Tag Archives: Leadership Advice

How Does a Young Manager from the Outside Convince an Interviewer that He Can Lead?

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How Do You Convince an Interviewer That You Can Lead?

Recently, a reader posed a question after finding our article explaining how young managers can lead older subordinates. Because his question (posted below) required more than just a passing comment as a response, we decided to dedicate an entire post to properly address it.

Recently I interviewed for a leadership position in a big and reputable organization. The company is considering internal candidates also for the position. This position is likely to lead a huge team which also includes experienced and older team members, many of whom would’ve been interviewed for the same position. The interview panel felt that it would be a humongous challenge for me to lead such a team. Although the panel seemed satisfied with my professional exposure, they considered the people challenges to be the most difficult part of the job. In the subsequent round of interviews, what do you think my approach should be to the people management aspect? – Sourabh De in Mumbai, India

Great question, Sourabh. Our answer is going to assume that you’ve previously led a large team and/or subordinates with more experience. If neither of these is the case, you’ve got a tremendous uphill battle ahead of you. Companies – especially large, reputable ones – are exceedingly unlikely to gamble with important roles like the one you’ve described. If they rolled the dice and hired the untested from outside for key management positions they certainly wouldn’t be large or reputable for very long. While it is perfectly acceptable for these companies to promote an inexperienced top performer from within, it would be institutional suicide if they put unproven outsiders in important leadership roles.

Keep the Focus on the Interviewers, Not the Interviewee

As you are obviously neither untested nor inexperienced, you should still have a shot at the position. To help keep your focus on the task at hand, it’s important to understand there is a reason you are being interviewed in the first place. Certainly, we can assume there are no clear frontrunners currently employed with this company; because great companies don’t waste their people’s time assembling a panel to interview outsiders who have no chance of joining the team. We also have to assume, however, that your skill set is similar to at least a few of their current employees.

How will you stand out and convince them you are capable of leading their team?

The key for anyone attempting to join a new company is to make yourself seem indispensable without having to explain just how much they need you. Telling the interview panel why you’re more qualified than those they already employ makes you seem arrogant and seemingly questions their ability to organically grow talent. The trick is to get them to see you as crucial to their success all on their own.

This is accomplished by keeping the focus on those conducting the interview; and by you keeping quiet when possible. Just as there is a greater likelihood of being successful on a sales call when you let your prospect dominate the conversation, you stand a better chance of landing a job when you allow the interviewer to do most of the talking. People love to hear their own voice, and when you ask their opinions and genuinely listen to their answers with interest, they perceive you as much brighter and more likeable and qualified than if you spoke non-stop during the interview.

In your next interviews, be sure to ask well thought out questions and listen carefully to the responses. This will make you seem mature beyond your years, and may help them see you as the leader of their large team.


What Are Their Goals?

As you prepare your questions for your next round of interviews, it’s important to know as much as you can about the goals of the company and, especially, the individual needs of those on the interview panel. Do you have a “coach” or friend who works for this company? If so, ask them about the hot buttons of each member of the interview panel, and then fashion your questions so that you allow the interviewers to showcase their strengths and fully explain their desires. If you do not have a coach, then you’ll have to use what you already know about the panel to determine their wants.

Obviously, it’s easier if you’re dealing with a single interviewer, but the key to getting people to tell you their goals is to ask them. In cases where you’re dealing with an interviewer one-on-one, you could probe for goals during the interview by asking the right questions and paying attention to the responses. Posing questions such as “assuming you hire me for the position, how will you know if I am successful?” may allow you some insight into whether the interviewer expects only mediocre results from the role or genuinely believes it could chart the future for the company. It also helps the interviewer picture you in the role (this is critical).

Play To Your Strengths

Because we can assume there are no insiders who are truly frontrunners for the position, it’s time to identify your unique strengths and play to them. Without sounding arrogant, you’ll want to align your strengths with the needs of the company and of the interviewers.

More than anything Sourabh, it’s important to present your strengths in a way that ensures those doing the interviewing that you will be an asset because 1) you are an expert at gaining trust and assimilating a new team quickly; 2) you excel at leading large groups; and 3) you are especially adept at leading older subordinates.

