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Chapter 13

The fourth and last role of leadership is called: Empowering.

So the title of this chapter 13 is: The empowering voice, releasing passion and talent.

Harold s. Deneen, former chairman of ITT, put it this way: The best way to inspire people to a superior performance is to convince them by everything you do and by your everyday attitude that you are wholeheartedly supporting them.

The myth of empowering is called: Carrot and sticking the great Jackass theory, as being the best form of motivation and empowerment. That’s the old paradigm.

The new paradigm ‘Carrot and stick’ motivation is basically animal psychology. Because people have the power to choose. They are not thinks, you can buy someone’s back, but not their heart and mind. You can buy their hands, but not their spirit. The New Paradigm deals with the whole person, body, mind, heart and spirt.

The first alternative to the empowering role of leadership is trying to get results by controlling people.

The second alternative would be to set them loose, to abandon them. In other words, preach empowerment when, in fact, you’re really into abdication and ignoring accountability.

The third alternative is both tougher and kinder; it’s directed autonomy through win-win agreements around cascading line-of-sight goals and accountability for results.

I mentioned earlier that I believe most organizations, including our homes, are overmanaged and underled. Because the friction in our relationships with our children is a painful reminder of this reality, as is the rebellion that often ensues, and because the family setting is so universal, I’m going to begin our discussion of the challenge of empowerment with the true story of a friend and partner of mine who, with his wife, worked to overcome a challenge with their children: I noticed a “dark cloud” forming over my wife one day. So I asked her, “What’s wrong?” “I’m so discouraged,” she answered. “Mornings with the kids before school are awful. I feel that if I were not here telling them what to do next, nothing would ever happen. They’d never get to school. They’d never get ready. They’d never get out of bed! I don’t know what to do.” So I decided to observe the next morning. She went into each room starting at about 6:15, gave each child a gentle nudge and said, “Honey, it’s time to get up. Wake up.” She returned two or three times until they were all rousted out. Then she turned on the shower for the one who has the toughest time getting up. For the next ten minutes my wife returned to the shower repeatedly, tapped three times on the glass door, and said, “Time to get out.” “I will!” came the defensive answer. Our daughter finally turned off the shower, dried off, went to her room, curled up into a little ball on the floor, and covered her body with the towel to warm up.

Ten minutes later, “Honey, you’ve got to get dressed. Come on.”

“I don’t have anything to wear!”

“Wear this.”

“I don’t like those clothes. They’re ugly!”

“What do you want to wear?”

“My jeans—but they’re dirty.”

The emotional scenario continued until all three were called downstairs at 6:45. My wife continued to prod the children from one thing to the next, warning that the car pool would be coming any minute. They finally got out the door with a hug and a kiss, and Mom was exhausted. I was exhausted just having watched her all morning.

I thought, “No wonder she’s miserable. These kids don’t know they’re capable of anything themselves because we’re always there reminding them.” That tapping on the shower door became a symbol of how we had both unintentionally enabled their irresponsibility.

So I called the family together one evening and suggested a new approach. “I’ve noticed that we are having quite a time with our mornings.” Everyone started laughing knowingly. I said, “Who likes the way things are going?” No one raised a hand. So I said, “I want to tell you something that I want you to really think about. Here it is: You have within you the power to make choices. You can be responsible.” Then I went through a whole series of questions. I asked, “How many of you can set an alarm clock yourself, and then get up on your own each morning?” They all kind of looked at me like, “Dad, what are you doing?” I said, “No, really, how many of you can do this?” Each raised a hand. “How many of you can be aware enough of the time that you can remember how long you have to shower, and then can turn off the water by yourself?” They all raised their hands. “How many of you can go into your room, choose the clothes you want and then get dressed yourself?” It was getting to be fun because they all thought, “I can do that.” “If you don’t have the clothes you want, how many of you are capable of checking out what clothes you have the night before, and if the clothes you want are dirty, can do a load of your clothes in the washer and dryer?” “I can do that.” “How many of you have the power to make your own bed and get your room cleaned up without being asked or reminded?” Everyone raised a hand. “How many of you can be downstairs at 6:45 for our family time and breakfast?” They all raised a hand.

