I was organizing a panel of speakers for a dinner as part of the Power Networking for Women event in Chicago.  I wanted high-powered speakers, and I put together a list of people I knew would be great panelists.  Then I read the fine print.  The organizer of the event, Deirdre Joy Smith, has a powerful commitment to promoting diversity, and she required that at least one panelist be a woman of color and at least one be under 35.  I looked back at my list – and every single person was a middle-aged white woman.

That’s what happens when you rely on your network of comfortable relationships – you come up with people like yourself.  And I must admit I felt a momentary flash of irritation.  The women on my list were terrific speakers.  Where was I going to find top quality presenters who met Deirdre’s criteria?

It took me about three minutes to figure it out.  I am a mentor for a group of young executives through The Executives’ Club of Chicago.  Everyone in the group is under 40, and several of them are young women of color.  Duh!  There was my talent pool to draw from.  Within a couple of days I had invited Nashunda Bolden, a Business Solutions Manager for CRS Group who is an experienced writer and presenter.  Nashunda did a great job at the dinner and provided a unique perspective that would not have been available if the panel had been a more homogeneous group.

I know that when you look in the same old places, you will find the same old people.  But that didn’t stop me from falling into the trap myself.  Without a systemic requirement that I put together a diverse group, I wouldn’t have.

Lesson learned.

In other organizations, an atmosphere of calm prevails.  Although these leaders are working just as hard as their colleagues in the shvitz companies, they act as if the job is really pretty easy and everything is under control.  I call these company cultures “sprezzatura” cultures.  Sprezzatura is an Italian word that means “the art of making things look easy.”

It is easy to figure out whether your company is a shvitz or a sprezzatura company.  The challenge lies in adapting your personal style to fit the company culture.  If you are a cultural misfit, others may not appreciate the contribution you are making.  A “shvitzer” in a sprezzatura company looks like a fool who can’t manage the workload with aplomb.  Someone with sprezzatura in a shvitz company will be seen as a person who is coasting.

So it makes sense to adapt.  Remember, this is not about how hard you are working.  If you are a conscientious leader, you are working very hard.  It’s about how you present yourself and your effort – being sensitive to the organizational culture and adjusting your behavior accordingly.

Which kind of company are you working in?

Most organizations are much better at the first step than the second one.  Business leaders tend to be people of action.  How many companies do you know that operate on the principle of “Ready, Fire, Aim!”  Business leaders tend to barge ahead from one project to the next, without stopping to gather the learnings from what they have done.

This is a big problem for developing excellence in business leadership.  It leads to organizational amnesia and to a tendency to make the same mistakes over and over again.  It leads to ignoring or covering up failures, rather than discussing and learning from them.  And it interferes with the learning and growth of the next generation of leaders.

How can business leaders foster reflection as part of their leadership style?

• Set aside time in your schedule to think.  In its glory days, IBM had the slogan “THINK” emblazoned on its walls.
• Schedule post-mortems on projects to discuss what worked and what didn’t work.  Doctors do this about their patients, and it’s a great idea for other settings as well.
• Work with a coach.  Helping executives reflect on themselves and their organizations is a big part of what coaching is about.
• Ask questions of the people you are mentoring that encourage them to reflect on their work.

What do you do to build reflection into your leadership style?

The numbers are clear – women consumers control the majority of spending in a wide variety of businesses.  Figuring out what women want and how to deliver it is one of the keys to thriving in the current environment.

And guess what!  It turns out that when businesses create a great environment for their female employees, they do better with their female customers.  Makes sense – build an engaged, productive female work force, with opportunities for professional development and promotion, and those women will use their energy and enthusiasm to engage and serve your female customers.

Wolf Means Business is a firm that teaches companies how to engage their female employees – from entry-level to C-suite – as well as their female customers.  As part of their leadership team, I have worked with the firm to build programs and interventions to further the success of their female work force.  My affiliation with Wolf is part of my on-going commitment to fostering the development of women leaders and building a world where men and women work together as equals.

Knowing when and how to offer an apology is an essential skill for successful business leadership.  We all make mistakes, inadvertently offend someone, or are intentionally hurtful.  A sincere, artful apology can get a relationship back on track, both personally and professionally.

