Stop, Drop, and Roll - Avoiding Leadership Burnout
I should have known trouble was lurking, as the light slid from amber to red. I simply wasn't paying attention. I was going too fast, was oblivious to the warning signs. Then thud. I hit a wall. Out of nowhere, it sneaked up on me and crossed my path.
The good news is that this wasn't physically real; it was the emotional kind of wall we hit when we run too hard, too fast, for too long.
Most leaders are driven.They run "at pace," focused on the goals ahead. They often have an unending supply of capacity, have crazy energy to do more and get more done. But sometimes they "over rev" the engine, and the gauges scream past the red line. I should have known trouble was on the horizon when things began to shudder and the warning lights went off. Instead, I cruised on by my friends and colleagues with a grin on my face as my white knuckled hands gripping the steering wheel.
Perhaps, you've been there before. Perhaps you are there or know that you're getting close. This blog is a reminder (first to myself) of the warning signs of, and the recovery from, Leader-driving-too-fast-itis Syndrome.
Signs from the Road
+ The brakes don't work, but you don't care - This is when you feel the pace pick up and you gently tap the breaks to see if they work. They don't, but you don't care. The speed is addictive; everything you have to do feels so important. After all, you need to get somewhere and you're in a hurry.
+You take relational short-cuts - Relationships take time, energy and attention. When you're driving too fast you start to avoid people, hide out, withdraw - anything to accomplish the job you are working on.
+You ignore regular maintenance - An obvious sign that you're about to careen out of control is when you change your routine. First, it might be sacrificing sleep. Next might be your eating habits; your regular diet suffers as you rationalize that your indulgences are justified because you're working so hard. Perhaps you've forgotten to work out, or do those other types of things that energize you. Beware: danger ahead.
Stop, Drop, and Roll
Let's change the metaphor from driving to fire - because once you hit a wall, you have likely caught fire and need to put it out QUICKLY! Stop, drop, and roll.
+Stop - That's it. Really. You just need to stop for a while. Stop running at that pace. Stop thinking the world is on your shoulders and that it's all up to you. Stop. Take a day, a weekend, or a week and simply rest. No demands. No expectations. "Be still and know that I am God." (Psalm 46:10)
+Drop - Drop a few expectations. Drop a few items from your to do list. If necessary, drop to your knees and seek forgiveness for the pride that drove you to go so fast in the first place. A few things might "drop," and yes a few people might be frustrated. My favorite phrase for them in these instances is, "I have two words for you - deal with it." Smile, walk away and rest. You'll be back at it again soon enough.
+Roll - perhaps the hardest of all. Simply roll with it. Drop the pressures for a few days. No controlling everything. No trying to make everything into your image. The idea is to rest. Remember you are, or were, on fire. Getting burned hurts. Relax, breathe, rest.
There are usually people along the way who notice that we're on a collision course. Some even point it out to us. Do you have a favorite quip that you launch back at them? The one you've rehearsed and repeated far too many times to count? The "get off my back" line? Mine sounds super-spiritual - I love to quote Philippians 4:13, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." The problem is that in reality, I stop after the first five words. "I can do all things..." And I believe it. But I can't, and more importantly, that Christ hasn't asked me to.
So where are you? Are there warning signs that need heeding? Are you driving at a good pace? Or have you careened off course and caught fire? If so, stop, drop and roll.
Leading at Home - A Focused Family
"Did he really just say that?" my wife leaned over and whispered. We were at a marriage conference at Focus on the Family several years ago and Francis Chan was speaking. The question he had just posed hung over the audience: "Are you focused on your family? Or is your family focused?" [video].
His challenge was clear. It isn't enough to simply focus attention on our activities, status, and comfort; rather, there is a deep need to set intentional direction for our families.
Life in the American family today is like warp speed from the science fiction films of the 80's and 90's. The control operator hits a button and the space craft lurches forward with blurry white lines whizzing past, until suddenly the craft lurches again and you've arrived in deep space. For many, deep space is graduation day or the day you give your little princess away in marriage and wonder, "where did the time go?" But for some, deep space isn't so joyous. It could be that somewhere our lives and families careened off course - and when the white lines stop, we look around and ask, "How did I get here? What went wrong?"
We get in trouble because we aren't focused. But the culprit isn't just busyness. There is a foe lurking in the shadows that strikes our minds with cries of "urgency," the need to do everything, and do it now. In so doing, weariness weighs down our best intentions.
