Jack Hite Jr.

May 2019  - TD Magazine

Synopses of Networking for People Who Hate Networking, Second Edition and Powerhouse 13

Book Capsules, May 2019

Summer 2014 - The Public Manager

Not all managers are leaders. Follow these pragmatic propositions, told through the eyes of an employee, to make you a better leader. "I am a senior level executive and the leader of this office. Why hasn't anyone asked for my opinion on how to proceed? It doesn't matter; I will give it anyway; I am a senior level executive." This is an actual statement from an individual who falsely identified himself as a leader.His positional authority and yes men/women acolytes gave him a false sense of security regarding his knowledge, skills, and abilities. The fact that people acquiesced to his demands did not make him any more of a leader than being six foot seven makes an individual a professional athlete.People followed him and did what they were told due to a sense of obligation and sometimes fear. They did not engage in such behavior because they wanted to do so. Self-preservation was the rule. Empowerment, autonomy, and considered thought prior to rendering judgment were nonexistent.What Leadership Is NotHow can a leader do and be better? Let me first explicate nonleadership activities. Leadership is not homogenized knowledge. Leadership does not include engaging in pseudo-intellectual debates simply to hear your own voice. Leadership is not artificial inclusionary discussions when you already have the proposed answer, or the answer that fits your personal or political agenda.Leadership is not histrionic portrayals of feigned anger or omniscience. Leadership is not abusive, contrived, Machiavellian, or deceitful. Leadership does not employ self-righteous declarations and holier-than-thou proclamations. Leadership does not include showing favoritism that is not merit based. Although cliché, the adage that "people don't leave organizations, they leave bosses" has merit.Organizational climates can be positive and empowering, or they can be laced with negativity and demotivating situations that prove problematic and lead to irreparable organizational and relational damage. Some organizational leaders have a misconception that they have a positive attachment to individuals within the workforce, but their perceptions are often wildly inaccurate.The paradoxical nature of leadership suggests that while it is possible that the actual leader is smarter than most people in the room, he should not act like it. Be of the team and for the team, not above the team. While leaders may have deeper understanding of what they want, they should embrace diversity of opinion and avoid groupthink.Leadership is about adaptability, flexibility, and understanding your raison d'être. Leadership transcends hedonistic, individualistic, and narcissistic elements. It is servant based.Serving others, encouraging their success, and offering a prescription for organizational success will create a platform for your success. As you continue your leadership journey, it is foundational that you are cognizant of the human complexity factor and execute effective human capital engineering efforts that will solidify your identification and inclusion as a leader.Here are pragmatic propositions, told through the eyes of an employee, that can make you a better leader.Human Capital EngineeringAs a leader, it is integral that you employ behaviors that are above reproach. This is not to suggest that you exhibit immortal qualities, but it does propose that employees hold you to a higher standard of excellence.As employees, we constantly watch you and pay attention to even the smallest of details. How we employees respond is positively correlated to how you lead.Personal Leadership QualitiesThe below discussion of expected behaviors is extensive and further validates the conception that leadership is not an easy task. Powerful and positive leadership is developed over time.Individuals who aspire to call themselves leader or be considered a leader by others must engage in deliberate practice. One cannot merely hope to reach the summit of a mountain without moving in the appropriate direction.Have integrity. As you transition from a marginal leader to the best leader that you can be, keep in mind that integrity is critical. People want to follow leaders that employ a strong value system and have certain non-negotiable principles.Strong character, fairness, and servant leadership are elementally important. Honesty is the best policy when leading others.Small leadership faux pas can be avoided and forgiven by forthright communication and interactions that mirror respect, propriety, and dignity. Do not offer excuses for mistakes. We all make mistakes. We just request that you accept responsibility and accountability when mistakes do arise, handle them appropriately, and move on.Have vision. Tell us stories that capture our hearts and minds. We might not necessarily need to know where you are going, but we need to know that you know where you plan to take us.Be fair in your dealings with peers, subordinates, and superiors. While it is acceptable to have different conversations with varied individuals, it is neither suitable nor appropriate to treat people differently because you deem someone to be of higher status or significance.Be willing to listen and ask questions. We do not expect that you are omniscient. We are cognizant that your experiences are not all encompassing. We do expect, however, that you employ the necessary level of intellectual humility to heed sage counsel given by others, regardless of their title or perceived power and authority.Engage in reflective practices that will enhance your self-awareness. Socrates opined that the unexamined life is not worth living. While his sentiment might be over-exaggerated, it is sublime in its simplicity and powerful in profundity. Listen to such sagacious counsel. Strive to know yourself better than anyone else and help others do the same.Workplace ExpectationsEmployees also have expectations of their managers and leaders.Lead by example. When you strive to do your best, so will we. Encourage social learning, Harold Jarche wrote in his 2010 whitepaper, "A Framework for Social Learning in the Enterprise." Leverage collective and