Today we close out our series with the heart of excellent leadership and that is next
Hello, I hope you're doing great. Hey, welcome back to the Barry Farrer show
We're talking about leadership and today we talk about
Excellent leadership. I normally speak on a freedom issue on my podcast and usually to some current event
but
Since all organizational impact for any change starts with leaders
I thought I'd provide some quick thoughts and this is our last in the series
I've been to some pretty expensive leadership development courses and I've been in some leadership positions for almost
Four decades I've even taught
Leadership courses and I certainly don't know anything close to all there is out there on good leadership
But I think just about everything on good leadership could broadly fit into one of these four words
Authentic artful effective and excellent in the first module. We looked at authentic leadership and it's not some false humility
It's simply just having a sound estimate of ourselves to gather talented people who have leadership capability of their own
We have to embrace the concept that we can grow and improve if we want them to
Otherwise, we'll lose the respect of our most inventive people
embracing self-assessment and personal improvement in light of the functions and the
Responsibilities of a leader is just healthy in the second module. We looked at artful leadership
And this is the ability to practice the nuance that's required at the right time to affect positive change with
intentional influence
Artful leaders understand the priority waiting for the organization
The waiting for the team and then the waiting for the need of the moment
They can evaluate their impact through the lens of their primary leadership style
They know what it is
And if we become more artful those learned techniques will help us know when to absorb a mistake
for the benefit of deep learning
When to build relationship even at the expense of a task
When to drill down on the details and to get that task done when to inspire when to allow more freedom
When to command when to coach and when to develop and how to subordinate yourself
To get the big-picture goal accomplished
In the third module we looked at effective leadership a culture of excellence to set the stage a
comprehensive problem-solving
results based attribute supported
Performance management system a way to bring that down to a present-day method to get the most out of your team
With just four real simple questions and five very easy to develop skills
Today we close out with excellent leader. This is really the heart of
leadership
The leader or the heart of good healthy and productive leadership being a good leader
It comes down to really three things first. It's how you allocate your time
Second is how you make decisions and third is how you behave
So let's look at how you use time first. How does an excellent leader really allocate his or her time?
There are helpful things you've certainly heard of for example, you can start with a calendar cleanse
You can simply go through everything on your calendar and do that
Maybe once a quarter and get rid of everything that's like some kind of an unused forgotten subscription
There's an activity out there that just gobbles time just get it off the calendar and this is especially true with mid-level managers
They find themselves attending all kinds of unnecessary meetings
you have certainly heard that you have the need if you're gonna be effective to have a clear set of objectives with your
Calendaring and your time management
Let's say you're in marketing and one of your goals is to increase your reach on one of your platforms by 15%
Your calendar should reflect that you've got two or three actions that will help drive toward that goal
And you should be able to see that every week which objective am I getting done?
If the objective isn't clearly in front of you
You'll end up doing all kinds of things that are not productive and how do you make sure you're achieving your objectives?
You set aside time to plan and think and you really can't do that
If you don't set some boundaries, you can't respond to every phone call. You can't respond to every text or email immediately
And back in the day, you we didn't have smartphones
So we could be in a meeting and actually truly be unavailable
Now you're concerned that you're ghosting someone especially with a text message
And that's if you just don't reply even in a few minutes
That can impact your capability to focus if you're nervous about
Sending your boss or subordinates or
Vendors or customers the wrong message by building a boundary of not being responsive
for the benefit of your focused project?
Well, you can give them the feeling of some instant touch by at least using that auto
reply.
You can even customize that reply.
You have heard that you should schedule everything.
Even your recreation.
I mean, there's certainly some truth to making sure you're on time to events, meetings, conference
calls, that sort of thing.
But should you really schedule everything?
And then there's the concept of getting organized, the practice of delegating tasks and all kinds
of methods of prioritizing things.
Now, here's the problem.
I just listed seven things that you've got to do to manage your time.
And that's a lot.
