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What Did You Learn From the Worst Leader You Ever Followed?

June 4, 2012 By

At one time or another, many of us have had that rare opportunity to follow a leader who personified the definition of leadership; someone who we would follow to the ends of the earth and beyond.  That individual had some trait, some characteristic, that sparked your passions and devotion to a cause and you were willing to do whatever it took to further the cause.  It’s easy to learn from leaders or this sort.  We recognize what they did that inspired us and resolve to do the same things to inspire others.

Unfortunately, each of us has also had that all too common experience of being lead by someone who did it all wrong; who failed to inspire; who, as one person put it, “couldn’t lead a bunch of kids into a candy store”.  It’s easy to adopt the initial reaction of “I don’t want to learn any of this person’s leadership skills”.  But, let’s think about that reaction for a moment and see if a different perspective helps us learn something positive.

What was it about the poor leader that “turned off” our willingness to follow?  Can we learn from this experience to determine behaviors that we don’t want to display when leading others?  To illustrate, let me give an example of two leaders I’ve had in my life at different times. To protect their privacy, I’ll simply refer to them as “Leader #1” and Leader #2.

Leader #1, when you asked if he would talk with you about something, would immediately set aside what he was working on, literally clearing his desk so that he could give you his undivided attention.  He’d instruct the receptionist to hold his calls.  While his door might still be open, anyone coming to that door would be waved away; a gesture understood by everyone in the office to mean “this person and I are talking; please don’t interrupt”.  Leader #1 spent time with you until you indicated that the conversation could be ended.

Leader #2, on the other hand, would invite you into his office when you asked for time; usher you to his conference table; and, take his cell phone from his pocket and sit it on the table where he could look at it simply by glancing down.  When his cell phone rang, he’d think nothing of answering it while you were talking.  If he received a text message, he’d read it and frequently respond to it while you were talking.  If the receptionist announced a call, he would often walk over to his desk and pick up his telephone to take the call … while you were talking.

Which leader made you feel important?  Which leader demonstrated that he was there to help you?  Which leader would you rather follow?

The answer to that third and last question tells you what kind of leader you want to be.  While Leader #2 was a poor leader, he taught you something about how to lead by showing you how not to lead.

Filed Under: Dynamic Leadership, Lead from strength, Leadership, Uncategorized, What characterizes good leaders Tagged With: , , ,

Personality Types and Leadership – Do Leaders Have Multiple Personalities?

May 17, 2012 By
I had a fascinating conversation last week with a client who had recently completed a COREMAP assessment.  After discussing the outcomes of the assessment, we determined that his dominant personality was that of a Commander with highly developed Organizer traits as his secondary or back-up personality.  This is a relatively common combination, but what made him atypical was that he also had highly developed Relater traits as well and Relater was his tertiary personality.  When I told him about this, he was concerned that these different facets of the same person would create mental conflicts.  He laughingly asked if I was suggesting that he had some kind of “multiple personality thingy” … was I saying that “someday, someone would write a book or make a movie about the multiple faces of ME?”
After we both laughed, I explained that each of us contains all four personality types and that, at various times, we all call upon each of those personalities to help us deal with situations.  To explain how we use them, the following scenario was created —
Let’s assume that the team you lead at work has encountered a problem that must be solved.

• Your Relater tells your mind, “we have a problem that is causing disharmony … it must be resolved in order to restore harmony”.  Your Relater identifies the problem.

•Your Organizer tells your mind, “here are the steps that must be taken to solve the problem and restore harmony”.  It provides the details to the solution.

