What I Learned in Graduate School . . .

Bring Encouragement into the Office Every Day

Luis Guzman
USC Executive Masters of Leadership

In his talk with Executive Master of Leadership (EML) students, Mark Kroeker quoted former Dallas Cowboys football coach as saying, "Leadership is getting someone to do what they don't want to do, to achieve what they want to achieve." Imagine the energy that could be released as leaders encourage the development of everyone's potential! 

Kroeker's remarks are similar to what Dwight D. Eisenhower said..."Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it."  It is said that there are only two kinds of people in this world..."those who get it and those who don't." The former, for both leaders and followers, means that they have connected in a way so as to derive meaning, purpose, and congruence in their respective roles (a win-win). The latter, for both leaders and followers, means that they are still fighting the long fight because they are both mostly interested in only one solution, their own.

Additionally, the younger professional and the experienced professional learn differently and are motivated by different things. When a leader can get either one to internally be motivated, to be self-directed, to be goal driven, to bring their respective wealth of life experiences and share them in a practical, and thoughtful manner for the service others or the organization, is when the possibilities will be bountiful.

How can this be done you asked? It can be done through analysis, planning, implementation, testing, mitigation, measuring, reporting, and reassessing. This all takes time; time that now everyone is willing to invest in.

It took me several years and a few manager positions throughout my career to figure out that it was not "them" but "me" who needed to change. I was a great administrator but not a leader. I had no clue that what my team needed the most was for me to bring encouragement into the office each and every single day. Encouragement opens our creative minds, it connects people to people…this leads to understanding of self and others and more importantly it makes you believe that you can.

Photo: Luis Guzman – Executive Master of Leadership (EML) graduate.

To learn how an Executive Master of Leadership (EML) at the University of Southern California (USC) would benefit you in your career or development as a leader, please visit: priceschool.usc.edu/programs/masters/eml/

What I Learned in Graduate School . . .

Meditation on Leadership and Personal Development

by Kathleen O’Halloran

USC Executive Master of Leadership

Through reflection, we examine ourselves to learn more about leadership. We create content out of life experiences to distill our answers to the prevailing questions about leadership - how do we make better decisions, take wiser action, and communicate effectively. Life is a balance between stability and change. I need stability. I need change. Note optimal order, stability first, think Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, smart. Smart is temporary. Wisdom builds the future. Innovation is functional wisdom, and all of it is complex.

Complexity is the term that we use to define something with many parts in intricate arrangement. Complexity describes that which possesses diversity, interdependence, velocity, ambiguity and scarcity: diversity meaning composed by different elements; interdependent meaning in relationship with an other (one) or others (many), preferably both; velocity in terms of directionality; ambiguity as in uncertain or lacking a definitive nature, implying growth, relativity and boundlessness; scarcity meaning rare or translated to the language of economics, scarcity meaning demand is greater than supply, impacted.

The world we live in is complex. All things are made of more than what they are. Even our words are defined by more than their letters. The world we live in is complex, and what that means, from the perspective of society and human behavior, is that leadership emerges in society and can be observed in the behavior of the leader and the behavior of those being led.

As our society’s thought leaders observe leadership behavior, a discussion is born on the capabilities of effective leadership. Leaders that are effective now are action oriented in ways that are authentic and appropriate. Leaders that are effective now are capable of role clarity and decision logic. Leaders that are effective now are capable of flexible fortitude meaning perseverance, courage under fire, knowing when to hold on and when to let go.

Leaders that are effective now are capable of motivation. The paradox of this leadership discussion, is that everyone needs it. All beings need something outside of themselves to be alive, here. This implies that leaders need leadership, too.

The beauty of leadership is that it can be cultivated within the self, and for the self. Leadership is scarce - it is certainly here, but certainly impacted, meaning leaders are highly impacted people. Leaders are in demand in all aspects of life, and as the nature of scarcity suggests, demand is greater than the supply – challenge. Scarcity is a boundary condition in and of itself. The nature of this challenge is causality, order, prioritizing.

So, the most important thing for the leader to remember is to include the self in the equation. Lead thy self and nurture your capacity to exist as a leader. Understand that when you see you in the mirror, you only see half of yourself. To lead your whole self you must know your whole self and to know your whole self you must listen to others who see the other half. Listen. What you are here is what you project here.

