Often, as leaders we get really focused on our agenda and what priorities we personally feel are most important and urgent.  If any outside interest (i.e., person) wants to compete for time and energy, leaders are vulnerable to frustration that might be misapplied.  I’ve come to believe that “concession” is an important leadership principle.  At times, it’s important for leaders to set aside their agendas and biases to make room for others’.  If we dismiss that of others, we risk devaluing our people as we dismiss what’s important them.  We need to be aware of times when we need to concede our focus on something we think is important in order to tend to something that is important to someone else.

Listen, I’m not suggesting we don’t need to set the pace and direction.  At times, leaders need to say no.  But as Solomon wrote and The Byrds sang, “to everything there is a season”.  Leaders need to develop the skill of concession so that they can employ it appropriately to the overall good of the organization.

 -Chuck Hyde

The firm analyzed responses from more than 600 individuals throughout North America via an online poll conducted in partnership with LinkedIn®.

"We find that employees really want to be heard," said Deborah Schroeder-Saulnier, Senior Vice President of Global Solutions at Right Management. "Making suggestions signals they are thinking about the performance of the organization and want to contribute over and beyond the requirements of the job. And this can be seen as a great opportunity by employers – if they know how to take advantage of it."

Among key findings:

--Nearly one-third of respondents indicated they offered more than 20 suggestions last year.
--And 30% made more than ten suggestions, but fewer than 20.
--Only 6% offered no suggestions at all.

Read the full release.

We've all seen it. It rears its ugly head at almost every meeting. Fraught with mismatched neon colors, 25 bullet points, and custom animation, it's the hideous PowerPoint presentation. If you're guilty of this, please do us all a favor and stop. 

Leaders: If you want people to remember what you say, you have to deliver remarkable content that connects with their intellect as well as their emotions. Flashy PowerPoint with lots of words only hurts your presentation. 

Seth Godin says it well:

"The home run is easy to describe: You put up a slide. It triggers an emotional reaction in the audience. They sit up and want to know what you’re going to say that fits in with that image. Then, if you do it right, every time they think of what you said, they’ll see the image (and vice versa)."

Small is the new big: Our lives are no longer about finding the biggest and best things out there. It is now imporant to begin doing things right here and right now.

Tribes have replaced critical mass: Leadership is now about gathering a few people around a central idea.

Story has replaced bulleted facts: Story is what inspires movement. A powerful and authentic story creates change and inspires action.

Find out more about these new ideas and watch the videos from this presentation here: 

www.soderquist.org/reset

Most of all, this is about you! We want your ideas. We want to hear your stories. Please post your thoughts that are provoked by this new kind of leadership.

One of the most difficult things to watch is someone with a vastly inaccurate self-image.  Most people know of a boss colleague or friend who views themselves as more funny, effective, or intelligent than they really are.  Caricatures such as Inspector Gadget, The Pink Panther, and Michael Scott are funny because we regrettably know someone with a similar swagger who succeeds in spite of their own obvious shortcomings.

In his book Primal Leadership, Daniel Goleman defines self-awareness as, “having a deep understanding of one’s emotions, as well as one’s strengths and limitations and one’s values and motives.”  Goldman suggests that self-aware leaders should have an intimate knowledge of what drives them on a daily basis and how they should most effectively operate.

The reality of lasting leadership is that effective leaders tirelessly seek out their failings in an effort to minimize the effect of their deficiencies. Self-aware leaders:

• Find others who will hold them accountable with brutal honesty
• Acknowledge poor decisions
• Relentlessly seek to lessen the effects of their shortcomings on others.

On the other hand, the journey of self-discovery is not solely an ascetic practice.  Leaders also come to know their strengths when they develop an accurate self-image.  By playing to their own strengths, and the strengths of others, leaders can become exponentially more effective.  A Gallop study, which began in 1960, reveals that when leaders of organizations’ focus on strengths, their employees have a 73% chance of engagement at work.  When the organizations leadership neglects its focus on strengths, the employees’ chances of engagement drop to a mere 9%.

Self-awareness is not an easy pill to swallow, but I suggest that it is the most foundational building block of an effective leader.  No one wants to follow a person who imagines they are someone they are not, but men have run headlong into battle when following a leader who has taken a hard look in the mirror.  I suppose we all hunger for truth.  Something primal in our being seems to search for those rare souls who appear to understand the world and their place in it.  I am convinced that the path to becoming one of those remarkable leaders is an internal journey of self-discovery. 

I’m sorry Kip.  I know that your cage fighting dreams can’t come true without the board-shattering roundhouse of Chuck Norris.  But please, proudly display your own picture and be the leader that only you can be.

-David Greer, Soderquist Fellow

Regardless, it illustrates the power of leaders having an awareness and appreciation for their people and what is necessary to keep an organization moving.  The old axiom, Managing by Walking Around, exists for a reason.  Leaders can touch people, understand their issues at and away from work, get ideas for improvement, and expose injustices in the workplace – even those that might have been created to serve an honorable intent.

This is more than just good TV.  As leaders, it should at least provoke in us a sensitivity to what we might be missing and prompt us to build in capacity in our schedules to spend focused time at ground level of our organizations.

-Chuck Hyde, COO

As of today, I have completed the rite of passage to become a 2^nd year SoderFellow. It was subtle, unforeseen, and even delicate. I was calmly sitting in the back of the room during a program I am coordinating, working on material for another upcoming project. All of a sudden, I felt a faint flutter in my left eye. Was it the air ventilating through the room? Maybe just an abrupt blink? How about a bug that decided to quiver across my eyelid?

