My Life-Long Love Affair with Leadership

I'm basically still a kid.

When I was ten years old, I shared a bedroom with my brother, Jim. He was in high school and he either stayed up until 10:30 PM doing homework at the kitchen table or he was at one of his high school events. My "lights out time" was supposed to be 8:30. However, I would put a towel over the crack in the door so my parents didn't know that I had a bedside lamp on until 10:30. And in that bed I would try to read a book a day.

My absolute favorite series was called something like, "Famous Americans Growing Up." Every book was 192 pages long. The first 130 pages were about the person's childhood, and the last 60 or so pages were about the person's life when they became famous. I read them all: Thomas Edison, Florence Nightingale, Benjamin Franklin, John Paul Jones, Betsy Ross, Abraham Lincoln, and on and on. I can still picture the type of paper used and the feel of those books.

Today I'm still marching through books on leadership. In the past five weeks I finished Danny Meyer's book, Setting the Table, about how to create a leading hospitality company; Eric Clapton: The Autobiography, which was the fairly amazing story of the only three-time inductee into the Rock'N'Roll Hall of Fame; Judgment: How Winning Leaders Make the Right Call by Noel Tichy and Warren Bennis; American Creation by Joseph Ellis, which is about the American Revolution; and The Speed of Trust by Stephen M.R. Covey.

Even though I speak on fun topics like branding, innovation, strategy, and entrepreneurship, by far and away my most requested keynote speech is "ACCELERATE YOUR IMPACT AS A LEADER." In the past thirty days, I've given that keynote to the McDonald's National Leadership Council, the American Optometric Association's President's Council, the AmeriQuest Transportation Industry Symposium, Marriott Eastern Region, and the Texas Association of Home Care. And in the next few weeks I'll be giving it to The Boeing Company and the Kirkwood/Des Peres Chamber of Commerce.

To me, leadership comes down mainly to four topics.

Understand the Psychology of the Business Leader

There are two key measurements of a business leader's effectiveness. The first measurement is tangible and external, and it consists of business results such as top-line sales, bottom-line profits, customer retention, and client-base expansion. These results are what other people want to know about when they ask the business leader, "How are things going?" They want to hear about the actual business results. A person will not be seen as an effective leader if he or she never delivers good results.

The other measurement of a business leader's success is intangible and internal, and it consists of the person's self-confidence. Self-confidence is the degree to which you believe you are going to succeed in improving results in an upcoming situation.

The relationship between business results and self-confidence is what I'm calling The Psychology of a Business Leader.

Poor Self-Confidence, Poor Business Results
When a manager has poor self-confidence and poor business results, the experience is a crisis. It's a crisis both for the manager on a personal level and for the organization or profit center that he is managing. The manager doesn't know if he should stay in that job, and the organization doesn't know how much longer it can afford to leave the manager in that position.

Poor Self-Confidence, Strong Business Results
When a manager has poor self-confidence and strong business results, she feels that the results are all an illusion. Because she doubts in her own ability, she feels that the great results happened because of favorable market conditions or great weather. Consequently, she doesn't believe that she can reproduce these results unless she gets lucky with outside factors. Oftentimes, she ends up not investing in business growth because she doesn't really believe in her ability to make those investments pay off.

Strong Self-Confidence, Poor Business Results
When a manager has strong self-confidence and poor business results, he will persevere and innovate to find better ways to add value to customers and grow the business. This belief in his ability to generate future successes guides the organization through the difficult times.

Strong Self-Confidence, Strong Business Results
When a manager has strong self-confidence and strong business results, she generates business momentum and creates sustainable, profitable growth. She has both the resources and the self-confidence to continue to innovate and create more value for customers. This combination of external and internal success is the true management sweet spot. It is where sustainable business success begins.

While you can't always determine your external, tangible business results, you can largely determine your self-confidence, the belief that you will succeed in an upcoming situation.

