Leadership is a Mindset and a Behavior, Not a Title: Why Redefining and Rethinking it is the Key to Wellbeing, Safety and Organizational Effectiveness

Most people I talk to who are business leaders or work in the worlds of HR, Organizational Development, Leadership Development or Learning & Development at least conceptually understand the importance of investing in developing quality leaders. When I speak to professionals working in the wellness/wellbeing or safety industries, they also conceptually get how important leaders are to their work; however, many times they tell me that’s “someone else’s” job. Consequently, they tend to “tune-out” when the topic of leadership development arises; their focus is on how leaders support their programs.

I’d like to suggest that leadership development IS part of everyone’s role; we just have to understand why it matters so much and rethink how we go about it.

The Leadership Crisis

In an interview with Inc. Magazine, Simon Sinek pointed out the issues we face with leadership when he said,

“Leadership is a practicable skill; and it’s rarely taught, unfortunately. When it is taught, it’s not taught well. Most of the MBA programs don’t really teach leadership; they call it ‘leadership’, but they teach management. Leadership is this really sophisticated change in mindset...we have to go through this transition where we are no longer responsible for the results; we now become responsible for the PEOPLE who are responsible for the results. We are no longer responsible for taking care of the customer; we’re now responsible for the PEOPLE who are taking care of the customer. THIS is what leadership is.”

 Bob Chapman is the CEO of Barry-Wehmiller, a multi-billion dollar manufacturing company that is gaining great attention for their approach to leadership and culture; they have systematically been able to create a truly humanized culture with more than 89 different companies under their umbrella. And he was just named #3 CEO in the World by Inc. Magazine for his approach. He argues that we don’t have a healthcare crisis in this country; we have a leadership crisis that is profoundly impacting individual employees, their families and communities. In a powerful video, he states that,

7 out of 8 people in the American workforce work for an organization that doesn’t care for them, contributing to broken marriages, broken families and broken lives.

He continues to talk about how he was educated and raised to be manager focused on profits and shareholder value; he wasn’t taught the “awesome responsibility of leadership” entrusted with the lives of people. As a result, we’re sending people home feeling they’re not valued and cared for – and it’s having a negative ripple effect.

Essentially, we’re dealing with needing to un-train what we’ve been taught. Organizations need to undo much of what their leaders may have learned in school – or from watching other leaders who were trained in this Old Paradigm way.

Why We Should Care: The Leadership-Wellbeing Connection

Let’s be honest, there are tons of movies and TV shows that leverage the negative impact poor leadership has on individuals and the organization; it makes for good entertainment. But when you live it, it’s not so funny. So what do we know from the research about the consequences of poor leadership?

Well, for starters, we know from several different studies that transactional and more top-down, control-oriented management is associated with eroding emotional and physical wellbeing:

•  Bad bosses are associated with an increased risk of heart attacks.
• Chronic stress from dealing with bad bosses on a daily basis has been linked to high blood pressure, sleep problems and anxiety; it’s also associated with smoking, excessive alcohol use and over-eating
• A meta-analysis of 228 studies conducted by Harvard and Stanford researchers found that workplace stress and bad bosses have negative health effects as bad as what are seen in people exposed to significant amounts of second-hand smoke.

However, we know that transformational and servant leadership is associated with actually boosting emotional and physical wellbeing.

So if you’re trying to implement programs to support employee wellbeing and safety, how effective do you think you’re going to be if your organization is full of “bad bosses”? Who really cares if your managers participate and promote wellness programs if they’re treating people like crap? Who cares if your managers promote working safely if they then turn around and push results that put your people at risk for not going home in one piece?

Leading People, Not Machines

Why should EVERYONE care about developing leaders? Because the quality of leaders profoundly impacts every other effort trying to positively impact the entire employee – and human – experience. This means that the various disciplines must align their efforts and stop unintentionally undermining each other. Or to put it quite simply, it takes a village; and our traditional approach isn’t working.

We know from the 2016 Deloitte Human Capital Trends Report surveying over 10,000 executives and HR leaders worldwide that improving leadership is a key priority for 89% of them. That said, this report also acknowledges that the typical approach of identifying and developing leaders doesn’t cut it anymore.

• Research from Zenger Folkman found that the average leader doesn’t receive training until they are 10 years into their careers. (that’s a long time to learn old-school habits)
• However, research from Harvard professor Linda A. Hill found that first-time managers are shaped by their experiences in the first year and develop habits they carry with them throughout their careers. (leaving them years to “perfect” old-school habits)
• It’s estimated that Millennials will comprise 75% of the workforce by 2025; yet only 7% of organizations are investing in coaching and mentoring.
• This gap is especially troubling considering that each year, approximately 2 million Millennials are being promoted into leadership positions. 
• More troubling is that 2 in 3 Millennials are expected to leave their organization by 2020 if they’re not finding what they’re looking for (including active coaching, mentoring and development along with a purpose-driven organization and collaborative culture).
• A Harvard Medical School study found that 96 percent of leaders report feeling burned out. Therefore, taking time to tend to individual wellbeing and build resiliency is also critical for leaders.

Since leadership requires shifting from focusing on tasks to people, we also need to realize that we are working with people, not predictable, controllable machines. As such, we need to rethink who we view as a leader and how we develop people to think and behave like a leader…what we call a Leadership Mindset.

Sustainability is Developing a Leadership Mindset in EVERYONE

The demographic shift and talent gap alone demand we rethink how we define and approach developing leaders. But the growing research on the link between leadership and wellbeing also demands we rethink who we include in development efforts.

First, we need to define what we mean by “leadership.” Historically, leadership is a term used to refer to a formal role people have within an organization where they have management responsibility. However, since our traditional way of defining and developing leaders isn’t cutting it for our current and future workforce, perhaps we need to broaden our definition.

