Leadership and Trust

I find the Harvard Business Review Blog to one of the very best. I have it as an app on my HTC Droid phone.  I check on it almost every day. One of the best entries I have read surfaced yesterday. It was about leadership and trust and authored by Linda Hill, a Harvard Business School professor and Kent Lineback, a former practicing executive and now writer (and both are co-authors of Begin the Boss: The 3 Imperatives for Becoming a Great Leader -- HBR 2011).

I have thought much about trust and its relationship to both management and leadership. The most perplexing thing about trust is its difficulty to define. Consider it – how do you define trust? How do you describe it? How might you begin to measure it?

Hill and Lineback write about the importance of  revealing your intentions if you want to be an effective leader. Doing so gains trust. Interestingly, they present this idea against the backdrop of a discussion about villains like Hannibal Lector (Anthony Hopkins of Silence of the Lambs fame) – OK, you have to read it to really get the full gist.

But their concept is so true – great leaders do expose themselves and their visions and motives and beliefs. They do not operate by simply issuing orders. They let followers "see into their mind." One CEO I used to work with talked about "thinking out loud" with our executive team.

Hill and Lineback write:

 “Thus, if you want to lead and influence others, you must reveal your intentions. People won't believe you will do the right thing unless they're convinced you genuinely want to do it. That requires more conscious effort than most bosses understand. We all more or less assume that others will see our positive motives or at least give us the benefit of the doubt. But it often doesn't work that way. As a leader and manager, you must often make tradeoffs among the competing interests of your own group, other groups, the organization as a whole, important outsiders, and the individuals who work for you. That obviously creates many opportunities for people to misinterpret your intentions. That's why it's often critical to take conscious and purposeful steps to reveal your motives and values and to open yourself so others can see inside you. Here are three important ways to reveal your intentions and convince others of their sincerity.”

Take a look at this blog when you have the chance. It is a great read.

(OK, I did get your attention with the Hannibal Lector picture, right?)

Steve Jobs and Leadership (Again!)

I highly recommend the Harvard Business Review article on Steve Jobs.  The article is in the April 2012 issue and is written by Jobs biographer, Walter Isaacson. 

I liked the article because it pointed out some new angles of leadership that have not been covered typically in other articles. This is truly an innovative article and I would think will become one of the HBR Classics. 

He presented several ideas about Jobs and his leadership approach. They include: 

Focus – Jobs had this great ability.

Simplify – perhaps the greatest task of a leader.

Take responsibility

When behind, leapfrog. Leaders do not “catch up” –instead they think about getting ahead.

Put products before profits.

Don’t be slaves to focus groups.

Bend reality.

Impute –  Read about this one

Push for perfection - Tolerate only “A: players – sound like Jack Welch?

Engage face to face. No emails.

Know the big picture and the details.

Combine the humanities with the sciences.

Stay hungry, stay foolish.

Focus

Enjoy this read. It is a good one.

Leadership and Holding On

I was struck by the following quote from Saturday’s (March 10, 2012) Wall Street Journal: 

"Fund manager Daniel Dent at the start of the 1999 Iditarod race in Alaska: 'Never let go of the sled."

Leadership – holding on is often the most important thing we can do. Funny but it did strike me as relevant.

Leadership and the Resilient Leader

I had an exchange today about resilience. Is it a competency? For me, this question raises a core issue when dealing with leadership competencies. As a search consultant / head hunter, I know that few people can truly assess others against competencies lists that have long, long lists ( 60 or more – and some have numbers into the hundreds). 

This is a case where I go back to the sixteen critical leadership competencies that I think are the key to exceptional leadership. They are truly comprehensive and cover practically all contingencies.

So, resilience? Yes, of course. But let’s fit it in where it belongs. In my list of the sixteen, one competency is Emotional Intelligence. I feel (as does Daniel Goleman, who has written extensively about EQ) it covers resilience.

I also feel that resilience fits well with the concept of self esteem or self respect. Those who are most resilient are able to reflect and “connect the dots” regarding what is happening around them. They care for themselves, not in an egotistical manner but in a healthy way that guides their life choices and how they find meaning and purpose in what they do.  

