You have one bar of power left on your cell phone and you have misplaced the recharger.  This could also describe how many people feel today about their work and personal lives.  You have enough power to make one call so please consider what that will be.  You need to use that remaining energy wisely.

Too often we feel like we just don’t have time to think, we can only react.   With the non-stop invasion of emails, texts and tweets, it’s close to impossible to have any down time.  This technology was supposed to make us work smarter, not harder.  Guess what has happened?  Then add on the rest of life and our responsibilities.

The way we used to recharge was vacation.  It was the time to get away from the daily grind and take a step back, to rest and to reflect on life.  Now for too many, it’s just become work in a pretty setting.  Technology has certainly changed the way business operates and in many ways, it’s a vast improvement.  But there is a cost to pay. 

In a recent study done by Yahoo.com they found that 49% of workers said they feel burned out by their jobs but don’t use their vacation time as a remedy.  45% of the workers polled said they didn’t use all of their vacation days in 2006 and 39% said they were too tired to even take a vacation during their days off.

The Professional Renewal Center in Lawrence, Kan., is a career rehab for executives who have major issues in the workplace, including sexual harassment, substance abuse, or emotional issues.  Employers refer executives to the center for treatment that lasts up to seven weeks.  One thing the burned-out patients usually have in common, says Professional Renewal Center CEO Kirtsen Judd, “They never took vacation.”

I don’t care how smart you are, how hard you work and how much you care; everyone needs time away from the job, both physically and mentally.  People are not machines, but even machines get preventative maintenance and some industries also require records to prove it.  Sadly, we don’t apply the same fundamental beliefs about the importance of this to ourselves.

You need to take care of yourself before you can take care of others, and that includes the people you work with.  Many parents react to this with the comment that ‘their children come first’, and that is certainly true in their hearts.  But if you are disabled either physically or emotionally, then are you really helping anyone?  Or do they need to help you?  Caring for and about others means you have to care for yourself too, but that part’s easy to forget.  You have to make the time to take care of yourself and you have to make it a priority.  Saying you don’t have time is just an excuse, and not a good one at that.  

While watching the controversy around health care reform, I noticed a classic change management issue that many leaders face.  Without getting into any of the details, the main dichotomy is between the side that favors change and the side that favors maintaining the status quo.  This is like virtually every change management issue that any business leader faces.  What can you do when faced with this challenge in your business?  You can make the case for change.

Frequently, not changing feels safer than change.  Change is a risk; staying the course feels less risky.  Many of our performance management systems are inadvertently designed to support this belief.  The punishment for taking a risk that does not work out is frequently greater than that punishment for doing what we’ve always done.  Can you think of situations in your work place where people were punished (smaller raises or bonuses than average) for doing their job the same way they did it last year?  It’s rarely the case.

So what can you do when you want to see your company/department embrace change?  Lay the groundwork.  Before you start convincing people of the merits of your change, you need to convince them that a change is needed.  This is sometimes called the “burning platform” speech.  Why isn’t the status quo good enough anymore?  What has changed that we must react to?  This is a critical part of getting a change adopted.  If you don’t do this successfully, people may go through the motions of change, but as soon as the pressure is off (as soon as you stop paying close attention to what they are doing), they will start to go back to the old way where ever possible.

Why do leaders frequently miss this step?  Because by the time they are ready to roll out the change, they have learned so much about the situation that they believe that the need for change is intuitively obvious.  They expect everyone else to see it intuitively, forgetting that it is their research that made it so obvious to them.  It’s crystal clear to them that something different must be done, and they begin to assume that everyone else must see it the same way that they do.  Unfortunately that is rarely the case with the people that will be impacted by the change.  They are not looking at it the same way that you are.  They haven’t done the research that you have, and this change may catch them by surprise – or even if it doesn’t surprise them, it doesn’t seem necessary to them. 

On the other hand, if you successfully convince them that a change is needed, they will be committed to making a change.  You will still have to convince them that your change is the best change or empower them to propose different change ideas.  In any case, you have the majority of people on board with leaving the safety of the status quo behind.  Now you can start to move forward and craft a new future with greater opportunities for your business to succeed. 

Originally published in Pharmaceutical Technology Magazine, April 2006. 

We’ve all had that moment when we’ve asked, “How can my company be making money?” It’s amazing that many companies seem to survive and even thrive in spite of themselves. Even companies that have good financial results can have a culture that exacts a heavy toll on their employees. Companies that struggle financially or emotionally, in an organizational sense, have common elements or patterns of behavior.

