The Power of Role Clarity

Some days, we forget that when we practice leadership, “you need to accept that you are in the business of generating chaos, confusion, and conflict, for yourself and others around you,” notes Ron Heiftz, Alexander Grashow, and Marty Linsky in their book, The Practice of Adaptive Leadership: Tools and Tactics for Changing Your Organization and the World (Harvard Business Press, 2009). As they continue, “building up your tolerance for disorder, ambiguity, and tension are particularly important in leading adaptive change.” From my experience, this may mean that a leader needs to move outside their comfort zone which few people really like to do.

As we lead during adaptive changes and move outside our comfort zone, there is one thing we can do which is important and can make a difference, namely clarify your role within the organization. Typically, this means that you sit down with your supervisor and clarify your role, responsibilities, their expectations and your goals. But there is another element to this process which is more challenging, namely separating your role from yourself.

As the above authors explain, “Whatever role you are playing at any one time, that role does not represent all of who you are, even if it feels that way.” We need to remember that our role at work is only a part of us. We as a person are greater than our role.

This simple task of separating role from self will help you handle the work of adaptive leadership. As the above authors continue, “When you make a distinction between the roles you play and yourself, you gain the emotional strength to ignore personal attacks your opponents hope will stymie your initiative…. though an attack may feel personal (and be intended as personal), it is not a statement about your character or your worth as a human being. It is a strategy and an attempt to manipulate you.”

This week, remember that when chaos and ambiguity appear in your world, define your role, but do not loose touch with your worth as a human being.

Geery Howe, M.A. Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257

Reclaim Vision

“I am worn out, " he said as we sat down together for a breakfast consultation on a hot and humid summer morning. “We have expanded the size and scope of our organization 10-fold. But even after a week of vacation, I am neither rejuvenated nor rested. I have job security as one of the top executives and a great salary. I love my wife, and we have beautiful children who are grown, married, and are bringing wonderful grandchildren into the world.

However, I realize I'm losing perspective. I’ve even started chewing people out at work. While I sense I am called to this work -- that I am here to do something significant -- I'm feeling overwhelmed. And I know I am not doing the job as well as I should be."

It was a long and personal breakfast meeting. I challenged him to live what he knew to be true.

"Do you mean I have to recover my own vision?"

"Yes, " I replied. "Your challenges are the seeds for great achievements if you are willing to preserve the core of who you are and what you believe in. Now is not the time to compromise your values."

In order to persevere in the midst of great challenges, courage, hope, and personal vision must be recovered -- for they are vital ingredients in coping effectively with change. They fortify one's ability to move ahead with clarity. They invigorate a "can do" mentality. At the same time, courage, hope, and vision are not easily found, unless we are willing to let go of unproductive and self-defeating habits.

I was sitting in another executive's office a few months later, discussing current problems in his company, when he shared with me about some of the serious physical and stress-related symptoms he had been experiencing. “I am the CEO of this corporation," he exclaimed, "and I know that if I don't make some changes, I’ll be dead before I'm fifty. This job is killing me.

"Two months ago, I began having problems with double vision, and then one day my chest tightened up and I passed out. In the emergency room at the hospital, the nurse asked me if I had been under a lot of stress. I told her I had been, but since the situation would not be changing any time soon, I told her that I just need to get me back on my feet so I can get on with the day.

"Two weeks ago, I realized I could care less about half the stuff I was doing. I talked about this with an older mentor of mine, and he suggested I consider changing jobs - maybe even look at a career change. It was then that I realized I really am afraid to look at my life. This is all I have ever done, and I just don't know where I would go from here."

Many people in organizations are caught in a pattern of “P.0.W ism." They expect themselves and others to be perfectionists, overachievers, and workaholics. Sometimes, when swamped by team projects, committee meetings, and paperwork, we even act as if we are human "doings" ‚ instead of human beings. 

In the long run, a P.O.W. approach to work and life will only yield cynicism, stress, and burnout. John O'Neil, in his book, The Paradox of Success, reminds us that many people are winning at work and losing at life. Transforming a challenge into an achievement, by its very nature, asks us to extend our boundaries.

Functioning outside our comfort zone is not always easy, and maintaining perspective can be difficult at times. Start this process by asking yourself an important question: 

What is the one thing I am not doing today that would make my life more meaningful if l did it on a regular basis? 