The best way I’ve found to give interviewers a sense that you possess these qualities is to identify these as potential pitfalls for whomever they choose. Whether they ask you directly or not, you should find the opportunity to state that the major challenges (as you see them) for the successful candidate are points 1, 2, and 3 above; making certain to provide examples when you 1) quickly gained trust; 2) excelled at leading a large group; and 3) you successfully and joyfully led older subordinates.

Stay Positive

Above all else, stay positive. This company certainly doesn’t want someone in the role who is going to hurt the morale of the team or undermine the authority of their peers. A negative attitude, even if it’s toward a competing candidate, will make you seem disingenuous.

Although you’re certain that you are the best person for the position (or you have no business getting this far in the interview process), you must avoid comparisons that paint the other candidates (either individually or collectively) as unqualified. In their minds, the interview panel has assembled a diverse group of highly talented people; any of whom might be a perfect fit. If you acknowledge this with a positive attitude and highlight where you will be able to overcome the major obstacles, you stand a much better chance of landing the role.

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Best of luck and please let us know how it turns out.

Leaders Don’t Get Too Caught Up In The Details

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Low Hanging Fruit and the Cost of Perfection

Imagine a small airplane flying low over a crowd at a baseball game. The door of the plane opens and a smiling man appears with a large sack. He turns the sack over just as the plane flies over the bleachers and millions of dollars in various denominations begin to flutter down to the amazed crowd below. The plane makes a dozen more passes, and each time the man empties sacks of bills onto the crowd.

Now imagine you are in this crowd and you see hundreds, fifties, twenties, tens, fives and ones all floating toward your waiting hands. As the bills come within reach, you feel compelled to collect only the fives and ones because you know they’ll be easy to spend and they’ll work in most vending machines. Additionally, you decide to straighten each bill as it reaches your hand and you arrange all bills in sequential order by serial number and denomination as you collect them.

Of course, these decisions hinder your ability to gather the maximum amount of money, but you really want to make sure these dollars are perfectly displayed in your wallet once the money shower subsides.


Crazy? Probably, but managers in businesses of all shapes and sizes make similar decisions every day. While rationale people would grab every bill just as fast as possible, managers locked into some strange quest for flawlessness worry too much about perfection and not enough about the goal – costing their companies millions in actual losses and even more in lost productivity.

 

Leaders Grab the Low Hanging Fruit

 

Often in sales we talk about Low Hanging Fruit (LHF). This overused phrase refers to the sales that are so easy to make you just have to walk up to the great sales tree, reach up and pick the customer of your choice. This phrase is so hackneyed and misunderstood that it nearly cracked the Top Ten in our list of the 25 Most Annoying Business Phrases of All Time.

 

The concept of LHF in sales came about because inexperienced salespeople would often pass up the sure thing only to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to close a sale that would eventually yield them less commission. In leadership, LHF refers to the opportunities that take little effort. These opportunities are often not glamorous, causing unfocused managers to chase shinier objects (leaving the LHF to rot on the vine).

 

Leaders, of course, maintain the goal in the forefront of their minds. This keeps them focused and allows them the wisdom to grab the Low Hanging Fruit; and to avoid the traps of shiny objects and the ill-advised pursuit of perfection. Leaders do what is best for the company and not just what feels best at the time or makes them appear to be in control.

 

Perfection is a Joke, and it Costs Too Much

 

I once worked with someone who was put in charge of overseeing the migration of the company’s website from provider X to provider Z. While X had done a fine job with the site, the company just felt it was time to change. No biggie, this happens. Unfortunately, my colleague got so caught up in how every page of the new website looked (she argued for weeks about shades of blue that were indistinguishable to the naked eye), that the designers at provider Z left out major functionality that would have converted twice as many visitors. Additionally, the new website performed poorly with search engines like Google because my colleague was too busy picking just the right images to notice that the content was incorrect.

 

A leader who was focused on the goal would have known that search visibility and conversion were the primary objectives of the website, and that there were no secondary objectives. This leader would have looked at the opportunity to build the site correctly as Low Hanging Fruit and would never have been caught up in unimportant details like Cornflower blue v. Dodger blue.

