Leadership - A discussion of traits, characteristics, and current news of leaders.

Last week, Amish leaders brought us all to our knees with sorrow … when gut-wrenching violence struck their strong, peaceful community. We mourn with them… we see who they are to any community … and we want to know more about how they operate so peacefully.

We also wonder how violence and war images weave naturally through the brains of the rest of us… while Amish brains wire differently for peace and reconciliation. These new questions rise up as a phoenix from ashes in the seemingly ridiculous response to violence that we observed in the face of their tragedy and sadness last week.

That image of Amish leaders at a killer’s funeral will continue to project colors and shapes of forgiveness onto screens at the back of our minds.  Its lesson will not fall out of focus, unseen, anytime soon.

To some business heads ... Amish leaders projected a ridiculous and illogical lesson on forgiveness last week. Forgiveness appears ridiculous beside business structures we tend to champion in the West. Its contrasts to images of revenge ... harsh words ... or anger, mock common responses. I’ve been asking a key question - since the powerful story of Amish leaders who attended their family’s killer at his funeral. How can we forgive in ways that prosper business and community in our broken firms?

Two things struck me about leaders, the brain and the amazing Amish lesson of peace to the rest of us. Amish leaders model and help people to:

1.   Rewire their brain’s plasticity for forgiveness and this state existed long before violence struck their caring community.

2. Make learning and peace and forgiveness an adventure that hardwires their daily lives.

We continue to reel in sorrow for the Amish people’s loss… and for their leaders' role to hold up courage, and run from fear. We support our Amish neighbors in any way we can. We also take the ridiculous lesson of forgiveness and consider the possibility of brain based peace plans that could reboot our minds from violence that shadows us daily, to the innovation of peace through forgiveness.

Next to business structures that sue, compete unfairly, abuse others, or backstab … forgiveness looks ridiculous. Life sucks at times and the unfairness gets you in the gut when you expect it least. If you wait to try out forgiveness until life kicks you in the shins … though …your brain cannot rewire that fast for noble choices … because forgiveness will not exist in your basal ganglia. Surprisingly, forgiveness, the brain and the Amish lesson at a funeral last week,  has more to do with business leaders than most people realize.

What would a business structure look like when forgiveness fits into a leader's mental schemata … like it did at a funeral where the victims blessed a killer’s family? I feel curious about that possibility in my own life today.  Could a new mental framework help business leaders to rewire for a new vision… one that would bring mind-bending profitability in new ways? I already have ideas about the brain's role in that change.....  What do you think?

There are 5 two-footed questions that reflective leaders … who are interested in building goodwill … tend to ask when others are sniping at them…. These questions will also help to guide a business out of the path of sharpshooters and into the vaults of profit. The reason there is still mind-bending profit waiting there is because so few leaders have followed responses to these questions to get there….

1. What have we done in past to anger these people and how can we amend it and build goodwill among even those who disagree?

2. Why did dialogue break down in the first place … and what peaceful tactics would restore mutual communication now?

3. What lessons can we learn from the best practices of this opponent and how will it help to restore mutual respect?

4. What would allies of that sniper say about our tone and collaborative leadership in this situation?

5. How are we being perceived as caring leaders who build with others … by our own people … how do we rate with other world leaders in this situation … and what areas do we show reflection and growth that others might recognize as inspirational?

Can you see how 2-footed questions could change leadership from … arrogance … greed … exclusion … narrow-mindedness … and stubbornness … to positions of mutual trust and respect… ? Only then can a nation move forward with much that any of us want from it!  Questions grow new brain cell connectors for further success that this nation lost in the past decade….

If you could get genuine answers to these 2-footed questions… where would you send them…?

Have you noticed that people tend to lose their peace of mind when they make mistakes?  Yet leaders tell you they fear admitting mistakes because they don’t want to get sued. What would happen if a leader used honest mistakes ... as stepping stones to move forward?

A recent study showed an interesting link between physician burnout connected to an increase in perceived medical errors. The study at Mayo Clinic found that doctors who sense they have made a major medical error in the previous three months are more likely to suffer burnout and depression. Unfortunately … because of the brain’s shut down with these conditions … this problem also increases the risk of future mistakes, the study at Mayo Clinic reported in the current issue of Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

Medical errors create a serious problem and the Institute of Medicine   report in 1999 that as many as 100,000 patients die each year because of preventable medical mistakes. In fact  several more recent studies found that a significant proportion of trainees make serious medical errors. It's easy to see why more help is needed. But this research speaks to leaders everywhere....