Let your answer be the foundation for rebuilding your personal vision for the future.

Remember: The success of any change cycle is determined not only by what we do, but who we are.

Geery Howe, M.A. Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257

Three Key Concepts

There are days and even weeks when as leaders we can become very, very busy. For many, this coming fall appears to be one of those time periods. We all know that during the busy time periods we will be in back to back meetings, making many major decisions with limited data, responding to a diversity of critical issues, while simultaneously attempting to keep up with e-mail and other assorted forms of communication.

During such extremely full periods, your path and my path often cross. Sometimes it is on the phone, after a meeting or over a meal. Then, during our visit, someone will ask me a simple but complex question, “So, what am I missing in the midst of all that is happening?” While I could point out that most executives are recovering controlaholics who need to control less and focus on alignment more, I usually share the following three observations

First, your ability to plan must be balanced by your capacity to execute.

Too many times this year I have witnessed groups who plan well but execute poorly. The problem is not the plan. It is the depth of capacity within the organization. While the plan could be modified and often is, the real challenge is the lack of strategic commitment and effort to build for the future.

Second, real change does not take place inside your comfort zone.

We like being comfortable and happy. We do not like being uncomfortable and unhappy. Therefore, when faced with certain challenges we settle for good when we should have strived for great. However, to achieve greatness, we most step outside our comfort zone and confront the brutal facts.

Third, awareness is not understanding.

Volumes could be written on this one short sentence. It is a powerful insight. In my mind, it ranks up there with the Iowa farm wisdom I learned many years ago, namely “What you feed, grows.” While awareness is important, understanding takes time, reflection and dialogue. If we are to create understanding, be it during planning or execution, then we have to step outside our own comfort zones and engage in an in-depth dialogue with others. Because it is through this process of sharing that we generate great understanding and greater clarity.

Busy is normal. It happens. But the best of us keep learning and sharing in the midst of it.

Geery Howe, M.A.Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer inLeadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational ChangeMorning Star Associates319 - 643 - 2257

Comfort Zones

Like many things in life, it all started in college. One year I simply pushed too hard to keep up with my classes and homework, and thus ended up running on fumes for way too long. The result? I got mononucleosis or simply “mono.”

At the time, this viral infection was causing me to have a constant headache, sore throat, swollen glands plus overall exhaustion and fatigue. I could barely stay focused in or out of class. Finally, not knowing what to do, I went to the college infirmary. There I was diagnosed with mono and told to spend some days sleeping in the infirmary until I was rested and no longer contagious.

I do remember on the first afternoon of my stay in the infirmary an older doctor came in to check on me. He told me I had the “kissing disease” and asked if I knew how I had gotten it. Being a cheeky fellow at the time, I wanted to reach out and knock three times on his forehead. “Hello,” I wanted to say. “It is the mid-70’s and I am a young male in a four year liberal arts college in the midwest. Do you think kissing had anything to do with it?” But instead, I mumbled something about over doing it. That night they brought me a dinner tray from the school cafeteria with soup and crackers.

The following morning they bought me a breakfast tray with more soup and crackers. Midmorning, they brought me a can of 7-Up and more crackers. I can not remember much about the rest of my stay in the infirmary other than being brought crackers with everything. The result was that my bed was covered in cracker crumbs. I got up on numerous occasions to sweep out the cracker crumbs from between the sheets, and they still kept showing up. They were every where. A couple of days later, I left of the infirmary, vowing not to eat crackers in little packets ever again.

To this day, I am not a fan of crackers in little packets and I do not like eating breakfast or any other meal for that matter in bed. When I am really sick, which is a rare occasion, I still want to eat at a table. No crumbs in bed for me.

As I move through this spring, I am convinced that more and more people have comfort zones and default to them when confronted with change. I also am convinced that more and more people have discomfort zones and that they will do anything they can to avoid these difficult places. Like me with crackers in little packets and eating a meal in bed, we avoid these places, and as a result, at times deny ourselves the opportunity to learn or do something new or different.

This spring I encourage you to identify your own comfort and discomfort zones. I also encourage you to learn the same information them about those with whom you work with on a regular basis. This will help you be a better leader when change happens.

Geery Howe, M.A.Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer inLeadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational ChangeMorning Star Associates319 - 643 - 2257