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Why New Leaders Fail: Common Pitfalls to Avoid
Leadership
From Amateur to Pro: Embracing the Path of a Practicing Leader
Estimated reading time: 11 minutes
I had a, “I’ve been thinking about this all wrong,” moment the other week.
After reading and loving, The War of Art, I immediately read Steven Pressfield‘s next book, Turning Pro. In that book, Pressfield describes the difference between an amateur and a professional leader. Specifically, professionals have a practice. As part. of their practice, they get up, go to a set place, at a set time, and do their work.
He writes, “A practice may be defined as the dedicated daily exercise of commitment, will and focused attention, aimed on one level at the achievement of mastery in a field, but on a loftier level, intended to produce a communion with a power greater than ourselves.”
As he continued describing the elements of a practice for creating art, it occurred to me that leadership followed many of the same rules. The implications of this realization are that someone who practices leadership can be more successful in any leadership role than someone with technical or subject area expertise.
As we start to view leadership as its own discipline, requiring a practicing mindset, it means that most senior leadership roles are being filled incorrectly. Rather than looking at someone’s technical abilities, length of tenure, or other pre-requisites, perhaps we should be looking at their results, team engagement, and character.
The results we feel are ones that permeate so much of my LinkedIn field. Arrogant bosses, narcissists and egomaniacs in Senior Leadership roles at the top of large organizations cascade misery throughout their organizations. When this happens, employees stay in misery and low productivity, or leave looking for better organizations. When employee engagement and low and turnover is high, management in supervisory roles are almost always the reason.
Understanding leadership as a practice in itself means understanding the qualifications for senior leaders totally differently than we do today.
Characteristic #1: The Practicing Leader has Intention
In Turning Pro, Pressfield writes, “Our intention…is to get better, to go deeper, to work closer and closer to the bone.”
The Practicing Leader has a leadership philosophy, which serves as their intention. She proactively decides what her team needs from her to be successful and puts that into place. She wants to be a leader to make a difference or to improve something. The Practicing Leader understands that leadership is not about her, but about the people she leads.
Characteristic #2: The Practicing Leader has as a Warrior Mindset
Pressfield explains, “The Sword Master stepping onto the fighting floor knows he will be facing powerful opponents. Not the physical adversaries whom he will fight, though those indeed serve as standards for the enemy. The real enemy is inside himself.”
The Practicing Leader is self-aware. He solicits others for feedback. He has a thick skin and does not take feedback personally. The Practicing Leader knows who he is because he has defined his values. He meditates and takes care of himself to continue to practice leadership and service for years to come.
The Practicing Leader is not deterred by obstacles or failure. He looks for new ways to accomplish goals and protect his team. He leaves nobody behind.
Characteristic #3: The Practicing Leader is Humble
Steve Pressfield writes, “We come to a practice in humility. We may bring intention and intensity to our practice. In fact, we must. But not ego. Dedication, even ferocity, yes. But never arrogance. The space of the practice is sacred.”
One test I have come across to understand the humility of a leader is their motivation for leadership. If ego is motivation, then leadership is not the right fit for that person. You call tell this by learning if the leader wants to “Be something” or “Do something.” If they want to be something, it is probably more ego.
Being a “Boss” in business is about ego. Characteristics of most bosses is status (Do as I say!), arrogance (What can I learn from someone like you?), and a lack of self awareness (Everybody loves me!). The character Michael Scott from the sitcom The Office comes to mind.
Additionally, modern attention seeking politicians fall into this category as well. These are the people who enjoy the trappings of the job, seeking fame, not better policy.
Pressfield writes, “My beef with American culture is that almost every aspect, including the deliberations of the legislature and the judiciary, has been debased to pander to the culture of amateurism. The promise that our products and politicians proffer is the promise one might make to an infant or an addict. I will get you what you want and it will cost you nothing.”
Sadly, we do the same with some people in Senior Leadership roles. We promote bosses and politicians and then wonder why we get amateur results.
Characteristic #4: The Practicing Leader is a Student
According to Pressfield, “Even the peerless sword-master Miyamoto Musashi. Entered the fighting square to learn as much as to teach.”