True... the central purpose of this study was to help doctors make fewer mistakes.  Yet the study shows that  if  physicians face personal distress, and increase future mistakes ... so also do leaders.

While it’s true that mistakes have a strong impact on burnout, empathy and depression in doctors … this vicious cycle can negatively impact client care when leaders ere. Brokers have mistakingly emptied people’s life savings. Builders have added toxins to homes. Drivers have created accidents under similar stress. Let’s face it … mistakes are rarely a good thing…. Furthermore ... we all make them.

Have you noticed that wherever you see respected and progressive leaders you also see collaborators who help others to succeed also? I saw that picture personally in a fellow blogger and leader again today… and it reminded me of positive leadership that emerges daily through blogs! Collaboration… when done well … by respected leaders … impacts us all and can even raise our collective IQ! What do you think? 

 Brain Based Business was just featured on Re:invention Marketing thanks to the generous blog posted there by it’s owner and well-respected leader… Kirsten Osolind and her team.  I am hoping to post Kirsten’s unique and innovative ideas here soon also … as part of the Brain Based Business creative leadership series. In fact I sent her an invitation a few weeks ago.

Kirsten raises our collective IQ … in my mind … because she goes after more …

success for women… in ways that benefit men and women
wisdom from other executives with an open mind and teachable focus
knowledge that comes from cutting edges and leads to inspired changes
collaboration and joint ventures that draw solutions from multiple intelligences
access for great ideas and the courage to see them materialized
friendships that helps leaders to speak and feel heard
tactics that energize enterprising women with supportive tools
results in ways that draw others into excellence and win-win profitability

Today I feel deeply honored to be featured in Kirsten’s blog … and in future I look forward to sharing more of her own creative leadership tips through this site’s creative leader series.  A few weeks ago I emailed the series’  two-footed questions that will bring out even more from Kirsten’s wealth of Brain Based Business tips!

Thanks Kirsten for seeing worth in my ten brain based tips to success and for making success happen for so many women experts! You’ve made my day special and reminded me why I look forward to blogging at KMM… in spite of a very busy week! Thanks for the inspiration!   

Reg Stewart ... the Senior Health Project Coordinator for Quality Improvement at Strong Memorial Hospital ... recently traveled to New Orleans -- armed with a Brain Based question.  I asked Reg a few weeks ago, “What can you find at this point in New Orleans that might give us hope?"

“Not much,” Reg said, when he returned. “The area is 90 percent in the same shape it was immediately after the storm.”

Reg described what he saw as ... “Destroyed properties… with no rebuilding yet in many neighborhoods....”

Apparently, everybody’s waiting for decisions from the politicians – to see how they want to rebuild the city. In the meantime … what you see in New Orleans is almost exactly as it was immediately after the hurricane. Reg said, “I saw water marks 15 to 20 feet in most cases and higher in some…."

“Politicians are holding up the rebuilding at the moment because they have not decided what they want to rebuild and how.” I asked Reg about the progress with insurance companies and was told,  “They are also playing their games – because many want to avoid paying claims.” They are blaming the loss primarily on “water damage from floods and not the winds and hurricane…” which frees them from responsibility since most were not insured for floods.  It seems that the federal government is now involved to persuade insurance companies to pay their policies.

“It's really sad,” Reg said.

I asked this highly respected leader,  to tell me more about the people, and Reg replied... “The people in New Orleans are still without electricity … and with no power… it’s unhealthy and unsafe there.” I was told that people who got their businesses up and  going again… "can only stay open in day because it’s so unsafe without lights at night."

It surprised Reg to see a huge reduction in one of his favorite spots … the French Market.  “It’s only one-third it’s size… with very little enthusiasm there. “You no longer see any vegetables and fruits.” Most vendors have left the area, and Reg predicted there will be “no French market at all … soon.”

Most businesses in the French quarters simply have not re-opened. In that area you see “lots of construction,” unlike other more annihilated sections. Reg sat with his daughter outside in his favorite spot … the  Café DuMonde … for beigne and Café Ole.

New Orleans was depressing and so Reg and his daughter left… as did many of its residents. On the way out … they saw water flooded its way past the outskirts of the city. Reg’s relatives lived in the Basin Street area – with its new brick homes –meticulous – "my sister's house was her mansion – and now her whole neighborhood is demolished and deserted."

“A few daring souls got FEMA trailers and parked these in their yards. But the Basin Street neighborhood is basically gone.” Once beautiful  brick homes now stand in ruins with broken windows and water damage everywhere. "There used to be mini-marts and shops and these too have closed and stand ready to be demolished."

