3. How to Develop Competency post 1
The recommended practices around building of competency are the most applied and action-oriented of this handbook. On an individual basis, and for many organizations the building of competency is a worthy result to pursue in and of itself.
High functioning teams need to build a high level of mutual respect and a connectedness with each other and their leaders. Essentially one of the things that is happening in the application presented below is that people within the organization are constantly being recruited; recruited into continuous improvement of themselves and the organization.
This is a call to adventure, to venture into what was previously unknown to you, to seek the treasure of knowledge and wisdom.
3.1 Personal Leadership Habits and Tactics
At the leader’s personal level there are a number of tactics and habits that can be very effective to help create positive energy and avert crises. Stephen R Covey’s “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” (Covey S. R., 2013) is a must read, cover to cover. Briefly summarizing the 7 habits:
Be proactive
Begin with the end in mind
Put first things first
Think win-win
Seek first to understand, then to be understood
Synergize
Sharpen the saw
All of these habits will echo in the practical guidance below, and one of the most powerful ideas is what Covey calls the “Time Management Matrix”. I would rather call this the prioritization matrix as it really helps to prioritize things. It is often misunderstood and we will briefly examine the most common trap people fall into. The matrix is shown in the figure below:
Figure 5: Covey's Time Management Matrix
The trap is to spend most of your time in the quadrant I. This is not only a path to mental exhaustion which results in the remaining time available going to quadrant IV due to the exhaustion, but also a path to a positive feedback loop where more crises are created due to a lack of long range planning and prevention. An effective leader will spend a lot of time in quadrant II. In any organization there will be crises, and a leader will need to help in dealing with them. A great leader and a great organization will have minimized the number of crises by virtue of the leadership spending enough time in quadrant II activities. Again, 7 Habits is a must read and Covey’s full exploration of this topic should be considered mandatory reading.
3.1.1 Lead by Example
Of all habits and tactics, leading by example is the most important and probably the hardest, hence it is being addressed a second time. The earlier context discussed exemplifying values. Here the focus will be on more applied aspects.
As leaders, we are constantly being watched and judged whether worthy by the people we are trying to lead. Everyone hates a hypocrite. If you are going to make rules you need to live by them.
If leaders create rules that then result in people breaking them (even just once) because that rule is impossible to follow or so hard to follow that it is likely that people won’t, then the entire structure of rules come into question: “If this rule doesn’t need to be followed then why should that one, or that one??”. Chaos ensues and even worse corruption may follow.
Follow the rules (policies, procedures etc.) starts with you and:
“Make as few rules / policies as possible but as many as necessary.”
A tricky part of leading by example is when to lead from the front and share hardship. There are many times, especially when bringing younger staff up to speed, especially future leaders, that being out front is really valuable. The less experienced staff get to see a pro in action role modelling how things should get done. They see a leader that is not afraid to get into the trenches and get dirty. There are a couple of dangers here though:
Ego
Martyrdom
It can be tempting to lead from the front to almost show off to the people around you, that “you’ve still got it”. This is the wrong reason for doing it. The right reason is that there really is no one else to do it, and it needs to get done. Even then there is an opportunity to be a teacher. As Willink discusses extensively in his podcast and books, ego driven leadership is not good leadership. Check your ego. When your people are ready kick off the training wheels do so; there is an interesting spectrum of your level of involvement where at one end you lead from the front and are intimately involved, and at the other end, you largely absent yourself as discussed in the next section. It takes some experience and leadership judgement to know where in this spectrum you should operate in any given situation.
Excessively leading from the front can also be one of the paths to burn out. In a growing business, if you are always at the front, you risk becoming overscheduled and overworked, leading to burn out. Don’t be a martyr, even though people might love you for it, after all you are reducing their work load. However, you might end up doing the work for your protégé’s rather than working alongside them and providing guidance robbing them of an opportunity for growth. This could actually result in the protégé building up resentment. This temptation can be hard to resist especially in the engineering world where fun is to be had doing the engineering work.
Another ego related trap, and the opposite of humility is hubris: excessive pride and overconfidence, often in combination with arrogance. This is a trap the leader must avoid and the way is simple: ask yourself:
“What if I am wrong?”
Every leader should also know about the heuristic known as Chesterton’s Fence named after G.K. Chesterton. Briefly, it means to not do away with something that is existing, like a fence in a particular location, until you know why it was put there in the first place, and what other downstream effects there were from it having been put there.
The rest of this personal habits section should be looked at as part of leading by example. These are all tactics and habits that as a leader you need to put into practice, master and teach others to do.
3.1.1.1 Self Care
Leadership can be dreadfully lonely and there is a need for self-care beyond just physical need for exercise and proper nutrition. Having some peers from outside the organization, maybe a friend from school that has attained a similar level of leadership, that you can chew over things you are struggling with can be really helpful. Organizations like The Executive Committee (TEC) in Canada and Vistage in the United States provide this service and can be very helpful. I spent about two years with TEC and found them to be very helpful from a self care perspective. I was able to get a critique of some of my ideas for organizational change, exposure to other peoples’ ideas and the realization that the struggles, doubts and sleepless nights I had were not personal failings, but universals that all leaders have from time to time.
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A dangerous trap for leaders and part of what can help propel them into leadership is the willingness to make sacrifices to get things done. Is this truly sustainable? What is it that is getting sacrificed? What impact is that going to have on you in the long run? Is working on holiday weekends to get shutdowns done the kind of sacrifice I am talking about? Not really. It is the more insidious sacrifices that happen week after week, can become habitual, stack up and creep up on you. Things like the sacrifice of
hobbies or interests outside work
sleep
exercise
date night with your spouse
family vacations
energy needed to do any of the above
If you are consistently so wiped out that you don’t have any energy left to do the above, there is something really wrong. One of the aspects of self care is to be able to create and respect some boundaries for yourself. If you don’t do this, how are you gong to respect other peoples’ boundaries?
If you feel like you can not handle the work load and you need to consistently sacrifice things from the above list there are some important questions you need to ask yourself:
1. Am I in the right job?
Is the level of complexity of this job too much for me to handle?
Is the sacrifice a way that I am compensating for a lack of ability?
Am I afraid of a loss in status or income?
Should I simplify my life so that I don’t need as much income?
Is the job itself one that no one can handle and I should be going to a new job?
Am I micromanaging?
Am I delegating effectively?
The human-centered approach to servant leadership has to start with YOU taking care of yourself. Just like on airplane pre-boarding instructions: put your mask on first, then help others. If you aren’t taking care of yourself, you will not be able to help others, and the lack of self care will be contagious, spreading your burn out to others in the organization AND in your family.