I’m a big fan of leaders who make it their primary purpose to help other people get stuff done.
Download your copy of the image above (click and then right-click to save it) to see the big four R’s of leading by enabling others, together with some of my suggestions for how you might actually set about doing that.
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I’ve recently taken a step-up in an organisation I volunteer with, so that I’m now leading other volunteers and we had a great time at the weekend, introducing some much-needed new people to the programme. It’s also mid-winter here now and is snowing heavily and I’m a little concerned about the journey my first coaching client is making to get here today. What a great time then, to have a brief rethink about one of my favourite leadership concepts – Snowplough Leadership – and how that might relate to leading volunteers.
Snowplough leadership is the simple idea that, as a leader, your main job is to:
When it comes to leading volunteers, my experience is that these simple leadership functions become even more important. Time, motivation, skills and experience become even more of a juggling act when you’re working with people who are there entirely because they choose to be. It’s a real gift to receive the effort and attention of people in this way, something I’ve always felt quite humbled by and would always want to be deeply respectful of.
Here’s a few ideas to be kicking around, if you’re in a leadership position involving volunteers, or just want to play with the idea of Snowplough Leadership a bit more. One caveat – even though I’ve done this kind of thing a fair bit myself, and coached others to do so, I notice that I’m a long way from feeling like I know all the answers. So take these more as things to explore, than some kind of definitive guide:
1. Do your volunteers have a clear line-of-sight through to what you need them to be doing? Have you metaphorically cleared enough of the snow (confusion, unfamiliarity, etc) out of the way, so that they can completely ‘see’ the destination?
2. What are you doing to get rid of the obstructions in their way? If your volunteering is anything like mine, you’ll be working with limited resources and very limited time. What do you need to take care of, so that your volunteers can just push on without getting stopped?
3. How slippery is the surface you’re asking them to work on? Are they equipped to move forwards? Can you see which individuals are accelerating too fast, and might come unstuck at the first corner? Which of your volunteers have their wheels spinning and might need a push to get going in the right direction?
4. And how about you? When you’re in a volunteer leadership position, it’s (relatively) easy to ask for help with simple tasks; much less easy to ask for help with things that you don’t know the answer to, that you’re not clear about. It can also be a bit of a thankless job and you may even face some hostility when you get things wrong; issues that people in a ‘normal’ working environment would have been less forthright about. It’s maybe a good idea to ask for help for you personally, whenever you can, as well as for the cause you’re working towards.
5. What else? What else is different about leading volunteers? Is there another important leadership function that this snowplough metaphor doesn’t really capture? In your experience, when does snowplough leadership fail, and why?
I’ve often written here about our Inner Critics or Gremlins. These are the unconscious thought processes that act to keep us safe by sabotaging our attempts to change or to do something challenging or outside of our comfort zones.
Instead of keeping us safe, all this process really does is to maintain the status quo. And when things then change around us, as they inevitably do, instead of being ‘safe’, we’re left unprepared and disadvantaged. The very things our Inner Critics are fearful of tend to happen because of, not in spite of this process!
That’s why getting clear about and learning to live with the Inner Critic process is such an important part of leadership and personal growth.
But if you’re a leader, or anyone who really should be inspiring and developing the people around them, there’s another insidious aspect to this process. That’s when our Inner Critic is allowed to spill over and become our Outer Critic too.
I’m talking here about all the times when we’ve given voice to those small or large criticisms of the people around us. All the times we’ve said out loud (or just to ourselves), things like:
I’m sure there are many more examples.
Like the Inner Critic, the Outer Critic has a similarly important function. It’s intended to keep us from harm or to avoid a loss of some kind.
That’s why the times when we’re critical of others are usually when something that’s important to us is threatened by a shortcoming on their part. When their words or actions might lead to the loss of an opportunity or to some kind of ‘damage’ to a valued outcome, person or resource.
The great paradox of the Outer Critic is that just speaking our criticisms of others actually rarely even makes us feel better. And even less rarely does just speaking a criticism by itself actually make any difference to what’s happening.
I think our Outer Critic is a way of expressing our own fears, but without having to take any action that might put us out of our comfort zones. As my gran might have said: It’s all mouth, and no trousers.
One of the turning points in my own leadership journey was the realisation that you simply can’t complain people into changing. If you want something different from people, without having to do so every time, criticising just does not work.
