A641.9.3.RB_LeeDarrell - Becoming A Resonant Leader

This is my final blog for my Resonant Leadership course. Over the past nine weeks, we have learned to really look inward and to reflect on who we want to become, what we want to achieve, who we currently are, and how to engage in an intentional transition. When taking a course like this, there are two ways to go about it. We can either go through the motions and “fake it until we make it” (let’s face it – nobody in the class knows me so I could have easily made up everything on the fly) or we can truly engage in the material. I chose the Master of Science in Leadership because I truly want to be an effective leader. Therefore, I have spent a considerable amount of time engaging in the exercises and meditating on the material. Because of that, many of my thoughts have changed from week to week. Some of them have even changed mid-assignment. I am sure that my thoughts will continue to evolve as time progresses.

For this final assignment, we have been asked to take things in a slightly different direction. As you are well aware, I speak freely in my blogs and I write in the same style in which I speak. However, I am always addressing you, the reader. Today, I am going to address an entirely different audience – me. I have been asked to compose a letter to myself. I speak to myself on a daily basis. Hey, this is New York City. That’s how I scare off the tourists! Just kidding. But full disclosure – I don’t know how to do this. I don’t keep a diary or a journal but perhaps it isn’t such a bad idea. This first experience may be just a bit awkward until I get used to it, though.

I am genuinely excited about what you have learned about yourself over the past several weeks. One of the most poignant self-discoveries is that your values are maybe not exactly what you thought they were. You always take such great pride in your integrity. I still remember that morning on the subway when it finally hit you that you are willing to bend the rules to accomplish a greater good. Congratulations, you old stickler! Remember how Mom and Becky always make fun of you for driving so slow because you refuse to violate the speed limit? I guess you now have my permission to bend or even break a few rules here and there to get to where you need to be.

Speaking of which, let’s talk about were you need to be heading. Darrell, you are destined for something great. You may never be wealthy. You may never have a high position of leadership. You may never change the world, but you are called to make wherever you are a better place. You are destined to serve the greater good by showing others how to experience true joy. I don’t know what your future career may hold for you but right now we are going to work toward you starting a firm specializing in veteran job placement but what you do is secondary to who you are and who you will become.

There are a few things that you are going to need to learn to reach your vision. Also, remember that your vision is not fixed. It can and will change. Hey, it has even changed since you started this course. Why would you not expect it to change as you change? For each of the things that you need to learn, you need to have reasonable and realistic milestones. You are also going to need some support along the way. You can’t do this on your own. I know that you lament losing the deep bond with your father. I hope that time will continue to heal those wounds and that your relationship will be fully restored. If not, keep leaning a little on Rick Calero. Also remember that the rest of your family supports you. They want to see you succeed. Lean on them.

Darrell, the first thing that you have to learn is to control your frustration. I think you know what I mean by this. You’re a very logical person and are amazing at working through problems. You think in ways that most others don’t. You see emerging patterns and make connections that few others can see without being shown. However, not everybody’s mind works like yours and you kind of let it show when others can’t follow your logic. I know you clench your jaw and have fluctuations in your tone. So here is what you are going to do. When you are explaining something, show a little maturity by pausing before attempting to explain again. But don’t just pause. Learn to love that brief moment. During that time, I want you to feel what others around you are feeling. Seek to see the problem from their angle. Now you’re about to retire from the Army so it may be hard to measure this because you don’t have much time but I want you to focus on that action for these final few months then have a sensing session with your team as you leave. Ask them how they would rate you now then again in six months. See what the difference is. I bet that will become habit.

Next, you need to learn to say “no”. I know that you struggle so much with this but how are you going to reach your vision if you are constantly giving of yourself to the point that you can’t function? You’re going to burn yourself out. I know that you want to please everybody and I even know that your vision is to help everybody else learn to be joyful. What better way than by sacrificing of yourself, right? Wrong. Darrell, sometimes others need to hear “no” and learn to be content with what they have to experience true joy. Right now, I can say that you have not denied a single subordinate any time off for which they have asked. You haven’t said “no” to accepting any assignments or duties from your commander. But why have you not? I want you to put your foot down. Set limits. Let’s start with something easy. When you get home from work, turn off your work cell phone. Do not check e-mail on the weekend. Again, I wish that you had more time to see the results of this. There is no telling where you will be after the next year. I wish that we had a few years to see the change but we don’t. However, a good milestone will be to see what people are asking of you in your final couple of months in the Army. If you learn to tactfully say “no” now, it will reflect when you are trying to clear. You know how these people are. They would ask you to come into work on the day of your funeral if you let them. See what they are demanding in your final month.

Finally, learn to relax. I know that this is the hardest thing for you. You are always go-go-go. Right now, you are preparing for retirement, finishing grad school, and networking for your next job. I get it. That is a lot. The thing is that even when it isn’t a lot, you make it a lot. You are used to working 50+ hours a week and your last real vacation was, what, five years ago? You are setting yourself up for dissonance. This may be the easiest learning objection to action but the hardest to embrace. Fortunately, it is easy to measure. I want you to plan a vacation next summer. Plan it six months out and stick to it. Every year for the next five years, you need to plan two vacations every year. By 2023, you need to have visited at least four foreign countries. Of course, relaxation is more than just travel but let’s start there. You’re a wanderlust at heart. Embrace it!