See the value you bring to the table.
The value you bring to any role is the combination of your values, strengths, passions, knowledge, and experience. Take out a sheet of paper and answer these questions:

• What beliefs determine my behaviors? (Values)
• What do I do well? (Strengths)
• What gets me excited when I do it? (Passions)
• What do I understand well? (Knowledge)
• When have I been successful at dealing with adversity in the past and what have I learned from those situations? (Experience)

Invest the time it takes to clarify your answers to these questions. Don't do them to get ready for an interview. Do them to get ready to make a greater contribution as a manager.

Now here's the payoff question in terms of operating with strong self-confidence:

• How can I apply my strengths, passions, knowledge, and experience in ways that fit within my values and will generate better sustainable results both for my organization and for our customers?

When you spend the vast majority of your time deploying your strengths, passions, knowledge, and experience, you begin to clearly see the role you play in moving the business results forward. As you do so, you gain a greater and greater belief in your ability to succeed in future situations.

Pre-Influence (Making a Wise Judgment)

To me, leadership means "influencing how other people think in ways that generates better sustainable results both for the organization and the people in it."

Before you attempt to influence another person, you need to step back and determine what it is you are trying to influence the other person to think about and to do. In my seminars on leadership for CEOs and key executives in small to medium-sized businesses, I often ask, "What is the process you use to make a wise judgment? What is the process you use to make a decision that can have a sustainable improvement on desired results?"

One person said he wrote down all of his prejudices first. Then he compared each possible decision against his prejudices to make sure that he wasn't getting in his own way. He wanted to make sure that he wasn't just turning down a good solution for the organization because he had a prejudice against it.

Many people have said they first gather as much information as they can from as many different perspectives as they can within a reasonable time frame. Then after considering this anecdotal, factual, and statistical input, they make the best decision they can.

Other people have said they use the following questions as screens for making a wise judgment:

• Does this decision fit with my own values?
• Does it fit with the values, strengths, and passions of our organization?
• Do we have the resources to do it well?
• If we do it well, will it have a positive impact on our desired outcomes?

I've seen leaders make big mistakes when they rushed to influence others because they became too emotionally attached to one solution or when their plates were too full and they just wanted to move on and make a decision. Develop a process for making a wise judgment, and then stick to your process.

Influence (Determine Your Leadership Style)

The act of influencing others is how you make your mark as a leader. Your style as a leader is the approach you use to influence other people. And I've seen every conceivable style, except for one, work very well.

I've seen leaders who brag constantly about their own greatness, who come across as incredibly arrogant, and who essentially put other people down over and over. And, amazingly to me, many of these leaders have been extremely effective.

I saw one person tell raunchy sex jokes over and over, and yet this person was very effective as a leader. I'm convinced if I ever did that four armed guardsmen would enter the room, wrap me up in masking tape, put me on their shoulders, and take me out of the room.

The Chameleon Fails Every Time

The only approach I've seen fail every time is the chameleon. A chameleon is a lizard that changes its color to fit the surroundings. The chameleon in business is the person who changes his or her approach or stance every time a different boss is in the room. This type of "leader" is really a people pleaser, and consequently no one knows what to expect. And when people don't know what to expect, they stop being open to that person's influence.

My leadership style can be summed up in one word: austerity, which means to be rigorously simple. My focus is on providing clear, simple, practical ideas and approaches that can guide the group to better outcomes. My search is always to find a simpler way to explain an idea, which has turned out to be a lot more work than I had first anticipated. The quote from Oliver Wendell Holmes that drives me is, "I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity."

Recently I received a phone call where the person said, "Dan, I'm putting on a conference for CEOs of multi-billion-dollar businesses. Can you do the keynote presentation?"

I said, "It's a possibility. What are the outcomes that you are hoping the attendees improve during the 60-90 days after the conference is over? I'll then be able to let you know if I can deliver ideas that will help them improve those outcomes."

He said, "I've watched your video, and your stuff seems pretty basic."

