Leadership & Commitment

"Managers are people who do things right, while leaders are people who do the rights things." ~ Warren Bennis

I'm currently working with two people who seem to be reflecting this, each in their own ways. In general terms, they're each in very similar situations: each has made a commitment to a group, but are struggling to uphold that commitment due to unforeseen circumstances. Each however, is approaching it from very different perspectives. What I wonder though: Is either of them "right" or "wrong" in their approach, or are they just different approaches? What questions really need to be ask in order to decide what the "right" choice really is?

One of these individuals is determined to remain in the leadership role he's taken on. It's putting a lot of pressure on those around him who are there to support him. And although he's accomplishing the to-do list of tasks, the group isn't thriving. The group needs a strong leader who can focus on building it. Yet, he needs to focus on his business (and rightly so). In talking with him however, he's indicated that because he made a commitment to the group by taking this position on, he's wanting to keep it and follow through.

The other individual feels very similarly, and like I said, is in a very similar situation. In this case too, the group needs someone who can really focus on it to build it up. The difference here however, is that he came to me and let me know that he needs to find someone else to take over the leadership role to be fair to the group.

Will each group survive whether these people step aside or not? I believe so. Will they thrive? No. Is that fair to the other people participating in the group?

As much as I respect the first person for wanting to uphold his word, and as much as I understand the internal conflict he's in, I honestly believe he's going to do damage to his reputation and the group if he doesn't step down. And I must admit that I have a much deeper respect for the individual who is able to admit when it's not working and begin to put the pieces in place to make it work - even if that means he needs to be the one to walk away.

In my mind, the second individual is far more of a true leader than the first - at least in this situation. I strongly believe that both have the qualities of leadership - upholding one's word is extremely important. But the ability to recognize when things have changed and it's time to change with them is also extremely important. Is that going against your word? I used to think so until someone shared with me that, if you're honest and upfront about it, it's really a renegotiation of the commitments - just like a business contract.

Watching these two people makes me wonder if I could recognize when it's time to hold on tighter and try harder vs. when it's time to let go. From the outside looking in, it's might be easy to see. But from the inside, experience has taught me that it's always a harder call to make. And yet, I believe this ability is a quality that sets leaders apart from managers.

How do you make that call?

When Are You Really Leading?

I wish I could remember who said it or what specifically it said, but I keep thinking about a quote I read recently about leadership. The gist of it is that if you're leading, but no one's following you, you're just out of a walk.

As an Assistant Director in BNI, it's supposed to be my role to lead chapters towards growth and success. The challenge is that the chapters are made up of entrepreneurs - people who're generally known for not being all that great at following, hence their desire to create their own businesses - and when it comes to their leadership roles, they're volunteers - people known for having great hearts, but a challenging group to lead as there are few if any ways to hold them accountable, and they know it.

Don't get me wrong, I love my role and the more involved I get in BNI, the more I love the organization. But it is challenging none-the-less.

For example, I have one chapter that is totally open to coaching and support. They want to grow, they know they need to grow, and they appreciate any and all support I offer. Compare that to another chapter that is in a similar circumstance - they need to grow - but my attempts to simply say hello and build a relationship, let alone offer support, go unanswered. What's the difference? What makes it possible to connect in one group but not in another?

My guess is that leadership is far more of a two-way street than many might think. The person you're leading has to want to be lead, and be open to being lead by you. If those things aren't true, there may be nothing you can do. And yet, I don't believe there's really nothing that can be done (I've been told I'm optimistic to a fault, but hey, it keeps me looking for solutions!).

We're taught - and shown - in BNI how to always be leading by example. And that's one method of leadership that's completely independent of anyone else. How I speak, how I act, even how I think are all things I have control over and reflect something to others. Who I am comes across in ways I don't even know about, and it's these subtleties that teach members in my chapter whether or not they can trust me, whether or not they want to allow me to get closer to them, and in the end, whether or not to allow me to lead them.

Trust takes time. But without it, true leadership isn't possible - it's just a long lonely walk. How are you building - or dismantling - trust among others today?

What is Leadership?

I had the opportunity recently to talk to Eric Dieckman, an Area Director for BNI Florida. Being responsible for developing leadership skills, abilities and attitudes in others often makes us far more aware of what leadership really is. I asked Eric to share his thoughts on the subject. Here is what he had to say:

Leadership

I guess deep down we all secretly wish that we could be a famous actor or rock star. Or we look at those around us in the world today and think I wish I was like that, or I can’t believe how amazing that person is. Look at all they do for the world, what is their secret?