Consider –

Resilience is an important EQ competency. It means being able to bounce back after setbacks, failures, disappointments and losses. It means not giving up, and continuing to face the future with optimism and courage despite events. Because life will have its ups and downs, one of the most important things we can do is learn how to bolster our resilience. We can do this by understanding the competencies that make people resilient and then working with a coach to improve our skills in these areas.

From – http://www.articlesfactory.com/articles/self-help/resilience-an-emotional-intelligence-competency-we-need-today.html

How Do You Define Culture?

I was asked – how do you define a culture? Here are some thoughts.

•  Pushy, harsh and authoritarian vs. open, inclusive, warm and congenial
•  Top down vs. Bottom up
•  Formal vs. Informal
•  Very political with traps and pitfalls for people to fall into if they are not nimble and able to wheel-and-deal and hold their own in a brawl vs. straight-up and honest environment that allows and encourages people to speak up and participate with little fear
• Rule and ritual bound vs. free-wheeling and innovative
• Cold and indifferent vs. warm and welcoming
• Brisk and dynamic vs. lethargic and lackluster
• Opportunistic vs. bureaucratic
• Exploitative, all take and no give vs. open and participative
• Caring and genuinely interested in people as people vs. people as cogs
• Objective driven vs. financially driven
• Mission driven vs. financially driven (or lacking any awareness of mission)
• Emphasis on community vs. indifferent and unconcerned to the community
• Employer of choice vs. “just another place to work”

These are just some examples. The question is - once you have described your culture, how do you determine who best fits in that culture?

Once again, the answer is in very in-depth interviewing and/or the use of solid validated instruments like the Hogan Motives, Values, and Preferences Inventory.

 

Leadership and Culture and Hiring

So, assuming that you believe culture is an important part of how leadership fits within an organization, how do you define culture - and how do you assess candidates and their fit with the culture?

And another question is - how do you understand what your culture is?

I personally find one of the best ways is to use a Hogan Assessment that focuses on the values that individuals seek in an organization.

In short, determine someone’s values and determine to what extent the organizations provides opportunities for those values to be met.

It is important to learn what the Hogan assessment tries to measure. The following is a great description:

The Hogan Motives, Values Preferences Inventory (MVPI) reveals a person's intrinsic values that motivate decisions, as well as interests. This makes the MVPI an invaluable tool for establishing the kind of team, department and corporate culture in which the person will perform best. This benefits the person in ensuring they are choosing the right environment in which to work, and it benefits organizations by helping them to ensure that a new employee's values are in-line with those of the organization. It also enables both person and organization to predict job satisfaction.

The MVPI is developed from 80 years of academic research on motivation. It contains 10 scales to measure motives based upon a comprehensive business-based system of values. Values, preferences, and interests are all motivational elements: values are the most broad and abstract motive, and interests are the most narrow and specific kind of motive.

The MVPI 10 scales establish what people want, rather than how they typically behave, and are measured across the following: 

1. Recognition - responsive to attention, approval, and praise

2. Power - desire for success, accomplishment, status and control

3. Hedonism - orientation for fun, pleasure, and enjoyment

4. Altruistic - desire to help others and contribute to society

5. Affiliation - desire for and enjoyment of social interaction

6. Tradition - dedication, strong personal beliefs, and obligation

7. Security - need for predictability, structure, and order

8. Commerce - interest in money, profits, investment, and business opportunities

9. Aesthetics - need for self-expression, concern over look, feel, and design of work products

10. Science - quest for knowledge, research, technology, and data

Found on public domain site:

http://www.articleblast.com/Business_and_Management/Management/The_Hogan_Motives,

_Values_Preferences_Inventory_(MVPI)_Explained/

See also:   www.hoganassessments.com

So, to start with a simple explanation –

If a candidate places a high emphasis on being recognized and acknowledged for his/her work, within what type of working / corporate culture would he/she best fit?

Obvious answer: a culture with ample rewards and recognitions and celebrations for accomplishments and successes; an organization that has lots of programs such as Employee of the Month, special parking places for exemplary employees, and annual awards programs and banquets.

The Hogan Motives, Values, and Preferences Inventory can be used to set forth a description of an organization culture.

