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The Leadership Challenge: Burnout

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The Point: As a leader, you’ve experienced burnout. I’m not talking about physical burnout where you can’t take another step from exhaustion. What I’m referring to is the emotional exhaustion that results in depersonalization and decreased personal accomplishment at work. Perhaps it’s the latest project approaching completion, or maybe the promotion that passed you by… We started thinking here at the Javelin Institute and Tip of the Spear Ventures what exactly is behind leadership burnout and what (if anything) can be done to successfully turn a leader from burnout to a blaze again. So, in this post we’ll explore the leadership challenge of burnout… Enjoy!

Burnout: The Good, The Bad and Mostly Ugly!

Leadership burnout is best characterized by emotional exhaustion that results in both depersonalization and decreased accomplishment/results in the workplace. The emotionally exhausted leader is overwhelmed by leading to the point of feeling fatigued, unable to face the demands of leadership, and unable to engage their stakeholders. The burned-out leader often develops a sense of cynicism, detaching themselves from work and viewing stakeholders – especially subordinates – as objects along the way.

Fatigue, exhaustion, and detachment culminate in the leader experiencing burnout to the point where they no longer feel effective because they have lost their sense to contribute meaningfully. The growing trend of leadership burnout should be identified as a threat to strategic plan adoption for most organizations.

Burnout and Safety

Unless you’re in a clinical setting as a leader, your performance is rarely one where decisions made (or a lack thereof) are life or death for individuals or organization… Or is it? Characteristics of the new economy’s leadership environment, including time pressure, lack of control over work processes, role conflict, and poor relationships between groups combined with personal predisposing factors (i.e., bias) and the emotional intensity of work put leaders at high risk. From my executive coaching conversations, I estimate the prevalence of leadership burnout range from 10%–70% among leaders (SVPs, VPs, Directors, Team Leaders, etc.) and 30%–50% among senior leadership (CEOs and CXOs – COO, CFO, CHRO, CRO, CMO, etc.) If you/your organization are not looking at the signs of leadership burnout (Further broken down in the next section), an intervention should be staged to address the topic.  Afterall, my experience shares that most leaders view their burnout as a threat to stakeholder safety because depersonalization is presumed to result in poorer interactions with them (Often causing lower communication effectiveness and poorer initiative results). However, typically the signs of leadership burnout go undetected or unaddressed.

Burnout Perspective

At one of the organizations I work with, 40% of the leaders surveys reported at least one symptom of leadership burnout. Burnout rates (unsurprisingly) were higher for those who rated their leaders unfavorably. My survey also found that even with exceptionally high customer experience (CX), customer satisfaction, and net promoter scores, leadership quality accounted for roughly half the variable in such scores. So, what exactly are the signs of leadership burnout? The following list of burnout signs is from Psychology Today, broken down into (1) Physical and Emotional Exhaustion, (2) Cynicism and Detachment, and (3) Ineffectiveness and Lack of Accomplishment:

Physical and Emotional Exhaustion

  • Chronic fatigue
  • Insomnia
  • Forgetfulness/Impaired Concentration and Attention
  • Physical Symptoms
  • Increased Illness
  • Loss of Appetite
  • Anxiety
  • Depression
  • Anger

Cynicism and Detachment

  • Loss of Enjoyment
  • Pessimism
  • Isolation
  • Detachment

Ineffectiveness and Lack of Accomplishment

  • Feeling of Apathy and Hopelessness
  • Increased Irritability
  • Lack of Productivity and Poor Performance

SUMMARY

In this post we’ve explored the leadership challenge of burnout. Best characterized by emotional exhaustion that results in both depersonalization and decreased accomplishment/results in the workplace, burnout poses a risk to be managed in the workplace. By knowing and recognizing the signs of burnout, leaders can address or seek assistance so as to maintain organizational and career course/trajectory.

Sam Palazzolo

PS – 2020 will be here before we know it, and I see some disturbing Leadership-trends taking place. If you’d like to receive a white paper I wrote on “5 Ways Your Leadership Will Succeed in 2020” CLICK HERE.

PPSS – As we crossed-over the halfway point of 2019, I’ve launched my most aggressive initiative to date. It’s a 501(c)(3) structured nonprofit that provides Executive Education to allow you to become the BEST leader possible (NOT Good, NOT Better… BEST!). If you’d like more information, please watch the following 2-minute overview by CLICKING HERE or plug this URL into your browser: https://javelininstitute.org/welcome-to-the-javelin-institute/

The Leadership Challenge: Decision-Making – Three Tips!

