What are the Pitfalls that Plague Bosses?

Since launching my executive coaching practice ten years ago, I’ve had the good fortune of personally providing leadership assessments and coaching to over 1000 executives in companies ranging from startups to Fortune 15 global powerhouses. These leaders and their direct reports have shared many tales of bosses, both good and bad. When bosses and team leaders operate in ways that are less than inspiring, there are six common problem profiles that emerge. Sometimes a bad boss will operate in one or more of these categories simultaneously. The problem profiles are as follows:

The Tyrant – Rough on people, overly directive, alienates others, cares little about the feelings of people. While he’s technically competent and smart, he pushes people away. He rules by fear.

The “I Don’t Have a Clue” boss – Talks a good game, particularly to those higher in the organization, but clearly in over his head. Provides little clarity and insight. He is fearful. Likely to go overboard on delegation. He’s likely disengaged. Will blame others when problems arise.

The Narcissist – This boss is brilliant, a visionary, yet is motivated solely by his own needs. Seeks credit and desires to look good. People are a tool to achieve his goals. Demonstrates a low level of self-awareness and social awareness. Shows little care toward others. People are pawns.

The Hub-and-Spoke boss – This boss exhorts the importance of teamwork, but controls all the information and makes the key decisions. He manages interactions on a one-off basis. Team meetings are superficial, as he does his dealing in one-on-one meetings with team members. He blindsides others as information isn’t transparent. He’s always got an agenda.

The “Feel Good” boss – Provides positive feedback, perhaps overly positive, but doesn’t engender confidence. Conflict averse. Sees the world with rose-colored glasses. May give recognition and rewards, but followers are never sure they are on solid ground with the “feel good” boss. Doesn’t spot performance problems. Will throw others under the bus to save his skin.

The Micro-Manager boss – Speaks about accountability and results. Manages down. Is technically competent, but not a strategist or change agent. Often uses a pacesetting and directive style. Misses the big picture. Looks over the shoulder of his people. Doesn’t help people grow and develop.

Unfortunately, these six problem profiles are too prevalent. Each profile results in the disengagement of others and ultimately hurts working climate and results.

The reality is that good bosses matter – a lot! Many studies show that for more than 75 percent of employees, dealing with their immediate boss is the most stressful part of the job. Especially for those at the top, bosses matter as their followers closely watch, magnify and often adopt their approaches. So to get top performance, bosses need to operate in ways that inspire. And bosses, your followers need to know you’ve got their backs. The six problem profiles. These profiles aren’t part of your repertoire – are they?

Why You Need To Be Like Lady Gaga

Every one of us, whether we’re the CEO or an entry level employee, whether we operate our own business or work for an employer, needs a well-defined personal brand. Our personal brand is about bringing our authentic self to work and doing our very best. It’s adopting a personal service provider mindset. And it’s not just for Lady Gaga, Madonna, Shaun White, Kanye West or other celebrities.

There are three reasons for defining our personal brands:

1. To get better results;
2. To distinguish ourselves from the average performers;
3. To give us juice and inspiration;

Here are several ideas for defining your personal brand.

Here’s the reality. In today’s competitive world, if you don’t have a well-defined personal brand, you are a commodity. And being a commodity is not a fun place to be. Do you want to be a rock? Or do you want to be a rock star?

You can’t afford to not have a well-defined personal brand. What next steps can you take to better define and communicate your personal brand?

What Makes a Great Team Member?

I’ve learned from clients the best team members share common characteristics in both the “skill” and the “will” areas.

A common mistake leaders make when hiring is overemphasizing the need for skill and skill alone. For example, how often have we heard a comment that goes something like this, “Larry is a great engineer and has outstanding technical skills and, therefore, he’ll be a great addition to the team.” The reality is that if we don’t have a good assessment of Larry’s “will” characteristics, in spite of his strong technical skills, he may actually be a liability to the team.

When assessing the “skill” side of the equation, we look for: 1. Technical competence; 2. Results-orientation; 3. Resilience and 4. Emotional intelligence (self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management skills). And the good news: each of these characteristics can be learned.

