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.”
Safety Nets Instead Of Safety Barriers
Funny that David Taylor-Klaus (DTK) talked of becoming a grown-up with our fully formed prefrontal cortex, giving us more rational and limiting beliefs. Funny because I had someone (who I have worked with and have a great relationship with), in a loving way, describe me as having the mindset of an eighth grader this past week. Well, I resemble that remark. Grown-up, I am not; and proud of it.
DTK described some of his childhood “rope-in-the-tree” swinging antics that landed him with a broken nose and shattered wrist. His last statement about the story was, “Sadly, my parents forbade any future effort to test my theory.” Probably no one else reading DTK’s book would highlight that sentence but me. But, there is such a fine line between protecting us, which his parents were very well, and beginning to limit our beliefs with, so called, “rationale thinking.”
This is a pretty extreme example, but as an educational leader I think about this a lot. What’s the correct balance of risk-taking and over-protection? What might DTK have learned if after he healed, he had retested his rope swinging theory again? I am not suggesting that we put our children, or ourselves for that matter in harms way, but I am a believer that we cannot live risk-free. What if Thomas Edison had quit risking failure after electric light bulb prototype 9,999?
For me, it’s about the “what if?” I would rather admit failure than having to explain “what if?” DTK in Chapter 6 of Mindset Mondays With DTK told us we must not let ourselves become victims. We have clear choices and clear steps to make a shift in believing in ourselves. We need an “I can” mindset giving us a belief that we are strong and capable. DTK told us, “Who we believe we are matters.” It is so important that we allow for risk with our children and all we serve. Again, I am not advocating putting anyone in harms way, but finding a way to be a safety net. That metaphorical, or maybe even real one, looks like allowing for risk, but allowing for failure so that learning can happen.
To take those risks it is very important that we make sure that we, our children, and those we serve hear “I can” instead of “I can’t.” We need to be safety nets and not safety barriers.
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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Hidden In Common Firewood
“There is a legend of an artist who long sought for a piece of sandalwood, out of which to carve a Madonna. He was about to give up in despair, leaving the vision of his life unrealized, when in a dream he was bidden to carve his Madonna from a block of oak wood which was destined for the fire. He obeyed and produced a masterpiece from a log of common firewood. Many of us lose great opportunities in life by waiting to find sandalwood for our carvings, when they really lie hidden in the common logs that we burn.” ~ Orison Swett Marden
During my morning study time I came across this passage from Orison Swett Marden. There is a lot to unpack in this short paragraph. Then I thought about the value of this as a prompt. So, instead rambling on with my thoughts, I’m going to employ a best practice from my friend and great author, Bob Tiede: ask you all a question. What lesson do you take away from this Orison Swett Marden passage that you want others to think about and act on?Please add your answer as a comment to this post.
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?
Focused Perspective
Have you ever noticed a cat’s ability to focus like a laser on something that interests them? There is never a challenge to get them to focus, but they become oblivious to what others around them are focused on. This is one of the things I love about cats; they do not need constant attention. But, when they do, you better be prepared to give it to them because that will be their sole focus. If you’ve ever been around cats you know that when they want some affection, they will not notice that you may be focused on something else. I was watching one of our barn cats this morning sitting on a feed pan I had just moved and flipped upside down after a show heifer was done eating. He was hyper-focused on something and I could not take his attention away (see picture).
When working with developing leaders I always talk about the effective leader is focused on self, others, and the wider world. The art of being self-aware and self-managing is about being centered. This enables us to notice our thoughts and feelings, label them, reappraise things that do not serve the situation and lead forward. This centered perspective is important so that understand our own values and how those values fit in the big picture. This also determines what lens we are looking through to bring context to situations. Perspective enables a leader to clearly assess the reality of today while also envisioning what is possible for tomorrow.