Once you learn these three measurable learning goals – controlling frustration, saying no, and learning to relax – I think that you will find that you are close to becoming the man that you want to be. Just remember, you’re a direction focused kind of guy. That means that you don’t need to worry about specific goals. Just be the man that you know you need to be! And revisit this from time to time. See where you are. When it seems that you are still so far from your goal, don’t be afraid to look back and see how far you have come! 

A641.8.3.RB_LeeDarrell - Personal Balance Sheet

Over the past several weeks, I have participated in a myriad of exercises designed to help with introspect and to help me better understand myself. Each exercise had a specific purpose. They were used find my values, identify my social status, to find some of my strengths and weaknesses, develop my personal vision, identify my passions, and even help me realize some of my fears. Now it is time to zoom out and look at myself holistically. This is kind of like when I used to do theatre. I remember once several years ago when I was doing “South Pacific” with the Lubbock Community Theatre. We would rehearse each section of a play until we could perform it in our sleep. However, we only had one rehearsal where we did the play in its entirety before the show opened. We still did fine but it was a nerve-wracking experience. We should have practiced putting it all together to make it a fluid event. That is what we are trying to accomplish this week. We are just zooming out and looking how everything fits together. This is my full dress rehearsal.

To truly look at myself holistically, I have to accept that I am not a superhuman that has achieved resonance just because I took a class on it as some of the exercises made me feel at the time. In fact, what I have learned is that resonance is a constant process and it is very easy to slip out of it. It is near impossible to maintain. I understand that I have my strengths that don’t need to change and I have my weaknesses that I do need to change. I also understand that I have perceived strengths and weaknesses that don’t necessarily exist but others see them as such. Some of the exercises made me feel as if I had identified all of these traits and that change would be easy. The truth is, though, that change is a difficult process. If it wasn’t, why would dissonance be the default instead of resonance?

Let me start with what I think is my strongest point – I am a peacemaker. A lot of this has to do with my values. As mentioned in a previous blog entry, I am a consequentialist so I seek to do what is in the best interest of the collective. I am willing to make sacrifices if the benefit outweighs the cost. Because of that, I am able to guide others through doing the same. As an example, when I took over my current position earlier this year, the friction in my office was palpable. It was pretty evident that my new team was in the storming phase. Everybody seemed to be working to outdo the others and nobody was really working together. It was an “us versus them” (or a “me versus you”) mentality. It took time but I was able to use positive reinforcement through empathy to get my team to find common ground and start working together as a single unit. The results of this are very clear. Just yesterday, during my morning meeting, I sat everybody down and went over our production reports with them and pointed out that just in the first quarter of this year we have already achieved 50% of the volume that we achieved for the entire fiscal year last year. That isn’t because of me, though. It is because the team has realized their own potential by working together. There is a downside to this, though. I don’t think this is an actual weakness of mine but it is a perceived weakness. Often, people will try to take advantage of peacemakers by pushing the limits as far as possible. There are two in particular on my team that try to take advantage of that and try to play on my empathy to get me to force more compromises to give them an advantage, particularly with time off. Where I have difficulty with that is balancing when to be compassionate and when to be forceful. Again, though, by zooming out and looking at both of these together – my strength and weakness – I can see how they fit together. It isn’t as easy as saying, “Well, I just will be firm but fair”. The big picture shows that being firm may affect my ability to make peace. To take it a step farther, how does that fit in with my personal vision and my goals? How does this factor in to becoming the person I want to be? What I can see a little more clearly now is that it is more important for me to be the peacemaker so being firm (non-empathetic, for lack of a better term), may not actually be the best approach. Now I am asking myself – is there a way that I can help the two team members that continue to ask for more? Can I connect with them to maybe help with their underlying needs? Perhaps asking for more is not a personality trait for them but rather a solution to a deeper problem.

I also have to look at the opposite end of the spectrum. What is my biggest weakness that makes me slip into dissonance and stands in the way of achieving my ideal self? Several months ago, I had a professional coaching session and we made an interesting discovering based off of my personality profile. My profile was based on three separate iterations of The Attentional Interpersonal Style Inventory (TAIS). Over the course of three years, there was very little change in my results so it was easy enough to identify some of my prominent personality and leadership traits. What stuck out is that I a highly logical decision maker and I arrive at those decisions quickly. The problem is that I may become easily frustrated when others aren’t able to understand the logic in what I am saying. Just the other day, I was giving a tutoring session to a coworker taking a math class and experienced a similar thing. I swear, I explained 10 times how to find the solution but he just wasn’t understanding the concepts. I know he could see on my face that I was getting frustrated so he became even more nervous and frustrated himself. This ties into another weakness that I have. Since I am very logical, I don’t focus as much on emotions. That isn’t to say that I don’t feel anything as I absolutely do but I tend to forgive and forget. When other people aren’t able to do that and resolve their emotions as quickly as I am, I may visibly show my frustration with that which, just like with the math tutoring, leads to increased frustration on their part. I believe this is my primary obstacle at this time. Unfortunately, I am not sure how to correct it but at least I know what it is and how I want to be. And knowing is half the battle.

