Work is Love Made Visible

by Frances Hesselbein

  Among the hundreds of comments in our study, there were two that especially struck me.4 One person wrote, “I doubted I could do anything right, and I doubted that anything I had done had been right. I felt like I was a disappointment to my family, my friends, and my coworkers. I unfriended most everyone on Facebook/Google + , had massive depressive episodes, and even contemplated ending my life.” The other heart-wrenching story was from someone who said that the stress and self-doubt got so bad, “I couldn’t even take care of my dog.” These short-sighted leaders were costly to their organizations and levied a burdensome tax on their employees.

  The Accidental Diminisher

  Many of the Diminishers I studied were legitimate bullies – the type of managers who attempt to be big shots by making others small. But as I’ve continued my research, it’s become clear that the vast majority of the diminishing happening inside our workplaces isn’t coming from these narcissistic, tyrannical jerks; rather, it is done with the best of intentions by what I call Accidental Diminishers – good people trying to be good managers. Just like in the movies, sometimes the good guys are actually the bad guys.

  These Accidental Diminishers are well-meaning, decent managers, yet despite having the best intentions, they shut down the intelligence of others. In studying these leaders, I was struck by two findings: (1) Despite their positive intentions, the Accidental Diminisher’s negative impact was often as great as that of the overt Diminisher, and (2) Very few of these well-meaning leaders understood the restrictive impact they were having on others. For the most part, they felt they were doing the right things. Many had grown up praised for their personal intelligence and had moved up the management ranks on account of their personal – and often intellectual – merit. When they became the boss, they assumed it was their job to be the smartest person in the room and to manage a set of subordinates. Or, much like the helicopter parent, they assumed their interventions were helping, not hurting, those in their charge.

  Most of these overly helpful managers were mortified when they realized the diminishing effect their style of management was having. When one executive at 3 M recognized how her well-intentioned actions had actually been shutting down others, she went on a mission to find former employees and colleagues, apologize for her misguided actions, and better understand how her seemingly helpful actions had actually done damage.

  How might we, with the very best intentions, be having a diminishing impact on the people we lead? How might our good intentions be translated and received differently than how we intended? Here are a few of the indicators that you might be having a diminishing impact, despite your best intentions:

  You’re Always On. You are a dynamic, charismatic leader who thinks energy is infectious. You see yourself as turning up the energy level of the team. But leaders who bring the energy tend to consume all the space and shut others down. For example, after one general manager of a $250 M division held an offsite meeting with his staff, a member of his team came to him and said, “You are sucking all the oxygen out of the room. There is no room for the rest of us.” While you’re trying to turn them up, others tend to tune out the “always on” leader.

  You’re Helpful. You’re an empathetic leader who is quick to help when you see people struggling. You want to ensure that people are successful and protect their reputation. However, when managers (or parents!) rescue people too early or too often, their employees (or young charges) become dependent and suffer weakened confidence and reputation. Sometimes leaders are most helpful when they help less.

  You See the Glass as Half Full. You are a positive, can-do leader who always sees new possibilities and great potential in others. You assume your belief in people will inspire them to new heights. But when leaders play the role of optimist, they undervalue the struggle the team is experiencing and neglect the hard-fought learning and work. Or worse, the leader might be sending an unintentional message that mistakes and failure are not an option. When the leader sees only the upside, others can become preoccupied with the downside.

  Seeing into the Cracks

  If any of the above ring true or produce a pang of guilt, you might just be an Accidental Diminisher. But while our growth as leaders might start with a hunch based on your own insights, it shouldn’t end there. You’ll learn more by asking the people you lead to share their insights. The damage of the Accidental Diminisher is done in the dark, without awareness, which means it’s hard for the manager to see. For leaders to become intentional in their impact, they must train their minds to see the effect of their behavior rather than simply the intent of their actions. Leaders must learn to view their actions through the lens of their closest customers – their employees. Here are some questions you might use to elicit this feedback:

  How might I be shutting down the ideas and actions of others, despite having the best of intentions?

  What am I inadvertently doing that might be having a diminishing impact on others?

  How might my intentions be interpreted differently by others? What unintended messages might my actions be conveying?

  What could I do differently?

  Consuming Less Space

  Becoming a Multiplier often starts with becoming less of a Diminisher. This usually means doing less: less talking, less responding, less convincing, and less rescuing of others who need to struggle and learn for themselves. When we feel the need to be big, let it be a signal that we need to shrink a bit and dispense our views in small but intense doses. And when our instincts tell us to help more, we might need to help less. Often the best leaders have a small footprint but a deep impact. They leave room for others to contribute and grow around them.

