Seth Godin’s blog post today is about reputation. The points he makes are well-stated, accurate, and something that we who are striving to be quintessential leaders should be thinking about all the time in what we say, what we do and who and what we are.
We can never be reminded of this too often, though.
How are we doing?
A discernible trait of quintessential leaders is that we are continually striving for authenticity in every part of who, what, and how we are. It is an easily-identifiable part of our character which is borne out by our behavior.
One of the easiest aspects of behavior that shows us what both unquintessential leadership and quintessential leadership looks like is in our verbal and written communication with others.
Whether we are authentic or unauthentic is plain to see by what words we say and write and how we say and write them.
The words we choose and the method we use to convey those words provide vital insights into whether we are striving for authenticity or whether we are, at the heart, core, and soul of who we are, either struggling with inauthenticity or we are truly committed to being inauthentic as a matter of course.
I make the distinction between struggling with inauthenticity and being committed to it because it’s important for all of us to understand that quintessential leaders will struggle at times with inauthenticity, while unquintessential leaders don’t struggle at all with it because being inauthentic is a committed way of being for them.
So what makes the difference between struggling with inauthenticity and being committed to it?
Awareness is the difference.
Quintessential leaders who are being inauthentic are not aware of being inauthentic, but as soon as they become aware of the inauthenticity, they commit to changing it immediately.
Unquintessential leaders, on the other hand, are fully aware of being inauthentic and are determined to remain inauthentic.
How do I know this? Because I’ve struggled with inauthenticity at times and not even realized it. However, once it hit me between the eyes, opening my eyes to an area of inauthenticity, I immediately made and fulfilled the commitment to change it.
Not being aware of inauthenticity is a part of the growth cycle for humans and the mature development of quintessential leaders (if all of us were already perfect, we’d have absolutely nothing to do and no place to go and life would be interminably boring and meaningless).
However, it is often the case – to our shame and discredit – that as we who are striving to be quintessential leaders are unaware of our own areas of inauthenticity, we are eager to and constantly pointing, in public venues and in condemning language, out the areas of inauthenticity in other growing-into-quintessential-leaders who are unaware of their own areas of inauthenticity.
This is unquintessential leadership behavior. Quintessential leaders examine themselves and they focus on changing what they need to change. They do not constantly exalt themselves as paragons of virtue and continually look around at everyone else and proclaim, for the whole world to see, their faults and shortcomings.
Instead, they work diligently to be an example, in every area of their lives, of what quintessential leadership looks like. They know that action – their own work on themselves – can be a powerful motivator and teacher for everyone with whom their lives intersect.
They also know that constant and public criticism and condemnation is not only a powerful demotivator, but a lousy example for anyone to follow and emulate (unfortunately, human nature tends toward this kind of behavior, so there are always plenty of admirers and supporters in criticism and condemnation of other people).
So before we look at what authenticity in communication looks like, let’s first look at what it doesn’t look like.
Vladimar Nabokov wrote, “Words without experience are meaningless.” I would clarify this to say that any words spoken or written without experience or empathy (literally the ability and choice to walk in the shoes of someone else’s experience and understand that experience from their perspective) and compassion are meaningless.
Inauthenticity in communication says and writes words that are empty and hollow because the person communicating them either has never experienced what they are communicating about or they lack empathy and compassion, choosing to assume they know something they don’t or choosing to pass judgment without facts, without understanding, and without knowledge.
This is unquintessential leadership because pride and arrogance are behind the communication as well as a total lack of kindness and gentleness. In other words, the communicator believes, even though they don’t have clue nor do they care what they’re talking about, that they are entitled to say or write the words as well as being harsh and condemning in the process.
Inauthenticity in communication is also evident in the common behavior of simply parroting cliches, “conventional wisdom,” and idioms because it seems like the right thing to say or write.
There is no thought or depth that goes into these utterances. In fact, this is the cheap and easy way out: we throw a well-worn phrase that sounds good and we’ve heard all our lives at someone else, check it off our list (while patting ourselves on the back for our generosity and benevolence toward the poor souls we communicated with), erase it permanently, and go blissfully on with our unimpacted lives without missing a beat.
Parroting as a method of communication is unquintessential leadership for a couple of reasons.
The first is motivation. We’re communicating something we’ve always heard – but most of the time have not had to put to the test of veracity through experience – because it makes us feel better, not because it will make the person we’re communicating with feel better.
The second reason parroting is unquintessential leadership is because we are not taking the person we’re communicating with into account at all. We don’t seek insight and understanding by taking the time to really listen to them – we may hear them, but there’s a world of difference between just hearing and really listening – nor do we take the time to think about the kind of communication we would want from someone if we were in the same or similar circumstances.