A641.7.3.RB_LeeDarrell - Appreciating Your “Real Self”

Living in New York City is very unlike living anywhere else. We do life just a little differently than the rest of the world. We don’t drive. We don’t live in houses. We party on the weeknights and go to be early on the weekends. We NEVER go to Times Square. And we conform. Therefore, it is very easy to spot the tourists. They are usually the ones blocking the doors on express train with their big maps and backpacks during rush hour. God bless them. We love them and are glad they are here. We just want them to get out of our way, especially during rush hour. The other day, I was heading to a charity event in Hell’s Kitchen and was walking through the Columbus Circle station on the SW corner of Central Park. Like most of us, I was wearing my headphones (I usually don’t even have music going but by wearing them I can ignore people without anybody thinking anything of it) and was in a rush but there was a group of tourists from some youth group in Texas. They were all wearing the same t-shirt and looked very lost. Being a native Texan, I took pity on them and stopped to ask what they needed. They said they were trying to get to Union Square. I said, “No problem. Just take the A, C, or E to 14^th Street then transfer to the L and it will be your 2^nd stop.” I figured if I told the entire group, one of them would understand but they still looked so confused. The chaperone of the group said, “Ok, so where are we now then?” They knew where they wanted to be. They just couldn’t understand how to get there because they didn’t know where they were. They were lost.

Over the past seven weeks of this course, Resonant Leadership, we have been studying concepts such as identifying our “ideal self” (Boyatzis & McKee, 2005), developing our personal vision (McKee, Boyatzis, & Johnston, 2008), and the intentional change required to help us become the leader/person that we want to be (Boyatzis & McKee, 2005). In other words, we have identified our destination. But without understanding where we truly currently are, we are like those tourists from Texas and we will never get there. Therefore, today I am focusing a little more on appreciating my real self – not who I strive to be but who I am in this present moment. The bottom line is that “effective change involves mindful awareness of who you currently are. We each have unique characteristics that form as a result of our biology, life experiences, and current situation. We are always evolving and adapting as we encounter new situations in life” (McKee, Boyatzis, & Johnston, 2008, p. 111).

We read a story this week about a woman named Jill that accepted a new promotion/position but was unsure if she was truly up to the challenge of it (McKee, Boyatzis, & Johnston, 2008). She knew that she had strengths but had a tendency to dwell on her weaknesses and shortcomings. This story really hit home for me because I am about to retire from the Army in just about a year and will be forced to accept a new position. Considering I’ll have a master’s degree, I don’t intend to stay at an entry level position for a moment longer than needed. However, there is always that doubt about being up for the challenge. I know that I want to market my strengths but I am concerned that my shortcomings may hinder me. The thought of being fired from a job absolutely terrifies me. However, to overcome this, Jill received feedback from her team and was surprised to hear that they didn’t focus on her shortcomings at all. She was focused on things that they barely even noticed. I was with a couple of my friends last night and asked what they thought of me professionally. Like Jill, I was encouraged to hear the strengths that they saw and to not hear my weaknesses. This has helped me to see a clear picture – a holistic picture – of myself.

As a part of this holistic view of me, I had to begin with how I got to where I am today. I completed a little exercise where I drew out my lifeline. I started when I was born in 1980 and marked all of the major life events from then to now. Some of them are very personal so I won’t be sharing them here but this helped me see how those events shaped my views, attitudes, values, and overall personality. I conducted a similar exercise with my career except in reverse order. I started with where I am now as a station commander and documented the feelings that I had and the highlights of the experience and went back to the beginning of my work experience. It’s funny because when I did that I remembered that I actually was once fired from a part time job when I was 17. Remember, I said that is one of my great fears of the future but it wasn’t a very traumatic event when it happened the first time. (That wasn’t a typo. It was NOT traumatic. It caught me by surprise but I now remember thinking that if they were firing me then I would just take myself elsewhere. And I was fired for something that I didn’t do, by the way.) I then compared my lifeline and career line and found some connections. For example, my first deployment to Iraq was a major life experience that helped me learn to remain calm under pressure which set me up for success in my next position which was my first team leadership role.

The next exercise that I conducted helped me to analyze my social identities and roles and how that helps shape who I am. When I say social roles, what I mean are social positions such as son, friend, brother, uncle, etc. I recently watched a movie – I don’t remember what it was called but it was a comedy – where a man was engaged but realized that he had no friends so sought out to court a new best friend. Sometimes I feel like that. I am very well connected through my social club and American Legion post. However, I don’t have many friends where I just hang out with on a regular basis outside of the club. Sometimes this grates on me just a little but looking at my social roles helps it all make a little more sense. I am a Soldier in a non-Army town. I am 37 and have no children. The activities in which I participate are often solo activities. I have no family nearby. Therefore, it makes sense that my friends – the ones that I do see on a regular basis - are primarily veterans with no children. In fact, ALL of my friends that I see on a regular basis fall into that category. This is not necessarily a bad thing. It just helps to know why I am in the social circles where I am. These social circles are instrumental in developing my values and also are integral to my cycles of renewal (Boyatzis & McKee, 2015).