We went on through every single thing. In each case they agreed, “I have the power and capacity to do this.” Then I said, “Okay. What we’re going to do is write all this down. We’re going to create and agree to a plan for our mornings.” They wrote down all the things they wanted to do and worked out a schedule. Our daughter with whom we were having the greatest struggle was the most excited. She wrote a schedule down to the very minute. We became their source of help on some things. There were a few guidelines. We decided on how and when they’d be accountable and what the consequences would be. The positive consequences were that everyone would be a lot happier in the morning—especially Mom. And we all know that a happy Mom means a happy family! The negative consequence to not getting up on time and completing all their responsibilities on their own was that they would go to bed a half an hour earlier for a few days. This seemed fair, since lack of sleep usually makes it more difficult to get up. Each child signed their agreement, ate a bowl of ice cream, and went off to bed. So we thought, “Okay. We’ll see what happens.” The next morning at six o’clock my wife and I were lying in bed. We heard an alarm go off and the light click on in one of the kid’s rooms. Before we knew it our daughter with whom we had the toughest time ran to the shower, turned on the water, and got in. My wife and I smiled at each other in mild amazement. We had real hopes it would work with her—but fifteen minutes early? Within fifteen or twenty minutes, she had done everything that usually took an hour and a half, and she even had time to get her piano practicing done. We had a great morning. The other kids did the same thing.

After the kids were out the door, my wife said, “I am in heaven. But the real test is, will it continue? I can see them getting really excited about one morning, but will it go on?” Well, it’s been over a year now. Though we haven’t always had quite the enthusiasm of that first morning, with only occasional exceptions (which were followed by earlier bedtimes for a few days) they’ve all gotten up and done everything on their own. We’ve also found it helpful to come together every few months to evaluate how we’re doing and to renew our commitment.

It’s been wonderful to see the children grow in their sense of “I can do this. I have the power. I am responsible.” We try not to remind. It’s been a profound lesson, and it’s totally changed the nature of our family life in the mornings.

You can see that the parents were initially trying to work from the mind-set that says the kids needed to change, but gradually came to the awareness that they needed to change. The mind-set was that kids need reminding. You’ve got to check up, hover, and follow up. Maybe you’ve worked for someone like that. It’s classic management/control thinking.

But then the parents reflected on their children’s worth and potential—particularly their potential. They knew the children had tremendous worth, and they loved them unconditionally, but they had fallen into the typical trap of looking at their children through the lens of misbehavior. They had also not yet clearly communicated to the children their potential. They did this by asking some simple questions about whether the children believed—if they had the mind to—that they could do the basic things of getting up, doing their jobs, and getting ready to go to school. Because the children so identified emotionally with the parents, the communication took. Commitments were made and kept; potential was released; responsibility was taken; growth took place; mutual trust and confidence increased; and peace of mind and peace at home resulted. It’s a beautiful, powerful example of empowerment.

Even though this is a simple little family problem, most people can identify with it. Sometimes in organizations, as well as families, people believe in the potential of others but not in their worth, so they’re not patient, persistent, long-suffering, trust-giving, and self-sacrificing. It’s just not worth it to them; it becomes a cost-benefit analysis and they perhaps unwittingly conclude that the cost is too great. In fact, unless people have a sense of their own personal worth, they will not be able to consistently communicate the worth of other people.

New heading.

MODELING PRINCIPLE-CENTERED trustworthy behavior inspires trust without “talking it.” Pathfinding creates order without demanding it. Aligning nourishes both vision and empowerment without proclaiming them. Empowerment is the fruit of the other three. It is the natural result of both personal and organizational trustworthiness, which enables people to identify and unleash their human potential. In other words, empowering enthrones self-control, self-management and self-organizing. If this co-missioning takes place, not just in organizational pathfinding but at the team, project, task, or job level, where the basic needs of the people and organization overlap, it taps into passion, energy and drive in short, voice.

Passion is the fire, enthusiasm and courage that an individual feels when she is doing something she loves while accomplishing worthy ends, something that satisfies her deepest needs. Again, remember the roots of the word enthusiasm mean “God in you.” Empowerment is exactly the same thing, only it’s in the organizational context of employees doing work they love, and doing it in such a way that meets their deepest needs and the essential needs of the organization. Their voices blend.

