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Lessons - Bad Leadership vs Good Leadership - The Truth | Alain Hunkins - Fortune 100 Advisor · Success Story with Scott Clary

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  In this lesson's episode, explore why poor leadership rooted in control and fixing problems
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  often fails to inspire lasting results. Discover how shifting focus from numbers to people
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  transforms performance and culture. Understand why self-awareness and wake-up calls are critical
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  for leaders to evolve and uncover strategies for managing up by aligning with shared goals
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  and delivering feedback with tact.
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  Let's discuss what bad or poor leadership is before we talk about what's good leadership.
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  So people may be trying to understand if the not everybody knows what the command and control
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  structure is. So what is bad leadership? How does it display in 2020?
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  Sure, I'll tell you a story that really brings us to life. This is about a guy named
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  Matt. Matt is a district manager and he works in a pretty traditional industry, works in the
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  fast food industry. He works for a fast food franchise. Now what I met, Matt, was one of 100
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  district managers in the whole company. He happened to be ranked number one out of all 100.
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  So I asked him if he was always a top performer. He said, no way. When I started I was like 84th
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  on this list and I was struggled for a while. So I asked him what changed and I think Matt's story
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  is really indicative. So the way he described it is that when he started he described himself as a fixer.
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  He thought his John the district manager and my job is to fix what's wrong and make sure things
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  were working right, which seems like an honest enough thing to do. So every morning they would get
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  a printed out report with their key performance metrics. They called it the hot list.
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  And so he'd scan the hot list and the first thing he'd do is look for what was in red,
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  what wasn't measuring up. Then he'd go, as he called it, into firefighting mode. He would hustle
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  from one store to the other and he'd basically go around and say, this is wrong. You need to fix this.
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  You need to fix this. You have to fix this. Go do this. Do this. And he was struggling. He was doing
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  this way for years. And he said, and I sucked. He said his eyes sucked it. Like things were not
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  getting better. I was working my tail off and things were not getting better. And finally,
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  he had a mentor. He said, look, Matt, people don't want a fixer. They want a leader. So Matt
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  changed his approach. So instead of going in with the hot list and saying, you need to do this.
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  He stopped and he went, okay, when he goes into stores now, he actually builds relationship with
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  people. Hey, Scott, how are you? How was your weekend? What you're up to? And so he would listen and
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  talk with you and ask you about that and build personal relationships with the people before
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  he had seen everyone as these employee worker bees where he said, literally, people would turn
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  over in the stores and he didn't even know their names coming and going. So disconnected from what
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  was going on because he was so focused on the tactics of his hot list. So he'd start with that
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  build relationship. The next thing you do, he's pull out the hot list. But instead of saying,
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  this is wrong. You need to fix this. He would show people the hot list and say, here's the data.
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  What do you think we should do? So very different approach, right? Suddenly, he's now communicating
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  and seeking to understand their point of view. And then together, they'd figure out a game plan
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  for what they needed to work on. So they would collaborate. So he said, the shift for him was I
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  stopped thinking about trying to make the numbers by focusing on the numbers. He said, the shift for
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  me was I started focusing on the people because surprise, surprise, it's the people who make the numbers.
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  And he said, the coolest part about all this, he said, when I was number 84, I worked so much harder
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  and I was so much more stressed out then than I am. And I'm delivering number one results now.
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  So not only are we delivering great results, we're having so much more fun. So I think
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  Matt's story is a really good example of that shift from kind of old school mediocre fixer mentality.
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  I'm the superhero too. No, actually, you're facilitating the work of other people.
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  I like that story a lot. It shows the dichotomy or just the juxtaposition story that's probably
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  the better word between the old school mentality and what you should be doing and how you should be
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  enabling and being that servant leader, not being that task master, you know, cracking the whip.