“Yes” organizations. In these organizations, management only wants to hear “yes.” Management tends to be very insecure and afraid that someone else may be smarter or have a better idea then they do. Being a team player here means that you agree with those in charge.

“Form over substance” organizations. These companies put five senior people in a room for a month to prepare a one-hour presentation for the vice-president. The last week before the presentation is spent arguing over PowerPoint background colors.

“I should have been an English teacher” organizations. Most document and report reviews focus on grammar, font size, style and page-numbering formats. These points, though important, are very much secondary to discussions about content.

“I love huge teams” organizations. In these companies, huge teams are the key to accomplishing just about everything. These organizations feel that to make any decisions, you must have a team of 30 or more people and spend a year ensuring that everyone’s opinion is heard, debated, and included in the final solution. We all know what these decisions look like.

“Don’t turn your back” organizations. Organizational politics are a part of life in any company and are neither inherently good nor bad. In certain companies, though, every decision’s first analysis centers on “What’s in it for me?” and, if possible, “How can I stick it to you?”

“I used to be an engineer” organizations. In this kind of company, senior management not only wants to see the data, they want to see the raw numbers, too. There is no strategic direction or thinking. Everyone becomes as tactical as possible because fire fighting is much more fun. In the end, they use the highest-paid people to do the lowest level job.

“No one tells us anything” organizations. Communication is one of the biggest problems in any company. It is extremely difficult to find the right level and content of any communication. These organizations represent the opposite ends of the communications spectrum. In one extreme, they tell everyone everything. On the other hand, they never communicate. The end result is that no one understands what is important and valued in the company.

These problems can be overcome, and, like most things, it starts with recognizing the problem. It is very difficult to be honest about who we are (as a person or as a company), but it is absolutely necessary before any steps can be taken to remedy the situation. Many times, it takes an outside voice to identify and ultimately push to change these behaviors. It is extremely difficult to be objective about our own culture.

Addressing the problem is easy: stop doing what you are doing. Senior management must be the champions of change, which should be a leader’s key role. Company cultures evolve to fit a competitive or environmental need. Problems arise when competitive or environmental changes occur, and the organizational norms do not change to meet the new requirements. Management must constantly look forward and challenge the organization to ensure that the culture evolves to meet today’s requirements.

In her upcoming book, Fierce Leadership:  A Bold Alternative to the Worst “Best” Practices in Business Today, Susan Scott includes accountability among those worst “best” practices.  We frequently hear leaders and the public crying out for accountability these days.  Does it really belong among the worst business practices?  The answer is, as always, both “Yes” and “No.”

The problem is not with the concept of accountability, but rather with how we use the word.  Most of the time when you hear people mention accountability, they are talking about holding other people accountable, whether it’s the CEO of a failing company or a coworker.  What we all know about this, but don’t admit, is that “Who is accountable for this?” is just cover for our real question which is “Who can I blame?”  Blame has run rampant in our society and is rarely helpful in business.  Using the cover of accountability to place blame is definitely a Worst Practice.  Blame in the workplace only causes fear, and fear does not help people to make bold decisions and take the risks that are necessary for growth – of themselves or of the business.

So what is accountability good for?  Susan’s book isn’t out yet, so I haven’t read it.  Instead I’ll refer you to one that’s been out a while for the answer.  Max DePree first published Leadership as an Art twenty years ago (in 1989 for those of you that don’t like math).  In it, he talks about accountability, however he doesn’t use it as a code for blame.  Max sees accountability as something that we take for ourselves, not as something that we hold other people to.  In other words, I am accountable for my actions, no more and no less.  You cannot hold me accountable for other people’s actions or results.  You can’t even hold me accountable for my own actions.  Accountability is something that only we can choose for ourselves.  It’s like integrity.  You cannot force me to act with integrity.  I do it or I do not, as I choose.

Are you wondering, “How does that help me run my business?”  Actually, it’s a great help to your business.  You can tell when people have chosen accountability.  For one thing, they don’t look for others to blame.  When you find these people, you reward them with your trust.  That’s the critical equation:  accountability leads to trust.  When you discover people in your organization that have not chosen accountability, you manage them accordingly, including managing them out of your organization when that’s appropriate.

The next question is, “How do I get people to choose accountability?”  The answer, like all leadership skills, is “Demonstrate it.”  The starting point is always to demonstrate that you have chosen accountability for your actions.  This leads to them trusting you.  From there it is an easy step to helping them to choose accountability for themselves.   Imagine working in a place that is full of trust and lacks fear.  There’s no limit to what is possible in such an environment.

