Leadership Gold Part 7 of 10: Look, Listen, Ask
February 24, 2009 by dr. lam
When John Maxwell has a meeting, he puts a tiny “L” at the corner of one of his pages to remind him to listen. He adds another “L” next to it for look, i.e., look at the person you are listening to. I myself am perhaps the most guilty of wanting to dominate a conversation and failing to listen. Perhaps I can blame my XY chromosome, as most men fail in this endeavor. My mom says I don’t listen to her very well. Well, I am trying at this endeavor and want to improve in this department of weakness of mine. More about my weaknesses further down.
A leader should be actively listening to his staff to get pertinent feedback, encourage creative ideas and to use that information as a source of ways to improve the team. Without encouraging other voices, a meeting or an encounter becomes a fruitless exercise. Just one voice screaming out his opinion. That is also why I value input and responses in these blogs. (In fact, I have designed this website uniquely to have as many voices on here as possible, e.g., on my blogs, forum posts, before and after gallery and soon to be on the videos too.) Two minds are always better than one. How about a thousand? I have made it a concerted effort to begin listening better and to conduct a meeting with more openness. My last meeting with my salon director was spent 80% of the time quiet just listening to the problems, prospects, and thoughts of my director so that I could learn what was going on and to better grasp if the direction taken was the right one.
I am combining another part of Maxwell’s dictums into one for the sake of trying to cram 23 of his ideas into 10 blogs. He says a great leader knows what questions to ask. The biggest question to ask is, “What mistakes am I making?” That is a tough one to ask and to hear. It is an important one. One person came up to Maxwell after a lecture and said, “Mr. Maxwell, a leader must put up a strong front and never show his weaknesses.” Maxwell retorted, “You are assuming your staff does not already know your weaknesses. They do. Once you admit them, they are reassured that you know yourself and they don’t have to keep pretending that you don’t know.” When a leader admits his own weaknesses, he can then ask the staff to “pushback”, i.e., to give opinions in a free forum to help with the organization. He should encourage a roundtable discussion free of rejection and fear from a leader’s dismissive remarks.
I myself am constantly working to open up my weaknesses to my staff. What are they? First and foremost, I am not a great administrator. That is why Dianne and Constanze work as my principal administrators but also everyone around them work as their own administrators. When we had a vacuum for someone to help with ordering, Darla stepped in and took over. When Vassilka realized that photo taking and transferring was something that she could do well and efficiently, she took that over without my even asking. When I couldn’t fit all my hair transplant consults now until May, Constanze looked at a creative way to get them in earlier and Emina stepped up to help. I want to thank my team for every small and big thing they do because I notice each and everything they do, and I am flabbergasted at the quality of Team LFP.
What are my strengths besides plastic surgery? I am a connector and I care. I love people, simply put. Therefore, I constantly work to engage my team and put them together on equal footing to excel. However, I realized that my weakness as an administrator did not permit me to resign my task as CEO. I now am constantly meeting with my administrators to make sure that they are not alone in their task. I have weekly (sometimes every other day meetings with my spa director); I ask my nursing administrator what things are going on that I need to know about; and I meet with my salon director once a month and get feedback from him once or twice a week on matters usually by phone. I am focused now on asking what am I doing wrong and what could I do better.
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17 Responses to “Leadership Gold Part 7 of 10: Look, Listen, Ask”
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I wonder if it isn’t terribly difficult for eagle-types, the kind of people I consider type A, high achievers, to do this? I have always run around with eagles and this seems a typical challenge for them. Perhaps inherent in the personality, what it takes to BE the one with most responsibility. High expectations all around; everyone’s counting on you to know, to do and of course that eagle is placing same pressure on self. Makes complete objective sense! Really thinking about this, these eagles I’ve known, the ones who’ve had sustained success AND happiness (sometimes mutually exclusive, sadly-could be oxymoronic, too) are those who’ve been able to see and carry out what you’re describing.
So, Vassi’s taking our photos? Yeah! Vassi is awesome. You do have the best team, but you knew that.
I am confused about how I used oxymoronic. I meant like Simon & Garfunkel’s ‘Richard Corey’, the guy with everything and nothing. (I do not mind being corrected on vocab., as I do not take it personally.
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hmm, i am not confident that i am right. i typically use it when there are two juxtaposed words that have opposite meanings. okay, i looked it up: Oxymorons are a proper subset of the expressions called contradictions in terms. What distinguishes oxymorons from other paradoxes and contradictions is that they are used intentionally, for rhetorical effect, and the contradiction is only apparent, as the combination of terms provides a novel expression of some concept, such as “cruel to be kind” or “team of mavericks”.
The most common form of oxymoron involves an adjective-noun combination. For example, the following line from Tennyson’s Idylls of the King contains two oxymorons:
“And faith unfaithful kept him falsely true”
I remember one time asking my grandpa what an oxymoron was and he told me it was an “honest politician”. At the time, I literally believed him. lol
Thanks for all your effort in making these well-thought-out and inspiring blogs! I feel kind of lazy for not having read Maxwell’s book, and yet am getting all the highlights out of it from your blog.
Thanks!
