Brent Filson’s Action Leadership Report is a monthly e-zine helping leaders achieve more results, faster results, continually. 

In this issue: TWO LEADERSHIP TRAPS: HOW TO GET OUT OF THEM.  HOW TO AVOID THEM
(Unsubscribe At The End Of This E-zine.) 

(You have received this ezine because our records indicate that you signed up for a free subscription and received  a “welcome” e-mail along with “Brent Filson’s 49 Tips On Using Action To Get Results.”  You can unsubscribe at the end of this e-zine.)

“Authority is a poor excuse for leadership.  Poor leaders order people to do a job.  Action leaders have those people choose to be the cause leaders of that job -- for more results faster, continually.”  –Brent Filson

Vol. 3  Number 4 – April, 2005
Publisher: The Filson Leadership Group, Inc.
brent@actionleadership.com
(413) 458-4403
www.actionleadership.com
(c) Copyright 2005 The Filson Leadership Group, Inc.

Kindly forward this e-zine to anyone you know who is interested in being a better leader.  If you are receiving this issue as a forward and would like to get your own free subscription, please visit our website at www.actionleadership.com

WE WILL NOT DISTRIBUTE YOUR ADDRESS TO ANYONE. 

PERMISSION TO REPRINT: You may reprint any items from "The Action Leadership Report” in your own print or electronic newsletter. Please include “by Brent Filson” with the following paragraph:

Reprinted from "Brent Filson’s Action Leadership Report,” a free e-zine helping leaders get more results faster (continually).  Subscribe at www.actionleadership.com and receive Brent Filson’s free report: 49 Tips On Using Action To Get Results.  

IN THIS ISSUE:
SECTION 1: TWO LEADERSHIP TRAPS
SECTION 2: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.    
SECTION 3: Points of Light.
SECTION 4: Message from Brent Filson. CEOs And Boards Are Locked In A Spiral Of Doom
SECTION 5: News. 

================================
SECTION 1: TWO LEADERSHIP TRAPS: HOW TO AVOID THEM.  HOW TO GET OUT OF THEM.
================================                                
You’ve heard of the Peter Principle: “People are promoted to their level of ultimate incompetence”.  But what the Peter Principle doesn’t tell you is the nature of the incompetence.  For the most part, it’s leadership incompetence.  A human resources director told me, “Brent, we hire people for their skills and knowledge, but we fire them or fail to promote them or promote them for their leadership -- or lack thereof”.

In other words, leadership (or the lack thereof) is a major driver (or impediment) to people’s careers.  Throughout their careers, people are promoted to take charge of bigger and bigger groups -- until they take over a group that’s too big for their leadership competencies. 
Often, they fail by constantly falling into two leadership traps. 

In this e-zine, I’ll describe the traps, how to get out of them if you’re in them, and how not to get into them in the first place.

The traps can be particularly deadly because they are in many cases self-set -- and even self-triggered.  What’s worse: the vast majority of leaders who get into them don’t have a clue they’re caught.  It’s one thing to be in a trap and know you’re in it: You try to get out.  But it’s a problem of another magnitude to be in a trap and not know you’re in it.  In that case, you’ll stay there. 

THE FIRST TRAP: “”I need ...” 

A marketing leader in a major global company was stumbling.  His team was failing to achieve the targeted results.  He told me, “The good news is they do what I tell them.  The bad news is they do ONLY what I tell them.  Other than firing the worst of the bunch or transferring others out of the team, I can’t figure out what to do.  And if I don’t do it soon, I’ll be the one who is fired or transferred!”

I asked if I could sit in on a team meeting to scope out the situation.  “Be my guest,” he said.  “But I don’t see what good it’ll do.  The problem isn’t in the meetings.  Everybody agrees what needs to get done when they’re in the meetings.  The problem is the results after the meetings.”

The meeting had been going only for only a couple of minutes when I saw what was wrong.  Afterwards, alone in his office, I told him: “They’re not the problem.  YOU’RE the problem.  You’ve fallen into two leadership traps.”

He looked at me incredulously.  “What traps?”

I explained that leaders often fall into traps that prevent them from getting the full measure of results they’re capable of.  And the deadliest traps are often the ones of their own making.

The first trap is the  “I need . . . “ trap.

Leaders fall into this trap when they say, “I need you to hit the marketing targets, I need you to get more productive, I need you to (fill in the blank)”.   I NEED ... I NEED ... I NEED ....

