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Laurie Maddalena

Laurie Maddalena
In daily habits, Leadership

Read This Book to Have an Awesome Year

Before the year began, my husband and I took a mini-vacation to a bed and breakfast in West Virginia to relax and unwind. With three young kids at home, it’s not often we get away together alone. One of our favorite things to do is read by the fire. On this trip, I read two books cover to cover, and one impacted me so much, I want to share it with you.

In studying success for over 25 years, there is something I have discovered that is a common theme in high achievers—they have a bias for action. They have the same fears, doubts, anxieties, and challenges as everyone, but they push through the negative mind chatter and get themselves to do things they may not feel like doing. Success and confidence are not innate qualities, they are the result of small actions that compound over time.

In all honesty, my default is laziness. If I didn’t consciously push myself through the barriers my mind creates, I would sit around every day watching Hallmark movies, eating Lindor truffles, and drinking cappuccinos. Now, there’s nothing wrong with these things, but compound them daily over time, and they would not lead me toward my best self. My guess is that your default is also laziness. I know this, because of all the leaders—of all the humans—I have ever worked with, been friends with, or had a conversation with, no one has ever said that sticking to their goals was easy peasy, lemon squeezy (this is a current favorite phrase of my almost seven-year-old).

Sitting by the fire two nights before New Year’s Eve, I was reading the book, The 5 Second Rule by Mel Robbins. I had seen Mel’s Ted Talk a few years ago, so I wasn’t in a rush to read the book. Frankly, I thought the “5 Second Rule” she preaches was too simplistic to be of value. But as I read the book and the case studies from people around the world, I became enthralled with the concept and couldn’t put it down. There was one piece of research that Mel shared that really stuck with me, and made total sense based on my own personal experience. She said that in the quest to reach our goals, thinking is not the problem; we rarely make decisions based on logic. Research has shown that we make 95% of our decisions based on our feelings, not on our thoughts. I reflected on the choices I make each day, and realized that if I didn’t push myself, I would absolutely choose to watch Hallmark movies while drinking cappuccinos and eating chocolate all day.

Left to my feelings, here is how I would make decisions each day:

  • Do I feel like getting up an hour early today? No, I’d rather stay in my warm bed.
  • Do I feel like working out today? No, it’s too much effort.
  • Do I feel like writing two blogs today? No, it takes too much thought.
  • Do I feel like eating a healthy salad for lunch? No, that doesn’t sound delicious!

You see how that works? We make 95% of our decisions based on how we feel in the moment, and our feelings are rarely in our best interest. Change requires us to have the courage to make choices that feel hard and challenging. So what do successful people do? They make decisions before their feelings set in and hijack their life. Mel Robbins’ “5 Second Rule” is about counting backwards—5-4-3-2-1—and then taking action immediately, before your feelings set in and your mind rationalizes why not to do something.

It’s not that successful people aren’t lazy. Most of us would rather take the easy way out rather than have to put forth effort to accomplish something. Successful people make the choice to push through, despite their feelings. It takes bold action—quick action—to move past your feelings and toward your goals. It’s our daily practices that will lead us toward our best self. No one is perfect every day, but if you consistently take action before your feelings set in, those small actions will compound to lead you toward better health, better relationships, better leadership, and a better life.

  • Do I feel like tackling that hard project first thing in the morning? No, but I know if I do, I will get it off my plate and get to leave work on time today.
  • Do I feel like having that tough conversation with my employee? No, but I know it’s necessary to maintain a cohesive team.
  • Do I feel like taking 45 minutes to teach a task I can do in 10 minutes? No, but I know if I delegate it now, I will free up more of my time in the long run.

This morning, when the alarm rang an hour earlier, instead of hitting snooze, I jumped out of bed before my feelings convinced me I needed more sleep. It may seem like a small action, but I started my day off in control—in control of my actions, in control of my goals, and in control of my life.

Laurie Maddalena
In Leadership, success

Three Pillars of Exceptional Leadership

Three Pillars of Exceptional Leadership

One of the biggest challenges professionals face when promoted to a leadership role is where to focus their time and energy. In a sole contributor role, we are rewarded for technical expertise and skill. The transition to leadership can be very different and challenging, as many professionals have not been prepared and developed to master the competencies that are necessary for success.