And if I can't keep it somewhat simple, at least for myself, I'm probably not going to
be that consistent over the long haul.
At the end of the day, we've got to have some tool that will be easy to remember and kind
of fun to use.
So for leaders, you know, I think the best tool is an old one.
The best tool on how we allocate our time is the Eisenhower matrix.
Now, Dwight Eisenhower was a five-star general, and he served as the supreme commander of
the Allied forces in Europe during World War II.
He later became the 34th president of the United States, and he served two terms from
1953 to 1961.
He won both elections in huge landslides.
He's largely credited with a time management tool called the Eisenhower matrix.
Stephen Covey really made it popular in his worldwide best-selling book, The Seven Habits
of Highly Effective People.
And others have come along and have modified the Eisenhower matrix for their own industry
or their situation.
The concept of the matrix is that highly successful and effective people will end up spending
a good deal of time in quadrant two.
Now, if you're watching on the video, it's easier to see this, but if you're just listening
by audio, quadrant one deals with handling a crisis.
It's highly important and urgent.
It doesn't have to necessarily be an absolute crisis, but if you don't do this, it's going
to become a crisis.
This is where you finish the project by the deadline.
The TV interview is happening at the scheduled time tomorrow morning early, and you just
don't have a choice but to prepare for it.
This is where you respond to a boss or a subordinate or a customer that has an urgent
email, and it matters.
If you don't respond, it's going to tie everything else up, and you'll be a cog in the wheel.
Now you've got a proposal.
It's due, and you've got to finish it tonight, and if you don't, you're going to mess everything
else up for everyone else.
So that's quadrant one.
The extreme of quadrant one is a true emergency.
Your house is on fire.
That's very urgent, and it's important.
You have no choice but to get your family and run to safety.
Now the goal is over time for us to become proactive enough as leaders that the time
that you spend here in quadrant one feels more under your control.
It's really reserved for true emergencies or things close to them.
With better planning and better action, you shouldn't have as many high quadrant one issues.
Now quadrant four is not important and not urgent.
This is like organizing some old files that you will probably never need again.
They're just sitting in storage until the statute of limitations expires.
Some people like this type of a task, and that's because they're easy, and they're a
break from deliberate activity, yet the highly successful people eliminate them.
This includes clearing out trivia, attending to like some status meeting with no objective.
It's just busy work.
None of these activities really help the organization, and they don't help you accomplish your goal
or your objectives.
For some people, these are really hard to say no to because they can be kind of therapeutic,
but they are time consuming, and they don't really help anyone.
Just declutter these quadrant four issues and don't do them.
Quadrant three is urgent, but it's not really important.
One example might be handling a non-client or non-vendor related email.
Emails that might be time sensitive, but they don't really require your expertise.
These are interruptions.
Try to delegate these tasks.
This will set you free for quadrant two.
Quadrant two is where the gold is.
This is where the great insights are found.
This is where you come up with a breakthrough on a project.
This is where you noodle over a problem and you come up with a better way to solve it.
You need to schedule time for yourself to be in this quadrant.
This is where you think.
This is where you evaluate your last project and you give it a critical review, and you
come up with an improvement, a continuous improvement task.
This is where you watch a professional development video, or you read an article or a book and
you think about it.
This is where you map out a plan.
Now, sometimes this task has no set deadline, but by paying attention to it, you get closer
to your long-term goals.
Using this tool, you can engage in healthy and productive time management without having
a laundry list of hard-to-remember tasks.
You'll naturally clean your schedule.
You'll kind of refine for yourself a clear set of objectives.
You'll establish healthy boundaries naturally.
You'll schedule the things that matter.
You'll stay organized.
You'll delegate the right tasks, and you'll build in sort of this appropriate natural
prioritization system automatically.
You'll have kind of this ABC list.
You'll be an excellent leader who makes great use of his time.
So the first thing is that time management.
The second element of an excellent leader is how you make decisions.
