And to top it all off, the politicians on the campaign trail proclaimed in their political ads that their opponents were liars, instead of offering solutions that might help. The net result was that public trust in all politicians declined.
Admittedly, opinions about the people who occupy leadership positions tend to rise and fall with current events. When times are good, people exhibit more confidence in their leaders, and when times are bad they exhibit less. The more severe the events and the more compressed the time frame, the more cynical people are likely to become. It is natural to expect, then, in a prolonged recession — with attendant layoffs and shrinking family incomes — that the credibility of business, labor, and government leaders would decline. Bad timing can often ruin credibility as much as bad actions.
The entire economic system is based on trust. It’s not based on a particular investment model, price-earnings ratio, income statement, or balance sheet. It’s not based on any of these rational concepts. It’s based on whether people believe in the numbers and in the people who are supplying them. If people don’t trust those who handle their money, their livelihoods, and their lives, they’ll just refuse to participate.
Constituents will commit to the extent that they believe in those guiding the change. It is wise, therefore, for leaders to begin every significant change with a “credit check.” It’s not just “Do my constituents believe that the new system will improve our performance?” Or even “Do they believe that this risky policy is for the greater good?” It’s also “Do they believe in me and my ability to lead this effort?”
Today, leadership is only an aspiration. It is something you have to earn every day, because on a daily basis, people choose whether or not they’re going to follow you. It’s something you keep striving to achieve and never assume you’ve fully attained.
People do vote — with their energy, with their dedication, with their loyalty, with their talent, with their actions. Don’t you put forth higher-quality effort when you believe that the people leading you are there to serve your needs and not just their own interests?
He also found that ultimately the constituents are the arbiters of the quality of leadership they receive. In the end, leaders don’t decide who leads. Followers do.
Loyalty is not something a boss (or anyone for that matter) can demand or even command. It is something the people — the constituency — choose to grant a leader who has earned it.
- Integrity (is truthful, is trustworthy, has character, has convictions)
- Competence (is capable, is productive, is efficient)
- Leadership (is inspiring, is decisive, provides direction)
You are only as good as your word: If you cannot deliver, do not offer your word.
Her most admired leader at Hang Seng Bank is forward-looking, “this provides us the capacity to walk a path towards the future with confidence, and fosters shared values because we all know where we are heading.”
People are unwilling to follow those who are directionless. Leaders can be unquestionably honest, but if they don’t know where they are going, no one is likely to go any further ahead with them than they themselves can see.
In this sense, having a winning track record is the surest way to be considered competent.
Obviously the loftier and more expansive a leader’s dream, the deeper the foundation must be. The less stable the ground underneath, the more solid the foundation must be. Especially in uncertain times, leadership credibility is essential in generating confidence among constituents. Without credibility nothing can be built — at least nothing that can survive the test of time.
Now, I don’t want to insult you, but I want you to do something. When you go on vacation sometimes, every once in a while, there’s something you just really want, but that you know maybe you can’t afford, and you feel you shouldn’t buy it because you’ve got 3 kids that want something else. I’m going to insist that you take with you my Amex card just in case there’s anything you really want.
Honor and respect people, show you care and be genuine, they will do anything for you.
People understand actions more than words. When I left for India, his exact words were: “You owe me nothing; this is a reward for the work you have done, and the person you have been.” At that moment, I realized that people always remember how you make them feel. During every major milestone, Steve always honored my contributions and never showed a lack of confidence in me.
It’s this very quality — the ability to bring out the best in the people around you — which makes a leader truly inspiring.
You don’t love someone because of who they are, you love them because of the way they make you feel.
When people work with leaders they admire and respect they feel better about themselves. Credible leaders raise self-esteem. They set people’s spirits free and enable them to become more than they might have thought possible. Credible leaders make people feel that they too can make a different in others’ lives.
They do not place themselves at the center; they place others there. They do not seek the attention of others; they give their attention to others. They do not focus on satisfying their own aims and desires; they look for ways to respond to the needs and interests of their constituents. They are not self-centered; they are constituent-centered.
But threats, power, and position do not earn commitment. They earn compliance. And compliance produces adequacy — not greatness.