I remember the first time my vice president gave me feedback after I had been promoted to assistant director of human resources. It was about two months into my new leadership role, and she called me into her office to tell me to stop doing my old job. In my previous role as human resources generalist, I performed several technical jobs like processing payroll and benefits. While I wasn’t still processing payroll every two weeks, anytime someone had a payroll or benefits issue, they were still coming to me to fix them. My boss told me I needed to start delegating; fixing payroll and benefit issues was not my job anymore, and I was expected to coach my employee to perform those functions. She wanted me to focus on creating leadership programs to develop our management team. This was a big shift for me, as I had always equated my value as my technical HR expertise. But in my new leadership role, the competencies required and the value I needed to contribute were vastly different from my previous role.

For many new managers, leadership can feel less tangible than their previous technical role. We aren’t sure where to spend our time, so we become fixers (jumping in to solve problems our employees should take care of) instead of facilitators (facilitating dialogue and coaching employees how to handle challenges themselves).

Leaders need to focus their time and energy on the right areas to facilitate a positive, result-driven team—creating a positive and productive culture. There are three key pillars of exceptional leadership that are important for building trust and commitment, and for producing sustainable results.

Create Clarity: the first pillar is to create clarity. This means consistently sharing the vision and the path for employees so they know where to focus their attention. Leaders need to inspire employees by sharing how their contributions fit into the strategic goals, and then set clear expectations, goals, and deadlines. It is necessary to create clarity daily so employees understand the priorities. This requires the skill of zooming in and out. Zooming out to see the broader strategic picture of what needs to be done, while anticipating obstacles and adjusting priorities, and then zooming in to focus yourself and your staff on what needs to be done in the short-term.

Caretake the Culture: the second pillar is to caretake the culture—develop a relationship with each employee and understand how to adjust your leadership style to bring out each employee’s best performance. This is a very important part of leadership; leaders should be spending a significant amount of time coaching, developing, and providing honest, consistent, meaningful feedback. When an employee struggles, managers should be there providing support and direction. Leaders also need to be approachable, and foster cohesiveness and constructive conflict among their staff. Your job as a leader is to create a positive and results-driven culture—in your functional area, as well as the overall organizational culture.

Consistency and Results: leadership is not effective unless you can facilitate consistent results. This means modeling accountability for your staff, creating structures, following through, and being on top of your own priorities, as well as continuously focusing your staff on the daily goals to lead to results. Leaders must be able to coach employees to focus, remove roadblocks, and make timely and thorough decisions.

To be a successful leader, you must focus on the people side of the business more than ever before, and get results through people. This is why delegation is key. Leaders need to appropriately delegate tasks so they can focus on the most important priorities of creating clarity, caretaking the culture, and delivering consistent results. Not everyone is meant to be a leader. Leadership is a privilege and a huge responsibility. True leadership is in service to others, and requires mastering relationship competencies for success.

Laurie Maddalena
In Leadership

Why I terminated our family Au Pair

In August, our family welcomed an Au Pair from Italy who was supposed to be with us for a year. With a busy household of three young kids with many activities, my husband and I were hopeful this was the answer to our struggle of sport schedules, work travel, and two businesses. Having an extra set of hands would reduce some of the stress of managing five different schedules.

Within two weeks of arriving, our ideal vision of a life with our Au Pair had faded to the reality of stress, disappointment, and unfulfilled expectations. A week into her stay, we gave her some candid and supportive feedback about how she could engage better with the kids, and how we needed to increase the driving lessons because her driving skills were much lower than we had expected. A week later, during her fifth driving lesson with my husband, he had to grab the wheel to avoid a catastrophic accident. We realized we could never trust her to drive our kids, which was one of our main goals of the program. We sat down with her and our local consultant from the Au Pair company and respectfully shared the news that we weren’t a good fit for each other. She was upset and disappointed, as were we, but we felt confident in our decision. It would be easy to avoid the conversation and convince ourselves that she is a nice girl and we should try to make it work, but the bottom line was that her skill level was not a fit for our needs. Dragging it out for another two months would be stressful and unpleasant for her and for us.

Although most people were supportive and understood our decision, we were criticized by a couple of people who thought we should have given her more time to adjust. We felt strongly that the issue was not the adjustment period; her fundamental skill level was not a match for our needs and we would never feel confident or comfortable with her driving our children anywhere. Being a nice person didn’t make her effective at the job.

Despite the criticism, we stood by the decision to part ways, which was the best choice for our family, and ultimately the Au Pair. Keeping her in a situation that did not fit her skills was not in her best interest either. Being an only child, she was overwhelmed by three small kids, and would fit better with a family with less kids who did not need a driver.

This type of situation occurs often in our organizations—should we keep someone who is not meeting expectations, or terminate employment. These decisions are not always easy, but they are the hard decisions that leaders must have the courage to make. Keeping a low performer because they are a nice person and people like them does more damage than good to your culture. Choosing to preserve relationships over making hard decisions can frustrate your high performers, increase turnover, and have a negative impact on engagement.

