Leadership Isn't for Cowards

Mike Staver: I see it in the context of a battle, not necessarily violent, but in terms of the struggle to have the dynamic to be successful between the need to produce results and the need to make it a great place to work, the need to drive performance with the need to understand the human dynamics. So in that context I think it is a battle and I think it is a struggle for leaders to be able to emerge as people who are successful at making that balance, and I think it is a battle because you have so many competing elements, so many competing pieces coming at you all day that I do think you have to fight off distractions, inefficiencies, our own biases, that kind of thing.

Rachel Salaman: So in your view it's helpful to see it as a battle?

Mike Staver: I think so, I think if we see it as a battle not of dread but of opportunity then I think yes, it's going to be to our advantage, I think if we come to work every day as leaders with a sense of dread or it's such a struggle or that kind of thing, I think that would not be of service, but if we come with a more assertive, more dynamic approach to the real challenges that we face I think we in the business world around the world have started to take a little too passive of an approach to leadership, and I think we need to be a little more assertive and strong at doing what we need to do to be successful.

Rachel Salaman: Is that why you decided to write this book?

Mike Staver: It is, you know "Leadership Isn't for Cowards" has been a featured keynote address I've been doing for some years and I find that the challenge really that so many leaders face is that while we can dress it up any way we want to dress it up, a lot of us come from fear in the decisions that we make, a lot of us come, we call it something else, being ready, being careful, being this and being that, but at the core of it, no matter how you dress it up, I think a lot of people come, at least in some areas of their life and leadership from fear, and I have found that the response to the message of courage has been compelling enough that I thought we would commit to writing, and thank God a publisher agreed with me.

Rachel Salaman: And in your work with business leaders you've developed over the years an acronym which spells ATTACK, and the letters stand for Accept your circumstances, Take action, Take responsibility, Acknowledge progress, Commit to new habits, and Kindle as in light up. Now if we could just look at those six elements in a bit more detail, let's start with the first one, Accept your circumstances. Why did you start with this idea?

Mike Staver: I don't think you can really go anywhere or do anything in life or in leadership unless you have a firm grasp on reality, and as obvious as that sounds I think that the wise leader, the wise person is always the person who is able to look reality in the face without judgment, and you know Rachel I think that's important for us to understand, that acceptance doesn't mean approval, acceptance means I see the world, my leadership, my department, my team, my organization, my family, my life, as it really is, without having to cast judgment, and I think that is the foundational principle that we need to come from if we're going to be courageous.

Rachel Salaman: One of the chapters in this section is called "What are you pretending not to know?" It's a very interesting idea, can you explain that?

Mike Staver: I think there are certain things that we know that we know. Let's take a simple example, a smoker knows that they shouldn't smoke, a person that eats a lot of high fat content food, they know that, but their behavior indicates that they don't, so they go through life sort of pretending that they don't know the consequences and they don't know the outcome. Sometimes leaders know, often leaders know that they should do certain things, make certain decisions, execute quicker, but the habits that they have, the things that they do belie that, they betray that and so it is as if their behavior is indicating a certain level of pretending, acting like I don't know what I really know to prevent me from doing the things that make me uncomfortable or scare me. And I think that accepting that that is a reality for all of us, and I always laugh, people say well I don't think I'm pretending not to know and I say to them all the time, you've just proved it, you're pretending not to know that you're pretending not to know. All of us pretend not to know in some area of our life and we know that we're pretending because we go through the process, it's always what I call a behavioral betrayal and that is that our behavior always indicates what we truly believe and what we truly do and what is truly important, even if that's not necessarily the thing that's best for us.

Rachel Salaman: So how difficult is it to know what we're pretending not to know?

Mike Staver: I think it's difficult, I think it's difficult because that would require something of us, it would require us to move into an area of discomfort. I think one of the great enemies of courageous leadership is this need, this belief that somehow the presence of comfort in our life and in our leadership is an indication that things are good, is an indication that things are okay, so I think it is challenging and I think that it requires us to be rather vulnerable, to be able to say you know, you're absolutely right, this person isn't going to make it, this person is a person who I like, who I think is nice and gets along with people in the organization but they're not really performing. If I stop pretending not to know that it means I have to deal with it and I think it's difficult for us to do often.

