Yesterday, I was pleased and honored that the Wichita Eagle chose to publish an article I had written which was based on an earlier blog entry.  The article, entitled Six Principles of Positive Relationships, can be viewed on their website, if you are interested.

This week I have been reading Benjamin Franklin’s The Way to Wealth. I have always been intrigued with Franklin, and I also am personally committed to learning from successful individuals across history. Two of his key themes in The Way to Wealth are the interrelationship between the practice of frugality and industry.

To cite some of Franklin’s comments:

“It is important to realize that all a person has is the product of his or her labor. . . If we are industrious, we shall never starve. . . In short, the way to wealth, if you desire it, it is as plain as the way to market. It depends chiefly on two words, industry and frugality; that is, waste neither time nor money, but make the best of both. Without industry and frugality, nothing will do, and with them everything.”

These thoughts combine with the repeated “drum” I hear in the marketplace from business owners and managers — that it is difficult to find employees with a good work ethic. In fact, a business owner lamented to me today, “I just don’t understand workers today. They don’t want to work — they want to be paid well but they aren’t willing to ‘put in their time’ to learn and work their way up in the organization.” Many times I hear managers talk of the impatience or short-time frame that workers have — they seem to expect to receive rewards (wage increases, promotions) quickly.

A third stream of thought that also weaves together is this. I have had the opportunity to interview numerous (50+) successful multimillionaire business owners across the country as part of my family business coaching over the past few years. One of the questions I consistently ask is: “To what do you attribute your business and financial success?” (and this is usually answered by the business owner and their spouse). One of the two most common responses I get is: perseverance. One businessman stated: “We just kept doing what we were good at and tried to serve our clients well. We worked long and hard — it wasn’t magic and it wasn’t easy.” (Just for your information, the other most common response runs along the theme of “we were in the right place at the right time”, or “God blessed us with an opportunity and we were able to capitalize on it.”)

So to tie it together: Franklin’s focused on industry as part of the formula for creating financial wealth; there is a perception that there is a dearth of workers with a good work ethic currently; and perseverance is repeatedly cited as a key component to financial/business success. So one conclusion I come to is — there are a number of people in our workforce that are probably not going to experience much success (either in the workplace or financially) if they don’t come to understand the importance and necessity of working hard and persevering.

I think a lesson for the rest of us who do work hard is to “hang in there”. Obviously, we need to keep focused on our core competencies and implementing the plan that we believe will bring success, but not to lose heart and give up. On the other hand, as a friend/consultant shared with me just today, the issue isn’t just “working hard”, the goal is to achieve results. Many individuals seem to focus almost exclusively on working hard, thinking that is the goal. But lots of effort without results (however those are measured) is, ultimately, futility. And it seems to me, the ability to determine what actions we should persevere in requires some business savvy, along with a measure of discernment and wisdom.

To close with a bit more from Franklin, he believed to “do well by doing good.” That is, if we choose to serve others and help others become successful, we will eventually experience the benefits of these actions.

The final article on leadership in the January 2007 American Psychologist ,“Asking the Right Questions About Leadership” by J. Richard Hackman and Ruth Wageman, attempts to summarize the issues raised by the authors of the key contributing articles.

Hackman & Wageman suggest that a new set of questions need to be asked to better understand leadership. They contrast previously asked questions, with the new questions they suggest.

1. We shouldn’t ask, “Do leaders make a difference?”, but “Under what conditions does leadership matter?” The authors note that we often attribute the cause of change (positively or negatively) too much to the leader of an organization (known as “leader attribution error”). Rather, research suggests that leaders have the greatest impact when organizational opportunities are scarce but slack resources are plentiful.
2. The question isn’t “What are the traits of leaders?”, but “How do leaders’ personal characteristics interact with situational factors to shape outcomes?” Research seems to clearly demonstrate it is the interaction between a leader’s traits and the situation in which they find themselves that makes the difference. Unfortunately (from my point of view), however, researchers have not done much to identify individual traits with specific situations. One point does seem clear – trying to use the same strategy in all situations does not provide long-term successful leadership (sometimes psychologists [myself included] are wizards at stating the obvious).
3. Don’t ask “Do there exist common dimensions on which all leaders can be compared?”, but “Are good and poor leadership qualitatively different?” Research findings seem to be suggesting that there is no single dimension which differentiates good and poor leaders. Rather, it appears that leadership is a combination of factors linked together. Thus, good leaders do not only have good ability to use their intelligence, creativity and knowledge to bring about good decisions, but they must also have communication and interpersonal skills to influence others.
4. The real question is not “How do leaders and followers differ?”, but “How can leadership models be reframed so they treat all members of the system as both leaders and followers? The point is – leaders lead, but they are also influenced by their followers. And every follower is, at least theoretically, also a leader. In fact, some studies suggest that anyone who fulfills critical functions (or arranges for them to be fulfilled) is exhibiting leadership. And, as anyone who has served in an organization knows – one does not have to be in a leadership position to provide leadership.
5. Don’t ask, “What should be taught in leadership courses?”, but “How can leaders be helped to learn?” One researcher suggests that leadership training should explore the leaders’ own preferred leadership strategies and then investigate the conditions under which those strategies are and are not appropriate (falling back to the interaction model between traits and situations).