So what is the secret to greatness or leadership? What makes someone a leader in their profession, community, family, state, country or in the world? Can you be made into a great leader or is it is an untapped attribute locked in side of some and not in others, just waiting for that cataclysmic event that will cause a rise to greatness?

Can you be trained to become a leader, absolutely! Will that make you a great leader, definitely not! Having the skills to achieve something and having the desire and will to be there once you get it is a very different piece. We all assume leadership roles throughout our lives, what we do with them makes us leaders.

I have found in my life that in order to be a true leader it has to come from within. Leadership is not necessarily something that can be defined. If you think you have it you might not and if you don’t think you have it you might have it. The tricky piece is acknowledging you have it without being egotistically about it and also realizing that you are not done being a follower.

Let’s define the word itself. Leadership is inventing new opportunities for yourself and those around you. That is the simplest way to define a term such as leadership. It can have many layers beyond that but essentially that is the root of leadership. So based on that definition we all have opportunities to be leaders based on how we interact with the world around us.

Sometimes we need to get down to the simplest pieces of being human in order to take the biggest strides. If we as humans could truly get honest with ourselves and those around us then we can gain true power. I am talking about the smallest pieces in life, if you tell someone you will do something, do it. If you know you aren’t don’t agree to do it. If you screw up, accept responsibility and resolve it. Do those things hat you know you should do the things you know are and aren’t expected of you and figure out ways to help others in their lives.

These are not original thoughts, these have been passed to me by those who embody those principals and I pass them to you. We are all human and the beauty of that is we are all the same in the thoughts and world we share. The question is what type of impact will you have on the world around you, positive or negative? Or will you just sit back and watch the world go on around you until it all passes.

There is never a good time to take responsibility and make a difference, so why not do it now. I am sure you are thinking what do you mean? You know those to do lists you have, those phone calls you have been meaning to make, and those little things you want to change. DO IT! If we can begin to complete those pieces in our lives we can see how those are the pieces that make leadership and give us the ability to achieve so much more.

There is no magic trigger or thing that you need to make a difference, to be a leader; it is to simply just do it. Life is that simple. It is full of events and actions that lead us into and out of those events. Human doubt is what gets in the way. Look at people like Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and Muhammad Ali. What made them so great is the fact that they took a stand for something in their lives and then stood by it in the face of any and all opposition. Think about those things in your life that you back down from, and I am not talking about the little conversations you avoid with significant others which way the toilet paper should unroll. Those things that you want for your life but something inside you tells you why bother, it won’t work anyway, and you don’t deserve that! We back down more from ourselves then we do others in this world. It is the ability to move beyond that voice, have the courage to persevere and get to the end no matter what the result but knowing you held true to yourself.

Lets not make this into a life is serious conversation. The truth for me is that I need to do the best I can with all aspects in my life and when I know I am not be honest about it. I need to have fun and laugh at myself and the world around me. I know I need to stop and realize it won’t matter in a day or two or 5 years. I need to take a stand and responsibility to impact the people in my life and make a difference with them that has the possibility of being there a day or two or five years from now.

Leadership so often is to be made that it is something others can achieve but that is not who I am. It’s not true. There really is nothing stopping you from getting anything you truly want. Think about when your cell phone dies or has problem, how hard will you work to get that fixed! Then you have to increase sales or strengthen your company or put energy into a relationship and you just can’t seem to be able to get it done. Be honest with yourself at telling us you don’t want to. Either take actions to accomplish what needs to be done or accept where they are and stop complaining!

Leadership comes from within and you must acknowledge that it is there. Charisma, influence and effectiveness are all separate from leadership though. It is the mix of those pieces that bring it beyond what you immediately see. Everyone can be a leader, not everyone will have the same impact on the world as it begins to bridge beyond what is right in front of you. There are those that can connect with masses more effectively then others, that is just what is so. But that is another topic.

What do you feel leadership is?

Business Networking International

I had the opportunity recently to attend my first international conference with BNI, the world's largest word-of-mouth marketing organization. And well... WOW! I've been wanting to post something on it since I stepped off the plane, but it was such an experience I'm still wondering how to explain it all.

What did I get out of it?

Business cards I can't read because they're in other languages... and the contacts that go along with them. In fact, as a result of a contact at conference, I now have a new client in Spain!

Education. I knew BNI had a basic, underlying core value around education, but I had no idea how much material was available - and I'm sure I still only saw a tip of the ice berg. This organization knows more about how to build a business on referrals than God knows about how to make the world turn... OK, maybe not THAT much, but you get the idea. And all of it was presented by some of the world's best speakers. Absolutely phenomenal.