If you would like to mean something that is good somewhere, project something good there. Show up. Know your values your strengths and how you best perform, position yourself toward those opportunities. Show up. You is not a choice, it is priority one, step one. Leading yourself is not a management opportunity that you have to evaluate before deciding to take on the project. It’s vital to you, the life force that takes on all it takes on. Managing yourself is an on going learning activity that nurtures all you do, implying that all you do is done with purpose.

Photo: Kathleen O'Halloran – Executive Master of Leadership (EML) graduate.

To learn how an Executive Master of Leadership (EML) at the University of Southern California (USC) would benefit you in your career or development as a leader, please visit: priceschool.usc.edu/programs/masters/eml/

Speaking of Leadership . . .

Sir William Slim and Organizational Transformation

by Robert B. Denhardt

Director of Leadership Programs, Price School of Public Policy

University of Southern California

Recently I posted a critical view of the notion of organizational vision, especially as the term vision has evolved into specific targets for production or behavioral change.  I talked soon after with my friend John Dick from British Columbia about this and he suggested that I take a look at the life and works of Sir William Slim.

John told me that of one the most outstanding examples of institutional transformation occurred in World War II in Burma and is described in Field Marshal Sir William Slim’s autobiography “Defeat Into Victory”.

To set the historical context:   In early 1942 Slim was appointed commander of Burma Corps, described by a compatriot as “a promotion one would not have wished on an enemy, let alone an old friend”.  In late 1932, he was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the newly organized 14th Army Group comprised of a polyglot of British, Hindu and Muslim Indian, Gurkha, and East and West African formations.

His 14th Army (known as the "Forgotten Army) fought in difficult terrain against a highly committed enemy and did so with limited resources and with one of the most ethnically diverse forces in history. He led that army through a long retreat, restored morale, then led it to victory. 

Slim recognized that one of his first tasks following the retreat would be to strengthen the morale of the defeated and shattered army.  He reasoned that “morale, if it is to endure, must have certain foundations: spiritual; intellectual; and material. Spiritual first, because only spiritual foundations can stand real strain. (Slim wasn't using the term spiritual to refer to a particular religion - and of course he had many different religions represented among his troops.  It is likely he intended something more like "connected to a larger purpose, emotional, intuitive.") Intellectual next, because people are swayed by reason as well as by feelings.  Material last – important, but last because the very highest kinds of morale are often met when material conditions are lowest.

He elaborated the foundations of morale as follows:

1) Spiritual

a) People must be made to feel that they are engaged in a good and noble enterprise that is important to society.

b) The method of achievement must be active.

c) People must feel that what they are and what they do matters towards the goals of the enterprise.

2) Intellectual

a) People must believe that the goals can be achieved; that they are not out of reach.

b) People must believe that the organization they work for is an efficient one that will provide a context for the effective employment of their efforts; that it will not squander their time and emotional resources on useless or irrelevant activities

3) Material

a) People must feel that they will get fair and respectful treatment from their superiors and from the organization.

b) People must be given a voice in decision-making.

c) As far as possible people must be given the legal and material tools to carry out their jobs effectively and efficiently.

From late 1943 to May 1945 Slim totally changed the culture of the 14th Army Group, then fought a brilliant series of offensive battles that led to the defeat of all Japanese forces in Burma – the single biggest land-based defeat of the Japanese in the war.

On rebuilding the moral and effectiveness of the British/Indian army, Slim ascribed the failures of his predecessors to overly rigid strategies that became liabilities when situations were in rapid change.  He defined a good strategy as “a commonly understood and accepted framework or basis from which to adapt to uncertainty and change.”

He points out that a strategy begins to enter obsolescence the moment it’s formulated, and thus is time-limited and must be regularly revisited.  He attributes his successes to the creation of a flexible strategy that provided both enough direction to ensure cohesion and sufficient latitude for his field officers to make plans, take decisions and initiate action based on local conditions and changing circumstances – not a bad objective for any organization!

Slim also wrote about leadership and management: “What is leadership? I would define it as the projection of personality. If leadership is this projection of personality then the first requirement is a personality to project. The personality of a successful leader is a blend of many qualities - courage, will power, knowledge, judgement and flexibility of mind.”