Although these situations can be uncomfortable, we can handle them with respect and kindness. As leaders, we need to set expectations, provide timely and meaningful feedback, and provide coaching and support. It is our responsibility to do what we can to effectively lead an employee to better performance. And if performance isn’t improving, we can part ways with an employee with compassion and kindness.

It is important to take into consideration the whole system when making important people decisions. Sometimes that means a decision that is best for the company over our own department, and sometimes that means letting go of someone who is not a good fit for our team. Keeping an employee who is not a good fit not only has a negative impact on our teams and culture, but also on that individual employee. Releasing that person to find a better fit for their skills is the kind and respectful thing to do. In our case, keeping our Au Pair because she was kind and we felt bad wasn’t helping the fact that we needed someone who could engage with our kids, set limits, and take them to activities. Keeping her was not the right choice for our family system.

Time and again I have seen leaders accept mediocre or low performance to avoid an uncomfortable conversation or situation. I have frequently been called upon as an executive coach when the CEO or senior leader has reached their frustration point and been asked to coach a leader who has been ineffective for 10, 15, 20 or more years. Many times these ineffective leaders have received little or no feedback on the impact of their actions, performance, or behavior. The organization has worked around them, and both sides have suffered. It is our responsibility as leaders to be honest and direct with people so they can improve or find an organization where they will be more successful.

Our Au Pair left two weeks ago to join a new family in New York who have two children and don’t need a driver. By parting ways, our Au Pair was able to find a family where she has the skills to be effective and successful. And we can now find an Au Pair who will meet our needs and be fully successful in our family.

Laurie Maddalena
In habits

How I Started Taking Unplugged Vacations

How I Started Taking Unplugged Vacations

In mid-August, our family took a ten day vacation to Nashville where we stayed on a 200-acre working ranch with horses, a pool, and a spotty internet connection. If it were over two years ago, I would have panicked at the thought of not being able to check my work email, but on this trip, I deliberately unplugged from work—no emails or phone calls for eight of the ten days. This is progress for me. Although I’ve rarely brought “real” work on vacations, up until two years ago, I had always checked my email several times a day to make sure I wasn’t missing anything, or to answer simple questions. The problem was that I never really disconnected enough to actually enjoy my vacations—there was always an underlying sense of anxiety about what was going on at work.

This all changed two years ago when I joined a program for entrepreneurs. It was there that my coach introduced the entrepreneurial time system, which included free days. Free days are 24-hour periods of complete disconnection from work—no email, no phone calls, no reading any business material. The idea is for you to free your mind and focus on other activities you might enjoy (for me that includes drinking wine, massages, playing tennis, or hiking). This concept seemed so crazy to me at first. What if a potential client emailed me? What if one of my CEO clients had a question? What if people were annoyed, they had to wait over a week for me to get back to them?

In February 2018, I tested the concept out on an eight-day vacation we planned at a resort in southern Virginia. Day one and two were very challenging for me. I found myself frequently grabbing my phone out of habit, but the only thing I could check were my personal email (which was mostly sales emails) and Facebook. I felt an underlying sense of anxiety for two days as I wondered what I could be missing at work. And then something magical happened. By day three, the anxiety had disappeared. I was actually enjoying our vacation—truly enjoying it—without thinking about work. My husband and I went on a hike and had a great conversation, and I wasn’t constantly distracted by things I couldn’t do anything about.

This trip was a huge learning lesson for me. I realized by staying connected to my email, I became worried about small things—things that could wait a week—and it impacted my entire vacation. If a client emailed to ask a simple question, I would think about it all day until I could find a minute to reply. I would begin thinking about all the things I had to do when I got back to the office, instead of being present and enjoying my family who was right in front of me.

It may seem impossible (or feel irresponsible) for you to imagine going on vacation and completely disconnecting from work. I’m sure you take pride in doing a great job, being responsive, and getting things done. But you are truly missing out on an opportunity to free your mind of distractions, improve your relationships, and clear your mind. After your break, you will return more focused and rested, and with creative and better ideas. Your body and mind will get the rest it needs to work at your peak performance.

Our modern culture is so different today then years ago when you didn’t have a phone in your hand or email and texting at your fingertips. As a society we have blurred the lines between work and home. So many professionals are feeling burnt out, exhausted, and overworked from being constantly connected.

There are a couple of things you can do to prepare for your trip to reduce your own anxiety, while also alleviating the questions others may have while you are away.

