Lincoln – Complex, Quiet Story Teller

I had the pleasure of seeing the movie Lincoln this past week and came away appreciating the performance and tone of the movie. 
I think there is a tendency to view Lincoln as the ultimate hero.  Maybe it is a notion set by our history text books or even older movies.  I’m not saying that he isn’t heroic.  I’m really suggesting that his persona is too complex to be conveyed in a single label like “hero.”  I think that the movie was true to this complexity.
I have written about Lincoln previously where I also cited the exploration of Lincoln in the book Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by historian Doris Kearns Goodwin.  This book provides the basis for the period depicted in the movie.    In my previous post  I wrote about Lincoln and his quiet leadership where I noted

his ability to bring his political rivals into his cabinet and sooth their egos, turn these rivals into allies, and gain their respect and loyalty through his political skill and insight into human behavior. It is this skill that the quiet leader in us emulates and the basis for nominating Lincoln as a quiet leader.

The movie reinforced two perceptions about Lincoln that I held after this earlier citation.

• Lincoln was comfortable with silence.  He didn’t need to fill every second with conversation. 
• Lincoln was a consummate story-teller and frequently use a good yarn whenever the situation called for insight, inspiration, or leadership.

I left the movie still comfortable with Lincoln’s nomination to my Quiet Leadership Hall of Fame.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Thanks for reading.  Please lead quietly.
Don

The Story Behind Storytelling

I was intrigued by storytelling this past week.  The idea started when I had conversations with two people who could captivate you with their storytelling.   
The first was a colleague who seemed to be able to talk about family and background as a story with rich context but soft words.  Those soft words weaved stories about parents, horses, childhood experiences, and even children's teachers.  I was intrigued by the impact of those soft words.
The second was a semi-retired (her words) professor who talked about life experiences in a manner that seemed so distant from the Tweet/text message driven social communication that occurs today.  I could have listened for hours to stories about education and family.   She used very rich words and assembled those words into very captivating stories.
Both instances represented styles that seemed so different from the sound bite bursts that deluge us every day. 
As a follow-up to those conversations, I started to stumble upon blog posts and manifestos on the power of storytelling.  Here are to highlights:
I came upon a ChangeThis manifesto by author Jonah Sachs who started that manifesto by proposing, “…if you want to be heard, you’d better learn to tell better stories.”  In his manifesto, he provides ten storytelling strategies:

1. Know What a Story is
2. Figure Out What You Stand For
3. Declare Your moral
4. Now prove it
5. Stop trying to Be the Hero
6. Show the Broken World
7. Make Sure there’s action
8. Reveal the moral
9. Break the mold
10. Stay On ground level

You will want to spend a few minutes reviewing this manifesto to add this valuable insight to story telling.

Link to Leadership

So an obvious question on the Lead Quietly blog is  “What does story telling have to do with leadership?”  For this question the Forbes.com blog of Dan Schawbel provides insight.  How to Use Storytelling as a Leadership Tool also directed me to the work of Paul Smith who wrote the book, Lead with a Story: A Guide to Crafting Business Narratives That Captivate, Convince, and Inspire.  Schawbel’s inteview with Paul Smith provided the following storytelling insights:

1. Start with the context. 
2. Use metaphors and analogies. 
3. Appeal to emotion. 
4. Keep it tangible and concrete. 
5. Include a surprise. 
6. Use a narrative style appropriate for business. 
7. Move beyond telling your audience a story to creating a scene or event for them to participate in. 

I would recommend going to Schawbel's blog to gain additional insight to the list.

At the end of the week, the conversations and the reading had me thinking about my storytelling capabilities.  I hope you are inspired similarly.
Thanks for reading.  Please lead quietly.
Don

Leadership Styles are Like Golf Clubs

I  recognize that different leadership styles are required for different situations. No one style is adequate for different people, groups or situations.  On the golf course, you pull a different club from your golf bag depending on your lie and distance needed, an effective leader should have a set of leadership styles in his leadership bag to most effectively lead in different situations.  A recent review of some work by author Daniel Goleman validated my thinking.  
Daniel Goleman is best known for his books on Emotional Intelligence.  His best selling work defined a set of skills and competencies that defines how people manage feelings, interact, and communicate on their way to success.
In his book Leadership: The Power of Emotional Intelligence, Goleman cites the leadership research of the consulting firm Hay/McBer that identified six distinct styles employed by leaders.  The best leaders do no rely on a single leadership style but use multiple styles and are able to move between them seamlessly and in different measure depending on the situation and people. 
He conveniently summarizes the six leadership styles and their application in a chart that I have reconstructed below.

Leadership Style	The leader’s approach	In a phrase	Best used when…	Impact on Climate
Coercive	Demands immediate compliance	"Do what I tell you."	In a crisis to kick start a turnaround	Negative
Authoritative	Mobilizes people toward a vision	"Come with me."	When changes require a new vision, or when a clear direction is needed	Most strongly positive
Affiliative	Creates harmony and builds emotional bonds	"People come first."	To heal rifts in a team or to motivate people during stressful circumstances	Positive
Democratic	Forges consensus through participation	“What do you think?”	To build buy in or consensus or to get input from valuable employees	Positive
Pacesetting	Sets high standards for performance	“Do as I do, now.”	To get quick results from a highly motivated and competent team	Negative
Coaching	Develops people for the future	“Try this.”	To help an employee improve performance or develop long-term strengths	Positive

You can access Goleman’s full description of the styles in the book, on in the original Harvard Business Review article Leadership that Get Results.  Please remember that you can access HBR articles from your local library’s online database. 