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  It's just it's such a better way to lead and it's probably the way that I see a lot of forward
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  looking leaders strive to lead and enable because you don't want to be and I think that
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  I'm actually curious as to your opinion on why you think that that command and control
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  fixer mentality is still so prevalent in many industries, not all, of course. But in many,
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  it's still quite the status quo. Yeah, it's interesting. Great question. So you know,
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  we like to say, you know, what gets measured and rewarded is what gets done. And the fact is,
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  unless there is a compelling reason for people to change, change is hard. And if what you have
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  been doing, if you think it works for you, now your people can think your crap. But if you think
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  it's good enough and I have the job and there's no compelling thing that's going to make me change,
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  you'll stick with what you know, you're not going to be an evolved person.
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  You know, my colleague, Tasha Yurk has got this great book called Insight where she talks about
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  the number one skill we need is to be self-aware. And her research has found that literally only like
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  eight to 10% of people are self-aware, though like 70% say they are, which is pretty scary.
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  And one of the things that she suggests is that one thing we need to do to become more self-aware
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  is have these, what she calls these alarm clock moments, these wake up calls. And unless you have
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  that wake up call that hit bottom moment that holy crap what I'm doing is not working, you'll stick
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  with it. And I think so many industries and I've had conversations with many, many, many,
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  mid-level managers that you know what, we kind of try to change things around here, but the people
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  at the top, they're all happy with it and they're not going to change. So if they don't, things around
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  here won't change. And so there's got to be that sense of urgency, you know, John Kotter talks
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  about, you know, the first core to leading changes, you need to have a deep sense of urgency.
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  If it's not important to the leaders in the organization, it's not going to happen to the extent
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  that it can't. Now, yes, can you do things in your own sphere and with your own teams? Yes.
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  And ultimately, I believe every organization is limited by the level of the self-awareness
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  of the leaders at the top of the hierarchy. And in following up on that point,
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  is there a best practice to manage up? Let's assume that it's an optimal circumstance and there
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  could be some change, but how would you suggest somebody manage up to leadership? And when we say
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  leadership, I really want to clarify that it doesn't always have to be in a corporate setting either.
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  It can be in a community setting, it can be in a sports team setting, like there's so many different
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  ways that you can apply these principles to be effective in your specific instance. So, of course,
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  most of this is going to be in business contacts people that are trying to understand how to
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  manage and lead, but there's a lot of other ways. But still, how do you manage up? So how do you,
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  because I've always been told, and I also agree that managing up is probably the hardest part
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  of a leader's or a manager's job, getting people above you to change their mind.
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  Yeah, it is, and it's funny, I was just having this conversation with someone yesterday who
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  was asking, she's actually on a school board and talking about the head of the school board,
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  and that they weren't particularly open and open to change. So same question. And it's interesting
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  because what it takes, it takes a little bit of gymnastics and flexibility to do it,
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  because you can't just go direct until like, hey, you know, you're sucky at this and you change,
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  because that doesn't really work. You have to align yourself with what is our mutual common goal.
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  And so you need to step back and see the big picture. What is that leader who is up above you?
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  What are they trying to achieve? So starting from that place, and then figuring out how can you
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  position and frame what you're going to tell them in light of, this is going to help you
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  help us to be better. So that takes a little bit of, you know, like Ikeeto, right? It's like
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  that Marshall Arts be using their energy to get them there. So if you can get them to agree that
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  we are a line I want to get there, great. Would you be open to some feedback on some other alternatives
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  and see if they're open to alternatives about how we can get there. And then they have now open
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  the door to see that the feedback is actually going to help them in some way. And then can you
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  deliver feedback around, I think if we do things differently, this is all of those great political
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  skills of how do you couch your message in a way that people can hear come into play, which is
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  why I think what you're saying this is why it's such a difficult thing to do because it does take
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  a level of tact and finesse to notice what's working. How do I have to slightly adjust and change my
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  approach so that the person really hears me and that they know that I'm on their side? Certainly
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  some things that we can do in advance is if we have demonstrated that we have done what we can
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  to make our leaders look good and support what they've done in the past, that's going to go a
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  long way to building our credibility as opposed to us coming out of left field and saying, hey,
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  you know, I've got some feedback for you. So that's why I think there's an art to managing up.
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  Check out the links in the description to watch the full episode. See you in the next one.