So what should you do instead of criticising? Or if you’ve somehow go to a place where you realise you’re moaning, complaining about and criticising a LOT of people and things, how do you break out of that cycle?
In my experience, there are four important strategies for dealing with your over-active Outer Critic. All of these are crucial things for leaders to be doing anyway, so it’s no surprise that when you are doing these, it’s almost as if there’s no room, or maybe no need, for the Outer Critic to make itself known. Here they are, in descending order of positive impact:
1. Make sure you’re actively pursuing something positive that’s really important to you.
I can’t emphasise this one enough. Think back to the last time you were around someone on a mission. They might have told you about what was wrong with things, because ‘fixing’ something is an important part of some people’s missions, but I bet they won’t have moaned, complained or criticised. And when you’ve got something important to set your sights on, neither will you. There just isn’t time ☺
2. Either be prepared to get down in the arena and sort it out yourself, or walk on by.
There’s a great passage from a speech in 1910 by former US President Theodore Roosevelt, which is often referred to as “The Man in the Arena”. I’ve put the relevant extract in the picture at the top of this article, which you can download and save for yourself by clicking and then right-clicking. The message is essentially this: be the one taking action, or move on.
3. “Be the Change you Want to See”
This quote is often attributed to Mahatma Gandhi: “Be the change you want to see”. It’s a really resourceful way of dealing with your Outer Critic. There are times for all of us when we genuinely don’t have the means, power or resources to step-in and deal with a particular issue, in a particular place and time. For those occasions when you can’t take action on that specific issue, but are convinced there’s a better way of doing things, then instead of moaning, complaining or criticizing, show people how it could be done, in the areas where you do have choice and control. Don’t criticize what is, inspire what could be.
4. Learn to make specific requests.
One of my very early coaching instructors, the late Laura Whitworth, gave me this gem of advice: “A complaint is just an unvoiced request”. This is a fantastic discipline to practise if you find that your Outer Critic has made an unwelcome appearance.
Take your criticism and search out the request that’s buried away inside it.
For example, instead of saying to your companion in a restaurant: “I hate how they’ve given us a table in the draft by the door”, call over your waiter and ask to be moved.
I can tell you from personal experience, that this ‘make a specific request’ approach sometimes even works with your teenaged children!
A few experiences recently have reminded me how important this is.
I had my weekly ‘thinking morning’ in my favourite coffee shop earlier this week. New staff member is there, just finishing her training. I’m writing notes but also got my ears open and she asks the manager about the plants around the cafe. The manager says that watering the plants is on the roster, but that nobody really knows anything else about them. New staff member looks around and says: “They’re all succulents, simplest plant in the world to take care of. I’ll look after them.”
Of course, my spidey-sense is really tingling now, because here’s somebody who’s just revealed both an expertise and a sense of purpose. I decide to buy an extra coffee as an excuse to open a conversation: “I heard you mention succulents – sounds like you know your stuff about plants?”
This simple bit of listening and initial nosiness was all it took for me to hear this woman’s life-story and how this was a stop-gap job until she could work as a florist. And you can tell when just hearing someone like this, being witness to their hopes is big deal! All the succulents were well looked after and sung to that morning.
Last month I had lunch with a friend who I first met as a business acquittance a few years ago. He never misses a chance to ask if I remember what I said to him back then, during what was then a tough time for him. I don’t really remember what I said, but I do remember the impression I got of him at the time, which was of someone just hanging-on by his fingertips, with the strain showing, but also with this little flame flickering inside him, of something very important he wanted to fulfil. Just looking at the way he stood and a simple bit of listening about what he was trying to achieve was enough to reveal all of this.
The way he tells it, it went something like this:
Him: “I’m not sure if I can take this anymore, and I’m at the end of my tether“.
Me: “Sometimes, all it takes to turn things around is just hanging-on a little bit more“.
And it seems that simple homily was enough, because now he does exactly what that little flame was all about.
Then an email arrives from a former client, somebody I coached nearly 15 years ago. It’s to tell me how they’ve just made the next giant step towards realising a business plan we first crafted, on a beer mat (it’s a long story, but I kept a supply of them back then for doing just that…) , all that time ago. The email includes the line: “Do you remember when you asked me about X? That was the real turning point for me.”