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The Point: We all make thousands of decisions daily. Take for instance your drive into work today; Did you take the same route as you always do? Did you take the road less traveled? Would you alter routes if you heard about the accident ahead that has traffic snarled to a stand still? My point is that decisions are everywhere, but there are some decisions that should have tremendously more weight assigned to them as a leader (Should we acquire our competitor as part of our growth strategy? Is our CXO really the best CXO we could have? Etc.) With all these decisions to be made as a leader, we started thinking at Tip of the Spear Ventures and The Javelin Institute, is our decision-making process the best that it could be? In making decisions, are we really asking the right questions at the right time? So, in this post we’ll explore the leadership challenge of decision-making and provide three tips… Enjoy!

Caution – Decision-Making Zone Ahead!

The University of North Carolina recently conducted research on decision-making as part of a study. Their conclusion was that the typical adult makes on average 35,000 decisions each and every day. These decision-making opportunities range from the simple (Should I brush my teeth or don’t brush my teeth?) to the complex (Who am I and what do I stand for?) 35,000 decision-making moments each day… Researchers at Cornell University estimate we make 226.7 decisions each day on food alone!

If there are 24-hours in a day, and the average person sleeps (or is supposed to sleep) for eight of those 24-hours, that leaves 16 wide-awake decision-making hours. The math boils down to 2,188 decisions to be made every hour, and roughly 36 every minute. That’s a lot of decision-making opportunities!

Are Autopsies Enough?

If you’ve followed me for some time, or even if you haven’t, I believe that decisions should be reviewed afterwards in autopsy-like fashion. The reason for these decision-making autopsies is to identify if in the given moment, with the facts as we knew them, if the appropriate decisions were made. If they were, great! If they weren’t, what better decision could have been made?

I’ve worked with thousands of leaders around the globe on this post-mortem autopsy analysis over the years, but is it enough?

Sam Palazzolo, Managing Director @ Tip of the Spear Ventures | Principal Officer @ The Javelin Institute

I recently was working with a leader on their decision-making abilities. They were labeled within their respective organization as a leader that was “Rarely in doubt, but often wrong!” Convinced that they were in fact making the right decision-making calls, they were at a standstill (and hence I was brought-in to work with them). After a few days, I realized something about our leader. They were extremely bright, well thought-out, and well liked in the organization. However, there was one aspect that struck me as so simple, so straightforward, that I wondered why our leader hadn’t thought of it… The one item was involving others in decision-making.

You alone as a leader cannot and should not look to make your best decisions based in and of yourself.

Decision-Making – Three Tips!

As a leader, there are a lot of decisions to be made. At stake with those decisions are items such as increasing shareholder value, achieving financial targets delivering key results, the employment of thousands, communities that count on you, etc. But decision-making in and of itself is not an insular game played with just one team player within an organization. You alone as a leader cannot and should not look to make your best decisions based in and of yourself.

While involving others in decision-making can become complicated really quick, here are three tips (or questions) that I would encourage you to ask to ensure that you get your best outcomes. Those three questions (or tips) are:

  1. Do you trust others that are providing you with information for decision-making?
  2. Do you argue freely before making decisions?
  3. Are you holding one another accountable for following through?

SUMMARY

In this post we’ve explored the leadership challenge of decision-making and provided three tips to assist. Having worked with thousands of leaders around the globe over the years, according to the University of North Carolina decision-making study I’ve seen somewhere around a bazillion decisions be made. Some decisions were good (lucky?), some were bad (unlucky?)… But overall there were decisions made that all could have been made better. My hope in sharing this post is that you take the three tips provided and begin utilizing them to make the best decisions possible.

Sam Palazzolo

PS – 2020 will be here before we know it, and I see some disturbing Leadership-trends taking place. If you’d like to receive a white paper I wrote on “5 Ways Your Leadership Will Succeed in 2020” CLICK HERE.

PPSS – As we crossed-over the halfway point of 2019, I’ve launched my most aggressive initiative to date. It’s a 501(c)(3) structured nonprofit that provides Executive Education to allow you to become the BEST leader possible (NOT Good, NOT Better… BEST!). If you’d like more information, contact me at sp@javelininstitute.org.

