Leading Effectively Blog

Tiger and Pitino: Leaders and their "Transgressions"

I was shocked with the Tiger Woods news of "transgressions" off the golf course this week.

I was also shocked several months ago when Rick Pitino, head college basketball coach of the Louisville Cardinals, admitted to his own “transgressions” which included an extramarital affair and a certain pay-off.

Many people (me included) identified so much with these people. We saw these people as role models and as leaders. Now, many of those same people, including me, can’t look at them the same, can’t see them as role models or leaders anymore, and in fact, may feel betrayed and hurt. Why have I, and many others, lost respect for these people? Why are we appalled and, maybe in the extreme, maybe feeling a physical repulsion against these people?

In psychology, there is a theory called social identity. To help sustain or even boost our self-esteem, and to make us feel like part of a group, we tend to identify with people who are like us and we have a favorable bias for those who tend to be like us. For me, I identified with Tiger Woods – we are both children of mixed-race marriages, we both have Asian mothers, we both play golf, we are both born in December, we are both in our early 30s, our mothers both told us of strong colors to wear (his mother told him red, my mother told me blue). His golf victories felt like mine. For me, I identified with Rick Pitino – we both are Catholic, we both try to teach others (he on the basketball court and in his public speakings, me with my work, writing and my own teaching at NC A&T State University and other speaking engagements). I was always a big fan of his teams.

When an individual we look up to or identify as a leader, suddenly does something that is in complete contrast to what is our own value system, or that of the group to which we thought we belonged, that’s when we feel a dissonance. We have to try to keep our self-esteem in check, so oftentimes, we try to completely remove ourselves from these people. That’s what I’m feeling right now with these two people, and probably what others feel as well. It’s only natural.

When things like “transgressions” happen to our role models or leaders, it still shocks me, but should it really? We are all human. But, we naturally tend to put leaders under the microscope. We just expect more of our leaders. It’s only natural.

If you are in the position of a role model or leader, you just have to accept that role models and leaders will be scrutinized, and you are no different. You will be put on a pedestal and will continually have a spotlight on you at work, away from work, in meetings, in your community, in the airport, in elevators, with your family, with your friends, with children, behind closed doors, or in other places where people, or you deep down inside, may think you should not be.

As closing thoughts, think about these things:

If you are a parent of a star basketball player wanting to go to college, would you want a coach with “transgressions” coming into your house, and convincing you that he/she should coach, teach, and mold, your kid for the next four years on and off the basketball court about how to live life? What type of leader should come into your household? Are you that type of leader?
 
Another way I myself identified with Tiger, we are both extremely close to our fathers. In talking this week with my major professor from graduate school at UGA, Karl Kuhnert brought this point up: If Tiger’s father, who passed away a couple of years ago, were still around, what do you think he would say to his son about his “transgressions?” If you were Tiger’s mother or father, what would you say?

Finally, what do you think Tiger has to say to his own kids one day about all of this when they are old enough to start understanding, grasping, and comprehending what “transgressions” really are? How can he now be a role model and leader to his kids, or the millions of kids who look up to him, or the millions of kids who are helped by money from his own charity work and foundation?

If you really want to be, or are forced to be, a leader and role model, you just have to accept the fact that more is expected of you.

A Holiday Wish: enough discomfort

What do these companies have in common that's related to the current economic situation? Burger King, MTV, CNN, FedEx, Intel and Microsoft? 

That’s right; they all began during slow economic times and each has been a significant force in modern culture. There have been 8 U.S. recessions since the Great Depression (1953, 1957-8, 1973-5, 1980 & 81-82, 1990-91, and 2001-2) and interesting things took place in each of them. 

 -Burger King started in 1954 when the Florida franchisees of the Insta-burger King chain, James McLamore and David Edgerton, began their takeover. 

-Fred Smith started FedEx express in 1971 in Arkansas, but lack of support from the airport led him to move to Memphis during the 1973 recession. 

