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the leadership challenge

The Leadership Challenge: Recruiting like Harbaugh – 5 Tips!

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The Point: There is a war for talent taking place, with the best candidates going to those organizations that effectively outflank/outwork their business competitors in the recruiting game. So with NCAA College Football’s Signing Day finally here, we thought it would be interesting to compare/contrast The University of Michigan Football Coach Jim Harbaugh’s tactics that could leave you/your organization with a similar top recruiting class… Enjoy!

The Leadership Challenge: Recruiting like Harbaugh – 5 Tips!

Tree Climbing, Sleepovers, and Sledding… Oh My!

Jim Harbaugh’s transition from the NFL (where he acted as head coach for the San Francisco 49ers until unceremoniously being shown the exit in 2014) to the NCAA (currently acting as The University of Michigan’s Head Football Coach) has been well documented. An almost fairy-tale return to his alma mater brought about a return to glory (Full Disclosure: I’m a Michigan Man and Jim was one of the legendary Michigan quarterbacks under head coach Bo Schembechler). He is known for wearing his fiery emotions like a badge of hotheaded honor and $8 khakis he purchases from Walmart.

What Jim is perhaps not given credit for is his recruiting prowess. With an “at all costs” mentality, he has brought this football program legitimately back onto the college football scene (It’s estimated that he’ll bring in the #5 recruiting class according to ESPN this year). Some might argue that his techniques border on the strange and unorthodox (In his pursuit of players he has climbed a tree in a recruit’s backyard, had sleepovers, and offered to go sledding). Say what you will and want, but call him effective in recruiting for the following FIVE (5) reasons presented in “Tip” format for you to implement to offset the leadership challenge recruiting moments!

Tip #1 – Recruiter Energy

Let’s face reality… Your Human Resources department is probably detached from your business at hand. It’s not that they don’t know what you/your company does, it’s that they don’t KNOW what you/your company does. As such, they display a typical “play it safe” and “no skin in the game” exhibition when it comes to recruiting. If I’ve seen it once, I’ve seen this played out a hundred times.

Jim is known for his endless energy, raising the recruiting bar and setting precedents to new heights. While your recruiting efforts might not be able to change the players you have conducting the role, there should be an emphasis placed on examining how the recruiting role is changed so as to be conducted with energy.

Tip #2 – Transparent Culture

Typical recruiting tactics have taken the form of that of the applicant heretofore. Both parties want to put their “best foot” forward. However, who’s selling who in the recruiting war? Is the candidate selling the organization or vice versa? Your recruiting efforts shouldn’t shy away from your organization structure nor how you do things (and you should be profoundly proud of both as a leader!)

Tip #3 – The “Finest” of Goals

Harbaugh has gone on record as stating “We’re going to bring the finest student-athletes and character that we can to the University of Michigan.” And so it goes almost without saying that you similarly should be in pursuit of “finest” when it comes to recruiting team members mental capacity and character. Anything short of “finest” shouldn’t be pursued.

Tip #4 – Performance

While most envision the recruiting initiative done/successful once a candidate accepts an offer to join the organization, this is only the beginning for Harbaugh. There is the expectation that performance in the role recruited for not only meet, but exceed expectations. This takes thorough employee engagement and leadership feedback against a backdrop of organizational goals that the employee can immediately tie their performance back to (Your employees know what’s expected of them and can view their actual performance versus goal, right?)

Tip #5 – Expand Your Footprint

Technology has made it relatively easy to expand your geographic footprint in a search for talent. Unlike Harbaugh who has to attract student athletes to a specific geographic location (Ann Arbor, Michigan), you have the luxury of identifying best candidates without geographic boundaries (Are you fully taking advantage of A+ candidates that reside outside your geographic vicinity?)

SUMMARY

In this post, we’ve taken a look at the recruiting process/procedures of Jim Harbaugh and provided 5 Tips on how his success/focus should be yours. If there truly is a war for talent, you can’t afford for a bad recruiting effort to diminish your organizational talent. Remember, your business no matter how technical in nature you might want to believe it is, is still a people business. Having the finest people in the right roles is one of the variables of success you should consider/focus on.