In the book Now Discover Your Strengths, authors Marcus Bucking-ham and Donald O. Clifton report this key finding of the Gallup Organization: “The great organization must not only accommodate the fact that each employee is different; it must capitalize on these differences.”1 The authors also report Gallup’s research findings surrounding the following question asked of 198,000 employees working in 7,939 business units within thirty-six companies: At work, do you have the opportunity to do what you do best every day? We then compared the responses to the performance of the business units and discovered the following: When employees answered “strongly agree” to this question, they were 50% more likely to work in business units with lower employee turnover, 38% more likely to work in more productive business units, and 44% more likely to work in business units with higher customer satisfaction scores. And over time those business units that increased the number of employees who strongly agreed saw company increases in productivity, customer loyalty and employee retention.2 Just think about your own personal life. What kind of a job do you like? What kind of supervision? What taps into your deepest passion? What if you had a job that tapped into your passion and a job in which your leaders became your servants—where they existed to personally or systematically help you do your job? What if structures and systems were supportive, helpful, and were geared toward enabling, identifying and releasing your potential? What if you were continuously recognized and rewarded, and most importantly, felt the intrinsic satisfaction of contributing significantly to a cause you felt worthy of such heartfelt commitment?

New heading.

EMPOWERING THE KNOWLEDGE WORKER

We live in an age of the knowledge worker, where intellectual capital is supreme. Product cost used to be 80 percent on materials and 20 percent on knowledge; now it’s split 70/30 the other way.3 Stuart Crainer, in his book The Management Century, writes, “The information age places a premium on intellectual work. There is a growing realization that recruiting, retaining, and nurturing talented people is crucial to competitiveness.”4 Peter Drucker, in his book Managing for the Future: The 1990s and Beyond, writes, “From now on, the key is knowledge. The world is not becoming labor intensive, not materials intensive, not energy intensive, but knowledge intensive.”5 Leadership is today’s hottest topic. The new economy is based on knowledge work, and knowledge work is another word for people. Remember, eighty percent of value added to products and services today comes from knowledge work. It’s a knowledge worker economy; wealth creation has migrated from money and things to people.

Our greatest financial investment is the knowledge worker. Just consider what has been invested in the knowledge workers in your organization through salary, benefits, possible stock options and what it took to recruit and train them. That often translates into hundreds of thousands of dollars per year per person!

Quality knowledge work is so valuable that unleashing its potential offers organizations an extraordinary opportunity for value creation. Knowledge work leverages all of the other investments that an organization has already made. In fact, knowledge workers are the link to all other organizational investments. They provide focus, creativity, and leverage in utilizing those investments to better achieve the organization’s objectives. Intellectual and social capital are key to leveraging and optimizing all other investments.

And so it is absolutely critical that the empowerment of people (aligning voices) is seen as the fruit of modeling, aligning and pathfinding. Otherwise, you will see organizations talk and proclaim empowerment but remain unable to walk their talk. They have no common vision, no discipline and definitely no passion.

Empowerment is not a new idea. In fact, during the nineties it became quite a buzzword and movement in the field of management. But frankly, the empowerment movement has created a lot of cynicism and anger—both with management and among the rank and file. Why? Because again, empowering people is the fruit of the other three roles, not the root.

We surveyed 3,500 managers and professionals in client organizations and asked the question: What’s holding back empowerment? (See figure 13.3). Notice how their answers underscore the importance of both personal and organizational trustworthiness (character and competence): Now that you’ve soaked deeper in this Whole Person / 4 Roles paradigm of leadership, you can see why people would become frustrated when empowerment efforts are undertaken without the foundational modeling, pathfinding and aligning work being done first.

New heading.

THE MANAGER’S DILEMMA—DO I GIVE UP CONTROL?

A few years ago I remember interviewing the chief executive of a company who had just received the prestigious Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. I asked him, “What was your toughest challenge as CEO in achieving this level of quality in your organization?” With but a moment of thought, he smiled, and said, “Giving up control.” Empowerment will always be a cynicism-inducing platitude unless it’s rooted in solid modeling, pathfinding and aligning work. The 4 Roles of Leadership break the manager’s dilemma of being caught between control and fear of losing control. When you truly establish the conditions for empowerment, control is not lost: it is simply transformed into self-control.

Self-control does not come when you simply abandon people in the name of “empowerment”; it comes when there is a commonly understood end in mind, with agreed-upon guidelines and supportive structures and systems, and when each person is set up as a whole person in a whole job. Training and coaching is provided to those who lack the competence required to be fully entrusted with greater freedom. A track record of consistent performance earns greater and greater trust and latitude in methods. People become accountable for results and have the freedom, within guidelines, to achieve those results in a way that taps into their unique talents.

I call this directed autonomy. The manager’s role then shifts from controller to enabler, co-missioning with people, removing barriers, and becoming a source of help and support. That’s quite a shift.