When you think of leaders that you admire, you think of decisiveness.
The wavering, indecisive leader is not able to engender trust.
In fact, she can become maddening for the people that work for her.
She's like, make a decision.
Tell us where to go.
So how do you make good decisions?
How do you increase your confidence?
There's always a level of emotion that factors into almost every material decision.
A good leader knows how to lower the temperature of his own emotion.
That'll make him more effective.
Then he's able to rationally think through what's the best for the overall organization.
He can then balance what is best for the organization against what's going to have
a positive impact for his owners, the employees, the customers, and the vendors.
So here's an honest question.
How do you balance the rational issues with the legitimate emotional ones?
I really like the simple five-step problem-solving schematic.
It's a great tool.
It works for everything, not just emotional stuff, but it's pretty straightforward.
First, you define the problem.
Make sure that problem is defined effectively.
Most people don't spend enough time here.
They just kind of start moving to alternatives.
Ask more questions.
Problem definition includes data.
If you're deciding on whether or not to keep a customer, let's just say, you need to know
all the tentacles of that relationship.
How much do we make per trip?
How many trips do we do per year?
How many inventory items are involved in this?
What strain does this have on the talent?
What's the opportunity cost?
You get the idea.
But make sure you define the problem accurately and fully first.
And thoroughly define that problem before moving on.
Don't skip that step.
The second step is developing alternatives, which is a lot easier if you do step one right.
There are usually at least two and probably three realistic alternatives.
The third step is to evaluate each of those alternatives.
You've got to remove your own bias here to be fair to each alternative.
So how do you do that?
Well, act like you're the attorney for each alternative.
Like argue the case with some intensity for that alternative.
Lay out the pros and the cons and kind of push for that alternative.
Kind of force yourself to think through all the evidence, the real facts from the data
that you got from problem solving definition.
And all the data from each of those alternatives.
And be fair to each alternative.
And really push for each side.
And here's where this tool can save your bacon.
One option might be inferior to the other, but it might feel the best for the moment.
But when you peel back the onion, it might be mostly an emotional one.
Like a vindictive move.
This is where you don't want to allow emotion to get the best of you.
And the vindictive alternative, as an example, gives you a moment of this unholy satisfaction.
You get a short-term win, but it isn't how mature leaders make decisions.
And it's probably not the best decision for the organization.
Excellent leaders don't let their ego get in the way of what's the smartest and best
judgment.
So think each alternative all the way through.
Let me give you an example.
To help people be faithful to their spouses, there's this ministry that specializes in
making them follow the moment of the affair of pleasure all the way through to the consequences
of the illicit baby out of wedlock, the bitter children, the broken marriage, the lack of
respect among friends, the whole nine yards.
I thought I'd just kind of throw that in to see if you were still awake.
But you get the idea.
When you follow a decision all the way through to a future point in time, it can change your
perspective.
Take your business decision.
Think it all the way through.
What will your competitors, what will your vendors, what will your customers, what will
your employees, what will your shareholders do a month or two after the full ramifications
of this alternative are fully implemented?
How about a year later?
Think it through.
Sometimes you have to...
Go it alone on a decision just based on the nature of the decision, but usually you can discuss a material decision with your team.
Let them weigh in as much as possible when it's appropriate.
Okay, so step four is simply to pick the best alternative with an execution plan.
The fact that you've gone through this process will give you more resolve to remain firm with that decision.
Let's say it's a yucky decision as an example.
Let's say you decided you can't remediate one of your leaders.
You have to fire her.
She's way below her revenue goals.
Her spending is out of control and all her subordinates complain about her erratic leadership.
Emotion can cloud decisions and emotion can make you delay what's best for the organization.
Yet if after you've gone through the process, honestly, you can rest assured that you have done your best.
Let's say it's not an emotionally charged decision.
It's just a choice of whether to expand in an area or not.
The process helps you keep your cool when you move forward because the one that wasn't emotional to make might become extremely difficult afterwards.