Set up your auto responders. Before you leave, set up your out of office responder in your email and on your voicemail. This sounds simple, but I can’t tell you how many people I email who are on vacation and forget to put their out of the office message on. This just causes frustration and delays for your members and your colleagues. Here’s a tip: even if you are at a conference or away for one day and plan to check your emails, still set up your out of office responder. This way you are setting the expectation that you will not respond, and if you do, the receiver is pleasantly surprised. For example, I recently attended a four-day conference in Denver and set my auto response message saying I was at a conference and would respond when I returned to the office. I responded to more urgent messages the same day I received them and saved the others for when I actually returned to work.

Provide a contact. Always provide the name and email of someone who can be contacted when you are out of the office (and make sure they are not out of the office too!). When I set up my auto responder, I always include my assistant Lisa’s contact information so clients can have someone to reach out to if they need it. I tell Lisa she can text me if something urgent comes up and she thinks I need to be involved. This rarely happens, but will give you and the person emailing you relief in knowing if something is truly important, it will be handled.

Tie up loose ends. Make sure you follow through on any commitments or projects before you leave the office. Colleagues will be frustrated if you leave and they don’t have what they need while you are gone.

To really enjoy your unplugged vacation, you need to set expectations. Since I started taking unplugged vacations two years ago, I have not once (that anyone has communicated to me) had an issue where a client or partner was frustrated or mad because they received an auto responder and had to wait. In fact, several people have said it’s inspiring to them that I am able to really disconnect. As long as you set expectations of when you will respond and you follow through, it will rarely become an issue. You can be a successful, high performing leader and still take unplugged time to recharge. In fact, you will become more successful and high performing when you do. Personally, I have made more money both years I have taken unplugged vacations compared to years I have not.

And the upside? You will truly enjoy connecting with the special people in your life, and will return more rejuvenated and focused.

Laurie Maddalena
In Leadership

Why Great Leaders Invest in Themselves

I just returned from five days at the National Speakers Association conference in Denver, Colorado, where I had the opportunity to learn from the best speakers in the world on how they grow their businesses and stay relevant for their clients. These sessions were invaluable—hearing what worked, what didn’t, and the different approaches speakers take in working with clients and making an impact. I took copious notes which sparked many ideas I hadn’t thought of before.

This conference is one of several professional development sessions I attend each year to develop myself as a professional and business owner. In fact, every year I increase the amount of money I allocate for professional development. I have seen a direct connection between my personal and business growth and the amount I invest in myself.

Most of us didn’t receive any management training before—or even after—we were promoted to a leadership role. Most professional jobs—whether it’s a chef, a pilot, a lawyer, a doctor, or even your local barista—require some kind of training or certification. Leadership is the exception. There is a common practice that is contributing to mediocre and bad cultures in organizations; promoting technical superstars into leadership roles. This practice does a disservice to the person being promoted, their employees, and the overall culture. The competencies required in a technical role are different from what is important in a leadership role. And we need to invest in our managers and executives to teach them modern leadership skills that bring out the best in employees and build exceptional organizational cultures.

The best leaders proactively seek out professional development and never stop investing in themselves. And it doesn’t matter the level of leadership. The most successful CEOs, executives, directors, managers, and supervisors never think they have learned all they need to know. Smart leaders understand that they are never done learning. Learning is a lifelong process that never ends. I am amazed at how many executives feel they don’t need professional development once they have attained an executive role. The work doesn’t end when you are a leader. In fact, it’s just beginning.

The best keep getting better. The best leaders always think there is more to learn.

Below are some ways to invest in yourself:

Read and listen. Consistently read books and articles that help you develop your leadership skills and spark new ideas. Listen to podcasts. There are so many powerful podcasts where leadership influencers are interviewed. I listen while I’m in the car so my commute becomes learning.

A few of my favorite leadership books:

  • The Success Principles by Jack Canfield
  • The 5 Levels of Leadership by John Maxwell
  • Dare to Lead by Brené Brown
  • Leadership from the Inside Out by Kevin Cashman
  • Turning Pro by Steven Pressfield

A few of my favorite podcasts:

  • The Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast
  • The School of Greatness by Lewis Howes
  • Lead to Win by Michael Hyatt

Magazines:

  • Success
  • Harvard Business Review
  • CEO World
  • Forbes

Attend conferences inside and outside of your industry. Regularly attending conferences gets you out of the office (an environment of distractions and meetings) and into a space of learning, innovation, and growth. I am always amazed at how different and energized I feel after attending a conference where I learn about better ways of doing things and have the space to think differently. Conferences in your industry or functional area are helpful to build skills and educate yourself on trends, and conference outside your industry can bring fresh perspectives and new ideas.

