That brings me to another serious of thoughts about business leaders. A lot of them are operating their business models in the same fashion as I am. They are doing a lot of things correctly but still have some room for improvement. Fine tuning these few things can be very difficult stuff. Some business owners have been doing their trade for quite a while by now. The remaining things that need to be corrected are very stubborn to change. Those areas that need some modifications are dragging their feet with the stubbornness they are using to refuse to change. I have a few of those silly things in my style that I have refused to modify and they still drag some of my performance down. Those few things that could use some healthy change have become part of my leadership signature. They are the things that define how I lead my business models and the most telling definitions come from the ones that must tolerate my most unwanted characteristics when I lead. Leaders often become identified for the unwanted characteristics they carry instead of the ones they use that help them win. Welcome to leadership.
In my travels and self evaluation process in the business world, I have discovered some very consistent patterns of unwanted characteristics leaders perform. There are some very lame things leaders do often that have become accepted in the patterns they use to lead the people and business models they own. The lame stuff they do often can be placed on a consistent list. It is interesting how so many business leaders can carry on with such a common pattern for lame business stuff. Some of the things on the list will irritate a reader or two. If an irritation surfaces, the phrase becomes true. "The truth hurts."
Let's title this one, "Lame stuff business leaders do often."
First of all, they rarely keep their word. They spend a lifetime saying they will do something when in fact, they usually do not. They bump into a friend or a co-worker and exchange conversation. During the conversation someone says something that requires action to be performed. The leader says something on the order of how that sounds good, "Let's do that! We need to get that done and get together on it." The leader makes a sloppy gesture to keep a promise that is never intended to really happen. It is only promised to tickle the listeners ear at the time it came up. The promise has no substance. It never was intended to be completed. I see this lame move all of the time. I hear it often. It comes from leaders in all business forms. Once in a blue moon I come across a leader who actually keeps their promises. They actually do what they say they will do. It is amazing to witness. I can see the faces of those few I know who are good at keeping the promises they make. They can fit in one hand. There are not many out there who can perform this single act of great leadership. Be of your word. Do exactly what you say you will do. Keep your promises.
I had a great business mentor who has long since passed. This single thing was a serious issue with him as he trained all of his business students to correct how they treat their word. I think it was his most serious subject for correction efforts. Become a person of your word. It is amazing how so many people become surprised at how rare a person of their word can become. A leader who keeps their word is so rare that when it shows up in a challenging situation the followers are shocked that the promise was kept. I remember a promise I made to some business owners located a few hundred miles away from my home. They were struggling with some serious things in their business model and asked for my help. We set a date and secured where to meet. The issues in their business model were very pressing. The day of my appointment came and the weather in our area became one of those most famous storms. I had been keeping in touch with my business mentor at that time and casually told him where I had planned to be that day. I worked with my business staff and arranged for them to run my model for a couple of days while I was away helping these business owners who were in some tough trouble.
The storm made history that day. It was flooding everywhere in regional pockets between my home and the location of that business model a few hundred miles away. I happened to be talking on the phone with my business mentor about another subject and mentioned to him how I needed to cancel my appointment with these owners who were having some tough times. He grew quiet in the conversation. I checked to see if he was still on the line. I called his name a couple of times to see if he was still there. He finally answered quietly, "You need to push through the storm stuff and be a person of your word. Get there." Then he hung up. It was a magical moment for me. I realized at that moment how often I allowed so many things to get in my way to keep my word. I had developed a long list of tolerances I could use to change the promises I offered to keep and thereby justified how I could get out of them. Everyone else was using the same excuses I used so it looked normal. Breaking my word of promise was a normal and justifiable thing to do. I did not consider it wrong to avoid the weather dangers and re-schedule my appointment. I thought it was fine to modify my promise. After I hung up, I made the decision to see what it was like to keep my promise. I called around to find out what would be the best way to get to that town and continue to meet with the business owners I promised to help. It took me an additional 2 hours of travel to arrive. They were shocked to see me. It was one of the best business sessions I have ever been a part of. Those owners have since moved on but that next two days carried with it some of the best work I have ever done with the repair efforts of a broken set of business challenges. It has become one of my top ten learning experiences. The storm made history that day.
Be of your word. Do exactly what you say you will do. Keep your promises. Failing in this area is the top most lame thing a business leader does. They carry way too many excuses to fail at keeping their word.
