Skipping Steps

Ringo Starr said it best: “If you wanna play the blues, you gotta pay your dues. And you know it don’t come easy.”

What does this mean for today’s budding leaders? In a nutshell: becoming a successful leader means that you must put in time and effort. It takes GRIT to be successful. There’s no getting around it—in a field where the pool of leadership candidates is small, and training and support are limited, emerging leaders need to make the extra effort to seek out mentors and other supporters to assist them in their quest for excellence.

We often look for newness when we are searching for just the right leader to create change in an organization. We are looking for a fresh perspective and a contemporary skill set. But that risks loss of valuable institutional knowledge. During a recent conversation with a young leader at a nonprofit, he remarked that “admittedly, the staff we are attracting are green”—this after teachers he perceived as rigid and unable to cope with change had left in droves. I thought it was an interesting admission—he had been actively encouraging existing staff to get on board with his ideas and intentions, but seemed content that seasoned staff had found the door and were replaced by younger and less experienced ones.

The idea of turnover during times of change is a blog topic in itself, but today’s commentary is about leadership progression—climbing the ladder, if you will, to positions with more authority and corresponding responsibility, in your own organization or one you have moved to.

My own progression along the leadership continuum was pretty straightforward. After an undergrad experience where I was tapped for various leadership roles, from resident assistant to sorority president to president of the Optometry Club, I arrived at my first teaching position in a rural high school with incredible energy and enthusiasm. I actually taught a class on leadership and ran the school paper. After completing my graduate studies, I embarked on a career as a teacher for students who were blind or visually impaired and worked as an itinerant teacher in a variety of districts. Initially, when someone tapped me on the shoulder to move to a supervisory role, I turned the idea over in my head and answered with a firm “no.”

But colleagues and friends continued to urge me to assume a leadership position, and I became first a supervising teacher and then interim Principal for a School for the Blind. By that time, I was pretty sold on the idea that my many years in the trenches would give me a unique perspective compared to other leaders without that experience.

 In that role, I flourished. The staff I inherited was so in need of someone to listen to, acknowledge, and support their intentions to do what was best for the children they served that I became their best advocate. Together we moved the school forward and built a student population that received an education focused on their unique needs. I participated in a couple of book groups around leadership and developed a respectable group of mentors and colleagues. And then… I was tapped on the shoulder once again to lead another school and its related programs through the recession. During that time, I was able to focus on some of my own special interests: transition and employment.

Unfortunately, politics, personality, and bad timing led me to resign from that position. I sought work on the national level. The Vice President position I landed with a national non-profit allowed me to learn a new skillset in a completely different environment. Today, I am exploring a variety of consulting positions where I could apply my abilities as a researcher, content expert, and systems-thinker.

Why share my personal experiences in this blog? Because my own personal leadership journey is one example of how leaders move along in the very small, specific, and elite world of blindness and visual impairment and sometimes find themselves in a professional role that challenges their ideals, expertise, and skillset.

I remember a conversation someone who had left a position I was considering. “If you’re looking to climb the superintendent ladder,” he said, “this is not the one I would recommend.” I was stunned. There’s a superintendent ladder, I thought? Who knew? I’m just interested in filling a position where I can apply my experience as a TVI and COMS to address the challenges of school administration.

In fact, the position I was seeking involved moving from managing 50 FTEs and $10,000 in discretionary funds to a position where I would be in charge of 450 employees and a $40,000,000 budget. Whoosh. How did I think I could manage such a great leap? What the heck was I doing? Who would help me make this leap? I was fortunate to have great support from colleagues around me, but I eventually sought an executive coach to give me honest feedback and help develop my skills. s

So this is my point. If you are considering a new leadership position or looking to lead an organization that is bigger or more complex than the one you currently serve, PAY ATTENTION.

Ask yourself:

·      Are you up for the challenge this new position will present?

·      Is there a position that might be a better fit for you where you can learn new skills that will prepare you for a future leadership position?

·      How will you manage the energy level this new position requires? Are there resources you can call upon to help you meet the expectations of the job?