The Lead Quietly Takeaway

My takeaway from the article is that just like I have clubs in my golf bag that I avoid because I need more practice, there are leadership styles that require honing on my part to become the Phil Mickelson of the Leadership Tour.  Are you able to move and adjust your style as needed?
Thanks for reading.  Please lead quietly.
don 

Are you agreeable? I’m sorry to tell you bad news….

As quiet leaders, we pride ourselves in personal qualities like trust, straightforwardness, altruism, compliance, modesty, and tender-mindedness. These qualities are among the elements that researchers say make you agreeable.  I have to say that I personally like the idea of being agreeable.

Well the bad news is that according to research published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, your agreeableness is going to cost you.   Agreeableness is a handicap when it come to compensation and getting ahead.

I actually got a sick feeling when I read this on the Lifehacker site. I was standing in a slow line during some weekend shopping and immediately sent the following Tweet response:

A full read of the Lifehacker article will direct you to a Wired article entitled, Do Nice Guys Finish Last? which in provides a link to the research article that was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology by Beth A. Livingston of Cornell, Timothy A. Judge of Notre Dame, and Charlice Hurst of the University of Western Ontario. You can access the research document hosted on the Notre Dame website.

Digging deeper, here is one research summary from the Harvard researchers:

Overall, across the first three studies, men who are one standard deviation below the mean on agreeableness earn an average of 18.31 percent ($9,772) more than men one standard deviation above the mean on agreeableness.

I don’t know what it means to be one standard deviation below the mean on agreeableness, but I was confident that there had to be a better way.

There are contrary findings and opinions on this subject.  I cited previously in my post Nice pays, winners don't punish the work of authors Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval as found in their book, The Power of Nice: How to Conquer the Business World With Kindness,

Nice is not naive. Nice does not mean smiling blandly while others walk all over you. Nice does not mean being a doormat. In fact, we would argue that nice is the toughest four-letter word you’ll ever hear. It means moving forward with the clear-eyed confidence that comes from knowing that being very nice and placing other people’s needs on the same level as your own will get you everything you want.

My recommendation for both myself and other quiet leaders: Stay the Course.   It will take us a bit longer but in the long run being surrounded by people where the relationship is based on trust, straightforwardness, altruism, compliance, modesty, and tender-mindedness has its own rewards.

Thanks for reading.  Lead Quietly.  Stay the course.

don

Adopt a Green Mentality

I’ve written about the importance of learning in leadership often.  Those writings included:

The Learning Zone – Everyday Action for Learning

Learning: Make it Informal

Fixed or Growth, What’s in your mindset?

It’s All About Learning – Part Deux

Learning is an important element of leadership.  I’m not writing today to restate that fact.

However, I find it  interesting when there is a new twist to an existing idea and that is the notion behind my urging to “Adopt a Green Mentality.”

The idea came from Shawn Murphy (Twitter: @Shawmu), the founder of Achieved Strategies when he wrote, 12 Most Necessary Shifts in Leadership Thinking for Today. 

I love a good list of insight and definitions and the tenth item on Shawn’s great list was my favorite.  It immediately resonated with me.  Here are Shawn’s words.

10. Adopt a “Green Mentality”
A colleague once said about professional development:  “If you’re ripe you’re rotting; if you’re green you’re growing.” Professional development never ends. A green mentality keeps your mind sharp and your skills fresh.

My call today is for leaders to adopt a green mentality.  Join me and make it part of your everyday mission.

Thanks for reading.  Lead quietly and think green, be growing.

don

Newly Etched in Stone - Be Humble

I’m changing my Quiet Leader commandments.  Fortunately these commandments are not hosted on stone tablets but I do consider these principles seriously.   They go to the core of who I try to be.

The new commandment is “Be humble.”

Recently, I encountered the Humility Imperative.  I started reading the submissions of some of my favorite people on the blogosphere. I not only discovered the site, I was consumed by it.

Here are two examples from the site  that influenced me to change the commandments.

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“my boss and other officials took all the credit”

The post title caught my attention in the context of a recent company event.  The post by M.D. Haddad resonated with me.   As leaders we need to remember to give credit where credit is due.  We have to dig deep to ensure that everyone gets credit.  Just like the credits at the end of the movie that recognize the best boy, gaffer, key grip, caterer, and the administrative assistant. 

At a quarterly global town hall meeting at my work this week, a regional executive was announcing a global initiative that members of my team worked on.  The phrase “worked on” does no justice to the effort.  Because the project was managed from our Asia Pacific office, the project effort included evening and early morning conference calls.  An aggressive timeline also required my team members put in long hours, several times late into the evening and early morning so that data fixes would be ready for the Asia Pacific development team.  My team did the work of the best boys, gaffers, and key grips.  They helped make it happen.