  With self-awareness and simple workarounds, otherwise good managers can become great leaders. Here are four simple but powerful starting points for aligning your intent and your impact and leading in a way that causes others to step up rather than pull away:

  Tell Less, Ask More. The best leaders don’t provide all the answers; they ask the right questions, questions that focus the intelligence and energy of the people around them; questions that cause people to think deeply, step up, and assume accountability for outcomes. Instead of telling people what to do, try using your knowledge to ask insightful and challenging questions that cause people to stop, think, and rethink.

  Play Fewer Chips. Rather than dominating the conversation, try dispensing your ideas in small but intense doses. Before a meeting, give yourself a budget of “poker chips,” with each chip representing a comment or contribution to the meeting. Use your chips wisely and leave the rest of the space for others. As you offer your ideas more sparingly, you will not only allow others more room to contribute, your own ideas will be more influential.

  Give It Back. When someone brings you a problem that you think they are capable of solving, ask them for a fix rather than solving the problem for them. Play the role of coach rather than problem solver. If your team legitimately needs help, offer it, but remember to return ownership back to the team by reminding them that they are still in charge.

  Put Others in Charge. Instead of delegating pieces of work, let people know that they (not you) are in charge and accountable. Perhaps the easiest way to let someone know that they are in charge is by giving that person the majority vote. Tell them they get 51% of the vote, but 100% of the accountability.

  Recalibrating Our Sight

  As a leader, having good intentions is necessary, but insufficient. Becoming a great leader requires us to understand how our most noble intentions can have a diminishing effect, sometimes deeply so. When leaders see only their good intentions, they operate with a one-eyed view of the world, often leaving behind a wake of misunderstanding, disengagement, and unfulfilled aspiration. It is only when leaders combine self-knowledge with the perceptions and reactions of others that they can see clearly. As leaders come to realize how their best intentions go awry, their vision becomes sharper and wider, and, in the words of Robert Frost, their “two eyes make one in
sight.” With this insight, wise leaders both adjust their actions and clarify their intentions by reaffirming their faith in the capability of their teams.

  Having better optics into this murky space between intention and impact not only presents a growth opportunity for leaders; it holds promise for our role as followers and collaborators. When we find ourselves frustrated by the actions of our leaders, we would do well to look beyond the particulars of their behavior. Instead of getting caught up in the noise, we can ask ourselves, “What might be their most noble intent? How might they be trying to help me succeed?” As Thoreau said, “It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” When we choose to see the best intentions of those around us, it invites both parties to work at the higher level of their intent rather than settling for the lower level of misunderstanding. As a young woman, I could have fixated on my dad’s inadequacies, pining for a father who was more affirming. Instead I set my sights on the better part – the good intentions that he struggled to express. Like the traveler in Robert Frost’s famed yellow wood, choosing that path has, for me, made all the difference.

  When we align our actions with our true intent, we become leaders who bring out the best in others (even if it’s a micromanaging boss or a difficult father). And it promises more than economic advantage; it defines our legacy. How do we want to be remembered as a leader? As someone with a big personality, or someone around whom other people grew? When employees are overlooked or underutilized, work is exhausting, even painful. But when leaders create conditions where people can contribute fully and whole-heartedly, work is exhilarating. Work becomes more than a mere job or even a career; it becomes a joyful expression of our most complete selves. Truly then is work love made visible.

  Reflection Questions:

  Would you characterize yourself as a Multiplier or a Diminisher as a leader? In what ways might you be accidentally diminishing the people you lead?

  Are your intentions usually congruent with your actions? Why or why not?

  If your intentions and actions are not in sync, what steps could you take to bring them more into alignment?

  Notes

  1. Liz Wiseman, Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter, revised and updated ed. (New York: Harper Business, 2017).

  2. Liz Wiseman, Rookie Smarts: Why Learning Beats Knowing in the New Game of Work (New York: Harper Business, 2004).

  3. Wiseman, Multipliers, 10–13.

  4. Ibid., 220.

  PART V

  Bright Future!

  Frances Hesselbein is often heard rallying all of us toward a Bright Future! Her vision is a “world of healthy children, strong families, good schools, decent housing, safe neighborhoods, work that dignifies, and faith that sustains – all embraced by the diverse, cohesive, inclusive community that cares about all its people.”