Rachel Salaman: Those ideas lead onto discussion that appears in a different chapter about honesty in leadership, and you talk about three traits for leaders to bear in mind before they give an honest opinion. What are these?

Mike Staver: First of all I'm not a big fan of clichés, and a lot of people use clichés, you know, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, everything happens for a reason, honesty is the best policy, and I'm not sure any of those things are always true. Now before your listeners get all riled up and think I'm saying lying is okay, I'm not saying lying is okay, but what I am saying is that honesty for honesty's sake needs to have some kind of strategic framework, some kind of boundary around it so that we can tell the truth in a way that helps those that we influence, and so I think three things need to be present. First of all let me filter that by saying this, just because it's your opinion doesn't mean it's honest. It could be your honest opinion but that doesn't mean it's necessarily the truth, somebody could look at me and say you're unattractive or you're attractive, that's just their opinion, it doesn't necessarily mean it's true. So the things, the three filters that I think we should look at when it comes to delivering messages, what is the extent to which what you're about to say is factually accurate, that is, is what you're about to say to this person based in factor is it just based in conjecture or opinion, because fact will not betray you. The second thing is, is what you're about to say useful, that is, not useful to you but is it useful to the person who is receiving the information from you as a leader. And then finally, is what you're about to say constructive. If I'm delivering a message that is all three, factually accurate, useful to the listener and constructive, that is you say something to me, you share information with me as my leader, I need to answer one fundamental question as your follower, what do I do with this information, does this information in any way help me do my job better, help me get along with my peers better, contribute to the greater good, because if it's just a fact that I can't do anything with, it really isn't going to help me very much. And we've all been in meetings like that haven't we, where there's a lot of factual data, but it's irrelevant, it doesn't help us do our jobs.

Rachel Salaman: If we move onto the next letter of ATTACK, T which stands for Take action, and among your points here you talk about leaders needing to be present, that's another idea, what do you mean by that?

Mike Staver: I think we spend too much time getting ready to be ready to almost be ready to get ready to be ready to almost be ready to get ready, there's just too much getting ready, and so when I talk about being present I'm talking about the extent to which I as a leader am in this present moment fully experiencing what's happening right now. Now that may sound a little metaphysical, it may be a little out there on the fringe for some people but I think if we really think about it we spend too much time considering what was, or anticipating what will be, instead of dealing with what is right now. Now this should not betray or forgo good business planning, good analytics, that kind of thing, but I think if we're honest we can look at ourselves and go you know what, sometimes I do overanalyze, sometimes I do spend too much time getting ready to be ready, I keep looking at last quarter's numbers or thinking about next quarter's numbers, and as it relates to being a great leader on the artistic side of leadership it robs me of the opportunity to be fully present with my followers, to get out of my office, to sit in the break room and have a conversation, to really experience what my followers are experiencing right now. So I think it's that nuance of leadership where we need to be as concerned about the artistic, softer side of the leadership and live and lead in the present moment, because it's all we have anyway.

Rachel Salaman: In this part of the book you offer some useful tips for leaders who want to get rid of fear among their team. Can you talk us through the six-question exercise?

