Next Level Blog

Lead Like a Mom

With the beginning of a new group coaching cohort, I’ve been spending some time this week in one on one calls with high potential leaders to review their 360 degree feedback data. One of the calls was with a leader who I’ll call Nancy.  She’s a long term high performer with her company and the mother of two high school students. 

It was easy to see from Nancy’s 360 report how well thought of she is by her colleagues and our conversation made it clear why she is.  She’s smart, confident, humble and has equal measures of focus on results and relationships.  Using our online reporting system, we started reviewing her data by looking at the items that were rated highest by her colleagues.  To get things started, I asked her to look at her highest rated items as if she was looking at someone else’s report and give me a headline that summed up what she saw in the data.  With just a few moments of thought, she laughed softly and said, “It looks like a mom.”

The 360 I use is comprised of 72 leadership behaviors based on the research behind my book, The Next Level.  I’ve had hundreds of client conversations about the survey and have never before heard someone say that their results look like a mom.  When I looked at Nancy’s results with the mom lens on, though, I immediately agreed.  

Nancy’s highest rated behaviors ranged between a 4.44 and a 4.69 on a 5.00 point scale.  Yes, she’s good.  With her permission, let me share those high rated items with you.  Put your mom glasses on and see if you agree with Nancy:

Why and How Leaders Need to Say Thank You

With a shout out to the folks at the Compensation Café blog, I just read an interesting post  on research that demonstrates the positive results that come from saying thank you.  So, as you read that last sentence you may have thought, “They needed a study to demonstrate that?  I learned that as a kid.” 

Yeah, me too. Specifically from my kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Kreiger with some reinforcement from Miss Marilyn on the Romper Room TV show (along with her classic advice to “Do be a doo bee and don’t be a don’t bee.”)

Saying thank you is just the polite thing to do, right? Have you noticed, though,  that polite behavior doesn’t seem as prevalent as it used to be? In the ongoing battle for our attention between getting results and building relationships, the focus on results seems to be in the lead.  For leaders that are all about the results, taking the time to say thank you often gets pushed down the list of things to do.  After all, you’re busy. They know you’re busy and probably know you appreciate their help. If you don’t have time to say thanks, it’s not that big a deal, right?

The research suggests otherwise. Here’s a quick summary from the PsyBlog on the study that was published by Adam Grant and Francesca Gino in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology: 

In the first study, 69 participants were asked to provide feedback to a fictitious student called ‘Eric’ on his cover letter for a job application. After sending their feedback through by email, they got a reply from Eric asking for more help with another cover letter.

The twist is that half of them got a thankful reply from Eric and the other half a neutral reply. The experimenters wanted to see what effect this would have on participant’s motivation to give Eric any more help.

As you might expect, those who were thanked by Eric were more willing to provide further assistance. Indeed the effect of ‘thank you’ was quite substantial: while only 32% of participants receiving the neutral email helped with the second letter, when Eric expressed his gratitude, this went up to 66%.

Saying thank you led to a 100% increase in willingness to help again in the future.  If you’re a leader who’s all about the results that should get your attention. Turns out that saying thank you is a pretty important skill to have if you want to get things done.  Here are some tips on how to do it:

A Key Question for Executive Leaders

Thanks go out to my friend Dan McCarthy of the Great Leadership blog for featuring my post, “What Is It That Only You Can Do?”  In ten years of executive coaching, I’ve found that’s a really important question for leaders to consider.  There are some caveats in answering the question, however.  For starters, it’s not about being indispensable. For more on this Coachable Moment from the new edition of The Next Level, head on over to Dan’s blog.

While you’re there, leave a comment and you’ll be in the running to receive a free copy of The Next Level.

Leadership Lessons from a Three Ring Circus

With everything that leaders have to juggle, it's easy to feel like the ringmaster of a three ring circus.  For Kenneth Feld, CEO of Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus, it must be hard to resist that feeling.  In it's almost always interesting Corner Office series, the New York Times ran an interview with Feld on what he's learned from leading the Greatest Show on Earth.

The interview itself is worth five minutes of your time.  In the meantime, here are some of the leadership lessons Feld has learned that stuck with me:

How To Tick Off Your Peers

Want to give a big shout out to fellow blogger Mary Jo Asmus who's featuring my post, "Why Your Peers Can't Stand Working With You," on her Aspire-CS blog. Here are three reasons why you should head on over to Mary Jo's blog and check out the post and what else is there:

1. Mary Jo is a terrific writer, thinker and coach with a wonderful humanistic approach to leadership issues.
   
   
2. The post on peers cites exclusive research on what annoys peers about their high potential leader colleagues.  Could be valuable information to you or someone you know!
   
   
3. If you leave a thoughtful comment, you'll be in the running to win a copy of the new second edition of my book,  The Next Level: What Insiders Know About Executive Success, 2nd Edition