5 Top Leadership Articles for the Week of October 10, 2016

5 Top Leadership Articles for the Wee... 5 Top Leadership Articles for the Wee...

5 Top Leadership Articles for the Week of October 10, 2016

Each week I read a number of leadership articles from various online resources and share them across social media. Here are the five articles readers found most valuable last week. I have added my comment about each article and would like to hear what you think, too.

Why You Over-Manage, Under-Manage, and Sometimes Do Both by Jesse Lyn Stoner

Let’s face it, when you delegate, the buck still stops with you. You’re still accountable for any screw-ups. When the stakes are high, no wonder you think you need to be front and center, to direct things and over-manage.

Even when the stakes aren’t high, sometimes it’s just easier to do it yourself than take the time to explain it, especially when it’s difficult for them to understand what you want.

And to be honest, it can be more fun and interesting to roll up your sleeves and run the show than to deal with strategy, capacity building, and other big picture issues where it’s not so easy to see the results of your efforts.

But watching everyone so closely can wear you out. It’s simply not possible to consistently be involved in everything that’s happening. There are other demands on your time, and there aren’t enough hours in the day. There are times they simply have do their jobs without you.

So you back off. But inevitably something goes wrong. And you are forced to step back in. You are trapped on a see-saw. You over-manage, under-manage, and sometimes do both. The problem is… you’re driving your team nuts…

My Comment: One of the tougher lessons I ever learned as a manager is that my time was best spent doing the things only I could do. That’s where you wan to put your time, but it takes trust and time to help your team grow to where they can take care of their responsibilities and you’re able to support them, rather than over or under-managing, as Stoner describes.

Leadership and Behavior: Mastering the Mechanics of Reason and Emotion by Julia Sperling & David Schwartz of McKinsey, Interviewing Eric Maskin

The confluence of economics, psychology, game theory, and neuroscience has opened new vistas—not just on how people think and behave, but also on how organizations function. Over the past two decades, academic insight and real-world experience have demonstrated, beyond much doubt, that when companies channel their competitive and collaborative instincts, embrace diversity, and recognize the needs and emotions of their employees, they can reap dividends in performance.

My Comment: In Winning Well we discuss how effective leaders focus on both results and relationships in all they do. If you’ve ever tried to make a leadership decision purely on logic or only by emotion, you’ve probably experienced challenges – these decisions usually aren’t very popular and don’t have buy-in. This interview takes an in-depth look at the role your emotions play in your rational decision-making. In short, humans use both reason and emotion – more than simultaneously…they aren’t two parallel tracks, but, in fact, are intertwined. You need both to lead effectively.

13 Ways Leaders Can Build a Coaching Culture at Work by Forbes Coaches Council

Building a coaching culture in the workplace better positions companies to grow and nurture talent. But what exactly is a “coaching culture,” and how can leaders make this part of their everyday environment?

A coaching culture simply means supporting your employees so that they learn new skills and become greater assets to the company. A management culture that emphasizes training, regular feedback, and opportunities for growth creates a more engaged and energized workforce.

My Comment: In my work with thousands of leaders across industries, one of the most misunderstood (and often non-existent) skills I’ve seen is the ability to coach employees. I’ve seen managers consistently do one of the following:

Get frustrated and say things like “why can’t they just do their jobs!?” or
Jump in with solutions (and the employee doesn’t learn anything)
Tell employees “Don’t bring me a problem without a solution!” (Which is fine if the employee knows how to develop a solution – but if they don’t, coaching is the in-between step.)

Creating a culture of support and coaching is critical to your team’s success. The thirteen steps in this article will help you get there.

The Culture of Silence Around Mental Health In the Workplace Must End by Ann Robinson

The mental health of the UK workforce is in a grim state, according to a major new survey. More than three quarters of the 20,000 workers aged 16- to 64 who took part said they had experienced symptoms of poor mental health, and nearly two thirds of those with mental health problems felt work was a factor.

The study (pdf), published on 4 October by charity Business In The Community (BITC), in partnership with YouGov, also found a shocking lack of employer awareness and responsiveness. More than half of the employees who disclosed their symptoms of poor mental health said their employers took no action. A minority of managers (22%) surveyed said that they’d had training in spotting and supporting employees who are struggling, and most managers (63%) said they felt obliged to put the interests of their organisation above the wellbeing of team members.

But that is obviously a false dichotomy. You don’t need to be a business guru to see that maintaining physical and mental wellbeing in the workforce is an essential prerequisite to growing a healthy and sustainable business.

My Comment: While this article specifically discusses circumstances in the United Kingdom, the issues Robinson describes are also quite common in the United States and beyond.

The culture of silence around mental health in the workplace is symptomatic of a larger cultural problem. Despite one in four people experiencing mental health challenges, stigma persists and people who suffer from depression (or worse) are often scared to be honest about their experience. While it’s also true that not every job is appropriate for every person, I hope to see the day where mental health is treated similarly to pancreatic health or bone health or any other kind of health. In short, where we talk about health. Period.

Enough Ethics by Seth Godin

Most companies seek to be more profitable.

They seek to increase their Key Performance Indicators. More referrals, more satisfaction, more loyalty. They seek to increase their market share, their dividends, their stock price.

But ethics?

In fact, most companies strive to be just ethical enough…

My Comment: Godin asks a provocative question: What if being more ethical was the most important key performance indicator?

Think about it for a moment…did you immediately wonder if it’s possible to be profitable or have the impact you want to have while also having the utmost ethical standards? Too often, we see these as tradeoffs. They aren’t. But they are opportunities to think creatively, to market differently, and make the world a better place. Are you up for that? (I sure hope so!)

Disclosure: My daughter, Averie, has started a clothing company founded on the premise that clothes can be ethically sourced at every step in the supply chain. So I might be a bit biased on this one… For more about her company, check out: http://casaflordesigns.com/

Joint with David contact