By simply parroting something we’ve heard but have no evidence or proof of its value and/or truth, we effectively complete dismiss the person we’re communicating with and we tell them we don’t care about them and they are not important enough to us for us to waste our time with them.
So now that we know what it doesn’t look like, let’s discuss what authenticity in communication – quintessential leadership – does look like.
Unfortunately, as Nabokov stated, experience is often how we gain the ability to be authentic in our communication with other people. However, whether we have authenticity in our communication with others still comes down to us making the choice to be authentic.
Choosing authenticity in our communication with other people requires an investment from us. In them. In time. In effort. In carefulness.
In a society where unquintessential leadership abounds, as well as entitlement and “it’s all about me,” the selflessness required for this kind of investment has all but disappeared.
But quintessential leaders know that they don’t have to have experienced something to be authentic in their communication with other people. And because of their commitment to developing unimpeachable character, two of the highly-developed traits they have are empathy and compassion for other people.
Empathy, like most of the other traits that make quintessential leaders trustworthy, is very rare and getting rarer. Most people believe that sympathy and empathy are the same thing and they are not.
Sympathy takes no long-term investment in another person: it tends to be a hands-off, “one-and-done” event.
Empathy, on the other hand, is a hands-on, long-term, hand-in-hand walk through the journey of – and with – another person. It is seeing through their eyes, understanding through their thoughts and emotions, and listening with interaction to know what is really behind their communication (often the words that are said or written have something else entirely behind them).
Compassion is always a by-product of and a companion of empathy. It is understanding, encouraging, invested, gentle, kind, and patient. It can be – and should be – the result of our own struggles, setbacks, and hard times in life.
But because compassion and empathy are so interrelated, many people choose a lack of compassion because they offer only sympathy as a one-time-shot to other people.
These same people also, ironically, do everything in their power to evoke compassion toward themselves, including constant manipulation, self-exaltation, and telling everyone how they are not like all those other poor slobs in the world who don’t deserve anyone’s compassion.
This is the Scarlett O’Hara (Gone With the Wind) syndrome, because like Margaret Mitchell’s infamous anti-heroine, in the end, everything is all about them and they refuse to share the stage of life with anyone else.
Another area that demonstrates the authenticity of quintessential leaders in communication with other people is that quintessential leaders do not parrot cliches, “conventional wisdom,” or idioms. Instead, quintessential leaders consider carefully the impact of their words and how they use them.
Because quintessential leaders are invested in other people, they understand and are sensitive to the needs that exist.
They are also profoundly aware of the power of words, the impact of words, and the effect of words.
They are not cavalier with words, simply letting whatever comes immediately to mind come out in their speech and writing. They always spend a considerable amount of time looking for ways to deeply and encouragingly communicate and avoiding hurt and offense.
They know and understand that even words that may advocate a course correction should build up and not tear down. That can’t be done with parroting something someone else has said or something they’ve heard all their lives. It can only be done with original thought combined with empathy and compassion.
This is just one aspect of behavior that makes quintessential leaders rare in society today.
But each of us is striving to become a quintessential leader, so this must be a behavior we develop, grow, and exhibit everywhere in our lives and model for all the teams we lead in our lives.
I say this often, but it cannot be repeated too much. If you breathe for a living, you lead at least one team in your life. Quintessential leadership is not confined to organizations, and can, therefore, be dismissed by everyone else.
Somebody in your life is looking to you and depending on you to model leadership for them. It might be your children. It might be your students. It might be your family members. It might be your spouse. It might be your coworkers. It might be your friends. It might be the sports team you coach. It might be the volunteer groups you are involved with. It might be anybody.
So, as always, we must look in our own mirrors and conduct a thorough, extensive, comprehensive, and fearlessly honest evaluation of what our communication with other people looks like.
Are we inauthentic anywhere or everywhere in our communication with other people?
If we are, is it because we lack awareness of our inauthenticity in our communication with other people?
Or is it because we’ve deliberately committed to a path of inauthenticity in our communication with other people?
If we find authenticity in our communication with other people, are we committed to preserving that and developing it to the point where it is literally a part of who and what we are all the time?
I can only answer these questions for myself. Each of you can answer them only for yourselves. Do we have the character and the courage to look, to see, to answer, and to change where and if we need to?
How are we doing?
Unless you’re God, Jesus Christ, or a fictional character (whose record, unlike the first two, is not perfect) in a Star Wars movie, the answer is “no.”
If you answered anything but “no,” then this post is for you.
Even if you answered “no,” this post is for you.
