The Shoulders and Brain of a Leader

The body provides us with a fantastic metaphor for leadership. Each part does it's job for the whole. In the same way, each of the body parts below provides a new filter for which we can examine our our leadership abilities. All of the body parts addressed in this series are listed below. In this article, we will look at the Shoulders and the Brain of a Leader.

Eyes:See the vision; see the future in the present

Ears: Listen carefully to what the needs are, and act

Nose: Sniff out opportunities, build relationships

Mouth: Your organizations voice, communication

Neck: Don't be a stiff neck, be flexible

Heart: Value driven mission

Shoulders: Bear the responsibility, coping

Brain:Thinking clearly, thinking strategically

Hands: Be a servant leader

Legs: Walk the talk, be congruent

Stomach: Guts, courage, risk taking

Shoulders

How strong are your organizational shoulders? The ability to bear the burdens of leadership responsibilities is a skill that is often overlooked. It requires a humble strength that few people exemplify. Barry Oshry, in his book Seeing Systems: Unlocking the mysteries of organizational life, talks about the unique challenges of Top, Middle, and Bottom. Everyone in an organization is a 'T', 'M', or 'B' depending upon the situation they may be facing at the time. You may have a staff meeting in the morning in which you are playing the 'T' role, have lunch with you boss in which you are playing the 'M' role and later at night attend a board meeting while you play the 'B' role.ll 'T's are expected to know everything about everything right now. All 'M's are stuck in the pleasing role, expected to keep both bosses and subordinates happy at all times. All 'B's are overworked, underpaid, and misunderstood, since only you really understand the pressures and responsibilities of your role.

Managing the multiple roles with grace and dignity and handling the tough times is the stuff of strong shoulders. "Your emotional intelligence can be a greater determination of organizational effectiveness than your intellectual I.Q." says Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence. Goleman addresses the issues of; self awareness of feelings, managing emotions in a healthy way, self motivation, empathy and appreciation of differences, and the social competence of handling relationships. All of these critical aspects factor into what type of work environment you are able to maintain for the staff. The bottom line is: How well do you and your staff cope with challenges, changes, new expectations, and responsibilities?

To increase your coping quotient, try eliminating these phrases from your organizational vocabulary: We Can't, I'm Overwhelmed, its Hopeless, and That will Never Work. Instead replace them with these phrases: I don't know, but, I'll find out, We don't know how to do that now, but, we can learn, I'll help you with that, and What would it take for us to be able to do that? Remember, when you change what you think and say, you change what you do.

Consider these questions when assessing your organizational shoulders:

1. Do you cope well with the challenges of being a leader? Would your bosses and subordinates agree with your assessment?

2. Is part of your organizational identity that of being able to handle new and tough service challenges? How do you know?

3. Is the climate of your organization heavy laden and burdened? Or is it capable and strong? What is your evidence?

Brain

Do you think strategically enough for both problem solving and for opportunity seeking? These are really two separate thinking skills. One combines the skill of seeing a problem with peripheral vision, that is, with a wide-angle lens, so that you are allowing more data in about a problem than what meets the eye. The second is to think 'outside the box' about possibilities or opportunities. To think deeper about a problem or opportunity, ask the question; "What causes that?" 5 times. Here is an example that I use in my workshops. Mary is a newly hired employee with a team that has had low morale for a very long time. Mary has a great sense of humor and the team really likes her because she provides comic relief. But, Mary can't keep up with the job. Her co-workers like her and are afraid that she will get fired, so they pick up her slack. This leads to an increase in her inability to do the job, which leads to an increase in their need to pick up the slack. Peter Senge calls this a "reinforcing loop". Several months later, Mary's co-workers are not amused and go to the boss and complain that they are overworked. The typical response may be to simply add a staff person to the mix, or disregard their issue as mere whining. But, lets take a closer look. What is really happening here?

The staff is picking up the slack- what causes that?

Mary can't keep up- what causes that?

Mary lacks the knowledge, skill or talent to do the job- what causes that?

Mary was not properly trained, or was not tested for talent or ability when she was hired- what causes that?

There is not a proper new hire in-service program for new staff, and not a proper assessment of talent and skill for the job.

This is an oversimplification. There are many possible reasons for this problem. We may learn through this process that the Personnel Director likes to hire funny, incompetent people. Look deeper for patterns and trends that may be pervasive in the organization contributing to this problem. Rather than concluding that we need a training program for secretaries when they are hired, we may find that all staff need an orientation training when they are hired, not just secretaries. The primary solution always takes longer in the beginning, but, will save time in the long run. Sometimes we are too impatient for this initial delay, and wind up paying for it in the future.

We too often re-invent the wheel every time we face a challenge and don't stop to consider that somewhere else in the organization, someone has already had to face this problem. Stop to ask the question; has anyone else faced this situation before? How did they handle it? How can we learn from their successes and failures?

The other aspect of thinking strategically is thinking outside the box. In Joel Barker's book Paradigms: The business of discovering the future, he uses the concept of changing paradigms to show us how unconscious our own worldviews or paradigms actually are to us. Today, people in every industry are facing so many changes that the term paradigm, which means a model, pattern or set of rules, is more commonplace. Barker made and excellent point in the book: When a paradigm changes, everyone goes back to zero. What this means is that when the rules change, all of your past successes amount to nothing in the new set of rules.

Here are some excellent questions that your leadership team can address to help you think deeper about a problem and think outside the box:

1. Think about a reoccurring problem that has been nagging you. Ask: What causes that? At leastfive times. Have you overlooked possible root causes?

2. Ask your leadership team to wrestle with this question: What is not being done in our service or field now, that, if it were being done, would revolutionize our service area or field.

3. Ask your leadership team to wrestle with this question: What could you do if you were not afraid? What could you do if you weren't alone?

Check out Part 5; The Hands, Legs and Stomach of a Leader.

I hope that this series has been a helpful filter for you as you examine your strengths and weaknesses as a leader. If you didn't catch the rest of the articles, here is a brief overview of what they covered:

Part 1: The Eyes and Ears of a Leader
Part 2: The Nose and Mouth of a Leader
Part 3: The Neck and Heart of a Leader
Part 4: The Shoulders and Brain of a Leader
Part 5: The Hands, Legs and Stomach of a Leader