Leadership Challenge Decision-Making Three Tips

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I recently participated in a roundtable discussion on the topic of change leadership, and subsequently was interviewed about the Javelin Institute’s new program, “The BEST Leader in 30 Days!” (This program brings you 30 daily activities that’s recognized through research validation to equip you to be the BEST Leader possible… Not a Good Leader, or even a Better Leader… the BEST Leader!) If you’re interested in the program, you can email me at info@javelininstitute.org for more information. Here’s Part I of the interview, slightly edited for clarity and brevity:

INTERVIEWER: Sam, you’ve not only led change as a leader yourself, but also helped other leaders with change. Tell us a little bit about how in general you think about change leadership, and how you apply that in the businesses you work in/with?

SAM PALAZZOLO: Change leadership can be a complicated component of business success. Do it right, and the change leadership landscape will have plenty claiming stake in the successful outcome. Do change leadership wrong, and you’ll be looked at as sole proprietor responsible for the failure. I see many leaders who enter into situations of change without really having the skills or coaching to know exactly how to successfully change. The biggest component of change leadership to me is rooted in the leader. Specifically, does the leader have the perspective required to gather themselves from an emotional intelligence perspective. It’s very much an EQ moment versus an IQ one!

In my 2018 book, titled “Leading at the Tip of the Spear: The Leader” I examined how you can better lead others by leading yourself. As a matter of fact, my research concludes that if you can’t lead yourself, the likelihood of you successfully leading others ranges from slim to none. One of the insights that allows for successful change leadership is to have insight into where you want to go (Vision) and what change will be required in order to arrive at that destination. It’s easy for leaders to become impatient when leading change because while they can not only see where they want to go, but how they want to get there, they forget to share and lead others at a pace at which they can understand and withstand. In other words, those you’re leading need to not only understand/comprehend where they are going, but perhaps more importantly, what their role will be in getting there across a possible specific time interval.

INTERVIEWER: So, with change leadership in mind, how do you coach people?

SAM PALAZZOLO: At its simplest levels, to have success in change leadership, it’s important for leaders to know where they are, where they are going, and how it is that they are going to get there. Knowing these three aspects allows leaders to architect a plan for change. This architectural blue print will allow leaders to create a plan for change. This blue print is important because it provides stakeholders with a clear understanding of what is being built (Where they are going and how they will get there).

Having specialized in change leadership for the past two-decades, I know that change involves a series of phases that both leader and stakeholders go through. There will be successes, equanimity, and failures along the way. As a student of the J-Curve methodology, I learned that initial failure is typical and with proper corrections success can/will be achieved. Allowing leaders to see this realistic change leadership landscape prior to experiencing change provides the proper perspective. The proper corrections typically, but not always, come from communication gathered from direct-frontline associates affected by the change. Listening to their feedback provides leaders with context from which they can assess situations clearly for proper corrections. With this in mind, and it’s part of the “BEST Leader in 30 Days!” methodology, is conducting a daily reflection of your change leadership efforts/energies. Specifically, there are three questions that you’d want to ask yourself:

  1. What did I do today to further the (change leadership) initiative?
  2. What did I not do today to further the (change leadership) initiative?
  3. What will I do tomorrow to further the (change leadership) initiative?

INTERVIEWER: What are some of the mistakes you see leadership making in their attempts to lead? Specifically, what are the most common mistakes when leading change?

SAM PALAZZOLO: I’ve seen just about every type of mistake be made when it comes to change leadership. Typically, the mistakes cluster around the basic business building blocks of people, processes, technology, and/or financials. All too often leaders will fail to get involved those they expect to go through the change (so that they have input into what will happen on the way towards where the leader desires to go).

I’ve also seen leaders fail in change leadership when they put a “spin” on change. One leader, who’ll remain nameless, used to replace the word change with innovation. His reasoning for doing so was because he had read a study that showed people dislike change. While the study might be correct, changing the namesake doesn’t increase the odds of success. Remember, a duck is still a duck!

At a gym I worked-out in they had a huge sign on the wall that read:

“Until the pain associated with staying the same is greater than the pain associated with change, you will not do anything different.”

Think about that for a moment… If we associate pain with change and pleasure with staying the same, then you’ve got to be in a bad spot to want to change! Afterall, staying the same should be painless. But once staying the same is more painful, you’ll desire relief/change.