The final exercise led me to explore my current strengths. As previously stated, we often have a tendency to dwell on our shortcomings so it is nice to reflect on where we excel. There are three primary strengths that I know that I have. First, I have compassion. This moves me to action and helps me to break down barriers. Second, I am amazing at networking. It has been said that it’s all about who you know. I happen to know a lot of the right people from CEOs and hedge fund managers to marketing specialists and clergy members. (I actually still have a physical Rolodex full of business cards and I send Christmas/holiday cards.) My final strength (well, not my final one but the final one that I explored on the exercise) is my ability to focus on logic while still incorporating the emotional needs of others through empathy. This is a skill that I have just recently begun to develop over the last year and a half, really – since I have been enrolled in the Master of Leadership program – but it is one that I think I was able to embrace fairly quickly and has revolutionized the way that I interact with the world around me.

It is nice to know where I am right now. As I continue on my journey to my ideal self, I will continually have to reevaluate my position. However, if we don’t know where we are, how can we know how to get to where we are going?

Boyatzis, R. & McKee, A. (2005). Resonant Leadership. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School 

Press

McKee, A., Boyatzis, R. E., & Johnston, F. (2008). Becoming a Resonant Leader: Develop Your

Emotional Intelligence, Renew Your Relationships, Sustain Your Effectiveness. Boston: Harvard Business Press.

A641.5.3.RB_LeeDarrell - ICT at the Team Level

One thing that often catches people a little off guard about me is my love for hockey. Originally, I am from Texas. There, football is practically a religion. On Friday, people watch high school ball. Saturday is college day (I was in Lubbock so everybody was all about Texas Tech). Then, Sunday was the day to cheer for the Cowboys. I never cared to partake in any of it, though, so was a bit of a social outcast in that respect. It wasn’t until ’98 that I realized that I was actually supposed to be born a Canadian. (Not literally but I mean that I thrive in the cold and I love the ice.)

I always say that the biggest appeal of hockey to me is how much of a “team sport” it is. My friends often rebut that other professional sports are also team sports. I surely don’t disagree with that but hockey doesn’t really have many superstars. In football, the focus is pretty much on the quarterback and he (or she, if it is a women’s league) can make or break the team. In basketball, it seems that you always have the one person that gets all of the fame and glory. Hockey isn’t like that, though. Sure, you may have a goalie that is a brick wall but other than that, players or rotating on and off the ice every minute and a half or so. The high scorers spend more time on the bench than on the ice. It is all about the team coming together and I absolutely love that. (I also like that it is fast-paced and low scoring which means that every goal is a thrill.)

This week, we have been studying the Intentional Change Theory (ICT) which, in a nutshell, is our conscious choice to guide the path of our progression toward our ideal self which is “what you want out of life and the person you want to be – leading to your personal vision” (Boyatzis & McKee, 2005, p. 88). Intentional change is a continuous process that has five steps: the realization of the personal self, embracing your real self (how you actually are and how others see you), your learning agenda (capitalizing on strengths and working on weaknesses), experimenting with habits, and developing and maintaining relationships.

I would imagine that these star players exercise ICT every day. I am often encouraged by the story of Michael Jordan (Halberstam, 1999). When he was in high school, Michael Jordan was actually told that he was too short to play for the varsity team. He knew, though, that he was destined to be the best of the best. He committed everything he had to preparing for a future in professional basketball. He realized both his ideal self and understood how he was currently seen by others and found a way to work through that to push toward excellence. In his senior year, he finally made the varsity team and became a primary player for the team. The rest is history. He didn’t let anybody stop him from advancing.

We hear success stories like this all the time from every sport – superstars that were told that they were not good enough or that had all of the cards stacked against them yet were able to rise to the top. We are inspired by these stories to enact changes in our own lives to work toward our own ideal self. Perhaps we are looking to be more physically fit, increase our paycheck, or just have better relationships and a social life. We look to these stars and say, “If they can do it, I know that I can, too!” We then follow the steps of ICT and make it happen.

Here’s the problem. What happens when you have a team of people that are all trying to be the best version of themselves without regard to the rest of the team? I see this all the time even in Army recruiting. You have a bunch of individuals working toward their individual goals of being a recruiting superstar but they forget to work together to make it happen. Consider this. In the 1970s, the Russian hockey team was unbeatable. However, in the 1980 Winter Olympics, the U.S. hockey team did the impossible and worked together to take down the undefeatable giant. The team was made up of amateur and college players. After that, the team was replaced with NHL professionals. Team USA has not won gold since then even though the team is made of superstars.

