Leading With Artisanship
It’s funny to me how reading something can make me think of something that I haven’t thought about, at least consciously, for a while. When reading Lesson 10, “Surrender Overthinking” in Mindset Mondays with DTK by David Taylor-Klaus (DTK), I came across this statement:
“I don’t have a fantasy of being an artist…not in terms of painting, or sculpture, or any of the expressive arts. I do want to be an artist in how I serve people, and the work that I do in the world. If I’m overthinking, my art is compromised and my creative energy is spent spinning my wheels, or ‘catastrophizing forward’.”
~ David Taylor-Klause, 2020, Mindset Mondays with DTK, p. 98.
This got me to thinking about the work of Patricia Pitcher. Her work of studying leaders was very influential and I consider her to have been very influential on my leadership development. Her books The Drama of Leadership: Artists, Craftmen, and Technocrats and the Power Struggle That Shapes Organizations and Societies (1997) and Artists, Craftsmen, and Technocrats: The Dreams, Realities, and Illusions of Leadership (1997, 2nd edition) easily make my top five list of influential books. These books make the top of the list because they helped me understand myself as an artistic leader and be comfortable with that. Pitcher saw the artistic leader as an inspiring and visionary risk-taker, guided by an intuitive sense of the future. Now, unlike DTK who has no interest in being an expressive artist, I really want to be a rock star, but I just don’t have any talent. I do find great inspiration from studying rock bands, the inspiration for songs, and the innovative ideas they come up with.
“I am trying to think out a short story. I’ve got the closing sentence of it all arranged and it is good and strong, but I haven’t got any of the rest of the story yet.”
~ Mark Twain
The technocrat, the category which many leaders fit, is the nemesis of the artist. They are organized box checkers who use the term “teamwork” a lot, but operate with a “my way or the doorway” and “paint-by-numbers” mentality. The technocrat will be fearful of making imaginative decision and before any ideas can be thought through is already trying to fit the ideas in a box and understand how to manage it. Boy am I glad I did not end up a technocrat – I dream too much and I’ve got too much imagination for that. As an artist I do tend to overthink things, but usually not looking for problems. This was the point of DTK’s Lesson 10; we should not focus too much on what could go wrong. We need to anticipate obstacles and opportunities, but not let them hinder moving forward.
I learned from Pitcher that as an artist I will, at times, have vague, indefinable, long-term visions that get clarified by action and remaining open to new insights. Artists know where they are going, but sometimes it’s vague and more a trip that destination. This to me would be one way to keep from overthinking things – focus on the journey more than the destination. It’s why I choose to inspire with metaphors rather than with detailed descriptions of the future. Think about this:
“I claim that the visions of the visionary [artist] leader are no different in form or origin than those of an artist. If you ask a great painter what he or she’s going to paint next, it’s a rare one who will have a detailed answer and if he or she does, I doubt he or she satisfies the definition of great.“
~ Patricia Pitcher, 1997, The Drama of Leadership, kindle location 196 of 2456.
Research tells us that the best artists stay radically open as they work on a canvas; there is a continuous interaction between a vague vision and the concrete act of painting. In my conversations with the artists and song writers in rock bands I have found the same thing. For example, a riff gets written and suddenly an entire song is born. It’s why we artist leaders live for the metaphor. I am always looking for intersectional creativity – the intersection of different fields, ideas, people, and cultures. DTK told us to “Take this moment to consider that there are endless possibilities, opportunities, and forces working on your behalf” (p. 98). We need, as Pitcher taught us, to let our intuitive sense of the future take over. So as we take to our leadership canvas, let’s open our minds to creativity, ideas, and opportunities, but not overthink all that could go wrong.
Just Pay Attention
My wife and I just finished watching all seven seasons of The Mentalist. I love it when a show reminds us how important it is to continue to hone and develop our leadership skills. This television series is about Patrick Jane, played by Simon Baker, a man who at one time pretended to be a psychic. He made a lot of money doing this, but his arrogance as a fake psychic caused his family to be murdered. This caused him to stop pretending and begin a crusade of calling out the fact that there is no such thing as a psychic. Jane then went to work for the Californian Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and later in the series for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), helping them solve murder cases.