When we discussed the trim-tabbing leader, who was full of vision, discipline, passion and conscience, we were talking about self-empowerment. Now, in the larger context, we’re looking at how to create an official, institutionalized, formalized philosophy of empowerment. Ideally you would like to have both personal and organizational empowerment so that a person doesn’t have to swim upstream against disempowering organizational forces.

New heading.

THE EMPOWERING TOOL: THE WIN-WIN AGREEMENT PROCESS

Think about the whole win-win process as two volunteers who co-mission together—one representing the organization and the other representing the stakeholders, team, or individual. Max De Pree, who wrote the brilliant book Leadership is an Art, describes the spirit of volunteers working together: The best people working for organizations are life volunteers. Since they could probably find good jobs in any number of groups, they choose to work somewhere for reasons less tangible than salary or position. Volunteers do not need contracts, they need covenants. . . . Covenantal relationships induce freedom not paralysis. A covenantal relationship rests on shared commitment to ideas, to issues, to values, to goals, and to management process. Words such as love, warmth, personal chemistry, are certainly pertinent. Covenantal relationships. fill deep needs and they enable work to have meaning and to be fulfilling.

A win-win agreement is not a formal job description, neither is it a legal contract. It’s an open-ended, psychological/social contract that explicitly defines expectations. It is written first into the hearts and minds of people, and then put on paper “in pencil” rather than in ink so that “easy erasing” can take place when both sense it is appropriate and wise. You can discuss and renegotiate it at will, based on changing circumstances. Whether people use the language “win-win agreements” or not, the idea is that you have a common understanding and commitment toward your highest mutual priorities.

Win-win agreements enable a much higher level of flexibility, adaptation and creativity than do job descriptions, which focus primarily on steps and methods. With the win-win agreement we look at the situation, maturity, character and competence of team members and formal leaders, and other environmental conditions, such as the presence of aligned structures, systems and processes.

Once a win-win agreement has been developed, the answer to the question What’s my/our top priority? is abundantly clear. Responsibilities are laid out. Mutual expectations are articulated. Accountability to these expectations in the form of a balanced Scoreboard is established. People are free to do whatever they need to do to accomplish the goals within the context of the guidelines. They simply manage themselves. They become empowered. In chapter 14, The 8th Habit and The Sweet Spot, much more will be said on how to foster strong, enabling team accountability.

New heading.

WIN-WIN EMPOWERMENT: MOVING FROM THE INDUSTRIAL TO THE KNOWLEDGE WORKER AGE

Now what if we were to forget all we’ve learned about the whole person? What if we lost sight of the fire that is lit inside those individuals and organizations when they Find Their Voice and Inspire Others to Find Their Voice, and we kept working through our traditional Industrial Age “lenses” and traditions? Can you see how easy it would be to apply the win-win agreement process in the classic style of a controlling manager? You can see that all the efforts simply would not yield the fruit of empowerment.

Successful empowerment rests in a commitment to work with team members by “win-win agreement.” In an organization, “win-win” means that there is an explicit overlapping of the four needs of the organization (financial health, growth and development, synergistic relationships with key stakeholders and meaning/contribution) with the four needs of the individual (physical—economic; mental—growth and development; social/emotional—relationships; and spiritual—meaning and contribution).

If someone violates the spirit of the agreement and continues to do so in spite of sincere efforts to heal the breach, then the individuals may simply go for no deal. That means you don’t deal at all. There is no agreement. You agree to disagree agreeably. People leave. Hires aren’t made. New assignments may be made.

There is a really interesting approach to no-deal that is promulgated by the armed services. It’s called the doctrine of stubborn refusal. I learned the doctrine of stubborn refusal from interacting with naval officers. It means that when you know something is wrong and that it would result in serious consequences to the overall mission and values of the organization, then you should respectfully push back, no matter what your position or rank. You should speak up and declare yourself in opposition to the momentum of a growing decision that you are absolutely convinced is dead wrong. That’s essentially living from your conscience—allowing your inner voice or light to guide your actions rather than giving in to the sway of peer pressure.

It is important for people in high positions to officially endorse the doctrine of stubborn refusal. This legitimizes the right to push back, to call wrong wrong and to call stupid stupid.

New heading.

