ThePracticalLeader.com

It was probably in the last year or so of junior high school. I was waiting for my race during  practice for an upcoming track meet. Standing near the coach, we watched the final moments of a sprint. The runners crossed the finish line running in dead earnest. The final runner, several seconds behind, limped the last several yards, slowing his pace with each struggling footfall.

I thought we should help him. Surely something was wrong. An injury must have compromised an other wise promising start. Then I overheard the coach tell his assistant. “Look, that’s a loser’s limp.”

When the runner saw that his performance was no match for others in the race, and it became obvious he was going to lose, his dedication and enthusiasm quickly drained. Rather than pour it on and finish strong, rather than do his best and accept his defeat with openness and inquiry, he limped across the finish line. “After all”, limping losers think, “who can blame them for losing when they are injured.” Even if the injury is fake, it isn’t particularly difficult to fake the fake.

Loser’s limps are everywhere. And it isn’t only present in junior high track star wannabes.

Fidel Castro says his economic woes are the fault of the economic embargo in place by the United States. The truth is there are hundreds of other nations with whom to trade. For years his regime was propped up by the Soviets, yet the severe living conditions persisted.

This one indicator is more revealing and more damning than almost any other act. It is here that the talent and character of losers and winners is so very, very evident.

• Winner’s, and potential winners, accept losing and figure out why.
• They do not engage in blame-shifting, whining, or finger-pointing.
• Winner’s run every step of the course. Even if loss is certain and obvious, they do not limp across the finish line. This one facet is a certain indicator of the fiber of a person’s character. (In a related application, I meet people every day who have purchased homes lost by previous owners to foreclosure. In every case but one, those who defaulted on their mortgages did their best to destroy their homes as they moved out. They ripped out kitchens, removed air conditioners, took down garage door openers, took hammers to the walls, ripped up carpets, and broke the windows.)
• As embarrassing and distasteful as it is to face rejection and loss, winner’s do so with dignity.
• Winners do not whine. They man up. They grow. Loser’s, when they limp to cover loss, let self-excusing behavior stifle understanding and growth. In so doing, they become even more pathetic. The result is to engage in even more mediocre behavior to prove the limp is justified. It becomes a downward spiral as bad performance leads to worse performance. Tragically, losers usually demonstrate and validate why they were, and are, losers.

Effective practical leaders have usually learned the hard way. Loss is a good thing if it provokes self-assessment and growth.

Winners who have never given in to the loser’s limp can truly inspire the rest of us to work our best, try the hardest, focus the most, and live to the highest standards.

So you don’t run real footraces much these days? But each and every day you do face a course that will challenge you. It is called life. Hope you’re not limping across the finish line every evening! Mediocrity is a pathetic label to acquire and a miserable creed by which to live.

As a specialist for a major home improvement big box store, James (not his real name) meets a great many people who have big plans, small budgets, and even smaller skill sets. He tells me that every day they come into the store to buy parts and pieces for one project or another with no idea what tools are needed, nor do they have any idea how to use the tools James suggests will be necessary to complete the project.

They are not lacking in ideas but those ideas seldom have evolved into definitive plans nor have they been tempered with reality. They possess some vague vision of what they want to get done, but it lacks definition. James can recommend parts and tools, but until someone knows precisely what they want to accomplish, the exercise is purely academic.

This brings me to the philosophy behind this blog and my own leadership model. So much education is, well, academic. Academia functions well to conceptualize leadership, but does not do such a bang up job at putting concepts into practice. In all fairness, while it is possible to teach about leadership as a topic it is not really possible to teach leadership as a practice in an academic setting.

It takes insertion into the real world to make that happen and not all leadership students make the transition well. In real life, the tools one learns about in class must be applied to actual situations and circumstances which do not always go “by the book.” And tools, in and of themselves, are only as useful as the skill and vision of the worker permit.

That is why tools are also called implements. A tool brings into reality (implement) the idea and vision of the craftsman. So, before you implement a leadership practice it is imperative to determine what you want to accomplish with it. Like the wannabe home improvement contractors, you need a defined idea of the outcome. Practical leadership uses a wide range of tools, but it begins at the end. Experience shows how wild ideas must be reorganized into practical and viable ideas. Before a board is cut the craftsman must have determined what the end product should look like. In leadership, before a word is spoken or a memo written, the practical leader must know what s/he wants as a result.

Now, you as a leader do not have to be responsible for the final and complete project to follow this process. Even if you have a limited responsibility, you do have some responsibility.

1. Define it. Sit down with pen to paper or fingertip to keyboard and compose precisely what it is you are responsible for.
2. Next, define how your project or office fits within the grand scheme of things in the entire organization. After that, express the steps that must take place before you reach the final result (often they repeat themselves daily, weekly, or monthly).
3. Finally, determine what you as a leader must do next, right now, this moment!

Now that you know what ultimately must happen, look in your leadership skill toolbox and determine what tools are needed. Stay tuned to this blog, we will process them all. I would like to know your real-life situation so I can address the posts to your realm of responsibility. Send me an email – jd@jackdunigan.com , please.

Without apology I will warn you now that I will from time to time, use references to the Bible in this blog. You may be certain I am not a Bible thumper and I am NOT trying to convert the reader to any religion! But I spent a quarter of a century training leaders of non-profits, including a good number of mission organizations and churches. Of one thing I am certain,

The principles of leadership are universal.

They apply in every era, in every culture, and across language barriers. They were true yesterday, true today, and will be true tomorrow. In fact, the test of a valid leadership principle is its universal application. I will go so far as to say that

If a principle does not have universal application it is not a principle at all.