Here are three traps to watch out for:

1. Apology avoidance.  Some people feel it is demeaning to offer an apology, that it makes them seem weak or subordinate.  Nonsense!  It is unwillingness to offer an appropriate apology that makes you seem insecure – and rude.
2. The fake apology.  The classic example is, “I’m so sorry you feel that way.”  What?!  That’s not an apology, it’s patronizing.  A true apology says, “I was wrong, I am sorry, and I won’t do it again.”  Sometimes you may indeed feel that the other person over-reacted.  In that case, how about saying, “I’m sorry, I was clumsy.  I didn’t mean to offend you, but I did.  I’ll be more thoughtful next time.”
3. The excessive apology.  This is more often a problem for women than for men.  It can involve being overly obsequious, such as “OMG, I can’t believe I said that to you.  I am such an idiot – I am so sorry.  I don’t know how you can ever forgive me …” Or if can mean apologizing too often.  I have found myself apologizing over and over for the same misdeed, which only keeps reminding the other person of my misstep.  Once is usually enough.  Apologize sincerely and then shut up.

When I realized something had gone awry with Cathy, I called her.  I was right – she felt my request was inappropriate.  I apologized and told her it mattered to me to have a good relationship with her.  We are friendly colleagues to this day – and she has done me a lot of favors since then.

Senior business leaders’ primary task, at least as important as developing a guiding strategy, is engaging the passion and energy of the folks in the trenches who are striving to execute that strategy. The single most important driver of engagement is the experience of making progress in meaningful work. Yet senior leaders’ smallest actions can stymie progress because what they say and do is so intensely observed by the people who report to them. Bottom line: “A sense of purpose in the work, and consistent action to reinforce it, has to come from the top.

Here are four traps awaiting senior executives:

Mediocrity Signals: A case study – A new top-management team instills fierce pride in its workforce by creating a trumpeted “innovation” mission statement. In practice, however, upper management consistently dictates that cost reduction goals be met before any other priorities are addressed. This over-emphasis on cost cutting causes quality to suffer, while competitors busily introduce new products. Because of this hypocrisy, the firm’s workers feel they are doing mediocre work for a mediocre company and they disengage. Many leave, and within three years the firm is acquired by a smaller rival.

Strategic Attention Deficit Disorder: Earnest senior executives constantly scan the horizon to monitor competitors’ moves, the global economic environment, and their implications for financing and marketing issues. However, too many exhibit a short attention span regarding strategy and tactics. Each quarter, they promote new initiatives that are incompatible with what they asked for three months earlier. Mid-level managers receiving such inconsistent direction not surprisingly report persistent difficulty in maintaining a strong sense of purpose.

Corporate Keystone Kops: Overly complex reporting structures, indecisiveness, and lack of cooperation yield chaos. Senior leaders’ failure to perceive and correct such disorder convinces workers that their efforts to produce high quality results are futile.

Misbegotten “Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals”: A popular management theory urges senior leaders to develop a “big, hairy, audacious goal” – a BHAG. However, a BHAG doesn’t motivate anyone when it is overly grandiose, so extreme as to seem unattainable, and so vague as to seem empty. One firm decreed that all projects be “innovative blockbusters,” yielding a minimum annual revenue of $100 million within five years of initiation. This BHAG had little meaning for the firm’s personnel and their daily activities. It did not connect with workers’ desire to provide customers with something worthwhile. Instead, the aggressive revenue target spoke only of the top management’s own circumscribed values.

Here are some ways to avoid the traps:

• Provide employees with a consistent, meaningful strategy so they understand why they are doing what they are doing.

• Remember what it was like when you were working in the trenches. How meaningful was it to commit to something your superiors hadn’t thought through?

• Set up an “early warning system” to alert you when your view from the top doesn’t match the reality on the ground. Regularly gauging the level of coordination and support can prevent disarray that saps meaning from your employees’ inner work lives.

• Motivate your people to greatness by articulating their higher purpose within the organization, and support its achievement by your own consistent daily actions.