Because just saying “no” without understanding why doesn’t make you any more knowledgeable, any wiser, or any more of a quintessential leader than anyone who answered “yes” or “maybe.”
To discuss this topic cogently and thoroughly, we need to first look at the big picture and understand that there are different categories of questions we’re asked. These include factual questions, informational questions, moral questions, ethical questions, and life questions.
Moral questions and ethical questions should never be, for a quintessential leader, questions that we don’t have an immediate answer for and an explanation for our answers.
Consistent, unwavering, and unimpeachable moral and ethical character is a defining trait of quintessential leaders. It is literally a part of who and what we are and it is one of the traits that makes us trustworthy.
However, there are some factual questions and informational questions that we may not know the answers to, but we know we can find the answers.
When we are asked these kinds of questions, our responses are “Let me find the answers and get back to you.” Our responsibility then is to do what we say we’re going to do promptly.
But the questions that will be the ones we will not know or have all the answers for are life questions. And how and if we answer those questions accurately and compassionately will determine if we’re quintessential leaders or not.
There is a leadership myth that people who are in positions of leadership are required to have all the answers and know everything or they are not leaders.
Many people in leadership positions tend to fall into the traps of this myth. And the results are devastating because more hurt and damage is done by trying to live up to the myth than simply saying “I don’t know, but…”
Because the reality is that when it comes to life questions, none of us have or know all the answers. Ever. There are many things in life that are beyond our human understanding, knowledge, and comprehension.
To pretend that we have all the answers or to believe that we can find all the answers is, at its root, dishonest.
Sometimes it’s unintentional dishonesty. We are trying to do what we think we’re supposed to be doing – the myth. There are several ways this unintentional dishonesty happens.
One way is that we simply don’t understand the nature of the question and we believe we’re answering it when in fact we’re answering another question altogether.
Another way is that we haven’t been where the person asking the question has been or is. In other words, we haven’t experienced firsthand either exactly or to the degree of what that person has or is experiencing, so we have no frame of reference from which to answer their question. But we try to answer it anyway.
And then sometimes it’s intentional dishonesty because of pride, arrogance, and the need to maintain control. We know we don’t know, but we don’t care.
So we make things up, we lie without blinking, and we fool enough of the people enough of the time to gain a lot of people who believe us until our fantasies and our lies fall apart, as all fantasies and lies do in time, and in the wake of them is a bigger swath of destruction and damage than any hurricane, earthquake, volcanic eruption, or tsunami could even begin to touch because we’ve destroyed lives from the inside out.
Destruction and damage to stuff is difficult to deal with and, while some losses are permanent and unrecoverable, a viable measure of recovery is still possible.
Destruction and damage to the soul and to the psyche, on the other hand is excruciating, and often times, the possibility of any kind of meaningful recovery is slim to none.
The reality of life is that some things in life simply don’t have answers – at least that are available to us peeps on the planet.
With many life questions, it’s impossible to make a nice, neat list and say, “If you do a, b, c, this will answer x life question.” Life and the unique situations that each of us experience – which generates the questions – as we go through life are not that simple.
If any of us thinks it is, then we simply don’t get it.
So when we are trying to live up to the “leader-knows-all” myth, we not only hurt ourselves and do more damage by “answering” life questions, but we hurt and do a lot of damage to those we’re “answering.”
What, then, do quintessential leaders do?
This came up recently in a discussion about an “answered” life question that I didn’t – and wouldn’t – ask, but that I have been and am experiencing 24/7 for a long time. And I’ll share with you what I shared in the discussion.
The “answer” was well-intentioned but it had some noticeable flaws and, in the end, was the answer to another question.
I had a physical reaction – my chest tightened up and I really had to work hard for a few minutes to get a grip and calm myself down – at the very beginning of the “answer,” because I knew it wasn’t the answer to the question.
There were disconcerting statements made that literally caused anxiety in me because I knew what was being said – and I’m not even sure the person answering the question realized they said what they said – showed a lack of knowledge, experience, and intimate understanding, even though the person answering the question is very compassionate, caring, and empathetic.
On a personal note, in some ways, at least for me, that’s much, much harder to deal with than someone you know doesn’t care.
And, yet, there would be no way to explain to this person or any other person who has not walked intimately and long-term in the shoes of this – or any other, for that matter – life question that the answers, if there are any, are not always so cut and dry, “this” or “that,” and that, in the big scheme of things, there are a lot of aspects that there are no answers for.
But as I listened to the “answer,” it became apparent that the life question being answered was not the one that had been asked. I have done and am doing all the things contained in that answer and none of them has answered my life question (which is the same life question the person was attempting to answer).