The Practicing Leader always has more to learn. She approaches her team as a student and a servant, learning and synthesizing information to make life easier, more focused, and more productive. She goes to where the work is, and does not turn her office into an ivory tower.
The Practicing Leader is a voracious reader, getting her hands on all the information she can to be a better as a professional. She learns from everyone around her, regardless of title, and strives to nurture and develop more practicing leaders.
Characteristic #5: The Practicing Leader Practices for Life
Finally, Pressfield explains, “Once we turn pro, we’re like sharks who have tasted blood or renunciants who have glimpsed the face of God. For us there is no finish line. No bell ends the bout. Life is the pursuit. Life is the hunt. When our hearts burst then we’ll go out, and no sooner.”
The Practicing Leader views leadership as a lifelong endeavor. As long as there is a worthy cause requiring the power of collective thinking, the leader will answer the call.
Examples
To illustrate that practicing leaders exist and the benefits of approaching leadership this way, there are three case studies worth focusing on: Ted Lasso, Vince Lombardi, and Richard Branson.
Example #1: Ted Lasso
I’ve written in the past about Ted Lasso, one of my favorite television shows.
The Apple TV+ series is about a college football coach who is hired to manage a Premier League soccer team in England.
It is a running joke in the show that Lasso knows nothing about soccer. However, he knows about leadership.
Just look at Lasso’s first press conference and the question here gets from journalist Trent Crimm: “I just want to make sure I have this right: You’re an American, who has never set foot in England, whose success has only come at the amateur level, a second tier one at that and is now being charged with the leadership of a premier league football club, despite clearly possessing very little knowledge of the game…Is this a joke?”
Now, just 2 years later, Trent Crimm is writing a book about Ted Lasso’s coaching style. He describes Lasso’s leadership, which we witness him practicing throughout the series, like this: “Slowly but surely building a club wide culture of trust and support to thousands of imperceptible moments.”
SPOILER ALERT (Skip this paragraph if you haven’t watched the finale): At the end of the series, Lasso becomes a successful soccer coach.
If you looked at Lasso’s traditional resume, he had no business coaching in the Premier League. However, his success skyrocketed when he found a tactic that supported the culture he built as a leader.
While Ted Lasso is, of course, a hypothetical character, there are more examples of leaders who have excelled even in areas where they have no experience or expertise because they practice leadership.
Example #2: Vince Lombardi
In 2014, Ian O’Connor wrote a detailed article on Vince Lombardi for ESPN The Magazine called, The Gospel of St. Vince. O’Connor describes the legend of Vince Lombardi who is best known for winning Super Bowl’s I and II. In fact, professional football’s championship trophy is named for him.
But, it wasn’t only Lombardi’s accolades as a football coach that stood out. Lombardi’s first coaching job was at St. Cecilia’s High School in New Jersey. In addition to coaching football, Lombardi also coached basketball.
However, Lombardi didn’t know the first thing about basketball. As the story goes, he went to the library and read old manuals on basketball to become more familiar with the game.
In the documentary, Vince Lombardi a Football Life, we hear from Mickey Corcoran, one of his players on that team who said, “He didn’t know much about basketball but he knew about people. He was a master psychologist…He just made me want to play harder.”
Lombardi coached basketball at St. Cecilia’s for eight years. He finished 105-57 and he won the only state basketball championship in the high school’s history.
If leadership is technical, how did Lombardi pull it off? How did he post a 65% winning record and win a championship in a sport he learned overnight?
Lombardi on Being a Practicing Leader
In his own words, Lombardi said, “I think coaching is teaching, see? So I don’t think there is any difference whether you teach on the football field or whether you teach in the classroom, right? They are both exactly the same. It’s a question of a good teach puts across what he must put across to his pupils whether it is done on a football field or done in a classroom, it is one of the same thing.”
While Lombardi knew a lot about the technical side of football to the point of obsession, he still identified not as a football coach, but as a teacher. He too viewed leadership as a practice, which is why he was successful not only as a football coach, but as a basketball coach.
Example #3: Sir. Richard Branson
Sir Richard Branson is the founder of the Virgin Group. Virgin now has business in entertainment, health and wellness, music, finance, technology, travel, and space travel.
Branson has been massively successful in almost all of these business areas, which at first glance seem to have nothing to do with one another.