EMPOWERMENT AND PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL

When you think about it, who should evaluate a person’s progress and achievements? That person should. Traditional performance appraisal is clearly one of the bloodletting management practices of our day. As mentioned before, this is where the boss basically interviews an employee and uses the sandwich technique, say a few nice words, slip in the knife, twist it a few times “areas for improvement” and then pat them on their way. When you have a high-trust culture, helpful systems, and people on the same page, then people are in a far better position to evaluate themselves, particularly if they have 360-degree feedback data from sources around them. Good evidence is shown by looking at the 7 Habits Profile data , which involve over a half a million people who have engaged in 360-degree feedback.

You can see in almost all cases that self-evaluation is tougher than anyone else’s evaluation. The bosses know the least—they are the furthest removed. Codependent people tell them what they like to hear, and they become isolated and insulated from what is in fact going on. The subordinates know next best, and then the peers. Again, in both biblical parables of the pounds and the talents that we mentioned near the beginning of chapter 6, the employee evaluates self, and the master either diminishes or enlarges stewardship.

It would be so misaligned to think that after all this empowerment and honoring of people’s power to choose in reaching top-priority goals, you could suddenly set up a so-called boss to be the big judge and evaluator.

The so-called big boss should become the humble servant leader who “runs alongside,” asking questions such as.

First, “How is it going?” The worker knows how it’s going far better than any boss does, particularly if feedback systems have been established, including feedback from the boss and from all other stakeholders who are influenced by the work of the person. So the question How is it going? is answered by the person himself or herself according to the terms of the agreed-upon compelling balanced Scoreboard and other 360-degree stakeholder information.

The second question is “What are you learning?” A person here may reveal both insights and ignorance, but the point is that they are responsible.

The third question is “What are your goals?” or “What are you trying to accomplish?” It identifies the connection between the vision and the reality. This leads naturally to the fourth question, “How can I help you?” clearly communicating that “I am your helper. I am your enabler, your servant.” The servant leader might even tap into his or her own experience or awareness to see if that needs to be drawn upon. The key to this exchange is authentic, Indian Talking Stick–type communication. No game playing. No political posturing. No protective, defensive communication. No kissing up. No telling others what they want to hear. The question How am I doing as your helper? communicates open, respectful mutual accountability.

Sometimes facing reality is difficult, especially when hearing it from others. But we demean and insult other people when we treat them as anyone other than accountable, responsible, choice-making individuals. If, in the name of being nice and kind, we start protecting them, we begin the process of the codependency and silent conspiracy that eventually results in the lowest level of initiative “Wait until told.” It is when the spirit of servant leadership takes hold in a team, and between a manager or team and an associate, that the third form of trust mentioned in chapter 9 fully blossoms. Again, it’s the trust that one person or team consciously chooses to give to another, an act that leads me to feel your belief that I can add value. You give me trust and I return it. Trust is a verb AND a noun. When it’s both a verb and a noun, it’s something shared and reciprocated between people. That is the essence of how a person becomes the leader of their boss. They merit trust by giving it. Trust the verb comes from the potential trustworthiness of the one receiving the trust and the clear trustworthiness of the one giving the trust. The fourth role, Empowering, embodies making trust a verb.

New heading.

THE CASE OF THE JANITORS (TURNING MANUAL WORKERS INTO KNOWLEDGE WORKERS)

The following is a true story of a whole person in a whole job. It illustrates what can happen in a job that, though honorable, is by nature more menial, unskilled, and low-paid—janitoring. The idea is that if you can have a whole person in a whole job that consists of emptying garbage cans, sweeping and mopping floors, and washing walls and fixtures, etc., you could have it in any job.

A management development instructor was once training a group of first-level supervisors how to enrich a job so that it intrinsically motivates employees. One of the foremen who supervised janitors gave considerable resistance to the theory. It seemed too idealistic and unrelated to most of the work a janitor does—at least the janitors he supervised. All the supervisors being trained agreed that there was a problem with the janitors. They agreed with the supervisor that most of their janitors were uneducated, transient, and were there because they couldn’t get a better job. Essentially their only desire was to clock in and clock out. Some were even alcoholics.

Because the instructor knew the maintenance foreman was sincere in his belief that motivation and empowerment theory was of no use to him in working with janitors, he abandoned his prepared discussion and began to deal with the janitorial problem directly.

He placed three words on the blackboard: Plan, Do, and Evaluate—three major elements of job enrichment. He then asked the maintenance foreman and the other foremen to list the maintenance duties and activities associated with these three words. Some aspects of the “planning” part of the job were: establishing schedules for maintenance, selecting and purchasing waxes and polishes, and determining which janitor covered which areas of the plant. During the discussion, the maintenance foreman said that he was about to purchase several new floor polishing and scrubbing machines. All of these planning activities were carried out by the maintenance foreman.