Why is this a trap? This is closely associated with the Leader’s Fallacy that I described in the January issue. 

 http://actionleadership.com/ezine/v3n1.html

The Leader’s Fallacy is the mistaken belief by leaders that their own needs are automatically reciprocated by the needs of the people they lead.  It’s a fallacy because automatic reciprocity doesn’t exist.  But so many leaders go blithely along driven by the Fallacy and so fall into the “I need . . . “ trap.

For instance, the marketing leader thought he was motivating people to get great results.  However, during the meeting, he was constantly repeating, “I need ... ”.  So, in reality, he was ordering people to get average results.  Of course, leaders don’t order people to get average results.  But average results are usually the outcome of order leadership.  The order is the lowest form of motivation.  The order leader’s focus of my-way-or-the-highway can’t get great results from people on a consistent basis simply because people usually can’t be ordered to undertake extraordinary endeavors.  They must choose to do so.  When he said, “The bad news is they ONLY do what I tell them.”, he was unknowingly afflicting them. They were simply responding to an order then going into a kind of suspended animation (masked by busy work) until the next order came along.

Here’s how to get out of, or avoid, this trap. It simply involves changing what you think and what you say in very simple ways.   In my working with leaders worldwide for more than two decades, I’ve noticed a character trait that the most successful share: They focus consistently on understanding and supporting the people whom they lead. 

For instance, you could say, “You need ...” which is a good way out.   

Or, you could say, “The team needs ... “ which is a better way out.

Or, you could say, “Do you need? ...”  Which is the best way out, especially with a question mark attached.  A corollary to this question is, “What do you need to help the team succeed?”

Asking the question rather than using a declarative is usually more effective because it gets people reflecting upon their situation.  After all, we can’t motivate anyone to do anything.  They have to motivate themselves.  And they best motivate themselves when they reflect on their character and their situation.  The question can trigger such reflection and ultimately lead to their making the choice to be motivated to be your cause leader. You may not like the answer; but often their answer, no matter what it is, is better in terms of advancing results than your declaration.  

 http://www.actionleadership.com/ezine/v1n5.html

Furthermore, asking questions like, “What do you need for the team to succeed? ...” works much better than saying “I need ... “ because you are forging a “critical confluence” – the confluence of your or your organization’s needs with their needs.

http://www.actionleadership.com/ezine/v3n1.html

You may think I’m putting too fine a point on these changes; and to a degree, you’d be right.  Making simply one change may not be important; but when you multiple the changes many times during the day, day in and day out, month in and month out, their aggregate can add up to tremendous change indeed.  In fact, it can add up to job and career transformation.  

So, the next time you are tempted to say, “I need ... “, don’t.   Instead, say, “Do you need?  ...” or “What do you need? ... ” You’ll forge great changes in how people relate to you and your leadership, changes that will lead to substantial increases in results.

However, watch out: In getting out of the “I need ...” trap, you may find yourself in another trap.  Asking “What do you need? ...” might play right into their hands of people who don’t’ trust you or want to sabotage your leadership or use you to further their own ends.  Such people want to lead you down a diversionary rabbit hole.  They want to get you exploring things that have nothing to do with your getting the results you need and everything to do with satisfying the needs of whatever agenda they have.  “Don’t you think you need? ... “ could be their ticket to ride.  Before you ask the question, be aware of the ride and how to get off.
        
THE SECOND TRAP.  The “You do ... “ trap.  Most leaders miss a great opportunity that presents itself to them daily.  Since leadership is all about having people take action that gets results, it’s important to understand the kind of action people should take to get the best results.  You can ensure it is the best kind of action by challenging people not simply to do a job but to take leadership of that job.  After all, there’s a big difference between people doing and leading; and when you are constantly saying, “You do ... “ you are missing out on getting a lot more results.  

I described the leadership contract in last month’s ezine.  It’s the best way to get out of the “You do ... “ trap.

http://www.actionleadership.com/ezine/v3n2.html
 

=============================================== advertisement ==========
Knowledge News for online publishing brings you the latest methods, technologies and market informaton at: http://www.knowledgeenvironments.com/knowledgeblogs/knowledgenews.html
=================================================================

===================================
SECTION TWO: The Good.  The Bad.  The Ugly.
===================================
The Good:
During the American revolution, soldiers in General John Burgoyne’s regiment who misbehaved were not flogged or imprisoned.  He did something radically different: They were simply made to wear their coats inside-out.  Yet so much respect did Burgoyne’s men have for his leadership that his troops had the lowest disobedience record of any soldiers in the revolution.