However, in the global town hall meeting, no one below a director level was recognized for their effort.  There were pictures, accolades, stand up introductions and more.  But in the end, there was no mention of the best boys, gaffers, key grips, and caterers.  I noted the omission as a good lesson in leadership.  Remember to give credit everywhere that credit is due.

(This is a personal call out to Jason, Dave, and Jill for their work as best boy, gaffer, and key grip.  Give credit where credit is due.)

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On the Humility Imperative site, an Abraham Lincoln quote caught my attention.

The best thing about the future is that it only comes one day at a time.

I love a great list and the quote’s accompanying post by Angel Cirrone Smith got me thinking about life and how I should position myself in this quickly changing world. A couple of favorites:

• Appreciate & respect differences in others. This is what makes us all unique.
• Not every person you meet is going to like you.
• Live each day by trying to put a smile on at least one person’s face.

Angel’s list is simple and insightful.  A good lesson in humility.

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I recommend the  Humility Imperative site.  I also took the oath.  It drove me to change my Quiet Leader Commandments after two years.

Thanks for reading. Lead with humility.  Take the humility oath.  Make the world a better place.
Don

Gratitude is Powerful and Contagious

Gratitude is a powerful attitude. 

I have written about gratitude  many times.  You can review summaries of three Lead Quietly gratitude posts below.

“Show Gratitude” is also Quiet Leader Commandment #7.   It is an important leadership tenet.

But it takes discipline. When the stress of our situation causes us to work with our heads down and a focus on our mission, it is easy to forget.  As is often quoted: "We are so often caught up in our destination that we forget to appreciate the journey, especially the goodness of the people we meet on the way." - Source Unknown

This past week, two of my colleagues, Jason and Keith, provided me with two  lessons and a reminder about the power of gratitude.  I don’t have to share details other then that their dialogue reminded me of the power of gratitude, and,

1. You double or triple the impact if you go out of your way to deliver the message.
2. It is hard to receive thanks without passing it back.  It’s contagious.  

Here is a quick summary of some of my previous writing on the topic as a further reminder of the power of gratitude.

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Building Community:  Thank you as a way of leading

from the Lead Quietly Archives

Gratitude is an easy and remarkably powerful step in building the type of community that is essential for successful teams. As I have written before, "Building community is hard. However, it is easy to start quietly and simply with thanks and smiles.


First, I'd invite everyone to read the wonderful work of Rosa Say. I have employed Rosa's insight several times in the past including, 12 Rules for Leadership and It's All About Learning.
This week, her Managing with Aloha Coaching blog introduced me to the concept of "mahalo" which means thankful living. The most striking suggestion for a quiet leader is,

Say “thank you” often; speak of your appreciation and it will soften the tone of your voice, giving it richness, humility and fullness.

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Transformational Gratitude

from the Lead Quietly Archives

Gratitude is transformational. Russell Bishop writes this past week on the Huffington Post that gratitude is a key to personal transformation. I'd like to share two of Bishop's thoughts and encourage you to read the full post.
Bishop writes, "given the stressful times in which we live and the apparent instability, unreliability, and fear wracked nature of our social and economic systems, it seems to me that the counterintuitive notion of Gratitude is needed right here, right now, for each and every one of us."
He goes on to write beautifully about the transformational force of gratitude.

Gratitude is a kind of seed that survives even the most devastating of circumstances, one that can germinate with the slightest amount of care. And when the gratitude seed germinates, the grateful typically experience an expansion of well being - emotionally, physically, and spiritually.
The seed typically sprouts in small ways, and yet the observant amongst us will notice that the tiniest sprout slowly grows into something more substantial. Gratitude is not just a seed, but also a form of nourishment that enables us to find our way out of difficult circumstances, to find choices that others might miss, and to craft an improved life experience.

This is a powerful sentiment for a simple concept.

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Practice Gratitude - Increase Happiness, It's Official

from the Lead Quietly Archives

The research data is in. Gratitude builds community and increases happiness.
I have written in earlier posts that a simple thank you does much to build community. In Build Community - Start simply with smiles and thanks, I quoted Carmine Coyote who wrote at Slow Leadership, that gratitude is "major constituent in the glue that holds together groups of all sizes, from a few friends to society as a whole."


Leaders can use thanks and gratitude to start building a community of leaders.
The value and effect of gratitude was cemented in "Practicing Gratitude Can Increase Happiness by 25%" on the PsyBlog. The post cites the work of Dr. Robert A Emmons of the University of California, Davis in his book, Thanks!: How the New Science of Gratitude Can Make You Happier. In studies referenced in the book, Emmons found that people who focused on gratitude felt fully 25% happier and more optimistic about the future.


Additional research by Emmons and Dr Michael E. McCullough of the University of Miami discovered that the benefits of gratitude extended to a variety of emotional, interpersonal and life gains.

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Thanks to my colleagues for the lesson and reminder. 

Thanks for reading.  Lead quietly and don’t forget gratitude.

don