What Patrick Jane did have, however, was very keen powers of observation and a lot of chutzpah. I know The Mentalist is just a television show, but it was amazing to watch as Patrick Jane explained what he knew about a suspect or a witness, just from observing or talking with them. The key was, he was using all his senses, literally. During the series we saw him use sight, smell, feel, hearing, and smell to understand. Body language, clothes, nervous habits, accents, the things a person surrounds themselves with – they all tell a story, if we really pay attention to what we see, smell, feel, hear, and taste.
Patrick Jane also questions things that seem to be out of place, uses his senses, and looks for what people value. Even more importantly, he empathizes. Jane has incredible emotional intelligence. He expands that emotional intelligence to include others – Patrick Jane communicates better by staying focused on the person he’s with, making eye contact, paying attention to nonverbal cues, watching how others are reacting as he is talking to someone else, and sometimes taking there hand or wrist to feel there pulse. In other words he is just paying attention, or as I call it, reading the room. Staying tuned in emotionally with people makes our ability to build and grow relationships even stronger.
Power To Do
Last week while in a very deep discussion during a 3D Leadership session we were talking about leadership and power. We were discussing the five forms of power from French and Raven (1959). Here are those five forms of power:
First of all, the group talked about how great it is that we continue to move from forms of power to levels of what John Maxwell called 5 Levels of Leadership. The group acknowledged how negative most of the five levels of power are, but that those powers exist, how they can be used for positive, and how we should use them for creating positive environments. One of the positive forms of power is “referent.” I have blogged about this power before in The Majestic Leader. Also, here are Maxwell’s 5 Levels of Leadership:
Then someone made a brilliant statement: “The five forms of power have such a limited scope.” I asked what she meant, and she said, “Those are all about ‘power over’ and we should be thing about ‘power to do’.” Again, another brilliant statement! “Power to do!” Now that’s a power we need to develop – Self empowerment.
Therefore, as leaders it’s important to inspire empowerment in others. After all, when people feel powerful, it boosts their self-confidence, which further enhances their work and performance. Inspiring others is often the mark of a great leader, but how do you do that effectively? Being an inspiring leader was the theme of this gathering. To truly empower others we must empower ourselves to be inspirational leaders. How do we do that? Here’s what our teacher leaders said:
- Show up – Inspirational leaders understand the significance of just being there. I actually heard from teachers in this gathering that they wished that the school leaders would just come visit there schools and more importantly, their classrooms. You can’t take care of your peeps if you aren’t with your people and that means going to street level and getting shoulder to shoulder.
- Be present – This is different than showing up; we must really be present by having open ears and listening, asking the right questions, and having humility.
- Withitness – Great leaders position themselves so they can see everything. This is also about being actively engaged.
As leaders of learning we have a key role to play in delivering quality learning. In order to do this it is important to understand the purpose and impact of our role and the impact we have on others. In the case of education, the task of leadership is to make visible the how, why and where of learning. It achieves this by conversations and demonstrations around pupil learning, professional learning and learnings which transcend the boundaries of the school. The challenge for leadership is to nurture the dialogue, to make transparent ways in learning interconnects and infuses behavior. It promotes a continuing restless inquiry into what works best, when, where, for whom and with what outcome. Its vision is of the intelligent school and its practice intersects with the wider world of learning.
Never forget, the way we see leadership, learning and the quality of our schools, businesses, or organizations is ultimately a product of how we see and think about ourselves. Remember, we have the “power to do.”
Approaching The World With A Sense Of Childlike Wonder
The Creative Mindset: Mastering the Six Skills That Empower Innovation by Jeff Degraff
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Sometimes I believe we need to eliminate the word “innovation” from our vocabulary because we inhibit deep innovation by skipping the more important “being creative.” This book reminds us and guides us through practical and everyday creativity. We are also reminded that achieving a creative mindset is possible for everyone and what we need to do is simple – approach the world with a sense of childlike wonder.
I’m not going to talk about all six skills covered in the book, because I want you to read it, but as a person who leads and works by metaphors and analogies I found the guide of the skill “Associate – Connecting Ideas With Analogies” extremely helpful. By using the associating techniques of direct analogies, personal analogies, symbolic analogies, and fantasy analogies we can reverse analogies, use idea bridges, and use adaptive reasoning to tap into our creative mindset.