All the while, Virgin has a global presence, but no central headquarters, no management hierarchy, and minimal bureaucracy. In his book Losing My Virginity, Branson discusses his leadership style and practice. He encourages his teams to have fun, not worry about failure, and always think about the customer.
One of my favorite of his quotes is “I’ve never gone into business to make money. Every Virgin product and service has been made into a reality to make a positive difference in people’s lives. And by focusing on the happiness of our customers, we have been able to build a successful group of companies.”
Conclusion – Becoming a Practicing Leader
There needs to be a fundamental shift in our understanding of leadership. Leadership is not defined as getting results via leadership, or simply as a means to an end. Instead, it is the idea that I understand leadership, so I get results.
Becoming a practicing leader is work. For some people, managing people is excruciating. For these folks and others that excel in vital technical areas, there should be a compensation ladder on-par with Senior Leadership that does not require them to manage people.
Today, leadership development is viewed as a series of tasks. We describe how to set an agenda for a meeting, how to conduct 1:1’s, and how to hire and fire. Those skills are all important, but they are not leadership skills. They are management skills. To take it to the next level, aspiring leaders must start and stick with a leadership practice. Leadership development and leadership coaching must rise to this calling and develop the programs to nurture practicing leaders.
If you are new to a leadership role, I encourage you to adopt the mindset of a practicing leader. Understand the characteristics of a practicing leader and develop yourself as one. Solicit the help of leaders you admire, mentors, and team members.
Key Takeaways
Leadership should be seen as a practice requiring commitment, intention, self-awareness, humility, and a continuous learning mindset. By shifting our focus from technical expertise to these qualities, we can cultivate effective leaders who achieve results, foster team engagement, and make a positive impact.
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Follow on LinkedInConquer Resistance with “The War of Art”: Unlock Your Creative Potential
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
From time to time I come across a book that is so powerful, it feeds my soul. These books speak to me in ways that simultaneously inspire, challenge, and validate my thinking about my sense of self. Recently, I read The War of Art by Stephen Pressfield and the book did just that. It has become one of my four “Books of the Soul” that I will go back to and re-read for years to come.
The War of Art Starts with Resistance
Pressfield begins The War of Art with a shot right between the eyes.
He describes an evil, vindictive force he calls, “Resistance.” Resistance is essentially self-doubt and self-sabotage fueled by fear.
If you have ever heard that voice in your head try to talk you out of doing what you feel is your purpose, that thought process is resistance.
He describes the many forms that resistance takes, like procrastination, addiction, and distraction.
One of the reasons The War of Art speaks to me is that resistance is a force in my life. For example, starting this blog was an act in overcoming resistance. When I started, I was 30 years old and filled with self-doubt. I told myself that nobody would want to hear from me. I asked myself, what could little old me contribute to the idea of leadership? Everyone’s going to laugh at you!
Here I am, overcoming resistance 107 posts later. It wasn’t easy to do.
Jonathan Haidt, author of the book The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion, explains why. He writes, “The mind is divided, like a rider on an elephant, and the rider’s job is to serve the elephant. The rider is our conscious reasoning-the stream of words and images of which we are fully aware. The elephant is the other 99% of mental processes-the ones that occur outside of awareness but actually govern most of our behavior.”
Said another way, the rider is the elephant’s press secretary, justifying its actions after a decision is made.
The elephant is all about resistance. The rider is resistance’s greatest ally, because it develops the logic to explain the elephant’s desire to maintain the status quo.
Pressfield discusses the many facets of resistance. The major benefit is that after looking for resistance, you become more aware of it as a force in your life.
The War of Art on Overcoming Resistance
So how do we overcome resistance?
Pressfield discusses that overcoming resistance involves transitioning from an amateur to a professional.
He describes it this way in The War of Art, “The word amateur comes from the Latin root meaning ‘to love.’ The conventional interpretation is that the amateur pursues his calling out of love, while the pro does it for money. Not the way I see it. In my view, the amateur does not love the game enough. If he did, he would not pursue it as a sideline, distinct from his ‘real’ vocation. The professional loves it so much, he dedicates his life to it. He commits full time.”