·      Whom might you seek out as a mentor or sounding board when you take on a position that is different or more challenging than your previous role?

·      What are you good at? Whom will you need to call on to complement your current skills, support areas where you are not as strong, and candidly offer feedback to help you to grow as a leader?

This third bullet point is perhaps the most important. Let’s say you have climbed the ladder quickly, skipping over positions that might have taught you new skills and otherwise left you with deficits in your leadership abilities. What can you do to assure your success in your new role? Finding a leadership coach or mentor who is by your side as you transition is critical to your success. You will need to be able to look critically at your role and recognize where your deficits and inexperience limit you. You will need to be reading and writing in order to continue building on your previous leadership experiences and seek honest feedback about how your efforts are perceived. You will need to have someone – or someones—to talk to about all of this.

Above all, recognize that you have room to grow, and work hard to develop your skills while you are carrying out the role. … and you will likely need help to achieve leadership excellence.

One way or another, you gotta pay your dues.

Know thyself, then do something.

In his book, Good to Great, Jim Collins stresses the need to “get the right people on the bus.” The basic concept is this: the leader of the company is like a bus driver who must choose the right people to be on the bus, decide who should get off the bus, and ensure that the right people are in the right seats.

This visual has stuck with me over the years. I’ve discussed it in book groups, shared it with managers and CEOs. While the phrase is bumper-sticker worthy, its application is far from simple. Looking at human beings in high level positions and determining their fit is one of the most challenging things we do as leaders. And asking some to leave is equally difficult.

But what about your own seat on the bus? Whether you’re the driver (the CEO, VP, Principal or Superintendent), or someone riding in a strategic location, are YOU the right one for the job? If not, can you become the right person, or should you exit the bus. 

Figuring out if it’s time to leave is no easy task. It takes serious self-reflection to consider your role, your effectiveness, and your fit. Those who can successfully self-reflect and initiate changes in their own work lives make some of the best employees and leaders.

I’d love to simplify employee evaluation systems to a self-reflection model. Unfortunately, the number of people who excel at self-reflection is surprisingly low. I’m feeling a little hopeless even writing this blog, in fact, because I’m afraid the right people won’t read it and even if they do, they won’t see themselves in its light. (cue “You’re so vain…”)

Should you get off the bus?

I’ve been on a number of leadership teams, and not one of them was particularly strong. Jockeying for positions of power, shunning accountability measures, and hiding behind those doing the real work is common in leaders. Witnessing these habits is hard for someone who is constantly assessing her own skills, maintaining her authenticity, and doing her very best. Most recently, I found that I was not the right fit in my position on a leadership team, and I left.

I have moved a lot in my adult life, sometimes for my husband’s work, sometimes for my own. I worked in five school districts before I turned forty, and after so many start-stops, I started to see myself as a catalyst for change. I would begin a new position, work hard to do the best job I could, upend a few things, start new initiatives, and then get called away to a new opportunity.

The first time I was in a position for longer than 6 years, I realized I was no longer enjoying my work. Everything felt like a hassle, each day a long march. I realized that I was simply restless—I had accomplished some major things with my team, and I wasn’t seeing a logical next step.  Fortunately for me (and my team!), I was swept up into an interim position, and the leader who replaced me was first-rate. In this case, moving on allowed me to grow and gave another leader an opportunity to continue to grow the organization.

So you decide to stay on the bus. Should you work on developing your skills so that you ARE the right person? How long will that take—too long for the organization’s goals or your professional goals?

Let’s face it: few jobs come with a how-to manual. Learning how to be successful in each new position over the course of my career has taken several years. Teachers can relate to this: what we learn in university makes up a very small portion of the expertise we gain with experience. Learning new skills is a major part of our professional journey, including positions of leadership.

If you’ve taken the time to analyze your own strengths and weaknesses, and regularly assessed your progress, I’ll bet you already know what you need to improve to ensure that you are the right person in the right seat on the bus. Then it’s just a matter of getting the additional support and skills you need. And if that doesn’t work for you, perhaps its time to get off the bus.