Mike Staver: At Oxford University they did quite a bit of research on what causes fear and anxiety, and Dr Meichenbaum who is probably one of the leading researchers in the world about anxiety, positions things in the context of saying that fear and anxiety is never about the present moment, speaking about the present that we just talked about, but in fact Rachel I think it's very interesting, we can't fear what's happening right now in this moment, it's a psychological and human impossibility to fear the present, and the reason we can't fear the present is because we're coping with what's happening in the present, and so what the research indicated, which I think is fascinating, is that when people feel afraid, when people feel anxious, they feel anxious and afraid of what they think is about to happen. So people don't fear flying as an example, people fear crashing, that's what they're afraid of, people don't fear speaking in public, people fear being judged by those who listen to them as they speak in public. And so this prediction about the future, and by the way the more negative or catastrophic this prediction is, the more fear we feel, so for instance if I'm walking down a dark alley or walking down the street and somebody is following me and they have a weapon, a very important part of my brain starts predicting something bad is going happen, and if they have a weapon my brain is going to go, and they have a weapon so this could be really bad, so I feel greater amounts of fear. Now what we know is that powerful people are staying courageous in being able to overcome anxiety, particularly when the anxiety is irrational, are able to balance a ratio. We call it the danger coping ratio and that's the danger that I think is present against the ability I think I have to cope, how dangerous is it and can I handle it. And so there are six questions I think it is useful to ask. Let's say we're about to launch a project and people are very nervous and uncomfortable and there is resistance in the organization, let's say I'm trying to talk one of my direct reports into taking a new job that's going to require them to learn some new skills, maybe be uncomfortable. There are six questions I think I would recommend that they use. First they always want to analyzes the danger first by using these three questions. What's the worst thing that can happen? Now this isn't rhetorical, they really actually need to talk about what the worst thing is that can happen, they need to explore that. The second thing they should look at is what is the best thing that can happen, that is in our wildest fantasies, if this really went well, what would happen. And then finally, what is the most likely thing that will happen. As I said it's always a prediction about the future so what we want to do is indulge that, so we look at our team and go okay, let's just look at this, what's the worst thing, what's the best thing and what's the most likely thing, and it needs to be specific. And then now what we've done is created a space of perception, of danger, we now know what possibly could occur, that's not enough, because one of the things that organizations and people get in trouble with is when they say I just don't know what I would do if that ever happened. So the next three questions are, what is my specific plan if the worst thing happens, what is our specific plan if the best thing happens and what is my specific or our specific plan if the most likely thing happens, again staying away from clichés, like we'll cross that bridge when we get to it or whatever. Best, worst, most likely, a specific plan for each and then what that will create is a reasonable level of discomfort, it may not get rid of the discomfort but it will create a more rational and reasonable space. I've seen it work over and over and over again, it's really amazing because once you know you can handle it there's nothing to fear.

Rachel Salaman: Let's move onto the third letter, which is the second T, which stands for Take responsibility, and in this section you talk about blame, can you talk us through how blame plays into a discussion on leadership?

Mike Staver: Yes, take responsibility is the extent to which we are able to look at our contribution to something and take that and do something with it. Organizations get in trouble, leaders get in trouble when they're looking for a bad gal or a bad guy, when they're out there looking for the bad person and they want to hang blame on somebody, what that necessarily does is displace responsibility. I was at a meeting in San Francisco, California two days ago, I was sitting in that meeting, a team project had come off the rails pretty bad, it was kind of a mess, in fact we had to cancel a whole event because of it, and as I sat in that room with the eight other leaders who were working for my client, I was facilitating it, we evaluated what was going on and I was shocked at how many people sat around that table decided to go to blame instead of responsibility. Now three of them said here is my responsibility and that shifted the entire focus. So I think blame is always destructive and responsibility is always constructive, if I accept my responsibility that gives me the power and the resources to be able to respond, if I blame you and say it's Rachel's fault, I'm likely to find myself waiting for you to do something for the situation to get better which puts me in a really untenable situation. I can't do anything because operations screwed this up, I can't do anything because sales didn't finish their paperwork. As long as that's happening we're in trouble.

Rachel Salaman: So it actually helps leaders to take responsibility and yet it feels like it's going against your human instinct to take responsibility, it's so much easier to blame someone.

Mike Staver: It feels like I'm saying I'm bad because I did this and that's not what responsibility is, responsibility isn't self-blame, responsibility is saying here is my contribution and here's what I can contribute to fixing the problem, but what some people think is that responsibility is just a fancier way to blame myself. No, that's not true, responsibility is just looking in the mirror, psychologically, emotionally, spiritually, physically and saying this is what I did, now here is what I can do different. If I say here is what you did and here is what you need to do different, I am subject to you accepting that, and that never ever works very well.

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Rachel Salaman: In the book you talk about how important it is that leaders take time to notice things. Can you explain what you mean by this?

Mike Staver: You know we are constantly drinking out of a fire hose, it's coming at us with full force, it's blasting at us all the time, we have information coming at us at all speeds all the time, and I think that often we get so busy running from one meeting to the other, doing one thing or another, trying to accomplish one thing or another, with great intention that we never really take the time just to be still. And what noticing goes to is this concept that there are things all around us as leaders that are in the way, I call them pinch points; a pinch point is something where, if you look at it like a tube or that kind of thing where it's kinked or pinched and the natural flow of productivity can't move forward, but if we're constantly going all day long and we're in and out of meetings and we're answering emails and scrambling to get the report finished, and we never are still, just to pay attention, we can't be very effective as leaders. And I think with technology and social media and smart phones, and I don't know how smart they are to have but we have them, they just distract us constantly, we are constantly being tapped on the shoulder, constantly being asked questions and I think that the most powerful leaders are leaders who take specific time out of their schedule and week and say I'm just going to pay attention for an hour. This morning I came into my office an hour early, I didn't even bring my laptop in, I'm getting ready to leave town and I just paid attention. I thought about the business, I thought about my employees, I thought about some challenges we're having and it was amazing how clarity begins to surface when we quiet the noise, and it's not easy to do, it's not by any means easy to do, but it's necessary.

