GenXmanager: Leadership for the Generation X Manager

Social media will have far reaching effects on leaders and the entire concept of leadership. The traditional organization as a top-down hierarchy have been deteriorating for some time. However, vestiges of Weber’s bureaucratic organization remain (and for some organizations, firmly entrenched).

Social media focuses more on social networks and connections and less on formal hierarchies. This presents both a challenge and opportunity for existing and future leaders.

The February issue of the International Leadership Association featured an article by Arthur Jue titled, “Social Media, Leadership, and the Emerging Architecture of Change”. In it, he states,

In business leadership, social media helps to enhance culture, recruitment, innovation, customer relationships, operational efficiency, engagement, and ultimately organizational performance.

It connects employees in new ways that redefine traditional roles, eliciting greater freedom of expression and commitment.

What I see is that leaders must now be facilitators of the social network process. Leaders will need to motivate staff inside and outside of the their purview encouraging the use of social connections far outside the normal boundaries of the organizational hierarchy. The leader will be seen as a facilitator of connections and understand that informal social networks using social media are far more powerful than the information transferred within the typical chain of command. The power is not in the leader, but in the collaborative power of employees.

My dissertation for my Ph.D. in organizational leadership will deal directly with leadership and social media. I’m working with my dissertation advisor at the moment and within the next few months I will be defending my initial proposal.

As Warren Bennis said, “Leadership is one of the most observed and least understood phenomena on earth.” I’m taking on yet another facet.

from telegraph.co.uk

I was astounded by the disqualification of Netherland speed skater, Sven Kramer. Kramer was going to win the gold medal but his coach, Gerard Kemkers, signaled him to switch lanes. Kramer followed his coach’s instructions; which were wrong. Kramer was disqualified for being in the wrong lane and lost the gold medal. You can read the full story or watch the video. 

What leadership lessons could possibly be gleemed from this situation? Here are a few. 

1. As a leader, you must be ready for others to follow
   Being a leader is an incredible responsibility. People count on you. They have expectations. They follow instructions. They trust.Kramer, the speed skater, trusted his coach, Kemkers, implicitly. If you watch the video Kramer doesn’t even hesitate when his coach signals him to switch lanes. He trusted his coach’s direction.

   As a leader, you hold a tremendous weight of responsibility. Make decisions carefully. Be ready for others to follow you.

2. As a follower, question your leader
   In this speed skating incident there was no way for Kramer to question or consult his coach. But in the workplace where decisions don’t need to be made in thousandths of a second, question your leader’s direction. Do it with respect but don’t simply follow a leader because he or she possess the title of ‘manager’, ‘director’, ‘vice president’, or ‘president’. Ask questions. Probe. Listen. Make suggestions. Being a follower is about being part of the leadership process; not following blindly.
3. Forgive
   I was wondering what was going to happen to the coach. The talking head shows on CNN, Foxnews, and MSNBC all said the coach should get his resume ready. He was going to get fired. Right?

   As it turns out, the athlete and the coach make peace. There was forgiveness. In an article in the Washington Post, Kramer says, “The past years were simply too good to drop someone just like that.” Kramer focused on the positive. His coach helped him to become a three time world champion, four time European champion, and many World Cups and Olympic gold in the 5,000 meters.

   Mistakes will be made. Trust will be broken. In these instances, the power of forgiveness can help mend the pain and move forward. My guess is that Kramer and Kemkers are focusing on their next race in the Olympics; aiming for gold.

These are simple leadership lessons from a single lost opportunity for gold at the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games.

I recently read the book Monday Morning Leadership by David Cottrell. Overall, I’d give the book four out of five stars. Though the book regurgitates leadership ideas that have been proposed before by various other authors and researchers, it does so in a unique and simple to read fashion.

The book is about a manager, David Cottrell (the author), who is having a variety of leadership and managerial issues at work. He is at his wits end and decides to seek the council of a seasoned, successful leader by the name of Tony Pearce.  Tony agrees to mentor David for eight consecutive Monday mornings.

In this time, Tony listens to David and imparts his wisdom. He doesn’t tell David what he should do but guides him in his decision making.

The eight lessons Tony imparted to David were:

1. Take total responsibility for results without excuses. In addition, being a leader requires that one makes different decisions.
2. Be certain that everyone has bought into the shared vision and rowing the boat in the same direction. He also states that employees quit people rather than companies.
3. The job of the leader is not to lower the bottom but raise the top. He suggests really knowing and getting in touch with your employees.
4. Act with integrity. Be proactive and develop an action plan before a crisis.
5. Hiring high performers. It sends a message to the current team.
6. Manage your time and by being more effective at whatever you do. 
7. Coach, encourage, recognize, reward, and respect your employees. 
8. Be open to new opportunities, always learn, help others, stay positive.

If you’ve read most of the best selling business books over the past 20 years this all sounds very familiar. There is a bit of Covey’s 7 Habits and First Things First, Collins’ Good to Great, Rath and Clifton’s How Full is Your Bucket, Lee’s The Power Principle, and other random books on management and leadership.