And, finally, he clearly thought of leadership as an art: “Leadership is of the spirit compounded of personality and vision; its practice is an art. Management is of the mind, more a matter of accurate calculation, of statistics, of methods, timetables, and routine; its practice is a science. Managers are necessary; leaders are essential.”

What strikes me is that writing about seventy years ago, Slim captures the essence of the most contemporary thinking on leadership!  Contemporary leaders would do well to listen to this "voice from the past."

Robert Denhardt is the Director of Leadership Programs in the Price School of Public Policy at the University of Southern California (USC) and Director of the Executive Master of Leadership program at USC. He is the author of a dozen books on leadership and management, including, The Dance ofLeadership (with Janet Denhardt), Book: Just Plain Good Management, and Book: The Pursuit of Significance.

Speaking of Leadership . . .

Forget Passion and Focus on Purpose

by Robert B. Denhardt

Director of Leadership Programs, Price School of Public Policy

University of Southern California

Just as the vision thing has come to dominate discussions of organizational leadership, the passion thing has come to dominate discussions of personal leadership.  As one writer puts it, “Your journey to leadership success starts with figuring out what matters most to you and then doing something to advance that goal every day.” Most say, find your passion and don’t let anything else get in the way.

But identifying your passion is neither easy nor wise, especially early on. Why should we expect someone with little experience to know what he or she wants to pursue the rest of his or her life?  Some do, most don't.  That's a decision that requires maturity and wisdom, possibly even the wisdom of decades.

What's more, many people don't recognize their passion until they have achieved it.  They go through life following many interests and opportunities, only later recognizing the central thread that holds it all together.  In his well-known Stanford commencement address in 2005, Steve Jobs put it this way: “you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.” The Nashville Bluegrass Band is even more to the point: "When I get where I'm goin', that's when I'll know where I'm bound."

In addition, the find-your-passion advice can morph into an extremely rationalized process of personal goal setting, especially as passions are translated into specific goals and objectives. Where do I want to be in ten years? What are the steps that will get me there? What are the metrics that I can use to measure my progress? Just as you can over-rationalize the process of organizational planning and implementation, you can over-rationalize the process called "life" - which is sterile indeed without emotion, intuition, and beauty.

Finally, the word "passion" carries a somewhat whimsical, fleeting character. It’s here today, gone tomorrow, and often formed without any basis in ethics or values. It’s built around an individual’s own personal (self) interest and may or may not build or contribute to the larger community. It’s just not as powerful or enduring as direction or commitment or purpose.

For this reason, I would suggest that, instead of passion, you focus on a personal sense of purpose" By that I mean: a direction based in your values, one to which you commit yourself fully and show the patience, persistence, drive, and determination to stay with – until a better path comes along.  Fill in the blank: “I exist to . . . .”

As a leader, you will also be called upon to articulate an organizational sense of purpose, which, in my mind, should be defined in the same way as above: a direction based in your values, one to which you commit yourself fully . . . until a better path comes along.  Fill in the blank: “Our organization exists to: . . . .”

Should your personal sense of purpose be the same as your organizational direction – and vice versa?  Some say yes, because both require a value choice and your values should be consistent. Some say no, because you need a life outside work. I would merely say that the two must not be incompatible. And if they are I’d say it’s time to find a different line of work. Personal purpose and values take precedence over organizational purpose.

Similarly, purpose takes precedence over passion.  That’s not to say that leaders should not be passionate.  Indeed, passion in pursuit of one's purpose is a virtue (as long as that passion is not blinded by ego).  For the leader, perhaps the most fitting purpose is to lead, to integrate, to focus, and to give life to the many separate and often conflicting purposes and passions that dwell in any organization or group. And that is something a good leader can and will be both purposeful and passionate about.

Robert Denhardt is the Director of Leadership Programs in the Price School of Public Policy at the University of Southern California (USC) and Director of the Executive Master of Leadership program at USC. He is the author of a dozen books on leadership and management, including, The Dance ofLeadership (with Janet Denhardt), Book: Just Plain Good Management, and Book: The Pursuit of Significance.