To summarize, here are today’s critical equations:

Accountability ≠ Blame (Accountability does not equal Blame)

Blame à Fear (Blame yields Fear)

Accountability à Trust (Accountability yields Trust)

Which will you choose?

Is a leader defined by a person’s title?  Is a professional required to have ten or fifteen years of experience with multiple promotions in order to be viewed as a leader?  Does a leader always have a higher rank?  The answer to these questions is not a simple yes or no.

In the beginning of my career, I always thought that status was more important than anything else.  I thought that I should only emulate those with seniority and tenure.  After all, I was raised to respect my managers and elders.  In my mind, there was no doubt that a manager was an ultimate leader who was always concerned about my best interest. 

As a sales professional for over eight years, I had the opportunity to interact with a number of colleagues, mentors, managers and corporate vice presidents.  I also attended workshops, seminars and networking events where I always hoped to find a new business lead or learn a new sales technique.  As a result of these experiences, I recognized the true definition of leadership: influencing others through one’s own actions and words, while being genuine, real, and having pride and passion.  A leader also possesses the ability to connect with his team, audience, colleagues and his managers.

Recognizing the characteristics of effective leadership was pivotal in my career.  It reinforced the knowledge that my perception was not reality.  It helped me understand that effective leadership is not only who you are, but also what you do.  The well-known question “he can talk the talk, but can he walk the walk?” is critical to being an effective leader.  Anyone can stand in front of a group and facilitate a leadership workshop.  However, perhaps most importantly, can that individual influence others through his daily actions and words? Whether he is able to do so defines whether he is able to provide effective leadership.

Another important characteristic of effective leadership in today’s workplace is not only identifying talent within an organization, but also keeping the talent engaged.  It is a mistake to assume that employees leave a company because of their position or what the company may or may not offer.  In fact, employees leave managers, not the company.  That is why it is so critical for managers to also be effective leaders. 

Retention is one of the biggest challenges for any business.  And, it is expensive to hire a new employee.  Besides investing in time and resources to search for an employee, a business has to provide training, relocation expenses, a hiring bonus, just to name a few.  Rather than terminating an employee, it’s important for managers to take a step back and explore the root of the problem that the employee is experiencing.  That connection and understanding is effective leadership.  

An effective leader can successfully hold on to employees by demonstrating the following: (1) Building trust by supporting employees at all times – good and bad; (2) Arriving to work before the employee’s start time; (3) Creating a fun working environment; (4) Always showing recognition through letters, plaques, contest; and (5) Recognizing the employee’s personal and professional goals.

Working in various sales positions for a number of years has taught me a great deal about people.  I have learned that the requirements of an effective leader are not only title, experience, or rank.  Effective leadership is also determined by consistently demonstrating positive behaviors, actions and decisions.  I have learned from effective leaders who were a combination of those younger, less experienced, newer to the company, previous managers, vice presidents and mentors.  Again, it is not who they were, their title or their rank, but rather what they did and how their behavior influenced my actions.

Being an effective leader is taking your experiences, learning from them and implementing a positive change.  Although as an entrepreneur and successful sales associate I consider myself a leader, I recognize that there is always room to improve. 

I believe that striving for excellence replaces perfection.  I am a leader because I practice integrity when I represent my company.  I am a leader because when I deal with colleagues I am considered an industry resource.  I am a leader because I have observed and learned by example.  I am a leader because I always strive to better myself and the people that surround me. That’s what effective leadership means to me.

For those of you too young to know it, there’s an old joke about a tourist asking someone on the streets of New York “How do I get to Carnegie Hall?”  The answer is “Practice.”  So maybe it’s not that funny, but it is the answer to virtually every question about learning to be good at something – and that includes leadership.  How do you get to be a good leader?  Practice.

Developing leadership skills presents a special challenge.  The opportunities to practice are not obvious.  You can’t stop in the middle of a discussion with an employee and say “Wait.  I think I can do that better.  Let me try it again.”  So you do your best.  That’s practice in the same way that medicine is called a practice – you try to learn from what you do. 

Learning from your practice – whether leadership or medicine – requires a number of things.  One is trying different things.  If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you always got.  Maybe you know someone who claims to have 10 years of experience, while you suspect that what they actually have is one year of experience that they’ve repeated 10 times.  Repetition alone does not make effective practice.

