I Love My Levi's And I Will Not Change!

When I was a teenager, I became very attached to Levi’s jeans. Most of my friends wore Levi’s Red Tab jeans and we all thought we looked pretty darned cool! In those days Levi’s were made of heavy, dark blue denim that eventually faded to a very pleasant lighter indigo hue. The pungent odour of the blue dye was almost overwhelming until the first time they were washed. Those were tough jeans; unstoppable in almost any situation and resilient to every sort of soil or stains. We wore the boot-cut or regular-cut varieties because those were what all the hip young men of the day wanted to be seen in. I never stopped wearing my Levi’s jeans and they are still the jean-of-choice in my wardrobe today.

As a young man, I had not considered that my Levi’s might become a matter of contention in my family when I became a father.

My teenage children wanted “designer” jeans, created by a variety of high priced cloth-cutters with odd sounding names. Gone were Levi’s, GWG, and Lee jeans...In were Tommy Hilfiger, Armani and Tommy Bahama, all of whom made jeans that cost much more than my Levi’s. My kids made a point of letting me know that I was totally out of step and needed a complete denim makeover in order to move from fuddy-duddy to cool dad status. Sadly, I never made it to that lofty level of youthful social acceptance.

Much to the chagrin of my kids, I doggedly stuck with my Levi’s. I refused to change. I was determined to stay the course and wear my Levi’s in the face of humiliation and potential ridicule from every teenager and cool dad in the world. I was set in my ways and nothing short of a mugging at gun-point could force me into designer jeans.

Just as I failed as a cool dad, many managers and executives continue to fail as successful leaders today.

Too many leaders believe that the old ways are the right ways or the only ways. A lot of Boomer and Generation X leaders believe that we need to get back to basics; return to sanity, and bring back the good old days.

Guess what folks...The good old days are gone...They will never return!

Successful leaders in the twenty first century understand that in order to be successful they must drop many of the old ways and move to a new style of people-management. Change is difficult and the older we get, the more difficult it becomes for us to accept new things. That is human nature and it is not likely to change any time soon. However, if we stand in the way of the steam-roller of change, we will surely be flattened like the pavement of a highway leading to the oblivion of bankruptcy.

Young people eventually become old people and when that happens they take over the world.

Because we will have so many Boomers leaving the workforce during this decade, we will have a faster than usual transition to the new guard...As the holders of the purse-strings and the possessors of the thrones-of-power move to retirement, they will be replaced by younger people who will demand a new world order.

When the young power-brokers take over, gone will be command and control management and gone will be the hierarchical class structures that govern most North American businesses today. Gone will be the concept that the boss is always right and gone will be the idea that employees have to do what they are told unconditionally. The new-guard will wear tee shirts and designer jeans on Wall Street and because letter-writing will be a lost art, they will text their way to success. They will eliminate boring board meetings where a few grey-haired men decide the fate of thousands and they will distribute their company’s wealth in a more equitable, almost quasi-socialistic manner.

Ironically, the new-guard were trained as children by the same old-guard that is currently resisting the changes that are as inevitable as a morning sunrise.

We, the Boomers taught our children to be fair, to stand up for themselves, to take their rightful place in the world, to distrust corporations, to detest Governments, and to make the world a better place for everyone of every race, creed, colour, gender, religion, height, width, sexual bias, from any social circle and from either side of the tracks. We have changed our children’s perceptions of social order and they will soon run their corporations with the values that we so vehemently drummed into them.

If we want our businesses to be strong and live into the future, we need to start changing our management styles now. We need to adapt to the new world order and allow our future leaders the freedom to bring their new ways into our companies. Many companies have already started this new way of doing business and have been very successful with it. They understand that corporate hierarchy, executive superiority and grey pin-striped suits are no longer necessary for success.

Forward thinking leaders understand that in the very near future most of their customers and employees will be members of the much-dreaded Generation “Y” and that they must change their ways of thinking, managing and leading now if they want their brands to live on into the future.

I am a Boomer, very near the end of my career. I still wear my Levi’s and I am still a proud fuddy-duddy. As much as very little has changed about me, I understand that the designer-jeans-wearing leaders of the future will be every bit as successful as the Levi’s wearing crew that I grew up with. I also accept that with or without my help, they will create a new social order that will be completely appropriate for its time. The future is inevitable and in my eyes, it looks bright!

I have officially stopped standing in the way of progress but I will never change my jeans!

All the Best

Wayne Kehl

Why Leadership? video

How To Make Your Employees Adore You

Please do not confuse adoration with lovability or even likeability. Effective leaders have a mystique about them that sets them apart from other mortals. They have an ability to garner respect, admiration, reverence, and generally high regard wherever they go. Those are the elements of adoration that we will be dealing with in this article.