One really interesting point to me, given my belief in the importance of emotional intelligence was the following:

“Leading well … may require a considerable degree of emotional maturity in dealing with one’s own and others’ anxieties. Emotionally mature leaders are willing and able to move toward anxiety-arousing states of affairs in the interest of learning about them, rather than moving away from them to get anxieties reduced as quickly as possible. Moreover, such leaders are able to inhibit impulses to act (e.g. to correct an emerging problem or to exploit a suddenly appearing opportunity) until more data have appeared or until … members become open to the contemplated intervention. Sometimes it is even necessary for leaders to engage in actions that temporarily raise anxieties, including their own, to lay the groundwork for the subsequent interventions that seek to foster learning or change.”

Final Thoughts

So this is the last of the articles in the American Psychologist issue on leadership I reviewed. After summarizing the articles, I have some reflections to share.

As psychologists, maybe we are now asking the “right” questions, but the dearth of research completed on these issues is discouraging.

The reporting of the research feels somewhat like a theoretical exercise, saying:

-we really don’t much about leadership (from a research point of view)

-a lot of our prior research hasn’t shown us much;

-it appears that we have been asking the wrong questions for the past 30 years;

-we now know (what we believe are) better questions to be

asking and answering;

-it may be a long time (and difficult) to achieve any good answers to the new set of questions.

Practically speaking, I want to know:

1. Can I become a better leader? (I think we generally assume we can improve ourselves)
2. If so, how?
3. On what basis should I select a person who is going to serve in a leadership position?

4. What can be done to improve the leadership behaviors of those who are developing leaders?

As often is the case, it appears that psychologists are better in asking questions than they are answering them definitively.

Robert Sternberg is one of my favorite authors. He has written a wonderful book entitled, Successful Intelligence. In the January 2007 American Psychologist he summarizes his “systems model of leadership.”

Although he agrees that “the environment strongly influences” the display of leadership, Sternberg clearly believes there are characteristics that set leaders apart from others.

CREATIVITY. Leaders are able to generate ideas and products that are (a) relatively novel; (b) high in quality; and (c) appropriate for the task at hand.

Sternberg then describes different ways creativity is used by leaders:

1. Problem redefinition. 2. Problem analysis. 3. Selling their solution. 4. Recognizing how knowledge can both help and hinder creative thinking. 5. Willingness to take sensible risks. 6. Willingness to surmount obstacles. 7. Belief in one’s ability to accomplish the task at hand. 8. Willingness to tolerate ambiguity. 9. Willingness to find extrinsic rewards for the things one is intrisically motivated to do. 10. Continuing to grow intellectually rather than to stagnate.

SUCCESSFUL INTELLIGENCE

Sternberg defines successful intelligence as: “the skills and dispositions needed to succeed in life, given one’s own conception of success, within one’s sociocultural environment.”

He differentiates successful intelligence from academic intelligence (the ability to learn and perform well in school.) Leaders do need academic intelligence to help them process information and ideas, remember information necessary to make decisions, and to be able to think critically about situations and options. But research has shown that if leaders are too much brighter (in a traditional sense) than the people they lead, the leader may not “connect” with the people and is less effective.

Practical intelligence (another term for successful intelligence) is used to solve everyday problems by applying knowledge gained from experience. It includes the ability to adapt to one’s environment, to shape your environment to fit your needs, or finding a new environment in which to work.

One aspect of practical intelligence is emotional intelligence — which has been shown to be a positive predictor of leadership. (Emotional intelligence includes the ability to get along well with others, to manage your own emotions, and to demonstrate self-discipline.) As I have stated to many young people, academic success doesn’t matter if you can’t get along with others or manage yourself.

WISDOM

To me, this is an interesting concept, because I have not heard much discussion about “wisdom” in our culture. Sternberg defines wisdom as “the use of successful intelligence, creativity, and knowledge as mediated by values to (a) seek to reach a common good, (b) by balancing intrapersonal (one’s own), interpersonal (others’) and extrapersonal (organizational, institutional …) interests, (c) over the short and long term to (d) adapt to, shape, and select environments.”