Reg told me he is “still optimistic that it will come around.” He holds out hope because, as he put it… “This is an opportunity for the city to be shaped in a different fashion.” Reg sees hope, if …“the inhabitants of the city could become real contributors to their city and to society…”  He senses that if people can find meaningful ways to contribute and not merely be part of other people’s contributions, New Orleans can be a better city than it was before the storm.

I wholeheartedly agreed with Reg’s concluding statement to my question about hope's possibility… “Unfortunately we have natural disasters … and we can turn these into opportunities for the future….”  What do you think?  

Hal Halladay’s post Mel Gibson’s Passion and Penance intrigued me for a few reasons… mostly because it reminded me that when we wire for bigotry… the brain synergizes those wires. First let me say that ... we all wire mentally for bigotry in one area or another and at some point in our lives. Quite recently a racial slur slipped into an otherwise interesting movie I watched with a good friend in London. I was smitten by the slur because it diminished my friend's culture... but would I have been as smitten if I'd been there with a friend from my own culture? Not sure. Perhaps I'd have seen it as a mere slight or as simply representing the "real world." That question bothered me for days... because bigotry grows when we passively accept comments that devalue ANY human. Does it happen where you work?

Mel Gibson,  actor, producer, director and Oscar winner was arrested for DUI July 28th in Malibu. Because he neglected to reboot his brain he flew into an anti-Semitic tirade and the media cried BIGOTRY as a result.
 

Just as Hollywood is no stranger to bad behavior, we all have issues in life where we see ourselves as superior to another person or group. As Hal pointed out: “In Gibson’s case, it actually took two apologies but the second feels like more than just words. It was not only an acknowledgement of wrong-doing but an action plan to get things right. In a crisis, a pro-active plan leads to support and understanding, particularly if the plan is followed by action.”

The action itself will rewire the brain for understanding and empathy… beyond bigotry. Many people cannot believe Mel’s words: "I am not an anti-Semite. I am not a bigot," or cannot trust Gibson's statement ... "Hatred of any kind goes against my faith. I'm not just asking for forgiveness. I would like to take it one step further, and meet with leaders in the Jewish community, with whom I can have a one-on-one discussion to discern the appropriate path for healing."

That’s because we witnessed Mel's actions which showed his brain wired for their opposite, and the same is often true for ourselves as leaders whenever we fail to.

1. include other cultures or genders for top positions with competitive salaries
2. find ways for different voices to speak and feel heard at work
3. value unique approaches to solving problems in ways that respect diversity

It’s far easier to disdain Mel’s words spoken in a drunken state ... than to reflect on our words to build caring business communities in a state of soberness.

In fact maybe Gibson’s words show bigotry  on the surface … but have already shaped deeper understanding by some… as Jewish leader, Rabbi Daniel Lapin suggests in Toward Tradition, when he graciously defends Gibson:

I read an article, Brain-Based Leading… today… in Notre Dame Business Magazine, where Elizabeth Station wrote…”Some years ago, a prominent politician delighted “C” students at Yale with the assertion that “you, too, can be President of the .” He wasn’t the first to suggest that traditional measures of intelligence don’t always predict leadership success.”

What a brilliant reminder that intelligence is not fixed and fate is not set against your success…. So who’s smart and who’s not? Thanks Elizabeth... I wish we could chat more over lunch…. That is a topic I addressed in detail a few years ago in a series I was invited to write for the Canadian Mensa Magazine. It holds the potential to change lives because it factors in more reality than myth about your brain….

Elizabeth Station showed images for change… from recent research by Management Professor Amy E. Colbert ... which pointed out “the relationship between intelligence and leadership is considerably lower than previously thought.” She added that …  “Colbert and two colleagues reviewed 151 independent studies that probed the intelligence-leadership connection, finding only a moderate link between the two.

When others’ perceptions rather than “pencil-and-paper” tools were used to measure intelligence, the authors found a stronger correlation to leadership. In other words, appearing smart may have a greater impact on perceptions of leadership ability than being smart.”

Then Elizabeth Station throws in a ringer question for renewal … “So if brains aren’t paramount, what qualities do matter most?” She then quotes one response from Colbert who said, said: “There’s a constellation of traits that make a leader.”

Wow – what a question to help us to think bigger, to fit the exciting news… that  we now know about the brain…. Thanks Elizabeth … I plan to blog a series of responses to that brilliant question at the Brain Based Business site. I hope you will join the conversation and help us get to the gems as we mine your wonderful insights on this one.