LEADERSHOCK, RULE 3: REFUSE TO CONFORM

“How will I get everything done?” is one of the most frequent and most baffling questions managers ask. Overwhelmed by the sheer volume of work, the proliferation of meetings, and suffering from information overload, disheartened managers turn to the only solution modern business culture prescribes: Better time management! The grand illusion suggests it’s all about better prioritizing of those meetings, better planning of the workflow, and better organizing of all that information. It isn’t.

I’ve discovered thriving leaders working in some of the most demanding jobs, leaders who are nonetheless superbly productive, who feel fired up, and whose employees are veritable light bulbs of enthusiasm. How do they do it? These leaders don’t rely on techniques like time management but on something far more panoramic and effective. Their route to getting things done efficiently and effectively is to refuse to conform to the way everyone else leads or to pigeonhole their employees into set-in-stone job descriptions. To follow their prescription, embrace this simple philosophy: Do what you love, then let others fill in the gaps by doing what they love. This is how you have the right people do the right things. It’s all about capitalizing on strengths and passions rather than on capitulating to the “way it’s done around here.” Those strengths and passions are already there, and the time-starved leader who fails to tap them is reminiscent of a man going hungry at the banquet table.

After years of studying the behavioral choices of some of the happiest people on the face of the earth, I’m convinced it’s virtually impossible to feel fulfilled if you don’t spend your time doing what you love. In order to avoid the grips of LeaderShock even in the most conformist environments, emotionally buoyant leaders find a way to incorporate their individual passions. To them, “Doing what you love” is not a debatable issue. That may take creativity, sometimes unbridled imagination, but they all do it! In the final analysis, this is the drug that catapults leaders from ho-hum to exhilarated.

Put so simply, this seems obvious. Yet with the corporate requirement to “fit in,” implementation may seem unlikely. Although corporations talk about embracing a diversity of thinking and approaches, many are actually more comfortable with a culture of sameness. As a result, conventional wisdom tells us it’s safer, and therefore in our best interest, to do things in the accepted way and carefully portray the right image. Not so. Politically correct leaders who try to fit in by using the latest buzzwords and taking on acceptable attributes are left in a curious dilemma. They may actually succeed in climbing the leadership ladder, but become more firmly entrenched in LeaderShock with each rung they ascend. Why?

Blending in to avoid workplace conflict, ends up creating internal conflict. These people are entrapped by a pronounced disconnect between who they really are and who the company pushes them to be. Becoming a corporate clone means ignoring invigorating and natural talents in favor of a tense façade. By trying to emulate their organization’s most respected leaders, cloned managers are out of integrity with themselves, exhausted by looking over their shoulders, and hypervigilant about whether they’re doing it right.

What they’re doing is analogous to Laurence J. Peter’s famous Peter Principle. He hypothesized that managers were promoted to their level of incompetence.

Managers in the depths of Leadershock operate not by the Peter Principle, but by its close corollary, the “Paul” Principle: LeaderShocked managers rise only based on their façade. And at some point in their climb up the ladder the façade creates such inner tension and self-disconnection that they lose sight of their own well being and eventually tumble.

In my work, I encounter these lost souls every day. But the emotional and physical burnout I see in their eyes doesn’t have to happen to you. To avoid the Paul Principle, you can learn how to balance a “do what you love” philosophy with corporate pressure to conform. But let’s not be naïve about what you’re up against. We’ve all witnessed people who are so busy doing their own thing that they seem to float, remaining disconnected from the day-to-day workings of the organization. There is, of course, a caveat: You can’t just march to your own drummer without first doing something else. You have to work smart. That’s where thriving leaders have devised a clever and essential approach.

THE SECRET TO DOING WHAT YOU LOVE

Maneuvering through the minefield of a company culture and emerging with your individuality intact requires two consecutive elements.

