Horizon Point Consulting

Category: Leadership Development

Beyond Leadership is Horizon Point’s line of resources for managers of people. Managing ourselves is a distinct set of behaviors from managers the work of others, and we are here to help. Read stories in this category if you are ready to take the next step in your own leadership development (or if you’re looking for resources for someone else).

DWYSYWD- Lessons from the Elementary School Guidance Counselor

One of the first things we teach in our personal leadership course is the concept of DWYSYWD- Do What You Say You Will Do. It involves committing to what you can do, or as Covey would put it, committing to your circle of influence and focusing on being accountable with what you can do instead of worrying about things that you cannot do something about. For example, I cannot do anything about whether or not a stay at home order is extended or relaxed this week in my state, but I can wash my hands, not touch my face, and wear a mask when appropriate to help stop the spread of the virus.
As Covey states, this then allows us to be better leaders by helping our circle of influence grow. If my kids watch me wash my hands regularly, then maybe they will too. If we can’t influence our own behavior, then how can we expect to influence the behavior of others?

During times of uncertainty like we are in now, it is easy to de-commit to anything and to not hold ourselves and others accountable.

I’m thankful for the staff at my son’s school for creating routines in their work and for guidance counselors like Jan Mendenhall who send out notes of encouragement, linking the current situation to leadership lessons for my children. This helps them (and me) stay committed during uncertain times.

Here’s her note to the students from last week. I hope it brings you the perspective and motivation to DWYSYWD this week to better lead yourself and others. And to hit the reset button if you need to.

Wednesday, April 22, 20/20

Week 3 of Virtual Leon

Do you all remember way, way, way back in August when we were actually all in the school building together and were able to have conversations in person? We talked about goals and accountability, which means we should do what we say we’re going to do. I’ll be honest with you all: Last week I did better with my attitude, and it helped to daily write down three positive things. I tried to complete my daily to-do list, but I was beyond pathetic with my physical fitness goals. I didn’t do what I said I was going to do. Guess what? I hit the reset button Monday and have been much better about walking, exercising, and riding my bike – even when I’d rather lounge around, play Spider Solitaire, and eat donuts! What do you need to do better on? Be accountable to yourself, and ask someone at your house to hold you to it. One of my favorite authors is coming out with a new book next week, and that – not a donut! – is going to be my reward IF I DO WHAT I SAID I WAS GOING TO DO! Stay tuned for next week’s email because there may be a really cool prize involved! Until then, take care. Wash your hands. Be safe. Be well. Choose kind. Love you!

What is one thing this week you can do to follow through on DWYSYWD?

April 28, 2020
Our Schedules Communicate Priorities

On a Sunday morning about 7 AM, I was in the middle of a run. It was a quiet, beautiful fall morning until I looped back around and through the sports and water park complex near my house. Cars started driving by and turning into the parking lot by the tennis center. I could hear an abundance of tennis balls popping off rackets as, what seemed to be, many people warming up.

I’ve run by on other Sunday mornings about that time to see what couldn’t be older than five and six-year-olds warming up for soccer matches. The minivans and SUVS of their parents had to have filled the parking lots with license plates from other counties and even other states before the sun even woke up.

On a Sunday.

Call me old fashioned, but this early morning quest for getting more travel soccer, or travel tennis, or travel whatever sport in for young kids just blows my mind, even if it is driving in tons of revenue for my hometown as people come and put heads in beds with their entire family for an elementary school kid to play sports all weekend.

What is the reasoning behind what has seemed to largely be held by society as a day of rest a day to get in more sports, Sunday after Sunday? Maybe it is the mindset of practice makes perfect as I wrote about last week, but whatever it is, it’s communicating that the sport, whatever it may be, is the priority. Our schedule communicates our priorities. On the weekend, family time isn’t the priority, or church or even time for a kid to rest a little and enjoy a free day to just be a kid.

I’ve had several discussions revolving around this idea of how priorities are being communicated to kids. One mom whose little girl isn’t even six months old mentioned her concern with her family growing “overscheduled” as kids’ activities develop. Another expressed concern over an hour worth of homework for her daughter on a night when she had church and dance. My own mother even expressed her observation about how kids don’t have time to just be kids anymore.

Even the Today Show had a segment addressing the increase in homework kids have to complete these days, with one teacher expressing it is not the amount of homework but the amount of extracurricular things on kids’ calendars today that results in what should take 15 minutes of homework “double and triple” that amount of time because, by the time the student actually sits down to do the homework, they have already had so much packed into their day that they are just DONE (fast forward to 2:15 of the clip to hear this comment).

Traveling and playing soccer all day every weekend for a season to me, brings on the sense of DONE before the week even starts. Especially for a six-year-old.

But if I’m honest with myself, I worry that I’ll be sucked into the travel soccer or tennis or baseball or dance craze with my own son and daughter (who will arrive in March) and they are only two and not even born yet.   When everyone is doing it, aren’t you just supposed to follow suit?