No.

This was the infamous eye twitch.

A seasoned 2^nd-year SoderFellow had warned me of the longstanding tradition of developing eye twitches approximately 3-6 weeks after Christmas break. It is widely acknowledged as a response to no longer being the new kid on the block. I have now been in the fellowship program long enough to be considered fluent in my responsibilities and fully immersed in my role.

The eye twitch appears when a SoderFellow has doubled up on graduate classes, has long term projects, a full-time job, a social life, and as we introverts call it, “iTime” (introvert time, that is), all fighting for playing time in the game of life. To simplify, it means you’re busy. And stressed.

The first response—often times the one most desired—is to succumb to the stress. Cry, scream, burnout, escape, disengage.

Or there is the second option: you laugh…and smile. Today, I saw my eye twitch as a milestone. I had, in a sense, made it. I had reached the point these weathered SoderFellow veterans had spoken of. I was deep into my responsibilities but even more so, I realized my responsibilities had become my passions.

I’m thankful that today, on a cold, snowy, unassuming February day, I am participating in an experience that is much greater than myself. And it excites me. I am so grateful that what I do right now has enough significance to cause my eyelid to flutter, and in turn, remind me that doing something I love is worth every single eye twitch.

When debating which response you’ll choose when you feel the eye twitch, I vouch for the latter.

By Ali Lewis, First Year Soderquist Fellow

Time magazine recently called the 00's "The Decade from Hell." There were many global events that were hellish - some were human-made like the 9/11 terrorist attacks, bombs in the Madrid train station, and the genocide of Darfur, while others were nature-made, like Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and the Tsunami that killed 200,000 people in south east Asia.

Similarly, the business world had its own "Decade from Hell." What a contrast to the 1990's when corporate CEOs were named as Time magazine's "Person of the Year" three different times.  But in the 00's, some CEOs went from rock star status to a modern day Icarus, crashing to earth as their vanity melted the companies they once led.   

The 00's included two major recessions, and a seemingly unending stream of high-profile CEOs and major companies brought down by hubris, greed, and misuse of unrestrained power. Ken Lay and Bernie Ebbers ushered in the decade by bankrupting two once proud and premier companies, and Bernie Madoff closed the decade by bilking investors and charities out of an estimated $65bn through a Ponzi scheme of unimagined scale.

Did Time Miss the Bigger Story?  

But wait - was there not also a little bit of heaven in the '00s?  For every fallen and failed Ken Lay, Bernie Ebbers, or Bernie Madoff, aren't there hundreds if not thousands of business leaders who wake up each morning driven by their business not their bonus, dedicated to their employees not their egos, and committed to serve not to steal? 

In my research through the Princeton Faith & Work Initiative, I have found countless men and women who excel with integrity in business. For many of these leaders, their ethical dealings, their sense of business as a calling, and the ability to find meaning and purpose in their work are all in some part shaped, formed, and sustained by their faith tradition.  Further, these people - and perhaps you're one of them - have the opportunity to influence the ethos and excellence of their organization and industry sector.

Time magazine may never feature you and others like you as "Business Persons of the Decade."  But we at the Princeton Faith & Work Initiative do, and thank you.

Best wishes for your own faith and work initiatives in the decade ahead.

1:  To continue to move or advance after effort has ceased.

Life is good. I’m nearing the end of six years of higher education. I have a bachelor’s degree and will soon have a masters. I have an arsenal of experiences from my world travels, from meeting celebrities, to meeting corporate pioneers and goliaths. The world is my oyster and opportunity is at my fingertips. Life is good… Or is it?

Ok, life really is pretty good right now. Yet it is incredible to think how easily we slip into a level of comfort that can often border on arrogance. I am by no means pointing fingers; it’s when I am consistently achieving success that my confidence is greatest and I rest in the assurance that I’m doing a “job well done.” A job so well done that nothing can touch me; my competitors flee at my presence; my superiors fawn at my abilities; and my followers gawk at my dexterity... err, I mean…never mind. (Get the picture?)

The wise Don Soderquist once said, “The better things are going the more concerned you need to be.”  I suppose it is when we are at our highest that our ability to fall is at its greatest; and that fall usually seems to be a little harder and farther than the others. So, how do we avoid these pitfalls? I heard it once said that, “level of skill is rarely what knocks us off our rockers; it’s our inability to relate to others.” It’s interesting to think how much skill actually plays into our success.

According to an article on www.expressitpeople.com, a study conducted on CEOs in the US by the Stanford Research Institute and Carnegie Mellon, found that long-term job success depends 75 percent on people skills and only 25 percent on technical knowledge. It’s not news that the buzz phrase “soft skills” has become nomenclature in many industries; however, without indulging its prosaic nature, it rings of statistical truth. One’s ability to relate to others is undeniably a “make it or break it” factor of success.

So, back to that rocker… The goal of this blog is to get you to think about how you relate and interact with those around you, as well as caution you to stay on your toes and avoid mediocrity disguised as comfort. Think of the last time you got knocked down and what caused it. Was it really a technical mistake? Or was it technical in the aspect that it didn’t meet the expectations of someone higher up than you? More and more, technical and people skills are blending in ways that force us to recognize their novel coalescence. This recognition should change the way you go about your “technical” work and your “people” work. With the right balance of relational and restricted skills, along with the constant awareness of your “coasting speed”, this figurative rocking chair should sway you right through a successful career.

By Nolan Thomas