Leadership Gold Part 10 of 10: Making Critical Decisions
February 27, 2009 by dr. lam
There is no time that a leader shines (or sinks) than during a crisis situation. As Maxwell says, 95% of the time, you don’t need a strong leader but that 5% is when the team rallies around the leader or dismisses him. Churchill is perhaps one of the shining exemplars of stepping up to a leadership role when the crisis in Europe was at England’s doorstep. Churchill’s entire leadership was defined by his wartime role in getting Britain to victory.
Decision making during crisis times can be very difficult. When Steve Jobs stepped in to Apple in 1997, he was confronted with a profound crisis that was about to unravel the company he founded. His leadership during this time of peril pulled Apple from the brink of disaster and infused the company with a newfound creative direction in computer design and entering the world of music that was unchartered but necessary.
Fortunately (or unfortunately), I have not had major crises, but I have had too numerous to count smaller crises in my organizations. I think one of the defining things that a leader can do is cut a valuable player when that individual bucks against the culture and causes a cancer to envelope the organization. If the leader can align the individual into the fold, then the day is saved. But if the leader cannot, the individual can destroy the morale of the company and undermine the credibility of the leader. No one person is too valuable to the organization to let go. This is a difficult thing to understand for any leader but one that I have learned and relearned the hard way for all of my organizations. The culture is king.
There is a game that I have played on EO retreats called the “green tail” or also start, stop, and continue. It is a hard one to play but should be played when there is already a deeper level of intimacy in a group and when one can “not take something personally” as one of the 4 agreements we talked about. The idea behind this is that if one person thinks you are doing something wrong, then perhaps that person is wrong and not you. If two people think you are doing something wrong, then it just might be true. If three people think you are doing something wrong, then it probably is true. The idea of the green tail is the same. If one person thinks you have a green tail, you may or may not. If two people think you have a green tail, then maybe you do. If three people think you have a green tail, then you better turn around and check. In the exercise, everyone in the group writes anonymously on a card what they want you to “start doing, stop doing, and continue doing” then they pass all the cards to the person about whom the card is written. It is not an easy exercise. I continually ask my staff if I have a green tail because I want to make sure earlier before it is too late when I need to cut off the green tail.
Maxwell calls this the “Bob phenomenon”. He had an employee whom everyone thought was just dreadful. Of course, his name was Bob. Bob obviously did not think he himself was terrible. However, who was wrong? Of course, Bob. One of the critical roles of a leader is not to let a Bob survive in the organization if he is behaving like Bob.
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4 Responses to “Leadership Gold Part 10 of 10: Making Critical Decisions”
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That green tail game sounds like a very neat way to get everyone’s opinions!
I guess this “Bob phenomenon” or “green tail philosophy” implies a majority rules concept in a way.
“Bob” is always the one that gets picked on..lol
Thanks for sharing, Dr. Lam! B-) I can’t wait to read next week’s blogs! Have a great weekend!
the pressure is on! i haven’t written them yet. i will enter a zen trance to write them this weekend.
lol Dr. Lam, don’t stress over it! Seriously, us blog fans can wait till the week after the next if need be. lol
i got it covered!