The “will” characteristics that make a great team member are trickier to learn. Much of the will characteristics are truly about attitude, and attitude carries the day in team performance. In fact, some say that attitude is everything.

The will characteristics that make an outstanding team member include the use of positive leadership and communication styles. In other words, being able to adapt their approach in a given situation to get on the same frequency as others to accomplish work. Will is also being supportive of others. This is demonstrated by genuinely encouraging others and seeking to build strong, trusting relationships. Finally, high-performing team members recognize that on-going feedback is a key ingredient in the success of individuals and teams. As Ken Blanchard, author of the One Minute Manager series has said, “Feedback is the breakfast of champions.” Outstanding team members seek feedback and share feedback, recognizing they cannot improve if they don’t receive it, both individually and collectively as a team.

Think for a moment about each of the members of your team at work. Do they consistently demonstrate all of the characteristics in both the “Skill” and “Will” buckets? If not, the performance of your team and the motivation of other team members is most likely not what it could be.

What Sunk the CEO’s Ship?

A recent Wall Street Journal article profiled former Chief Executive Officer of BP, Tony Hayward, as a recent casualty for failing to meet modern CEO demands.

A number of Hayward’s gaffes following the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion and ensuing disastrous oil gusher sealed his deal. Saying he wanted his “life back”, failing to cooperate when he appeared before legislators on Capitol Hill and attending a yacht race in England, while the gusher gushed and the oil slick spread across the Gulf of Mexico, showed a tone deafness, a lack of self-awareness and empathy, that is simply unacceptable for corporate executives.

Unfortunately for Hayward, his actions created such disdain for him in the US, BP’s largest market and source of the majority of its profits, and left him unable to effectively lead his company. By showing little empathy to the victims of the largest environmental disaster this country has ever seen, he received little empathy and became the object of scorn. Bottom line, Hayward demonstrated poor emotional intelligence. Unfortunately, Hayward is not alone in the emotional intelligence void department. The recent departures of senior leaders Stanley McChrystal and Mark Hurd from their posts also have their roots in appalling examples of emotional intelligence deficits.

The four key skills of emotional intelligence: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management, can be assessed, learned and improved upon by anyone who is willing to improve, at any point in life. Increasingly, emotional intelligence is required for not only executive success but for success in life. And it’s not just executives who need emotional intelligence.

I’ll share more about the importance of and how to build emotional intelligence this Friday, August 13 on NBC Milwaukee’s WTMJ4, The Morning Blend, with co-hosts Tiffany Ogle and Molly Fay, at 9 am. If you can’t catch us live, I’ll have the video clip on www.theboltongroup.com on Monday, August 16.

Message to Men

The article in the latest edition of Atlantic shared recent alarming figures and trends in the US which confirms an unfortunate situation that we have been witnessing bits and pieces of for some time. Now, the dots are connected and we can see the magnitude of a very disturbing problem. The reality: men are falling behind women in educational achievement, basic employment and career advancement and income.

The sad reality is that too many American men are failing to continue their education, failing to earn and, most importantly, failing to adapt their skills as the economy shifts, thus preventing themselves from recovering from this downward spiral.

Over 75% of the 3 million jobs lost in the Great Recession were lost by men. The industries most severely affected were heavily male-dominated industries: construction, manufacturing and finance. Increasingly, strength and stamina are counting for less and less importance in the post-industrial economy. Emotional and social intelligence are what’s important in today’s human capital-oriented, knowledge-based economy. And unfortunately, men are failing to learn and demonstrate emotional and social intelligence.

Today’s economy calls for high levels of self-awareness, self-management, empathy, relationship skills, understanding of communication styles, adaptability and resilience. The good news: these skills can be learned. The bad news: too few men are learning and applying these skills – and that is hurting them from a career and life standpoint.

I recently shared ideas for Making Your Star Rise at Work on NBC-Milwaukee’s WTMJ4, The Morning Blend with Tiffany Ogle and Molly Fay. We discussed ideas for building your emotional intelligence and understanding and applying the four primary communication styles.

