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LEADERSHIP WIRED
John C. Maxwell's FREE Semimonthly Newsletter
Designed To Maximize Your Leadership Potential.

June 2005 - Volume 8, Issue 11
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In This Issue:

* Maxwell Moment – Image Alignment
* Leadership@Large – Surveying the Leadership Landscape
* Interview – Joy Works
* Quick Quotes – Pains of Power

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Maxwell Moment
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IMAGE ALIGNMENT
By Dr. John C. Maxwell

When I was fairly young, I was a pretty decent communicator. The
upside to that was that I received some great opportunities to
speak. The downside, however, was that I was often in over my
head at these events.

For example, when I was 33, I was asked to speak at a youth
conference at a state university campus. A few aspects of this
engagement made me very nervous. For one thing, there would be
14,000 kids in the audience. For another, I had never spoken in
such a big arena. And to make matters even worse, I was following
a speaker who was much better and much more experienced than I
was.

I well remember how I felt when I was preparing to go out on
stage. The lights were bright and I couldn't see the audience. I
knew there were 14,000 people out there, but all I saw was a big
black hole. As someone who communicates best when I'm eye to eye
with people, this made me very uncomfortable. I felt completely
inadequate. 

Not surprisingly, I bombed. It truly was one of those speeches
that only my mother could have applauded. 

Looking back, it's easy to see how my self-image—how I viewed
myself—had a direct bearing upon my effectiveness—or lack
thereof—that day. After that experience, I began to understand
that leaders must believe in themselves before they can ever hope
to believe in their people. I also realized that, as a leader,
if I've not bought in to myself, no one else is going to buy in
to me either. 

Each one of us has an internal mirror that reflects how we see
ourselves. And what we see in this mirror determines how we act
as leaders. In other words, our self-image determines our
behavior. That's why it's impossible for a person with a poor
self image to produce consistently on a high level. It simply
can't happen, because we cannot conduct our daily affairs in a
way that contradicts how we see ourselves. On the other hand,
when a leader believes he can do a good job and views himself as
successful, his actions will show it.

Have you ever gone to a funhouse at a carnival and looked in one
of those distorted mirrors? From one angle, you look as skinny as
a rail; from another, you look bigger than an elephant. That's
not how you really are, of course, but because the mirror is
distorted, your image also is distorted. 

Sadly, many leaders don't have an accurate picture of themselves
because their internal mirrors are distorted. Because they're
unable to see themselves as they really are, they're forever
trying to find the right image to present to others. Some project
an image that is bigger than they really are; others project an
image that is smaller than they really are. Either way, the
result is internal confusion. 

A key to effectiveness—in life and as a leader—is to project a
true image of who you are. The only problem is that we all carry
with us four images of ourselves that can cause us to act
differently with different people. These four images are: 

1. The image that others have of us. This is how the people
around us—the ones who observe us at our best and our worst—see
us.

2. The image that we project to others. This is how we want
others to view us.

3. The image we have of ourselves. This is how we actually view
ourselves. Many times, this image does not match what we project
to others. 

4. Our true self. This includes our character and gifts; it
represents who we were created to be.

When these four images don't match, we know it. This awareness
might be subconscious, but it's there nonetheless. And it weighs
us down. 

The solution lies in making sure that these four images are as
closely aligned as possible. You see, we can be emotionally
healthy only when the image that other people have of us, the
image that we project to others, the image that we have of
ourselves and our true selves all match. The more distortion
there is—among any or all of these images—the less healthy our
self-image is, and the less effective our leadership will be.

Marcus Aurelius said, "I often marvel how it is that, though
each man loves himself beyond all else, he should yet value his
own opinion of himself less than that of others." As I learned
so many years ago, when it comes to leadership, the first person
you must believe in is yourself. The mirror reminds me that I
must read myself well before I can ever attempt to read others.

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Leadership@Large
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THE WHOLE TRUTH

In a recent column in Harvard Business School's "Working
Knowledge" e-zine, leadership consultant and author Stever
Robbins makes a statement that should cause all leaders to sit
up and take notice. 

"Trust can be gained once and lost once," he writes. "Once lost,
it's lost forever."

The best way to avoid that chilling scenario is, of course, to
keep people's trust from the start. "If you want to be trusted,"
Robbins advises, "simply be trustworthy."

