Leaders communicate. I get that... I think. The book actually makes a very sharp point: A leader communicates continuously without interruption. This means that everything one chooses to do and not do is an act of communication, implying ideas and motives behind a leader's m.o. As my previous boss Tom often told me, true skill lies in knowing what not to do.
The book also makes a point about the order in which proactive communication occurs. The authors state that people contacted first will feel more valued and that people contacted later will feel less valued. Since this is probably true, I need to take extra steps to ensure that everyone I talk to feels as equally valuable as possible. The truth is: Each person should be equally valuable in my eyes until his or her actions lead me to believe otherwise. For example: I originally scheduled the order of meetings with my direct reports based solely on alphabetical order. If this creates a sense of inequality or bias, that consequence is completely unintentional.
But more importantly, the book reminds me to know myself and fully adopt my own mantras so that all that I do and not do automatically reflect and project the values that I hope everyone will adopt. Those values are still a work in progress, but I can start with these three guidelines.
First, see the vision. This really means that we each should understand where the organizational leader is going and know, at a minimum, where our individual places are in that vision. It then becomes the duty of the intermediate leaders (a.k.a. mid-level managers) to propagate the vision accurately to their direct reports.
Second, seek responsibility over accountability. This idea is actually the product of a few key points. One point is that we should avoid blaming others and instead take ownership of resolving issues and problems as they arise, collaborating with others when appropriate. Another point is that we must be painfully honest in order to understand where responsibility needs to be assumed or conceded, especially when it comes to assessing each team member's strengths, weaknesses and goals.
Finally, live for laughs and smiles. I don't know whether this statement is exactly what I want to say, but what I hope to get across with this is that we should maintain our sense of humor as we work to bring smiles to our customers, internally as well as externally. Also, we should strive to generally have fun working together and remember to consume a healthy serving of humor as part of our regular diets. "Great cheese comes from happy cows," as the California Milk Advisory Board promoted.
Now the challenge is working those ideas into the basic fabric of my person so that I truly walk the talk.