A number of the findings as shared in the Atlantic article are:

• Thinking and communicating have come to eclipse physical strength and stamina as the keys to economic success. Those societies that take advantage of the talents of all their adults, not just half of them, have pulled away from the rest.
• Earlier this year, for the first time in US history, the balance of the workforce tipped toward women, who now hold a majority of the nation’s jobs.
• Women dominate today’s colleges and professional schools – for every 2 men who will receive a Bachelor of Arts degree, 3 women will do the same. Of the 15 job categories projected to grow the most in the next decade in the US, all but two are occupied primarily by women. Only janitor and computer engineer. Women have everything else – nursing, home health assistance, child care, food preparation. Many of the jobs replace what women used to do for free. Men seem unable to adapt.
• The US economy is becoming a kind of traveling sisterhood: upper-class women leave home and enter the workforce, creating domestic jobs for other women to fill.
• The post-industrial economy is indifferent to men’s size and strength. The attributes that are most valuable today—social intelligence, open communication, the ability to sit still and focus are at a minimum, not predominantly male.
• Women see guys as the new ball and chain.
• The role reversal underway between American men and women shows up most obviously and painfully in the working class. Male support groups spring up where the postindustrial economy has turned traditional family roles upside down.
• In 1950, 1 in 20 men of prime working age were not working; today it’s 1 in 5 – the highest ever recorded.
• The list of growing jobs is heavy on nurturing professions. Men are not proved able to adapt.
• Women dominating middle management. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says women hold 51% of managerial and professional jobs up from 26% in 1980. Make up 54% of accountants. 33% of physicians are women. 45% of associates in law firms and these are both rising.
• A white collar economy values raw intellectual horsepower, which men and women have in equal amounts. It also requires communication skills and social intelligence, areas in which women, have a slight edge. Perhaps most important – for better or worse – it increasingly requires formal education credentials which women are more prone to acquire, particularly early in adulthood.
• Women now earn 60% of master’s degrees, 50% of law and medical degrees and 42% of MBAs. Women earn almost 60% of all bachelors’ degrees.
• Women aged 25 to 34 with only a high-school diploma currently have a median income of $25.5, while men in the same position earn $32.5, but it only makes sense up to a point. Well-paid lifetime union job has been disappearing or at least 30 years.
• “The economy isn’t as friendly to men as it once was”.
• Basic expectations of men and women have shifted.
• Colleges have been opening up a new frontier in affirmative action, with boys playing the underprivileged applicants needing an extra boosts. Being male increases the chance of acceptance by 6.5 to 9%.
• Gender balance is the elephant in the room.
• It’s clear that schools, like the economy, now value the self-control, focus and verbal aptitude that seem to come more easily to young girls.
• Typically, women’s income has been the main factor in determining whether a family moves up the class ladder or stays stagnant. Increasing numbers of women –unable to find men with a similar income and education – not forgoing marriage altogether. In 1970, 84% of women ages 30 to 44 were married; now 60% are.

The bottom-line: Young men need to be encouraged to value education and need to take responsibility for their education. And, equally important, men need to value and grow their emotional intelligence and communication skills if they are to have a chance to be relevant in today’s economy. And the good news is that emotional intelligence can be developed throughout our lives. Message to men: now is the time to build these new skills to be successful in today’s world.

Why Did The CEO Flinch?

When an outsider is named the Chief Executive Officer of a Fortune 500 corporation, the eyes and ears of employees, customers, shareholders, suppliers, board members, industry followers and other stakeholders are hyper-focused. Everyone is anxious to learn more about this person and their character. Verbal statements and non-verbal cues are paid attention to and interpreted. Both the new CEO’s words and actions receive careful attention as all the stakeholders assess if the “walk” matches the “talk”.