 In fact, leaders of companies that go from good to great start not with “where” but with “who.” They start by getting the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats. And they stick with that discipline—first the people, then the direction—no matter how dire the circumstances.

-Jim Collins

On Marketing and Branding: Telling the Truth

I was peppering a friend with questions about the relevance of branding and marketing to a nonprofit. As a long-time educator, I had been slow to perceive efforts in this area positively. I was mumbling something about branding being fake and contrived and, therefore trivial. This is a person whose opinion I value and whose work I admire, so I was anxious to hear his opinion on the subject.

Fake? Trivial? No, he said. A brand expresses the essential truth of an organization and its products and services. If what the brand is expressing doesn’t represent the organization accurately, marketing will not work.

For many people in public service or nonprofit work, efforts to promote or bring attention to the work we do feels disingenuous. I remember a particular mailing that one organization did that featured one of our students. The letter read more like “save the children” and less like a statement that we were in the business of empowering those we served. Reporters inevitably framed the accomplishments of our students using terms like “amazing” and performed “despite blindness.” And yet, in order to engage others in our work and gain financial support or access to important resources, we must communicate the characteristics, values, and attributes of our work, and that includes sharing stories about those we serve.

As leaders, how do we share the important work we do with others without feeling like we are selling or marketing something that is not real? I return here to the words of my friend: tell the truth.

Many years ago as a young teacher earning in the 10K range, I was seeking additional income. I bought into a cosmetics and skincare line and tried to follow the plan for my first month as a salesperson. The promotional words I was to use were someone else’s, and the words that formed in my mind were more like, “you don’t want to buy this, do you?” I realized pretty quickly that a career in sales was not for me.

As I look back on my years as an itinerant teacher, however, I realize that I was constantly working to convince others—general education teachers, administrators, parents, and others, of what each student was capable of and that his or her placement was appropriate. I was selling others on having a blind child in their class. And once the student had the appropriate tools and supports to be successful in the school environment, we had only to continue to advocate enthusiastically to ensure that he or she was successful. The school’s teachers and staff believed in the student as much as I did.

 If you are working with intention (see earlier blog on this topic), you will know what it is about your work that is important. That is your brand. Don’t be afraid to enthusiastically share your beliefs about the work you do or the people you serve. Others will notice your truth.

Intention Part 1: When you know why you're doing it, you're doing it with intention.

“We’re making brownies tonight,” said the house parent in a residential program. I was making rounds in the cottages where students lived and learned daily living skills while attending school. Interesting, I thought. That’s what they were doing the last time I’d stopped by on a weekday evening. The activity was well-planned, with picture cards for the students with low vision to follow and braille for those who were blind. But when I asked why they had chosen this particular recipe this particular night, the answer was essentially, “we’re making brownies.”

This is a snapshot that brought me back to my early days as an Orientation and Mobility instructor and as a supervisor for O&M interns. The lesson I tried to drive home is simple: every time you teach something, you should know why you are teaching it. Think critically about how the lesson fits in with the student’s overall program, and decide which lesson fits best with the chosen goal. Repetition isn’t out of the question—in fact, it’s a key part of teaching. Students need repeated opportunities to master certain skills. There is purpose in repetition if it is done intentionally. But if you’re repeating a lesson simply because it’s Wednesday night, I urge you to think critically about what you are doing—and why you are doing it.

Now let’s think about this concept in leadership terms. Intentionality is critical for a leader. In fact, if you are random in your initiatives and do not clearly communicate their purpose, you may never gain the attention and trust of your followers. Here’s an example.

My beginnings as interim principal for a school for the blind were rocky. I came home from my first staff meeting, in fact, in tears. I’d done everything by the book: handed out an agenda in print and braille, varied the activities within the meeting itself, asked for input from attendees, etc. What should have been a fruitful meeting was instead filled with chaos. People talked amongst themselves, positioned themselves as far away from me as possible, and answered my queries either not at all or with rude, badgering replies. I was pretty sure my leadership days had started and ended at that meeting, and I was ready to give up.