No two leaders are the same. They all have their own distinct style. Some exude kindness and warmth while others reek of authority and influence. Some lead by example while others lead through delegation.  Some do things on impulse and immediate action while others are methodical and unhurried. These are products of individual personalities and no one style is better than another. They can all create success when fused with the essential elements of leadership.

No matter what style you might have, you can earn the adoration of your employees.

HERE ARE THE TEN ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS OF LEADERSHIP ADORATION:

1.       In order to be adored as a leader you must listen to the people who work with you. Listening is an indication of respect. It shows that you are interested in them and that what they have to say matters. Most importantly, it shows that they have so much value that you will give up your most precious leadership commodity for them...your time.

2.       If you want adoration, talk to your people. Tell them what you are thinking. Tell them about yourself. Let them know that you are human and that you have the same fears, feelings, problems and concerns that they do. If you make yourself human to them they will be compelled to support and protect you when the need arises.

3.       You must control your emotions if you expect true adoration from your followers. Angry, depressed, impatient, sad, giddy, or moody people cannot gain respect and will not be taken seriously by anyone.  A calm, even demeanour with moments of obvious excitement (at appropriate times) will show followers that you are in control of yourself and therefore more likely to be someone of good character and a strong mind.

4.       Adorable people have a sense of humour. A dour, humourless demeanour might seem appropriate in some situations, but a regular diet of it in a leadership position is a morale killer. When people say things to you that they think are funny...laugh! It is not a hard thing to do. Only laugh at appropriate things and when offering your own humour, make sure you do not cross the line of inappropriateness. Work should not be punishment and it follows that a joyful workplace is a productive workplace. If you are not exhibiting humour from time to time, you have not realized your full leadership potential.

5.       Make yourself available and adoration will follow. If you are truly leading, you are visible, available and transparent. Stop making excuses for not spending time with your followers. Get up from your desk and talk to them. When they want to speak with you in private, stop what you are doing (if possible) and talk to them. When they have a problem, listen to them with an open mind and do everything in your power to help them through it. Be their omnipresent symbol of strength.

6.       Trust your employees and they will adore you.  The greatest display of respect you can show an employee is to trust him or her to do the job properly, on time and on budget. Once the training phase is over and you know they are competent, leave them alone and do not meddle. Ask for progress reports and occasional performance evaluations but during the course of the workday, leave them alone and only attempt to help when they ask.  The only interference you should present is a pat on the back for a job well done or a celebration for a special success.  Your trust in them will be returned with respect and admiration for you.

7.       Communicate with your people and they will adore you. One of the most common complaints from employees is that they have little or no communication with management. What they want is more than idle chat. They want to know what is going on, what the vision of the company is, what your personal vision is, the financial strength and growth of the company, and where the company is going. They want to be an integral part of the organization and the more you tell them about where the company is taking them, the more they will admire you.

8.       To be adored you must always be cognizant of how you present yourself. Unlike some other human beings, leaders must always dress appropriately, clean and groom themselves appropriately, speak clearly and concisely and act in a politically correct fashion. Sloppy, slovenly, smelly people seldom make good leaders.  People who mumble, speak too softly, tell dirty jokes or use a lot of foul language have difficulty gaining respect from followers or superiors. If you are having trouble finding adoration at work, give yourself an honest personal evaluation and make the necessary changes.

9.       If you fight for your employees you can become the most adored leader of all. Followers want their leaders to be bold, courageous, loyal warriors who will support them, protect them and speak highly of them at all times.  Leaders who put their own success and safety second to that of their employees will be held in high regard. Leaders who get involved when employees get into conflicts or bravely put themselves into the middle of customer confrontations are the most revered of all. If you make it clear to your people that you will be the last person into the life raft if the ship starts to go down you will be adored beyond your wildest imagination.

10.   Honesty is an adorable trait. Dishonesty is not!  Big lies, small lies, promises not kept, and promises conveniently forgotten are all reasons for leadership catastrophe. No one wants to be lied to. If you always do unto others as you would have them do unto you and never tell an untruth you are on the path to adoration and leadership success.

Leadership is not easy, but by practicing these few simple tenets you can enhance your leadership style and move to a higher level of success.