The key part that Sternberg emphasizes is that wisdom is focused on the common good. He states “wise leaders skillfully balance the interests of all stakeholders, including their own interests, those of their followers, and those of the organization for which they are responsible.” He goes on to say that intelligence, knowledge and creativity do not guarantee wisdom.

Sternberg concludes:

“Truly good leadership is relatively rare because it requires a synthesis of all of the elements described above. . . It is possible that in the past, creativity was an optional feature of leadership. In today’s world, with its staggering rate of change, it is no longer optional. . . A leader lacking in creativity will be unable to deal with novel and difficult situations. . . A leader lacking in academic intelligence will not be able to decide whether his or her ideas are viable, and a leader lacking in practical intelligence will be unable to implement his or her ideas effectively. An unwise leader may succeed in implementing ideas but end up implementing ideas that are contrary to the best interests of the people he or she leads.”

Wow. I like this guy’s ideas.

As I have stated in an earlier post, the January 2007 edition of the American Psychologist reviews the psychological research on leadership.

I would like to share some thoughts from a fascinating article entitled, “The Role of the Situation in Leadership” by Victor Vroom (professor at Yale) & Arthur Jago (professor at the University of Missouri).

The authors start out by curtly stating:

“the term leadership, despite its popularity, is not a scientific term with a formal, standardized definition. . .(and) there are almost a s many definitions of leadership as there are persons who have attempted to define the concept.”

But they do summarize:

“virtually all definitions of leadership share the view that leadership involves the process of influence… There are, in fact, a myriad of processes by which successful influence can occur (including) threats, the promise of rewards, well-reasoned technical arguments, and inspirational appeals… Exhibiting leadership means not only influencing others but also doing so in a manner that enables the organization to attain its goals.”

Vroom & Lago then present their own definition of leadership:

“a process of motivating people to work together collaboratively to accomplish great things.”

Interestingly, they then attempt to debunk the idea that there are great leaders – and this is the reason researchers have not been able to find common traits of good leaders.

The opposite position – that leadership is solely determined by situational factors – has some merit based on the following arguments:

“a) Leaders have very limited power (much less than is attributed to them); b) candidates for a given leadership position will have gone through the same selection screen that will drastically curtail their differences: and c) any remaining differences among people will be overwhelmed by situational demands in the leadership role.”

However, Vroom & Jago argue that we must look at “contingency theories” – that is, looking at “the kinds of persons and behaviors who are effective in different situations.”

[A side note: this reminds me of the research which occurred in psychology regarding counseling and psychotherapy. In the 1960’s & 70’s, researchers were looking for those qualities of therapists or characteristics of therapy that led to positive results for clients. Ultimately, this line of research failed – with the exception of identifying some core therapist behaviors that seem to be helpful – maintaining eye contact,, not being distracted with other things, and responding in ways that make the client feel “heard”. However, in the ‘80’s & 90’s, psychologists asked a different set of questions: What characteristics, behaviors or processes are most impactful in helping xxx types of clients with yyy types of problems? This had led to significant findings in knowing how to better to help individuals with anxiety disorders, depression, eating disorders, obsessive compulsive disorders, anger management problems and so on. The therapist’s behaviors and the processes used in counseling for each specific problem must differ, if they are to be effective.]

Now, one researcher named Fielder has proposed that a person’s leadership style is an enduring characteristic that can’t be changed. Thus, good leadership occurs when a leader is placed in a situation that is favorable to his or her style. If this is not possible, then the next best option is to “engineer the job to fit the manager”.

Vroom & Jago then summarize their research which has specifically looked at the interaction between when& how a leader involves their subordinates in decision-making. They have looked at situational variables and different styles of involvement. It all gets a bit deep (for me, at least) but some major themes they have found are that leaders use decision rules that help them respond to combinations of situations. For example, good leaders allow more participation by group members when the members possess knowledge or expertise in the problem area. Also, their approach to conflict also varies. Good leaders seek less participation from members when commitment to the decision is required and are more participative when the members’ acceptance of a
Decision is voluntary.

Vroom & Jago summarize their article with the following points:

1. Organizational effectiveness is affected by situational factors not under the leader’s control.
2. Situations shape how leaders behave.
3. Situations influence the consequences of leader behavior.

The authors criticize the tendency of writers of popular leadership books to focus on simple maxims (“place your trust in people”, “the customer must come first”) without paying attention to the situational factors in which these behaviors make sense – and when they don’t. They emphasize that:

“Actions must be tailored to fit the demands of each situation. A leadership style that is effective in one situation may prove completely ineffective in a different situation.”