In her book, The New Alpha, Danielle Harlan suggests a definition of leadership that applies to everyone – regardless of title or role:

“Leadership is about becoming the best version of yourself in order to maximize your positive impact on the world.”

Sheryl Sandberg (author and COO of Facebook) similarly defines leadership when she said:

“Leadership is about making others better as a result of your presence and making sure that impact lasts in your absence.”

If we embrace some version of these definitions of leadership, it becomes more apparent how leadership applies across disciplines. For those working in the disciplines of workplace wellness/wellbeing and safety, isn’t it really all about people being the best version of themselves and having a positive impact? And for those who are business leaders or work in HR, OD, LD and other disciplines, isn’t this the cornerstone for employee engagement and organizational effectiveness?

So if we embrace this new way to define leadership, then what does it mean to be an effective leader? Again, there are many definitions; one I particularly like is from author David Foster Wallace:

“Effective leaders are individuals who help us overcome our own selfishness, weakness, and fears and get us to do harder, better, more important work than we would do on our own.”

In other words, we need to stop looking at leadership as a specific role. We need to realize that leadership is a BEHAVIOR, not a Title! So we all need to align efforts to support better thinking to result in the behaviors that enhance individual and organizational effectiveness.

A 4-Step Framework for Developing EVERYONE As a Leader:

Keeping in mind the research on what it takes to have meaningful change, high-performing organizations, and thriving individuals, we follow a 4-step framework for leadership (aka PEOPLE) development:

• Step 1: Enhancing Self-Awareness – self-awareness is a cornerstone to developing emotional intelligence and resiliency and is the fastest growing competency in leadership development. You can’t expect people to behave differently until they are truly self-aware. This phase of development can include various assessments (e.g., Judgment Index, DISC, Myers Briggs, Strengths Finder, etc.) as well as reflection exercises. It is also the perfect place to start embedding wellbeing, providing quality coaching and facilitating workshops as part of the journey towards greater self-awareness.
• Step 2: Building Effective Thinking Skills – once people have greater self-awareness, clarity of their strengths, purpose and opportunities for improvement, connect to what matters to them, can identify when their thinking is and isn’t serving them well, and know what they need in terms of their wellbeing to have a solid foundation for being the best version of themselves, they can begin building effective thinking skills. This phase can include work related to self-management and changing our story, Intrinsic Coaching?, Immunity to Change work and other ways to help people navigate adaptive change; it is nearly impossible to apply new skills and change behaviors without first shifting our thinking. It can also include more in-depth resiliency and mindfulness work.
• Step 3: Developing & Fostering Quality Relationships So Others Can Grow – this is the phase where most traditional leadership development efforts start (and why they tend to be less-than effective). Effective leadership is about people, so efforts at this phase should support people in building and fostering relationships as well as supporting others’ growth. In addition to typical development around goal setting, effective communication, and project management, one program we’re loving that provides a common language is Blanchard’s Situational Leadership II.
• Step 4: Growing the Organization – this phase not only includes knowledge and skills critical to organizational growth (e.g., effective strategic planning, understanding capital investments, enhancing innovation, systems thinking, etc.), but also thinking about influencing change at the local level by facilitating process mapping and embracing a spirit of continuous quality improvement; in other words, constantly working to look at closing the gap to living our personal and organizational WHY on a daily basis.

Note that this model supports the previous definitions of leadership and includes EVERYONE, regardless of their role. And, just like any living system, development is an ongoing effort that must be nurtured over time. It also starts with working on ourselves as individuals first – a growing focus for many forward-thinking companies and leaders. For example, Barry-Wehmiller advocates for shifting to what they call “The Work of Leadership” – where instead of the majority of time being spent managing processes and running around with busy work, leaders take time each week to work on improving themselves (having the mindset of “my job is to get better for you”) and then supporting the people within their span of care. At the 2017 National SHRM Conference, leader and consultant Ryan Estis stated that teams stop growing when leaders stop growing; he advocates for 5 hours of scheduled self-improvement each week. 

We have been doing this work more and more at a team level within organizations. It's amazing the results groups are experiencing with turning around culture and enhancing effectiveness one team at a time - all by following this framework and focusing on what it takes to develop a leadership mindset.

Take Home Nuggets…

So if 89% of executives believe leadership development is important; we have nearly a 10-year gap of effectively developing leaders; 96% of current leaders experience burnout; and our future workforce demands (yet is significantly lacking) in being developed, doesn’t it make sense that putting people development back to the forefront would be a critical focus for ALL industries wanting to positively impact the employee experience? When we put PEOPLE and their development first – help them become the best version of themselves to maximize the positive impact they can have on the world – the results are enhanced wellbeing, improved safety, and business excellence.

Let’s start redefining what it means to be a leader. Let’s start building relationships and collaborating to ensure we’re developing people effectively – that we’re supporting people in being the best version of themselves, stretching others, and maximizing their positive impact. Let’s relook at how we’re developing people and make sure we start with self-awareness and building better thinking before jumping to behaviors. With that, let’s make sure those first 2 steps of development include key elements for individual wellbeing and safety; after all, we can’t maximize our positive impact if we can’t first be our best selves. I’d also suggest that this is a space of tremendous opportunity for wellness/wellbeing professionals to play an integral role in the organization’s people development strategy – to get off the sinking ship of positioning wellness as a health insurance and cost-savings strategy and instead be part of the business growth strategy.

If you’d like to learn more on how to put people back to the forefront, enroll in our upcoming Thriving Workplace Culture Certificate Training Program. Our next session starts in September and still has seats available. Earn CEUs for SHRM, HRCI, CHES/MCHES and CEBS from the comfort of your own computer.