experiential knowledge, Nancy Dixon wrote in her 2009 blog, "Three Eras of Knowledge Management."The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. As individuals, it will take us significantly longer to address disparate issues. As a high-performing team that leverages networked intelligence, the probability of offering creative and sustainable solutions to diverse problem sets appreciably increases.Promote interactional justice. The manner in which you talk with and treat people do not go unnoticed and are tasks that should not be taken lightly. Consider yourself a shepherd. Your stewardship over your flock is elementally important.Unlike sheep, however, the human complexity factor cannot be discounted. Humans are likely to engage in deviant workplace behavior as an equity restoration mechanism if they are consistently threatened or treated with a lack of dignity, respect, and propriety.Encourage collaboration. Cognitive diversity, civility of communication, plurality of expression, and salience of thought allow us to effectively achieve organizational objectives. Do not be afraid to hire or engage people who are better than you are. Doing so indicates that that you are secure in your abilities and aspire to build an ecosystem of trust, respect, and mutual admiration.Do not vacillate when organizational restructure efforts will amplify the team dynamic and lead to increased productivity, trust, and interpersonal loyalty. Sometimes people need to be given the opportunity to excel elsewhere. Even if that is the case, treat those individuals with dignity, love, and respect, and help them as they work to find suitable employment opportunities that match their skill set and knowledge base.Offer constructive, actionable feedback. Amorphous comments are not helpful. Concrete suggestions are preferred. Allow people to fail. Foster an environment in which taking risks is promoted and accepted. Encourage us to pay attention to the lessons learned and try again.Practical ApplicationsWhat leaders do—how they apply leadership concepts—counts, too.Engage in effective conflict management. Understand and disentangle intent from impact. Focus on interests versus positions. Listen. Acknowledge concerns. Ask questions. Reframe issues to better understand perspectives.Separate the people from the problem, as Roger Fisher and William L. Ury wrote in Getting to Yes (2011). Work to define and execute mutually agreeable solutions. Do not project how you think an employee feels about a particular situation until you have engaged him or her in meaningful intellectual discourse. Assume noble intent and engage accordingly.Do not be reductivist when explaining or working to resolve organizational issues. We are intelligent beings and have the capacity to understand. Give us the information and allow us to make the right decisions.Understand that the proposed resolution to varied organizational issues must match the complexity, magnitude, intensity, and variety of the problem you are intending to solve. Do not make things harder than necessary, but take caution not to underestimate situations, especially when entering uncharted territory.Offer an attractive incentive structure. When the goal is reached, do not move the finish line. If you do not reward high performers for doing well, being team players, and offering value, it is only logical to expect that the same level of output will decline."People will be highly motivated when they believe that their behavior will lead to certain rewards, that these rewards are worthwhile and valuable, and that they are able to perform at a level that will result in the attainment of rewards," according to W. Warner Burke (Organization Change: Theory and Practice, 2013). This is expectancy theory at its most fundamental level.Understand that change is hard for some people, but do not settle for the status quo or inadvertently remain complicit in the perpetuation of normalized deviance. Communicate changes, explain how the changes will prove beneficial, anticipate resistance, offer viable alternatives, and do not push revolutionary change if it can be avoided.Evolutionary change is better, because it affords people the opportunity to adjust and give closure to the "old way" of doing things. The degree of ease in which change initiatives are introduced and subsequently executed are positively correlated to the amount of choice individuals feel that they have during the implementation phase.Consider making changes when things are going well. Psychologically and behaviorally, we can accept and execute change initiatives better when those changes take place in a positive, stable, non-chaotic environment instead of during turbulent and high-pressure periods caused by a constellation of internal or external pressures. Experiential, anecdotal, and empirical evidence suggest that people do not categorically resist change initiatives, but rather the imposition of change. Burke advised that when people feel as if their freedom is in jeopardy, the immediate reaction is likely to be an attempt to regain the feeling of freedom.Commit to continuous learning and self-improvement. Create an environment that promotes the same. Insist on an ethical climate, collaboration, creativity, truth, mutual respect, high individual performance, and teamwork. Do not be silent on issues of importance.Indifference, apathy, and insouciance are neither welcomed nor well received. Be willing to stand alone. Your team will respect you for it and will not leave you. Organizational commitment, job satisfaction, and loyalty will increase not because individuals necessarily care about the company, but because they care about you.Finally, be balanced. Strive to live a harmonious life. Do not strive to gain the world and all its material possessions, but lose your soul in the process. Maintain a sense of family, community, and commitment to the success of others. That's whom we want to follow. Set an example. Remain accountable. Be a leader.Do these things and your employees will be willing to help you. They will stick by your side through the toughest of times. When you believe in us, we will believe in you.If people follow because they want to and not due to a sense of obligation, then you will have permission to call yourself a leader.