One very powerful way to accomplish this goal is to tell the
truth—all the time. Unfortunately, many leaders fail to do this.

"I've heard countless discussions about how customers, suppliers,
employees, shareholders or communities can't be told the truth,"
Robbins writes. "Maybe we don't believe they can handle the
truth, or that the truth will make us look bad, or maybe we don't
want to take responsibility for the consequences. So we
‘position' our statement. We ‘frame it' carefully. We ‘massage
it.' We use careful ‘spin.' In other words, we lie."

The result?

"When people find out you've been lying to them, they know your
words can't be trusted," Robbins says. 

Of course, telling the truth doesn't mean you are obligated to
share everything you know, whenever anyone asks. "Sometimes
you're legally bound to remain silent," Robbins writes.
"Sometimes you're negotiating and can't reveal your position. In
those cases, consider saying, ‘I can't discuss that.' People
won't like it, but they won't feel betrayed when the outcome is
revealed."

To read more, see:
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item.jhtml?id=4776&t=srobbins

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MOVE FASTER

In the swiftly changing landscape of the global marketplace,
leadership is a key element of survival, according to American
Express Chairman and CEO Kenneth I. Chenault.

"Any company, no matter how strong, is going to experience some
difficulty," he said during a recent talk sponsored by the
Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. "The question
is, how do you develop leaders to manage in these times, how do
you retain them and how do you excite them?"

According to an article published by "Knowledge@Wharton", the
Wharton School's online research and business analysis journal,
Chenault believes a reputation for long-term leadership is built
during times of change.

"Today, the stakes are incredibly high," he told his audience.
"The need for leaders to stand for something and act from
principle is more important than ever. Things that were
acceptable five or 10 years ago will today cost you your career.
You can make a few mistakes, not a lot … a few."

When people believe a leader has the right values, they will put
up with a few mistakes, Chenault said. "In fact, they will stay
with you," he explained. "They want to see that you are decisive
and compassionate, because you are asking people take risks, to
take chances. But don't confuse compassion with a reluctance to
act decisively when necessary."

Chenault said his own missteps in leadership have usually come
from not acting quickly enough.

"I have seen leaders get very strong results in the beginning and
then be seduced by those results and not understand the corrosive
effect they can have," he said. "What I have found in myself is
that I should have moved faster on some of the difficult
decisions I have had to make."

To read more, see:
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/index.cfm?fa=viewArticle&id=1179

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Interview
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JOY WORKS

When most people think of work, joy is not usually the first
word that comes to mind. But Dennis Bakke, who co-founded the
AES Corp. in 1981 and served as president of the international
energy firm from 1994 to 2002, has built an entire management
philosophy around the notion that work is meant to be fun and
fulfilling—not just for leaders, but for employees at every
level of an organization.

He outlined this unconventional approach in his book, "Joy At
Work", which was published earlier this year. We spoke with him
recently about the role that leaders play in creating a joy-
filled work environment.

Leadership Wired: What do you mean by the phrase "joy at work"?

Dennis Bakke: It has a double meaning. Joy works, and joy at the
workplace. Work, as far as I understand it, was supposed to be
fun; it was supposed to be joyful. It is something that we want
to do—that's how we were created. I'm not saying that's the way
it's been worked out in history, especially since the Industrial
Revolution. But it was meant to be almost an act of worship.

LW: What is the key element of the joy at work approach?

Bakke: The problem with the current workplace is that people have
very little freedom. They are told what to do, when to do it and
how to do it. They're treated like a machine. The main thing for
creating a joyful workplace is giving people an opportunity to
have freedom to make decisions, to take actions that actually
affect the outcome of the organization.

LW: What are some of those decisions?

Bakke: Every decision that exists. Let me give you an
illustration. What's the most fun thing to do in basketball? It's
to shoot the ball. When in the game is that the most fun? Just
before the buzzer. What kind of game is it? The championship of
the world, and I have the ball. In other words, I have a chance
to use my skills to take an action or make a decision to affect
the outcome of the [game]. The reason it's miserable in the
workplace is that no one gets to do that, only the bosses. Bosses
almost always have fun. And the more stress the better—if you
have control. It heightens the satisfaction, even if you don't
win. That's the interesting thing. It helps to win. But it's not
the winning. It's the chance to be in that spot. So what we need
to do, if we're going to try create joy in the workplace, is give
as many people as possible, from time to time, a chance to be in
that spot where they can actually make significant decisions.
That's why I limited myself to one significant decision a year,
and asked all my other leaders to do the same—so that most of
the decisions could be made by people who would not ordinarily
get a chance to make a significant decision.