• Your Commander now instructs the team to take the steps necessary to solve the problem and the time frame in which they must be taken.  In essence, the Commander says, “here’s what must be done, let’s do it!”
Rather than creating conflict, each facet of our personality steps up and does what it does best helping us solve problems and resolve conflict.
Filed Under: Dynamic Leadership, How personality type impacts leadership, Lead from strength, Leadership, Personal Coaching, Personality Assessment, Personality types, What characterizes good leaders Tagged With: , , , ,

Personality Types and Leadership – Part 4

May 9, 2012 By
Where Commander-Leaders don’t really want to be bothered by details and Entertainer-Leaders know that details exist but don’t know what they are, it takes a special kind of person to handle details.  COREMAP® calls these special people Organizer Personalities.
Organizer Personalities as Leaders
As a general rule, Organizer Personalities do not usually seek out positions of leadership.  However, when a job requires someone who excels in creating a structured, systematic environment, the Organizer Personality offers traits and skills that enable the Organizer-Leader to flourish.  These qualities and skills include:
• Willingness to Train – Great Organizer-Leaders are detail oriented and take the time and effort to ensure that their followers have all of the details needed to properly complete a job.  Since they are logical and methodical in all that they do, training programs that they design and deliver tend to provide sequential lessons that make it easy for students and trainees to follow.
• Patience and Fairness – Organizer-Leaders recognize that people learn at varying speeds.  Consequently, they are very patient and willing to review details until their followers understand them.  Once the Organizer-Leader believes that followers are prepared to perform the tasks and complete the projects before them, he/she gives the followers great latitude in how the job is done so long as it is completed within the timeframe allowed.  If there are problems or conflicts, the followers know that the Organizer-Leader will help them find a solution quickly and will fairly arbitrate any disputes.
• Leads by Example – When the time comes to get a job done, the Organizer-Leader believes that the best place to lead is from the front and set the example.  He/She does not have the self-perception of being over others; rather, believes that “many hands make light work” and that his or her hands are every bit as capable of lightening the load on followers as anyone else’s.  Because the Organizer-Leader is working right alongside the followers, he/she has a great insight into the challenges that the other workers face and will always be looking for solutions that benefit “his/her people”.
• Loyalty – Having worked right alongside the followers, the Organizer-Leader is very likely to see them as part of his/her extended family and will tend to take the attitude that “we take care of our own”.  The old expression, “I’ve got your back” could well describe the message that the Organizer-Leader sends out to followers.  This message may not be vocalized; but, is delivered by the actions taken and the examples set by the Organizer-Leader.
A good example of an Organizer-Leader might well be the Compliance Officer, we’ll call him “John”, at a securities broker/dealer I worked with.  A major part of his job was ensuring that agency managers were well prepared for the day when a regulatory inspector would walk into the agency office to conduct a legal compliance inspection.
Each year, John would schedule an inspection at each agency, describing it as a “dress rehearsal” compliance inspection.  He used an inspection sheet prepared by the broker/dealer; an inspection sheet based on the experiences of the president of the firm who was also a securities attorney and an expert witness in many court cases involving securities firms and their registered representatives.  John would randomly select client files, much as a regulator would, and review each file to confirm that the representative had conducted a thorough fact-finding interview and that the investments recommended were suitable for both the risk tolerances and financial goals of the client.  At the conclusion of the inspection, John would meet with the agency manager and review the files with the manager.  John then recommended actions that needed to be taken within the agency in order to offer the highest probability of a successful outcome to a genuine regulatory inspection; and, he suggested training that should be provided to the registered representatives to ensure that they provided all of the documentation that was needed to justify and defend the recommendations that they offered to clients.
About six months after conducting a “dress rehearsal” with an agency manager, John got a call from that manager.  The manager told John that an inspector had just left the office; that the agency had passed with flying colors; and, that at no time was she nervous about the outcome of the inspection because she knew that she had taken action on all of John’s recommendations and that her registered representatives had received the suggested training.
By providing the processes and procedures; by offering a system that the agency manager could adhere to, John made certain that the team he led was well prepared for the challenges that they would face; and, that they would emerge from those challenges stronger, more competent, and more confident in their own ability to succeed.
Filed Under: Dynamic Leadership, How personality type impacts leadership, Lead from strength, Leadership, Personality Assessment, Personality types, What characterizes good leaders Tagged With: , , , ,

Personality Types and Leadership – Part 2

April 4, 2012 By

If you are like most people, you’ve either met or heard of someone who just seems to attract others like a light bulb attracts moths at night.  He or she is seen as being warm, approachable, magnetic.  When there is work to be done, this person leads others into it with excitement and enthusiasm. COREMAP® calls these people Entertainers.