Fortunately, I slept on the notion of quitting, and I decided to become more deliberate in my communication. At the next meeting, I did several things differently. First, I set up the room in a way where there were few opportunities for back-of-the-room behavior. Second, I clearly stated the purpose of the meeting and my expectations for the staff. I gently called them out on their past behavior-acknowledging it and then outlining what I hoped for instead. Then whenever we veered from our intended direction, I brought people back in.

Once people settled into the new routine, one that was driven by intention and purpose that I had clearly communicated to them, transformation occurred. Truly, the staff who had brought me to tears eventually became one of the most motivated and enthusiastic groups I have ever worked with.

In all the leadership positions I have held since, I have done very few things without reason. Whatever I initiate, I develop a plan around it—and communicate it as needed. And when I get stuck in a routine, I nudge myself to make an intentional change in order to achieve better results.

Managing by Walking Around: What's all the buzz about?

Since my early days in management, I’ve heard people reference “managing by walking around” as an effective leadership tool. I observed an interim superintendent doing this on the campus where I was principal-she would just show up periodically, ask how things were going, and move on. I appreciated these informal check-ins: it felt good to know that she cared to see what was going on day to day.

Why is this tool so important? What does managing by walking around look like, and why does it work?

First, I’ll tell you a funny story about walking around from my own experience. If folks in your workplace are not used to seeing leaders in their workspace, they may respond strangely at first. On the first day of summer school in a job where I was relatively new, I scheduled in a walk-through of one of the programs. I walked from class to class, greeting staff and students, making small talk, then moving on. I was trying to develop some kind of rapport through casual contact.

I later heard that the rumored purpose of my visit to the program had been to police for appropriate footwear. I had earlier come out against staff wearing flip flops; managing busy children and maneuvering wheelchairs did not lend themselves to flimsy shoes. My colleagues actually thought I was in their building to look for offending flip flops. My leadership was a tough sell in this particular location. The staff there was experienced and well established and didn’t really welcome “new.”

Does this mean that my attempt to manage by walking around was a bust? I don’t think so. It is a combination of volume (frequent visits) and quality (meaningful ways to casually connect) that makes MbWA work. Like so many aspects of leadership, building rapport over time is critical to trust.

MbWA was welcomed in other situations. One parent at a residential school commented that I seemed to be “everywhere,” and that she was delighted to see an administrator so involved in day to day campus life. An employee who worked nights in another school said that my presence during her shift made her feel like her behind-the-scenes work was validated by administration.

If you’re like me and a little shy, you might feel awkward in your initial communication gestures towards others. MbWA can be hard for me, and I don’t think I ever got it 100% right.

But here’s the thing: You need to keep trying. I am a naturally curious person, and I like to put together what I learn into a bigger “systems” picture. Learning by observing was also critical to my success as a leader, because it gave me information about how the organization worked. And showing genuine interest in what others are doing paves the way for future relation-building and rapport.

So here’s what I suggest to budding leaders as they learn to manage by walking around: 

1.     Schedule your walk-around time. Vary your destinations and time of day.

2.     Be true to your schedule. Don’t blow off walk around time because you have “too much to do.”

3.     Think about what you want to learn in advance. Are you touring the factory floor? Maybe there’s a process you can ask questions about. Checking in with folks working at their desks? Perhaps there’s a question you’d like to ask each of them to gain further knowledge about their work. Observing a classroom? Maybe you want to understand better how staff are encouraging independence or collaborative teaching models.

4.     In situations where your MbWA might be misperceived, consider laying the groundwork by sharing your intentions in advance.

5.     Consider sending follow-up notes. “Thanks for the pleasure of observing your class today! The activity you were doing was a great example of …”

Now here’s a controversial one: While MbWA, should you blend in or butt in? I have always had a tendency NOT to join in unless I am asked to do so. Having a relative stranger join an activity can be disconcerting for kids AND staff. But I was recently criticized for NOT joining in; it seems that I appeared disconnected or aloof. I can remember times when adults have inappropriately jumped into an activity, and I vowed that I would not do that. Do what feels right at the time, be sensitive to the environment, and be true to your personality.