Vexed by this challenge in his own home and through an unfortunate passing comment made to his wife, Patrick Lencioni, one of my favorite authors on organizational health, took on the challenge to translate business principles into family management practices. From his own journey, he wrote The 3 Big Questions for a Frantic Family, a fable about a frantic family that got focused.
Recently, this book caused me to stop and look around. It was a hectic time for our family: soccer, homeschool, piano, church, ministry, and seemingly every other activity under the sun was continually vying for our energies and attentions. We were exhausted, running at warp speed. Agreeing that something needed to change, we sat down and went through Lencioni's exercises. Though still busy, and intentionally so, we now have focus. We have a simple framework to make choices clearer and then to evaluate performance against. Here's how it works:
Step 1: Identify what makes your family unique. What things make your family different from those around you? These can be your particular traits (timely, organized, athletic), or your core values (honesty, service, gratitude) or your strategy (life is centered around the family, the poor, or politics). The key is that they are true of your family; sometimes others might even think you take them too far or possibly even find them annoying.
Step 2: Determine your family's top priority, or "rallying cry," right now. What is most important for your family to focus on for the next 2 to 5 months? Maybe it is getting somebody healthy (spiritually, psychologically, physically, etc.). Maybe it is adopting a child or moving to a new home. For some, it might be getting out of debt or making more time for the family. The point is that you have a singular focus. If you were to achieve just one thing during that time, what is the most impactful thing you could do?
Step 3: Create supporting activities. The 3 to 5 things that must happen for you to achieve your rallying cry. Basically, they are the trackable actions that, if accomplished, will assure you of accomplishing your top priority. Let's say your top priority is to spend more time as a family. Your supporting activities might be dad traveling less, reducing non-family activities, intentionally scheduling family dates and outings.
Step 4: Set Basic Health Gauges. Even focused families have to make sure all cylinders are running properly, even while you focus on your main priority. These are the typical warning lights to alert you to trouble. They are the basic components of family life that we typically keep our eyes on: finances, health, marriage, etc. So, if your rallying cry is "remodel the basement," you may see your finance light turning red if you pass on carpet and opt for an imported wood floor. Or the marriage light, if your spouse is a bit overconfident in his ability to save costs by doing the electrical work himself. Oops.
The keys to success for this effort are simple. First, set aside time to take through each of the four steps. Second, write them down. Third, review them on a weekly basis and quickly evaluate performance using a green (good), yellow (ok), red (needs attention) scale. The idea is not precision (sorry engineers), rather a quick subjective way to remind ourselves of what's important, where we're at and what changes we need to make for the next week.
It seems only fair that I share ours (and I'd love to see yours as well!). It's important to note, Autumn is always an extra busy period for our family with sports, school and other activities. As a result, we can get very outward focused. So our rallying cry for the winter is a reminder to make sure our foundation as a family stays strong.
Francis Chan is right; are our families focused? Are we intentional about redeeming the days?
Here's to a focused family.
Leadership is Love
Organizations are social structures, created to multiply the talents and skills of people, at rates exponentially higher than could be achieved individually. So why do so many people and organizations underperform? Why are only 13% of employees engaged and why do so many merely tolerate their jobs? Why are so many offices toxic?
A key reason is that our leaders lack love.
About now, you may be debating whether to continue reading. I realize I just went off the rails a bit. But the reality is that love does equate to greater performance, ROI, and job satisfaction.
Leadership is Love
I remember the first time it happened to me. I was walking down a very narrow hallway of the mid-sized organization I worked for. I suddenly realized the CFO was walking towards me. Because we'd never met, I became a bit nervous, afraid I'd say something stupid. As it turns out I shouldn't have been. As he approached me, he tucked his head down, focused on his shoes and strolled right by me. I was stunned and hurt; I hoped he was simply busy or having an off-day. But then it happened again, and then again. I quickly realized it wasn't just him - it was part of the culture. Common dignity and courtesy were replaced with status and elitism. My stint in that organization was brief. Their corporate performance was, and is, abysmal.
The other day, a friend was sharing about a prior supervisor she had poured herself out for. She thought they were close, but as soon as he was promoted it was as if he didn't know her. "I wandered if he ever cared about me, or simply used me to get his new job," she lamented.
Leadership is Love
This "love" should not be confused with romantic feelings or strong positive sentiments, such as mine towards cheeseburgers. For leaders, love is seeking the best interests of those around you, even if and when it comes at a personal cost. Love is about caring for, and demonstrating that care, for others - at times like an extended family. Think about your favorite boss; odds are, they demonstrated this type of love toward you.
