Friends and Colleagues:
Effective leadership relies on an emotional dynamic that motivates the leader and the led. To be effective it must connect with something inside the parties that propels them to action along a common course. The key to triggering that response will vary for different people but my experience is that for the vast majority of people, higher purpose and a sense of momentum matter far more than money.
This essay represents the third in a series (http://www.patnicholstransitions.com/resources.php; click on Leadership Lessons Compressed #1, 2 & 3). In the first I argued that my work (leading nonprofits/NGO's as they confront major changes) compresses and intensifies the opportunity to learn about leadership. In the second I contended that effective leadership in times of change requires that we find a way to live in hopeful uncertainty.
This series of thoughts came to mind as the result of a collaboration with some trusted colleagues, all of whom serve nonprofits during periods of interim leadership. John Corwin of Corwin Consulting, LLC, Dick Goldbaum of Transitions In Leadership, John Brothers of Cuidiu Consulting and I will be presenting a seminar on related topics at the annual conference of the Alliance for Nonprofit Management. The conference will be from October 6-8 in St. Louis and will include a daylong session on interim leadership in the nonprofit sector (see https://www.allianceonline.org/onevent/details.php?id=68).
I began, above, by referring to leadership as requiring an emotional dynamic. The character of that dynamic can rest at any point along a spectrum from perverse, mean spirited and bullying to inspirational and elevating. I won’t claim that the latter approach is always more effective. We have all seen abusive leaders who are remarkably effective for long periods of time.
However, I have seen, repeatedly, organizations wallowing in self-doubt and recrimination begin to function at a very high level. In these instances the pivotal change was leaders pulling people out of themselves and focusing them on serving an ennobling set of values. By articulating values that draw people to a sense of mission, that remind them that they are capable of higher purposes and by framing every issue, every choices, every challenge around those values leaders can motivate people to take on challenges that, shortly before, would have seemed impossible.
One of the recurring themes of these essays is that the sectors of the economy have much to teach one another. Nonprofits understand the power of values-motivation far better, on average, than corporate leaders, but its relevance is not confined to them. Two of my favorite companies, many readers will remember, are Southwest Airlines and Ritz Carlton. Employees of Southwest pride themselves on making air travel affordable for everyone. The folks at Ritz Carlton carry cards that remind them that they are "ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen."
My theory is that corporate leaders often make money a bigger and more perverse motivator by imagining it to be more important than it is and relying too heavily on it. This emphasis, in turn, tends to attract people with a money pathology, compounding the cultural problem.
My experience, and considerable research, suggests that money can be a great tool for fine tuning and focusing the motivation, and that a fair level of compensation is necessary for good morale. But, as a primary motivator, it is more perverse than effective.
Values-motivation, though, only works if people also believe that success is possible. Oddly, in order to achieve success leaders need to create a sense that success is already being achieved. The metaphor I often use with colleagues is that when a train is stranded at the station, everyone on the platform remains determined to get every piece of baggage on board. In the case of a troubled organization baggage includes old grievances and frustrations, rejected ideas, anger at management and the desire to shuffle blame.
On the other hand, when the train begins to move, most people will decide they would like to make the impending journey and they will do a pretty good job of deciding what is important enough to take on board and what can be left on the platform.
Now obviously, if there are fundamental flaws in the mission or in the business model, those can't be repaired quickly. My favorite technique for creating momentum is to identify two or three things that must improve no matter what changes are made to the mission or the business model. In my experience, these always exist. They may include improving the timeliness or usefulness of the financial information, or increasing product or service quality, or the speed and accuracy of distribution, or convincing key constituencies that leadership is listening.
Whatever these changes are, though, they have to be subject to rapid improvement and they have to matter to a lot of people. My colleagues and I identify them and then we set short-term goals—90 to 120 days—as to how they will be measurably improved. Sometimes the measurements are obvious, as they would be with distribution, and sometimes they come in the form of surveys (e.g. X% of a customer group say we’re being responsive now, but in 90 days it will be 1.5X%).
Then we bust our backsides to make sure that those goals are met.
In so doing we create a better focused and more motivated workforce, we refine our teamwork and we create an environment in which we can constructively examine the longer-term issues.
As always, I welcome your comments and critique.