What does this have to do with leadership?

Whether we are the leader of our households or the leader of a team or company, or even the leader of our own lives, realizing that we are communicating priorities to our people and ourselves by how we prioritize time is important.

Do you occupy your own time or your team’s with multiple meetings? I had one professional in leadership class tell me most of his weeks are composed of 30 hours on average of meetings.   By the time he was able to get to the work that he was supposed to do as a result of all these meetings, he was just DONE, not being able to contribute meaningfully to his purpose, and therefore his ability to produce value, for the organization.

Maybe as a parent, we do want sports or other extracurricular activities or homework to be the priority for our children. But my challenge would be, if one thing takes the priority, by the time they get to everything else are they just DONE? And is it even what they want? Is what we schedule helping them express who they are and how they can contribute to the family and to society in a meaningful way or is the schedule communicating something else entirely?

As a leader, help people define how they contribute meaningfully and then avoid overschedule them with things that don’t help them see this through.

Where are you, your team, or your family overscheduled with things that don’t truly matter?

March 10, 2020
How to be Authentic with Your Appreciation at Work

What is your most desired love language- or language of appreciation- at work? The Motivating by Appreciation (MBA) Inventory assessment can help you and your colleagues discern this.

What makes giving and receiving appreciation at work so hard? Often, it is the simple fact that we’ve been conditioned to follow the golden rule instead of the platinum one.

The golden rule says to do unto others as you would have them do unto you. So in context, if my language of appreciation is quality time, then the way I live the golden rule is to give you quality time because it is what I desire.

By contrast, if I’m living the platinum rule at work, I’m doing unto you as you want to be treated, not as I want to be treated. Therefore, if you desire acts of service as your primary love language at work, showing my appreciation to you in this way is how I will treat you instead of giving you quality time as my default.

Research cited in The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace notes that 75% of people predominantly speak the love language they want to receive. This is true of the assessment of love language outside of work for romantic relationships and kids and teens as well.

And it makes sense that we do this, because it takes less energy to give what comes naturally to us, and what comes naturally to us is what we want and need ourselves.

The best leaders and colleagues (and spouses and parents) however, take the time and energy to know people well and customize their behavior towards what others need or what the situation best requires. This is called self-monitoring. Some people call it emotional intelligence. Others simply call it exhausting.

And it is exhausting. But what often wears us thin, wears us less thin the more we do it. And the more we do it, the more people feel appreciated, and the less they crave it if they are getting it regularly enough. They become less needy and we become less exhausted. And they give more back to us and others when they are less needy too.

So the next time you get frustrated with someone acting like they are unappreciated at work or simply acting in a way that is so foreign or different than you would ever behave and they are wearing you out, take the time to reflect on what makes them tick.

And if you’re frustrated no one is taking the time to appreciate you, reflect on why that is as well. You’d do well to notice how others are trying to appreciate you and realize that is probably how they want to be appreciated themselves.

Having a discussion about what kind of “love” we all want and need, and recognizing we are all are different I think was the intent of the person who spoke of the need for the golden rule, to begin with. Simply follow the example of meeting people where they are with what they need.

How do you best show people appreciation at work?

February 25, 2020
6 Ways to Help Create Caring Instead of Callous Leaders
I have the opportunity to coach a lot of middle managers. Quite often they are middle-aged men, and I’m working with them because there is some issue with how they lead (or actually don’t lead) others.

Through some type of feedback mechanism, these men are described mildly as “aloof” or “disinterested” (always related to how they are with people, not necessarily the tasks or functions of their job) to more extreme words like “jerk” or “a**hole”.

I’m brought in most of the time to try to fix their “personality”. Making them more caring and a better leader of people is my assignment.

If the goal is to help them grow and care, I’m up for the task. But the reason they are described in these unappealing ways is often not what it seems. It’s not a personality issue or another fixed trait issue where someone is born less or more caring because of their disposition.

Sometimes it’s a skill issue, meaning they just don’t know what they don’t know. They want to be a leader of people, but they’ve never been taught how to do this. This means I often help by providing tools, questions, and activities for self-reflection and awareness to help them facilitate positive leadership practices with others.

It’s never personality. It’s sometimes skill.

But it is almost always an issue of time.

You see, middle managers are often pulled in a million different directions. They are hurrying to do something for their boss, to be at the next meeting of which two-thirds or more of their scheduled workday is packed with, to complete a project, to approve someone’s PTO in an inefficient system. Or trying to make it home in time to help their spouse, care for a child, or make it to another meeting of an organization they are involved within the community.

You see they aren’t callous, cold, or a jerk because they are born that way or don’t know how to be caring, they are these things because they are ALWAYS in a hurry and their task list is NEVER done.

Quite simply, they don’t have time for their people or don’t feel like they do. So when someone that reports to them comes in and needs to talk to them about an issue with the project they are working on or an issue with a co-worker, or to check on their PTO request for next week that hasn’t been approved yet, they appear at the best aggravated with the person, and at the worst, they act like a downright jerk to him or her.

