Simply Lisa

Defense! Defense! is great for a sports team, but can be bad for an organization. Organizations are a sum of many parts and to ensure organizational success, it is imperative that everything, and everyone, functions at their best.

When you are going for the gold, defensive employees are bad news.

On Defensiveness

Defensive employees can be impossible to reason with. They can be blinded by ego or anger and driven by an insatiable need to be right. They can perceive questions as threats and lock horns at the first hint of a challenge.

Collaborative problem solving comes to a halt, organizational goals are subordinate to personal agendas and when allowed to continue, the repercussions of defensive behaviors are felt across the organization.

On Diamonds

There's no denying that every organization has a defensive employee (or two) and that they are a problem however, if you look hard enough at the crabby, stone age rock heads, you can uncover a few gems. 

Watch for the employees who attempt to or are able to respond with a level head to retorts by defensive employees. Watch for the ones who see through the bluster and who do not get into the muck. Take a look at those who take the high road and know when to sort through the junk, when to steer clear of the madness, and when to simply shake their head and sigh.

They may not get it right all the time but they are aware and they are trying. Find them, dust them off and shine them up. Encourage them and mentor them. They are your diamonds in the rough.

In Closing

Although organizations can uncover some gems when dealing with defensive employees, they don't need the defense present to do so. It is poison to your organization and must be addressed directly. Some employees will respond and others will not. 

For those that don't, send them to the mine to pound rocks, to your competitor to poison their organization or to any other place of your choosing . . . as long as it is outside of your organization.

You need to make room for your diamonds to shine.

Photo credit iStock Photo 

Two things I've got on my mind lately are writing and credibility. I"ll take up writing and the anti-writing demon I'm reading about in a separate post. But I do want to toss out some thoughts about credibility.

When was the last time you were asked to decide a black and white issue? Keep thinking . . . keep thinking . . . got one yet? The last time I was asked to decide a black and white issue I told the group to do an about face and come back to me with the answer, but I digress. Why is it that issues are never black and white?

When was the last time you were advocating for a course of action and the final decision was being made by someone else? And it was anything but black and white? And the decision hinged on your credibility? 

Pick a day, any day, and welcome to my world.

In Leader's Credibility is Golden John Baldoni writes,"credibility is a leader's coin of the realm." And it's up to each individual leader to guard their own credibility. Character matters.  "Leaders are judged by what they do, not what they are. Little good can come from being good; you must do good things. You must be stalwart in the face of crisis. Be the rock for your team to stand upon when times are tough. And be in the shadow when success arrives. "

Being a stalwart in the face of crisis and being a rock for the team . . . here in lies a credibility challenge. When mistakes are made and service is not delivered there is a fine line between a leader supporting her staff and absorbing the hits and in doing so to a fault. There are conversations to be had and expectations to be set (bravery required) and when this is not done it is not done to the fault of the individual, to the team, and to the leader's own credibility with her boss, her staff and her colleagues too. As obvious as this sounds, it's not. And just when you think you've got this leadership thing down, you realize it really is an art and not a science. 

You have credibility currency. You trade in it and on it regularly, whether you are aware of it or not. So, if you regularly own responsibility for missed expectations of members of your team yet shield them (and maybe even yourself) from the discomfort - stop that right now. You are trading in a little bit of leadership credibility each and every time you do so.

How do you know the bank is getting low? It could be a long sigh, an extended silence, a scratch of the forehead or a peer over the reading glasses but make no mistake, it's a credibility assessment in progress. Get it together and pay attention so you can be supported with confidence and not a question.

So, how's your credibility these days?

Photo credit iStockphoto

Leadership, like life, is a series of continuous course corrections. Looking to the future via a crystal ball based on your situation today is wholly and entirely inaccurate assuming you even had a crystal ball that worked. Bummer. Major bumps ahead.

Leadership has it's bumps. Bumps in workload can be addressed with process improvements, staffing, or revision of services. Bumps in employee morale can be addressed by a refocus on the mission, a conversation or a commitment to action. Bumps in technical expertise or knowledge can be addressed by training, succession planning or redistribution of work.

What if the leader hits a personal bump that is less than a total loss of inspiration yet greater than a funk. What if this bump goes beyond the day to day workings of her team to contribution, committment, or community for the greater good?

Then it's time for the leader to step back and ask herself some questions about people, time and costs. Questions like, what types of interactions with others are energizing to her, where is she willing to spend her personal time and where is she willing to incur personal costs? And to what end? (No, the Magic 8-Ball is not any more reliable or helpful than the ill-fated crystal ball here!)

Leadership is about inspiring people, it's about achieving goals, it's about being present in the moment to correct the course as needed . . . . most of the time. Some of the time, it's not about any of that and all about the leader.

Leadership is only as good as the leader so leaders, you've got to be at your best. You owe it to yourselves to reflect, to wonder, to be selfish, and to chase your dreams. To do anything less is to doing nothing at all.

Hat tip to Mark Stelzner for being spot-on in the "asking the right questions" department!

Photo credit iStockPhoto

Leaders, who are you? 

Who are you, not as a leader but as a person? Where are you in your life, what do you value and how does this impact or inform your leadership? It's not a question of "if" this impacts or informs your leadership, it is a question of "how." Really, it is.

In her post, Be Who You Are, writer Becky Robinson shares her life today and her three beautiful daughters and writes, "As I write about leadership, I bring all of who I am." She writes, "discovering and defining who we are includes understanding and accepting our unique life circumstances, values, preferences, and limitations" and asks, "who are you?"

I am Lisa. Lisa Anne to be exact although my friends call me Lisa Marie. My Twitter bio says I am a wife, mother and HR professional. I have an amazing husband and the absolute-without-a-doubt-twinkle-in-my-eye-smile-on-my-lips-and-pride-in-my-voice is my daughter. I choose to work in HR, but that's not really who I am. It's just my job. 

A good friend commented the other day that she felt outside my "inner circle." I laughed. I don't have an inner circle. I have triangles: me, the husband and the kid; work, school and exercise; cooking (ok, take out), cleaning and homework.

I  traveled a bunch back in the day and stick close to home now, am not aiming for the coveted "top" of any one's organization or list, am defining success my way (definition still in progress), and will stop in my tracks for bagels, tiramisu, and bear claws. I work too much, don't exercise enough and haven't read a book in months. Some days it's sorta pitiful but in the big picture, it's all good.

Oh, and I envy the extrovert. I am an introvert. If there was ever any doubt in my mind (and there wasn't), reading Introverted Leaders: Gifts and Cautions by Mary Jo Asmus, reconfirmed it for me, gifts aside, when she wrote this caution about how introverted leaders. . .  

Can become stressed when they don’t pay attention to their need for time alone: Pay attention to the physical symptoms that indicate that you are draining your energy and not recharging your batteries.  Finding strategies that help you to maintain this balance are important to avoid stress-induced illness. For many introverts, actually scheduling solitary activities or hobbies into their calendar may be helpful.

That about says it all. It's me, it's part of who I am and it's what I bring to the table. No matter how much I wish I was different, I am not. I am the way that I am for good reasons and the reasons continue to show themselves in different ways. Be it a thank you from an unexpected source, inner strength to make (and communicate) a tough decision - compassionately, or a cry for confidence from my little girl - the reasons are there.

So, can you really capture the sum of a person in a few words? Not really, but this is a bit about who I am and what I bring to my family, my friends and my leadership. Who are you?

Photocredit iStockphoto