When it comes to applying ICT to a group – in this case, a sports team (but you can apply this to any group) – “intentionality and shared ideals are the drivers of change and group transformation” (Akriyou & Boyatzis, 2006, p. 690). When everybody is just trying to be the best version of themselves, that isn’t necessarily conducive to a positive team. In 1980, the U.S. hockey team wasn’t playing as a collection of individuals but rather as a solid team with one goal in mind – to take gold. But how do you take a collection of individuals all striving to be the best and actually get them to change their focus to being the best team, instead? “In existing models of group development, negative emotionality was an essential, explicit and/or subtle underlying theme. Negative emotion was seen as a catalyst for change in the group” (p. 695-696). In other words, it takes a little bit of anger or even failure for the need for a change to even be recognized. If things are going well, even if the team is not performing at peak capacity, the realization of a better alternative isn’t even acknowledged. However, when competition against other markets or other teams is present, failure is naturally easier to gauge. This failure causes strong emotions. At that time, “positive motivation creates intrinsic motivation for intentional group development” (p. 696).

The bottom line – ICT can be applied at the team level. Sometimes, though, we have to experience a little defeat to recognize the need for change. At that point, we can begin to work together to be the best possible version of our team.

  

Akrivou, K., Boyatzis, R. E., & McLeod, P. L. (2006). The Evolving Group: Towards a

Prescriptive Theory of Intentional Group Development. The Journal of Management Development, 25(7), 689-706. doi:http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.libproxy.dbN.erau.edu/10.1108/02621710610678490

Boyatzis, R. & McKee, A. (2005). Resonant Leadership. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School 

 Press

Halberstam, D. (1999). Playing or Keeps: Michael Jordan and the World He Made (First ed.).

New York: Random House.

A641.4.3.RB_LeeDarrell - Tipping Points of Emotional Intelligence

Every once in a while, I feel myself becoming a little frustrated with my assignments simply because I have a hard time relating to them. This is one of those times. It isn’t that what I am learning doesn’t apply to me. It is just that the Army is such a unique environment when it comes to leadership. Unlike a traditional organization, we are not producing a product or a service that adds value. We also have a unique approach to leadership that is deeply rooted in traditional hierarchies and, though society is changing, we can’t really change that approach because of the need for positive control in the battlespace. That means that we often have a very direct style of leadership where followership is not optional but rather mandatory. In other words, it doesn’t matter how crummy a boss may be. So long as they are not doing anything that is morally or ethically unacceptable, their leadership must be followed.

Even though I often face this frustration with relating my position to the assignments, I usually am still able to find some kind of a connection. The only thing that seems to keep me going is the understanding that I am laying the knowledge foundation for my future. This particular blog put me in one of those frustrated moods and it seemed to take all evening for me to figure out how to really connect it to my current position…but then it clicked.

Boyatzis (2006) conducted a study of 32 outstanding performers and a random sampling from 800 average performers in a firm to identify a “tipping point” in their competencies that moved them from average to outstanding. I won’t list all of the competencies here but will hit on the highlights. There were four “clusters” of competencies that, when displayed on a regular basis, were indicators of highly successful leaders. They were:

1.      Self-motivation cluster (planning, achievement orientation, self-confidence)

2.      Self-regulation cluster (taking a risky stand, self-control, adaptability, conscientiousness, values learning)

3.      People-management cluster (networking, leadership, coaching, empathy, facilities learning)

4.      Cognitive cluster (systems thinking)

Basically, these competencies were rated by how often they were demonstrated and seen by others. Each competency had a unique tipping point but, for the sake of brevity, I’ll just say that they competencies were all demonstrated more than “occasionally” and leaned to the “frequently” category.

I have been asked to share examples from my own career of tipping points. As previously noted, this is where a little bit of frustration seeped in because we are taught to lead in a completely different way than those in other organizations. However, as I thought about it more, I realized that yes, it is true that my previous positions were a little less applicable but with my current position, it is more important than ever. As a Station Commander for an Army recruiting center, we work remote from all other support and services. My job is essentially to evaluate the data support systems and ensure that I am placing my team in the right place at the right time with the right message to achieve our mission objectives. However, this means that I pretty much push my team out the door at about 10:30 or 11:00 every morning and send them off to work independently for the next six hours or so. That means that I absolutely must trust them to do what is necessary to be done to accomplish the mission. If I expect them to get out there and do the job instead of just taking off and going to take a nap for a couple of hours, I absolutely must hit a tipping point where I move from an average leader to an outstanding leader than can inspire commitment, trust, passion, and action.

I think there are two areas where I have really hit a tipping point recently were I went from being average to really setting myself apart which, in turn, set my team up for success. My first example comes from the self-motivation cluster, specifically focusing on the planning and achievement orientation competencies. Every morning, I have a meeting with my team which is called an In-Progress Review (IPR). I always say that this is a little like performing maintenance on a car in motion. We don’t stop anything to have the meeting but rather just huddle quickly and go over a few planning issues. Every day, though, I print a sheet that shows exactly where we are with mission accomplishment and then I direct the actions that I expect to happen during the week to close us out. There is always a plan. I will confide this in you, though – I don’t always know how or if a plan will work but I never tell my team that. I always just tell them exactly what I expect of them and how that will accomplish our mission. I have found that when you give a task and show them how the result affects the team, the members of the team do what needs to be done to make it happen. This IPR isn’t something that I do sometimes. It is something that I do every day. (It is mandatory but I know that many of my peers don’t do it as required.)