What this book does do well is tell a story and puts all of these concepts into action. We all have been (or will be) where David was in the book. We struggle at various points in our career and question our own leadership ability. This book shows that simple principles can have big positive effects. Though the principles are simple, they are not easy to implement as we see David Cottrell struggle to live the eight lessons.

There was one “ah-ha” moment I had while reading the book. Step five states that a leader must hire top performers. That sounds obvious but the rationale was unique. All leaders want the best performers (would you seek out a low performer on purpose?). Tony says that by hiring the best performers you are positively impacting the team. You are sending a message that you respect the team enough to only bring on board those of a certain caliber to enhance the team. It was about respecting the team first. Performance was an outcome of this respect.

I’ve noticed that most management and leadership books these days simply repackage what’s already been said. However, this is a good thing. You read enough of these books and one will eventually strike an emotional or intellectual cord that will spur personal or professional change.

Yesterday I explained social identity theory (SIT) and why it was a challenge to building a successful, highly effective, diverse team. In this article I describe the ten ways to strengthed a diverse team and counteract the negative side of SIT.

Why is Diversity Important

1. The workplace is becoming and will continue to become more diverse. As a leader, you need to know how best to strengthen your diverse team. SIT says the odds are against you. Or are they?
2. Organizations exist in a complex and ambiguous environment. Some call it the post-modern era. Research shows that diverse teams are much more adept and effective at solving today’s complex business problems (McShane & Von Glinow, 2009)

There are other reasons but this should suffice for our discussion.

Please note: I’m using diversity in its most broad sense. This includes diversity of expertise, ethnicity, level within the organization, nationality, gender, and generational.

10 ways to strengthen a diverse team

1. Celebrate what everyone has in common
   In most diversity literature I’ve read the common theme is “celebrate differences”. That’s true, but differences can be a source of contention as well as strength. Celebrate what you all have in common. You’re on the same team. You work for the same company. Create a sense of emotional attachment to the team. Build social identity within your team.
2. Reward differences
   Instead of “celebrating” differences reward them. Diverse teams can be highly creative bringing different ideas and viewpoints to the table. Reward those who use their diversity to strengthen the team so others will be willing to embrace the differences and contribute their own unique points of view.
3. Be clear on team roles
   Make sure everyone on the team is crystal clear as to each person’s role and the value he/she brings to the team.
4. Provide a clear vision
   Every team needs a strong, clear vision but it is critical in diverse teams. Though diverse teams can solve complex and ambiguous problems, there should be no ambiguity or lack of direction in diverse teams.
5. Don’t tolerate overt or subversive stereotyping or discrimination
   This likely goes without saying but there should be zero-tolerance for this type of behavior.
6. Set milestones and make sure there are quick wins
   If you’re working on a project set milestones in the beginning so the team can celebrate an early victory. This victory can fuel camaraderie and emotional cohesiveness within the team.
7. Guide the team; be a true leader
   I won’t go into the details here as numerous books have been written about true leadership. However, you’ll need to provide leadership that will strengthen the team and ensure that diversity is used to create a highly effective team.
8. Have patience
   Research shows that diverse teams spend more time in the forming, storming, and norming stages than homogenous teams. As a leader, be patient.
9. Volunteer
   Take your team to a shelter, soup kitchen, or organize some other charitable event. Managers I’ve spoken with indicate that this is a great way to build cohesion in diverse teams.
10. Use the “old” rules
    Rules for building teams in general also apply to highly diverse teams. Setting up proper communication channels, empowering team members, ensuring individual and team accountability, rewarding when appropriate, and using the principles in a few of the books below will also build an incredibly effective team.

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team
Teamwork 101
Effective Teamwork: Practical Lessons from Organizational Research

Teams will continue to become more diverse so it is essential for leaders to harness the strengths of team diversity and use SIT to build an incredibly effective team.

Have you heard of Social Identity Theory? It’s a big challenge to diversity in the workplace. Let me explain.

I never heard of it prior to starting my doctoral degree in leadership. Basically, social identity theory (SIT) is our natural tendency to identify ourselves with those similar to us. We often define ourselves by the emotional attachment we have to groups in which we belong. Here is an amazing, yet simple, example of social identity theory (SIT) in action from the ABC series Better Off Ted.

See how that played out? The cat people and the space people sit at different tables in the cafeteria. One employee decides to break ranks with the cat people and is chastised by another “cat person” for doing so.

What does this have to do with diversity? We identify ourselves with groups and those groups include our gender, ethnicity, age, and social class or status. This can lead to stereotyping and perhaps a variety of “isms” (i.e. sexism, racism) which may ultimately lead to discrimination in the workplace.

My next post will discuss the 10 ways to strengthen a highly diverse team. Instead of letting SIT create an environment that builds various “isms” and an ineffective workplace, I’ll give you ways to use SIT to enhance diverse teams and make them amazingly effective.