What does all of this mean practically? I believe as leaders in different roles and different types of organizations, we need to begin to ask ourselves some questions:

I am intrigued to try to figure out what behaviors and actions are needed in my current roles of leadership, and I am going to strive to be observant of these issues as I go through my day.

I just received the 2007 January edition of the American Psychologist, which is the flagship journal of the American Psychological Association. This whole edition is dedicated to the topic of leadership. This fact, in and of itself, is amazing.

As Robert Sternberg, one of the foremost research psychologists on leadership states in the foreword:

“The United States became a great nation because of the leadership skills of the Founding Fathers. . . Historically, great nations have risen and later fallen in large part as a result of the success or failure of their leadership.”

“Despite its importance to the United States and the world, leadership has not been a leading topic in the field of psychology. . . leadership is scarcely to be found as a topic of research. . . Even the American Psychological Association has no journal on leadership and no division on leadership.” As a psychologist who works in the area of leadership, these are embarrassing facts to me.

Given that most of you don’t have access to this journal, I would like to share some of the insights of some of the psychologists who have studied leadership.

Warren Bennis, from the University of Southern California, writes the introduction to the whole issue in an essay entitled: “The Challenges of Leadership in the Modern World.” I am going to pull out some of the most interesting (to me) comments he makes. He states:

“[L]eadership always matters, and it has never mattered more than it does now. . . (but) psychology still does not know enough about how they develop and how they recruit and maintain their avid followers.”

“People have tried to understand leadership by attempting a kind of reverse engineering of outstanding public figures. To this day, psychologists have not sorted out which traits define leaders or whether leadership exists outside of specific situations.”

“In talking about leadership, we must ask ourselves, “Leadership for what?” . . . Any person can aspire to lead. But leadership exists only with the consensus of followers . . . (in fact, the only person who practices leadership alone in a room is the psychotic.)”

“Leadership . . . is a tripod – a leader or leaders, followers, and the common goal they want to achieve.”

“One aspect of leadership that is routinely overlooked is the extent to which it is a performance art. . . rhetoric is part of the equation. . . [Leadership also involves] media and communication. Today public leaders rarely, if ever, interact with their followers directly. They are always filtered through the media. . . We must also think about leadership in the context of globalization and instant communication.”

“After studying leadership for six decades, I am struck by how small is the body of knowledge of which I am sure. . .(but) I believe adaptive capacity or resilience is the single most important quality in a leader, or in anyone else for that matter who hopes to lead a healthy, meaningful life.”

“And I believe all exemplary leaders have six competencies:
*they create a sense of mission,
*they motivate others to join them on that mission,
*they create an adaptive social architecture for their followers,
*they generate trust and optimism,
*they develop other leaders, and
*they get results.”

“I am convinced more than ever . . . that the four most important threats facing the world today are:
(a) a nuclear or biological catastrophe, whether deliberate or accidental;
(b) a world-wide epidemic;
(c) tribalism and its cruel offspring, assimilation; and finally,
(d) the leadership of our human institutions.

Without exemplary leadership, solving the first three problems will be impossible.”

Some pretty strong comments at the end.

The remainder of the articles in the journal summarize the research in psychology on various approaches to understanding leadership, including:
*Trait-based perspectives on leadership
*The role of the situation in leadership
*Promoting more integrative strategies for leadership theory-building
*A systems model of leadership
*Asking the right questions about leadership

I am going to read through the articles this week and see if there are any valuable thoughts or research findings. If so, I will share them.

Due to the fact that I have worked as a psychologist and family coach over the past 20 years, I have had the privilege of observing and interacting with thousands of individuals and families. Obviously, some people are more healthy and functional than others.

And it is clear that we all have problems, so the existence or experience of having difficulties in our lives is not the factor which discriminates between individuals who are doing well in their lives and those who are having ongoing, significant challenges. In fact, one of my good friends’ favorite sayings is: “All families are dysfunctional. Some are just more dysfunctional than others.”

For those of you who have been around me for a while, or who have heard me speak, you may remember my picture of “slanted people”. These are individuals who (for whatever reason) live their lives according to a different set of rules – principles which really do not match the reality of the world And, as a result, they wind up having significant and ongoing problems in their lives – relationally, financially, and in their careers.

There are many aspects that contribute to a slanted, distorted view of life (which I will be writing more about in future entries), but the one I want to address today is:

The practice of blaming others for problems you are experiencing, rather than accepting responsibility for the choices you have made which have lead to the results you are experiencing in your life.