LW: How did you come up with this philosophy?

Bakke: When we started [AES], it was an entrepreneurial group of
friends, people who all had graduate degrees. Fun was not an
issue. The other principles we were trying to live with—like
integrity, fairness and justice—those we were spending a lot of
time on. But fun I didn't have to give a second thought to
because we were having fun. We were all operating like bosses.
Then we had plants, and those people weren't having fun. I looked
at the sports analogy and said, "Wow, this is what creates fun.
They've got to give people freedom; they've got to give them the
chance to be making the decisions." This, by the way, is sort of
the opposite of participative management. Before a decision is
made by management, they just ask for advice. They involve people
in the decision making, but they don't [let them] make the
decision. I turned it on its head and said, "You have to get
advice and you can even ask your boss, but you keep the 
decision." It's a very different kind of approach. 

It came from experimenting and watching and looking. At the first
plant we had—an existing electric power plant we bought—I
learned that the people who came in at 25 years old to work on a
shift, within two weeks of coming on the job, had circled on
their calendar 30 years later the day they could get out. That is
the nature of the workplace. It's so miserable; it's like a jail
sentence. This stuff about fun has almost nothing to do with all
the things that people tell you about the workplace. Physical
atmosphere, good friends, security, good benefits—all those
things mean almost nothing in terms of long-term joy at the
workplace. What is the unique characteristic of human beings?
Our ability to reason, to take action, to make a decision, and
hold ourselves responsible. We keep score. When we play games,
we keep score. Nobody tells us to. The boss doesn't have to tell
us to. We do it because it's how we're made. It's part of the
fun; it's part of the joy. The problem, of course, that came up
was I found out I was the problem. Bosses like me were the
problem. I had to start by sacrificing some of my fun in order
to allow people to soar and enjoy the work like this.

LW: What character traits are necessary for a leader who wants
to create this kind of workplace? And what are some of those so-
called leadership characteristics that everyone talks about that
aren't quite so necessary?

Bakke: The one that you have to be a visionary to be a good
leader? Not true. You have to be able to communicate a vision,
but somebody else can give you the vision. You don't have to be
the creator of the vision. You don't have to be a great decision
maker. Unfortunately, in our system, almost all the leaders,
especially in business, get there because they're good at
analyzing things and making decisions. But that's not the
key to being a leader. Does it help to be a winsome personality?
Yes, but it's not absolutely essential. 

There are two that I'd say are the ballgame in terms of creating
joy at work. The first is humility, which is not what we see on
television or in most of our executives. Humility is necessary
because it brings you to realize you are made in the same way
that those other people are—that you are no better. You may have
some different skills, but they also have skills. We're on the
same plane. And that's very difficult for most of us who have
taught and think that we're on a different plane. Almost
everybody thinks that they're on a different plane than somebody.
But leaders especially tend to think they are in a different
world. There are all kinds of reasons for that, but humility
says, "I know the truth. I know that I make mistakes; in fact,
maybe because of my arrogance I actually make more." So humility
is absolutely essential for a leader. 

The second one is love. I'm not talking about romantic love. You
have to love the people you serve so much that you're willing to
give up your own fun and joy, because that's what it takes. We
all are made in this way that we can reason, take action, make
decisions and hold ourselves responsible. But what I'm saying is
that leaders have to have a special role, and it takes love to
do it. That is, we have to give up some of our fun in order so
that person who we're serving can soar, can experience their
humanity. 

LW: In this scenario, you say that 99 percent of important
decisions are made by nonleaders. So what is left for leaders to
do? 