Sam Palazzolo

The Leadership Challenge: Hands-On Leadership – 4 Tips!

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The Point: You have a choice as a leader… To micro or macro manage (i.e., lead) your stakeholders. But here’s the leadership challenge: In order to achieve “Super Boss” status, what’s the proper way then? In this post we’ll take a look at how being a hands-on leader is by far and away the best approach to leading along with four tips for success… Enjoy!

The Leadership Challenge: Hands-On Leadership – 4 Tips!

Hello… I’m a Disengaged Leader!

It happened again (as it had happened like a broken record every time there was a grumbling from a stakeholder)… In managing his department, Tim was provided the latitude to counsel/coach his team under the guise of “Do what you think is best” direction from his superior. However, whenever Tim did in the moment what he thought was his “best” he inevitably received the call from his disengaged leader. This call typically consisted of this disengaged leader asking the question “What did you do?” and worse yet “What did you say?”

While these questions aren’t necessarily in and of themselves bad, they would put Tim in a defensive posture. Having to explain what was done and said left him backtracking on his position. His leader without receiving all the facts typically would overthrow Tim’s authority, and in so doing cajole the stakeholders into recognizing that while the organization’s org chart had him in a leadership role, instead relegated him to an inferior status.

Being a Hands-On Leader

If Tim’s story sounds familiar to you, it should bother you. While leadership is a role best served by allowing team members to perform at their best levels, it’s more than frustrating to have episodes of the disengaged leader undercutting authority, decreasing motivation, and prompting internal thoughts/conversations regarding whether or not you as a leader are truly in the right organization.

The role of a leader is to lead from a distance, but stay in tune with activities so as to insure organizational direction is achieved. Situations often dictate that when boundaries are crossed, or direction is not as intended, that leaders engage in realignment efforts. Nothing shows greater consistency than a leader engaging in what might be seen as the mundane/not worthy day-to-day activities with a “sleeves rolled up” support system. So what should you do to be considered as a hands-on leader?

4 Tips of a Hands-On Leader

The following four (4) tips should be subscribed to in order to increase your effectiveness as a hands-on leader:

Tip #1: Set High Expectations

Become bullish on what your team can accomplish. If you’ve never pushed your team and the leaders within to achieve extraordinary high performance, the shame/blame lies squarely on your shoulders. The thought “perfect is good enough” isn’t just a mindset, it should become your mantra!

Tip #2: Be a Master

You employee smart, ambitious, and adaptable team members, right? If so, trust them to execute. If not, look to recruit/hire those that are no less than four times (4x) as smart as you are. Keep in mind that failure is inevitable, and course correction from failures should be the way you do business!

Tip #3: Encourage Step-Change Growth

Learning and growth are paramount to your people. As such, design atypical growth and development plans that allow your team to springboard forward along a steep learning curve which becomes increasingly steep as successful projects are undertaken/accomplished.

Tip #4: Stay Connected

As a leader you can count on talented people departing from you/your organization. Rip a page from the successful consultant organization model by staying connected with your former associates. Think of it as a talent “Alumni Network” that you can tap into at any given moment and you’ll be afforded the gift of future benefits.

SUMMARY

In this post we’ve taken a look at the hands-on leader as well as four tips to execute for success. Avoid becoming the disengaged leader that bares little respect as you grow yourself, your team, and your organization!

 

Sam Palazzolo

 

The Leadership Challenge: From Humility to Arrogance

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The Point: It’s been said that for a leader, it is a very short fall from success to irrelevance. Nothing fails like success, and as a leader you will find that there is a need to become more humble as you achieve success. However, where the ego crosses over the line of pride is where danger lurks! In this post, we’ll take a look at how as a leader you can achieve success while maintaining humility for both the short and long term time periods… Enjoy!

The Leadership Challenge: From Humility to Arrogance

I’m Humble… Aren’t I?

In one of my change consulting engagements, I came across a leader that was pointed towards by organizational team members as the “#1 source of discomfort in the workplace.” Now that’s no small accomplishment, after all in an organization of good size ($50M Annual Revenue and 200 team members), isn’t there a potential bounty of “discomfort” moments that could potentially occur?