Quintessential leaders, first and foremost, recognize their limitations. And when it comes to life questions, we are all limited. We don’t have or know all the answers to life questions and we won’t as long as we breathe for a living.
And that’s okay. It doesn’t mean we’re less of a leader. It doesn’t mean we’ve failed. It doesn’t mean that we’ve let other people down. It means that we’re human.
I was asked during the discussion how I would have answered this life question. Since it’s a predominant life question for me right now, I gave the answer I’ve come to accept, but I added what someone who hasn’t walked in the shoes of this life question isn’t really able to in a meaningful way.
My answer? “I don’t know the answer, but I’m asking the same question myself because I’m going through the same thing. I completely understand exactly what you’re asking, why you’re asking it, and what a crushing, 24/7 weight it is on your mind and your life. I can’t solve it for you. I can’t fix it for you. But I can walk, step for step, with you and beside you through it. You are not completely alone.”
My fellow quintessential leaders, “I don’t know” in the matter of life questions is the next best thing to silence if we don’t know or have the answers. It is the product of wisdom. It is also the product of humility.
An abundance of words about something we haven’t experienced firsthand, know little or nothing about in a meaningful way, or simply don’t understand is the worst thing we can do.
Life questions are tough for everyone. Except for the people being intentionally dishonest in answering them, the motivation to find answers is not malicious (in fact, it’s the opposite because we really want to help), but when the answers are hollow or wrong or to a different question altogether, we do more harm than good.
How are we doing?
Qualities of Quintessential Leaders is now available on Amazon and on The Quintessential Leader website (go to The Quintessential Leader home page, and click on the “Get 10% off eBooks purchases of $10 or more for a limited time only!” link and you’ll receive a 10% discount on all downloadable eBook orders of $10 or more).
My book description says it all:
“If you are reading this, you are in a leadership position for someone.
Substitute the words “example,” “mentor,” or “role model,” “teacher,” “coach,” “parent,” “grandparent,” “aunt,” “uncle,” “friend,” and “neighbor,” in addition to the traditional functions associated with leadership positions for the word “leader,” and you’ll see we all fill leadership positions for the people around us.
How are we doing? Qualities of Quintessential Leaders will help us all to answer that question and to find out how to improve and change so that we pass quintessential leadership qualities on to all those whose lives intersect with ours.
What we do and how we do it will make a far greater impact than any words we can ever say. This book will help ensure that the footprint each of us leaves behind is one that is imitable.”
How you can purchase Qualities of Quintessential Leaders:
Paperback: Qualities of Quintessential Leaders (http://www.amazon.com/Qualities-Quintessential-Leaders-Sandra-Ross/dp/1492714151/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1379106861&sr=8-2&keywords=qualities+of+quintessential+leaders)
Kindle: Qualities of Quintessential Leaders (http://www.amazon.com/Qualities-of-Quintessential-Leaders-ebook/dp/B00F5YOJ12/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1379106861&sr=8-1&keywords=qualities+of+quintessential+leaders)
Qualities of Quintessential Leaders in The Quintessential Leader‘s online store as a downloadable PDF eBook (http://shop.thequintessentialleader.com/Qualities-of-Quintessential-Leaders-QLDR-QualitiesBKDownLoad.htm)
Listed below are The Quintessential Leader’s recommendations for articles that all of us quintessential leaders should read and think about this week.
A note about these article recommendations. I am very careful in selecting these and their inclusion here means that I agree with the premise and gist of the article, not necessarily with every single thing that the writer says.
That’s the purpose of reading and critically thinking. Reading should ignite our thinking and it should cause us to process, weigh, question, answer, accept and reject. I believe that the reasons why groupthink is so prevalent everywhere in society today are because:
(a) most people don’t read substantively
(b) most people have stopped – if they ever knew how – critically thinking about everything
(c) most people have been subtly conditioned to not question anything and everything for its truthfulness and accuracy
(d) most people have not developed an internal database of truth to find answers in (they depend on others to tell them what truth is)
(e) most people don’t have a clue how to accept or reject information coming at them, so everything comes in and stays (and creates confusion).
This quote from “Leadership is About Breaking Things” by Michael Myatt sums up one of the hallmark differences between quintessential leadership and unquintessential leadership: “If you’re more interested in protecting what is than you are finding the answer to what if you might be in a leadership role, but you’re likely not leading well. Order isn’t all it’s cracked-up to be. In fact, I’d go so far as to say routine is the great enemy of leaders. Conformity to the norm does little more than pour the foundation of obsolescence by creating an environment that shuns change rather than embraces it. Disruption is never found by maintaining the status quo, but it’s most commonly revealed in the chaos that occurs by shattering the status quo. Smart leaders don’t think ‘best’ practices – they focus their attention on discovering ‘next’ practices. The simple fact of the matter is too many leaders are concerned with fixing things, when what they should be doing is breaking things.”