Imagine if you were hired as the new CEO of a publicly-traded medical device company that has deep regulatory, product, financial and legal woes. Central to your problems has been the integration of a company acquired by your firm four years ago. This acquisition has been heralded by many as one of the worst acquisitions in corporate history. The acquisition cost your company more than $27 billion, continues to cost $300 million in annual interest costs and has torpedoed the market capitalization of your company. Today, your company’s market cap is under $11 billion — $16 billion less than what was paid for the standalone acquisition four short years ago. In fairness to you, these problems and headaches were inherited and not the result of your decisions. However, as the new CEO, they are now your problems. You are now accountable and own these problems.

As the new CEO, at some point in year 1 you’ll be on center stage at the annual shareholder meeting. Annual shareholder meetings are typically highly-structured, highly-scripted affairs with tight agendas that are both short and relatively uneventful. But given the state of affairs at your company, this annual meeting might be more challenging. There will probably be attendees who throw some tough questions your way. You could be put on the spot. It could be uncomfortable for you. You will probably be asked to discuss matters you’d rather not address. And you know the print media will be there, too. But as uncomfortable as it might be, as the new CEO it’s critical for you to be visible, transparent and to demonstrate your personal leadership and accountability.

Unfortunately, Boston Scientific failed to allow the media to attend the company’s annual shareholder meeting on May 11. New CEO Ray Elliott flinched by closing the meeting. This is an unheard of action for large publicly-traded companies. Even companies in proxy fights (such as Biogen IDEC and Carl Icahn in 2009) allow the media to attend the annual shareholders meeting. And when asked why the meeting was closed to the media, the chief spokesperson for the company failed to respond to the request. So we can now only speculate why Boston Scientific closed the meeting.

What’s the result of not opening up the annual meeting to the media? More negative perceptions. Fear that Elliott is hiding problems. More mistrust. More fuel to the fire. As if more fuel is needed after the negative spiral in the price of the company’s stock, its continued losses, FDA problems, the $1.7 billion payment for patent infringement to competitor Johnson and Johnson, etc, etc.

Today’s CEOs need to be visible and be seen as trustworthy by their shareholders and other key stakeholders. And trust can’t be created without transparency. So by failing to allow the media to attend the event, Elliott created more skepticism toward Boston Scientific, at a time when shareholders desperately need some reassurance the truck is out of the ditch (or at least will soon be out of the ditch). Furthermore, he role-modeled to other leaders and employees within the company that it’s OK to not be transparent – not the best lesson to teach in a firm beset by FDA and legal problems.

Bill George, retired Chief Executive Officer of Medtronic, a competitor of Boston Scientific, is at the top of the list of high performing CEOs in the medtech, healthcare and life sciences segments. During his tenure as CEO of Medtronic, the company grew on average 35% a year, increasing their market capitalization from $1 billion to $60 billion. And Medtronic is consistently recognized as a premier company for developing leaders, a best company to work for, most admired and many other similar honors. George put Medtronic on a sustainable path. George is now a professor at Harvard Business School and a best-selling author. In his most recent book, 7 Lessons for Leading in Crisis, George offers straight talk and clear guidance – lessons Boston Scientific could benefit from learning.

One of the steps for winning George shares is “Creating Your Company’s Image as the Industry Leader.” That’s a step that should be followed by Elliott: to re-create Boston Scientific’s image as an industry leader. Becoming an industry leader means putting Boston Scientific on a path of predictable performance and being seen as trustworthy by its stakeholders. Of course, this starts with Elliott’s personal leadership and a willingness to be candid and transparent with his stakeholders. Last week’s actions didn’t demonstrate personal leadership, candor or transparency, in my view.

In closing, I’m reminded of a quote from former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis. Brandeis said, “Sunshine is the best disinfectant.” That quote is over 80 years old. It still seems relevant today – especially for the CEOs of publicly-traded companies. Let the sun shine, Ray!

How Is Your Team Performing?

On a scale of 1 – 10, how do you rate your team’s performance?

And how should it be performing?

As the leader of a business, you depend on others to make things happen. You depend on a top team to help run the show and get things done. You need a winning team.

If your business is like most, there’s a hole in your top team. Performance is leaking out. The top team fails to reach its potential. Do you know why? Do you know where the leak is occurring?

