“Success is indeed a team sport. Failure, you can pretty much do it on your own.” as one of my favorite quotations goes. Great Leaders know this by heart more than mediocre ones.
Yes, a leader sometimes claims that the success of the company was from their leadership. Yes, there may be merit in some of this. However, they cannot steer a company to succeed without a crew to support them. Even their executive assistant helps in this quest. A good EA would be guarding the time of the leader with tenacity. They make sure that the leader maximizes the use of their time. They keep out distractions and time-wasting people.
You would need a great marketing team to execute your vision and brand message. A good finance team helps manage funds in good times and bad. A good sales team brings in revenue to fuel growth. Even the driver plays a key role. He ensures you arrive safely at your meetings on time.
The biggest lie about success is the self-proclaimed self-made millionaires. There is no such thing as a self-made man or woman. We are social beings, and we need people around us. We need people to support our goals. We need people to rally behind us.
Another danger of self-professed self-made people is the outcome of their retirement. Through the years, they lead from a center of power. The center being themselves. The company is likely to collapse after they leave. A void will be left behind. No one was groomed to take over the helm.
Great leaders, on the other hand, understand that business is a long game. They look at business far beyond their tenure in the company. Japanese businessmen have this view of their companies. They understand that not taking the time to develop other leaders in the organization will have a detrimental effect when they leave.
Great leaders understand that there are no real winners or losers in the business. Companies are either ahead or behind in the long game. New players will come join the game. Other companies may leave the game. Even the most established companies fall behind without good leadership. Take IBM, once an unstoppable force in front of the pack, whose leader turned arrogant. Today they are behind in their game.
Great leaders like Bill Gates early in his career made sure that employee and leadership development is at the core of their business. I had the opportunity to work with managers of Microsoft Middle-East. It was fascinating to know that they even have metrics on learning. Knowledge sharing was also part of the culture. Team members need to write a ‘white paper’ of projects they complete and share it in a central knowledge base repository.
Contrary to the claims of some leaders, leaders don’t build great companies. I beg to disagree. If you observe companies that have succeeded through generations of leadership succession, they had one very important thing going for them. They understand that great leaders develop great people. Great people build great companies. There is no other way to truly thrive in the long game of what we call ‘business.’
One, of many admirable traits of our Pasig City Mayor, is that he is not afraid to go against traditional political decision-making. Mayor Vico Sotto dares to push through on decisions that he feels are for the good of his Pasiguenos.
There were instances where he was criticized for his stand. He was criticized for being the first City to implement the Universal Healthcare law. Many of his peers were afraid of the repercussions of supporting such a law. All his colleagues are still undecided or are against the law. Mayor Vico pushed through for Pasig City. He is working to make medical services affordable for Pasiguenos.
He also aligned the City budget to accommodate a record 13,000 scholars. He required traffic enforcers to attend professional development programs. He is fighting to clean the deeply rooted corruption in the local government.
The City of Pasig was popular for its corruption. You can trace this back to the previous leadership. Corruption was instituted as a family business by the previous city Mayor. Mayor Vico dared to run against a 27-year political dynasty.
Leaders must choose between what is right and what is popular. Leaders must choose between what is legal and what is ethical. Leaders must choose between personal gain and service to others. Leaders must choose between short-term gains and long-term benefits. Leaders must choose between pushing their ideas and listening to others. Leaders much choose between dictatorship and meritocracy. Leaders must choose between talking and listening to others. Leaders must choose between ego and humility.
We all know what good leaders need to chose. However, decisions are difficult to make most of the time. However, leaders are placed in a position of influence to make those tough decisions. Leaders are placed in their position to make the right decisions.
The decisions they make will establish the legacy they leave behind. The decisions they make will clarify how people will see them. The people they are leading will see them as servant leaders or not.
It is not up to the leaders to say that they made the correct decisions or not. It’s the people around them that make that judgment.
It takes courage to do the right thing. When you do the right thing, it inspires others to do the right thing. It’s hard to stand up against outside pressures, from internal politics. You can get in trouble. It takes relationships we foster that give us the courage to do the right thing. Courage is external and comes from the support we feel from others. Courage sparks courage.
Hundreds of work environments are what the millennials call “toxic”. It has been baffling me for over twenty years. I have experienced this personally as I consulted with several companies. Of course, these come in varying degrees of toxicity depending on the leadership of the function. Depending on where it starts, the toxicity can cover the entire company or just an isolated department.
I spent a few days thinking about this topic. I came up with at least five pitfalls that result from a toxic work environment. This article is not to blame the source of the toxicity. Chances are, most leaders are not aware of the culture they are creating. Of course, there are a few of them that are aware but don’t care. These leaders are driven by numbers no matter what the cost. They want to shine in front of their superiors.