Regardless of other moments, my task at hand was to explore “discomfort” validation and most importantly if change could occur in this leader to better the organization. Important bottom line organizational culture lesson to remember here: Once arrogance sets into the individual leader’s mindset, it begins to permeate and pollute the mindset of the entire team and organizational culture.

 

Is Arrogance an Earned Right?

After completing my assessment of the leader, I confirmed that there were some serious opportunities to better align him with the organization’s mission, vision, and values as displayed by his actions. However, there was one facet of his behavior that I wasn’t convinced would all for a successful change transition: The leader simply put was arrogant.

Arrogance in any setting is never a “depends” on success characteristic. While confidence can at times be an attraction technique, once the threshold of “cockiness” is breached arrogance is the net result. Typically excused as a behavior of “alpha” personalities, competencies that come with the territory of the job, or better yet what our company culture thrives on/in. Our “discomfort” leader acted the way that he did for several reasons, and perhaps the most offensive of them all was because of a self-determined reward system that had him achieving an “earned right” status.

 

Why You Should Care?

So what’s exactly at stake with the leadership challenge? And considering such toxicity for the leadership challenge, and most importantly why should one care? After all, people that behave outlandish typically achieve more (in less time it should be noted) and reap the rewards available to them for doing so (Think of the movie “Wall Street” for a reference).

If committing as a leader to long-term sustained success is your creed, than arrogance will have no business being on your GPS success route. While these minor (or major) pit-stops or off-ramp ventures seem alluring, they will shortly end up taking more and more of your time. Time that should be spent on the journey which could be spent in much more productive ways. Remember, the race isn’t necessarily won by the fastest/flashiest/most offensive!

 

SUMMARY

In this Leadership Challenge post we’ve taken a look at a leader’s behavior that can transition from humility to arrogance. Once arrogance sets into the individual leader’s mindset, it begins to permeate and pollute the mindset of the entire team and organizational culture. If long-term sustained leadership success is your goal, avoid arrogance and remain humble.

 

Sam Palazzolo

The Leadership Challenge: Leadership Secret Sauce – 3 Tips!

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The Point: If you’ve read the 455,000,000 results from a Google search on Leadership, then you are undoubtedly super informed regarding what it takes to be a leader. But what if you haven’t read them all, half, or even 12 in the last year regarding what you could do to take your leadership to the next level? We all want to get ahead, and the concept of “secret sauce” is akin to key differentiators whether it be in a startup offering of climbing your way up the corporate ladder. So in this post we look at the leadership challenge leadership secret sauce and provide 3 tips to kick things up a notch… Enjoy (and BAM!)

The Leadership Challenge- Leadership Secret Sauce – 3 Tips!

I Don’t Like Spicy Food (or Leaders)

We’re all looking for that competitive edge that separates us from the pack. If that’s the hypothesis (and why wouldn’t it be true?), then what exactly are those differentiating moments? In a startup situation, differentiating moments are typically referred to as the “secret sauce.” Think of it as what you plan on doing better/different than others in the space, improving upon those that are already there, or how you will rise above all others to be the top choice.

So what if you combine the experiences from startup operations with those of a leader. Specifically, how do you overcome the leadership challenge of having to differentiate yourself on a day in/day out basis? Is possessing leadership secret sauce the key? In researching the topic, I found that the answer is that a leader can definitely differentiate themselves with such secret sauce. But how much to apply and in what strength can be in one vein a strength and in a similar other vein a weakness. Too strong a secret sauce and you come off as overbearing/overpowering. Too little secret sauce and you risk being perceived as shallow/half-hearted. So here are 3 leadership secret sauce tips to insure that you apply just the right amount:

Leadership Secret Sauce Tip #3 – To Thine Own Self Be True

We see a lot of stakeholders vying for leadership roles that take on a persona that is totally foreign to who they truly are. While there is always one aspect of an admired leader that you can take away/attempt to implement, you still need to be yourself.

Leadership Secret Sauce Tip #2 – Communication Skills Training for Leaders

While it might seem obvious, there has to be consistent application of communication skills training for leaders. You may find that honing your skills once was good enough, but you’ll be falling far short of your potential. The continual honing of your communication skills as a leader will differentiate you!