Ideally, when hiring, it is best to use an instrument like the MVPI to discern candidate motivations and values. If this is not possible, interviews can possible capture this information if developed in a sophisticated enough manner.

Interviewing / Assessment / Culture and Hiring

Once again, I want to take a look at culture and its impact on hiring. Consider this from CNN Money -- 

CNN Money -  Is it better to hire for cultural fit over experience? (April 28, 2011)

http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2011/04/28/is-it-better-to-hire-for-cultural-fit-over-experience/

The more senior the open position, the more a company ought to ensure that a candidate's personality is in line with the organizational culture, Challenger says.

"At higher levels, you need to conduct multiple interviews across the chain, with employers and employees," he says. "What kind of connection do you feel to the candidate? Does this person seem like one of us?"

Answering those questions can be the greatest hiring challenge. There is no one concrete way to test for cultural fit, so it's best to approach the task from several directions.

"Interview questions tend not to be great predictors," Kropp says.

During formal processes like interviews, Kropp says, candidates tend to tailor their answers to what they think the interviewer wants to hear.

The use of psychometric tests to gauge a candidate's fit continues to increase in popularity, especially in Europe, Kropp says. These tests are a somewhat more scientific way to measure something that is, in reality, immeasurable.

Employers are also drafting more detailed job descriptions as another strategy. Many job descriptions are filled with platitudes and clichés, instead of focusing on the specific tasks and qualifications that a firm is looking for.

Instead, Kropp says, some companies are providing detailed information about the company and its culture in the postings. The hope is that candidates will screen themselves out when they see keywords that don't align with their lifestyles. Someone looking for a 40-hour week will likely be discouraged by a listing that advertises long hours, while a job seeker who thrives in a team environment would skip an ad that requires lots of independent work.

"Rather than have the organization do an assessment, they can make it much clearer, and clearer earlier, what they are looking for, so job candidates can figure if it's a bad fit," Kropp says.

The downside of relying on self-selection is that, in the current job market, applicants may try for jobs that they know won't fit them, convincing themselves that they can change.

So, what is the learning point? 

Culture is more of a factor when hiring at the senior level – and it is very difficult to determine culture fit from a simple interview. Assessments – and more in-depth interviews can help greatly. 

May I highlight thought the comment from the article -- "Interview questions tend not to be great predictors.”

I have great concerns regarding the ability of most leaders to interview. My job is interviewing and I probably interview 100 times more people each year than the typical hiring manager. And yet I find interviews often lacking. The biggest problem with interviews?

1. Most interviews are not structured.
2. Most interviewers are afraid to go in for the “deep dive” and are also afraid of asking the truly hard follow up questions.
3. Most interviews have no clue how to define leadership and do not use competencies to define leadership requirements.
4. And the age-old, already mentioned in earlier blogs – the heavier and inappropriate weight placed on chemistry and presentation (“I really liked Sam or Sally” – “I really felt comfortable with her.”)

How do you interview?

Leadership and Culture

Leadership takes place in a theatre and on the stage. And that theatre and that stage have “culture.” There are typically two types of culture – formal and informal. When hiring leaders (or when hiring any one at any level of an organization), culture needs to be given serious consideration. Culture can best be defined as the “around-hereisms” in a work setting – or, essentially the way work is done. Perhaps more properly defined, it is the spoken and unspoken ways that people work together. More illustrative definitions are:

 “Whether written as a mission statement, spoken or merely understood, corporate culture describes and governs the ways a company's owners and employees think, feel and act.” http://www.entrepreneur.com/encyclopedia/term/82104.html

 “A pattern of shared basic assumptions invented, discovered, or developed by a given group as it learns to cope with its problems of external adaptation and internal integration" that have worked well enough to be considered valid and therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think and feel in relation to those problems” Schein – From Wikipedia. (I like this one but it is a real mouthful).

Ideally in hiring, a good fit with the culture is key. That fit may correlate to their strengths in certain leadership competencies (one culture may require significant visionary skills while another may require significant day-to-day operational skills) or it may correlate with their motivation or it may correlate to the type of work that needs to be done (one culture may be very service oriented while another may be totally financially driven).