Rachel Salaman: So you would recommend that a leader schedules that in to their work week?

Mike Staver: I think they ought to schedule into their work week with the same intensity they would schedule a meeting with their boss, a presentation to a client, an appointment with their doctor, I think it is that important and if it's not that important then I can assure leaders that they are missing out on huge huge opportunities. I'll tell you a quick story, I was coaching a group of leaders and one of the leaders, it was telephone coaching, I was suggesting this and she said you don't understand, if I shut my door for 15 minutes or half an hour people are going to get mad because I'm not available and so on and so forth. I said "I'll bet you dinner, I will pay for you and your significant other to go to dinner to the nicest restaurant where you live if it causes a problem." She said "okay well I'll do it." The next session we had, she was on the phone with 10 or 15 of her colleagues and I said "how did it go" and she said, "do you know what, I'm really frustrated," and I said, "why are you frustrated?" and she said, "I don't even think they noticed I was in my office with the door closed." So I certainly experience this, our own sense of importance, our own sense of urgency is not shared by many of the people around us, and to be still I think is a gift that not only should we give ourselves but is the most responsible thing we can do to our followers as well.

Rachel Salaman: Let's move onto the next letter of ATTACK, it's another A and it's for Acknowledge progress and this is where you give some tips for leaders on setting goals, so what are your main points here?

Mike Staver: I will confess to you and your listeners that I have tended to believe that all leaders have goals and that for me to even contribute or even write about them is so elementary that maybe I shouldn't have done it. And then I was in a meeting in Indiana and the CEO asked the room full of leaders how many of you have meaningful goals written down on a three by five card or in some mechanism that you keep in front of you all the time. I will bet you Rachel that less than 25 percent of that room raised their hand. Now they all had organizational goals, they all had departmental goals but they didn't have personal, meaningful goals for themselves, and I think that I overestimated how obvious this is, so obviously goals what you want is set them, make them measurable, the ones we all know and activate them, that kind of thing, but I think what's really important is to have personal goals that push me outside of where I'm comfortable so that we can be more successful, because if you can't think of a transformational goal in your life that you set or somehow you've changed the way you've led, then I don't think we're driving ourselves hard enough. And I think having goals that are personal to me first drive my leadership more effectively, and so I would just really encourage your listeners to really think it through, is there a behavior that I need to create, is there a behavior that I need to eliminate or do I need to adjust or modify a current behavior, and if they're able to do that personally, obviously they've got to submit goals departmentally but that's an impersonal thing and I think it's much more powerful if they have goals that are personal to them.

Rachel Salaman: And you discuss recognition at some length and how some leaders are too harsh and other over-recognize the people they lead, how can a leader get that balance right?