Studies also show that people have more trust in members of their own work groups than they do in management, and that they are less cynical in dealing with their coworkers. Why? For one thing, it is simply harder to hold cynical stereotypes about people you work with everyday. People can hold stereotypes about general groups of others (say, management) but often modify or abandon them when dealing with individual members of the stereotyped group.
The lesson for all leaders is this: earning credibility is a retail activity, a factory floor activity, a person-to-person activity. Credibility is gained in small quantities through physical presence. Leaders have to be physically present, they have to be visible, and they have to get close to their constituents to earn their respect and trust.
Leaders can’t assume, just because they have a clearly articulated set of personal values, that those values are necessarily aligned with the values of their constituents. Leadership is a dialogue, not a monologue. It is a relationship, and strong relationships are built on mutual understanding. To be a leader, you must develop a deep understanding of the collective values and desires of your constituents.
Strategic initiatives to build a “sustainable organization” or deliver “world-class service” can actually make people feel weak and incompetent if they do not have the skills and abilities to perform. Therefore, it is essential for leaders to continuously develop the capacity of their constituents to keep their commitments.
You must educate, educate, educate.
They set the example by going first. They spend their time, their truest indicator of priorities, on core values.
During times of uncertainty people need more energy and enthusiasm, more inspiration and optimism from their leaders than in times of stability and growth.
The better you know yourself, the better sense you can make of the often incomprehensible and conflicting messages you receive daily. Do this, do that. Buy this, buy that. Support this, support that. Decide this, decide that. You need internal guidance to navigate the turmoil in today’s highly uncertain environment.
Without core beliefs and with shifting positions, would-be leaders will be judged as inconsistent and will be derided for being “political” in their behavior.
Values are directly relevant to credibility. To reiterate: to do what you say you will do — the behavioral definition of credibility — you must know what you want to do and how you want to behave. That’s what your values help you to define.
Values are the standards that guide your conduct in a variety of settings and situations. When values are clear, you know what to do — you don’t have to rely upon direction from someone in authority.
By definition, the unsolicited phone calls requesting my services had been for things that I was already known for. Even though each client project was customized (to a degree) I found myself doing basically very similar work for a variety of clients. I had not added to my abilities. What was even more shocking (and depressing) was the realization that not only had I not grown my asset, but its value on the market was going down — rapidly. Left untended, knowledge and skill, like all assets, depreciate in value — surprisingly quickly.
People willingly follow your advice and recommendations only when they trust you have their best interests at heart.
It is not the content of the exchange that is central but the experience of being taken in and heard, which not only affirms the legitimacy of one’s way of looking at the world but then allows one to begin letting go of some defensiveness because the experience of affirmation increases one’s capacity to affirm others.
The point is simply this: listening strengthens credibility. Listening is far more effective than telling when it comes to getting people to believe in you. When you ask other people questions about their hopes, their fears, their beliefs, their triumphs, their setbacks, their family, their childhood, their career aspirations, and then you listen intently to their answers, you are building a bond with them.
While trust may sometimes be forged in moments of great drama, it is more likely to be formed by many small, moment-to-moment encounters.
The paradox is that people cannot take risks unless they feel safe, unless they feel secure that they will not be unfairly treated, embarrassed, harassed, harmed, or hurt because they choose to take some action. When people feel safe, their defensive mechanisms are not aroused because their self-esteem is not threatened. They become more open (and vulnerable) to outside influence and to learning.
Credible leaders recognize that the metaphor of community goes a lot further in unifying people than does the standard notion of hierarchy or chain of command. Community implies that everyone’s interests will be best served when working toward a collective set of shared values and a common purpose. Self-interests at the expense of common interests are frowned upon in a committed community.
The real company values, as opposed to the nice-sounding values, are shown by who gets rewarded, promoted, or let go.
Which of my people, if they told me they were leaving in 2 months for a similar job at a peer company, would I fight hard to keep at Netflix?
Far too often in business decisions are made with no background and explanation to the employees. Now I don’t think the 5% or 10% drop in a large number has much of an impact; however, it was the thought behind it that was more important. I felt that he reinforced the “shared sacrifices” needed by taking the pay cut as he was asking us to sacrifice our bonuses.
Owners, real owners, don’t have to be told what to do — they can figure it out for themselves. They have all the knowledge, understanding, and information they need to make a decision, and they have the motivation and the will to act fast. Ownership is not a set of legal rights. It’s a state of mind.