 

The Devil is in the Details

 

In today’s business world there is no room for perfection. Those lucky enough to still have a job are likely carrying the weight of several laid-off coworkers. True leaders understand this and do everything they can to maximize the ROI of their activities and decisions. They do not get caught up in colors or sequential bill stacking when the future of the company is at stake. As bad as it may sound to the dilettante managers, leaders understand that good enough is sometimes good enough.

 

Gaming and Cheating in Business – Why Companies Always Lose When They Cut Corners

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The Short Term or the Long Term

I’m often asked by young managers whether a given decision should be made for the short-term or the long-term well-being of a company; and I always give the same answer: both. No matter what the issue is, the ultimate decision should weigh the pros, cons and consequences over both the long and short terms.

That is not to say that I think that both are equally important – on the contrary – there is no doubt that the long-term health of a company is always more important than the company’s short-term health. Always. Always. Always. And, before you argue that without short-term strength a company will not have a long term; I’ll concede that you are right… and that you just proved my point.

Short-Term Health v. Long-Term Health

While the argument for short-term health versus long-term health may rage in your office, the truth is that no decisions ever really come down to an either/or – it is not a simple dichotomy. Sound company decisions always weigh long-term health against some potential short-term gain or loss. For example: do we take the gain today knowing that we will lose something (but not everything) in the future?

A decision made in favor of a company’s short-term viability so that this same company can be around in the future is indeed a decision made for both the short and long term. I would argue, in fact, that the company’s long-term health was likely the primary deciding factor in choosing the short-term strategy. You simply cannot make short-term decisions that disregard the company’s long-term well-being and expect to be in business in the future.

Short-Term Health v. Short-Term Wealth

Is it short-term health or short-term wealth you seek? Before you tell me that the two are never mutually exclusive, let’s ask the former executives of Lehman Brothers.

Because nearly all of us are paid more on the short-term outcomes we drive for our companies rather than what we provide over the long term, it is easy to see why some companies will game and cheat to maximize short-term revenue at the sake of long-term viability.

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”

We’ve previously shared this Upton Sinclair quote and it is as fitting in this context as it was in earlier posts. Why would middle managers even begin to try and understand the importance of a company’s long-term viability when 99% of their compensation is related to the short term? We should not be surprised, then, that many companies – and even whole industries – routinely mortgage their futures for the sake of a few dollars today. (Mortgage indeed.)




Gamers and Cheaters – Hall of Shame

While there are a number of industries that routinely cut corners to drive a few short-term dollars to their bottom lines (the banking and casual dining industries come to mind immediately), we decided to focus the remainder of this article on two specific industries that habitually game and cheat, and still don’t get it.

The first industry is known in the automotive business as “Third Party Lead Aggregators.” Basically, these companies acquire contact information from consumers who are reportedly in the market for a car, then sell these as leads to automotive dealers.

Because the aggregators sell leads at a fixed price to car dealers, though purchase the leads from their affiliates and the open market at variable prices, the push to achieve a suitable margin (in the short term) means that the aggregators must purchase a significant number of lower priced, lower quality leads to mix in with a few higher priced, higher quality leads. While this behavior results in greater short-term profits, it comes with an increase in customer churn and a reduction of long-term loyalty.

Think of it as watering down the lobster bisque. In the short term you make more money, though over the long run people stop coming to your restaurant.

What About Watering Down the Herbicide?

There’s actually an acceptable practice in business for cheating and gaming one’s customers known as the Least Noticeable Difference (LND). This is a product strategy that involves improving gross margin via minute degradations to the size or ingredient quality of a product. The key is to ensure that the quality or size is reduced just enough so that most consumers will never notice.

The other cheating industry we wish to highlight is one that seems to thrive on making LND changes (on a weekly basis). Welcome to the lawn service business. This industry is dominated by national players like TruGreen ChemLawn, Scott’s and ServiceMagic; but also populated by countless local players with such creative and fun names as Grasshopper Lawn Service and Bizzy Bee Lawn Care.