Mike Staver: The whole book is written building one letter after the other, and I think the first thing they've got to do is go back to the question you asked me earlier and that is, do you take time to notice. I think the first way they get it right is that they slow down and pay attention. I think the second thing that they have to do is to start focusing more on wins, and where their organization is winning and where their people are winning, and what that means to them. Again if I'm going 100 miles an hour with my hair on fire meeting to meeting, phone call to phone call, email to email, I often miss this opportunity, so leaders get it right by number one noticing, and then by number two noticing how that thing they noticed specifically contributes to, or has impact on our goals, our focus, that kind of thing. And the next thing I think they've got to be thinking about is they have to be thinking about the power of doing it in real time and doing it personally. I was on the phone yesterday with a client and the client owns some retail food establishments and they own about six or seven outlets, and one of my suggestions to them three weeks ago was I need you to get out of your office and go to these retail eateries and just go in and say hi to people and see how they're doing and what's going on, not like you're inspecting, but just by you being there. Yesterday on the call and they'd been out to a couple of their stores and one of the owners said, "Mike, I'm totally amazed that the impact that has, that is the way they get it right." Now that being said, there are people who are too harsh and there are people who are over-recognizers, I call them gushers, people who are just "oh you're so wonderful Rachel, you're the best interviewer I've ever had in my whole entire life, I just can't believe we actually had the opportunity to meet, blah blah blah." Those people lose credibility right out of the gate, but by the same token people who retain recognition, I remember I had a college professor who said I never give an A and I raised my hand foolishly and said then why are there even As on the grading scale, why don't we make it all Bs, and he went on with this long thing about I don't think anybody ever does A work and of course it created quite a debate in the classroom about the As he got when he was in college. But he was an example of too harsh, it wasn't that we all deserved As, it was why would you at least not be open to the fact that somebody could actually earn one. There are some people I think who come to work, some leaders come to work with this almost level of irritability or anger that they manifest that makes them too harsh, that they won't give anybody, I actually heard the CEO of a Fortune 50 company say in a meeting two years ago, my people have a job, that's recognition enough. That's pretty harsh, now by the same token somebody who is just effusive and constantly showering love on people, that's probably a little too soft, so the way they get it right is notice, pay attention to specific things people do, make it personal as best you can so that I'm actually coming to you and saying here is something specific that I noticed and here is the impact that thing had. It's very important that you as a leader connect what they did and the positive impact that it had, for two reasons, number one, it's the right way to recognize and number two, it also is a way of teaching your followers that this connection, that they start saying okay so that equals this, therefore I do more of this and I get more of that, and I think that's very important.

Rachel Salaman: I was really interested that you advise leaders not to use recognition as a way to make bad news better or as a softener when they need to deliver criticism because a lot of other business coaches think the opposite, that you should sugar coat criticism and use the so called Oreo cookie approach. What are your reasons for your position on this?

Mike Staver: I'm just difficult! It doesn't feel genuine to me, if my boss brings me into their office and they say you know Mike you're doing really well in this area and this area, I can just feel a but coming, can't you? It's like my brain is already down to the beating I'm going to get so why do we have to go through all of this, and I think the question a leader has to ask is would you be having this conversation with this follower if it wasn't for a performance correction issue, and if the answer is no I wouldn't, then either number one you're too harsh and not recognizing enough, or you're just using it to make yourself and them feel better. Now let me qualify, it's very important, if I'm going to give negative feedback which I did to somebody yesterday, if I'm going to give feedback to a person about performance correction, I don't think it's bad to say something good at the end, so for instance in my case I said I've noticed last quarter that we missed the goal by this much and that needs to change, let's talk about what you and I are going to do differently moving forward so that we get back on track for performance. We had that conversation and then after that was over I said you know the really good news is you're doing exceptionally well at servicing our customers and I really appreciate that about you. That is a lot more effective because now I am able to get to the reason we're having the conversation without the person feeling manipulated, I just don't think it's very authentic to say we've had a really great marriage Rachel and I've always loved you but I'm leaving you, it just doesn't make sense to me.

Rachel Salaman: Let's move onto the C in ATTACK which is Commit to new habits, what kind of new habits do leaders need to commit to in your experience?

Mike Staver: I think I would just say, as you can imagine, that they need to pay attention to things that are having impact in a very meaningful way, in other words what I mean by that is most people don't necessarily commit, really commit to new habits, so there's a couple of things I think they should do. Number one I think they should become a highly accountable leader and I mean accountable in the context that accountability is not a negative thing, accountability is just answerability, and answerability means that I ask good questions of my direct reports, that leaders who are highly accountable ask good questions of their direct reports and they expect that the people that report to them will ask them good questions as well, I think it's important. I think another habit that people really ought to be working on developing is making sure that they are paying attention to the stuff that really matters, and not paying attention to stuff that doesn't matter. And what I mean by that is we do an exercise called high gain activity exercise which is getting people to focus on the one or two activities that have the biggest impact on them in their life and their business. And I'm always amazed at how difficult it is for them because people don't really stop and think about that, and so I think that being able to create a space where people and you can do that is really important. And then I think that one of the habits that I would spend a lot of time and energy focusing on is the habit of asking great questions, you know we were raised since we were in school to come up with good answers, and while I think answers are important, I think what's more important is coming up with good questions. So if you just made me nail down one habit that a leader should develop today, I would say the habit of asking good questions, and they should have somebody in their life that holds them accountable for that. The most powerful leaders I've ever known in my life, ever coached, ever led me, ask really great questions.