ELEMENT ONE: DEMONSTRATE COMPANY LOYALTY

Before anything else, thriving leaders enthusiastically embrace their company’s culture by aligning themselves with the company’s best characteristics. In a nutshell, to be able to do what you love, you have to first love something about the company. And that something may be any or all of the following its values, vision, products, employees, or services.

Let’s take a case in point. Dean, like other thriving leaders, believes there is no advantage to conformity. Five years ago, after joining a conservative financial services firm, he intentionally paved the way for his own passions to flourish. “When I first arrived in my new job, I made a decision to walk a mile in the company’s shoes. I focused exclusively on the positives. I made it my goal to understand why things happened in certain ways and what made the system work. I sought out the longtime employees and asked questions. Slowly, from their answers I came to see the company’s underlying values and learned to love those values. This allowed me to adopt an authentic sense of loyalty and pride in working for the organization. And, I did everything I could to state my devotion. Once everyone knew of my loyalty, I could take a tough stand and let my true opinion, style, and judgment come out.”

Dean’s approach worked and he’s risen through the ranks. Recently he faced another test. The company president asked Dean to plan an aggressive global expansion from twenty-eight offices to forty-eight within 5 years. But Dean saw a problem. He felt the global brand identity needed revision before the company could grow so aggressively. Dean also knew that the brand identity had come from the president himself. Doing it his way meant challenging the president’s cherished idea.

Actually, that’s just what he did. Because Dean had previously demonstrated his loyalty to the president, Dean’s unorthodox approach was received with open ears. Dean thrives on the freedom to say what he really believes because, as he says, “The company knows when I challenge it, I’m doing so entirely in the pursuit of wanting it to be better.”

In Dean’s case, he is so “value added” that the issue of conformity is not considered by senior managers. When it comes to the bottom line, healthy companies are much more excited by people who can think productivity and challenge the system than those who simply look the part.

ELEMENT TWO: DEVELOP YOUR DIFFERENCES

Once your organizational loyalty is established, distinguish yourself as unique. Exhilarated and powerful leaders are ingenious about actively developing their differences, not hiding them. Let me be clear. This isn’t the act of a solo revolutionary, and it’s certainly not one of pushing others away. It’s an attempt to deliberately express distinctiveness by vigorously engaging the favorite parts of yourself, including such specialized strengths as a vivid imagination, an adventurous spirit, or a charismatic personality.

It’s also about sharing your perceptions and opinions using your own vocabulary, preferring originality and authenticity to the catch phrase of the moment. Why do these differences lead to personal success?

• Great motivators always have an authentic connection with those they motivate, and being yourself provides that point of genuine connection.

• When highly visible new projects are being considered, leaders with strong identifiable talents (not the vanilla, run-of-the-mill variety) leap to mind to play key roles.

• You feel relaxed and in control when you’re in sync with yourself.

IDENTIFYING YOUR PASSIONS

How do you bring the favorite parts of yourself to the job? Start by making a Personal Peaks list. These peaks are so named because, just like mountain tops, they rise above the ordinary landscape. Personal Peaks consist of two components:

• What you’re especially good at (your peak talents )

• What you love to do (your peak passions) Here’s why both criteria must dovetail: Just because you’re good at something (for me, math would qualify), doesn’t mean you are passionate about it (as it happens, I get no thrills from math).

We’re looking for the confluence of the two. Here’s how to create your own Personal Peaks list. First, clear your mind. Don’t think about your job description or related responsibilities. Just forget for a moment about all the things piled up on your desk. Focus on abilities, both large and small, that meet both criteria your talents and passions. Don’t censor, judge, or eliminate answers. Push yourself for honesty, and be sure to speak from your heart don’t get caught up in other people’s formulas for success. Make this an act of sheer self-affirmation.

Let the Personal Peaks list be your professional compass. Keep the list ever present. When new assignments emerge, refer to that list, and instead of reverting to time-honored methods that don’t tap your talents, use your imagination to determine how to approach the task in your way. This is what energizes you and makes you soar rather than bogging you down in workplace drudgery. There’s a wisdom and a fierceness to applying the talents on your list to the things that need to get done, and those qualities are best illustrated by looking at leaders who’ve done so. Let’s look at two.