Here are a few practical tips for starters:
- Acknowledge others' presence. It can be a simple smile, head-nod (more a guy thing), handshake, or "hello," ("hallo" as my African friends say it). For those on your team, a great practice is developing a daily habit of walking around the cubes and greeting each person by name. It doesn't have to take long; this simple act goes a long way and people take notice!
- Seek to make others better, and their lives easier. It's easy to have people scurry about to accomplish your needs. But when was the last time you genuinely sought to lighten the load, pitch in and make someone else's day better? Are you seeking to develop your staff, particularly the things core to their passions?
- Make Sacrifices. Sometimes this is simply being vulnerable and sharing a part of yourself. Sometimes it is putting your neck on the line for someone else. Other times it means being willing to miss a deadline to release a person to deal with a problem at home.
- Be generous with praise! People need affirmation and encouragement. The cost is incredibly low. Be specific, as in, "I noticed you how you handled that difficult customer, well done."
- Be truthful; have the difficult conversations when necessary - No one likes to think they're doing well when they are not, or that they are adding value when their usefulness has passed. But often, through fear, we don't deal with hard truths because we are more concerned with ourselves than loving those we need to engage. Have a hard conversation. Tell the truth. But do so lovingly.
Love is patient. It is kind. It is not proud or rude. It doesn't demand it's own way. It is not irritable nor keeps a record of wrong. It does not rejoice at injustice but does rejoice at the truth. It never fails. (1 Corinthians 13:4-7)
Other Related Posts
The Seven Traits of Leadership
Leadership is Discipleship
Leadership Starts with Character
Leadership is Humility
Leadership is Courageous
Sources
How Organizational Love Can Improve Leadership (Rodney Ferris) http://insightu.net/content/ll/organizationallove140227.pdf
Love the Killer App (Tim Sanders)
Leadership is Courageous
It's that moment when you are standing at a precipice, looking out into the unknown. Your heart is beating hard. Your adrenaline has kicked in. You know the step you want to take. But fear makes you pause.
We all know this moment. It is when our minds flood with the "what ifs." What if I'm wrong? What if I fail? What if others laugh at me? What if others are hurt by this? It is also the moment when we consider the "what could be's." What could be, if this is the right decision? What could be, if I do move forward?
Leadership is Courageous
The opposite of courage is not fear; it is paralysis, the inability to move in any direction. Leadership requires movement. But movement requires courage. Therefore, whether personally or organizationally, moving forward requires courageous leadership.
Courage is often spoken of only in terms of big decisions. Betting the farm, bold decisions with massive consequences. But courage is also in smaller, everyday decisions. Will I speak up? Will I confront an issue? Courage is when we know the risk and fear the consequences, yet press forward with a resolve that says, "I must; I will, regardless of the outcome; because it is the best thing to do."
Courage is a leadership trait that must be developed. We must be courageous in the small decisions before we can lead forward in the big ones. Here are some ways to grow your courage.
1. Speak up - Think of a recent time you held back when you knew you should have spoken. Challenge yourself to speak up the next time you are in this situation.
2. Speak out - For many, confrontation is terrifying. But healthy relationships and healthy organizations are impossible without it. Is there someone you need to lovingly, but truthfully, confront? Speak out. (Here are some quick tips on how: Crucial Conversations)
3. Step up - Volunteer for a difficult assignment, one that you are interested in but are not sure you can do - and are pretty sure someone else can do better. The first time is hard, but it gets easier with practice.
4. Step out - Courage requires vulnerability. Make a hard decision that you believe in. Share your reasons and your decision making process.
5. Stand firm - Leaders are always second-guessed. There will always be naysayers. Learn to trust and own your decisions, regardless of what others might say or do.
"Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go." Joshua 1:9
The Seven Traits of Leadership
Leadership is Discipleship
Leadership Starts with Character
Leadership is Humility
Book Morsel - The Advantage (Patrick Lencioni)
The Advantage (by Patrick Lencioni)
Premise: The greatest single advantage any company can achieve is organizational health, but a lot of companies don't focus on it. Here are the core essentials.
Discipline 1 – Build a Cohesive Leadership Team
If an organization is led by a team that is not behaviorally unified, there is no chance it will become healthy.
To build trust, you must get to know each other, not just professionally, but your stories. Where are you coming from? What drives you? How are you wired. Spend time going deeper than the surface.
You must also master conflict as a time. Some teams avoid conflict others. Others wage gorilla warfare. Healthy teams have healthy conflict. They are "all in", deeply engaged, but focused on the issues and not each other.
Strong teams achieve commitment. Once they've debated the issue, they commit to next steps and agree on who is responsible for what. They embrace accountability and focus on results.
