Sorry. But leadership is not a popularity contest.

My partner and I were chatting with the President of a large advertising agency earlier this week.  This individual was bemoaning the fact that he couldn’t ‘get to the big stuff’ because his was too busy with the day-to-day.  That sort of comment started me on the ‘Why of the Why’ sequence of questions.

Quick digression, I stole the ‘Why of the Why” information and insight gathering technique (keep asking “why’ and you will find that you get to a point that is a clear and logical jumping off point) from one of my favourite creative directors Joe.  Joe is not scared to ask the difficult questions that will lead to work that makes a difference.  He displays some great leadership traits: passionate, holds people to account and, perhaps most importantly, he is decisive.

Back to our conversation with the President.  It soon became clear that the real issue was that he could not deal with the fact that he would have to make some difficult decisions.  Decisions that would be unpopular and would have a human impact.  The ironic thing is that by trying to maintain his short-term popularity he was undermining his long-term credibility as a leader.

At the end of the day, when you accept the mantle of leadership (at work, as a volunteer, at school, or on a team, etc.) you must also accept the fact that you will have to make some decisions that will be unpopular.   As they say ‘it is lonely at the top’.

Creating a culture of decisiveness, from the President down, is essential to team, task and individual fulfillment.  And, for the leaders, the periods of unpopularity will be shorter in duration for all concerned.

Joe is also not always the most popular creative director, but he has done some great work.  And, the thing that I love most, is that the best people want to work on projects that he leads.  No surprises there.

Bad apples cost twice as much

Last week, in preparation for the upcoming Canada Day celebrations on 1st July, I bought a bag of apples to make one of my celebrated ("legend in my own mind") apple pies.  As I was putting them away I noticed there was a bruised one.  Shrugging, I reckoned that the pie would be long baked before the apple went rotten, so I did nothing about it.

In many organizations, from for profit to not-for-profit to volunteer, there is often an individual who is a bad apple.  The trouble with a bad apple in your organization is that they have the potential to negatively impact the organization in two key areas: the people as a whole and implementing strategic plans.  

For your talent (like the rest of the apples in my bag) the bad apple is festering away slowing spreading discontent and negativity.  In terms of strategic plans (my apple pie) the bad apple is undermining them by possibly forcing compromise or subverting the passion and skills of those engaged in the endeavour.  

Dealing with bad apples is never easy; often our default choice is not to deal with them at all.  Which is an odd leadership decision as we know intuitively that not dealing with them, through remediation (preferable) or letting them go (worst case), tends to end up costing us more emotionally and/or financially.

But back to my bag of apples.  By the time I got around to making my pie I discovered that now half of the apples were bad.  Cursing my laziness for not having dealt with that bad apple when I first noticed it (maybe saving the good bits and snacking on them or, if it had been past salvation, composting the whole thing).  At least then I would have only had to deal with the short-term pain of getting a single replacement apple.

But, with the shops closed for the holiday and no time left, I now had two problems.  One, not enough good apples to make a pie.  And two, I had no dessert for the family feast.

On telling my partner, her first question was: "Why didn't you deal with the bad apple in the first place?"

Team leadership: losing builds character

Last weekend was spent on the touchline assisting Coach Mario with my daughter's rep soccer team.
On Saturday we won two games.  Our final game was against a team that had won one and lost one.  Barring a disaster we were guaranteed a spot in the finals.

Well the disaster very nearly occurred.  We were taken to the cleaners 5 - 0 by a team that was not as skillful but were more motivated than us.  We barely kept our spot in the final.  The warm down was muted, from the keeper to the strikers the team knew that individually and collectively they had checked out before the game and so had paid the price.

They had let themselves, their teammates, their coaches, their club and their supporters down on many levels.  Coach Mario knew ranting was neither going to solve anything nor teach anything.  So he left them to their own thoughts.

The team we would be playing in the final?  The one that just beat us 5 nil.

The warm up before the final on Sunday was a subdued affair to say the least.  Before the start of the game Coach Mario got the team together and simple said, "Winning builds confidence.  Loosing builds character.  Put yesterday's game behind you and play our game today."


And, just like any team that is motivated, trained, disciplined and led in a firm but fair way, they did. 


I would like to write that we went on to win; but we didn't. We lost 1 nil. However, it was a loss that I am proud to have been a part of because of what the girls won in terms of individual pride, esprit d'corps, confidence and self-worth.

Coach Mario had the wisdom and experience to know that a rant on Saturday (or Sunday pre-game) was not the way to lead the team.  He demonstrated his belief in them by simply focusing them on their strengths.

For me the lesson is that as a leader you never stop learning now to be a better leader and that sometimes the best way for your team to learn is to let them find their own way out of a mess.

Of course not winning the cup still bites!  Next time.

Leadership; lead and/or follow but always leading

Every year I lead a volunteer team that acts as mission control at a competition for the Olympic sport of equestrian three-day eventing (think of triathlon with three different disciplines (dressage, cross county and show jumping) over three days).  The cross country phase, as the name implies, involves the horse/rider combination traveling at a speed of about 500 meters per minute and jumping over obstacles such as (large) fallen trees.  When accidents happen, and they do, the injuries can be significant and require fast, immediate and coordinated response from over 100 volunteers.

These volunteers are a mixed bag: young and old, horsey or not horsey, groupies or just friends of the organization, and, in life, some are leaders and some are followers.  All of them share one thing in common, and that is the desire to to willingly place themselves in a situation well outside their normal frame of reference of authority and decision-making - where their immediate actions can have long-term implications from a horse or rider injury perspective.

My job, sitting in tent listening to/directing on five different radio channels, is to give these volunteers the confidence in the system and belief in themselves to make the right decision when something dramatic, potentially life threatening, happens in the middle of the woods.

So why do these people willing place their trust in the leadership that is effectively a random voice on the end of the radio?  I think it is four things:

• They are empowered (I have made it clear that I will support their decision without question as they are the ones on the ground dealing with the facts)
• They know that they are not alone (I have taken the time to ensure that they have been given a broad understanding of the entire safety plan (commander's intent if you like))
• They are made to feel valuable (recognized, often in small ways (by the riders, on the PA, in the programme, beer and pizza at the end of day, by the international officials, etc.), for their contribution)
• The know that if they need assets their request will be met with response that has a sense of control, urgency and decisiveness (when I do have to deploy doctors, vets and heavy equipment everyone knows what they have to do and how they going to do it)

Not rocket science I suppose.  But good leaders must know when to lead and when to support.  To do neither, or over do just one, means that your people will neither have the confidence to step up when you need them nor the belief that you will support their actions when they do.