We also need an empathetic perspective that has the heart to understand others and identify those who might be struggling and provided compassion. Remember, empathy plus action equals compassion. We need to give people space and permission to take care of themselves. Particularly right now, everyone is in just a little different place dealing with the pandemic. We must remember that their reality is just that, their reality. Asking those we serve what they need and then truly being prepared to help them is crucial. Just thinking through priorities and plans for action can many times do the trick. We don’t have to tell people how to do their job, but syncing frequently on priorities and plans of actions can be very supportive.
How about you? Are you so focused, like a cat, that you may be missing opportunities to focus on those around you and the wider world?
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.
Explicitly Rethinking Your Leadership
There are so many great pieces of information in today’s chapter in Mindset Mondays by David Taylor-Klaus (DTK). The lesson (#5) was entitled “Rethink Your Thinking.” I have a school leader I am mentoring for a client right now who I just had a conversation about this very topic with. In fact, I actually said, “You need to rethink how you are doing this to get it streamlined.” He was involving himself in every single thing that happened. Every single thing that is happening in the school has his fingerprints on it. Result: the rest of the team is not using their expertise to the fullest, and he is so bogged down, he can’t get it all done. As DTK pointed out, “Delegating the activities and tasks that drain energy frees you up for activities that fuel your growth, serve your clients [in this case the teachers and students], and deepen your impact.” We need to think about and recognize how the highest and best use of our time can be most powerfully spent.
This will be easy to solve for my men-tee. He already believes in distributed leadership and a flattened hierarchy, so all he needs to do is “declare explicitly” empowerment to others. Notice my terminology here: “declare explicitly.” I have found this to be a step that gets left out. Sometimes as leaders we need to make sure and make the implicit, explicit. In order to rethink his thinking and go down the much more improved and streamlined path, my men-tee must make sure the teachers know explicitly what needs to have his fingerprints on and what the teachers can just do. The teachers are at street-level working with our students and are in the best position to make many decisions and solve issues because this is where the data is created.
“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.
What Do You Expect?
Akio Morita, co-founder of Sony, expected that Sony would grow into the company it is today. Notice that I used the word “expected.” This thought of expecting something really jumped at me when reading Bargaining For Advantage: Negotiation Strategies For Reasonable People by G. Richard Shell. Morita’s childhood story is interesting and after being drafted into the Imperial Japanese Navy he would meet the man who would help him change the world of electronics, Masura Ibuka. Of his childhood, Morita said, “When I was in high school my father bought me an electronic phonograph. The sound was fantastic. I was so impressed, I started to wonder how and why such sound came out. That’s when my interest in electronics began.” He went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in physics from Osaka Imperial University.
Long story short, Morita and Ibuka invented a small transistor radio for Americans who loved taking music with them, but only had big bulky units to take to parks and beaches. Their first big breakthrough was an offer from Bulova to buy 10,000 of the transistor radios and sell under the Bulova brand. Morita had an expectation to sell under the Sony name and in a surprise move, turned the offer down. This same insight and empathy of customer needs led to the later development of the hugely successful Sony Walkman. Morita’s story shows us that it’s best to enter into negotiations with an optimistic expectation rather than a goal. The difference? A goal is a more abstract ambition, while an expectation is something that we think we can reasonably accomplish.
Morita had done his homework and showing great insight, realized that to sell effectively to the American market he needed to ‘get into the mind’ of the American people. He had to learn how they lived and more about how they ticked. Akio’s research and preparation made his expectations justifiable and legitimate. As I said at the beginning of this post, Akio Morita expected that Sony would grow into the company it is today.
In his book, Shell taught us that expectations give conviction to our statements. Believing that what we’re asking for is reasonable, given the facts at hand, is a powerful motivating force that makes us much more likely to succeed. Actually, I did a post back in 2012 entitled “Own Your Own Expectations.” In fact if you go to twitter and search the hashtag #OwnYourOwnExpectations you can check out some blasts from the past. And yes, I had #OwnYourOwnExpectations bracelets made. How about you? What do you expect?
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