You can’t blame this group for cheating. All of their customers live in nice homes and hire someone else to cut their lawns and kill their weeds – i.e., they’re not really paying attention. Additionally, much of the work in this industry involves spraying a clear liquid on grass; the results of which are not realized for weeks. Who wouldn’t be tempted to cheat and water down the herbicide?

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Over the last few weeks the crab grass began to spread (again) in our yard. As we seem to have to do every few months, we called our lawn service to complain. What did they do? The same thing they always do: They apologized profusely, blamed it on the “increase in rain” and promised to come out “tomorrow and treat the lawn again, for free.”

“Not good enough,” I replied. “You’re fired.”

While most of their customers are probably fooled by their reactionary customer service and gladly allow them to continue, we simply could not reward this gaming and cheating behavior any longer. The truth is they simply don’t use enough herbicide during their weekly treatments to be effective, and they know it. They’ve watered it down to maximize their margins and they’re crossing their fingers that you’ll never notice. If you do, they simply apologize and “give” you an immediate treatment for “free.” What they’re actually giving you in this one-time treatment is something they should have been giving you all along: Quality.

LNDs: No One Can Eat Just One

Used once, an LND strategy can be an effective way to make a nice short term improvement to profits. Unfortunately we generally assume (incorrectly) that we will make these changes only when most customers will likely never notice. Like crack cocaine or Lay’s Potato Chips, we sometimes become so addicted to making these LNDs that we can’t stop until it’s too late. Our customers have left us and they’re not coming back.

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Make no mistake, we’re not naïve. We understand that there are plenty of business gamers and cheaters who are successfully pulling the wool over the eyes of their gullible customers every day – and have done so for years. Whether it’s from collusion or a lack of competition in their industry, these businesses have (so far) been able to operate in a vacuum; living high on the hog via a long series of short-term decisions.

Odds are that this cannot last; that the customers will revolt or a new competitor will enter the fray offering real value. Whatever happens, rest assured that it will indeed happen, and that by the time the gamers and cheaters realize it, it will likely be too late. (At least that’s what we hope.)

Some People Should Be Allowed To Quit – Coughlin’s Law Can Always Take Over

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Coughlin’s Law: Bury the Dead

People leave, let’s get over it. Gone are the days when a man arrives for work in the factory two days after his high school graduation and leaves forty years later with a gold watch. The American career path hasn’t included this scenario since before Lyndon Johnson took office. Over the last 40 years, American workers and American businesses have had an arrangement: Every man for himself.

For some reason, the most senior leaders of my company just don’t understand this.

We recently had an executive announce he was moving on; he no longer felt like there was a “fit” for him in our organization. He held no ill will for the company, but recent changes just made it difficult for him to continue in his capacity. In reality, he was doing what was best for him and the company. Besides, his employment was always, by law, considered to be “at-will.”

Our senior leadership was immediately filled with a strange hatred for this “traitor.” Like Bo Schembechler uttering that “a Michigan Man will coach Michigan” when then Michigan basketball coach Bill Frieder was talking to Arizona State in 1989, and Bo swiftly fired him (assistant coach Steve Fisher took over and won the national championship that season), our senior leadership began to treat this previously invaluable executive as some sort of leper. He became persona non grata overnight.

There ain’t no good guys, there ain’t no bad guys. There’s only you and me and we just disagree. – Dave Mason

The Company Owes You Nothing

It’s important to note that my company’s leadership has eliminated more than one thousand jobs over the last fifteen months amid the current recession. This doesn’t make them villains; they did this in the best interest of the shareholders. This, you see, is their duty.


The one thousand plus newly unemployed soles may not like it, but the company owed them nothing. There was no contract between the parties that guaranteed a lifetime of employment. There couldn’t be; not if we want businesses to succeed and create jobs and pay taxes. (It’s important to note that nearly every one of those who were laid off received severance packages better than that which they were due. The company did right by these employees.)

You Owe the Company Nothing

Just as your at-will employment can be terminated by the company for no cause, you have the right to walk when you want. You owe them nothing. The minute you begin to think differently, it’s time for you to consider a career change.

While on the payroll – and especially when you’re in a leadership position – you owe your company your best efforts, which include leading with integrity. If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you know that your integrity is critical to delivering great leadership. A duplicitous heart lacks integrity, and you have to be dedicated to your company’s well-being if you expect to be taken seriously as a leader.