Senior leaders who foster workers’ sense of meaning and progress in their daily work will attract and retain a committed workforce in a challenging economic environment. And they might just find greater meaning in their own work as leaders as well.

Please let us know what you think of these ideas. We look forward to dialog with you – and to better times.

Gail Golden

It is not hard to recognize underdog behaviors in others. Everyone has colleagues who always find excuses instead of holding themselves accountable. We all know women leaders who out-bully the men, or members of ethnic or racial minorities who do nothing to help others climb the ladder.

It is much harder to see these behaviors in ourselves. But if we examine ourselves honestly, when we are in settings where we are outsiders, most of us act like underdogs at least occasionally. These behaviors are understandable, but they really undermine our effectiveness as leaders. They don’t make others respect us; in fact they make us look kind of pathetic.

So what’s the alternative? How about acting like a “topdog?”
• Hold yourself accountable to a standard of excellence
• Build up your self-esteem by doing great things, while acknowledging the greatness of others
• Respect the dominant group while being true to your own identity
• Use your position and influence to provide a hand-up to other deserving members of your group.

What do you think? Let us know.

Wow, what an amazing event last Thursday! An audience of 950 people, almost all women. A panel of three incredible women leaders: Tonise Paul, CEO of Energy BBDO; Anne Pramaggiore, President and COO of ComEd; and Sheli Rosenberg, Of Counsel at Skadden. I had the wonderful opportunity to moderate the panel on “The Strategic and Effective Use of Power.”

Tonise, Anne, and Sheli are three very different women, each with her unique leadership style. Together, they shared their experiences with and wisdom about being a powerful woman leader. What did they teach us?

• Power is about being able to drive change. Assess a situation and find the “fault lines” where you can make things better. Then use your power to drive the necessary changes.
• Women are wired to want to be liked, but to be powerful we must focus on being respected, even if that sometimes means people don’t like us.
• Powerful leaders need a whole toolbox of different kinds of power behaviors, plus the savvy to know which tool is needed in which situation. Use a hammer when you have a nail in front of you.
• Don’t focus on who you are, focus on where you are. That means looking outward beyond yourself.
• Make sure you let your supervisors know about your successes. They are busy – how are they going to know if you don’t tell them?
• Never settle for “good enough.” Be excellent.
• Everyone knows that sexual attraction happens in the workplace. Address it and move past it – don’t push it under the rug. Women leaders need both male and female mentors. Don’t let the fear of sexual gossip stop you from making relationships with men who can help you.
• When assessing whether to mentor a younger woman, look for resilience. How does she react to setbacks and failure – can she bounce back? This is one of the strongest predictors of leadership potential.
• One of the changes in the leadership landscape is that in most settings women no longer have to be clones of men. (Sheli was wearing bold polka-dot socks with her classic suit.)

Many of the audience members said they wished the panel could have been longer. It was a truly inspiring event.

There are many ways that a business leader can gain and exercise power. Some of these are heavy-handed, such as positional power (I am the boss and you have to do what I say) or punishment power (If you don’t do what I say, I’ll fire you). While these kinds of power are effective in very specific circumstances, they don’t work well as long-term business leadership strategies.

They especially don’t work well for women. Most people react swiftly to a domineering woman with strong dislike and anger. We expect women in authority to be smart and forceful but also kind and empathic.

One kind of power that often works well for women leaders has been labeled referent power. Referent power is about gaining others’ followership because they respect you, they want your approval, and they want to be like you. Think about the leaders you have worked with who inspired your loyalty and spurred you to do your best. Were you afraid of them? Probably not. Did you admire them and want to please them? You bet.

How can a woman leader build her referent power? Here are four key suggestions:

• Practice what you preach. Don’t expect others to do what you won’t do. Live the values you expect from your team. Treat everyone with respect and courtesy, all the time, no matter what.
• Be honest. Keep your team informed. Be frank about what you don’t know. If you make a mistake, admit it and correct it. Never lie.
• Earn trust. Do what you say you will do. Defend your team members, and make sure they know when you are sticking up for them. Share credit for wins and take accountability for failures.
• Celebrate wins. Give praise and rewards lavishly for a job well done. Praise people publicly (if they like it). Bring fun and celebration into the workplace.