  In this section, our contributors share their hopes for tomorrow and solutions to challenges arising today that will lead us toward the bright future that we envision. Frances Hesselbein draws on her varied experiences coaching and developing young leaders – particularly in her role as CEO of the Girl Scouts of the USA – to discuss her enthusiasm and hopes for the current generation of young millennials as they rise to assume positions of leadership in the global society. She paints a picture of a marvelously Bright Future! Sarah McArthur explores the importance of communication to how we work together, the challenges of the Information Age, and how leaders can repair and prevent breakdowns in communication. David Allen suggests how a shift in perspective from viewing potential problems as projects can radically alter how we move toward our goals, not only on the personal level, but globally. He describes how to transition from victimhood to empowerment. Whitney Johnson utilizes a cheerleading metaphor – “Throw down your pom-poms and get in the game” – as an inspiration for all of us to pursue our dreams with passion instead of sitting on the sidelines of our lives and careers. Asheesh Advani describes how his early experiences as an Indian immigrant in the United States shaped his sense of optimism, self-efficacy, and unique worldview. He also reviews how he has applied these characteristics to his leadership in the Junior Achievement Worldwide program. And lastly, Annie McKee addresses the notion, so often overlooked in discussions of success, of truly being happy with your job. She outlines some specific strategies for creating – or reclaiming – this happiness in your own career.

  28

  Be Positive!

  Frances Hesselbein

  From her Pennsylvania beginnings as a volunteer Girl Scout troop leader to her rise as the CEO of the largest organization serving girls and women in the world – the Girl Scouts of the USA – Frances Hesselbein has always been mission-focused, values-based, and demographics-driven. For her transformation of the Girl Scouts in the 1970s, former president Bill Clinton awarded Frances the country’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. For more than 25 years, Frances has been at the helm of a very small but strong organization based in New York where she continues to train a new generation of leaders through leadership education and publications. She is chairman of the Frances Hesselbein Leadership Forum, part of the Graduate School for Public and International Affairs, Johnson Institute for Responsible Leadership at the University of Pittsburgh, and editor-in-chief of Leader to Leader. Frances is the recipient of 21 honorary doctoral degrees, the author of three autobiographies, and the coeditor of 30 books in 30 languages. Frances has traveled to 68 countries representing the United States, and Fortune magazine named her one of the “World’s 50 Greatest Leaders.”

  ■ ■ ■

  Be careful of your thoughts,for your thoughts become your words. Be careful of your words, for your words become your deeds. Be careful of your deeds, for your deeds become your habits. Be careful of your habits, for your habits become your character. Be careful of your character, for your character becomes your destiny.

  —Author anonymous

  Today our work – our dialogue – is all about destiny: our own destiny, as leaders; and the destiny of all the organizations and the leaders we support. In this age of the lowest level of trust and the highest level of cynicism in my whole lifetime, my own country, and in many countries, we face new leadership imperatives. The backdrop of this dialogue is as serious, as challenging, and as difficult as any of us has faced in a long time, facing massive change all over the world, in a world at war.

  In speeches, I often mention that from the beginning of our country, there are two institutions that have sustained our democracy: public education and the United States Army.

  Recently, after speaking to cadets at the United States Military Academy at West Point, we had a wonderful Q&A session. As I was leaving, I encountered a group of cadets waiting for me in the back of the auditorium with many more questions. One young cadet asked me, “Mrs. Hesselbein: Why are you so positive?” I smiled and responded first with a corny joke: “Well, you see, even my blood type is B-positive.” Then I went on the share with them my B-positive approach to leadership, which begins with my definition of leadership as “a matter of how to be, not how to do. It is the quality and character of the leader that determines the performance and the results.”

  People often wonder why I am so positive about a bright future in our own country and in communities where we are facing some of the greatest challenges the world has ever faced. In our schools and in our neighborhoods, there are families and local organizations in need, all of whom are attempting to cope with today’s challenges:

  When political debates are filled with ugly and sometimes almost venomous dialogue

  When our veterans are coming home struggling with problems of health, housing, and employment

  When deaths are rising faster than ever, primarily because of opioids

  When the number of school shootings in America continues to rise

  All this is part of the backdrop of our times, yet it is only part.

  I continue with this bright future stuff because
I have high hopes for the generation of Millennials – men and women born between about 1980 and 1995 – the first generation to come of age in the new millennium, in whom I envision great leaders with the opportunity to connect their present with a bright future.

  Pew Research Center studies tell us that today’s Millennials are more like those born before 1928 – the so-called Greatest Generation – than any cohort since. Millennials are said to be career-focused with a very high potential to lead a robust and sustainable economy. They face many challenges, as swift and exclusive policy changes are adopted that may harm large groups of them. There is a new vigor to Millennials, and the upcoming professionals of Generation Z – those born between 1996–2010. A language that includes, not excludes, which communicates in a way that reminds me of Peter Drucker’s definition of communication: “Communication isn’t saying something, communication is being heard.”

  And they are being heard! It is inspiring to join them. Remember: Every challenge is an opportunity. In these times of great challenges, the opportunities are even greater for our new generation of values-based leaders.

  And it is the learning leaders who are the partners for ethical, principled, effective corporations and organizations. They will open doors. As Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote,