Leadership Principles – The Overview

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I’ve led and been led in many situations. The military as a tank platoon leader (one of the funnest jobs you can have as a 22 year old man – four tanks, fifteen soldiers and a job description that reads “blow stuff up and run stuff over.”); as a director of a large call center organization; as a consultant team leader; as an executive in premier organizations. I’ve also been fortunate enough to learn from and work with many leaders and followers in all those organizations (both good ones and bad ones).

Sure there are plenty of leadership books out there (available at fine book stores everywhere!). The thing is, I haven’t come across any that are down to earth and practical in the advice they give. To that end, I see a problem and therefore I own it (one of the principles on the list). I’d like to offer the following basic principles as a perspective on some of the things it takes to be a genuine leader.

Knowing and leading yourself:

Knowing and leading your people:

Yes. Many of the above points are cryptic. Some are self evident. I’ll expound upon each of these principles in separate posts.

– Learn more about how to create your own set of leadership principles in my book One Piece of Paper.  Buy your copy here.

– Mike Figliuolo at thoughtLEADERS, LLC

“I’m going home. You’re doing my job.” – Leading your boss

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(This is Part 3 of Leadership Principles)

I like keeping my “to do” list on a big whiteboard so I can have all the work I haven’t done staring me in the face. Constantly. Shaming me into doing more. I’m odd that way.

My boss walked in one day and stood facing me (with his back to my whiteboard). He started rattling off (endlessly) all the things I should be thinking about. All the projects I should be doing. All the analyses I should be conducting.

After he got to about the twentieth item I should be thinking about or doing, I calmly picked up my briefcase, put it on my desk, put my portfolio in it, closed it and shut off the light on my desk.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going home. You’re doing my job so you don’t need me and should take the cost savings.”

High risk? Yes. A possible career-limiting move? Definitely. A pointed way to define boundaries, responsibilities and preferred management styles? Absolutely.

We all take some measure of satisfaction from being competent at our jobs. None of us enjoy being micromanaged. One good way to prevent that from happening is to clearly articulate and agree upon responsibilities and boundaries with your manager. Second, understand your manager’s “update frequency” (how often they want to know what’s going on in your world and what level of detail they want on those topics). Establishing boundaries and adhering to a regular update frequency will help your manager be comfortable with your competence (i.e., they’ll stay out of your hair and have less of a tendency to micromanage). In some companies, they call this “managing up.” Read more

Authentic Leadership: The Thank You Note

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Thank You

(This is Part 11 of Leadership Principles)

It’s a stupid cocktail napkin when you look at it. It means a lot to me. A whole lot. I have it tacked to the cork board above my desk.

“Q4 losses 7% better than forecast. Nice work. Well done.” It’s scrawled in blue pen and in a couple of spots, it tears through the thin napkin material. Evan wrote it and slipped it to me during a boring lunch meeting.

Evan had only been with the company for a couple of months at that point. He was my boss’ boss. He and I had collectively spent 3 hours together over those few months (enough for him to know who I was and generally that my team and I focused on reducing credit card losses).

The napkin means a lot to me because a guy who I saw as exponentially busier and more concerned with “big” issues took a moment to share confidential information with me (the 7%) as soon as he got it (it came over his Blackberry). Sort of like what I preach in They know what I know. Other managers wouldn’t have shared this – they would have waited until results were officially published. I felt like I was “in the fold.” More importantly, his note acknowledged that I had some role in creating that result and he appreciated the work I had done to achieve it. I was valued by the organization.

A thank you note. That’s all it takes.  Read more

Leading Your Team: Kick Up, Kiss Down

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(This is Part 10 of Leadership Principles)

As I walked past Evan’s office (he was my SVP – my boss’ boss), I couldn’t help but overhear a terse and pointed telephone conversation. He was being quite belligerent and direct in telling the individual on the other end of the phone how screwed up things were and how he expected them to be fixed in a reasonably short time. Evan emphasized the point that failure to do so was unacceptable because that failure would have a detrimental impact on the people in his organization.

I timidly poked my head in his door after he hung up and asked “How’s it going chief?”

“Fine. Stupid stupid stupid decisions. I abhor stupidity.”

“Who’s being stupid?”

“Frank. The guy has no clue how much trouble some of his knee-jerk decisions can cause.”

“Yeah. I know. So who were you chewing out on the phone?”

“Frank. Don’t you listen?”

I listen. Evan’s answer began causing some cognitive dissonance for me. Frank was Evan’s boss – the Executive Vice President in charge of our entire division.

“Wait a minute. You were talking to Frank? Like that?”

“Yeah. Kick up. Kiss down.”

“What do you mean?” Read more

Leading Change: They Know What I Know

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(This is Part 9 of Leadership Principles)

Have you ever felt like the proverbial mushroom at work? Kept in the dark and fed a lot of, well… manure? Uncertainty generates fear and anxiety. Fear and anxiety generate gossip. Gossip generates rumors and distractions. Rumors and distractions destroy productivity and generate distrust. Do you see where I’m going?

We often behave like everything is a state secret that requires a security clearance before someone can be brought into the fold. It’s maddening walking by a conference room with a bunch of muck-a-mucks in it and wondering what they’re plotting (is it a reorg? a layoff? cancellation of the holiday party so we can make our end of year numbers?). It’s amazing how secretive we can be when theoretically we’re all on the same team.

Imagine a football team where the huddle consisted of the quarterback, the wide receiver and the center. All the other players have to stand over in the corner and wait until the three in the huddle break and line up for the play. The center snaps the ball. The wide receiver runs his route. The quarterback drops back to pass. And everyone else stands around muttering about how they have no idea what is going on. The odds of that play being successful don’t seem very high. An extreme example? I don’t think so. Reflect on behavior in your organization over the past six months and I’m sure you’ll find plenty of similar examples.

So what’s the fix? Read more

“He’s under the tank, sir” – Lead by Example

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(This is Part 2 of Leadership Principles)

My platoon was out in the field on training exercises. We had been out there for about two weeks so we all smelled kind of “ripe” at that point. One of the more senior officers in my battalion came to my unit’s area to see how things were going. This “gentleman” personified the term – he was an “officer’s officer” (versus being a “soldier’s officer” which we’ll explore in a moment).

He sauntered up to my 18 year old driver (a brand new buck private – the lowest ranking man in the Army) and said “Where’s Lieutenant Figliuolo?”

My driver pointed toward our tank. A pair of boots was sticking out from underneath the vehicle. The officer in question became irked.

“No. Maybe you didn’t understand my question private. Where is LIEUTENANT Figliuolo?”

“He’s under the tank, sir.”

“Excuse me?”

“I said he’s under the tank, sir.”

The senior officer barked “Lieutenant Figliuolo!” I almost smacked my head on the underside of the tank because I was startled by his call. I quickly scrambled from below my tank and stood at attention before my superior.

“What were you doing under that tank?” Read more