Under the pressure of driving performance in challenging and competitive business environments, many business leaders ignore these behaviors. They place unreasonable expectations on their team members, they are deceptive or unreliable, and they focus more on problems and failures than on successes and wins. These behaviors sometimes gratify a business leader’s own needs to feel powerful in the moment, but they do not build real and lasting power.

Business leaders do not have to be bullies or egomaniacs to get the job done. True leaders influence their people by deploying a range of powerful tactics – and using their referent power is one of the best tools in their toolboxes.

The first reason is behavioral.  Many women have vocal qualities and speaking styles which undermine their authority and impact.  Voices that are quiet, high-pitched, or breathy are more difficult to hear and do not ring with authority.  Many women have a speaking style which turns statements into questions, either through their words, “Our business did very well last quarter, don’t you think?,” or through their intonation, by raising the pitch of their voices at the ends of their sentences.  The solution to this is for women to listen to tapes of their speaking styles and work to correct any habits that undermine their authority, using a voice coach if necessary.

The second reason women have difficulty making our voices heard is psychological.  As the mother of three sons, I have learned that, at least in American society, for a boy to become a man requires that he emotionally breaks away from his mother.  This process is often quite painful for both the boy and the mother, but it is a necessary step in male development.  Breaking away from Mom often involves the young man tuning out his mother’s voice.  The problem is that many men generalize this tuning out to other women’s voices.

As a result, many women in business settings find it difficult to get their male colleagues’ attention and alignment.  What woman hasn’t had the experience of putting forward an idea, being ignored, and then hearing her idea put forward a few minutes later by a male colleague, to enthusiastic response?

The solution to this challenge is more difficult.  It requires women to think about how we can avoid broadcasting on the “Mommy channel.”  This may mean kidding around as if you’re one of the boys.  It may mean being unexpected and unpredictable, not stereotyped, in your interests and opinions.  It may mean not falling into the role of being the nurturing “Office Mom,” which is typically not a powerful role.

In spite of these barriers, many women leaders do indeed speak with a voice of authority and impact.  One of the best tips for women is to watch and listen to those leaders, analyze what they are doing, and copy those aspects of their style which are authentic and genuine for you.

I go to a lot of women’s networking events, and I have to admit I have become a little burned out. So many of them fall into one of two buckets. The theme is either “Why won’t the boys let us into their tree house?” or “How can women leaders live meaningful lives?” I don’t think we need to be talking about either one of those topics. Complaining about the boys isn’t going to change anything. And most women are already good at leading meaningful lives. What we need to be talking about is power – how to get it, how to wield it, and how to manage the complexities of female power.

So I am delighted that the Executives’ Club of Chicago has invited me to moderate a panel on “The Strategic and Effective Use of Power” at their Women’s Leadership Breakfast on February 23. The panelists are extraordinary senior women leaders who have up-close and personal relationships with power. I am eager to learn from them, and I’m looking forward to passing on their wisdom and experience to you. Registration is open to both members and non-members. If you are interested in attending you may register for the event by visiting their site here.

A recent survey of 500 firms found that most – 51% – conduct formal, comprehensive performance reviews annually, while an additional 41% conduct them semi-annually. However, a new trend is developing. A number of firms are finding it more useful to de-emphasize the major annual review, augmenting or even supplanting it with far more frequent mini-reviews.

Many business leaders now perceive distinct drawbacks to the large-scale performance review:
• They are very time-consuming. Managers and workers must schedule large blocks of face-to-face time to conduct these reviews, and both participants generally devote even more time to completing related paperwork.
• They can be intimidating. Infrequent comprehensive reviews become a “scary,” high-stakes, high-pressure rite of passage for workers.
• Perhaps most importantly, traditional reviews are by their nature overly ambitious. They are so flooded with information – appraising past performance, setting future goals, addressing compensation – that workers don’t absorb it all. Instead, they dwell on criticisms and tune out constructive suggestions for improvement.