Attend local events. Your industry association will likely have one day events and conferences for professional development. Don’t wait to be asked to attend. Take charge of your own development. Research your association website and ask your manager to attend an event.

Find an internal mentor or coach. You don’t have to leave the office to develop yourself as a leader or professional. Find a leader in your organization who you respect and want to learn from, and approach them about forming a more formal relationship. Be prepared with how you would like to use your time together and have specific questions ready. You want to take ownership of this relationship and not leave the work for the mentor/coach. Sometimes these relationships naturally form and aren’t always a formal relationship, so utilize the expertise, experience, and coaching of well-respected leaders in your company.

Great leaders are always evolving. In order to successfully fulfill the responsibility of leadership, we need to consciously develop ourselves so we can serve others.

Laurie Maddalena
In planning

How to Manage Your Emotional Hot Buttons

I had just returned from a rare weekend away with friends when I walked into my house to find a mess–clothes all over the floor, living room pillows scattered everywhere, papers littering the table and floor, and about fifty tiny staples stuck in the carpet. I felt my frustration rising as my calm, relaxing weekend faded away by the minute. This is a familiar scene in my house, since I have three kids, ages eight and under. Even though they have a playroom full of toys, they love to play with my things-namely office supplies and the pillows on our couches.

I like order. I think things to be the way I left them when I left them. I like the pillows to stay on the couch. This has been a hot button with me, these pillows, because every night before I go to bed, I find myself annoyed by having to put the pillows back where they belong. Having three young kids, things don’t always go how I want them to go. This has been a huge adjustment for someone who is orderly, on time, and structured. Because kids are not orderly, on time, or structured. I used to react really negatively when my kids would mess up my neat and orderly house. The past few years, I have been working on adjusting my mindset around how we live; setting new expectations for the reality of our daily life. I remind myself regularly that kids are kids, and that getting angry or upset every time I find the pillows on the floor will only make me more miserable, not them. I am working on embracing the chaos, even though it goes against my values and triggers my hot buttons.

Hot buttons. These are situations, events, and sometimes people, who trigger a negative emotional reaction in you. We all have them. And being aware of your hot buttons is an important piece of effectively managing your emotions.

You have undoubtedly heard a lot of talk about emotional intelligence and how important it is for successful leadership. Despite what most people think, emotional intelligence is not just about getting along well with people. That is certainly important, but it’s deeper than that. Emotional intelligence has many elements-how we feel about ourselves, how we interact and connect with others, how we make decisions that involve emotions, how we manage stress and change, and even how we feel about life overall.

Emotional intelligence is the ability to notice your own emotions and the emotions of others, understand why you are feeling how you feel, and consciously choosing your actions and behaviors, even in the face of emotion. This is a skill that is not always easy, and becoming familiar with your hot buttons or triggers can be a great starting point for understanding yourself and increasing your self-awareness, thereby increasing your emotional intelligence.

Which brings me back to the pillows. One of my hot buttons is when things are out of order. This is not to say that my house, my office, and my life are always neat and orderly. On the contrary, there are many times when I feel off balance because my space isn’t how I want it. I’ve noticed that when I am feeling overwhelmed, it is usually because things are out of order-my desk is messy, my schedule is overloaded, or the house is in disarray. Knowing this about myself has been integral in helping me to manage my emotions around it. Instead of becoming angry, I have learned to pause, take a breath, and identify why I am feeling the way I am feeling. I have learned to respond rather than react. As my husband and kids can attest, this has been a big step toward a happier and a (semi) peaceful household.

Below are some questions to ask yourself to bring awareness to your own hot buttons or triggers:

  • What makes me angry, or brings out a negative emotional reaction in me?
  • What irritates me at work?
  • What makes me crazy/frustrated/annoyed?

Perhaps your hot button is not pillows on the floor. Maybe it’s when someone talks over you, or doesn’t listen, or makes a lot of mistakes, or makes excuses, or when your schedule is packed full of meetings and kids’ activities.

Becoming conscious of your hot buttons allows you to build your self-awareness and actively work on handling your reaction when you feel triggered. Managing your emotions is an important part of being an effective and successful leader. This skill creates the ability to approach situations more mindfully and calmly, connect with people on a deeper level, and collaborate more effectively. Noticing other people’s emotions helps you to navigate challenging conversations and be purposeful in responding.

Increasing your emotional intelligence allows you to bring your best self to each situation–to approach your employees, your boss, your colleagues, and even your kids-with a long-term perspective that builds and strengthens relationships.

Over the next week, whenever you have a strong negative reaction, whether it be frustration, anger, or annoyance take note of the situation.