Pressfield then describes what it means to turn pro. Turning pro happens when we create a practice and a routine to do the work every day with focus. As you commit to this daily practice, you will know it is working if you get so lost in your work that you lose track of time.
He details the way to become a professional in the book Turning Pro.
The War of Art on Loving Being Miserable
One of my favorite ideas in the book was the idea of being in love with being miserable.
Pressfield describes how Marines love to be miserable and further explains how this applies to the “artist,” which includes the entrepreneur.
Pressfield writes, “The artist committing himself to his calling has volunteered for hell, whether he knows it or not. He will be dining for the duration on a diet of isolation, rejection, self-doubt, despair, ridicule, contempt, and humiliation.
The artist must be like that Marine. He has to know how to be miserable. He has to love being miserable. He has to take pride in being more miserable than any soldier or swabbie or jet jockey. Because this is war, baby. And war is hell.”
Elon Musk said it a slightly different way. He described running a start-up, “Like chewing glass and staring into the abyss. After a while, you stop staring, but the glass chewing never ends.” Musk is a billionaire who still chews glass. My guess is he’s a guy that loves being miserable!
I loved that description. I pull the covers up on cold mornings just as much as the next guy. Since reading this book, the idea of loving being miserable has helped me wake up earlier, run in the rain for exercise, and watch what I am eating more carefully. Sometimes the things you need most in life can make you miserable. Being in love with that feeling is a superpower I hope to develop.
The War of Art for Leaders
The implications for leaders are many. So much so, that I will be writing about them exclusively in next week’s post.
In short, The War of Art creates a distinction between amateurs and professionals. The hallmark of the professional is a dedicated practice. Some people in Senior Leadership roles are amateur leaders because they do not approach leadership as a practice and the consequences are severe.
Founders or senior leaders who are promoted because of politics or other social forces are rarely professional leaders. Meaning they made be technically or functionally professional, but that is different than what it means to be a professional leader. In next week’s post, I will describe what a professional leader looks like and how you can tell a professional from an amateur. You won’t want to miss it. Subscribe here to make sure you don’t.
Key Takeaways – The War of Art
“The War of Art” by Steven Pressfield is a powerful book that highlights the concept of resistance, which is fueled by self-doubt and fear, and inhibits us from pursuing our purpose.
Overcoming resistance involves transitioning from an amateur to a professional by dedicating ourselves fully to our calling, developing a daily practice and routine, and embracing the challenges and misery that come with it.
The book’s insights are applicable not only to artists and entrepreneurs but also to leaders, and the next post will delve deeper into the distinction between amateur and professional leaders.
The War of Art is available for purchase on Amazon
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Follow on LinkedInTransforming Meetings: From Agenda-driven to Perspective-focused
Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
Meetings.
The word itself probably sends a shiver up your spine.
Meetings are a ubiquitous part of life in the working world. It is an inevitable, yet often flawed, sharing and collaboration tool for any organization involving multiple people.
In this post, I am going to talk about one of my own pet peeves in meetings: Are the participants sharing their perspective or their agenda?
Sharing your perspective is almost always the intent of a meeting. On the other hand, pushing your agenda usually wastes time and distracts from the topic at hand.
Sharing your Perspective in a Meeting
Meetings exist to engage in a dialogue and to hear different perspectives in order to make the best possible decision.
It is for this reason that many successful organizations have regulated meetings to ensure there is more dialogue and perspective sharing.
For example, Amazon limits meetings to what founder Jeff Bezos referred to as the “Two pizza rule.” The rule states that he won’t attend a meeting if two pizzas won’t feed the number of attendees. Amazon also banned powerpoint presentations and uses a different tactic to level-set during a meeting.
At Amazon, the person who calls the meeting drafts a short memo that everyone attending the meeting reads independently in the first 10-minutes of the meeting. That allows more time for questions and dialogue and less for long dog-and-pony-show presentations.
Elon Musk is known for asking his employees to leave a meeting if they are not contributing to it, because it is wasting time where they could be doing other work.
These leaders understand that there is more to learn from the people they have hired to make the best decision.
In high functioning meetings, there is a high degree of trust, which allows the team to share their perspectives freely. Comments build off of each other and ideas come together with contributions from nearly everyone present. Both people who have a perspective in-favor and opposed are given space to share because the outcome of a better decision is an important goal.