The second most lame thing a business leader does is to blame someone else for their own levels of low performance. I love the blame game. I love it when a leader describes how the the success of their business ownership is thwarted by the people they choose to employ. That is my favorite one. The leader 'picks' the worker and blames the worker for the bad performance. That one hits the top of the leader charts, too. It runs second only to the failure to keep your word. I see leaders place blame on things, people, situations, circumstances and social heredity. I have even seen business leaders blame their own family when the family has nothing to do with their business model. It is amazing how we can drag into a bad event the things that do not matter yet become the reason why we fail to perform better. Leaders do not even see this when they do it. They are blindsided by their own excuses. Finding a great leader who accepts responsibility when failure arrives is so rare that when we see it we do not believe it. We get skeptical. We think the leader has found an interesting slant and is taking advantage of the error to forward his popularity. We get skeptical when we see a leader come forward and accept the blame for a troubled outcome. Most leaders are lame and push the excuse away from the table where they are sitting.
I suggest that some of the best leaders I have met, at times will accept the blame even if they did not have a lot to do with the negative outcome. I have discovered a lot of those types of leaders do very well in the business world. Some of the best leaders wear the most blame. It not only suits them well, they can get on with the repairs and begin performing better sooner. They do not get all wrapped up with who was to blame. They get more wrapped up with doing what is good to do. That is why their models exceed the competition often. They become successful by doing good things more often and spend less energy trying to discover who to blame. Lame leaders forget this little trick. That is usually why a good leader beats them in the competition game. Actually, a good leader does not beat them...they beat themselves when they perform the lame blame game.
The next lame thing a leader does is to pretend. Leaders pretend to be your friend. Leaders pretend to have your back. Leaders pretend to appreciate your work. Leaders pretend to be in charge of the things they do not know anything about. It is some very lame stuff to watch happen. Leaders love to get lost in this kind of stuff. They pretend their way to failure but do not see how they produced the failure. Some leaders pretend so much that they begin to believe the stuff they are pretending to be. Those leaders can actually fake themselves out and become what they do not want to become. What's worse, they do not see how it happened. Very few followers perform well behind this kind of failed leadership. It is a lame way to attempt to build a successful business model. It does not work well. Many leaders practice pretending more than they care to admit. It has grown into an unidentifiable habit. It is lame to witness this kind of leadership. Usually this kind of business model experiences a lot of employment turnover. It is a very unstable place to work. It usually is a very unstable place to get good work done. Pretending to be what ought not to be. It becomes a lame way to manage a business model.
One more lame thing and we are done. There are a lot more on the list, but one more will be enough for this post. I cannot take any more. It works me up too much. I see so many leaders do these things and expect better results. It is so disappointing to watch. The very things that are killing their leadership are also the same things killing their business successes. They live in denial and refuse to change the things they are protecting to do wrong. They do not want to believe they are the reason for their business model failure. They stubbornly carry on with the same lame stuff they do and they will not link that lame stuff to the reasons why their results run short. They operate in denial. They do not want to hear how they need to correct a few leadership components that are in need of repair. It becomes too personal for them to accept. They work extra hard on shielding themselves away from these truths about what is going wrong with their leadership traits. They try to function better in a denial mode. It is ludicrous to watch. It is damaging to see. It is lame to describe. It is often performed.
Leaders practice denial. The level of denial they protect is the level of failure they closely provide. When someone points out a fault in this kind of leader the results for that whistle blower may not be very good. Retaliation is serious business. Denial carries with it some very ugly by-products. A business model will suffer for ever when the denial roots grow up big and protect the roost. It is such a lame model to witness. In my experiences, these are the most difficult business models to help correct. They are nearly impossible to find ways to make adjustments work well. Even the best and most simple adjustments get destroyed. Denial leadership is very lame stuff. It wreaks families, businesses and lives.
Lame stuff business leaders do often; fail to keep their word, blame someone else, pretend what ought not to be pretended and run strong on denial. These are obvious challenges that become great killers of business success. They run common and they run without check. If you want to produce a successful business model you will be required to get a strong grip on how to better manage these characteristics in your business leadership world. Your model will follow your lead. If you fail to manage these lame things well, your business model will likely follow you to its dying ways. However, if you are a lame leader...that will be the fault of someone else. I do some of these lame things myself. They need to go away immediately. They will not help my business models win.
Until next time...
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