Providing people with choice — discretion and latitude — liberates them. It gives them the freedom to use their training, their judgment, and their experience to do what is right. Without latitude and discretion, people cannot act on their own initiative, they cannot feel ownership, and they cannot make much of a difference.
All people want to believe that they can influence other people and influence life’s events. It gives them a sense of order and stability in their own lives. In fact, you can’t lead until you feel you can adequately cope with the events, situations, and people that you confront.
Another interesting finding from these studies was how the managers who lost confidence in their own judgments tended to find fault with their people.
The leader’s challenge is to create situations for small wins, structuring tasks in such a way that they can be broken down into doable pieces, with each success building up the person’s sense of competence.
Those with a fixed mindset tend to look at any failure as an indication that they are not very competent, and they tend to avoid situations in which they might make mistakes or fail. On the other hand, those with a growth mindset view failure as a learning opportunity, and they are more inclined to embrace risk and challenge.
Individuals’ motivation to increase their productivity on a task increases only when they have a challenging goal and receive feedback on their progress.
You could step over it, saying to yourself, “I pay taxes. Public Works should clean it up.”
The more that you have a servant perspective or a servant attitude, then the more inclusion you’ll have, the more respect for people’s ideas you’ll have. You’ll seek to understand before you seek to be understood.
People will not voluntarily follow self-serving leaders whose goals are to enrich only themselves. People want to follow leaders who place others’ interests above their own.
The truth is that you either lead by example or you don’t lead at all.
You said we should be innovative. Exactly what does innovative look like around here?
Your calendar never lies. Time is your only true resource. And the way you divvy time up — visible to one and all — is the only true statement of what really matters to you.
Stories serve as kind of a mental map that helps people know, first, what is important (that is, purpose and values) and, second, how things are done in a particular group or organization.
A story that involves you or that your audience can personally relate to has more impact than an abstract third-person example.
People with high hope have a greater number of goals across various arenas of life, select more difficult goals, and see their goals in a more challenging and positive manner than people with low hope.
The landlord put the squeeze on Sam and did not renew the lease, knowing Sam had no other place to go in the small town. Instead, he offered to buy the franchise. Same had no choice in that instance but to give up the store and move on. “It was the low point in my business life. It really was like a nightmare. I had built the best variety store in the whole region and worked hard in the community — done everything right — and now I was being kicked out of town.”
But acknowledging the reality does not mean you must accept the verdict. You can be well informed and deeply understand the peril you face without accepting a prognosis that your organization or civilization is doomed. Reality may mean that you have lost a loved one or that you are disabled by a physical trauma; it does not have to mean that you have been sentenced to a life of misery.
As athletes and their coaches have known for a long time, stored mental pictures influence performance. Unless you can see yourself as being successful, it is very difficult to produce the behavior that leads to success.
Even the hardiest of world-class competitors pull muscles, strain ligaments, tear tendons, and break bones.
The myth is that passion comes from joy. It does not. The word passion has its roots in the Greek and Latin words for suffering. The most passionate people are those who have suffered the most. Passion earned from suffering is inspiring to every constituent — from direct reports to colleagues, and every often to the competition.
There can be no strength, no real inner growth, without the pain of legitimate suffering.
Compassion means “to suffer together.” Only those who have suffered with their constituents can genuinely uplift others. Only those who have felt the pain of loss and yearning for fulfillment can truly inspire. The increase in cynicism over the last several years is due in part to the perception that those in senior leadership positions have not suffered with their constituents.
When people can talk about what they love to do, gain a deeper understanding of others, share more intimately with others, and truly enjoy the interaction, the energy and passion that are released are contagious.
Hope is an attitude in action. Hope enables people to mobilize their healing powers and their achieving powers.
If converting and enlisting everyone were the criterion of success, it would be said that there have never been any leaders. No one has ever enlisted 100% of the potential constituents in anything.
If you’re always thinking about appearances, you can never attain the state of concentration that’s necessary for effective learning and top performance.
This ability to anticipate and commit to the future is the real test of leadership.
This means that as persons seeking meaning in our lives, worthiness in our efforts, we have no choice but to take the risks, and accept the pain, the excitement, and the exhilaration of becoming learners.
Thoughts become words. Words become deeds. Deeds become habits. Habits become character. Character becomes destiny.