  • What specifically happened?
  • What were you feeling in that situation?
  • How did you respond?
  • Is this a pattern that shows up in other areas of your life?

Taking note of your triggers and hot buttons is the first step to learning how to manage them better.

Now please excuse me while I pick up the pillows off the floor. For the fifth time today.

Laurie Maddalena
In Leadership

5 Books to Help Elevate Your Culture This Year

Most organizations are average—they are stuck and not growing. Average organizations have average leaders. It is still standard practice for many organizations to promote employees for their technical skills, rather than their ability to lead and inspire other people. This practice perpetuates mediocre cultures.

I believe there are three main reasons organizations are average:

  1. Employees are promoted for technical proficiency, and not leadership proficiency
  2. The leaders are conflict avoidant
  3. Cultural health is not a strategic priority

To elevate the culture of your organization, you must set the standard for leadership and performance. This starts at the executive level.  The one thing the executive team must do today to positively impact the leadership quality of the organization is to declare that you will no longer promote for technical proficiency. To create an exceptional culture, you must start by creating exceptional leaders. This means instilling hiring and promotion practices that focus on leadership qualities, not technical skills. It also means we must train managers and executives to be influential, modern leaders. 

Organizations don’t transform, leaders do. Cultural transformation begins with the personal transformation of the leaders.

Below are five excellent books that can help set you on the path to creating an exceptional culture:

  • The Advantage by Patrick Lencioni. This is one of my favorite leadership books of all time. Lencioni argues that cultural health trumps everything; that you can have the best marketing, sales, and technical abilities, but if you don’t have a healthy culture, it will impede your success. He shares tangible strategies for improving communication, team cohesiveness, and clarity in the organization.
  • Firms of Endearment by Sisodia, Wolfe, and Sheth. Every executive leader should read this book. The authors share compelling statistics of how companies that focus on passion and purpose are significantly more profitable. If we focus on building relationships with people, we build successful, healthy organizations.
  • Conscious Capitalism by Mackey and Sisodia. This book, co-authored by the CEO of Whole Foods, promotes authentic leadership that is centered around values and people. This modern philosophy is exactly what we need in business today—to not just focus on profits, but to focus on elevating how we do business with our employees and the world.
  • Dare to Lead by Brenè Brown. We need more honesty in organizations, and we need brave leaders to step up and have the courage to lead with honesty and whole-heartedness. Brenè shares four skills to help leaders take off the armor so you can create organizations where employees feel safe, seen, heard, and respected. A must read!
  • The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni. A classic book that identifies the five root causes of politics and dysfunction on teams, and how to overcome them. The dysfunctions are: absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability, and inattention to results. Lencioni shares strategies for creating a high performing team.

It is possible to create a culture of exceptional leaders. It won’t happen overnight, but with consistent effort, it can happen. The first step is to make a decision—everything great that ever happens always starts with a decision.

If you want to be an exceptional organization, to make a bigger impact for your employees and your customers, make that choice.

It all starts with you.

These five books will prepare your mindset for elevating your culture and provide specific strategies for making it happen.

Laurie Maddalena
In Executive, Leadership

Five Signs You Have a Mediocre Culture

A lot has changed over the past thirty years–we can jump on Amazon and have anything delivered to our door in a day, we have hundreds of channels at our fingertips, and we can Google the answer to any question in a matter of seconds.

But there is one thing that has not changed much over the years—mediocre leadership. While the world has moved at a fast pace, mediocre leaders and mediocre cultures are the norm. Sure, there are some influential, modern leaders in business today, but unfortunately, they are the minority. In organizations around the country there are still ineffective, traditional, uninspiring leaders.

Why does the mediocre leader live on? Because most organizations and cultures are mediocre. It’s like a temperature setting in your house—if the thermostat is set to 68 degrees, when it gets warmer, the air conditioning kicks on to bring the temperature back down to its setting. This is what happens in organizational cultures every day. If some brave employee speaks up, tells the truth, displays excellence, or goes against the grain, the culture overtakes this one brave soul and brings him back to reality. A mass of mediocrity is no match for a few high performers.

So how do you know if you have a mediocre culture? Below are five signs.

Your managers spend more time and energy disciplining or tolerating low performers than focusing on the best employees.

One sign of mediocre leadership is managers who spend a considerable amount of time dealing with poor performers. Great cultures don’t tolerate mediocre performance—they coach their employees to peak performance, and step in to coach and support them when they don’t meet standards. Great leaders make tough choices when necessary—they won’t keep an underperforming employee because they know the impact it has on their high performers and the overall culture. Mediocre leaders tend to avoid crucial conversations, and when they do take action, they approach the employee with a command and control style of leadership rather than approaching the situation as an opportunity to coach.