Listed under the “doing” section were the normal activities of janitors—sweeping, scrubbing, waxing, and removing the rubbish and refuse. The “evaluating” part of the job included such activities as routine daily checks on the cleanliness of the plant by the maintenance foreman, evaluation of the effectiveness of different soaps, waxes and polishes, reflecting on trial efforts, identifying ways of improving, and ensuring that the cleaning schedules were maintained. Additionally, the maintenance foreman also contacted vendors to determine the type of new machines he could purchase.

When the various activities had been listed, the instructor asked, “Which of these activities could be done by the janitors? For example, why do you, Mr. Foreman, determine which soaps to buy? Why not let your janitors decide? How about having the salesmen give the demonstration of the new machine to the janitors and let them decide which of the machines is best? How about having the janitors identify parts of the job they would be interested in taking on?” (In the actual situation, the wording was not quite so blunt, and the entire group of foremen got involved in the discussion about what additional areas of planning and evaluating could be given to the janitors.) Over the next five months, the case of the janitors was discussed, at least briefly, in every session held by the instructor. Meanwhile, the maintenance supervisor was engaging more of the minds and hearts of the janitors by steadily giving them more responsibility for the planning, doing and evaluating of their work. They tested out new machines and made the final recommendations for purchase. They experimented with different waxes to determine which stood up the best under normal usage. They began examining the cleaning schedule to determine how much attention should be given to each area. For example, one area that had been wet-mopped daily was mopped only as needed after visual inspection. The janitors developed their own criteria for determining plant cleanliness and began to exert peer pressure on janitors who did not meet the norms.

Little by little, these janitors took over all three tasks so that their best thinking was tapped—body, heart, mind and spirit. The net effect, to the surprise of most, was that quality went up, job turnover and discipline problems went way down, social norms developed around initiative, cooperation, diligence and quality, and job satisfaction increased significantly. In short, they had a turned-on group of janitors—all because the supervisors allowed or empowered the whole person to do the whole job. They had directed autonomy. The janitors no longer needed supervision or management because they supervised and managed themselves according to the criteria they helped develop.

Perhaps more importantly, other foremen began thinking about how they could apply the same principles in their own areas, especially since they could begin to see for themselves the results of the maintenance foreman’s work with the janitors.

New heading.

Service and Meaning

If we put this “plan, do, evaluate” idea into our whole-person model of leadership, here is what it looks like (see figure 13.6):

The fourth element, “serve,” is added at the center to acknowledge the need of the spirit for meaning and contribution. You can see that even the janitors in this case began to experience great meaning in their work. They developed deep pride of workmanship, and it began to lift the level of quality in the entire plant. They found their voice. Again notice the arrow on the outside edge of the diagram. That indicates that this is a cycle, a process. Once the evaluating work is done, new plans are developed that incorporate recent learnings; those plans are executed; and the cycle of improvement repeats itself.

You might ask, “Well, if you empower people to this extent, why do you need supervisors at all?” The simple answer is to set up the conditions of empowerment and then to get out of people’s way, clear their path and become a source of help as requested. This is servant leadership. After all, your job is not about getting your ego stroked. It’s about getting the job done.

Only 45 percent of xQ respondents say they feel their contributions at work are recognized and appreciated.

New heading.

CHOICES REVISITED

The case of the janitors is a good reminder that people make choices in their work based upon how well the four areas of their nature are respected and engaged. As you can see in the left-hand column in the figure below, each choice is made in response to a deeper motivation that ranges from anger, fear and reward to duty, love and meaning.

Duty, love and meaning are the highest sources of human motivation and will always produce the greatest and most enduring achievements. Leadership draws on the highest of all human impulses. Managing people like things reduces human beings to their lowest instincts. It is modern-day management bloodletting.

This story also illustrates an extremely important point: It’s the leadership beliefs and style of the manager, not the nature of the job or economic era, that defines whether a person is a knowledge worker or not. If he is not perceived as a knowledge worker, that is, if a janitor is not seen as the local expert on janitorial work, then he is a manual worker and not a knowledge worker.