INTERVIEWER: You’ve had an impressive career to date (I don’t think you’re done yet by a longshot either!) You’ve worked with a Fortune 1 organization and now you’re working as a venture capitalist, consultant and philanthropist. Are there any differences between leading change at large vs. small organizations and for profit vs. nonprofit ones?

SAM PALAZZOLO: Thank you for the complement… I hope my career continues to grow/change in directions I can’t visualize at the current time. With that said, and to answer your question – Yes, there are differences. While the problem types are very similar (Think people, processes, technology, and/or financials), the scale is simply larger in big companies. This is the same regardless of entity formation (profit vs. nonprofit).

However, there is one key difference that I see play itself out time and again. That difference is that in smaller organizations the leader can make the difference. Whereas in larger organizations, there is less of a leadership impact, but the need to have good leadership in place across the organization exists. Think about it, if the organization is small and the leader is great, successful change leadership is relatively straightforward. In larger organizations, there are many more leaders to coordinate similar future change leadership vision with, and as such each needs to be able to share that vision precisely/similarly with their teams. Same vision and different share lead to unsuccessful change leadership typically (a disaster!)

https://tipofthespearventures.com/2306-2/

The Leadership Challenge: Judgement

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The Point: What type of judgement do you have as a leader? Is it sometimes good, sometimes bad? And in those judgement-times, how do you go about deciding which way to choose? After all, there is a “right” way and a “wrong” way when it comes to judgement (especially when you consider the outcome of your decision making!) We started thinking here at The Javelin Institute and Tip of the Spear Ventures, how are we using judgement to the fullest capacity when it comes to our leadership? So, in this post we’ll explore the leadership challenge of judgement… Enjoy!

You Will Be Judged on Your Judgement Abilities

Larry was a mid-level leader working for a Fortune 100 organization. We were assigned to conduct one of our Centered Executive Coaching initiatives with him (Specifically, our Stakeholder Centered Coaching engagement). Part of our Stakeholder Centered Coaching engagement consisted of conducting a 360-degree assessment, whereby Larry and Larry’s Stakeholders (Those he reported to, his peers, and those that reported to Larry) would all gage his effectiveness as a leader. The 360-degree assessment was conducted, and the results were in… and they were not pretty!

It turned out that Larry’s opinion of how effective he was as a leader differed dramatically from the opinions of his stakeholders. While there were a lot of potential reasons for these differences of perspective being present when it came to Larry, it turns out that the primary culprit for his stakeholders ranking him lower was his judgement (or his ability to accurately judge a situation, assignment, personnel, etc.) Larry was being judged based on his abilities to judge!

The Single Most Important Judgement Topic

I’ve seen a lot of leaders from a consulting perspective. One question that I used to ask a lot (and am considering bringing back out on the road with me) is “What keeps you up at night?” When I asked Larry this question, he had the following to say:

“What keeps me up at night as a leader is my ability to properly judge a candidate regarding when it’s not working, and we need to make a ‘should they stay, or should they go?’ decision. In my mind, this is the single most important judgement topic.”

 It turns out Larry is not alone. According to an Inc. Magazine article, roughly 70% of leaders are concerned about their ability to hire and then effectively decide if they should fire personnel. Most leaders would rather err on the side of “stay” and prove to themselves, as well as their stakeholders, that they did everything they could to keep the individual (Apply resources, provide training, etc.) before sending them packing.

I worked with Larry to not only establish judgement criteria which would significantly alter his success rates, but also revamped their hiring/onboarding process as well. The results were that he soon had less turnover, but the turnover he did conduct was done in a logical/objective manner.

SUMMARY

In this post we’ve explored the leadership challenge of judgement. We all are going to be faced as leaders with those moments where we have to decide. It’s the outcome of these judgement decision-moments that others will look to gage our success/failure rates. Insuring that you have a logical/objective methodology when it comes to applying judgement is crucial to your success as a leader.

Sam Palazzolo

PS – 2020 will be here before we know it, and I see some disturbing Leadership-trends taking place. If you’d like to receive a white paper I wrote on “5 Ways Your Leadership Will Fail in 2020” CLICK HERE.

PPSS – As we hit the halfway point of 2019, I’m launching my most aggressive initiative to date. It’s a 501(c)(3) structured nonprofit that provides Executive Education and Coaching to allow you to become the BEST leader possible (NOT Good, NOT Better… but BEST!). Launched in July 2019, I’m allowing 10 people in my network to “test-drive” the offering. If you’d like more information, contact me at info@javelininstitute.org.