 Your managers avoid confrontation.

Mediocre leaders avoid dealing with challenging situations because it’s uncomfortable. Rather, they take the path of least resistance by accepting complacency and settling for less. Mediocre managers reward compliance rather than honesty and candidness. They do not speak up, because they don’t want to rock the boat. They make excuses for low performers and are slow to take action. Influential leaders realize that although difficult conversations are uncomfortable, they are necessary in creating a high-performance culture. They don’t delay action. They focus on the bigger picture by dealing with issues early, so they don’t develop into larger challenges. Exceptional leaders are bold and courageous leaders.

Your managers are traditional, not modern.

Mediocre managers employ a command and control style of leadership. They don’t see the importance or value in employee engagement; they think employees are rewarded by their paycheck. Mediocre managers don’t see the value in feedback, empathy, coaching, or appreciation. They tend to micromanage and drive results through fear. Influential leaders understand that employee engagement leads to higher productivity, which leads to results. Exceptional leaders spend most of their time coaching, appreciating, supporting and developing their employees. They understand that they, as the leader, have the ability to create an environment that fosters teamwork and collaboration, and by connecting with each employee and adjusting their management style, they can develop employees to consistently deliver their best performance.

Your managers like doing technical work, not leadership work.

Mediocre leaders spend most of their time putting out fires, dealing with interruptions, and drowning themselves in lower level technical work. They often complain that they don’t have enough time to coach employees, give feedback, plan, or be strategic. The reality is, most mediocre leaders don’t enjoy the “leadership work” and would much rather deal with technical work because they equate their value with their technical expertise. And this is precisely why they are not effective leaders. Exceptional leaders understand the  value they contribute is how they lead their team. They spend more of their time thinking about the future, asking clarifying questions, coaching their employees through challenges, and communicating a clear path. They avoid the temptation to get drawn into the technical work they are an expert in, and make developing employees, planning, and coaching their priority. They are on top of their most important priorities, and create clarity for their team by consistently communicating those priorities and checking in on progress.

You have a hard time keeping high performers.

Mediocre managers create mediocre teams. They accept complacency, so high performers become frustrated by the lack of progress and results, and ultimately adjust their level of effort down, or leave the organization. Mediocre managers perpetuate average performance. Since they themselves are average, they don’t instill higher levels of performance in their staff. Exceptional leaders set clear standards and deadlines, and expect their employees to work at a high level. They challenge their teams in a positive way, and reward them for hard work. They focus more time on making sure they keep their best employees, and send the message that average performance is not acceptable.

A high-performance culture starts with the actions of the top leaders in the organization.

It takes bold and courageous CEOs, executives and managers to step up and change the temperature setting of the culture and declare that mediocrity is no longer acceptable. Exceptional leaders don’t just talk about creating a high performing culture, they take the actions necessary to create the culture.

People don’t follow what you say, they follow what you do.

If you don’t reward exceptional performance and instead accept mediocrity, your culture will remain average. If you declare a higher standard, and take action by rewarding high performers and coach the low performers to a higher level of performance or out of the organization, you will begin to transform your culture over time.

Leadership is not easy. It requires consistent focus on people and the greater organization. It requires having courageous conversations for the sake of the culture. Exceptional leaders are the caretakers of the culture. They understand that every decision they make or don’t make has a lasting impact on the culture. They choose every day to step up and lead at a higher level.

Laurie Maddalena
In Leadership

Stop Telling Girls that Bossy is Leadership

Stop Telling Girls that Bossy is Leadership

It was a week before Christmas, and my three kids were reenacting The Nutcracker in our living room when a fight broke out. My seven-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Olivia, started yelling at her younger brother because he didn’t announce her performance the way she wanted him to. She screamed at him to turn off the lights and start over, and Luca left the room in tears. As I attempted to intervene and bring some peace to the situation, Olivia started bossing her little sister around, scolding Clara as she touched the props Olivia had put out for her own performance. I tried to calm a now crying Clara, and told Olivia that she needed to play nicely with her brother and sister.

“They weren’t doing what I told them to do!” she yelled, obviously frustrated.

“People usually don’t do what you want when you yell at them,” I replied. “If you are calmer and patient, maybe they will want to play with you.”

This situation made me reflect on a comment that Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, made in an interview several years ago about girls and leadership. She said:

“I want every little girl who someone says ‘they’re bossy’ to be told instead, ‘you have leadership skills’ because I was told that and because every woman I know who’s in a leadership position was told that.”