Discipline 2 – Create Clarity
Alignment is about creating so much clarity that there is as little room as possible for confusion, disorder, and infighting
1.) Why do we exist? (The heart of what you do - grand and inspirational)
2.) How do we behave? (Your core values - things you are willing to take to far and are intolerant of those who don't follow them)
3.) What do we do? (a simple description of what the organization actual does)
4.) How will we succeed? (what intentional decisions (anchors) will give you the best chance to succeed and differentiate from your competitors?
5.) What is Most Important, Right Now? (what is your top priority right now?)
6.) Who Must Do What? (Ensure there is clarity on who is responsible for what by when.)
Discipline 3 – Over-communicate Clarity
People are skeptical about what they’re being told unless they hear it consistently over time.
Leaders often confuse the mere transfer of information to the audience’s ability to understand, internalize, and embrace what is being communicated. After leadership has agreed, those leaders need to meet with their direct team and have those teams meet with their direct team to cascade information/agreements quickly (24 hours).
Discipline 4 – Reinforce Clarity
Make sure that human systems – every process that involved people – from hiring and people management to training and compensation, is designed to reinforce the answers to the questions.
For more reading, check out the longer, more details book summary: Book Summary - The Advantage
Recommendation: This is a great book to own - here is the link to it on Amazon: The Advantage
Why do you lead? [Guest Post]
By: Tony Marciel
There's a lot of talk about who a leader is, what a leader should do and how a
leader needs to operate, but I'm curious as to the 'why.'
With most things in my life I try to drive to the 'why.' I'll probably unpack more in a later
blog, but for me it's important to understand the why of any given situation.
If I can understand the motivation and intent,
then I can better understand the 'what' I'm seeing.
For leadership I think it's critical to know the 'why' you are a
leader. Why did you take the promotion that put you in a leadership role? Or..
why did you accept the job offer that had leadership responsibilities?
Was it for the authority? Money? The sweet job title on a business card? Were
you the only warm body left and you got moved up to fill a gap.
For me being a leader is all about empowering people. When people ask,
"What do you do at <insert company name here>?" I usually
respond with "Help my people succeed and try to stay out of their
way." I firmly believe leadership is about serving. Leadership is about
emptying one's cup of wisdom, support, experience, and self into other's cups.
I might not fill another person's cup, but I will empty mine.
So, do you have clarity on your 'why?'
What would your staff says is your motivation?
Answer that question in the simplest fashion. Check
to see that your actions and methods support your 'why.’
Book Summary - The Advantage
Note: I can think of few books that have had more impact on how I lead and on my organization than The Advantage. It is a simple, yet power model for building organizational health through clarity of thought and disciplined action.
THE ADVANTAGE - Patrick Lencioni
The Case for Organizational Health
The greatest single advantage any company can achieve is organizational health. It provides the context for strategy, finance, technology, and everything else that happens within it. It is the single greatest factor for determining success.
Why don’t more embrace it?
✓ The sophistication bias – “it is beneath them” – too simple.
✓ The adrenaline bias – it takes time and isn’t about firefighting.
✓ The quantification bias – the benefits are difficult to quantify.
Smart vs. Healthy Organizations
- Smart organizations are good at the decision sciences – but smart does not mean they are healthy or successful. It is hard to maintain a competitive advantage based on smarts.
- Healthy organizations have minimal politics, minimal confusion, high morale, high productivity, and low turnover. An organization that is healthy inevitably gets better over time.
Discipline 1 – Build a Cohesive Leadership Team
If an organization is led by a team that is not behaviorally unified, there is no chance it will become healthy.
A leadership team is a small group of people who are collectively responsible for achieving a common objective for their organization.
A leadership team is a small group of people who are collectively responsible for achieving a common objective for their organization.
The only reason that a person should be on the leadership team is that they represent a key part of the organization or truly brings a critical talent or intangible to the table.
Behavior 1: Building Trust
It is important to learn each other's personal histories (where they are coming from) and to conduct personality profiling (Myers-Briggs, etc.) to learn how each other thinks.
Vulnerability is also a key component to building strong teams and trust; we have to be able to share who we are; both strengths and weaknesses.
Behavior 2: Mastering Conflict
Productive ideological conflict, the willingness to disagree, even passionately when necessary, around important issues and discussions is healthy and necessary. We must overcome the tendency to run from discomfort; do not try to avoid conflict. When leadership team members avoid discomfort among themselves, they only transfer it in far greater quantities to larger groups of people throughout the organization. Too often we create an “artificial harmony” that isn’t real and hurts the organization.