Entertainer Personalities as Leaders

Just as the Commander Personality brings specific skills to a leadership position, Entertainers bring skills that make people want to follow them; and makes the follower feel special for having chosen to follow this leader.  To separate themselves from the not-so-great, GREAT Entertainer-Leaders are:

  • Great Communicators – By their very nature, Entertainer Personalities have the ability to communicate their thoughts, their vision of the future, in clear and vivid terms.  For these leaders, words are not merely “words” … they are tools that bring their experiences and vision to life … when properly put together and sequenced, they change mere music into the soundtrack of a dream come to life.  For this person, the sky is not simply blue; it is a cerulean blue so bright that it hurts your eyes to look at it for any length of time.
  • Good Listeners – This seems highly improbable since Entertainer Personalities love to talk!  But, the fact is that great Entertainer-Leaders have learned that taking time to listen attracts followers; and, that having listened, they will be asked to provide feedback … they will be asked to talk and their audience will be eagerly awaiting their every word.
  • Interpersonal Skills – Entertainer Personalities love to be the center of attention.  Great Entertainer-Leaders take the time to interact with their followers and make themselves available … to have an “open-door” policy that is backed up with a welcoming, receptive attitude.  Great Entertainer-Leaders have learned that to have an audience that is fully engaged with them, they must give their audience their undivided attention.  When they are with you, they are with you; nothing and no one is permitted to interrupt or distract.
  • Optimistic – No one’s life is free from adversity.  The great Entertainer-Leader though has learned to find the silver lining in any cloud.
    There are no road blocks to progress.  Rather, these temporary obstacles are viewed as opportunities to be innovative; challenges that empower each of us to demonstrate how we can rise up to the challenge and create solutions.  Great Entertainer-Leaders use this optimism to inspire those around them to accomplish things that the followers have never thought possible.
  • Create a “Fun” Environment – For the Entertainer Personality, life is to be enjoyed and lived to the fullest.  The Entertainer-Leader knows that no one wants to slave away in a work environment that is dull, boring, and the days blur into a monotonous week in which nothing distinguishes one day from another.  Consequently, the Entertainer-Leader is going to create an environment in which not only are organizational objectives attained, the wants and needs of each individual are going to be fulfilled as well … an environment that is upbeat, positive, and contains occasional surprises that make each team member smile and eager to see what the coming day will bring.

In Part 1, I stated that Ray was a Commander-Leader.  He also had a lot of the Entertainer-Leader in him, too.  Whether it was a sales contest that made each salesperson want to make one more cold call; or, an end of the day “sale-a-bration” in which everyone returned to the office after their last evening appointment for pizza, he was always finding ways to make working feel like play.  He even found ways to make weekly sales meetings fun.

Anyone who has attended more than a couple of sales meetings knows that they usually follow a template that says, “I know you’ve sold something in the past but that is the past … go sell something today.”  Ray’s sales meetings were different.  He found ways to make them fun.  While I did not witness this one first hand, one of his greatest sales meetings was held right around Halloween.

He had a casket delivered to the office and set up in the meeting room.  Just before it was time for people to arrive for the weekly meeting, he laid down in that casket, folded his arms across his chest and closed his eyes.  When the sales people arrived, they were ushered into the meeting room by his secretary who simply told them to sit down and wait quietly for the service to begin.  They found Ray lying in the coffin and heard organ music playing softly.  When everyone was present, his secretary closed the door letting him know it was time to start the sales meeting.  While everyone sat there wondering what was going on, he suddenly sat up, climbed out of the casket, slapped his hands together and cried out, “Now that I have your attention … Now that you’ve thought about the permanence of death … NOW we’re going to talk about the miracle of life insurance!”  When the meeting ended, everyone of those sales people walked out with a smile on their face, eager to share the miracle of life insurance with a prospective client.  Obviously, Ray did not do this for every sales meeting; but, you can be assured that every member of his sales team looked forward to each meeting, wondering if today was going to be the day he grabbed their attention in a new and unusual way.