Again, I don’t really remember what I said. But I remember thinking about how strong and determined this person was.
So, this is my really important learning.
That there are opportunities to say and do things which make a huge difference for people, just waiting around for us to grasp them. And that people will remember you did this for years and years.
All it takes is a simple bit of observation, listening to what they’re saying, taking in all the other impressions you have of this person. And reflecting back something true about them.
As it’s so possible to do this, why not do it whenever you can?
If there’s one thing that makes the most difference between individual success and failure, or between great team dynamics and anarchy, it’s having an Outcome Focus.
That is, knowing clearly and distinctly what is wanted in any given situation.
If you don’t know what outcome you want, as a leader, an individual or as a team, it’s almost impossible to agree on how to proceed or to focus on where to put your efforts. As Lewis Carroll wrote:
If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.
So it’s frequently a great source of surprise to me to discover how often people don’t really know what outcomes they want. Or to find out that nobody in a team has had a chance to talk together about what they’re trying to achieve. As a leader, if you were to do absolutely nothing but talk about the top three or four outcomes you want people to focus on, I’m convinced you’d be providing more leadership support for your teams than 60-70% of the leaders I know!
But how do you have more of an Outcome Focus? How do you get clear yourself about what you want in any situation? And how do you help the people around you to have the same clarity?
If you’re ready to have more of an Outcome Focus, I’ve set out my top 3 tips below.
But before you get into those, it’s always worth checking – do you already know what outcomes you want?
Perhaps you know but haven’t said it out loud or written it down. If that’s the case, do that now.
And if that’s not the case, or if you find yourself very well able to say what you don’t want, or if you find that you know you want less of something, but aren’t sure what outcome you actually do want, read on…
1. Visit the Future – and look back
This is one of my favourite techniques, because it’s a chance to raise your head from the everyday pressures and take stock of a much bigger picture. Pick a time-frame (it doesn’t matter what: an hour, a day, a week, a decade, will all work); use your imagination to transport yourself forwards in time; take a look back to the present-day, and answer these questions:
2. Listen to Yourself Complaining
How often do you hear yourself or other people complaining about something, in this kind of way: “He said/she said…” “She did this or that…” “They don’t understand/ care/ appreciate…”?
Us coaches like to hear this kind of complaint because it’s usually a good springboard for action – after you’ve done some work with it. Here’s why it’s so useful…
Take this (edited) real example of a complaint, given to me by a client just last week:
“I’m so sick of having last-minute tasks dumped on me and my team, only to find out later that some vital piece of information was left-out so that we wasted our time responding.”
A complaint is really two different things that have understandably got mixed-up together:
First, you have to deal with the hurt or injury that you’re feeling.
Take the example above, and imagine that you’d had those last-minute tasks dumped on you. You might be feeling annoyed, disrespected, resentful of the time you gave-up over the weekend, or any of a number of emotions. And of course, emotions are useful, once we see them clearly, because they’re nature’s way of proving the energy and impetus for us to take action.
Second, you have to get really clear about the outcome that’s hidden away inside your complaint. You have to make that outcome conscious, instead of unconscious, and to turn it into some kind of request.
Using that same example again; once you’d stopped hurting about the way you were treated and were able to think rationally, what is it you’d actually want? Is there a request you might need to make? Is there a change you would want to have happen?
3. Ask Each Other Why
Young kids are great with the “Why?” questions when they’re trying to make sense of the world. But somewhere along the way, we seem to learn that asking too many “why” questions just annoys people – so we stop. But how can you have a great Outcome Focus if you don’t know why you’re doing something?
As a team member, how many times have you felt that you’re all doing something because somebody else, at some other point in time decided it was the thing to be doing? And you don’t really know why. Or you feel like maybe you were off that day, when everybody else talked about why this particular course of action was such a great idea.
As leaders or as team members, make sure you can answer these questions:
Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.
Carl Jung
If you looked around the world of leadership and management at the moment, you’d be forgiven for thinking that there’s a real problem in the way that people born between the mid 1980s and the early 2000s – the ‘Millennials’ – are behaving at work and in how they need to be managed.
But actually, there’s a much simpler and lazier explanation as to why so much is being written about this generation and its leaders. Since April 2016 Millennials have been the largest demographic in the western world, in the USA for example, overtaking Baby Boomers (76m people) by at least a million. If you’re a member of or a manager of this generation, that makes you an easy marketing target.