Both small and large companies are experimenting with more frequent reviews. Grasshopper LLC, a 50-person provider of virtual phone systems, has turned away from large-scale reviews. The firm tried quarterly reviews, but saw productivity diminish and apprehensiveness rise as workers spent 4-8 hours each quarter writing their self-assessments. Instead, managers and employees now meet biweekly one-on-one for 30-40 minutes to discuss performance during the prior two weeks and set goals for the current period. Issues both large (“I want new job responsibilities”) and small (“Can I move my desk?”) are also addressed.

Grasshopper’s leadership is pleased with the impact of these mini-reviews. The more frequent meetings create less pressure, and tensions have decreased between employees and managers. While biweekly meetings are time-intensive for managers, the new approach emphasizes that regular communication with workers is the core of a manager’s job.

Another advantage of the frequent mini-reviews is that they have a more real-time feel. There are fewer surprises, which makes them much less intimidating.

Facebook, Inc., the 2,000 employee social network firm, retains semi-annual formal reviews, but encourages all staff to solicit and provide near-constant feedback after meetings, presentations and projects. Facebook’s current approach expands the vertical manager/worker feedback channel to foster prompt and brief exchanges among all co-workers.

It is no big surprise that Facebook is using technology to facilitate its feedback process. Through the team-network software Rypple, similar to Facebook’s own product, each of Facebook’s staff can approve or disapprove of any colleague’s efforts (“stop interrupting customers” or “great presentation at the last meeting”). The software permits Facebook’s managers to pull summaries of this feedback when considering performance, pay and promotions.

The trend toward more frequent performance reviews is by no means universal. But forward-thinking companies are finding that frequent feedback opportunities between managers and staff can ensure their closer coordination and more efficient progress toward the firm’s objectives. Better that the captain makes frequent course corrections than to discover too late that a neglected crew has headed the ship for the wrong port.

Moreover, in leaner economic times, when workers are asked to do more with less, frequent but encouraging feedback can demonstrate a firm’s concern for their professional satisfaction and its investment in their success.

Please let us know what you think of these ideas. We look forward to dialog with you – and to better times.

Daniel Kahneman is a psychologist who won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2002.  His recent book, Thinking Fast and Slow, reveals a number of the thinking traps that bedevil decision-makers.  For example:

• We focus on one attribute of a situation and use it to answer a broad and complicated question (the “focusing illusion”).
• We over-generalize from small samples.
• We are terrible at intuitively understanding probabilities and often believe that the less-probable alternative is the more-probable one (the “conjunction fallacy”).
• We will choose a certain small reward when a larger one is available with some risk, even when the odds are in our favor (risk aversion).
• We are more unhappy about a loss than we are happy about a gain of the same amount (loss aversion).

Kahneman suggests that our thinking patterns are divided into two systems: one that makes rapid, intuitive decision based on feelings, images, and associations; and the other that uses logic and probability.  We typically rely on the first system and have to force ourselves to use the second one.

So what can you do to improve your decision-making skills as a business leader?  First, be aware of the current research and apply it to your understanding of yourself and how you operate.  Second, discipline yourself to look for your thinking trips and counteract them with your logical, analytic skills.  One technique is to think about your problem as if it were someone else’s.

I especially like and endorse Kahnemen’s suggestion of a “pre-mortem.”  Before you finalize your decision, imagine that it is a year later and your choice turned out to be horribly wrong.  Then write a history of how and why it went wrong.  This creative approach will help you pinpoint fallacies in your logic and make better choices for your business.

“Did you find this helpful?” I asked. “Sort of,” he responded. “I learned some things about myself, but I didn’t really get a clear sense of what I should do next.”

Exactly! I am tired of seeing these reports. In my opinion, they are a lazy shortcut for the consultant. Don’t get me wrong –formal assessment tools can be a useful part of an executive assessment process.
But you don’t need a consultant to get undigested test results. There are a multitude of self-assessment tools available for free on the internet. So if you are going to pay a high-priced consultant, you have the right to expect more.