I thought he was complimenting me. I said, "Thank you. My goal is to keep finding ways to make my ideas even simpler because I think the power of an idea is in its simplicity and relevance, not its complexity."

He said, "Well, I want someone who can deliver cutting-edge, new intellectual material, something that will dazzle the audience. Can you do that?"

I said, "That's not my approach. I don't think that's the best way to drive results. So I'll have to say no."

And that was that. If we try to be all things to all people, then we aren't going to be very good at any of the approaches.

Hone Your Leadership Style

Don't underestimate the importance of honing your leadership style. If you leave it to chance, then you might come across as the dreaded chameleon. Write down seven to ten adjectives that describe your desired leadership approach. For each adjective write down what you can do to act in accordance with that adjective. Then look back at the end of each day at your actions and determine where you acted in accordance with your desired style and where you were out of sync. Each day try to make your behaviors more in alignment with your desired approach. Over a period of 100 days you will begin to strengthen the leadership style you really want to have.

If you ever want a classic example of the importance of leadership style, just look at Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, and Mike Huckabee. In many ways, I think people are voting for a certain style as much or more than because of an individual's particular stance on issues.

Post-Influence (Be an Exemplar)

I just love the word "exemplar," which means to embody a concept. If you want to influence people to think and act in certain ways, then you need to embody the concept that you are trying to influence them toward.

I'm a big fan of Southwest Airlines. One day I was in the Houston Hobby airport and Herb Kelleher, the Chairman of Southwest Airlines, walked by. He was in line to put his shoes and belt on the conveyor belt. I said to the guy next to me, "Is that?" And he said, "Yep, that's Herb." Herb Kelleher was the perfect exemplar of his company: down-to-earth, smiling, just a regular guy, and no pretensions.

If you want to be a great leader that other people can trust, make sure you embody the concept you want others to embrace.

Book Recommendations

I think John Gardner is the all-time best writer on leadership. His austere writing style is completely free of pretensions and packed with useful insights. I encourage you to read On Leadership and Excellence: Can We be Equal and Excellent Too? by John Gardner. You probably won't find them in bookstores, but you can order them from any store or get them on-line. Read them carefully. His insights are written in plain language, but pack a powerful message. Take care and have a great month!

Dan Coughlin

Accelerate Update This section is always current to the current month

I suppose every book changes an author's life to a certain degree. My first book, which was self-published in 1995, was called Inside Out: A Catalyst for Conscious Living. It's out of print now for a number of good reasons. The layout, which yours truly did, looks like something a first grader could do today. And the ideas are very theoretical, which doesn't fit my approach anymore. However, I read the book a few months ago, and I was pleased by how clearly I had explained my early thoughts on improving performance.

My second book, Corporate Catalysts: How to Make Your Company More Successful, Whatever Your Title, Income, or Authority was published in 2005 by Career Press. That book was a step forward in clarifying my ideas on improving performance and understanding how to write a whole book. It's one thing to dream about getting a book contract and another thing to write a 70,000 word manuscript.

My third book, ACCELERATE: 20 Practical Lessons to Boost Momentum, which was published in May 2007 by Kaplan Publishing, has changed my business dramatically. Up until that book was published, I mostly did projects for four companies: McDonald's, Marriott, GSD&M, and Toyota. In the past 12 months, I've worked with business owners, executives, and managers within dozens of small, medium, and massive organizations in more than 20 industries ranging from boats to banks to software to financial services to trucking to lighting to home healthcare to hospitals to optometrists. It's been an exciting adventure.

If you want to see my speaking calendar for 2008, which we'll try to update every two weeks, please click here.

Currently, I have 66 speeches scheduled for 2008. If you would like for me to speak at one of your events in 2008 or 2009, feel free to contact me at dan@thecoughlincompany.com and I will be glad to see if we can make it work.

If you want to see my speaking topics and a video of footage from some of my keynote speeches, please click here.

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