This then leads to the other skill that provided a great deal of personal growth for me: “Translate: Creating Stories From Ideas.” We are reminded in this part of the book that for us to translate creativity to innovations we must have all key stakeholders as a part of the process. A case study is used to describe how just leaving one stakeholder outbid the project caused a wildly creative and successful innovation to fail.
If you want to become a leader with a fully honed creative mindset who enables that same creative mindset in those you serve, you must read this book. Your first step to accelerating down the runway of your creativity taking off is to make this book a part of your personal growth plan.
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Executing The Micros
If you’ve not heard Alex Rodriguez (A-Rod) do the play-by-play of a Major League Baseball (MLB) baseball game on ESPN, you need to. He is awesome. And, you’re in luck because the MLB Playoffs are still going on. During game one of the NL Wildcard Series between the Atlanta Braves and Cincinnati Reds, A-Rod made the comment, “It’s about executing the micros, not the macros.” This was in references to a couple of things:
- We need to execute the fundamentals
- We cannot focus on the big outcome and forget the process
The case in point was that in game one there seemed to be a focus on trying to knock the ball out of the park instead of just putting the ball in play. In game one an RBI (run batted in) would have been much more valuable than a home run. Proof in point was the game winning RBI by the Brave’s Freddie Freeman. A-Rod also pointed out that bunting in a couple of scenarios would have moved players into scoring position.
Baseball, just like most of our every day work, is about making progress. Enormous success happens when progress becomes the biggest goal. It’s about improving and executing the micros. Ordinary teams, organizations, and focus on the macro outcome, geniuses and champions focus on the process. In other words, throw out the phrase, “Don’t sweat the small stuff.” It’s time to sweat the small stuff.
Baseball is such a great way of teaching this. Atlanta’s Freddie Freeman ended the longest scoreless duel in postseason history with an RBI single in the 13th inning to beat Cincinnati 1-0 in the opener of their NL Wild Card Series. An RBI single is a micro compared to a home run; it’s just putting the ball in play. It also took having a player in scoring position. A-Rod’s point, I believe, was we need to be doing all the things necessary for progress. Someone needed to get on base, get moved to second or third base, then a ball put in play.
How about you, are you executing the micros?
Something To Build On
“A record is never something to stand on, it’s something to build on…” ~ Richard Nixon in his first debate with John F. Kennedy on September 26, 1960. The two met in Chicago to discuss domestic issues in the first televised debate in history. American History TV did a great job of providing a look back at the first televised presidential debate. Interestingly there were no more debates until 1976. Dr. Barbara Perry, professor at University of Virginia’s Miller Center, did a great job discussing the highlights and answering questions.
Nixon’s statement that our records are something to build on really struck me. For each leader, the records are always a bit different. We must remember, however, that trust is an important piece of our record. People have unique strengths to leverage and vulnerabilities to address. We must not forget that our mistakes are a part of our records. We need to take responsibility for our mistakes. When we admit we’ve made a mistake, you don’t erode trust in your leadership, you strengthen it. When the people we lead see us stepping up and owning our mistakes, they know they can trust us to do the right thing in tough situations.
Nixon’s point was that we should never sit back and become comfortable with past successes; we must continue to build on those successes. It’s always beneficial to review our accomplishments to build on prior successes. The key is to recognize current successes and chart a course for future advancement.
“What Might Have Beens” Are Risky
A comment made by Robert Gates in his great book Exercise of Power: American Failures, and a New Path Forward in the Post-Cold War World really made me think. He said, “Addressing ‘what might have beens’ in history is risky.” I wrote it in my notes so I could think about it and blog about it. I believe we need to study history in a way that doesn’t force us into being judgmental outside of the context the history was made in.
Everyone needs to study history. The past is filled with warning signs. We must be able to reflect on the events that built up to them, learn from mistakes made and resist and question if we see similar patterns emerging. By studying history we can identify when society is going down perilous and contribute toward getting back on the right track. This should not include continuing to place blame on individuals who are, in many cases, not even alive any more. We need to think of how to learn from the past not think in terms of “what might have been.”
Additionally, history cannot be studied by learning isolated events without understanding the events, personalities, and events that molded the personalities involved leading up to historical events. One point I believe Gates was making was that there had been no perfect leader, and never will be. Therefore, we need to study the positives and negatives, uplifting and inspiring, and chaotic and immoral. There are lessons, both good and bad, to be learned from the way our ancestors have interacted with other people who have different ways of living. Understanding how our leaders, communities, and past societies have acted, reacted, and integrated is key to humanity improving in the future.