I see this time and time again – in individuals and families, in business, in government, in celebrities and athletes. Unfortunately, blaming others is a common course of action in our culture. But, regardless of how widespread “blaming” becomes, the practice will never lead to consistent, healthy results – whether it is in an individual’s life, the lifespan of a business, or over the course of history.In essence, when a person attempts to blame someone else (or some circumstance) for the negative results experienced, they are saying:

“It isn’t my fault.” “What happened was really out of my control.”

Blaming always starts with: “You … “ “They …” “If only, …” It only starts with an “I” statement when the “I” is followed with a “but …”, as in “Yes, I … but they ….”

There are some truly great blamers out there. They are incredibly skilled verbally (and sometimes interpersonally). They can be fascinating to watch in action, as they run circles verbally around others, and (for the moment) look like the victor in attributing the responsibility for a negative result to someone. When you are in an interaction with them, you often feel “fogged”. You thought you knew the facts going in, but now you aren’t so sure. And the interaction all happened so quickly, your head is now spinning.

However, after a little time passes and the fog lifts, you realize that you have been “spun”. And the reality remains – at least part of the situation can be attributed to actions or choices the blamer made, although they are not willing to accept any responsibility at all.

In Jim Collins’ classic, Good to Great, he addresses the same principle with regards to successful businesses. He calls it the leadership’s ability to “confront the brutal facts”. This is the ability and willingness to accept reality for what it is and then deal with it, especially in circumstances leading to failure. In fact, one of Collins’ applications is the ability to “conduct autopsies without blame” – that is, looking at a bad situation, analyzing and seeing what went wrong, without the goal of attributing blame to someone. Rather, the purpose is to learn from the series of events and decisions that led to the failure and grow from the experience.

And Dr. Henry Cloud, in his outstanding book, Integrity: the courage to meet the demands of reality, clearly defines the relationship between blame and leadership: “Leaders take ownership of the results and do not try to excuse those or blame someone else for them.” Cloud goes on to bluntly state: “Blame is the parking brake for improvement” (p.186-187). Essentially, successful leaders care less about who is at fault, and are more focused on “What can I do to correct the situation and make it work?”

There are at least two points of application here. First, I believe it is always best to look at ourselves first:

*Am I a blamer?

*Am I reluctant to accept responsibility for my choices and actions, especially when they lead to a negative result, even if it was unintentional? (As my wife gently corrected me a number of years ago, “If you step on somebody’s hand, it hurts whether you meant to do it or not.”)

*Do I try to “get out of” tight situations by making it look like it was someone else’s fault, even though I am at least partly to blame?
Secondly, are there people in my life (either family, friends, business colleagues, vendors) who create ongoing challenges in my life?

*If so, are these difficulties due to poor choices they have made?

*Does it seem that they frequently (and repeatedly) deny any responsibility for the problems they are experiencing?

If the answers are yes, I wouldn’t encourage you to “do” anything at this point. Rather, just sit back, observe for a while, and take notes. Over time, I think some possible action steps will come to mind.

There are books that come along that are destined to have a major impact in our culture. I believe Dr. Henry Cloud’s book, Integrity: The courage to meet the demands of reality may be such a book. Like Jim Collins’ Good to Great which has become an icon in the business world because of its simple yet powerful message, Cloud’s principles in Integrity are easy to understand but carry significant weight in their ability to help us understand ourselves, and improve ourselves.

At first blush, another book or message on “integrity” does not seem compelling. However, Cloud defines integrity differently – not solely on the moral basis of keeping one’s word or having your actions match your words. Rather, he defines integrity in terms of integration – integrating six major character qualities together into your whole person.

He proposes that six character qualities are required for effective leadership:

1. Creating and maintaining trust
2. Being able to see and face reality
3. Working in a way that brings results
4. Embracing negative realities and solving them
5. Causing growth and increase/li>
6. Achieving transcendence and meaning in life.

Throughout the book, he cites numerous personal examples from his consulting practice and gives helpful “word pictures”. One picture that I found helpful is that of the “wake” that a person leaves behind them (similar to the wake a boat leaves behind). There are two sides of the wake: the task side (what one accomplishes) and the relational side (how you impact those around you). Some leaders have a positive wake on the task side, but leave behind damaged bodies on the relational side (and vice versa).

The book is not difficult conceptually, but it is not a “quick read” because of the depth and meat which needs to be digested. Rather, it is one of those books that you read slowly, chew on, think about, and then come back to later for some more.

I believe Cloud’s book, Integrity, is one that all who desire to become better leaders – whether in work, at home, or in the community – should put at the top of their reading list.