Most of the time employees are placed in a position of leadership but are not properly equipped. It’s like promoting your best salesperson to be a sales manager. A few months into the job, he starts failing to be a good manager. A few months later, we start criticizing him for not being a good manager. A year later, he quits.
We failed to provide him the tool to be a great leader. We lost a good salesman, and we damaged the position of the sales manager. If we do not learn from our mistakes then we are bound to repeat them. We will continue promoting people to leadership roles and not equip them. We may get a few naturally talented leaders now and then. However, in most cases, they will not know how to lead their team. They do not know what they do not know.
The following are potential results of a toxic work environment.
Fearful employees instead of respectful team members
We create a work environment driven by fear. It’s not a healthy and sustainable environment. Leaders need to earn respect. Employees that respect their leaders would do anything for the company even without being asked.
There was an instance years ago when this particular company had a demanding CFO. He would shout and embarrass his staff resulting in a very high department turnover. He would go further and demean employees from other departments. He acted like he was higher than the CEO. He acted like he had power across the entire organization.
One day, an employee from another department was walking into their gorgeous office in BGC. As she usually does, she had her bag in her left hand, and the other hand was holding her favorite coffee tumbler.
That day would be different from the previous days she reported to work. As she walked past the main entrance to the office, the CFO met her in the hallway. On each side of the hallway were cubicles of employees. They had an open space set-up.
Even before she could greet him with a gentle ‘good morning’, the CFO shouted at the top of his voice. They were earshot of every single one of the eighty-four employees. The CFO was blaming her for an inaccurate report submitted to their regional office. The employee stood in shock as the CFO continued to verbally attack her. The CFO even went to the extent of attacking her character. A few minutes after the unrelenting attack, the CFO left and stormed into his office.
The office staff rushed over and tried to console the victimized employee. She was devastated and embarrassed. She was in tears. A few minutes later, they all realized that she was in shock and could not move. They called the office nurse to take a look at her. The office nurse accompanied her to a nearby hospital. She was in such a shock that the hospital nurse had to gently pry off her fingers from the tumbler she was holding.
The next day, the truth came out. She was not at fault for the report. She was blamed unfairly and humiliated. As we expected, she resigned after a few days.
2. Employees feel like they toil instead of enjoying their work
I worked briefly for the IT function of a manufacturer of local electric fans early in my career. I was still very new in the field at the time. At first, I did not notice that most of the employees were waiting for 5 pm and salary days. It went on every single working day.
One day, over lunch, I got into talking with a Systems Analyst that joined the company a year before I did. I was less than three months at the time. I was still all fired up to work. Joel, the systems analyst, seemed happier on break times than on his actual working hours. It was common in most of the other departments.
I asked him how his work was. He said that it was okay and it pays for the bills. That sentence got stuck in my mind for a few months. As time went by, I started to understand why Joel said what he said.
Managerial positions went to employees favored by the executives. The people they promoted were not great leaders. They were just great at sucking up to the executives. A few were placed in management roles based on their relationship. If they had the skills of a good leader, that would not have been too bad.
Since these leaders did not get their posts because of their leadership skills, they imitated what they saw from other leaders going up the ladder. They also placed people they favored into management positions. The cycle never ends. It’s the employees that suffer because the senior executives did not correctly select nor train their leaders.
It’s the employees that suffer due to poor leadership. At the end of the day, they feel that their work is simply a toil they have to get through. Employees were not trained. Training was viewed as an optional expense. Employees felt no sense of purpose nor fulfillment. The attrition rate was about 70% a year.
3. Employees are lost instead of driven by a Vision
People need a purpose to drive them. They need a vision to rally behind. In the absence of purpose, the job just seems like another boring job. Employees do not feel that their job is a means to a greater good. They do not feel that their job is helping the company reach its Vision. There is simply no purpose for their job and the company.
There is this family-owned retail company I know of that has a vague Vision. The business was started as an idea by the founder and gradually grew to a reasonable size. However, as it kept growing, the attrition rate was holding steady at a high percentage.
When you ask them about their vision, it’s to be the biggest company in their industry. That’s it. It’s not even a unique and compelling vision. For one, it’s self-serving. Visions are bigger than the company. Visions are designed for the greater good. The company only plays a role in achieving that greater good.
Since their vision is self-serving, the employees could care less about the Vision. They would quietly say, it’s not their company anyway. They cannot link their personal purpose to the vision of the company. Often, they would say, ‘So what if the company is growing. Only the owners are benefiting’ The Vision has no meaning to them. The company might as well not have a vision statement.
4. Compliance instead of loyalty
I had the opportunity to become the Quality Manager for a Bank. One of the functions of the Quality Manager is to audit functions and employees. Together with a team of five other process auditors, we would schedule the audit of various functions of the Bank.