That said, the minute you’re ready to go, you need to go, and you need not look back. It’s just sad that the alleged mature leaders in your company will likely treat you as someone taking part in some strange industrial espionage ritual.

Why Can’t Life Imitate Art?

Bryan Brown’s Doug Coughlin said it best in 1988’s Cocktail: “Coughlin’s Law: Bury the dead. They stink up the joint.” Companies and leaders need to figure this out and get over the natural turnover that occurs in American business today. People leave, it doesn’t make them the enemy. It does, however, make you look like an ass when you overreact to it.

Sales 101 – Stop “Venting” and Start Selling!

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Are You Venting or Just Making Excuses?

A colleague recently posted a rant about the quality of the leads she was handling on an automotive industry social network. As a part of her diatribe on her most recent batch of Internet sales leads, she gave some great examples of just how bad the leads really were. Her examples proved that some of the leads (certainly her examples) were indeed crap with a capital C.

In case you’re feeling like you should be the next one to go online and rant, read on…

Venting can be cathartic, and for those of us in your shoes, we know your vent will probably be warranted. After you’re finished venting, however, be sure you’re factoring in the percentages. Once you do this, you’ll likely find that things are much better than you imagined.

Like my colleague’s, yours will probably be a rhetorical venting, but I can’t help but provide a little advice. I’m hopeful you take this in the right light, as the following is the same advice I would give to any sales manager who expresses similar dissatisfaction in the quality of their leads:

“Failures” in the Sports World

  • You should know that the most successful hitter in Major League Baseball history was Ted Williams. In 1941, Williams maintained a .406 batting average. Since then, no MLB hitter has been able to break .400. This means that in the last 68 years, every batter in baseball has failed more than 60% of the time. Are they all failures? Of course not.

  • More recently, Derek Jeter of the Yankees won the Silver Slugger award in 2008 and was an All Star for the 9th time in his career. Should Jeter waste time venting about the 70% of the at-bats he had last year where he failed to get a hit? Of course not.

  • Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player of all time, yet his NBA career shooting percentage is just .497. He missed more shots than he made! Is MJ a failure? Of course not.


A traditional team in my industry handling Internet customers closes about 10% of their leads, a very good Internet sales team can consistently close above 18%, while a great team generally closes above 25% of all leads. This means that even the great teams fail to close 7.5 out of every 10 leads they receive. Wow, those guys are either complete failures or those leads must really stink!

Do the Leads Stink or Does the Team?

Of course, neither statement is true. A team closing 25% of their leads consistently is on the top of their game… and the leads they’re working are of the same quality you’re working.

The truth is that with proper lead counts, a great process and a dedication to that process, any team can be successful closing sales leads.

I’ve always believed you can vent about the bad leads or you can sell the good ones.

Stop Whining and Start Selling

While I’m not sure how my colleague took the advice above, it could be worse. I could have simply recited Blake’s words from Glengarry Glen Ross: “The leads are weak. F***ing leads are weak? You’re weak.”

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We can always find reasons we cannot succeed… they’re called excuses. It’s time to stop whining and start selling.

Stop Chasing and Start Leading – Leadership Lessons from the NHL

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Last night the Pittsburgh Penguins defeated the Detroit Red Wings 2-1 in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals to win the coveted Stanley Cup. Both teams deserved to be there, both played well throughout the season, and – as evidenced by a Game 7 in a best-of-seven-series – both teams were evenly matched.

Both teams were so evenly matched, in fact, that the same two teams had faced off last year for a shot at Lord Stanley’s Cup. In 2008, the Red Wings were victorious, defeating the young Penguins in a Game 6 triple overtime thriller. After their heartbreaking loss, one Pittsburgh player, Marian Hossa, was offered a five-year, $35 million dollar deal to remain with the team. He declined; shocking nearly everyone in the hockey world by instead choosing to sign a one-year deal with the champion Red Wings. Hossa, you see, wanted to win a championship.