Great point about listing to others… I am going to try to work on that, as well as looking at people when they talk to me. I think it is great that you pointed out that we should all be asking ourselves what mistakes that we are making. It’s good to look for ways to improve. I think it’s hard to learn and grow without making a mistake every now and then, so I look at mistakes as good things in a way. Great post!
:-O Yikes! I have to comment on this. Where are you getting this idea that you are not a great administrator? Maybe your approach is just a little different from others, but does that make theirs better? It’s more like others should strive to follow your example. Perhaps because of your great people skills and your ability to connect with others and how you know the strengths of your staff, you are allowing your employees to have a greater channel to thrive as part of your team, and thus you are creating a way for your staff to be optimally productive by not squelching their energies, but fueling them.
Your staff seems to want to jump in and do what needs to be done without being asked. I would think that this is the goal of being a GREAT administrator!….having everyone optimally productive and happily using his/her talents in the workplace as a team. Others may consider themselves to be “great” administrators, but may lack these fundamental people skills, and thus in the overall picture they really haven’t met any greater mark of production. Seriously, I think you need to pat yourself on the back, Doc! lol
thanks heather. i appreciate the vote of confidence. what i mean by my not being a great administrator is that i think principally with my right brain. i am creative, gestalt (big picture), visionary, artistic. what i am not is a numbers guy that loves policies and procedures and focused on minute details of management. that is why i have constanze and dianne doing that as well as phillip, my mom, and ron (my accountant). the team is divided into great right and left brainers on my team. my forum group that i often mention is also equally split between right and left brainers so that we can arrive at conclusions. i have a great team that has their strengths and weaknesses. i know my own scorecard along with that of every staff member. by knowing that scorecard, i am able to work within their “strength zone” as i mentioned. thanks again for the nice comment, but i know my strengths and weaknesses all too well. that is a good thing.
I’ve heard that one Heather (honest politician) and like it.
Dr. L, such a gentleman. My usage would’ve received a dispassionate red ? from a grader. I like your style. Thanks.
Let’s just say my cat typed all that, yeah. We have a G/T cat, quite amazing. She was contemplating whether one can rightly be called successful sans happiness component. I told her I think it’s debateable, but she trusts me little since I’m the one who taught her about oxymorons.
Serious again, I especially like the last sentence Dr. L wrote above. THAT is what genuine confidence looks like to me.
Oh for heaven’s sake–the second to last sentence in his post above.
ok, thanks guys. seriously. i appreciate all the positive energy here.
sml
Nord, you’re so funny!!! lol Maybe, I can get away with saying that my neighbor’s dog wrote mine. B-T
OMG!! Dr. Lam, Nord was right that you are quite the gentleman!
I am so sorry, Dr. Lam. I can see that you know you are a great administrator in certain areas but that you also know your weaknesses. I still think that this makes you a great administrator in the overall picture but you weren’t denying that; you were just recognizing your weakness in a specific area of administration. I have this tendency not to let anyone get away with needlessly putting themselves down, but I understand that you weren’t. My utmost apologies. :-C
thanks heather. you guys are just too nice!
Hi all,
still catching up on the blog postings.
I agree with what Maxwell says. Listening, looking at a person, admitting to “weaknesses” and collecting input or feedback are all good qualities for anyone. However, keeping the 4 agreements in mind, I wonder if it may not be better to ask what can be done “better” rather than what one is doing “wrong”. It’s a slight difference, but I think an important one. Any thoughts on this?
i think your point is well taken. i think in this case the word “weakness” helps those around you (if you are leading) see that you are willing to expose yourself at a fundamental level. it exposes yourself more openly than any other word to people that might otherwise feel beneath you. it puts you into a humble mode so that they can be uplifted. that is how i see leadership. nevertheless, you are right about trying to avoid using words like “imperfect”, etc. i have a blog on this coming up. i have made a conscientious effort not to do this anymore. i think that having congruity in your life is important but i also can absorb as many competing philosophies and thoughts out there and take the best from them so long as i do not directly violate a fundamental tenet (that i believe to be important). in this case, i think the use of the language can be more helpful for those around you than hurtful to yourself so long as you don’t try to let a weakness become who you are.
oh, I agree that admitting to weaknesses is actually a good quality (see my comment above), but there are different ways of expressing this. I believe watching your words to be really important, both in terms of others as for oneself. It just makes the part of not letting a weakness become who you are easier to avoid.
Excerpt from Dr. L’s writing re: Maxwell….
One person came up to Maxwell after a lecture and said, “Mr. Maxwell, a leader must put up a strong front and never show his weaknesses.” Maxwell retorted, “You are assuming your staff does not already know your weaknesses. They do. Once you admit them, they are reassured that you know yourself and they don’t have to keep pretending that you don’t know.”
_____
This is huge and essential to a synergistic work environment. Everybody DOES know, if they’ve been together a while. It’s disarming to just be out with it, IMO. Respect for the ‘teller’ can be enhanced with such honesty and forthright discussion.
Btw, really glad to see Vancouver here again!!!
thanks nord!
sorry, didn’t thank vancouver for her thoughts as well. i agree with both of your subtle but profound comments!
Thanks Nord:)