Note that it is things quintessential leaders break, not people. Unquintessential leaders desperately maintain the status quo and spend all their time and energy on breaking people into yielding and submitting to ways of doing things that often are archaic, inefficient, ineffective, inexplicable, and weren’t even good or right to begin with.
As quintessential leaders, we must never fall into the trap of “that’s the way we’ve always done it, so that’s the way we’ll continue to do it.” Quintessential leaders know why they’re doing everything and are able to, in their own words, explain, quantify, and show the tangible results – honestly and authentically (no dog-and-pony shows and no smoke and mirrors)- to anyone and everyone.
Quintessential leaders are forward-looking and forward-moving. They never rest on their laurels and they never stop asking “why” and “how.” Quintessential leadership is never static, but instead it is always dynamically improving.
In “Why Leaders Must ‘Get Real’ – 5 Ways to Unlock Authentic Leadership,” by Margie Warrell, the link between authenticity and quintessential leadership is summed up in five key areas where we must be “real.”
While Guari Sharma’s article, “How to Grow a Small Team: Nine Best Hiring Practices,” focuses on building small teams in a start-up environment, these nine best hiring practices should be part of the way we as quintessential leaders hire.
I am always surprised at how little effort can sometimes be expended in the hiring process as well as how little potential employers think outside of the box with regard to hiring and then the moaning and groaning that comes when the new hires are, at best, mediocre, in key areas of their responsibilities, or, at worst, abysmally poor in all areas of their responsibilities, initiating the 90-day “let’s find a way to get rid of them while we can” probational period that most jobs now have attached to them.
Quintessential leaders are high-level and performance-oriented teambuilders. We understand that investing well and at a high time (and perhaps monetary) cost up front will pay off for everyone involved. Too many people in leadership positions have no long-term and big-picture vision for themselves, their teams, and their organizations, so they hire randomly and sloppily and everyone suffers in terms of progress, success, and profits.
In Dan Rockwell’s, “The Surprising Path to the Top,” the quintessential leadership trait of growing others is discussed. Quintessential leaders are always growing other people in their lives, not just their team members. That is an intrinsic part of who quintessential leaders are. Because quintessential leaders are big-picture thinkers, we realize that helping everyone we have the opportunity to help grow in whatever forms that takes is part of our responsibilities and legacies.
The reality is that the only thing we take out of this temporary, physical life is our character and the net results of our relationships with God and others. Quintessential leaders take this knowledge to heart and that is where the focus of every aspect of our lives is. And that is why we are always growing others where we are able. We understand it’s never all about “me.”
We understand that our lives and the gifts we’ve been given didn’t originate with us and are not ours to use selfishly. Power and pride and money are never part of the equation. We want financial security, but we will not sell our souls or throw others under the bus time and again to get and keep it. We value integrity, truth, and honesty more highly than anything else in the world. And sometimes that means we take – and they can be big – physical losses and hits. Sometimes we recover and sometimes we don’t on a physical level. But a character loss and hit, while theoretically recoverable, is something we’re not willing to take, because that destroys everything in terms of trust and trustworthiness.
This quote from “The Single Greatest Secret of Leadership – Fail Up” by Daniel K. Williams illustrates how quintessential leaders approach failures (their own and those of others): “As leaders, we serve our employees best by not focusing attention on their weaknesses and mistakes. Instead we should encourage them to navigate through challenges on their journey. We can help by asking questions like ‘How do you learn best?’ ‘What could you do better?’ or ‘How can the team better support you in the future?’
The most important thing is to strive to move forward continually. Some days we make great progress in some areas; other days we seem to slide a bit. If we were to chart our progress on a board, it has ups and downs, but overall it should move upward as we live and learn from our mistakes and failures.“
Quintessential leaders understand that this thing called life, which includes our work, is never a straight line, but a series of mountains and valleys that represent our successes and our failures. However, it should be through our failures that we find the greatest opportunities to grow, to change, to move forward, or as Williams puts it “to fail up.”
Quintessential leaders seize those opportunities and do that, not just with themselves, but with everyone on all the teams they lead in life.
May we continue along the quintessential leader path, navigating the mountains and valleys with equanimity and courage, growing ourselves and growing others along the way.
We are in the middle of an incredible process that begins with who we are internally on a foundational level, proceeds with wisdom, knowledge, and application (growth), and results in not only our quintessential leadership being perfected, but also planted and cultivated in everyone with whom our lives intersects.
The Quintessential Leader 