FILM: The Nature of Leadership*

This next little film that I recommend is very much like the opening film in the book. It will give you an opportunity to personally reflect on the underlying principles of this leadership framework, and it will challenge you to internalize and act on them. Nature is the backdrop and the teacher. I believe it will inspire you, as it has me. You will find this film by going to www.The8thHabit.com/offers and selecting The Nature of Leadership from the Films menu.

LET’S MOVE NOW to putting it all together by demonstrating how the 4 Roles of Leadership are a framework for focus and execution.

QUESTION & ANSWER

Q: You talk about a complementary team. I’m a loner with no staff or direct reports and have to wear all the hats—how do I develop a complementary team to compensate for my weaknesses?

A: Until you have other people to whom you can delegate, so that your strength can be made productive and your weaknesses made irrelevant by their strengths, you will need to either reach at least a threshold level of competence on your weaknesses or outsource to advisors or suppliers who can compensate.

Another question: How do you empower employees in an environment that is highly regulated, with the constant intrusion of new mandates, policies and regulations?

A: I would turn to the employees and ask them that question: What do you suggest; what is your opinion? I mean it; I would lay it right on their platter. People are amazingly creative and resilient, and no matter how oppressive a regulatory environment may be, if the work is meaningful, you’ll always be able to find some areas of creative opportunity where people can exercise their own judgment. In terms of establishing agreements, the regulations are to be clearly indicated as guidelines, even rules to be followed.

I lived in England one time and saw the railroad people become disgusted because of the extreme regulatory environment. They decided, “Okay, we’re going to follow the rules to the hilt,” and it literally brought all of England to a standstill. None of the trains arrived on time. It was totally chaotic, simply because they strictly followed the checklist of rules. The only way they’d succeeded before had been through their creativity, initiative and resourcefulness. Once this became clearly evident, the administrators began to put more value on human judgment than on rules, and it began to work again.

You may be able to set up a pilot or experimental program that will produce better results at lower costs and without violating any jugular rules. The risk is less and the learning potential is great. And you may begin to discriminate more carefully between rules that are jugular and those that are peripheral or purely cultural artifacts.

I once worked with the highly regulated nuclear power industry. The level of cooperation and communication, even between competitors, was astounding because they all knew that if they had one more Three Mile Island incident, it could shut down the entire industry. On their own they shared every incident or situation that produced any element of risk or breach of safety. The regulatory administrators of the government could not even begin to ratchet up the regulations high enough to compare to what these competitive companies did on their own.

Another question: How do you enforce accountability in a win-win way? Doesn’t the spirit of win-win tend to go soft on accountability?

A: Absolutely not. The key is to establish accountability against mutually agreed-upon desired results. Use a balanced Scoreboard on these results with both logical and natural consequences that follow the accountability. Without a balanced Scoreboard and agreed-upon desired results and consequences, win-lose will end up becoming lose-win and, in the long run, lose-lose.

Another question: How do you deal with the maverick employee—one who just seems to buck at every decision and does his own thing in his own way?

A: A lot of significant progress is made by mavericks. There should always be a place for people who think differently and who are fresh and creative in their thought processes. Learn to appreciate the unique strengths of each person, but if their “maverick-ness” reaches the point where they are poisonous, negative and critical, then I would say set up a feedback system that gives them feedback. Let them soak in others’ candid perceptions and the feelings around those perceptions of them until they make their own minds up about what they really want to do. If a maverick is a deviant kind of person who really gets his psychological jollies from violating social norms, and if he adds no real value through creative and innovative contributions, you may need to go into out-placement services. There are a lot of people who are independents—they’re not interdependent, but they’re also not deviants, and they can play a very important role in independent-oriented kinds of jobs. The real key is to create a culture that embraces diversity within a context of unified purpose and values. As Emile Durkheim put it, “When mores are sufficient, laws are unnecessary; when mores are insufficient, laws are unenforceable.” Another question: I personally have a strong need to be in control, and this whole idea of release scares me, even thought it makes sense. Can I change?

A: Absolutely. You’re not an animal. Although influenced by, you’re not a product of nature and nurture. You’re a product of your choices, but you would have to begin to change at the personal level by using your own three unique human endowments—the power of choice, principles and your four intelligences or capacities. Through patience and persistence, you will overcome these control needs, and as you grow in confidence with just a few people closely around you at home and at work, you will come to feel that there is more productivity and peace of mind in teaching principles by both precept and example, as well as in letting others govern themselves. Eventually, you will learn how to institutionalize this kind of moral authority in systems, structures and processes.