Another component to effective practice is feedback.  This comes in many forms.  If an employee leaves a performance discussion in tears, that’s feedback that you probably could have handled it better.  Most leadership feedback is not that obvious.  Perhaps you had a hard discussion with an employee in which you believe you clearly spelled out his need to change his behavior.  He agreed and you thought you both understood each other.  In the next few weeks you notice few, in any, changes in the behavior you talked about.  That’s feedback that you probably were not as effective as you had thought.  But it’s also feedback that you will only get if you look specifically for it.  It’s easy to overlook when things stay the way they have been. 

Both these feedback examples showed you where you need to improve, but neither of them give you any guidance on how to make that improvement.   I know I want to hit the golf ball straight, and countless hours on the driving range hitting my slice will not help.  I need someone knowledgeable to suggest ways to do it better.  In most businesses, this is the hardest part of practice – finding someone that can help you identify ways to do it better.

A coach is a great addition to any practice program.  This is just as true for golf as it is for leadership.  If you can find a coach within your organization, who can observe you in action and provide improvement suggestions, that’s great.  The other option is an outside coach.  This can be a formal, paid relationship, or it can be a less formal relationship with someone you may have worked with in the past, for example.  In any event, be sure your coach is someone that will give you honest feedback.  That’s the only way you can improve.

So you have to make opportunities to practice your leadership, with feedback and reflection for improvement.  A coach can be a critical addition to your development.  Remember, practice makes perfect, but bad practice just makes bad habits.  

Fear is at the heart of so many of the issues that plague most organizations.  It’s a trap that’s both real and imagined.  Many of us create our own web of fear that dictates our actions and many times hurts us.

Our current economy is a perfect example of how fear can control us, and makes rational companies and people behave irrationally.   Some people who have absolutely no change in their current income and job status are behaving like they are out of work.  Many companies that are doing well are also adopting behaviors and practices that would suggest they are about to go out of business.  Certainly it’s good to be prudent in tough times but don’t let fear put you in a downward spiral.

While fear invades almost all aspects of work, a good place to start to try to reduce fear would be right where you are.  In a perfect world it would be your boss’s responsibility to be the one working to reduce that fear but many times it just is not going to happen.  You need to take the first steps:

1.       Start with your own set of beliefs about your fears and challenge yourself about their reality.  Fight to be as honest with yourself as possible about how real these fears are.

2.       Ask others for help and feedback about the things that you fear.  Use their thoughts and advice to come up with next steps that you can take to reduce those fears.

3.       Plant small seeds to see if they will grow into things that can be discussed to reduce the anxiety in your work group. 

4.       Take small steps to reduce the fears and take it slow so your actions don’t create more uneasiness. 

5.       Figure out ways to take care of yourself to reduce exposure to the things you fear.  That might include recognizing that it’s time to leave and go somewhere else. 

In the end, it’s your relationship with your boss that has the greatest influence on your satisfaction with the job.  People who can work fearlessly are the ones that can lead the group or company forward in tough times.  Never forget that a little fear goes a long way and now is the time to do things that can drive that fear out for yourself and your coworkers.

In your business, are you a hero?  Do you want to be a hero?  Does your company appreciate, recognize and reward heroes?  If the answer to any of these questions is yes, you may be experiencing a lack of leadership.

Despite what many people think, the opposite of leader is not follower, it is hero.  A hero is an individual who steps in to save the day, when we find ourselves in a crisis situation.  A leader is someone who works through others to achieve a vision.  A hero may save many people, but it is through his or her individual effort.

One of the jobs of a good leader is to look ahead.  Only by looking ahead do you have the opportunity to spot a potential crisis before it becomes an actual crisis.  If you frequently find yourself, or members of your staff, solving crises you need to find out why.  Not in the middle of the crisis, but after it’s been heroically solved.  And one of the first questions you should ask is, “Could we have foreseen this?”  If the answer is “Yes”, the next question is “Having foreseen it, could we have prevented it?”  The answer won’t always be “Yes.”  There are sometimes things that you can see coming but still do nothing to prevent – like tornados.  However if the second answer is also “Yes” then you need to do some investigating into why it wasn’t prevented. 

There are a lot of reasons that crises happen.  Sometimes there are things that are outside of our control; sometimes it is actually easier to deal with the crisis than to prevent it.  And often it is more fun and more rewarding to deal with the crisis than to prevent it.  This is the one that you want to be on the lookout for. 