-That was also the year that an employee of Honeywell (Paul Allen) and a Harvard student (William Gates, III) were inspired by the appearance of the MITS Altair 8800 computer on the cover of Popular Electronics to create a version of BASIC that would run on it. 

-During the double-dip recession that began in 1980 both MTV and CNN got their starts. Ted Turner (CNN) started a music video channel (Cable Music Channel in 1984, but after one money-losing month sold it to MTV who developed it into VH1). 

Game-changing innovation doesn’t depend on an abundance of time or resources. It thrives whenever people are energized by possibility. Perhaps it does even better in tough times because a certain discomfort can get us to get up and do something about our discontent. Well, at least, discomfort has been my friend on that front most of my life. 

My wish for you this December is sufficient lack of comfort to get you moving on the great ideas incubating in your noggin or that came up in the last late-night bull session. I’m eager to see the next world-changing idea come out of the garage. And this is the right time for it. 

Your uncomfortable friend,

Doug

Thanks to Bruce Goodman of the Michigan law firm Varnum in their November Energy newsletter “Watts News," referenced in the ACC news feed:  ACC Link

It's Not the Ice You See that Rips the Hull

©iStockphoto.com/pkline

For 35 years I've prided myself on running pretty good meetings. I keep people on the topic, complete the task, ensure everyone has a chance to contribute (even those shy or anxious members), and focus on action outcomes with accountability. But it doesn’t take much for a meeting leave the tracks and plunge into the icy waters below.

In fact, all it takes is forgetting to surface the hidden expectations and assumptions that everyone is carrying when they enter. I had to learn that again recently when I led a meeting to make some policy recommendations for the Center.

On the surface the meeting went well. Everyone spoke, although some more than others. One of the members had written a memo that sparked the meeting, so that person contributed more than others, but that would be expected, wouldn’t it? We’d had over a week of a virtual data collection process in which a wide range of other professional staff had been invited to write their experiences or expert advice. I asked that each person open the meeting with any concerns they’d like to raise and then we proceeded on the basis of proposals. We got them all covered in the two hours allotted and I took the results and wrote a summary.

So, how did I know that the meeting was a flop? Every member of the group (and a few other colleagues) called or wrote me after the meeting with a proposal to either strengthen or revise the recommendations I’d collected in the summary.

Why weren’t these raised in the meeting? Of course, it’s possible some people hadn’t really given the issue enough attention in the days leading up to the meeting. However, when I questioned those who communicated later, I found that a whole set of hidden assumptions had sunk our little ship:

1.    “Doug, I expected that you, as an expert in this, would have spoken up more.”

2.    “I didn’t want to be seen as just pushing my own agenda.”

3.    “I didn’t feel like getting into an open conflict with ______.”

4.    “I don’t think I really understood what was being asked of us.”

They all seem reasonable issues to me. They should have been addressed in the meeting.

So, what are the lessons I’m taking from this?

1.    When everyone’s attention is stretched thin, it may take two meetings: one to get participants to really focus and understand the issues and context, and another to knock out something that can stand.

2.    Taking time to get clear about the purpose of the meeting, the roles to be played by each of the participants, and the group norms can save a lot of time later.

3.    I should trust my gut. If I’m feeling hurried or anxious or frustrated, there’s a good chance I’m responding to something emerging in the group. Take time to figure out what it is and if I can’t figure it out, ask the group.

Why is it that the hardest lessons to learn are the ones we have known all along?

Good luck with  your meetings,

Doug

What do you see? A different kind of conversation at New York University's Wagner Graduate School for Public Service

How do we develop leadership for public service?

