There's No Me In Leadership

Am I the only one who's gotten tired of all the stories we've had lately about self absorbed "leaders" behaving badly? Just in the last couple of weeks I've written about four of them in the posts, Four Dogs, One Hero and Three Danger Signals That Your Integrity Is At Risk. Now, we have Congressman Anthony Weiner and his creepy sexting scandal and world class lying about it. I wrote about Weiner three years ago and, clearly, things haven't gotten any better with him.

The part of the Weiner story that really stood out for me was the self-portrait that was released in which he's holding up a little sign that says "me" to prove to one of his correspondents that, yes, he's the same Congressman Weiner she's seen on TV. We've all heard that, "There's no I in team," and now Weiner has reminded us that there's no "me" in leadership.

The real leaders are the ones who make it all about them - the people they're leading. They're what some call servant leaders. They act in service of the people they lead. I'm fortunate to have a lot of coaching clients who fit that definition. One of them is a guy I'll call Sam who was just assigned an interim senior management role after his previous boss left the organization. Frankly, Sam's strategy since taking the role has been to do the opposite of whatever his boss did. In a nutshell, that means connecting with people in ways that work for them and create the focus and morale required to get stuff done.

The stuff Sam is doing is simple really. They're the kind of things that people do if they're focused on the needs of others and understand that there is no me in leadership. Here are a few examples of what Sam's doing that's working for his team:

Sending an email to his extended team to wish them a happy and safe holiday weekend. Believe it or not, Sam got heartfelt thank you notes back for this that essentially said, "Thank you for thinking of us."

• Sending an email to the extended team that specifically welcomed new members, clarifying what roles they would play and giving everyone a heads up on what's coming next. This goes a long way in organizations that are in the midst of a lot of change (which is most organizations these days).
• Establishing a recognition "club" to celebrate everyone who makes their quarterly goals.
• Sharing his perspective from an annual customer conference with the entire team. Sam is focused on establishing the context so people see how they fit into the bigger picture.
• Spending a lot of time walking and calling around to see how people are doing.

Like I said, simple stuff. It's not rocket science. It all flows from understanding that there's no me in leadership.

What are the simple things you've done or seen a leader do that really make a positive difference?