The Best Laid Plans…

As we learned in the first sentence of this post, Hossa’s old team defeated Hossa’s new team for the 2009 Stanley Cup. Hossa chased the Cup and fell short. The prevailing thought is that he screwed up – that if he’d stayed in Pittsburgh he would be on the winning side. Of course, nothing happens in a vacuum, and Hossa’s departure surely led to other changes with the Penguins that may have contributed to their ultimate victory. That’s only speculation. The fact is that Hossa – so focused on winning a championship – couldn’t see the bright future ahead for the Penguins. He chased the Cup and (predictably) did not catch it.

Leaders Don’t Chase, They Lead

It’s strange that a hockey player would make such a mistake. From very early on in youth hockey, players are taught to skate to where the puck will be, not where it is. Players who skate directly after a moving puck become very tired, very quickly… and they never get the puck. “I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been,” Wayne Gretzky once intelligently stated. Hossa, we learned, skated to where the Cup had been, and away from where it was going to be.


Leaders don’t always know where the puck is going to be, but they do recognize that chasing things (especially shiny objects like the Stanley Cup) is fruitless and akin to a dog chasing its own tail. Leaders understand the goal and weigh decisions against it. Those activities that take them closer to the goal are good; those that don’t are bad. Leaders also understand their team’s capabilities, strengths and weaknesses; and they are able to project where their team will be at this time next year.

To See the Future, You Have to Look

With arguably the sport’s two greatest talents (Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin) and a young stud goalie (Marc-Andre Fleury) already on the roster, one would think Hossa would have seen Pittsburgh’s bright future and stayed. During the six games as a Penguin in the 2008 Stanley Cup finals, Hossa scored 3 goals and had 4 assists. In his seven games as a Red Wing in this year’s finals, he scored no goals and had just 3 assists. Pundits speculate that the pressure of his decision got to him. Understanding what makes leaders and non-leaders tick, we believe he performed poorly because of his desperation to win a championship; the same desperation that led him to chase instead of lead. The kind of desperation common in poor leaders.

The Effect of Ego on Leadership

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The Effect of Ego on Leadership

At AskTheManager.com we’ve always held to the belief that you can learn more from bad leadership examples than you can from the good ones. It’s not really cynical to think this way; in fact, we believe it’s quite healthy. It’s like seeking out the silver lining. We’ve learned so much from the poor, ineffective and insincere leaders in our lives, we feel we should thank them. And, when we closely examine the failed leadership examples of our collective past, we are faced with an overwhelming preponderance of overactive egos at work.

Of course, there are a few in the leadership development community who believe that leaders must possess the largest ego in the room to be truly effective. We disagree. Enlightened leaders – by their very nature – are as egoless as enlightened clergy. They serve, and as servants they deliver incredible results through the efforts of their entire team.

Even if you balk at the suggestion that effective leaders keep their egos in check, you cannot debate the negative impact of ego on team dynamics. Unhealthy ego is the single greatest barrier to teams working together effectively. Ego wears away the effectiveness of teams, and creates an agenda-driven environment where those with the uncontrollable egos put their needs ahead of the goals (and their teammates).

Ergo Ego

It’s not much of a stretch to understand that if the human ego can damage the dynamics of a team, and if teams are most effective when they have effective leadership, then leaders with too much ego can be damaging to their organizations.

Businesses need people to work as teams to meet their goals. Teams need effective leadership in order to function properly. When the leader makes it all about themselves, the team (and the organization) suffers.

Think about every bad business situation you’ve ever witnessed: What effect, if any, did ego play? Chances are that for most of the negative business situations in your memory bank, you can pinpoint the cause as ego-driven.


What’s a Bad Leader to Do?

If you’re an ineffective leader who recognizes they bring too much ego to the table, congratulations. Admitting you have a problem is always the first step. The next steps are a little harder.

In order to become an enlightened, effective leader (yes, this is a little redundant) you first have to realize that you don’t have all the answers. Even if you’re the owner of your company, you must understand very early on two important facts about industrial knowledge:

  • Those closest to the customers have the answers; and
  • Two heads are better than one.

As a leader, you are generally not the closest person to your customers (and you only come equipped with on head). Assuming you know it all is asinine and can be destructive to any organization. Seeking advice and answers from others not only makes you appear more genuine, it also means you’ll make better decisions.