Rachel Salaman: So how do you define a good question, what makes a good question?

Mike Staver: I think what defines a good question is a question that requires the person that you're asking the question to to think. The best question I was ever asked Rachel, it's such a great question, was this, "Mike, do you believe what you believe because you believe it, or do you believe what you believe because you were taught it?" That question required me to stop in my tracks and that question was asked to me over 20 years ago, and to this day I ask myself that question. And I think sometimes our leaders are kind of like teachers, they think that because they're in a position of power they have to come up with answers, and I think they want to ask questions that first of all require their people to think, require their people to take initiative and require their people to own responsibility. So for instance an employee runs to the office and say what should we do, this is a real problem, I will give them the answer but I always want to know, I'm just curious if you were going to do something and I wasn't here, tell me what you would do, tell me what decision you would make right now. Because what we don't want to do is create a culture of dependence, we want to create a culture of thinkers and I think any question that causes my direct reports to think through something and to be solutions oriented, it's going to be good.

Rachel Salaman: Let's look now at the final letter in ATTACK, K for Kindle and of course we're not talking about an e-reader here.

Mike Staver: Right that would mess up the book if kindle meant start a fire or something, I looked it up in the dictionary, at least the dictionary I looked it up in, and kindle is defined as to give new life to, isn't that a great definition? I just love that, I think it's a very beautiful, poetic definition, and so I think in the context of courage and in the context of being a great leader what we have to do is ask ourselves where are we a little stale, where do we need to give some new life to our leadership, such that we move ourselves and our organization forward, and it's not just about the magical bottom line, it's not just about hitting the fourth quarter numbers, I think what's important is that they start with kindling their leadership, and I think that being able to do that has everything to do with being able to inspire and build passion, and I think the high octane fuel that drives leadership is the extent to which we are able to do that. And I think that what I would encourage your listeners to do is to think through where is an area of my leadership that perhaps I'm too stale or perhaps I need to do something different, what do I need to infuse it with, some passion or some life, because a leader's ability to give new life to their people and programs is going to sustain the organization all the time. This is a much more spiritual way to look at leadership in that it is really about us paying attention to how we bring life back into our organizations, how do we help them focus their energy in places where it's going to have big impact, and I think we do that by understanding that our followers are watching us all the time, and what we model for them is what they will learn to react to. And if we do that effectively, if we model appropriately, I often say to people as leaders, if I videotaped you during the course of a day and I put it on the screen at the local stadium for everyone to see, as the lesson for how to lead, would you say that that behavior, that reaction, the way you handled yourself, would be a way to give new life to an organization. And ultimately the leader, that is the leader's responsibility because I say in the very first chapter of the book you are messing with people's lives and they will spend more time talking about you, with you than they will anybody else in their life and it is important that we take that seriously.

Rachel Salaman: We've covered such a lot of ground here, what would be your top three takeaway points for leaders who want to lead better, starting today?

Mike Staver: I think first I've got to start with what we talked about at the very beginning which is acceptance, I think as soon as they turn off this podcast they should shut the door to their office or when they get to their next location if they're listening to it in their vehicle, they should get out some paper and a pencil and write down the truth, the truth about their leadership, the truth about their organization without judgment. The second thing I think they could start today is shift the ratio away from answers and towards questions. And then the third thing I think they should do is immediately make a big, bold, courageous decision and take action somewhere. Remember that any activities that are stacked closely over time are activities that will ultimately build momentum, planning doesn't build momentum, goals don't build momentum, what builds momentum is action. So if I accept reality without judgment, if I commit to being a better question asker and if I start making quicker, more effective decisions that drive action in my organization, I think they will feel that surge of momentum and the results necessary to be very successful and very courageous in their leadership.

Rachel Salaman: Mike Staver, thanks very much for joining me.

Mike Staver: Thanks for having me, it was very fun, I enjoyed it.

Rachel Salaman: The name of Mike's book again is "Leadership isn't for Cowards," and you can find out more about it at www.thestavergroup.com.

I'll be back in a few weeks with another Expert Interview. Until then, goodbye.