Here’s what first-rate professional feedback looks like:
• The consultant has spent some time – at least an hour, preferably two or more – getting to know you, your situation, and what questions the assessment is designed to answer.
• Any assessment tools have been chosen to answer specific questions about you, not a scatter-shot approach. These tools are well-researched, scientifically-designed instruments that have been proven to measure what they say they measure.
• You get both written and verbal feedback from the consultant, preferably in person.
• The report is written by the consultant, not computer-generated. It incorporates the data from the interview as well as the assessment tools and synthesizes them around major themes and findings. Individual test results may be included, but they are supporting evidence, not the whole package.
• The consultant gives you at most three developmental recommendations. These are specific and measurable, closely linked to the findings in the report. They are relevant to you, your context, and your goals. There is no point in offering more than three suggestions – no one has the time, energy, or focus to work on that many goals at once.
• Your questions get answered.

Whether you are seeking information for your own leadership development or using a consultant to help you make decisions about potential new hires, you have a right to expect this level of professional involvement and rigor.

Ten weeks is not a lot of time to tackle such a project.  The team members worked incredibly hard, and the coaches were not far behind them.  My team was particularly interesting because it was very international, with all but one of the members of Indian or Chinese background.  It was fascinating to watch and guide the flow of the team dynamics, see how leaders emerged, and help the team get past roadblocks to achieve success.  And succeed they did – the client was very pleased, their recommendations had impact, and the team members found great value in the experience.

Of course, as is always the case, the teachers learned right along with the students.  So what did I learn?

• The future is in good hands.  These team members were smart, focused, ambitious, hard-working and creative.  Each one of them has the potential to be a powerful, effective corporate leader.
• Cross-cultural teams can be highly effective.  These team members managed their cross-cultural issues respectfully and were supportive of each other.
• Fatigue brings out the best and the worst in people.  Some people rise to the occasion and find pools of stamina they didn’t know they had.  Others fade.
• Managing conflict is a fundamental team challenge.  It is easier to avoid it than to confront others directly.  Almost everyone struggles to managing conflict effectively.
• If people are smart enough, language barriers do not prevent effective communication.  The speaker works hard to make his/her ideas understood, and the listeners pay attention because they know they will hear something worthwhile.
• Gender issues may be on the wane.  Although the team was mostly male, the women did not have to struggle to make their voices heard or to land their ideas.  It appears this generation has made progress in treating each other as equals.
• Openness to hearing and incorporating feedback is a key success factor for rapidly developing a high-performing tea

Click here to listen to Delegating Authority

In order to be effective, a business leader must not only be powerful but also seem powerful.  A leader’s ability to inspire others and to drive his or her agenda depends in part on others’ recognition and acknowledgement of the leader’s power.  A powerful leadership impact usually has an intellectual component – the leader is intelligent and agile, thinks fast and solves problems skillfully.  A second component of power is emotional – the powerful leader inspires loyalty and passion, creating a personal connection with everyone he or she encounters.

But we often neglect the physical component if power.  Powerful people usually display a set of physical traits and abilities that set them apart from the rank-and-file.  These qualities may include:

• Strength
• Balance
• Energy
• Awareness of one’s surroundings
• Flexibility
• Clear purpose
• Presence
• Alertness
• Capacity to withstand stress
• Resilience
• Authenticity

All of these words and phrases have both a literal, physical meaning and a symbolic meaning.  Balance, for example, can refer both to the ability to stand on one foot and to the ability to prioritize competing demands for one’s time.  Leaders need to display these capabilities in both physically and symbolically.

Considerable evidence shows that developing your physical capabilities has direct impact on your leadership, both on how others see you and on how you function as a leader.  Too often leaders neglect their physical well-being because of the ferocious demands of their leadership role.

How does a busy leader develop a powerful physical presence? A thorough assessment from a fitness professional can help to identify areas of strength and weakness.  An effective fitness program takes into account your preferences, schedule, budget, and physical limitations.  Working with a personal trainer provides a high level of customization and motivation, but it isn’t necessary.  Powerful leaders we know engage in wide variety of physical activities:  running, biking, swimming, dance, fitness classes, weight training, and others.  Two approaches that are particularly effective for developing a powerful presence are yoga and aikido, because of their emphasis on balance and awareness as well as on strength and stamina.

We all know that exercise is good for us.  But for powerful leaders, it is even more critical, not only for the leader’s health and well-being, but also for his or her impact and effectiveness.

Click here to listen!

Location: Conference Call in number: +1 212-812-2800 and enter 8685 5373

Organized By: Julie Gilbert

Event Description: Join us and meet Gail, MBA, PhD, a psychologist and consultant for more than 20 years building better business leaders. She is a principal on the WOLF team as well as the CEO of Gail Golden Consulting. You will appreciate your insightfulness, her spirit, and her expertise!

Conference Call in number: +1 212-812-2800 and enter 8685 5373

The problem was innovation. Vic was tired of being the only one on the team who came up with new ideas. He was sure others on his team had thoughts to contribute, but they didn’t speak up. He talked with me about his plan to foster innovative thinking on his team. He would hold a meeting and start by offering his best ideas, then invite others around the table to contribute theirs.

I gently explained to Vic that his approach was unlikely to elicit the desired response. By offering his ideas first, he would generate agreement and support rather than challenge and creativity. And besides, his people were afraid of his sharp critique of their work. They were not going to offer up the kinds of half-baked ideas that lead to innovation. If Vic really wanted to create a climate that supported innovation, he would have to moderate his leadership style. He needed to make it safe for people to take risks and bring a playful attitude to their work.

Fortunately, Vic was willing to reflect on his leadership and make some changes. As we worked together, I suggested that he incorporate an idea from improvisational theater – the technique of “Yes, and.” In improv, one of the basic rules is to never reject someone else’s idea. When actors are trying to create a skit out of thin air, it is deadly to reject someone’s idea – it just kills the flow of the sketch. So the rule is that you always take the other person’s idea and build on it.

The problem for business leaders is that most people who have some higher education have been well trained in the skill of critical thinking. This important cognitive skill involves the highly developed ability to see what is wrong with an idea – to challenge it, poke holes in it, find the flaws. This is the skill of “Yes, but…” While it is important to be able to critique ideas, when leaders do this too soon or too forcefully it intimidates people and makes them unwilling to speak up. “Yes, and…” is the skill of taking a flawed or incomplete idea and building on it.

At his next team meeting, Vic surprised everyone by getting them to sit in pairs. Their task was to have a conversation in which every response started with the phrase, “Yes, and…” At first, people were suspicious and hesitant – it seemed very artificial. But as they carried out the exercise, it began to be fun. Each comment was greeted with, “Yes, and …,” and people began to enthusiastically build on each other’s ideas. To their surprise, the experience was fun and liberating.

Did they come up with any brilliant innovative ideas in that exercise? No. But it opened up a new way of listening to each other’s contributions. In subsequent meetings they were less likely to immediately shoot down each other’s ideas, and Vic learned to be less aggressive in his critique as well. By continuing to develop a “Yes, and…” mindset over the next few months, the team did in fact become more innovative and creative. They developed some great ideas, they had more fun together and Vic wasn’t so frustrated any more.

In a company where most of the senior team had worked there for decades, David was a newcomer. An intelligent and experienced senior business leader, he had been hired for his ability to bring change to the organization. His communication style was pleasant but reserved, which made it difficult for Jennifer to gauge his assessment of her or his expectations. She wondered whether her rise in the company would be derailed because she did not know how to read him.

As we brainstormed about Jennifer’s dilemma, one idea seemed obvious to me. At this point, her best way to serve the company and to advance her own career was to do everything she could to make David look good. Of course, this is all-purpose good advice anyway, but it is particularly relevant in her situation. As someone who had been around the company for a number of years and has sat at the senior table, she was in a position to help her boss learn the business quickly, make good decisions, and navigate his way through the politics as the top.

As I said – this seems obvious. But at the same time, it not necessarily an easy choice, Jennifer is facing two barriers. First, there is her natural resentment that David is in the position of power she held for a while. It feels great to have direct access to the person at the top – no one likes to let go of that. As a mature professional, her challenge is to not let those feelings of disappointment interfere with her business judgment.

But there is also a deeper problem. For about the last three decades, consultants like me have been telling women they must make themselves visible. For too long, women have been in the background supporting and coaching male leaders without getting much of the credit, to say nothing of the promotions and the salaries. Women leaders are still struggling to learn how to step forward and take credit for their own accomplishments.