When these questions are asked of both the team leader and their direct reports, both see an enormous gap in top team performance. When asked “How effective is our top leadership team today on a scale of 1-10, and how effective should it be?” on average, team leaders responded 6.2 and 9.6 respectively. Their direct reports responded 5.9 and 9.4 respectively.

For teams to perform to their potential, they need to get results and they need to demonstrate the right behaviors so the results can be sustained. Where does your team rate today?

What’s required to stop the performance leaks so your team gets aligned and wins in the market?

How To Work With Anyone

Have you ever wondered how to get along with that person with the difficult personality? Have you wondered why others think the way they do? Solve problems the way they do? See the world, express their feelings and interact with others the way they do? Have you ever wondered the key to more effectively understanding and working with others who see the world differently? Have you ever hoped for a better understanding of and more effective working relationships with your clients or within your department or company?

With the vast majority of what we do and say controlled by personality, self-awareness is the hands-down differentiator in explaining why some are more successful than others. Plato confirmed the importance of self-awareness in 400 BC when he stated, “Know thyself.” When we’re self-aware, we know our strengths and blind spots, and we flex our own communication style to get on the same page as others who may have different communication tendencies. In short, self-awareness breeds success. So how do we increase our self-awareness, social awareness and learn to work with anyone?

Proception2 is an on-line, DISC-based profiling system that provides insights into the key dimensions of behaviors we demonstrate in our work environment. Being self-aware of our tendencies allows us to engage our talents and strengths, avoid the pitfalls of our behavioral and communication types, work more effectively with others and build stronger relationships. Proception2 is particularly effective in a business setting as the feedback reports are written in clear business language, examples are shared in a business context and over 2,100 unique report iterations are possible.

The Proception2 questionnaire is self-administered, takes approximately 15-20 minutes to complete and generates a 12-15 page personalized report. The feedback report identifies how we prefer to function, how we adjust our primary behaviors to the work environment, our behavioral strengths and development areas, our preferred work environment, our motivators and communication builders and barriers.

Proception2 is widely-used for self-development, leadership development, selection and interviewing, team alignment, conflict resolution and coaching/career development. If you are interested in creating greater self-awareness, growing professionally and improving your ability to interact and connect with others, the insights from Proception2 will be invaluable.

Chuck Bolton is interviewed by NBC’s KARE11 Sunrise co-anchor Kim Insley on How To Work With Anyone. In this interview, Chuck discusses the four communication styles and the Proception2 tool. To view this interview, click here.

Are You The Rotting Fish?

Everyone knows that a leader’s first job is to define reality. Yet, the direct reports of many leaders will tell you there are often undiscussables, tough issues, that are taboo to discuss in the presence of the leader. These undiscussables are what I refer to as rotting fish. Everyone knows the rotting fish lurks, but it’s not being addressed for fear of upsetting the leader.

What happens to a rotting fish when it isn’t addressed quickly? It gets stinkier and nastier. What happens when we don’t address the toughest issues at work? They rarely get better by delaying or ignoring them.

If you are a leader, are there rotting fish hanging around? What do you do if you sense a rotting fish in your presence? The leader has to be the one to come clean on rotting fish and ask the question at meetings, particularly at the end of the meetings, “Are there any rotting fish we’re not discussing? What are we missing?” Raising the rotting fish often requires us to check our “gut” to sense something that feels wrong or amiss.

When someone on your team has the courage to raise a rotting fish, don’t blame. Discuss the issue with the individual and the team. What do we know as fact? What are we assuming about the matter? Have candid, open dialogue as necessary. Talk straight. Deal with the problem. Recognize that ignoring the rotting fish makes people cynical and disengaged. Raising and discussing the rotting fish is your only course if you seek to build a motivated, high-performing team.

If you don’t raise the rotting fish, guess what? You are the rotting fish.

What Every Leader Must Do to Drive Greater Performance

A few months ago, John, a General Manger of a division of a large company hired me to be his executive coach. John was concerned that his career had plateaued. He worried he was being seen at corporate as a “Steady Eddie” and had fallen from the fast track. Concerned that he was being seen as a B player, he wished to accelerate the performance for himself and his team. John needed a fresh set of eyes to look for the opportunity.

