) the article and see how you can change your approach to time management.
As always, please feel free to forward this on to others who may benefit from it, and if you have any questions about this or any other services we provide, please either visit our website, www.chatsworthconsulting.com, or let us know.
All the best,
 Lisa & Robyn
Posted by Cathy Alfandre on July 14, 2010
You made an appointment with your boss yesterday, and the meeting’s coming up in a few minutes. There’s a major problem with the project you’ve been working on for 3 months, and you need her guidance and feedback. After multiple weeks of everything going according to plan, you’ve discovered a critical quality flaw with one of the key components of the product. You already approached the supplier, but their quality tests haven’t turned up any issues. They believe that the problem lies in the interface with your system. Laura needs to hear about this.
You walk in… and Laura is distracted by her Blackberry at first and asks you to wait a few minutes. Eventually, she turns to you, but she seems unfocused. Then the phone rings; quickly, she gathers some materials, apologizes, and rushes off.
Where do you stand now? Your issue never got expressed. The problem remains unresolved and even feels magnified. You don’t really know how to proceed with the project. You feel kind of unimportant. You know Laura has other challenges she’s facing, but you had made an appointment, hoping for a few focused minutes. You wonder if you’ll get another meeting with Laura anytime soon. You wish your boss didn’t seem so remote.
These and other thoughts and feelings you are having.… These are the same ones your colleagues and direct reports have when they are not “heard.” Listening and not listening have a real impact, and the impact compounds over time. You need to reflect no further than your personal experience to know that this is true. Your commitment to listen – or not – will eventually affect the productivity, creativity, engagement, and performance of your team.
Contrary to our common assumptions, effective listening is hard, and most of us do not do it well. It takes conscious effort to learn the skills and commit to practicing and building them. Consider this quick assessment (Are You An Active Listener?) to identify some of your areas for improvement, and then commit to action. There’s probably nothing you can do that will have more immediate and enduring impact on your relationships and leadership success.
Posted by Chatsworth Consulting Group on July 12, 2010
“The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.” Michelangelo
One of my clients has a symbol of inspiration on his desk – a paperweight with a simple yet mighty question – “What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?” He said this question opens his mind and helps him to see new directions. The paperweight, and question, sit on my desk as well – as a reminder that I need to reach for the things that really matter to me and not limit myself through fear or doubt.
So often we ask for too little or give less than our all to a situation. In a universe of limitless possibilities, there are always more options, solutions, and answers than we can even imagine – and we are often more capable and equipped to soar through circumstances than we ever thought. We may believe that there are boundaries or limits on how far we can reach or what we can do, but the truth is that we generally impose those boundaries and limits on ourselves. The internal chatter in our mind tells us what we can’t do and shouldn’t do, rather than what we can do, or can at least try. Trying is a chance to take a risk and go for the golden ring. Life is too short to not allow yourself all you may want, simply because you’re afraid to try or to ask.
Pick one area of your life and/or work and develop a stretch goal for yourself – one that makes you smile as you write it down. Write down the goal and imagine your life in full detail with it achieved.
Posted by Lisa Kohn on July 9, 2010
“We need to drink the Kool-Aid.” I heard a client say this again last week and I finally have to speak out. This is one business saying of the moment that truly, truly annoys me. Makes my skin crawl in fact. Each time I hear it I want to scream to whomever has uttered the words, “Do you know what that really means????”
So, to stand high on my soap box, I think we should be more careful about what we say and how we say it. To take into consideration if someone, anyone, might find it offensive. And to definitely stop talking about “drinking the Kool-Aid” as if it’s a good thing.
Drinking the Kool-Aid. It refers to a mass-suicide in 1978. Jim Jones was the leader of a cult, the Peoples Temple. He moved his following to northern Guyana, and in 1978 nine hundred and thirteen people participated in a mass-suicide by drinking cyanide-laced Kool-Aid. Men, women, and children. I understand that people only mean “we all need to get in this together, to agree without question, to move ahead as one” – but people died and I seriously think we should stop treating it so callously.
What is important is this – we never really know who might be offended by something we say. One off-hand remark. One off-color joke. One non-thought through comment that we never intended to be offensive. I’ve witnessed racial comments in front of someone who was of mixed-race origin, only you’d never know by looking at them. Slurs against people who happened to be related to, or friends with, the people in the room. Political and religious comments in front of someone who took the comments personally. You never, ever really know.
Okay, so maybe it isn’t important that I hate this saying. That I think it’s offensive and completely off-taste. That I’ve even been known to judge someone harshly when they innocently and ignorantly use it. Maybe it isn’t important that this saying pushes me over the edge. And it certainly isn’t important that I give you a full explanation of why.
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