All the Best

Wayne Kehl

How To Be A Bad Leader

My articles usually focus on how to be a good leader or a better leader. In fact, most leadership articles available on the internet or elsewhere focus on the positive elements of leading. Many leadership writers prefer to write about completely positive things and focus on what leaders should do to be recognized as the best leaders.  In reality, the main reason we need to learn about leadership is so that we can avoid being bad leaders! With that in mind, this article will talk about how bad leaders operate and the kinds of things they do to be recognized as having highly deficient or defective leadership skills. It is intended to be a little sardonic, so watch out for the humour in it and don’t take it personally.

WARNING: IF YOU RECOGNIZE YOURSELF IN ANY PART OF THIS ARTICLE, YOU MIGHT ALREADY BE A BAD LEADER!

Bad leaders fall into ten categories. People who are not capable of establishing a solid base of loyal, devoted followers can be identified by one or more of the following traits:

1.       Command and Control leaders...It is “my way or the highway” for these folks. They fly around like chickens with their heads cut off, make a lot of demands, and rule by intimidation. Nothing is ever good enough for them.

2.      Non-leading Leaders...These are the leaders who either hide in their offices reading, emailing and holding the phone to their ear all day or leaders who are often absent from the workplace on the guise of doing important work somewhere else. They sometimes do not know the names of their employees and add little or nothing to the workplace experience.

3.      Know-nothing Leaders...Leaders who managed to get into a job leading something they have little or no knowledge of and often have no intention of learning. They try to inspire through some sort of personal style but their lack of knowledge of the department they control is evident to all. They are usually not aware that nobody is really following them.

4.      Do-nothing Leaders...Leaders who might actually know a lot about their department but choose to avoid getting involved with their employees or the work they do. They often delegate everything to lower-level line managers or supervisors because they think good delegation skills mean they don’t have to do anything. They are busy doing a lot of nothing.

5.      Suck-up Leaders...These ones are so insecure and afraid of their employees that they always appear to be begging their teams to do their jobs. Often they are simply too nice for their own good. They are usually ineffective but if they are fortunate enough to have some sympathetic employees they might actually get a few things done.

6.      Blind Leaders...These folks can see what is going on but are either too dense or too afraid to realize that it might be time for them to act like a leader. They allow bad behavior, poor performance, favouritism and employee conflicts to go on unabated. They often have high turnover rates and cannot understand why nobody wants to work for them.

7.      Insincere Leaders...In order to get ahead, these leaders will say anything to anyone, at anytime, believing that the end justifies the means. They will make promises they cannot keep nor have any intention of keeping, and they will make false compliments to avoid conflict. They delude themselves of their own self-importance but nobody believes anything they say.

8.      Gossiping Leaders...These folks gossip about their organization, their superiors, their employees, their customers, their suppliers and just about anything else that creates good, juicy water cooler talk. They do not understand confidentiality and they pit employee against employee and manager against manager, while avoiding their own responsibilities. Employees don’t trust them and nobody wants to tell them anything because they know it will be repeated.

9.      Defensive Leaders...Leaders who never take responsibility for anything. These people always blame someone else when things go wrong and take all of the glory for themselves when things go right. They are the antithesis of leadership but they think that by deflecting blame, and hoarding success, they are fooling everyone...but nobody is being fooled.

10.  Uncommunicative Leaders...These leaders refuse to tell anyone, anything. They do not feel that employees have the right to know what is going on beyond their specific work-stations or that they have any business knowing about the relative success or failure of their organization. They withhold financial information and refuse to speak to subordinates about the lofty management plans they have or the organizational decisions they might make. Every new thing that happens in the organization comes as a surprise, and usually on short-notice to the workers. Employee dissatisfaction and poor morale reign in their empires.

Everyone on earth who has ever had a job has known a leader with some of the traits indicated here. If you do not want to be a bad leader, the key is to recognize the mistakes you might be making and strive to eliminate and avoid repeating them. If, on the other hand, you are okay with being a bad leader then try out all of the ideas presented here to see which ones create the worst results.

THE 10 A’S OF BAD LEADERSHIP

Often people who operate in one or more of the ten categories of bad leadership will display some of the following behaviours on a regular basis:

1.      Arrogance

2.      Anxiety

3.      Aloofness

4.      Anger

5.      Apathy

6.      Absenteeism

7.      Annoyance

8.      Agitation

9.      Antagonism

10.  Aimlessness

Practice some or all of these for maximum morale-killing effects!

There you have it: Some great ways to be a bad leader! If you utilize as many of these secrets as possible, you too, can join the ranks of the worst leaders on earth.  

Start by showing this article to a trusted colleague or employee and ask him or her if you are guilty of any of these things...Then, get to work making a difference in yourself!

All the Best!