It may be a leadership practice. Leadership practices must change from place to place, time to time, setting to setting. Effective leadership practices evolve from and are rooted in sound leadership principles. For example, every culture has an “on time” meaning. In the United States in the business world, on time means on time. In other cultures within the US and in other parts of the world, on time can mean as much as 2 hours late. Being punctual is a principle, being precisely on the clock is a practice.

So, references to the Bible, or for that matter any body of literature, have their place in this blog and in our lives inasmuch as we can extract from them universal principles by which we can direct our intentions, order our lives, and measure our progress.

The principles of leadership are foundational.

They are the truths upon which effective practices are built. A solid leadership experience must have a solid foundation. Effective leadership must be built on truths proven in real life, refined by challenge, and tempered by experience. They are not theoretical. They do not emerge from academia except that analysts have identified their use in real life. If you build and implement your leadership practices based on techniques without understanding the principles which birthed them, your effectiveness will be limited to a specific setting or culture. Practices that work in the board room do not necessarily translate well to the shop floor, but the principles that spawned them do.

So, beginning with the next blog entry, I want to examine the 4 Key Indicators of Effective Leadership. These 4 reveal foundational principles that not only define leadership as a concept, but diagram leadership as a practice. I can say without apology, the 4 principles upcoming form the framework of ALL LEADERSHIP PRACTICE.

Stay tuned, entry #1 will be up soon

I don’t think I could ever work in a government agency. For the first 25 years of my career I was a trainer and consultant. One of my clients in those days was the Navajo Tribe in Arizona. I worked with the tourism office consulting to the assistant director and director of tourism. I quickly learned that the people who directed that division got paid to talk, or more correctly to talk and write.

There were endless meetings where great ideas were discussed, analyzed, refined, and critiqued followed by voluminous reports in which everything that was discussed, analyzed, refined, and critiqued was restated with footnotes. Then, nothing happened. Plans were drawn up but no plans were implemented. Strategies were formulated but no strategies were employed. Task lists had been meticulously drawn up but no tasks were assigned except to schedule more meetings to discuss what had transpired since the last discussion.

It was maddening! I encouraged, exhorted, admonished, and tried my best to get them off the dime and do something, ANYTHING! The assistant director was somewhat motivated, but claimed his hands were tied by the director. Eventually the assistant director became the director, however nothing changed. The entire system was built around talking and writing, not doing.

The process was more important than the product. Really, the process was the product. Making something happen was scarcely important at all. Planning, discussing, reporting, discussing, meeting, those were important and the product by which they validated themselves and the existence of their agency.

They felt successful because they held,and reported on, a continuing stream of meetings and evaluations. They even discussed the need for action and got bogged down analyzing why no action resulted from their meetings. That analysis of failure became a mark of their success even though the failure, and the system that promoted it, remained unaltered. It was, however, well scrutinized.

Leadership, practical leadership, is predicated upon and committed to action. The one government entity that differs from the one I described above is the military in time of war. Everything, I mean everything, is focused on getting something done.

Leaders are paid to produce. Those who pay you will not long settle for talk alone.If you are self-employed, your business will not survive on talk. Something useful must be produced and sold to someone who considers your product an object of value and are willing to pay for it. Practical leaders earn their worth and consequently their pay by producing.

Get something done! Today, right now! Go ahead, the time for talk has finished. Do it!

I’ve been disappointed more than once. Resumes that looked good failed to guarantee a successful new hire. I have hired a couple of people whose resumes included very high-end work for some exclusive clients. Within two weeks of working in my shop I could see they were not going to work out. Back when I managed a medium-sized office, I experienced the same – people who, on paper, were eminently qualified possessing years of education and experience. But in real life, in the setting I had for them, they were either immediate or ultimate failures.

Here are 6 things a resume won’t tell you.

1. A resume’ won’t tell you if someone can turn out work that meets your standards. You are responsible to produce something – widgets, dinners, contracts, a house, something. That “something” you are responsible to produce must meet some standard. The first question to be answered on the job is whethter that person who looks so good on a resume can actually turn out the work.
2. A resume’ won’t tell you if someone can turn out work that meets your standards in a timely manner. Maybe that new hire can do work that passes muster, but can they complete it in time to meet deadlines, under the time you’ve alloted so that profit margins are maintained? Whether your area of responsibility is a shop, a service business, and office, or retail, you face the time vs income matrix. You have to produce enough work in a fixed period of time to satisfy overhead demands and produce a profit. If that new hire is too slow or too unproductive, you, yes you, suffer. That new hire will get his or her salary or wages, you won’t.
3. A resume won’t tell you if he has personal issues that will compromise his work. You won’t know from that piece of paper whether he has health problems, substance abuse issues, or the deepest secret of all – family or relationship issues that will cloud their thinking, complicate their motives, and compromise their attention.
4. A resume won’t tell you if the person has personality issues that will frustrate the smooth flow of work in your workplace. I remember one applicant had a great resume and he interviewed well even if he came across a little pushy. When I checked with others about him I found out he would stir up an entire workforce in matter of hours, so toxic was his personality. Other than a record of many job changes, a resume’ won’t tell you that.
5. A resume’ won’t tell you if the person can actually make you money. Unless you are in charge of a rehabilitation unit and are checking resume’s for new patients, you have to hire people who will make you money. After all that is the reason you are in business right? To make money?
6. A resume’ won’t tell you if the person is a problem solver or a problem maker. I tell everyone who applies for work, I can make all the problems I need by myself, I do not need to hire people to make them for me.

Collect resume’s, but do not let them cloud your own judgment. Look deeper. Ask pointed and particular questions. See my next posting for suggested questions.