While change may be a constant in the universe, driving deliberate, purposeful, positive change in society is the hallmark of leadership. Great leaders change the course of events, and often of history, by wielding the power of communication.
Significant, meaningful change is rarely if ever, forged by the hands of just one person. More typically, small groups form around a cause for action, and people join together, joined by a shared sense of purpose. Margaret Mead, the American cultural anthropologist, wrote, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” But we should also never doubt that the words of an inspired leader can generate the spark that ignites such movements.
You cannot force people to perform competently, much less valiantly; people who are fully competent always choose to do what they do well for their own personal reasons.
Scientifically validated studies of human behavior show you can perhaps manipulate people to act in your interest, but they will never perform their best under duress. Intrinsic motivation, or acting in accord with your sense of purpose, creates pressure and fuels the drive that causes people to demonstrate grit and push themselves to realize their potential — often beyond what they may have thought possible. People make possible what they believe to be necessary.
Extrinsic motivation (and manipulation in particular) fails to elevate performance. It often does the opposite, causing people to be less diligent and conscientious, leading to mistakes and more broadly contributing to the rampant dysfunction in systems and organizations.
The most unmistakable evidence of organizational dysfunction is the transactional use of excuses.
Excuses are a form of social currency where people buy and sell status and safety to avoid responsibility and personal ownership for their own performance. People tender excuses to either assign or avoid blame. They undermine the value of solutions. Problems get juggled and tossed around like a game of “hot potato” until the music stops, and they land in the lap of whoever was unable to toss them away.
High-performance organizations, by contrast, are defined by people who choose to see problems as opportunities, not for gaining personal recognition but for the betterment of the organization. Taking responsibility for solving problems is driven by a sense of duty. You can then assign the solving of those problems to those most proximate to their source – and the solutions become a source of accomplishment and self-satisfaction that creates an opportunity for joy and fuels the continuous improvement of the organization’s performance. It is a critical factor in how high-performance organizations maintain a sustainable competitive advantage.
You cannot eradicate excuses by edict or through punishment. Outlawing excuses may have the opposite of the intended result: by creating scarcity, you make them more valuable. You eliminate excuses by removing them from circulation, making it impossible to transact with them.
When you stop tendering or accepting excuses, they lose their power and worth. Leadership’s responsibility is to foster an environment that devalues the currency of excuses by making them not just undesirable but useless. You can accomplish this by replacing excuses with a more valuable and durable form of currency. To mint this, you must foster what Peter Senge, author of “The Fifth Discipline,” describes as ‘learning organizations.’
When you stop tendering or accepting excuses, they lose their power and worth.
This currency is the self-satisfaction that people experience when they accomplish significant and meaningful things. People inspired to make themselves fully competent tap into an endless source of deep satisfaction that translates into genuine joy that is far more valuable to high-performers than anything excuses might buy.
Looking to the work of Bob Anderson and Bill Adams, authors of “Mastering Leadership” and the creators of The Leadership Circle assessments, you can see the power of shifting from reactive leadership tendencies to more resourceful creative leadership. Resourceful leadership tends to inure collaboration and innovation, fostering an environment that encourages people to take risks and take responsibility. They also cite clear evidence that these organizations perform more successfully than those guided by reactive leadership.
In organizations with reactive or traditional command-and-control leadership, it is common to litigate problems to assign blame. While it may be important to determine who or what may be responsible for causing a problem and take corrective action, if the intent is to exact punishment, you risk having the truth obscured with all sorts of excuses and obfuscations. Even people of good character might be tempted to avoid the wrath of a self-serving tyrant. (In criminal and civil legal proceedings, we hire lawyers to do that bidding for us.) People hide rather than draw themselves into potential problems – and individual performance suffers.
Creative or resourceful leadership fosters individual learning by making it safe to admit what you do not know. Curiosity is valued more than certainty, and personal growth and competence are nurtured by intrinsic reward. People who learn to solve problems find enormous self-satisfaction, especially when what they accomplish serves to benefit something greater than their personal needs or interests. This process becomes a flywheel of sorts, where people embrace and demonstrate vulnerability, lean into things they are fearful of, and take personal risks to solve problems that affect the organization’s performance.
In this kind of environment, leaders illuminate rather than litigate. You aim to find clarity rather than place blame. The impact of mistakes and problems should be framed in terms of the natural consequences, such as what will or will not happen as a result of not correcting the problem or fixing the mistake. And rather than impose consequences upon those who either cannot or will not perform to the needs of their roles, it is a natural consequence that those individuals who do not make a valuable contribution cannot remain part of the organization.
Instead of using fear to intimidate or manipulate, creative, resourceful leaders help inspire people to choose to be conscientious, demonstrate grit, and accomplish what matters most.
These are your high-performers, and they help attract others looking to make a valuable contribution and experience the satisfaction of doing so. That leaves little room for those who don’t care to perform at their best. Competent people recognize that what you tolerate is what you endorse. And there is no room to tolerate mediocrity when you aim to be exceptional. There are plenty of opportunities for poor performers to serve in dysfunctional or poorly performing organizations. There is no reason to provide these people safe harbor and no good excuse for doing so.
Stop litigating and start illuminating. What can you do to encourage people to be more self-directed and conscientious? How can you brightly illuminate the worthy and indelible purpose that is the foundation for your organization to exist? And, finally, what kind of leader do you need to become to accomplish all this? It might be helpful to remember that the organization makes the leader successful, not the other way around. Typically, the illumination you need to grow comes from those you serve and are around you.