–When you stay out of the two leadership traps, you’ll see that punishments and rewards are the lowest form of leadership. 

The Bad:
Margot Asquith, outspoken socialite of a hundred years ago, did not like a certain famous British sportsman.  He was known for his fine horses and courage in fox hunting.  When someone praised his horsemanship, she replied, “Jump?  Why anybody can jump.  Look at fleas.”

–Whatever might tend to make you conceited as a leader, such as position, title, pay, prominence, etc., remember Margot Asquith -- and fleas. 

The Ugly:
Francois Chateaubriand, French author and statesman, had such an inflated view of his self-importance that Napoleon once remarked, “It’s easy to buy him, but hard to pay him the price he thinks he’s worth!”

--One of the main reasons ”I need ... “ is a trap is the discrepancy between what the people think of the leader and what the leader thinks of himself.  When that discrepancy is big, motivation on the people’s side is meager.  This echoes Yankee manager Casey Stengle’s remark to an bad ballplayer.  “I wish I could buy you for what you’re worth and sell you for what you think you’re worth.”

========================
SECTION THREE: Points of Light.
========================

There’s always free cheese in the mouse trap.  Anonymous

To find a career to which you are adapted by nature, then to work hard at it, is about as near to a formula for success and happiness as the world provides.  -- Mark Sullivan

You’ll be successful in your career when you come upon work you love so much you’d do it for free -- then get somebody to pay you for it. –Brent Filson

It is the function of government to invent philosophies to explain the demands of its own convenience. – Murray Kempton

Leaders who are continually in the “I need ... “ trap get the followers they deserve.  –Brent Filson

If you don’t get everything you want, think of the things you don’t get that you don’t want.  –Oscar Wilde

Our dignity is not in what we do, but what we understand.  The whole world is doing things.  –Santayana

In all that surrounds him, the egotist sees only the frame of his own portrait. – J. Petit-Senn

What’s wrong with egotism?  If a man doesn’t delight in himself and the force in him and feel that he and it are wonders, how is all life to become important to him?  –Sherwood Anderson

It’s what the people say and do after the meeting is over that counts.  –Brent Filson

================================
SECTION FOUR: Message From Brent Filson: CEOs And Boards Are Locked In A Spiral Of Doom
http://www.actionleadership.com/articles/0024.html
================================

=================
SECTION FIVE: NEWS:
=================
Brent’s latest leadership books, The Leadership Talk: The Greatest Leadership Tool and 101 Ways To Give Great Leadership Talks, are available in bookstores.  You can also purchase advance copies by calling 800-403-5368. Mention this e-zine and you’ll receive a free wallet card with the Leadership Talk processes. If you purchase the hardcover book, you’ll receive a free copy of 101 Ways To Give Great Leadership Talks. In addition, you’ll be eligible to receive a set of Brent’s previously published books at half price.

Listen to Brent being interviewed: 
http://audiomotivation.com/go/brent-filson1204.htm

Brent has put together two great systems that will boost your leadership and your leadership communication abilities. 

One is Brent Filson’s The Leadership Talk System: 
www.theleadershiptalk.com

The other is Brent Filson’s The CEO Public Speaking System: 
www.theceopublicspeakingsystem.com

Read Brent’s interview in ManagementFirst: 
http://www.managementfirst.com/management_styles/index.htm

During the past few months, Brent has been interviewed on more than 125 radio shows  – and many more are on the way.  If you are interested in having him on your show or at your meeting, go to the Action Leadership website and click on either the “meeting planner” button or the “media room” button.

The Filson Leadership Group, Inc. is putting together a CD collection of interviews with leaders, called the “Leaders Speak” Series.  It will begin this month and can be found on the Action Leadership website.  Click on “Leaders Speak CD Series.”   Brent says, “I want to interview leaders from a broad spectrum of human endeavor to be represented.  Don’t be surprised to find landscape contractors, gang leaders, horse trainers, sports coaches, as well as business and political leaders.  Leadership is practiced by practically everyone, and we will bring it to you on the CDs in all the richness of human relationships.”  For more information, call the F.L.G. headquarters, 413-458-4403 or email Brent at  brent@actionleadership.com

Commissions can be earned selling Brent’s books and other products product as well as helping him get booked for speaking and seminar engagements.  Email Brent for more details.