You Call Yourself a Leader? Here’s What a Follower Thinks

Roy T. Bennett could not have been more wrong when he said, “The one who falls and gets up is stronger than the one who never tried. Do not fear failure but rather fear not trying.”Even President Barack Obama forgot to note that “others” can define you by your failures when he said, “You can’t let your failures define you. You have to let your failures teach you.”Though I make these claims in tongue and cheek, this is how many leaders feel today. Leaders must always say and do the “right” things or risk having their career ended by cancel culture.What Is Cancel Culture?Merriam-Webster defines cancel culture as “the practice or tendency of engaging in mass canceling as a way of expressing disapproval and exerting social pressure.” Being “canceled” has ended careers and wreaked havoc on many personal lives.With humble beginnings in 2015, cancel culture first appeared on Black Twitter to refer to a personal decision, sometimes seriously and sometimes in jest, to stop supporting a person or their work. The phrase quickly grew in popularity. By 2017, the idea of “canceling” celebrities for problematic actions or statements became extremely popular. Admittedly, when I first heard about “canceling people” for inappropriate actions, I felt it was very overdue; but today, I have many more questions and much more concern.As leaders, we can learn more from our mistakes and the mistakes of others than we can from instances where everything goes as planned. But, sadly, there is a growing number of leaders who are hesitant to share stories of their past mistakes for fear of being “canceled.” In fact, on the Alex Tremble Show, I find myself preceding certain comments or questions with “I hope I don’t get canceled for this” before addressing a sensitive topic my audience wants to learn more about but are too afraid to ask.Why Cancel Culture Is ToxicBut, as Dr. Jean Kanokogi (co-author of Get Up & Fight: The Memoir of Rusty Kanokogi, The Mother of Women’s Judo) shared during our interview, “when the rules are written, and they are so out-of-date, then it’s time to push the envelope.” Our society has adopted an unwritten rule that requires us to remain silent on difficult issues if we don’t want our voices to be silenced and our careers to be derailed. But, it’s those difficult and crucial issues that we must wrestle with to grow as leaders and as a society. And, as leaders, it is our job to fight those things that are wrong.A recent Pew study found that although many Americans feel that cancel culture can be used to hold leaders accountable for their actions and fight against systemic racism and sexism, many respondents felt that “people need to consider the context in which the statement is made.”As leaders, we must be able to distinguish between black, white, and gray. Yes, there are some things that are 100 percent good all the time and should be supported. Yes, there are things that are 100 percent bad all the time and should be addressed speedily. But, as leaders, we know that most things are gray, nuanced, and require much more discussion and learning to fully understand.How to Make Space for Difficult DiscussionsSo, do I know where the black, white, and gray lines are for every situation? No. But, I know that leaders must be willing to stand up and push for those spaces where honest and raw conversation can be had. We must maintain safe spaces where people can learn from mistakes and discuss different perspectives on complex and sensitive issues. As Zondwa Mandela once shared, “truly great leaders are the ones who push back when they see something wrong and make the right decisions even when it’s not popular.”Great leaders don’t make tough decisions because they want to be different—they make them because they know that things need to be different.Like most things in life, being successful in this endeavor requires intentionality. Thus, in addition to the strategies discussed in my TD article "Career Launch," the following recommendations should be incorporated within any talent development program you lead:Opportunities to learn and grow from open and honest discussions, without the fear of being ostracized or canceledClear confidentiality and non-judgment norms for those spacesHumor and entertainment whenever and wherever possibleThe last point is extremely important. Especially with serious or challenging topics, these topics require a great deal of cognitive and emotional energy to adequately address them. Providing opportunities for levity and bonding can “refill the tank” and lead to more positive outcomes.In ClosingDave Chappelle recently said:"Our culture has accepted two huge lies. 1. If you disagree with someone’s lifestyle, you must fear or hate them. 2. To love someone, you must agree with everything they believe. Both are nonsense. You don’t have to compromise convictions to be compassionate."I am not asking everyone to agree with one another on everything. I am only asking that we seek to understand one another and provide the space for the crucial and difficult conversations that are needed for us to grow as leaders and as a country.

Jack Hite Jr.

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