Conflict tools
✓Mining for conflict – when you suspect that there is unearthed conflict in the room, demand that people come clean. Don’t assume silence is agreement. Probe for agreement. Ask each member if they agree.
Conflict is also important because people can’t achieve commitment without it. You can’t buy in to an idea until you have weighed in on it.
When leadership teams wait for consensus before taking action, they usually end up with decisions that are made too late and are mildly disagreeable to everyone. This is a recipe for mediocrity and frustration.
Leadership teams must arrive at specific agreements – with clarity for all. They must also stick around long enough to review agreements and ensure clarity.
Behavior 4 – Embracing Accountability
Success and health require appropriate peer pressure to succeed. Leaders must be willing to step in, however, the most successful form of accountability is from peers.
To hold someone accountable is to care about them enough to risk having them blame you for pointing out their deficiencies. Failing to hold someone accountable is ultimately an act of selfishness. Because behavioral issues almost always precede performance issues, it is critical to call out those behaviors early.
Behavior 5 – Focusing on Results
No matter how good a leadership team feels about itself or how noble their mission might be, if the organization it leads rarely achieves its goals, then, by definition it’s simply not a good team.
Goals must be shared by entire team (one team, one score). Leadership teams must place a higher priority on the team goals than on their own departments. Leaders must be willing to volunteer to help others on the team succeed.
Discipline 2 – Create Clarity
Alignment is about creating so much clarity that there is as little room as possible for confusion, disorder, and in-fighting. Leaders underestimate the impact of even subtle misalignment at the top and the damage it causes. Just a little light between leadership team members is blinding to those one or two levels below.
Six Critical Questions
1.) Why do we exist?
- Employees in every organization, and at every level, need to know that at the heart of what they do lies something grand and aspirational.
- Must be idealistic. Is not about marketing, rather about clarity.
- Start by asking, “How do we contribute to a better world?” Then keep asking “why” until you reach the bottom.
2.) How do we behave?
- Core values: 2-3 behavioral traits that define you, are true, and that you are willing to be punished for living them and at times employees might take them too far. Must be intolerant when people do not follow them. To identify – think of employees who embody what is best about the organization and then figure out what makes them stand out. Do the same for the negative folks.
- Aspirational Values: Values an organization wishes it had and knows it must develop them.
- Permission to Play Values: Minimal behavioral standards.
3.) What do we do?
- Nothing more than a description of what the organization actually does. One sentence, non-marketing, keep it simple.
4.) How will we succeed?
- An organization’s strategy is nothing more than the collection of intentional decisions a company makes to give itself the best chance to thrive and differentiate from competitors.
- Identify Strategic Anchors: Reverse-engineer by taking everything you know about the organization. An Exhaustive list of all the decisions and realities that form the context of the current situation. Look for patterns that indicate strategic direction (anchors).
5.) What is Most Important, Right Now?
- Every organization, if it wants to create a sense of alignment and focus, must have a single top priority within a given period of time.
- Leaders on the team must be invested without their departmental hats, focused on the larger organization.
- A thematic goal: singular, qualitative, temporary, shared across the leadership team.
6.) Who Must Do What?
- Ensure there is clarity on who is responsible for what by when.
The Playbook - Once the leadership team has answered each of the 6 questions, it is absolutely critical for them to capture those answers in a concise, actionable way so they can use them for communication, decision making, and planning going forward.
Discipline 3 – Over-communicate Clarity
People are skeptical about what they’re being told unless they hear it consistently over time.
Leaders often confuse the mere transfer of information to the audience’s ability to understand, internalize, and embrace what is being communicated.
Messaging is not so much an intellectual process as an emotional one.
Cascading Communication
✓True Rumors – After leadership has agreed, those leaders need to meet with their direct team and have those teams meet with their direct team to cascade information/agreements quickly (24 hours).
Discipline 4 – Reinforce Clarity
Make sure that human systems – every process that involved people – from hiring and people management to training and compensation, is designed to reinforce the answers to the questions. Leadership must take responsibility for these human systems and set direction, not delegate responsibility. The fact is that the best human systems are often the simplest and least sophisticated ones. Must have appropriate balance of gut vs. structure: Put just enough structure in place to ensure a measure of consistency and adherence to core values – and no more.
Performance Management – Healthy organizations believe that performance management is almost exclusively about eliminating confusion. Keep the systems simple.
Recommendation: Whether a small not-for-profit or a large global organization, the simple model put forth in this book will positively impact the health of your organization. I recommend you read and re-read it. Here's the link to it from Amazon: The Advantage