However, as great as that may seem, there is another area where I know that I really hit a tipping point on a routine basis and it is what is setting me up for success in the future. When it comes to people-management, my specialty is networking. I actually keep a rolodex of business cards that I go over once a week. I am one of those guys that sends Christmas cards to people that I encounter. This has resulted in friendships and partnerships with people, some very powerful, from all walks of life. A few examples - there is a man named Justin Constantine who was a Marine officer injured in combat. He is now a highly influential motivational speaker with several TED Talks. He just left my apartment a couple of hours after having dinner and playing cards for a while. Then, last night, I had drinks and a cigar with Rick Calero, the CEO of TIAA Direct. I also am connected with celebrities such as Geraldo Rivera and Gilbert Gottfried. How is it that I, a lowly Sergeant First Class in the U.S. Army, am in the inner circle with people such as this? It isn’t that I am better than anybody else. It isn’t that I am smarter, funnier, or more talented. It is only because I understand that when we connect with others, we share in the reach of their influence. I know that there is very little I can actually accomplish professionally or personally but I know how to connect the people that can. Just the other week, one of my friends reached out to me because he was hosting a Veterans’ benefit that included a Gold Star family but they were unavailable. Within an hour and a half, I had another family lined up for him and, in return, I had tickets to a hockey game.

Tipping points – moving from average to outstanding – is more than just about the competencies that we have, though. It is also about the vision that we have of ourselves and, more important, the vision that we have of our organization (Boyatzis, Rochford, & Taylor, 2015). There really are two ways that we can see ourselves. We can see our ideal self or we can see our ought self. Our ideal self is our personal image of a desired future fueled by hope that reflects our core identity. This is how we know we can be if we hit all of our tipping points and drive ourselves and our teams to the full potential. On the other hand, our ought self is the vision that others have of our future. In other words, it is their version of our ideal self. But since nobody knows us like we do, it is important that we embrace what we know is best rather than what others tell us is best. To reach our ideal self, though, we have to embrace both positive emotional attractors (PEAs) and negative emotional attractors (NEAs). Boiling them down to their basic elements, PEAs are the positive drives that we feel to move us toward our ideal self and NEAs are the negative emotions that we either wish to avoid or that we experience that drive us to avoid recurrence. We have to learn to embrace them both (but preferably we experience more positive than negative) to become our ideal self.

Ultimately, as I mentioned before, I may not have the typical work experience in a traditional organization so it is understandable that some of this was initially a little lost on me. However, I clearly see now how my tipping points that move me from ordinary to extraordinary don’t even lie in me but rather in others through networking. I also see the ideal version of myself in which I can take a step back and just orchestrate allowing others to excel. That is how I will be successful as a leader.

Boyatzis, R. E. (2006). Using Tipping Points of Emotional Intelligence and Cognitive

Competencies to Predict Financial Performance of Leaders. Psicothema, 18, 124-131

Boyatzis, R. E., Rochford, K., & Taylor, S. N. (2015). The Role of the Positive Emotional

Attractor in Vision and Shared Vision: Toward Effective Leadership, Relationships, and Engagement. Frontiers in Psychology, 6(670). doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00670

A641.3.3.RB_LeeDarrell - Working with EI: Getting Results!

One of the reasons that I chose to study leadership instead of management for my master’s program was because management applies to organizations whereas leadership applies to organizations and to life in general. Yes, I want to have the degree to land one of those nice six figure jobs but my primary objective is to become the best version of me possible.

As I write this, I am partaking in one of my favorite yearly traditions. I am watching the TCS NYC Marathon. I live on the northeast corner of Central Park at mile 22.5 so I love to take my posters downstairs and whip up some mimosas to take with me (I put them in a water bottle so as to not draw too much attention to myself since that is not exactly legal) and cheer on the runners. The first wave of elite runners should be here in about an hour and a half.  

I have never run a marathon myself but I have done several half marathons. Some may think that running is a mindless exercise but the truth is that it is a mentally and emotionally taxing ordeal. It takes an enormous amount of self-control and fortitude to take your body to the breaking point then to keep pushing. Imagine doing that surrounded by 51,000 other mentally broken people. How do they do it? It takes an enormous amount of maturity. It takes nothing less than a developed emotional intelligence (EI) which is what we have been studying in class this week.

Dr. Daniel Goleman (2012), author and psychologist, is on the forefront of the study and presentation of EI which has four primary attributes: self-awareness, self-management, empathy, and skilled relationships. Though they aren’t steps, you could almost look at them as such. Let’s quickly go over each of them.