A NY Times Bestselling book signed by 15 of the contributing authors. Now that's a keeper! Dr. Ivan Misner is the founder of BNI and wrote the book, Masters of Sales (along with a few other NY Times Bestsellers). He's not just a master networker, but he's a master at offering others opportunities to build their businesses as well, so along with him at the conference were amazing individuals who'd contributed to the book. It took more than 1/2 an hour to make it through the signature line, but it was well worth it!

The opportunity to meet Dr. Misner himself. Our Executive Director worked on this for months and it was awesome! We were given the chance to ask Dr. Misner any question we wanted to for 1 hour, just our team, in his private suite. I asked him: "If you had the opportunity to sit down with who you were when you started this, what would you tell him?" You know what he said? "Keep going." He's learned from every mistake so that it has become a blessing and an opportunity. He's humble, down to Earth and genuinely gracious. It's obvious why those 600 have such an attitude of service - it came from him first. Shows me how much you can tell about the leader by the type of organization they run.

An all-around valuable experience. Between the speakers, the contacts, the education, the atmosphere - I've never been in a room where more than 600 people genuinely only want to know how they can help you grow and build your business - my only regret is that I won't really be able to share it all with members in my chapters. I can share pieces of course, but words just don't seem to be enough.

I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to the next one!

Value-based Leadership & Strategic Planning

I had the amazing opportunity to go to a weekend retreat with my assistant director team a couple of weeks ago. It was so incredible that I've continued to think about it ever since.

Last year's retreat was focused on training: the ins and outs of how to handle different situations. It was great material as I was new to the team at the time, but didn't really set us up to solidify as a team.

This year was completely different! Robin brought in a facilitator from New York who worked with us around value-based strategic planning. I don't think we talked about a single member-to-member issue the entire weekend, but we walked away far more prepared for anything!

Frank De Raffele Jr. helped walk us through identifying what we valued most - not just as individuals, but as a team. It got sticky a couple of times since digging into values brings out some strong beliefs, but in the end, we were all deeply attached and even more deeply committed to the goals we came up with as a group.

Robin, our fearless leader, was amazing in a couple of ways. 1. She stayed out of it. I watched her cringe, bite her tongue, breath deeply and all sorts of other cues that she was concerned about where it was all going, but she waited and allowed us to work it through to come up with an amazing solution. 2. She brought in someone who operates very differently from her own style, and yet still stayed out of it.

On both counts I think that takes guts and discipline. As leaders, we often believe it's our job to help determine what direction the group is going to go and what's best for everyone. By letting us choose, we've completely bought into it and are taking action on our own without needing to be poked and prodded along. We own it from the inside out.

As leaders, there's often a fearful place that prevents bringing in someone to work with 'our' group unless we're certain they'll teach a/o do things the way that we would. But what I saw was how limiting that can be. Bringing in this fresh perspective helped raise the bar and inspire us for more.

Of course, this wasn't done out of the blue. Robin's been working with Frank for over a year and they have a huge amount of mutual respect for one another and their businesses - and I did see them consult with each other through out the 3 day process to ensure things were on the right track.

But it was a valuable lesson to me. Robin always says to us, "You can't be a profit in your own land." This time though, she lead by example.

Now that's true leadership.

Thanks Robin!

Boundaries

I'm the type of person who will bend over backwards to help someone. To my own detriment, this most often means I am jumping in over my head and either doing it with them, or worse, doing it for them. Is this always bad? Absolutely not. But I do have to make sure I manage my time well, save time for my family, my business, and even for myself. I'm even trying to reconnect to a couple of old hobbies too, and that takes a little time also.

So, I need boundaries. And it seems like this week has given me plenty of opportunities to set a few.

Just one example came through my role as AD in BNI. In one of my chapters a very dear friend of mine is now the President. Due to a few different reasons, she and her new leadership team are in the process of restructuring the group and cleaning up some details. They are working their buns off and doing a fabulous job, but they're also a bit overwhelmed at the moment. Not that anything they're doing is difficult, just that there's a lot to do.

Now, in the past, this friend of mine and I have played different roles in each others lives. Friends, always and first. But I met her while in real estate. She was the title company rep for the office I was at, so her role was to be of service to me and the realtor for whom I worked in the hopes of bringing transactions to the title company. Later, I would become her personal assistant. Since then, she has been my coach and I have been her office manager as well.