Don’t Get Naked At 8:00 AM
I’ll bet I got your attention with the title of this post. I’ll even bet you might be reading now just to find out what the heck I’m writing about. Well keep reading and you’ll find out. Bob Tiede is one a kind! And, I mean that as the highest of compliments. We had the chance to learn from Bob on Kevin Eikenberry’s Virtual LeaderCon on Wednesday. I have been a big time fan of Bob’s for a long time and I had chance for some personal messaging with him at the end of the day on Wednesday. PRICELESS! Bob Tiede has been helping leaders be their best for a lot of years and I have learned and grown a lot from following his work and reading his books.
His latest work is Now That’s A Great Question. Why am I such a fan? Well, if you know me, you know I love to ask questions. Bob taught us that, “Leadership is not as much about knowing the right answers as it is about asking the right questions.” Brilliant, right? See, there I go asking a question.
“Leadership is not as much about knowing the right answers as it is about asking the right questions.” ~ Bob Tiede
Two Powerful Sets of Questions
During Virtual LeaderCon he reminded us that some of the best questions are the simplest. For example, here are three simple questions leaders can ask:
- What do you like best?
- What do you like least?
- What would you change?
After asking those three questions, Bob will tell you the most important thing to do is – LISTEN! Listening is the most important part. We must be listening to both understand and interpret. Then, we also must do something about what we have been told. Otherwise everyone will lose trust in us.
Here are four more great questions from Bob:
- What’s going well?
- What’s not going well?
- Where are you stuck?
- What needs to change?
“…no leader wants to get naked at 8:00 AM!” ~ Bob Tiede
Don’t forget. What’s your job while asking these questions? LISTEN During Virtual LeaderCon Bob explained to always start with “what was liked best” and “what was going well.” Otherwise you are just starting with the potential for the conversation to become a “gripe-fest” and we have all been there before. Nothing productive ever comes out of a “gripe-fest.” Then Bob gave what I awarded as the best quote of the day on Wednesday: “Start with what’s going well, because no leader wants to get naked at 8:00 AM!” I loved it! His point was for us to start with the good things because that will put us in a much better frame of mind for truly listening to the things that need improvement. Isn’t he awesome at putting things in a way we can understand?
Bob, if you’re reading this, I’ll ask you a couple of questions (would love for you to leave a comment):
- What did I get right in this post?
- What would you like to add that I left out?
Leading Like Elastigirl-Hulk
So, if you could combine two superheroes into one, which ones would you bring together? During our Georgia 3D Leadership gathering this past weekend I had a participant that did just that. One of our activities had attendees pick or create a superhero that best described themselves. One of our participants blew me away with a combination of She-Hulk and Elastigirl (Mrs Incredible). I have included a picture of her creation with this post.
This sort of thing has already been done. In the late 1990s Marvel and DC tried a big crossover event in which their superheroes met, fought, and came out friends. Thus was born the Amalgam Universe. Put simply, two super-cosmic beings arranged to have the Marvel and DC Universes merge with one another, such that their finest heroes also merged to become amalgams of each other (hence the name). Some were merged because they were similar in powers or purpose, some because their names sounded alike. In like fashion, our participant created “Elastigirl-Hulk.”
Jennifer Walters, an attorney, who is the She-Hulk got her powers after being shot and needing a blood transfusion. Her cousin Bruce Banner (Hulk) gave his blood for the transfusion and the rest is history. Jennifer got a mild version of the radioactive powers. She-Hulk taught us to never accept more than we deserve. Because of her ability to self-transform between Jennifer Walters and She-Hulk, she taught us that work-life balance is achieved by recognizing that work and life are both important. Finally, she taught us to have a sense of humor.
Now let’s take a look at Elastigirl (Mrs. Incredible). Her superpower is elasticity, allowing her stretch, shape-shift, and be flexible. Elastigirl understood the importance of developing teams to be capable of becoming a strong support system for all members to achieve their own goals and the goals of the organization.
Therefore, combine the flexibility and community building abilities of Elastigirl with the strength, intelligence, and the ability to control between being tough and being gentle and we’ve got quite an incredible (pun intended) woman. What superheroes would you combine?
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