Everyone enjoys the thrill of saving the day, of being the hero.  Companies frequently reward that behavior, too.  This combination can easily lead to a culture that appreciates and creates heroes, rather than one that prevents crises.  While this can be fun and rewarding for the individuals, it is usually hard on the business overall.  Rarely is it cost effective to allow a situation to reach a crisis when you could have prevented the crisis. 

There will always be some things that cannot be foreseen or, when foreseen cannot be prevented.  And there will always be an opportunity for a hero to emerge in that situation and save the day.  The challenge is to ensure that your culture doesn’t favor heroes so strongly that there is an incentive for people to ignore the coming crisis while it is still avoidable, in favor of being able to solve the crisis when it is here.

So what do you and your company value?  Not in your words, but in your actions.  Does special recognition go more to heroes or to crisis preventers?  The preventers are harder to spot, and therefore harder to reward, but more important for the long term strength of your business.

That’s what good leadership is like.  If you do it really well all that your people remember is what a great job they did.  There may not even be one hero.  But you achieved your goals with the least amount of drama possible.  What more could a business want?

Too many people think that leadership is a switch that is either always on or always off.  The truth is that you have the power to turn the switch on and off when you want to.  All it takes is the “courage” and belief in yourself and your ideas.  No one leads all the time and people that think they can or should be leading all the time usually end up as unbearable to deal and rarely accomplish very much.

The first place to start is with a small moment of courage.   I am not talking about the courage that it takes to jump from an airplane for the first time, this can be a tiny moment when you choose to speak up, make a comment to a proposal or challenge something you know is the wrong thing to do.  Think about your past moments of courage and the success you have had.  Courage builds from having comfort in what you know and what you have achieved.

Always remember that you don’t have to be in charge to provide leadership.  Leadership can be a moment when your words or ideas change the path forward for your work team or a volunteer group you work with.  Clark Johnson, former CFO of Johnson & Johnson, said that if you knew the answer to a question or issue and failed to speak up than you made the biggest mistake in the room.  Remember, sometimes you can take a bigger risk by doing nothing.

Many of us have to deal constantly with our fears.  Fear of failure, fear of being embarrassed, fear of loss of job or position.  Courage is being willing to speak up in spite of your fears because you have something to contribute to the greater good.  Remember that every triumph and failure soon passes.  Successful people in any field have found their success not because they were always right, it’s because when they made mistakes, they learned from them and then keeping moving forward.  Courage is as simple as being “knocked down”, getting back up and taking one more step forward.

So the next time you find yourself thinking, “I don’t think that’s right for us.  Why isn’t anyone speaking up?” you have a leadership opportunity.  Gather your courage and be the person who speaks up.  Each time you do this it gets a little easier.  Eventually people will start to look to you for your contribution, and they will be looking at you as a leader. 

Have you ever heard someone say, “Great leaders are born, not made” and wondered if it’s true?  The answer is both yes and no.  The truly great leaders, such as Winston Churchill, have a rare combination of learned skills, inherent natural talent, and are in the right place at the right time – during circumstances that allow them to shine. 

Circumstances are somewhat out of your control.  New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani was regarded as a great leader after 9/11, but was not so well regarded prior to that unique moment in time.  The same is also true of Churchill; he demonstrated great leadership in the face of Hitler, but was somewhat less well thought of before or after the war.  You may find yourself in a circumstance where your leadership skills are really tested, and in these challenging times everyone can benefit from some good leadership skills, but you usually can’t take the credit (or the blame, fortunately) for creating these circumstances to suit your leadership.

So if you cannot control the circumstances, what about the other two – talent and skills?  Leadership is like an artistic endeavor.  To be truly great it takes a combination of talent and skill.  We know that every child that takes piano or ballet lessons may not grow up to be a performer, nor that every child that plays Pop Warner football will end up in the NFL.  The lessons and coaching that they receive will help them to develop the skills necessary for that career, and though some of those skills will be helpful to them in any undertaking, if they don’t also have some innate talent they will not make it to the next level.

The same analogy holds for leadership.  With good training and coaching you can develop skills that will enable you to achieve a certain level of proficiency.   Even if you don’t have the talent that can make you a business legend, you can still learn to be effective in your circumstances.  We can all learn to do the things that good leaders do, even if we do not have that magic touch of doing the unexpected, perfect, apparently-prescient thing at just exactly the right moment.  You can still do the smart, helpful, creative thing when it is needed.

The value of getting good training and coaching is clear.  Through that you can develop good leadership skills and become an effective leader, even if you might never be peers with Bill Gates or Jack Welch.  Since frequently great leadership shows best during times of great adversity, it might not even be something that you want.