Wayne Kehl

What is Leadership

With a title like that you might think I bit off a little more than I can chew. You might be right, but because there are literally thousands of articles, blogs and websites dedicated to discussions of leadership, I wanted to offer a logical definition of it in a thousand words or less. Here goes...

Despite the multiplicity of interpretations we read every day, leadership can be defined simply as:

“Organizing a group of people to achieve a common goal”

A leader can be anyone. There is no need for any formal authority to lead. A person simply needs to have the will, the courage, the charisma and the ability to capture the imagination of one or more followers in order to be considered a leader.

Centuries ago, it was assumed that good and powerful leaders had naturally occurring leadership traits that set them apart from others...Hence, the term, “leaders are born not made”.  However, more recent studies have made it clear that given the right set of circumstances and with the appropriate motivation, most people can become true and effective leaders.

Some of the naturally occurring traits that make leadership ability come more easily to some people are:

·         Intelligence

·         Assertiveness

·         Diligence

·         Openness

·         Courage

 When those instinctive traits are combined with learned skills and natural talents, variable levels of leadership ability may be reached. Without all of those traits, effective leadership is possible but much more difficult to achieve.

“It is important to note that one can lead much more effectively when the leadership endeavour involves something that the leader has good expertise in so that he or she may set an example”

It must also be something in which the followers have a need for or an interest in being lead in. For example: An expert tennis player might make a great tennis coach but a lousy sales manager. In addition, there would be no point in trying to lead someone to better customer service skills when he or she works in the depths of a coal mine.

 As trite as those examples might seem, it is not unusual that people are put into leadership positions that they are not capable of handling simply because they have done well in another unrelated area. Also, self-promoting or toxic people who have no business trying to lead will often attempt to influence or lead coworkers in inappropriate directions. Both situations will create poor results.

“Good and powerful leaders need to have self-awareness and a solid grip on their own emotions”

 Leadership skill necessarily includes the ability to set a mood or tone for the team. Leaders unavoidably telegraph their moods and attitudes to their followers who will adopt the preeminent emotional tone of the leader and carry it throughout the organization.

“One must not assume the only way to achieve financial success or even team success is through servant leadership, participative leadership, or compassionate leadership”

Given the right impetus and favourable circumstances an autocratic, command and control leader can drive his team to success both in the business world, on a sports court or on a battlefield. In the twenty-first century, we tend to reject that style of leadership, but it can be an effective (albeit, potentially negative and harmful) form of leadership nonetheless. If the team is not engaged and motivated, a strong autocrat might be the only leader who can create the environment needed for success.

Modern leadership lecturers and writers also reject the term “management”, since it seems to imply a lack of compassion and favours transactional or task orientation as opposed to transformational or people-oriented leadership. In reality, all organizations have some form of tasks and a specific number of people so it is evident that management may still be an integral part of the leadership cycle in many cases.

 “In essence, even bad leadership is a form of leadership”

The efficacy of any leadership style can only be measured in results. In other words if the team meets or exceeds all of its goals, under the direction of its leader, those who benefit from those results may assume that the leadership was good regardless of the leader’s style. However, it is important to note that bad leadership in any form is usually short-lived.

The best and generally, most effective form of leadership occurs when a leader is able to maintain a high level of concern for his or her people while simultaneously keeping high-level performance paramount in the minds of all participants. This form of leadership often goes a step beyond servant leadership because it allows the leader to accurately control production and monitor results for maximum success. A leader who can juggle tasks and people without sacrificing integrity for either is a great leader indeed. That leader will almost always turn out better performance, more production and measurable growth while presiding over happy, well-engaged employees.

“It is important to recognize that groups of working people are assembled primarily to create some sort of product or service”

Great leaders are able to create buy-in to the vision of the organization while accepting and embracing the direction of its leaders. The key to buy-in and strong followership is communication.

Great Leaders are Great Communicators!

Ten ways to recognize a great leader:

1.      Great leaders create a sense of unity amongst all team members.

2.      Great leaders have strong interpersonal skills and they encourage interpersonal communication amongst team members.

3.      Great leaders have the ability to create a unanimous desire amongst team members to achieve common goals.

4.      Great leaders communicate their vision to their team enthusiastically.

5.      Great leaders constantly seek feedback from team members.

6.      Great leaders never stop learning new leadership techniques.

7.      Great leaders set fair and reasonable performance standards and assist team members in achieving them.

8.      Great leaders set a conscientious, diligent example for the team.

9.      Great leaders never settle for mediocrity from themselves or from their team.

10.  Great leaders give credit for great results to the team.

 What is leadership?

“Leadership is the embodiment of the positive dynamics evident in all great human relationships within one person or leadership team!”

All the Best

Wayne Kehl