I have found that meetings like this often give me energy rather than take it away. This is the exact opposite is true in a meeting where everyone is sharing their agenda.
Sharing your Agenda in a Meeting
Unfortunately, most of the time meetings exist to have, “One way conversations.”
This may look like the person leading the meeting occupying the majority of time with a powerpoint, suggesting a decision, and then leaving minimal time for input. This gives the impression that a decision has already been made.
It could also look like a participant interjecting a speech that is not relevant to the discussion but advances their role or project. They are not looking to contribute to the topic of the meeting, but rather solicit other attendees to help them with their work.
Sometimes it looks like a senior leader expressing his agenda and looking for the attendees to agree with him.
All of these examples are unhealthy dynamics.
In fact, many of these are “Simple Sabotage” tactics. These concept was advanced by the CIA in 1944 and they published a “Simple Sabotage Field Manual,” used to train potential foreign saboteurs. It has since been declassified.
Some of the tactics in the Field Manual refer specifically to behaviors in meetings:
- Make “speeches.” Talk as frequently as possible and at great length. Illustrate your “points” by long anecdotes and accounts of personal experiences.
- When possible, refer all matters to committees, for “further study and consideration.” Attempt to make the committee as large as possible — never less than five.
- Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible.
Most people who bring their agenda to a meeting are sabotaging something – the decision, satisfaction, or morale – and they don’t even realize it. By bringing your agenda to a meeting to make a decision, you may be doing just that.
The Problem in Large Organizations
I’ve spent the majority of my career working in large organizations. This meeting problem is notoriously bad. Most of my days were spent in meetings, hearing the same message over and over again, but with slightly different combinations of other executives.
The problem at the root of this meeting misery is unclear authority. Many of the meetings take place because it is unclear who has the authority to make a final decision. This leads to meeting after meeting on the same topic, looking for who is willing to make the decision to move forward. I saw this particularly at the corporate level of an organization.
Senior leaders in large organizations are sometimes managing egos, politics, and the desire to avoid blame. That often leads to suboptimal decisions make through suboptimal processes, including suboptimal meetings.
Industry leaders of large organizations, like Bezos and Musk, understand this risk and have created systems to avoid it.
The role of a Leader in the Meeting
Fundamentally, a leader’s role in a meeting is to facilitate the conversation and then decide how a final
“Go or no go,” decision will be made.
Facilitating a conversation is an art. It involves setting the right goals, ground rules, and agenda. It also involves managing dominating voices and encouraging quieter participants.
A final decision can be made in a number of ways – majority, consensus, delegated authority, or a sole decision maker. Each one should be used in the appropriate situation. What is important for the leader to do is define how the decision is being made. That often prevents disappointment and frustration from the participants in the meeting.
Key Takeaways
Effective meetings prioritize perspective sharing, encourage open dialogue, and prevent personal agendas from hijacking the conversation. Leaders play a crucial role in facilitating discussions and defining decision-making processes to ensure productive outcomes.
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Follow on LinkedInMastering Focus in the Digital Age: Navigating Distractions for Productivity and Success
Being able to avoid distraction is one of the hardest skills to master in the digital age. The world is full of cheap dopamine hits, notifications, and pings. When distraction increases, impact and productivity often decreases.
Let me give you an example of discipline in action. A couple of weeks ago, I found myself at “Hyper Kidz” an indoor playground with my wife and two sons.
To be clear, I dreaded going. There are few things that appeal to me less than screaming kids in a confined space.
But, my boys needed to get some of their energy out and we were stuck inside because of the poor air quality due to the Canadian wildfires. So, off to “Hyper Kidz” we went.
We were the first people there, which was intentional. I have two sons, 3 and 1. My 1 year old spent most of his time crawling around exploring and throwing balls back into the ball pit. My older son, though started by walking through the entire play area, exploring his new enviroment for the first time.
He was timid at first, looking around and seeing where he wanted to play. Hyper Kidz had a lot of options and play spaces for all ages. At 3, he is kind of in the middle between playing on the areas designated for smaller children and the areas designated for “Big Kids.”
My son and the slide
He looked around. He dabbled. As more kids arrived, he eventually decided he wanted to spend time going down the slides pictured here.