NEXT:  Organizer Personalities as Leaders

Filed Under: Dynamic Leadership, How personality type impacts leadership, Lead from strength, Leadership, Personality Assessment, Personality types, What characterizes good leaders Tagged With: , , ,

Personality Types and Leadership – Part 1

March 28, 2012 By

Go into nearly any corporate environment and ask what type of person the company looks for when selecting a leader and you can be fairly confident that the answer will describe a “hard charging”, “take charge”, “get it done” type of personality; a person whose motto is “lead, follow, or get out of the way”.  COREMAP® refers to these people as Commander Personalities.

Now, make no mistake about it, Commanders clearly have the ability to lead.  However, the traits that can make Commanders great leaders are not the only characteristics that make great leaders.  In this and future articles, we’ll take a look at the characteristics of great leaders and try to determine what it is/was that makes/made them great.

COMMANDERS AS LEADERS

  • VISION – Commander Personalities are “big picture” people.  They have the unique ability to see where all the moving parts fit together to make a plan come together and achieve the desired outcome.
  • DRIVE & DETERMINATION – Call it being strong-willed, forceful, ambitious, or determined, Commander Personalities know where they want to go and how they want to get there.  They are driven to succeed; and, this is what makes them good leaders, they want to take others to the top with them.
  • DYNAMIC LEADERS – As “big picture” people, these individuals don’t get bogged down in details.  As dynamic leaders, they identify people whose strengths compliment the areas in which they are not strong.  When the objective has been reached, the goals met, the Commander gives credit where it is due and tells all who will listen of the role each team member played and how each person’s contributions made the team’s success inevitable.  This type of leader is a good delegator who makes certain that all team members have what they need to perform their part of the job; stays out of the team member’s way so that he or she can do what needs to be done but also monitor progress so that goals and deadlines are met.
  • DECISIVE – Living by the dictum “lead, follow, or get out of the way”, these leaders recognize that indecision serves only to block the team’s progress and ultimate success.  The Commander Personality is willing to make decisions, both the easy ones and the hard ones, and take responsibility for those decisions.

To illustrate these traits, consider …

Entering the insurance industry as a recent college graduate, I had the privilege of following one of the most dynamic leaders I’d ever met.  For that matter, Ray is still the greatest leader I’ve had the privilege of following.

Ray gauged his success as an agency manager by some very clear measures:

  • He wanted to have the #1 Agency in the Southwest U.S. on a year-in, year-out basis.
  • He wanted his agents to be the highest paid agents in the company.
  • He wanted to develop and promote talented individuals into agency management positions for the company.

He believed that all three were attainable and communicated his vision to everyone in the agency.  He also knew what he was good at and where he needed support so he built a management team where each team member had a clearly defined role and expectations.

With his guidance, the team set monthly and annual goals and developed plans to reach them.  Once the plans were in place, he’d urge the team to “take massive action”.  It did not matter if you were ahead of projections or right on schedule, Ray encouraged you to “keep working the plan”.  If you were behind schedule, he’d say, “let’s change the plan if we need to do something differently to reach your goals”.

When the team succeeded in reaching the agency goals, he praised everyone and made it abundantly clear that “WE did it”.  When the team fell short of its goals, he took full responsibility by telling everyone that “the fault was not in the followers but in his leadership”.

Over the years I worked in his agency and later when I became an agency manager and his friendly competitor, Ray’s agency was the leading agency in the Southwest United States.  He developed 29 individuals who went on to manage their own successful agencies throughout the nation.

Ray’s leadership style exhibited all of the positive characteristics of a Commander Personality in a leadership role.  Commander was his dominant personality style; but, when it was appropriate he blended his Commander traits with the traits of other personality types.

NEXT:  Entertainer Personalities as Leaders.

Filed Under: Dynamic Leadership, How personality type impacts leadership, Lead from strength, Leadership, Personality types, What characterizes good leaders Tagged With: , , ,
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