Implementation is never easy.
So you need to be confident that you have selected that right alternative.
So pick that alternative and announce it.
And what I mean by this is even if it's a collaborative process, when the decision is made, make it clear.
Ambiguity is not your friend.
It's not a friend of any organization, any nonprofit.
So those are four of our five steps.
Now to the fifth step, you've picked this alternative with an execution plan.
So now implement that solution with precision.
Go all out.
Let's say your decision was to expand to another part of the Metro.
Deploy the resources.
Get it done.
Get started now.
The point of the problem-solving schematic with these five simple steps is that you can make good decisions with confidence.
And that helps you drive toward action.
And that leads you to accomplishing your objectives.
One more thing.
Excellent leaders who make really good decisions allow for a regular review of the results of their decision.
What are the consequences of that decision we just made that I have all this confidence in?
Did the market receive us as well as we had hoped?
Now if you were generally right but not exactly right, make a quick course correction.
Leaders aren't perfect.
Excellent leaders deeply desire to make wise decisions.
You usually get what you want.
When you employ the problem-solving schematic for your decisions and you top it off with a willingness to make changes to improve upon your decision,
and you really want to make excellent wise decisions, you are an excellent leader.
So those are two of our three things on leadership.
The third component of an excellent leader is how you behave.
You know, God's given us ten commandments, and I just have seven.
And these seven commandments are really the center of the heart of excellent leadership.
It's articulated in thou shalt nots.
And so here they are.
Thou shalt not violate people.
Return their phone call.
Return their email.
Return their text.
Encourage them in their gift.
Engage them in the process.
Listen to their ideas.
Assume the best.
Give them due process.
Choose to work through the conflict.
Celebrate their success.
Treat them the way you really want to be treated.
If you were in their shoes, as if you were their subordinate.
Number two, thou shalt not violate integrity.
Establish a just weight.
Don't cheat or steal.
Finish the job you started.
Do excellent work, even when no one's looking.
If it's a gray issue, be transparent and make sure it serves the organization and the customer.
Number three, thou shalt not violate your power.
Cast the vision appropriately.
Give authority and responsibility away properly.
But make it about the company or the nonprofit or the organization's mission.
Refrain from making it about you.
Number four, thou shalt not violate policy.
Don't publicly announce something that has not been privately approved by the appropriate legal and accounting advisors.
Don't set yourself above the policies that you expect others who are following you to abide by.
Number five, thou shalt not violate process.
Don't first decide what you're going to do and then force an adversarial my way or the highway end game.
Work with your team.
work with them well. Number six,
thou shalt not violate character.
Don't sacrifice your personal development for short-term gain.
The project will be there tomorrow.
Make sure you are the right man or woman inside
first. And number seven, thou shalt not violate
trust. Leadership is a sacred trust.
Don't be frivolous or take yourself too seriously.
Have a sound estimate of yourself. Serve your people.
Ask for forgiveness when you're wrong. Be a learner.
So, we've covered a lot.
Good leaders are not aspiring for perfection,
but they aren't lazy either. They endeavor to be authentic,
artful, effective, and excellent.
Authentic leaders understand all the leadership functions
and all those responsibilities and they make an honest self-appraisal
and they endeavor to balance the role of support and direction
for the benefit of the mission. Artful leaders
understand the strengths and weaknesses of all these different various leadership
styles
and they've thought through their own and they endeavor to give away the right
amount of freedom
based on the situation. Effective leaders
make that happen by answering the four key questions and
using five skills to give healthy feedback. Excellent leaders
regularly schedule time for quadrant two. They make good decisions
and they behave honorably.
So, thanks for joining us on this four-part series to your authentic,
artful, effective, and excellent leadership.
Next week we get back to our freedom principles and our current events.
In the meantime, God bless you. Hi, I'm David Farah.
Thank you for listening to my dad's podcast, The Barry Farah Show.
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