A STAR IS BORN

Justin, twenty-eight years old, is an outgoing and creative leader at a midsized retail company. The sidebar contains some

JUSTIN’S PERSONAL PEAKS • Being creative • Performing • Coaching employees • Idea generation • Seeing the big picture • Using humor • Spontaneity • Making presentations • Socializing with lots of people • Opening up new options • Infusing values or morals • Working collaboratively, rather than alone • Creating an optimistic environment • Developing trusting relationships

When Justin was appointed head of the Customer Service department, he fell heir to a tenured staff of eighty phone representatives. This department of forty-something-year-olds had been managed for years by an apathetic and laissez-faire supervisor whom they exploited to the hilt. Because the department wasn’t held accountable for results, performance had slipped. Justin was brought in to clean things up and as you can imagine, news of his arrival received about the same welcome as a case of the flu. “I knew I’d be fighting an uphill battle to gain credibility. My sole Intention when I first got there was to connect to each person by exhibiting the best of me.” (His Personal Peaks) Tapping into his high-spirited personality, Justin would frequently make his way around the department, cubicle to cubicle, serving coffee an homemade pound cake, all the while checking in with each of his crew. Since his predecessor rarely left his office, reactions to Justin’s unaccustomed visits were mixed at first. But with persistence, Justin began winning the department members over. With newfound respect, he proceeded to his second Intention: To upgrade the level of service in the department.

Justin created a skills assessment and began to deal aggressively with performance issues. It was clear there’d been little training to enhance skills, so he created a training program by using real-life cases gleaned from staff interviews. Bringing his own brand of humor and creativity items of high priority on his Peaks list to bear, he facilitated these sessions himself, parlaying customer-relations training into an event full of contests, prizes, and interactive exercises.

THE ORGANIZER

Justin’s highly extroverted personality played into his success turning around the department. For equally impressive leaders though, this approach would be as appealing as dental surgery. Another leader, Jerry, is almost the polar opposite in personality, an introvert with a drive toward structure. “Just as fish are born to swim, I was born to organize,” he says. Excerpts from Jerry’s Personal Peaks list are shown in the sidebar.

JERRY’S PERSONAL PEAKS • Organization of information • Working one-on-one with people • Developing loyalty with staff • Establishing procedures • Written communications • Coordinating workflow • Project management • Solving puzzling problems

While Jerry’s list shares nothing with Justin’s, they did share a predicament. Jerry was selected to lead a troubled thirty-seven-person unit described by senior management as “a bunch of deadbeats.” Like Justin, Jerry’s initial Intention was to gain credibility. Shy and uncomfortable with the informality of management by walking around, he played to one of his strengths instead. Sequestering himself in his den at home one evening, he personalized a message to each employee on his monogrammed stationery. He pledged ongoing loyalty to every staff member by guaranteeing direct feedback. When training was sorely needed, Jerry developed a full curriculum of two-hour modules, complete with detailed leaders’ guides for each course, then lined up guest speakers to do the training.

Two very different styles, both prized by their companies for getting results. The message in each case is the same: To stay out of LeaderShock, do it your way! Now you’re ready to lead your staff to success using the same principle.

CAPITALIZING ON YOUR PEOPLE’S PASSIONS

We’ve focused a lot of attention on the personal costs of ignoring your strengths. It’s worth acknowledging that those aren’t the only costs. One of the greatest losses for leaders who are overwhelmed and short on time is the failure to maximize the individual talents of their people.