Since I’ve been coaching different generations (from people in their 80s to their late teens and everything inbetween) for over 18 years now, I didn’t want to miss out on the chance to jump on this particular rickety bandwagon. So I’ve produced my own guide on how to manage the main generational groups.
You’ll see in the table below, that I’ve set out each generational group (Baby Boomers, Generation X, Millennials and Generation Z) together with their: Wants, Needs, Flaws and Super Powers.
And I’ve also given a series of four Top Tips for the Leaders of each generational group.
I’ve based this analysis on both my years of experience in working with different people and on some of the actual real research into what motivates and makes people tick. The definitions of the generations are vague (it’s done by marketing people…), and the birth years tend to overlap quite a lot; sorry.
If you have several different generations in your workplace, or are struggling to successfuly lead people from the Millennial group, then I hope this will help.
Click the picture below and then right-click it and select “Save as…” to download your own copy:
I write this shortly after watching “I am Bolt” – the sports documentary about sprinter Usain Bolt as he prepares for the 2016 Olympics in Rio. Whether you’re a fan of sports documentaries or not, I think you might enjoy this really captivating film about a very charismatic athlete.
There was lots of useful stuff in the film for me, particularly about the joy of doing something you’re great at, and I’ll write more about that in future.
One part of the film that really struck me was Bolt’s hatred of training. He says it again and again: “I love to run, I hate to train”. This from a man whose actual competitive event is over in less than 10 seconds!
Imagine that – the thing you love to do is over in less than 10 seconds, you probably don’t even get to do it competitively more than once a week, maybe much less, and to do it as well as you know you can, you have to do something you hate, again, and again, and again.
And you don’t just have to do this while you’re becoming good at your thing; you have to train and practise all the way through, even when you have multiple Olympic gold medals. Even when you are the best in the world.
I’m quite inspired by this.
I’m looking around seeing if I can re-frame all the stuff I hate doing to be the equivalent of “training”, for the 10 seconds I do love.
Does it help, do you think, this kind of reframing?
I suppose you’ve got to know what the thing you love doing is, so that you can tell which bits (the ones you hate) are just necessary “training”. And then you’ve got to decide if the thing you love doing is worth dedicating yourself to. Not just so that you can be the best in the world – most of us never get the chance to measure that in any meaningful way. But so that you can be the absolute best version of you, doing what you love to the absolute best of your abilities.
I’ll settle for that.
These are some fairly basic tactics for the leaders’ kitbag. Six ways that you should be able to apply day-to-day, even moment by moment, to help the people around you feel inspired.
Click the image above for a full-size version and/or right-click it to download a copy.
If you notice that you’re making excuses or feeling unable to apply any of these, in general or with specific people, it’s worth asking somebody else to apply them to YOU first of all. It may be that, as the leader, you’ve lost sight of your own capabilities or resourcefulness, aren’t really feeling the ‘why’ at the moment, or just need to hear something inspiring yourself first.
Co-operation, compromise and connection are essential tools in the leader’s kitbag. If you’re spending most of your time as a leader doing those things, you’re probably getting it right. But if you’re never spending any time at all in conflict, maybe it’s worth looking at where and how you might need to be doing some grown-up style fighting.
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That’s YOU – the resources, respect and room to do you what you need to do, to the best of your ability.
Then there’s YOUR TEAM – are you looking out for them; clearing the way and getting them what they need?
And of course YOUR BUSINESS or organisation itself – as well as planting the right seeds, are you fighting to keep your crop healthy, safe from predators and clear of invasive weeds?
FAIRNESS – Are you, your team and your business being treated with fairness and respect and not being taken advantage of? If not, you’ve got a fight on your hands!
RESOURCES – Are you, your team and your organisation getting the resources you need to do the job you’ve got to do? If not, where do you need to come out fighting?
DETERMINATION – Are you taking a stand for yourself, for your team and for your business when it matters? If you’re not standing up for all three of those – who is?
COMPETING – Are you, your team and your business able to compete with the strength and flexibility that it takes to win in a complex and inter-connected world? You don’t have to play for a win-lose scenario, but you absolutely can’t be the losers yourselves.
“Where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence.”
Mahatma Gandhi