Leadership: Invest in the success of others to be successful and ask why?

I had the great honor of participating in the 凯易讯 Leadership Offsite this week with all team leaders (A person is deemed part of the Calix Extended Leadership if they have 2 or more reports - which is endlessly debated). We do it 2X a year to bring together our all-virtual leadership team to form those critical bonds between groups.

In my presentation to the leadership team I shared that this phrase defines what it means to lead at Calix:

Invest in the success of others to be successful.

If every leader put themselves aside and invests 100% of their time and effort into making their team, their peers, their manager, customers, and partners successful, then they will be successful. Everyone will be successful.

It is as simple as that.

The best illustration of that philosophy is in this clip from Band of Brothers. I remain inspired by the story of Dick Winters, a leader who always put his team first .. something I doubt few knew as he lived out his humble post-WWII life as a manager at a factory.

The second philosophy is know your purpose - something that is getting a lot of attention these days. I remember when I first joined Calix - our founder Carl Russo was very clear on this topic - emphasizing that every team member must know their purpose.

Once again, he was ahead of his time.

To know your purpose you must ask Why? Simon Sinek has turned Why? into an industry. In our culture we phrase it in two ways:

1. Better, better, never best - which means every team member must always be challenging how we do things so that we can improve. There is no room for arrogance - only recognition that we must listen and improve every day.
2. Don't let others be wrong - which means if a team member sees something wrong they need to speak up and one of two things will happen: either they will fix a wrong or they will gain context to understand why their perception of the situation is incorrect. In that case, there needs to be additional communication to ensure everyone understands the broad context. In this regard, there is no room for hierarchy or "obedience". Hierarchy exists for process efficiency - not for people. No team member is more important than another and EVERYONE must speak up so that we can talk it out.

I finally found the perfect clip to illustrate this way of thinking. If you have not watched SAS Rogue Heroes, I would highly encourage it (On Amazon Prime - a great book also).

Like Band of Brothers, I found it inspirational and completely aligned with how I think about leadership.

I grew up in a rules-dominated environment where discussion was not an option - obey was the command. As the eldest, that fomented in me a deep and persistent disdain for rules that broached no discussion. Democracy is built on precedent and as precedent changes so do the rules. Everyone must ask "Why?"

FYI, this clip uses the "f" word frequently - a word that does not bother me. That word actually makes the precedent case: "Oh my god" is accepted in society while decades ago it would have been the highest level of sacrilege (that phrase does not bother me either), while the "f" word is seen as rude, etc .. precedent.

Ask why? So that when things screw up, as they always will, you will be able to think your way through it.

Ask Why?, know your purpose and invest in the success of others to be successful. The essence of leadership .. and better, better, never best.

CREDITS: In the movie Vengence there is a great quote: "I'd probably say that nobody writes anything. All we do is translate. So if you ever get stuck and don’t know what to say .. just listen. Even to the silence, to the world around you and repeat back what you hear. That translation is your voice." Quentin Sellers, (0:45 min played by Ashton Krutcher)

I have learned a lot from others.

Invest in the success of others to be successful: While I do not remember if he actually said those words, the philosophy was learned from John Corrigan . My first great manager.

Better, better, never best: Brian Millham in his leadership meetings. If it is all green, look harder.