Begin by debunking one of the cherished, yet failed, notions of leadership: That a leader’s job is to develop people’s weaknesses. Today the reverse is true. To move out of LeaderShock, zero in on the talents and strengths of your people and develop them to the hilt. Don’t worry about fixing their weaknesses. Assigning people to tasks that don’t play to a strength, or attempting to improve people by insisting that they put their energy in areas that don’t come naturally, only adds to everyone’s frustration, especially yours. Particularly in times of crisis, forget about developing people’s deficits (that does not mean ignoring performance problems).

When was the last time you saw one of those professional development plans (that are all built around weaknesses) actually fix anything? Most of us aren’t good at certain things and never will be. That’s why leaders who thrive have a surprisingly unconventional take on the concept of development plans. They develop individuals in a more affirming way: Rather than identifying a person’s weakest qualities, they identify the strongest. Then, they encourage employees to develop those qualities until they evolve from a solid strength to an extraordinary talent.

Thriving leaders create a Peak list for everyone in their department, just as they did when they created such a list for themselves. When you put together project teams, be smart about it. Match the challenges and needs of the project to the talents on your team. Go beyond technical expertise to focus on the less obvious, but potentially more important talents such as a willingness to collaborate, creative idea generation, careful record keeping, and computer expertise. Your departmental Peak list will provide the roadmap to move your department forward in the most effective and efficient way.

UNCOVERING TALENTS

How do we determine people’s strengths? The most obvious way is to ask employees to create their own Personal Peaks lists. But another way seems to work better. Be like a watch dog. As people go about their day, keep your eyes peeled to identify their special talents, valuable behaviors, and natural abilities.

Your Intention is to look for what you value in each employee, not what you don’t. Consider Tom’s approach: His Intention is to get the whole person, with full capabilities and goodwill, to walk through the office door each morning. Tom told me his story of being assigned to lead a troubled Operations department for a manufacturer. “There was plenty I could have criticized about the team but I started out looking only for the underlying strengths in each person,” he recalled. As part of the deal he inherited the purchasing manager, Arlene. Nitpicky, noncollaborative, and suffering from poor relationships with her internal customers, Arlene was, nonetheless, a workhorse who did the job of three. As Tom related, “In spending more time with Arlene, I began to see she was excellent at detail and her objectionable perfectionism arose from an intense desire to do things well. I considered these leadership strengths.”

Tom called Arlene in for a talk. Expressing praise for her remarkable level of commitment and the sheer volume of work she got done, Tom also described her attention to detail as a severely misdirected strength. “Arlene,” he said, “I want to help you channel this wonderful attribute into something more productive and satisfying for everyone, especially you.” Tom didn’t pull any punches. He shared his observations about her drill sergeant management techniques and offputting urge to pin people down with comments like “But that isn’t what you said last time!” Because these issues were presented in the context of enhancing professional strengths, Arlene put aside her usual defensiveness and the two began what was to become a successful collaboration for determining how to best use her much needed talents.

At this point, we’ve discussed three rules for triumphing over LeaderShock. First, actively set and state your Intentions. Second, own it all, rather than blame others or defend yourself. Third, as we’ve seen in this chapter, tap into your strengths and passions rather than doing things in the same way as everyone else. But if your leadership experience is fraught with bigger problems and traumas, this may all sound a little too easy. The next rule offers a new way of dealing with the inevitable stressors of leadership.

Get ready to Recast.

SUMMARY OF RULE THREE LeaderShock Trap No. 3: The Company Conformist We believe that it’s safer to fit into the company’s prescription for success. We do things in the acceptable ways even if they don’t play to our strengths or those of our staff. And we slot people into jobs without tapping into their diversity of talents. New Intentions • I embrace my company’s values without becoming a corporate clone. I actively develop my differences by capitalizing on my Personal Peaks the things I’m both good at and love to do. I use these peaks to approach my leadership responsibilities. • I look for what I value in each employee and focus on developing employees’ strengths into extraordinary talents as opposed to trying to fix their weaknesses. • I address heavy workloads by having the right people do the right things. To make this happen, I match my people’s Personal Peaks to departmental needs.