Leadership Secret Sauce Tip #1 – Succession Planning

Now why would I be recommending that a high potential (HiPo) attempt to assist with succession planning? The reality is that those in their jobs today will not be in their jobs 10 years from now, and someone has to fill them! Assisting with succession planning, or at least beginning to formulate a plan regarding where you’d like to go/positions you’d like to fill will come in handy (Especially when you discuss with a mentor!)

SUMMARY

In this post we’ve looked at the leadership challenge leadership secret sauce and 3 tips to assist you in driving your career forward.

 

Sam Palazzolo

The Leadership Challenge: Expertise – 5 Tips!

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The Point: What are you good at? If you’re like most of the leaders I work with, you’re probably “good” at a lot of things… For example Sales/Marketing Leadership, Customer Experience, Project Management, and Process Improvement might be several areas that might make your leadership performance highlight reel. But what are you great at? In this post, we take a look at the leadership challenge expertise as well as 5 tips for your leadership development… Enjoy!

The Leadership Challenge- Expertise – 5 Tips!

The Rich Get Richer

The other day I found myself in a leadership development executive coaching conversation. Not atypical from most other business days, but this one was somewhat precarious for several reasons. For starters, the setting between coach and coachee was at the onset of our business relationship. As such, an initial assessment (think of it as a “line in the sand” leadership development moment) was due.

As the assessment began, I could tell that the leader was extremely comfortable and confident. After all, why wouldn’t he be? He recently had successfully exited from a public sale of his company, and as a result had untold wealth accumulated/sitting in a bank account. On top of that success he built an app for a popular social media platform that was driving considerable wealth towards him. “Poor guy” I thought, “I hope he can catch a break someday!”

From Good to Great as a Leader

So as we began our leadership development executive coaching assessment, I asked a question that stopped the conversation in its tracks. What was the question? Here it is:

“What are you the best in the World at?”

The leader thought about his answer for what could be considered an uncomfortable length of time which felt like 10-minutes (but in reality was more like 2-minutes).

His answer was his own, and all I’ll share with you was that it was EXTREMELY powerful. In a few sentences he was able to capture the essence of his success as a business man, family man, and leader in both capacities. It was a difference between being simply “good” and being “great” in all capacities. At the heart of all of this was his expertise. So here are 5 tips you can leverage to overcome the leadership challenge expertise moments you face as a leader:

Expertise Tip #5 – Focus

What are you the best at and why? If you’re focus is all over the board, you’ll drive little success in potentially a lot of places. However, maximum impact as a leader can be achieved if you focus in specific areas.

Expertise Tip #4 – Change

If you want to focus (Tip #5 above) on a specific are, be it a skill set or business segment, you’ll have to identify realistically where you are on the topic and where you need to be in order to achieve expert level. You’ll then need to change towards that expert level designation (I know, easier said than done!)

Expertise Tip #3 – Enlist Support

The saying “It’s lonely at the top” is appropriate for most leaders. Surrounded by pc-correct stakeholders not looking to “rock the boat” or answer “Yes” to requests is unfortunately typical in most organizations. While this ego-stroking capacity isn’t without its merits, it also doesn’t propel you to think/act at your best level. As such, you should look to enlist support (perhaps from an executive coach?)

Expertise Tip #2 – Take Action

Marshall Goldsmith in his recent book “Triggers” says that most leaders are great planners (think strategy session or action plans) but horrible doers! In other words, coming up with the plan isn’t the hard part… The hard part is in taking action. Again, an executive coach should be able to help keep you on-time/on-target.

Expertise Tip #1 – Don’t Stop Learning

You might have noticed that the world changes pretty fast. As such, you’ll want to enact a 12-18 month plan where you calendar specific dates/times to continue your expertise learning journey on a weekly basis. Don’t get left behind as a leader!

SUMMARY

In this post we’ve explored the leadership challenge expertise and provided 5 tips for you as a leader. If the road to expert level is paved with over 10,000 steps (or hours), we’d better get started!

 

Sam Palazzolo