Over the next few blogs I will introduce ideas about how to define culture and its relationship to leadership and hiring leaders.

Charisma in Interviewing

Once again, I find myself meeting with people during the week and dealing with how to improve selection through the use of leadership competencies. I found the following great quotes from two other blogs – give them some thought ---- 

“As Capital One's CEO, Richard Fairbank, put it several years ago, "At most companies, people spend 2 percent of their time recruiting and 75 percent managing their recruiting mistakes." From Harvard Business Review Blog http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6103.html  Feb 5 , 2009

"After interviewing 125 corporate leaders and observing many more during three decades in active corporate leadership, I believe the root cause of the leadership crisis is using the wrong criteria in choosing new leaders. Selection committees often emphasize charisma over character, style over substance, and image over integrity. When leaders are chosen for charisma, style, and image, why are we surprised when they turn out to lack character, substance, and integrity?" From -  Bill George THE FOCUS VOL. XII/1  Keynote Topic. Of character, substance and integrity  Why companies need authentic leaders and not charismatic stars at the helm. http://www.billgeorge.org/files/media/of-substance-character-and-integrity-pdf/bill_george_focus_article.pdf

William W. George is Professor of Management Practice, Henry B. Arthur Fellow of Ethics, at Harvard Business School, where he teaches leadership and leadership development along with several executive education programs. He is the author of a new best-selling leadership book, True North: Discover Your Authentic Leadership. Prof George is the former Chairman and CEO of Medtronic. Under his leadership, Medtronic's market capitalization grew from $1.1 billion to $60 billion,  averaging 35 percent a year. Prior to joining Medtronic, he spent ten years as a senior  executive with Honeywell and ten years with Litton Industries, primarily as President of Litton Microwave Cooking. In 2001, William George was named Executive of the Year by the Academy of Management.

Note to readers – True North is a great book to read. Try it out.

Charisma over character, style, substance, and image!

I have seen this many times in my search career.

I was with a search committee this past week and one member said, “We look to you to help us avoid making hiring decisions based on the wrong criteria.” I am glad that he considered this (a hiring mistake) as a possibility and am hopeful as his committee meets candidates – AND as the personality / charisma / charm of the candidates turns on the chemistry machine – that he and his committee members will still think this way.

Self Esteem and Leadership

I wanted to take a step back away from the topic of competencies today since I had several conversations this week with a client regarding self esteem. We were working together on a search involving very highly educated individuals (all Ph.D and some M.D. Ph.D. – all researchers and all very intellectual). 

We talked about the impact that self esteem had on leadership skills and competencies. As I have written before in earlier blogs, I cannot emphasize enough the importance of self esteem. I went to my computer hard drive and pulled this up. It is written by Robert Hogan and Rodney Warrenfeltz of Hogan Assessments Systems. Those of you who follow me know that I have the highest regard for Bob Hogan and for his firm. This quote from a very well done article clearly presents the argument for self esteem. (Read the full article by going to the Hogan website www.hoganassessments.com).  

The domain of intrapersonal skills is the traditional subject matter of psychoanalysis, but a detailed explication of that claim would take us too far afield. Intrapersonal skills develop early and have important consequences for career development in adulthood. This domain seems to have three natural component. The first can be described as core self-esteem (Judge, Locke, Durham, & Kluger, 1998), emotional security, or perhaps resiliency. People with core self-esteem are self-confident, they have stable, positive moods, they are not easily frustrated or upset, and they bounce back quickly from reversals and disappointments. Persons who lack core self esteem are self-critical, moody, unhappy, easily frustrated, hard to soothe, and need frequent reassurance and positive feedback. Core self esteem is easy to measure, which means we can give managers reliable feedback on the subject. Moreover, measures of core self-esteem predict a wide variety of career outcomes, including job satisfaction and performance evaluations, which means clients should pay attention to feedback on this topic.

From – Educating the Modern Manager ROBERT HOGAN & RODNEY WARRENFELTZ

Hogan Assessment Systems.  Academy of Management Learning and Education, 2003, Vol. 2, No. 1, 74 – 84. 

http://www.hoganassessments.com/_hoganweb/documents/Educating_the_Modern_Manager.pdf