At first, my wife helped my son down the slide. The second time, my son got to the top by himself and then sat there for a while. Despite our encouragement, what finally made him come down was a gentle nudge from another child who wanted to use the slide. The next few times, my son used his hands and legs to slow himself down, controlling his speed as he went down the slide.
All told, my son must have gone down the slide another hundred times. Sometimes he would go down alone, sometimes there were other kids using the slides next to him, but it didn’t matter to him. He liked the slide and kept climbing up the stairs to get to go down the slides again.
The more he went down the slides, I noticed things changed for him. He got faster. He experimented going down with his legs and hands raised so he would go faster. My son tried lying down flat. He went down after throwing a couple of balls from the ball pit first and racing them down.
Most of the children in such a large, extensive play space would come and go from the slides. Who could blame them? There was so much else to do! At one point they started a bubble machine. There was video soccer and a light up dance floor.
But, my son just stuck to the slide, experimenting and improving every time he went down. Eventually another child joined him and they went down repeatedly together. They actually had so much fun that they hugged when we eventually had to leave.
As I watched my son going down the slide, I admired his focus and discipline in the face of a lot of (literal) noise and distraction. I also realized that I was lost in observing him and hadn’t checked my phone in a while and it felt great!
The Value of Sticking
In the fast-paced world of business, distractions abound, tempting us with shiny new toys and revolutionary ideas. It’s like stepping into a wonderland of modern marvels, where today’s bubble machine, video soccer, and the luminous dance floor at “Hyper Kidz” are swiftly replaced by Apple’s enticing Vision Pro or the next cutting-edge gadget. With the AI revolution in full swing, advertisements flood our screens, promoting the latest AI productivity tool. And let’s not forget the multitude of captivating offerings we’ve encountered over the years from the vast aisles of Amazon.
Amidst this sea of distractions, it’s crucial to ponder the value of “Sticking” or staying committed to our original ideas. As a leader, I’m constantly exploring how to integrate the latest advancements to better serve my customers. The allure of daring partnerships, untapped markets, and unexplored horizons often tempts me. However, I’ve recently realized the importance of designing a plan and remaining steadfast, at least for a defined period, before considering a pivot or diverting towards the next enticing opportunity. I’ve examined my own tendencies and acknowledged that I’m susceptible to straying from my plan in pursuit of new prospects.
Nevertheless, it’s imperative to discern between genuine opportunities and mere distractions—an art that matures with experience. I strive to master this skill, avoiding wasteful expenditure of time, money, and energy. After all, success lies not in chasing every fleeting idea but in investing our resources wisely.
Sticking and Pivoting are not Mutually Exclusive
It’s worth emphasizing that sticking to something that isn’t yielding results would be futile. Blindly adhering to a failing strategy is counterproductive and unwise. In his book, “The Lean Startup,” Eric Ries emphasizes the power and significance of pivoting in business. Countless tech companies serve as shining examples, having started with one plan only to discover that their product or expertise aligns better with a different approach.
In this blog post, my aim is not to promote dogged adherence to a flawed plan, but rather to advocate for dedicating sufficient time to a chosen path before making a switch. Let’s consider an example: if your goal is to master the guitar, I encourage you to stick with it for more than just a few initial lessons. Abandoning it prematurely in favor of learning the piano, for instance, would prevent you from truly gauging your affinity for the guitar.
This valuable lesson resonates with my own experiences and revelations. Just because the next groundbreaking innovation beckons from the horizon doesn’t mean we should hastily abandon our original idea without fully exploring its potential. By investing adequate time and effort, we can distinguish between genuine opportunities and mere distractions.
So, fellow leaders, let us embrace the virtue of staying focused, diligently nurturing our ideas, and charting a course towards success. By doing so, we can unlock the true value of sticking, cultivating the wisdom needed to navigate the dynamic landscape of business while avoiding the allure of every passing distraction.
Key Takeaways
In a world filled with distractions and constant temptation, maintaining focus and avoiding distractions is crucial for productivity and success in business. While it’s important to be open to pivoting and adapting plans when necessary, it is equally important to dedicate sufficient time and effort to a chosen path before making a switch. By doing so, we can discern between genuine opportunities and mere distractions.
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