Who Will Lead Your Business or Organization?

We need to embrace a new way of thinking about who leads us and what we want to see in them.  All too often today leaders are anointed or appointed because they convey confidence, turn a phrase, or they are wildly charismatic. Sometimes it is that they have all the right connections.

Yet rarely does confidence alone, charisma alone, or the ability to deliver a line accurately foretell true leadership capability. And simply being connected – does not demonstrate or adequately predict who is capable of real leadership.

If you hold the keys to leadership positions in your company or organization, I believe you need work on yourself first, well before posting for the position. Smart hiring leaders must rediscover or develop the abilities and processes necessary to discern confidence from competence, charisma from honest empathy and care. Hiring leaders must come to understand the ability to deliver a line well is not the same as to being thoughtful or insightful. Today’s hiring professionals understand that sometimes connections only indicate those who hold connections are simply more adapt at playing organizational systems and games. Sadly, today twenty-first century hiring professionals are also understand that some seeking to leverage their connections as their entry card to leadership; are simply the sons and daughters of privilege, and/or the beneficiaries of systemic barriers to access and institutional bias.

Savvy leadership hires are made by organizations using valid leadership assessments and a thoughtful review of past performance to measure what you want in your next leader. If you want leaders who demonstrate competence, personal and professional vision, empathy, integrity or any of a host of other positive virtues – ask your candidates to take assessments, reliably calibrated against the leadership characteristics you and your organization value. Carefully scrutinize past work performance, talk to their colleagues about the work environment the aspiring leader created or maintained. Ask colleagues how the aspiring leader made them feel as a colleague or partner in the work. Remembering the old adages - that behavior predicts behavior and when someone shows you who they are, believe them.

All this takes time –understandable an uncomfortable amount of time given the urgency of the moment in today’s hyper fixated businesses and organizations. Yet there is likely not another decision your business or organization will make that is as important as who will lead your business or organization through what will most likely be the most challenging of times.

Clayton Wilcox

In This Moment

In This Moment

Clayton Wilcox

We are in a moment when we can choose to move closer to fulfilling the promise set by the words “… that all men are created equal; …” And while there is debate about the intention of the men who penned those words - regardless of their intent, the phrase today can and is a calling to a better place and time where all men and women “are created equal; that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.“ 

Yet this begs the question – what can I do to move us in the direction of a more perfect union? First, I can recognize that I have a place in the work to move us ahead. Second, I can come to understand that words matter and sometimes the absence of speaking up matters. And third, I can accept responsibility for my words and the consequences of those words and vow to not make the same mistakes again.

I choose to act when and where I can – beginning in my own small way. I am going to own and act on the fact that my spoken word or my silence may be hurtful to another person, whether it’s because of a through throw-away comment, a missed opportunity to support and validate another or through perceived indifference by my silence. Starting now, when someone makes me aware that my choice of words or inaction were hurtful to another person, I am going straight to the person my words or inaction hurt; to hear why they feel as they do. I will strive to let them know that I heard them. I won’t argue my rationale or my history, I won’t try to defend my comments or inaction in that moment. I will listen and to understand. I will honor their trust and vulnerability in sharing their feelings and perceptions with me.

I will then offer a straight-forward apology for my words or inaction and for the hurt I caused them. I will offer my commitment then and there to becoming a more thoughtful, sensitive, and caring friend and colleague. 

Clayton Wilcox

Leadership – Do you Believe in Second Chances?

Everyone today expects leaders to have the answers and to solve the huge problems of the day. We expect them to solve for pandemics, economic chaos, furloughs, lay-offs, and ill-timed resignations and job losses. We expect leaders to solve huge and lingering social problems. We expect them to solve the myriad of problems challenging our businesses and organizations today – from location closings to supply chain issues, from the economic challenges created by social distancing and a volatile marketplace, to technology and infrastructure issues, and from customer issues to workplace squabbles. We then put the most successful leaders on pedestals and toast their successes. And we often toss those who can’t or didn’t aside. I am all for toasting the successful. I am not so much for tossing the others aside. 