Your next step toward shedding that melon-sized ego is to instill some humility in your routine. Humility, for those egomaniacal loons reading this, simply means that you’re humble; that you lack the pride and arrogance that makes you believe that everything is all about you. It also means that you see your major contribution as building and maintaining a motivating work environment that engages your team. (Leaders without humility believe their major contribution to the effort is the greatness that is “me.”)

Once you understand that you don’t know it all and that it’s not all about you, you can begin learning. Enlightened leaders have a voracious appetite for learning. They learn from books, from seminars and they especially learn from others. Truly enlightened leaders believe that everyone, even the receptionist and the janitor, has something to teach them. And they understand that the best way to learn is to listen.

A Spade is a Spade

Without some outside help, of course, it will be nearly impossible for the ego-driven leader to change his ways. We recommend assigning a peer or even a subordinate to call you to the carpet when you fail to provide humble, servant leadership.

Ask someone you can trust (and won’t resent) to call you an egomaniac when you step out of line. Encourage them to stand on your desk and shout at you whenever you fail to remain humble. You have to be willing to permit these constant course corrections or you have no chance to recognize and repair the destructive effects of ego on your leadership style.

The bottom line is that can’t let your ego get in the way of the goal. Your ability to overcome self-serving tendencies will determine your team’s effectiveness and anything you can do to give up your desire to be the center of attention can only help.

Uplifted in the Down Economy – Guest Article by Bill Curran

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I don’t know about the best of times but these sure feel like the worst of them. It’s as close to Dickens’s London as I dare want to see us go. Dickens would have been hard pressed to pen an economic/social setting as ugly as the one we find ourselves in today. Eventually, we will tire of being reminded of just how tough things have become. Maybe I have reached the depths of despair and have hit a plateau. I am in search of finding something positive and, in a small way, I did early on Saturday morning. A great example of customer focus and personal leadership were about to appear in the most unlikely of settings…and then repeat itself twenty-four hours later!

It’s cold and cloudy and my son Dan and I are navigating Rte. 24 South heading to another hockey rink. The news on the radio is thoroughly negative as story after story describes the hellish business conditions the likes of which only my elderly parents seem to recall. Even sports radio piles on, railing about ticket price pressure in a recession. It’s all quite depressing. I retreat to an oldies CD and make my way onto Rte 104 in Bridgewater. Although I don’t drink coffee, I am a quasi regular at Dunkin Donuts and as any self respectful hockey parent can attest, a stop at DD is part of the game day ritual. I open my window at the drive-through and am staring through the outdoor menu board, still half asleep. The cold wind is biting as I wait to hear the tinny voice of the invisible employee going through the motions.

What happens next startles me. I am lifted from my funk by an energetic, enthusiastic, and pleasant voice wishing me a good morning and “welcome to Dunkin Donuts!” What catches my attention is that the voice does not sound robotic nor like a teenager who wishes she were still in bed rather than laboriously taking order after order from grumpy consumers. She has, dare I say, passion. I can feel it! My son, Dan, is a bantam in youth hockey. He’s fifteen, also half asleep, and convinced I was put on this earth to embarrass him. “Did you hear her?!” I whack him on the shoulder to get his attention. He rolls his eyes as he knows a mini-lecture is coming his way.

I work in both the corporate and academic sectors and my work (passion) revolves around leadership and customer-focus. I help organizations develop their leadership bench strength. Its hard work but the results are worth it. As a student of the topic, I am always looking for examples in my daily life. They are called leadership moments. The wrong behavior is easy to spot but positive role models seem more elusive. However, every now and then you hit the jackpot. Most people miss these seemingly inconsequential moments that brush past each and every day. We think of leadership with a capital L and think of moments of what I call ‘Churchillian’ proportions. Most leadership moments won’t determine the fate of the free world but they do define the person…and the company. If you’re paying close attention, you might just find one of these leadership moments in the drive-through!