I sought feedback on how John was viewed by his direct reports and his direct manager. His manager saw him as capable, but less effective at rallying and focusing his team to discover new markets and new products that would significantly lift the performance of his business. The feedback from his direct reports was more telling. When John and I reviewed the feedback from his direct reports, he was not surprised to learn their greatest concern about him: a lack of feedback from John on their individual performance as executives. During the four years John had been in his role, his direct reports bemoaned the fact they received little positive or corrective acknowledgement from him, other than the mandatory year end performance appraisal which usually consisted of a “vanilla” overview of the year’s performance. Nothing telling or insightful.

When asked about this perception of a feedback void, John acknowledged that he “wasn’t much of a feedback giver”. He went on to say that he didn’t personally care to receive or give feedback. He shared a story about earlier in his career when a hyper-critical boss dogged him endlessly with complaints, causing John to dread his job and interactions with his manager. He told me that he vowed never to create that type of negative situation with his direct reports; thus, he swore off what he saw as micro-managing his staff and didn’t provide much of any kind of feedback, except when absolutely necessary, such as at the year-end review.

It’s easy to understand how an overly critical boss can cause a toxic working climate. I shared with John that he wasn’t the only leader who didn’t like to give or get feedback. We discussed some recent research that showed nearly 2/3rds of employees felt they hear too little feedback and have too little interaction with their direct manager. The same study showed that 65% of the respondents felt they received too little positive feedback from their boss and 51% said they received too little constructive feedback. We also discussed that nearly everyone views the annual performance appraisal as being a broken process for delivering and receiving feedback and John acknowledged that was his experience, also. And we discussed the uncertainty that can result when manager and employee aren’t on the same page.

John came to the realization that his belief about feedback, perpetuated by the ghost of his overly critical boss, might be one he needed to let go of. The reality was that John’s people were asking him to be a leader who both connected with them and who challenged them to be their best. To help them be their best, they required frequent feedback to know they were aligned with John and how he viewed their efforts and performance. This was an “ah ha” moment.

It was time to introduce the Ladder of Feedback.

First, when we provide feedback to others, it’s useful to use a guideline of four positive remarks to one constructive comment. The 4:1 ratio has been proven to be effective in ensuring a positive connection is maintained between leader and direct report and that the quantity of constructive feedback comments doesn’t outweigh the positive. It’s positive eyes vs negative eyes. Catching people doing things right and making the feedback process one of recognition and mutual learning vs a punishing experience.

Secondly, the Ladder of Feedback provides a model of providing feedback that allows for important information to be exchanged on a progressive basis, from easiest to deliver (less critical) to more challenging to deliver (most critical).

When climbing a ladder, the easiest step is the first step. The first feedback step is to simply say, “Thanks!” for a job well done. A simple sincere and genuine thanks.

The second step on the Ladder of Feedback is asking as simple question, “What’s your view?” Following the sales call, “What’s your view on how things went? What went well, what could have gone better from your perspective?”

The third step is feedforward. Feedforward is simply a suggestion for the future and can be, “In the future, when you make that presentation, consider cutting the slides in half and doubling the time for interaction with the audience.”

The fourth step is “May I tell you what I saw?” I ask for permission. “Is it convenient now or after lunch?” “When you started discussing features and benefits, I believe it was too early. The discussion with the client on his needs and concerns wasn’t complete. There was more he had to say.”

The final step is step five. There’s one issue, observation, behavior that is getting in your way of optimal performance. Here’s an example, “Mary, if you were to ask your team at the end of each meeting if we’ve discussed all the critical issues – left no undiscussables out there — that would help build commitment and engagement.”

Equipped with his new framework for delivering feedback, John was motivated to commit to a new way of engaging and raising the performance of his direct reports. He saw how he could make real-time feedback part of his repertoire as a leader and see the alignment and performance gains. A better way to both connect and challenge his team. The Ladder of Feedback should be in every successful leader’s portfolio of skills.