In a classic study aptly titled “The Good Samaritan Study” Princeton researchers examined what conditions impact a group of seminary students actually helping someone. Personality and religious evaluations of each individual in the study were included. Some participants were told they were late for the task they were assigned to do (which was either to talk about the parable of the Good Samaritan or to talk about seminary jobs). Others were told they had a few minutes to arrive where they needed to across campus for their assignment.

In route to give the talk, participants encountered a man obviously in distress. Some helped him, some didn’t.

Which ones helped the least? Personality didn’t impact helping behaviors and neither did “religiousness” like a Samaritan. Those that helped the least were the ones in a hurry. In low hurry situations, 63% helped compared to high hurry where only 10% helped. That’s a huge difference.

Found in a summary of the conclusions of the study are some key insights:

Ironically, a person in a hurry is less likely to help people, even if he is going to speak on the parable of the Good Samaritan…. Maybe that ‘ethics become a luxury as the speed of our daily lives increases’. Or maybe peoples’ cognition was narrowed by the hurriedness and they failed to make the immediate connection of an emergency.

Many subjects…. were in a conflict between helping the victim and meeting the needs of the experimenter. Conflict rather than callousness can explain the failure to stop.”

So, if you are a leader of a middle manager, or honestly anyone this day in age where margins of time seem to be non-existent, work hard to:
1. 1. Make sure they know that the most important function of their job is leading those they manage and that the majority of their time should be spent on activities that grow others. Help those you lead prioritize people over projects. Quite simply, the best way to do this is by your example. Do you see a man in distress and stop to help? If you don’t, the people who are watching you won’t either.
  2. Set up conditions that allow people for margins in their day. Cancel some meetings and give them permission to block time off for focused work where anyone- especially you (the experimenter)- doesn’t bother them or set-up expectations that create a constant state of hurry.
  3. Give people permission to say no.
  4. Help people learn and apply proven time management strategies and principles. I particularly like training around Covey’s principles in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and First Things First.
  5. Eliminate as much bureaucracy as you can. Don’t make people have to get permission from you to do everything. Put systems in place that increase the autonomy and flexibility people have and allow for fluid communication channels where people don’t waste time having to track people down or wait on decisions from above.
  6. Most of all, model these principles for the people you lead. If you are always in a hurry you are setting the expectation that they should be too.
What is the number one reason you become less caring than you should be as a leader?
January 21, 2020
3 Tips for Leading Well in 2020

I enjoyed the opportunity to hear Karith Foster speak recently. If you haven’t had an opportunity to check her out, she is well worth it. She combines humor and storytelling to make simple, but profound points about leading and living well.

In her address, she talked about the ABCs necessary to be a leader in 2020.

A. Ask for help & Ask for what you want.

Asking for help may seem contrary to what leaders should do, but as I heard Brene Brown say in another keynote speech, asking for help is actually the best way to create trust. As Karith said, no one totally knows what they are doing, and no one can do it all. The act of asking for help acknowledges this and gives people permission to also ask for help themselves. Seems to me like it creates a place for psychological safety to thrive.

One thing my husband loves to say to me is, “I’m not a mind reader.” Of course, I love it when he says this to me, but there is truth in it. We can’t expect people to read our minds (or our intent) so we can’t expect them to also know what we want and need. Letting people know what you want and need leads to a lack of confusion. When things are clear, things get done to the standard or expectations we have in our minds.

One of the biggest sources of disappointment for people is when expectations aren’t met. This usually comes not from a lack of desire to meet expectations, but from a lack of communication or clarity about the expectation. You need to make your intent clear. Taking this a step further, also explain the why behind the want or need. This further clarifies expectations and helps people not make assumptions.

B. Be Kind.

Speaking of intent, as Karith emphasized, we all need to take a deep breath and set our intention for kindness with both words and actions. She emphasized 1) we never really know what someone is going through and 2) we never know what the ripple effect of one small act of kindness will be.

Most notably, she emphasized this has to include being kind to yourself. It is rather difficult to be kind to others if we can’t first establish personal leadership and become kind to ourselves.

C. Choose Community Over Clicks.

Karith emphasized that it is basic biology for us to be attracted to people who are like us because it gives us the least amount of opportunity for threats to arise, our brain tells us.

However, we need to recondition our brains to realize that creating exclusivity isn’t good for us as individuals and it isn’t good for workplaces. Realizing that most of what divides us this day in age is surface stuff and realizing that being around people who are different from us increases our learning and therefore our value, we need to get out of our comfort zones and go to places where people that are different than us reside both physically and virtually.

Overall, Karith emphasized that leaders are to model the behavior they want to see in others in order to impact the workplace. By asking for help and for what we want, by being kind to ourselves and others, and by choosing community, especially with those who are different than us, we will move into 2020 positioned to lead by example.

What are your key focus areas for leading well in 2020?

December 10, 2019