The research today equating strong organizational performance and leadership is compelling. The bottom-line differentiator between great places to work and the rest of the pack is something called employee engagement. It is the degree to which an employee feels connected to the mission of the business and is reflected in his/her output. Workers have up to 25% of discretionary effort that they choose to give…or not. Great managers treat their people differently. They give the employee the sense that their job and effort matters and they’re darn good at saluting that effort and making the workplace fun. They tap into that twenty-five percent and it pays off. It’s the difference between employee compliance and commitment. Not only does the business profit, the environment is a breeding ground for future leaders or, in this case, store managers.

The voice behind the sign at Dunkin Donuts in Bridgewater was a sixteen year old high school student trying to earn some cash but she has decided to go the extra mile and deliver service with a smile – even if I couldn’t see her face. She is highly engaged. These people believe that one person can make a difference and her enthusiasm made my day. When I got to the window, I asked the young woman if she took my order. She said no and pointed, “It was Kelly.” I asked her to come to the window. My son is slinking down as far as the car’s front seat will let him. I yelled out, “Kelly, you are so good. I love your energy and customer focus. I wish everyone gave it like you!” I received my drink from the other employee and got my change. I hesitated then offered the dollar bill from the change and yelled, ‘Give this to Kelly…a tip!” Everyone but Dan laughed. Ok, I’m not the last of the big spenders but I felt the need to reward a kid who brings energy to the workplace and it was a spontaneous gesture on my part. As we left and Dan started to sit up again, I tried to provide my son with a teachable moment, “If she keeps that spirit and energy up with customers, she’ll go places. I guarantee it.”

As luck or fate would have it, I found myself in Brockton the next night at…yes…another hockey rink. My neighbor and I dropped our boys at the door and dutifully headed back to the Dunkin Donuts around the corner. Along the way, I told him of my customer delight encounter of the previous day. We entered the store and found ourselves to be the only customers. The young lady behind the counter greeted us by saying, ‘Hi. May I help you?” I jokingly responded, ‘How did you know?” We laughed. I described what I wanted. “I’ll take a medium hot chocolate with whipped cream in a tall cup.”

A voice from around the corner said, “You like whipped cream?” I said, ‘I love whipped cream!” She filled my order and placed the cup and the closed lid in front of me. She decided to put her own signature to her work by placing a small mountain of whipped cream complete with a chocolate syrup design on top of the cup’s lid. I yelled, ‘Holy cow. It’s a work of art!” Two Dunkin Donuts in two days by two teenagers who, incredibly, get it when it comes to dealing with customers. There may be no odds for this. Working the window or the counter is not easy stuff. It is perfectly fine to perform the task at hand and do no more. It isn’t expected. But when someone goes above and beyond in this kind of setting, you are witnessing leadership in action. It’s what is known in customer service circles as WOW moments.

I told this story to several people at the rink and I suspect they thought my drink was spiked. For a few short moments I forgot all about the troubled economy and other world maladies and relished poetry in motion by a couple of teenagers. I was happy. I was uplifted. In an uncertain age where folks are keeping their heads down as a form of survival, these two chose to use their positions as a medium for shouting out their zest for life. There was no supervisor peering over their shoulders making sure policy was being adhered to but I suspect these two stores had strong managers, i.e. leaders. They decided to make their work an opportunity to express themselves to customers in a positive light thus allowing their employer to be viewed in a very positive light as well…no additional charge. Companies would and should die for this kind of behavior. Someone once said, “Leadership is doing the right thing when no one else is watching.” They served as terrific role models to young and older employees alike.

One person can make a difference. In this case…two did. Savvy employees don’t do just enough to get by. They bring their A game each and every day. They don’t hunker down and hope to survive. They stand tall…and stand out. To hell with this down economy. It, too, shall pass. There is hope yet for the future. These two employees are helping to lead the way. I’m off to the rink and in search of another Dunkin service-leadership moment.

Bill Curran is a senior leadership consultant. He has served in a variety of leadership development roles at companies such as PerkinElmer, EG&G, Vertex Pharmaceuticals, Sensata Technologies and Marshalls. He has extensive adjunct faculty experience in leadership and organizational behavior at Boston College, Stonehill, Babson, and UMass-Boston. He’s also an unpaid chauffer to many hockey rinks throughout New England! He can be reached at www.BillCurranAssociates.com or at billcur@comcast.net