Category Archives: Leadership

#45 Commitment and vulnerability

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Anyone familiar with Heisenberg’s Principle knows that life is a crap shoot. Why should leadership be any different?

The modern workplace is uncertain, fast paced workplaces are doubly so. “If it’s not one thing, it’s another.”

As a leader, you have to be prepared to be caught off guard. You can mitigate the pain with preparation and hope your credibility will save you. It still hurts when you make a mistake, or something goes wrong, or not according to plan, doubly so when someone points it out.

Vulnerability and “commitment” have a cause and effect relationship. If you lack one, you likely will lack the other. Strengthening one will make you stronger in the other.

Become tough, develop a thick skin, so you can feel safe when vulnerable. Be compassionate with co-workers, but let them know that hiding their vulnerability is not the best way to overcome it. Not committing themselves is not an option.

If you are prepared to be vulnerable, and commit yourself, you will set the bar higher for the rest of the organization.

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#44 Falling on the (leadership) sword

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Fostering risk taking is both a cultural process, as well as a leadership trait.

If your organization provides a culture where making mistakes is okay, failing quickly is rewarded, but it is not okay to repeat the same mistake over and over, you will have a healthy “petri dish” for growing leaders.

If your organization has unreasonable and unrealistic standards, where “failure is not an option,” with harsh punishment for failures, then your “petri dish” will breed germs. Such organizations likely use dramatic actions, like a request to fall on one’s sword, to send a strong message to anyone who may think “to err is human, and to forgive is divine.”

An organization that has low tolerance for failure is likely to breed dysfunctional behavior. (I think a super permissive organization will breed dysfunctional behavior as well)

You may hope and pray an individual will rise like a phoenix from the ashes and slay dysfunctional behavior. If this does not happen from within, key leadership positions are filled from the outside with a mandate for change. However, even this “hired gun” leader will have to change the culture first before a call to action from the leadership bench. Otherwise, the result may well be perpetuating dysfunctional behavior and power struggles.

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