A number of us at CCL have the pleasure of collaborating with colleagues at the Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service at New York University. One question we have explored together is, How do we develop leadership for public service?  Wagner sees its relationship to student through this lens of leadership development. Dean Ellen Schall's addressed this year's graduating class and talked about this relationship:

"We have always understood at Wagner that it mattered how we started to engage you, even as prospective students, that we were beginning a conversation, perhaps a relationship--one that could last for years. Two years ago, when many of you applied, we decided to add a particular twist to our application, in part to get your attention, in part to signal we were after a different level of engagement. We gave you the possibility of responding to a photo, a visual image, from a collection of images developed by colleagues at the Center for Creative Leadership. As you may remember, we use Visual Explorer, which is what CCL calls this approach, at orientation as well. The basic idea is that it’s easier to get the conversation started when you have an object in the middle. And we wanted to get a conversation started."

This "twist" has worked well.

“It allows us to get a deeper sense of the applicant’s passion for/commitment to an issue, and unlocks the depth of interest in a way that is not always achievable in a standard admissions essay,” says Tracey Gardner, Wagner’s chief of staff.

This Sunday's New York Times published a slide show of the most compelling images and themes.

What does a swimming tiger suggest about public policy, or a pricked finger say about your goals?

Development of leadership in public service begins with engagement. How do you attract and engage students so that learning can be deeper? It can start with a simple question: What do you see?

"Too often," notes Ellen Schall, "applying to graduate school is transactional. We added Visual Explorer because we wanted to signal that the Wagner experience is transformational. Visual Explorer calls for people to slow down enough to reflect on their own experiences, connect their passion for public service to their professional goals, and offer their own perspectives on how to change the world."

Contact Chuck Palus at CCL Labs for more information on using Explorer Tools to create more effective and engaging surveys, and for visual support for collaborative conversations.For more information on this work at NYU Wagner click here.

We're Not Your Parents' CCL

Warning: shameless, self-serving propaganda alert!

Let me be absolutely clear: what follows is completely self-serving and if this kind of thing bothers you, you should stop reading now.

Glad we cleared that up.

I’ve been at CCL long enough to see some interesting patterns in the ebb and flow of what clients want from CCL. Only a couple of years ago, many clients were focused on building their internal capacity to train leaders. Several large clients had the idea that they would learn what we do and then they could do it themselves. Personally, I’m a great fan of building the capability of clients to do leadership development and talent management with internal resources. However, I’ve seen a shift away in several substantial clients from the focus on doing themselves. Why would this be?

It is not because they don’t have top internal professional staff. The quality of education and preparation I encounter in the learning and development, talent management and organizational development groups in large companies continues to improve all the time.

It’s not because their own trainers can’t learn to do CCL’s industrial strength facilitation of learning experiences. Much of what we’ve developed has become well known in the training community and we've trained thousands to do it.

Rather, there are two big speed bumps that affect this.

The first is that the creation of great learning experiences is amazingly demanding. The staff support and creative energy required merely to duplicate what it takes to create an LDP (Leadership Development Program™) is very costly. But that’s what it takes to create transformative experiences that have lasting impact.

The second speed bump is more important. Although CCL has created great programs, powerful research that’s had significant effects on leadership, a wide range of publications and resources (just look at the burgeoning Explorer series (Visual Explorer, Leadership Metaphor Explorer, Values Explorer), and an impressive array of services (coaching, evaluation services, Leadership Beyond Boundaries, etc.), that’s not why clients want to stay close to us.

Clients want to stay close to us because what’s being created next is always more interesting and valuable than what we’ve already shared. It’s entirely possible to take CCL programs and make them your own. We’ll even train your professional staff to deliver your internal leadership programs. But what’s the point? As leadership changes and the demands on leaders change, what worked yesterday is only a partial solution to what is needed today. It doesn’t begin to meet the needs for tomorrow. We invest in research and collaboration with other practitioners all over the globe because leadership is still a very young field. The most important lessons are yet to be learned.

Stay close to us. The most valuable thing we have to offer is the relationship of collaborative inquiry that leads to life and world-changing discovery. Stay tuned because you don’t want to miss what’s next.

Doug