And yet – there are times when the smartest path is to make someone else look good. This is true regardless of gender. Helping your boss succeed is one of the best ways to advance your own career and have a positive impact on the business. This may be hard for women now, especially when the boss is a man. (The competition between women business leaders is a topic for another day.) To be a behind-the-scenes helper can feel like going back to the bad old days. Nonetheless, it is an essential leadership tactic which belongs in our toolboxes right next to assertiveness, confidence, and competence.

We can help you present your best by ramping up your interviewing skills.  As experts in executive selection, we have interviewed hundreds of business leaders.   We know what interviewers are looking for and the keys to success in an interview.

We will help you:

• -Make a positive first impression
• -Prepare for difficult questions
• -Develop powerful questions of your own to bring to the interview
• -Psych out what the interviewer is looking for
• -Avoid common interview pitfalls

Our approach is specific to you and to the job you are interviewing for.  Our feedback is intelligent, candid, and kind.  Give yourself a head start – learn to interview for success.

What happened? When the leaders saw the CEO glance at his watch, they assumed he was thinking, “Hmm – that’s interesting. All my senior team members are heading home at 5 instead of working the longer hours their challenging roles demand.” And what was really going on? In fact, he was thinking, “I wonder if I’m going to make my flight.”

I heard this story from a client, and it is a great example of how people read significance into everything a senior leader does. The higher you are in the hierarchy, the more people watch every gesture, listen to every word, and interpret everything you do or don’t do. This is a fact of life for people in prominent positions.

Effective leaders recognize this reality and use it to their advantage. They are thoughtful about the messages they send and make conscious decisions about what kind of example they want to set. This is called “intentional leadership.” At a superficial level, intentional leaders are aware of how they dress and what their office looks like. At a deeper level, they are mindful of their non-verbal as well as their verbal messages. They are especially careful about their use of email, knowing how easily it is misinterpreted and how widely messages may be shared. At an even deeper level, they are thoughtful about how they treat people, recognizing the power of a smile or a remark that indicates their memory of some detail of the other person’s life. They know that silence is often over-interpreted or misinterpreted, so they are responsive and accessible.

Of course, being aware of your impact is important at any level of the organization. But as you climb the ladder of authority, you become more visible and your actions have greater implications. Imagine you are climbing a flexible pole. Near the bottom, if you lean one way or the other, it has little effect. But as you climb higher, even a slight motion causes the pole to sway wildly. Intentional leadership means choosing when and how you will sway the pole, and to what end.

One of the pitfalls for the leader in transition is that old bugaboo, the imposter syndrome.  The imposter syndrome is a common self-defeating thought pattern that bedevils many highly successful people.  It’s that nasty little voice in your head that says, “You know, you really are an idiot.  You may have managed to fool people so far, but any day now someone is going to expose you for the nincompoop you really are.”

The imposter syndrome can undermine the effectiveness and self-confidence of leaders in prominent roles.  Imagine how much more damaging it is to leaders who are in transition.  You just lost your job – you must truly be a loser after all!  So even in the face of a lifetime of accomplishments, such a leader can become paralyzed and demoralized by this normal but damaging thought pattern.

So what can you do about it?

• Evaluate yourself from someone else’s perspective.  Imagine you have a friend or colleague who has just lost his job.  He shows you his resume, which parallels your own.  Do you say to him, “Man, you are a dork!  Don’t even think about getting another job – who would want to hire a dunce like you?”  On the contrary, you would be impressed by his achievements and supportive of his efforts.  So take the kind of language you would use with him and apply it to yourself.
• Seek out the company of people who admire you and believe in you.  Listen to what they say and tell yourself, “These are smart people.  If they think I am hot stuff, they must be right.”
• Stay away from people who bring you down.  People who criticize you or are full of anxiety and gloom about your situation or theirs will sap your energy and enthusiasm.
• Remember you are not alone in feeling like an imposter.  Most of the people you admire have struggled at times with these same feelings.

Download: Right click to save this podcast to your computer.