When I first heard that declaration, there was a part of me that wanted to rally around that mantra, much like the initial positive reaction I have when I see those t-shirts made for young girls that say, “Future CEO” or “Girls Rule the World.” But there is a fundamental problem with these messages. While these phrases are catchy, should we really be engraining in our children that being a leader just takes a cool t-shirt and ruthlessness? That if you want to be a leader or a CEO, all you have to do is declare it and you can be anything you want?  This falls short of the reality that not everyone is meant to be a leader. There is much more to leadership than directing people around. Ask any professional in a leadership role, and I guarantee they will say that leadership is much harder than they expected.

We need to stop telling girls that being bossy is leadership.

In fact, these are the exact opposite behaviors that effective, influential leaders possess. Leadership is listening, supporting, collaborating, challenging others to work at a high level, guiding by providing clarity, influencing by creating a vision, and having the courage to be honest and have tough conversations. Leadership is not dictating, controlling, micromanaging, intimidating, or just about getting results. True leadership is people-focused, not task-focused.

I do believe there are still challenges for women in the workplace, and that biases do exist. There certainly are still times when confident and bold women are viewed negatively in the workplace, when a bold and confident man is seen as effective. But I don’t believe that “bossy” is effective—no matter a leader’s gender.

In my work with executives and managers, one of the most problematic issues in the workplace are people in leadership roles who are not effective because they have challenges with people. Most often these managers and executives were promoted for technical proficiency, not for leadership proficiency. And most of them were not provided any leadership training prior to being promoted. Many of them have been in leadership roles for decades, but as the landscape of work changes and employees seek more meaning and engagement in their work, the flaws of task-based management have proven ineffective. Because leadership is about getting results through relationships with people. Bossy is ego-focused, and leadership is others-focused.

So, I want every boy, girl, manager, supervisor, and CEO to know—bossy is not leadership.

As for my daughter, she does exhibit skills that—if channeled properly—may someday develop into good leadership skills. She is confident, bold, and determined. I am doing my best to help develop her skills over time by providing feedback and guidance.

But is her tendency to take control and order her brother and sister around leadership skills? Ask her brother, and he will surely tell you that she is just plain bossy.

Laurie Maddalena
In accountability, Leadership

Instilling Accountability in Your Team

I believe most employees want to do a good job. They want clarity on how to be successful and what is expected so they can deliver results. Yet many leaders don’t communicate in a way that brings out the best performance in their employees. There are often little things we do and don’t do as leaders that get in the way of effective communication and results.

In many organizations, accountability has a negative connotation. Many leaders look outside themselves for the problem, and focus on blaming when things go wrong. These managers talk about “holding people accountable” and implement disciplinary action to force improvements. This approach often fails because it leaves the employee feeling disengaged and unmotivated.

Accountability is really about taking responsibility for your actions. You can’t control someone else. But you can control your choices and behaviors.

This is my favorite definition of accountability, from Roger Conners and Tom Smith:

“A personal choice to rise above one’s circumstances and demonstrate the ownership necessary
for achieving desired results – to see it, own it, solve it, and do it.”

Accountability is an attitude. It is one of the most important characteristics of success. It is a very powerful tool that can create more success in life and work.

One of the most important ways we can instill accountability on our teams is to model it ourselves.

People don’t follow what you say, they follow what you do.

The small things we do every day can either create trust and strengthen relationships, or chip away at trust and damage relationships. The trust you build can strengthen your integrity and credibility, or lack of trust can damage your integrity and credibility.

Accountability looks like…

  • Follow through
  • Doing what you say you are going to do
  • Showing up on time
  • Asking for help
  • Doing something even if it’s not your job
  • Asking for Clarity

Every interaction you have with another person impacts the relationship in either a positive or negative way. When you have positive experiences (do what you say, show up on time, follow through), you create a positive connection. When you have negative experiences (don’t follow through, show up late), you create a negative connection. These interactions impact the relationship, as well as the team.

Another way leaders can instill accountability is to create clarity for employees. This means using language that is specific and clear rather than vague and confusing.

In organizations, we use vague and weak language every day. Words and phrases like “ASAP”, “soon”, “right away”, and “should” get in the way of clarity and results. To get better results in life and in your work, you need to use positive and specific language.

When communicating specific tasks or projects, make sure you are communicating all the information necessary for employees to be successful. Most leaders focus on what needs to be done and neglect to communicate why it needs to be done and by when it needs to be done.

Why    →     What     →     When
Why you need it
What you need
When you need it by

 

If you want your team to produce better results, reflect on how you are communicating. Shifting to clear and specific language, and modeling ownership and accountability yourself will promote a positive sense of ownership and accountability in your team.