Self-awareness – Again, this isn’t a “step” but before we can apply any other part of EI, we have to be aware of ourselves. This means that we know what we are feeling and why we are feeling it. I think about those runners that go by my apartment. Right when they pass me, they begin what is often called “Hell Hill”. It isn’t steep but it is a noticeable uphill straight for an entire mile when the runners are already beyond exhausted. When runners hit that, they may feel a mix of anger, fear, frustration, exhilaration, etc. A strong sense of self-awareness allows them to identify exactly what they are feeling it and why they are feeling it. Think about this in other aspects of life as well such as in our organizations. Perhaps we have looming deadlines, a lack of production, a loss of resources, a corporate restructuring, etc. To us, that may be our “Hell Hill” at work. It may bring a flood of emotions and we need to identify exactly what we are feeling.

Self-awareness is more than just identifying what we feel and why we feel it. It is also what gives us our intuition. These are the gut feelings that we have and we need to be able to understand why. This drives our moral compass.  

Self-management – Again, these are not steps as they all work together simultaneously but we have to have self-awareness to have self-management. Once we are aware of what we are feeling and why we are feeling it, we need to learn to control those feelings. Self-management is about handling our distressing emotions in an effective way so that they don’t cripple you. This doesn’t mean to repress those feelings but sometimes we can reframe them to where they aren’t quite so overwhelming. We can’t be delusional and think that our negative feelings can always be turned to positive. In fact, there are times that we need to tap into those negative feelings of fear and anger and frustration. It is okay to express that. Self-management is just about mitigating the effects of that. Again, relating it to the runners going up the hill – they can use those feelings of fear, frustration, and anger to dig just a little deeper and push just a little harder.

Empathy – This element of EI is pretty self-explanatory – we have to make the effort to feel what others are feeling. If we don’t, it will always be an “us versus them” mentality. We can relate this to just about every aspect of our lives. One of my favorite TED Talks is about learning to work together politically. Let’s face is – that is one of the biggest divides in the nation right now and it tears people apart. Arthur Brooks (2016) of the American Enterprise Institute talked about how to overcome some of the barriers between us. You see, sometimes true empathy is not possible to achieve. Sometimes we have to force it and that is okay. Let me repeat that – it is okay to force empathy. But how do we do that? We listen. Empathy begins with knowledge which can only come from listening and that leads to understanding. Then we can reframe our own thoughts to view them through the lens of those with which we disagree. For example, perhaps you are pro-universal health care. By listening and understanding the arguments from those that are opposed to it, you can say something like, “How do we ensure that everybody has medical coverage without crippling our economy?” Or perhaps you are pro-life as I am. I will never support abortion and I will never be able to feel the same way as those that but what I CAN say, “How can we reduce abortions while ensuring that the women involved are taken care of?” Sometimes it is just about framing our own thoughts so that they incorporate the needs of others. When we do that, we will begin to realize that we all pretty much want the same thing. In our organizations, we all want success. We just may have different views of how to get there. In our relationships, we all want to get along. We may just need to understand the needs of others as well as our own.

Skilled relationships – This brings us to the final element of EI – skilled relationships (or relationship management). This is how we interact with others and how we use the other elements of EI to exert influence and build teamwork and collaboration.

Goleman (2012) discovered something about EI. All of these elements seem so simple, right? They are natural. So why don’t we have a better handle on EI? The fact is that is must be practiced. That is why it is critical to study it. We can’t put into practice that which we don’t know. One of my friends recently asked me why I chose to study leadership. He said something along the lines of, “Yeah, but leadership is just kind of something that you learn from experience”. I explained that though that is true, we can also use the experience of others to learn how to be effective leaders and that requires a baseline of knowledge. Sure, we can develop EI on our own but is it not better to identify what it is first so we can work toward that?

We watched another TED Talk by Goleman (2007) this week that really tied this all together for me. In it, he talked about a few things that really struck a chord for me. First, he identified that it is human nature to, by default, relate to and help others. However, as previously noted, EI is a learned behavior (Goleman, 2012). That means that if we do continue to practice EI, we won’t necessarily know how to help others. Goleman (2007) talked about how he was here in NYC and there was a homeless man passed out on the subway platform. People just walked around and over him. They all ignored him. I am guilty of doing the same thing, I have to admit. However, he went over and tried to help the man. As soon as he did that, several other people came to his assistance as well. You see, our natural default – the way we are wired – is to work together. We are supposed to understand our own thoughts and we are supposed to be empathetic and we are supposed to manage our relationships but we don’t because we don’t know how. Sometimes, it just takes someone to show us. And that gives me great hope. We are learning how and we can show others how as well.

With that being said, it is about time for me to head downstairs with my posters and my mimosas in my water bottle. I have to tell these runners that I understand what they are feeling and I have to tell them that we are going to achieve this together – them through their physical efforts and me through my cheering!

Brooks, A. (2016, February). A Conservative’s Plea: Let’s Work Together [Video file].

Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/arthur_brooks_a_conservative_s_plea_let_s_work_together

Goleman, D. (2007, March). Why Aren’t We More Compassionate? [Video file]. Retrieved from

https://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_goleman_on_compassion

Goleman, D. [Big Think]. (2012, April 23). Daniel Goleman Introduces Emotional Intelligence

            [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7m9eNoB3NU

A641.2.3.RB_LeeDarrell - Am I a Resonant Leader

I mentioned this in one of my discussions for my class but not for my blog but it is worth sharing here, I believe. When I was in high school, I was heavily involved in choir. I don’t mean to toot my own horn but I was very good. I guess I just didn’t see a future for myself in music but some of my very close friends went on to perform as some of the great opera houses of the world. I have friends that perform at the Semperoper Dresesden, the Sydney Opera House, and even La Scala. We all studied under the same mentor, Herr Gerald Dolter, from Berlin. I remember some of those sessions that we had with Herr Dolter. While we were singing, he would push on our abdomen and say, “Be resonant!”. He said that this meant that no matter how soft we were, we had to fill the ears of the old lady in the back row. Resonance is not about volume or precision but rather about filling the space even when we are soft. It is about making the audience feel our presence.

Let’s relate that to leadership. If resonance in music is making the old lady in the back row feel our presence, resonant leadership is about helping others truly experience the best of what we have to offer. This isn’t just about technical precision or expertise. It isn’t about forcefulness or success. It is about our leadership presence.

I was thinking about some of the most resonant leaders I have had in the past. Truth be told, I have had very few poor leaders. Perhaps I am just lucky or extremely blessed but most of my leaders have been incredible. Oh, sure, I have had a few that were pretty miserable here and there but, for the most part, my bosses have been amazing. For this blog, though, we were asked to look inward at ourselves and analyze where we have fallen a bit short of excellence/resonance. To do this, I had to first look at the best leaders I have had.

As mentioned, I have had very few poor leaders in the past. However, I have had a few that really set themselves apart as truly incredible. I started to think – what makes them different? Were my bad bosses really that bad? I mean nobody wakes us looking for ways to be a miserable boss. They all try to be good. So why are some good and some bad? I finally narrowed it down to one major characteristic. The best bosses that I have had were great not because of what they did but rather for what they didn’t do. The best leaders that I have ever had refused to use… fear. The most effective leaders have always sought to avoid intimidation. On the other hand, the worst leaders that I have experiences have used fear as a method of control.

For this blog, we were asked to do a little exercise where we were asked to analyze our own resonance. First, I thought about those great leaders that I have experienced and then I asked, “am I using fear to control my subordinates”? Fortunately, I can say no. I am not a fearful leader. But am I the opposite of that? Am I too nice? I feel that I am very attuned to the needs of my subordinates and I feel that I am very approachable but perhaps I am too nice to them. Understanding and managing emotions is not just about being nice and approachable (McKee, Boyatzis, & Johnston, 2008). Sometimes I fear that I let too many things slide for fear of creating conflict.

That brings me to another point. The most effective leaders that I know share another trait. Not only do they all avoid using fear but they also don’t avoid conflict. The best leaders that I have encountered have all been very assertive. Tt doesn’t mean that thy have been arrogant. In fact, they are all quite humble. The simply are confident. But where do they get this self-confidence? It comes through mindfulness and self-awareness. “Self-awareness provides a solid foundation for self-confidence. Resonant leaders have presence: a person notices and trusts them because it is obvious that they know who they are and what is more important to them” (McKee, Boyatzis, & Johnston, 2008, p. 26). This self-awareness/mindfulness leads to both confidence and assertiveness, attributes that are desirable in an effective leader.

Here is where it gets a bit tricky. I know that the greatest leaders that I have encountered are self-aware, confident, and assertive. I, too, share some of those traits. However, we did a little exercise this week to check our own level of resonance. I think I fell a little short. If I am self-aware and assertive, where am I failing? I was surprised to learn this about myself this week but, after putting a lot of thought into it, I realized that I am too vague with my guidance. I don’t mean to create resonance through this. I am very passionate and very compassionate. My subordinates know this to be true about me because “compassion is empathy in action” (McKee, Boyatzis, & Johnston, 2008, p. 39). That means that I try to actually show them that I care about them. However, because I care so deeply for my team, I often put their personal feelings first and am “afraid” to offend them. Providing clear and correct guidance will often do just that. By being vague in my guidance to avoid conflict, I allow them to think that they are either fully competent or fully ready to work autonomously when they are not. They lack the confidence to act as such but I am unintentionally creating dissonance but not providing clear guidance and mentorship.

I know that my team trusts me. The exercise this week has taught me, though, that I need to trust them as well – trust them to allow me to lead. I am causing more harm than good by trying to avoid conflict. If I correct them, I will be demonstrating self-confidence – a trait that every great leader needs to display in order to instill trust in their team.

McKee, A., Boyatzis, R. E., & Johnston, F. (2008). Becoming a Resonant Leader: Develop Your

Emotional Intelligence, Renew Your Relationships, Sustain Your Effectiveness. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Press.