The Leadership Challenge: Surveys

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The Point: We see a lot of surveys at both Tip of the Spear Ventures and The Javelin Institute (We’ve partnered with organizations to even create a few!) But a conversation with a client the other day caused us to wonder; “Why are we conducting surveys?”, “What do we do with the data surveys collect?”, and “Can we actually improve as leaders through surveying stakeholders?”. So, in this post we’ll explore the leadership challenge of surveys and as a bonus, provide three leadership survey questions you should be asking… Enjoy!

To Survey or Not to Survey… Is There Really a Question?

We met with a C-Suite leader as part of a launch of a Business Centered Coaching engagement recently. Part of the launch consisted of a review of their most recent customer surveys. Here was the data reviewed:

  • Customer Satisfaction YTD was 77% (Compared to 88% Region and 90% National)
  • Survey Responses YTD was 18% (Compared to 20% Region and 15% National)
  • Highest Scores were in Product/Service Offering
  • Lowest Scores were in Salesperson Satisfaction and Price Paid

The leader we met with was ambivalent to the survey responses. While they relished the success of product/service offering, unfortunately the leader’s operation had little/nothing to do with this metric. In other words, their offering was provided to them by their headquarter team by large. What they did have control over was their salespeople and ultimate price paid to a large extent (They could offer sales/enhancements to secure sales).

Net Promoter Score Surveys

So, with so much survey data collected, were we looking at the “right” survey metrics? I would argue that we should review Net Promoter Scores. Netpromoter.com states that a “Net Promoter Score®, or NPS®, measures customer experience and predicts business growth. … Use your NPS as the key measure of your customers’ overall perception of your brand. Because NPS is a leading indicator from growth, it provides the best anchor for your customer experience.” Calculating the Net Promoter Score percentage consists of the following series of steps:

  • Enter all of the survey responses into an Excel spreadsheet
  • Next, break down the responses on a scale 0-10 by groups:
    • Detractors (0-6)
    • Passives (7-8), and
    • Promoters (9-10)
  • Add up the total responses from each group
  • To get the group percentage, take the group total and divide it by the total number of survey responses
  • Now, subtract the percentage total of Detractors from the percentage total of Promoters—this is your NPS score

Surveys: Marketing and Sales Best Friend

Reviewing survey results along the Net Promoter Score methodology provided grim results for our C-Suite Leader… Turns out that only 20% of the 20% (4%) fell into the Promoters group. Why does this matter? Surveys can be utilized in a transparent methodology to provide insights to Marketing teams so that they can best create campaigns so as to reach more customers effectively. It’s in the “effectively” moment that Marketing teams can adjust campaigns so that more customers that will act as Promoters will purchase. In turn, Sales teams can glean survey data for training material that matter to an organization’s best customers. NOTE: Surveys should not be utilized as lead generation activities unless transparently sharing with customers such intent.

Three Leadership Survey Questions

In addition to providing insight to Marketing and Sales teams, surveys should be leveraged in similar capacity to provide insight to leaders regarding their effectiveness. As such, here are three leadership survey questions that you should ask/capture data on:

  1. What do I do as a leader today that allows you to operate at your best?
  2. What should I be doing today as a leader that would allow you to operate at your best?
  3. What should I be doing tomorrow as a leader so that you can operate at your best?

SUMMARY

In this post, we’ve explored the leadership challenge of surveys. Surveys can provide valuable insight to leaders so that they can architect successful strategies in Marketing, Sales, and Leadership (to name a few). Identifying key data metrics such as Net Promoter Scores can assist in providing insight into what your best customers desire. Desires that can lead to creating a greater volume of Promoters for the future of your organization/leadership.

Sam Palazzolo

PS – 2020 will be here before we know it, and I see some disturbing Leadership-trends taking place. If you’d like to receive a white paper I wrote on “5 Ways Your Leadership Will Fail in 2020” CLICK HERE.

PPSS – As we hit the halfway point of 2019, I’m launching my most aggressive initiative to date. It’s a 501(c)(3) that provides Executive Education and Coaching to allow you to become the BEST leader possible (NOT Good, NOT Better… but BEST!). Set to launch in July 2019, I’m allowing 20 people in my network to “test-drive” the offering. If you’d like more information, contact me at info@javelininstitute.org.