Bakke: Not much. Obviously they're advisors. They have to be
cheerleaders. We need cheerleaders; we need to be celebrating
people. I don't want to say we've got to hold people accountable,
but what we have to do as leaders is we have to create an
environment where people hold themselves accountable. Now what
kind of a culture is that? [Someone once] said the role of the
leader is to drive out fear in the organization. That's part of
what I'm talking about—driving out fear. It means that you
accept the fact that, not only are you going to make mistakes,
but those other folks are going to make mistakes. That's how 
they learn—we all learn that way—by making mistakes and 
correcting them and moving on. So somehow, you're creating this 
culture. You want people to keep score but you also want to make
sure that they know that we know they're going to make mistakes,
so don't cover them up, don't be depressed about them. Admit
them, and learn from them, and move on to bigger and greater
things. Leaders create a culture that does that. 

Once in awhile, the other thing that leaders need to do in my
approach is that, if it's not clear who's supposed be making
the decision, you don't make it yourself. You choose the person
to make it. And one final thing. The leader is the keeper of the
central principles and values—integrity, justice, those kinds of
things—interpreting those and defining those. In an organization,
these have to be shared; they can't be just everybody's
individual interpretation, otherwise it's not a community.

LW: How does the joy-at-work approach apply to mid-level
managers who may be several layers down from senior leadership?
Is it possible to practice this philosophy on a small scale,
even though your organization isn't structured this way from top
to bottom?

Bakke: The middle person is really a tough one because they
actually can do it in their little organization—they can give
freedom—but with one hand. You have to protect your group from
the bureaucracy and the bosses above and all the systems and
everything else. You say, "We're not going to do that here—we're
going to do it differently." But to do that, you have to satisfy
the hot buttons. Maybe you have to send in a report or two that
the boss wants to see. Or they want to see this kind of
performance in a certain way. And you do that. But then you turn
around and you operate totally different than anything they
taught you at the company's school of leadership. But you have
to remember—prepare to lose your job, because you might. If
things go badly, they'll blame the new system, not the fact that
things go badly often. So it will get blamed and you'll have a
chance to lose your job. That's a hard one, but you know what,
joy is worth it. That's what I want to tell people. It's worth
it to do the right thing for people. Take the risk.

As long as things go well—and they usually do because people love
that kind of place, so you never have any turnover—the tendency
is that the productivity and everything else will go up. But
here's the thing. If the middle manager boss is doing this out
of love, they're likely to get joy, and there's also a better-
than-average chance of getting higher productivity and being able
to make some money as well. But if you aim for productivity and
high output and use this stuff as a technique to get people to
produce more, you will not have joy and you lower your chances
of productivity. It's an irony that most people can't get. 

LW: As we wrap up, much of what you've said kind of flies in the
face of conventional wisdom. Is this something that can really
work in other companies or was it just unique to AES?

Bakke: There absolutely can be joy in workplaces. It is not that
radical. There is only one thing that has to happen, and that's
bosses have to give up their power. The objection usually is,
people will just go off and do their own thing. But the thing
that stops that is the advice process. When people do that, they
almost never just run away. [At AES], I'd say 99.99 percent of
the decisions were exactly the same as they would have been if
the board of directors or the boss had made them. But the feeling
of joy? Altogether different. So there's not nearly as a big a
risk in this; the only risk is that bosses won't do it.

The fact is, it won't happen because in lots of cases, we bosses—
and I'm putting myself in that category; I continue to struggle
with it—we've been told we have every right to make all the big
decisions because we get paid that way. My mother taught me,
"You are the best at making this decision." My high school
football coach let me call all my own plays as a quarterback. I
went to Harvard Business School where, three times a day, you
have a case where you are in the center of the world making the
decision. And it's extremely difficult to say, "Wait a minute.
I've been [taught] all my life to make this kind of call and
you're saying I have to give it up just to create joy at work?"
And the answer is absolutely you do. It is worth it to create
that kind of place where people can use all their skills and make
a difference and be human just like you are. 

-- Interview by Lois Flowers, INJOY consulting editor

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Quick Quotes
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PAINS OF POWER

"Power intoxicates men. When a man is intoxicated by alcohol he
can recover, but when intoxicated by power he seldom recovers."
— James F. Byrnes

"To know the pains of power, we must go to those who have it. To
know its pleasures, we must go to those who are seeking it. The
pains of power are real, its pleasures imaginary." 
— Charles Caleb Colton

"As a matter of fact and experience, the more power is divided
the more irresponsible it becomes."
— Woodrow Wilson

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