We rarely allow our leaders to fail or fall short of expectations today, or in many cases simply be human, in spite of a wealth of redeeming qualities and characteristics.  We often hold leaders to an idealized and all too often; unrealistic set of standards, few can live up to in the complicated times we are living in. We expect our leaders to do no wrong.  We expect them to at least metaphorically “walk on water.”  We expect the wisdom of Solomon. We expect them to see around corners and through pandemics. 

If a leader fails – not walking on the water but falls into the water or when he or she makes a hard decision inconsistent with our way of thinking - it is more than likely today that we will feel as if they personally failed us and perhaps even did so to spite us. To make matters worse we often excuse ourselves from any sense of personal accountability for helping to solve the larger problem that they were grappling with on our account. We fail to extend them the same grace that we would wish for when if we had been in their position and we had failed at something or fallen short of expectation.

Sadly, many of our business and organizational leaders who make honest mistakes today are not getting the benefit of the doubt or a second chance in this turned upside-down and inside-out climate. For various reasons; professional, political, personal, and a host of reasons including the company’s image or brand, in this hypersensitive, cancel-culture oriented society we seem to be tossing honest, able people aside with few real cares – as if the pandemic and associated economics made it okay.  We have lost our humanity. Many are failing to exercise even the most basic levels of compassion; compassion they would wish themselves afforded in similar circumstances. 

Today more than ever we need good people, we need good leaders, we need leaders who tried mightily but perhaps fell short. We need those who are willing to make mistakes for the right reasons. We need leaders who are willing to fail fast, to learn fast. 

I believe we are at a crossroads today, the need for real leadership, for real leaders has never been greater. We have huge challenges ahead of us as a nation, and even more profoundly on a global scale. We do not enjoy the luxury of throw away leaders, we cannot treat leaders as if they are an expendable commodity. 

We need our leaders still in place to provide second chances to good leaders caught in a crisis. 

We need men and women who lead today’s most successful companies and organizations to be willing to budget the resources necessary and quite frankly demonstrate the courage and will to retain, retrain, or reclaim fallen leaders. We need our current leaders, those who are still standing, to take a chance on good people by acting on the possibility that good people caught up in the crossfires of life still have much to give. 

Problem Solving

How does your team solve the problems of the day – at Thoughts2Lead we take a careful methodical approach leading to lasting solutions. We intentionally go slow to go fast.

We focus on the understanding the problem; getting everyone around the table to actively define and actually articulate the problem.

Once we know the problem, we generate as many thoughtful solutions as possible – withholding judgment and resisting the urge to offer comment. Once we have a pool of possible solutions, we begin to assess their viability and we generate a list of pro’s and con’s. Once we can clearly see the risks and benefits of our solution set – we can make an informed choice that takes us forward.

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Truth Can Come From Unlikely Voices

Years ago, I had just finished speaking to a local group and while it wasn’t my best speech, I was proud of the fact that I had gotten more than a few rounds of applause and I had finally named some of those who I believed had created the conditions I found myself in.

The good Lord has a way of humbling you when you start letting your ego drive you, or in Baton Rouge as a few of the locals described it … started to smell yourself, because he sent an Miss Linda to me. At first, I thought this sweet older woman was coming up to congratulate me on my remarks but when that boney finger started waiving; I knew it was not congratulations she had in mind. Ms. Linda first introduced herself and then leaned in close and said, “Mr. Superintendent, you might think you are all that but let me tell you a thing or two. First, when you point your finger at someone else, look at your hand and you will see three fingers pointing right back at you. And second, ‘dem people aren’t here any-more and these kids are counting on you.”

I learned in that moment that blaming and sidestepping your responsibility wasn’t going to make us better. Pointing out what others hadn’t done wasn’t productive. It wasn’t going to make us better. It didn’t motivate or inspire others. Rather it kept us focused on the very things we wanted to move beyond.

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