She knows that I'll do anything for her and she relies on that. But this week, I had to tell her no. It was a very difficult thing for me to do, but one I hope will she'll understand.

She was speaking to me as the President of her chapter to the AD. There is a member who may need some coaching. This should be done through the membership committee. She asked if I'd step in and do the coaching on their behalf because they have so much to do already.

As much as I wanted to say yes, I said no. First, the coaching process doesn't actually need to take a lot of time. Second, it's not the dynamics I want to set up. They have members in their chapter who're reluctant to take ownership. Those who are taking ownership are doing all the work. I feel for them, but the rest of the chapter needs to step up too.

It's like watching one of my children struggle. This is a case where I believe they're far more capable than they see themselves as being, and the only way they truly can see that is to let them do it. If I jump in and rescue them, they won't see how capable they are and later, they'll ask me to rescue them again. It's always harder to say 'no' later than up front too.

By her silence on the phone, I could tell it wasn't the response she wanted. But she's smart and I believe on some level, she'll get it. I'm also sure that at some point, we'll talk directly about it as well because that's what we do. For now however, it felt good to set a boundary - especially one I believe will ultimately serve them.

Did I make the right choice? Only time will tell.

Leadership is Like Parenting

Parenting and leadership go hand in hand. As and assistant director in Business Networking International (BNI), I often find myself using the same skills - and asking myself the same questions - when I'm trying to figure out how to lead one of my chapters as I do when I'm trying to figure out how to support one of my kids.

Each BNI chapter has it's one unique personality. Although it is made up of a number of individuals, it often seems as if the chapter as a whole could be looked at as if it were it's own person as well. If I were to look at one of my chapters that way, I might consider the President of the chapter like the face of the group. He/She is often the first point of contact for a visitor, the one who runs the meeting and therefore sets the tone, etc. The VP and the Membership Committee might make up the eyes, ears and voice of the chapter. Their role is to review applications, renewals and to watch and listen if/when there are challenges among members. The Visitors Hosts in the chapter might be considered the heart and hands of the group by welcoming visitors, making them feel at home and following up with them afterwards. Of course, every member should consider themselves a Visitor Host, which would only strengthen the heart and soul of the group.

I could continue on through the entire list of leadership roles, but you get the idea. Just like a person has many parts that contribute to a greater whole, so does a chapter.

And just like a each individual, each chapter has different strengths and weaknesses, and are in different places in their life.

I have one chapter, for example, that is relatively young - and in some ways it shows. They're at that place in their chapter's childhood were they're old enough to know how things are supposed to work, but still young enough to think they don't need any help or support. It's a tricky place to be - and we've all been there.

I watch my daughter do the same thing. Just the other day she was trying to get a full gallon of milk out of the fridge. "I can do it myself," she said. "OK," I responded and stood back. Now, she's all of 4 years old and only about 3 feet tall. I think she might weigh about the same as the gallon of milk too. So I knew she was going to need some help, but I could also see she wasn't ready to accept it.

I watched as she grunted and groaned trying to pull the milk up and over the lip of the tray in the fridge door. Then cringed as the weight of it almost pulled her shoulder out of its socket as the gallon of milk dropped from the lip and almost hit the floor. With both hands desperately grasping the handle, she lugged that milk over to the kitchen table, the tried to life it just high enough to get it up on one of the chairs. Her arms were tired, but she tried again. Finally I heard, "Mom, I need help." "OK, honey," I responded, and stepped forward.

I feel as if I'm in the same place with this chapter. They could use some help and support and I know from experience that they're going to need it, but they're just not ready yet to accept it.

Unlike watching my 4 year old daughter however, it's a little more difficult to figure out when I should step in - or if I should at all. Do I wait until the chapter is collapsing in on itself? I don't think that would serve anyone. I want them to be successful. But if I step in too early, it won't serve them either.

So I'm trying to balance it out. I'm grateful for the leadership training they just experienced this month. I can already see a huge difference in how things are running for the chapter - and they got to hear a third party tell them the exact same things I've been trying to share with them for months.

For now, I'm holding back; giving them the chance to see how strong and capable they can be. They need to know it for themselves, and something it's not such a bad thing for me to see as well. But I do continue to stay in touch and let them know that if or when they might need support, I'm here.

It's a growing process for me as much as it is for them, but I'm enjoying the opportunities. BNI has an amazing structure for support all the way to the top, and that helps too.

Plus, little reminders like this video, help to keep me focused on the fact that it's not about me. It's about them; their needs, their goals, and their success.