It was interesting to note that employees comply with company processes not because they know it’s the right thing to do. They would comply simply because the company expects them to. Their leaders remind them to comply with policies.
Their leaders do not take the time to explain that adhering to the policies benefits them and the customers. The policy is there to protect them. The policy is showing them the boundaries that should not be crossed. It’s much easier for an untrained leader to just bark ‘follow the rules or else.’
What they don’t realize is that loyal employees will not intentionally break policies. They know it’s for their protection and the customers. They don’t break or bend policies out of loyalty to the organization.
5. Selfishness instead of teamwork
Back when I was in the IT field for a large bank, I was assigned to an important project. We were in charge of migrating the Bank systems at the branches. We can only do this after banking hours. Since branches cannot go down during working hours, we need to plan this well. The hardware and software were delivered to the branch in the late afternoon. We would unpack them and remove all existing hardware.
Our team then positions the new hardware, test runs the new Banking system, connects to the mainframe at head office, and tests everything. After the hardware is ready, a second-team comes in to train the users.
By midnight, when everything was re-tested, we would pack up the old hardware. We label them properly and send them to our warehouse for storage.
We were converting 4–5 branches a night every night for the next few months. This was hard work. The coordination needs to be impeccable.
Right after the last branch was migrated, the team took a rest and reported to work around noontime the following day. As we reported to work, our Division head congratulated us. One of our team members decided to report to work early. He personally reported the accomplishment to our VP. The interesting part was that he exaggerated his contribution to the project. Since there was nobody else in the room with him, nobody corrected his story.
Throughout the project, this particular team member had the least contribution. He would not deliver his tasks and we ended up reassigning them to someone else. He was simply a bystander. However, he was smart and quick enough to take more credit than was due to him.
It’s unfortunate that in those days, our leaders only listened to the first messenger of the news. They had not given enough thought and insight to what he heard. The VP did not bother to validate the story. As expected, this demotivated the people who worked hard for the project. Credit was sucked by someone else simply because he could get away with it. Our VP, not knowing better, allowed him to get away with it.
Let’s not allow ‘toxic’ work environments to kill the motivation and drive of our loyal employees. Let’s make sure we develop the people we put in leadership roles. Let’s make sure that they understand that true leadership is not about lording others. True leadership is about leading, serving, and developing our people. We need to provide them the tools necessary to grow the business and service our customers.
Going back to our cause. Let us build a nation of servant leaders from all walks of life. If we can accomplish this then our companies, our organizations, our society, our government would be in better hands.
Stay safe,
Jordan Imutan “Let us build a Nation of Servant Leaders from all walks of life.” www.servantleadersph.com jordan@imutan.com +63.917.5183554
Leaders help build confidence. They do not just demand it.
Corporate life is a team sport. As a team sport, we need to trust one another. We need to be able to sleep at night knowing that someone has our back. We are not worried that someone from the team will stab you in the back. We are not concerned that a team member will sneak into the office of an executive and bad-mouth you. We are not worried that the friend you have lunch with will not run over to the boss to announce a completed project and take the credit from you.
Team members, from any sport, need to be able to trust each other completely. They should also be able to help out each other when needed. Having the confidence that the team will help you when times get rough is so amazing. You also know that when you struggle, your colleagues will not throw you under the bus. It goes both ways. There is great satisfaction in helping others in the team.
However, you cannot lend a helping hand if you do not have the confidence to help. You cannot help others if you are uncertain about your skills and knowledge. You cannot fake confidence. You will find it hard to reach out if you are not confident that you can pull your team member to safety.
It is the responsibility of our leadership to make sure that our teams are confident about themselves and their abilities. How can leaders help build their team’s confidence? Leaders need to invest in developing their team members’ competencies.
Good leadership sets up development programs for their team. They make sure that their team’s skills are regularly honed. An extra step that good leadership takes is systematically mentoring the future leaders of the company. They don’t leave the mentorship to chance. It is not only done as a reflex or as needed. Mentoring is not just lip service. They have a clear leadership development goal for each high potential they have under their wing.
It will result in a combination of structured and unstructured approaches to their mentee’s leadership development. Structured, meaning they have a specific competency goal to achieve. This goal is supported by a clear development program and review mechanism. Unstructured, meaning they provide carefully crafted feedback as needed. This productive feedback is discussed on a personal basis. New assignments given to these high potential mentees are also supported by a development program. Leaders provide resources for the learning curve.
I had a senior manager in Far East Bank from my previous career that practiced this approach. Every time one of his direct reports got a new assignment, Mr. Rick San Juan would assign them two tasks.
The first task is an eight-week technical learning program. This allowed his direct report to understand the processes of the new function. They were also able to understand the current situation of the department.
The second task, parallel to the first one, is an eight-week coaching program with him. He would set a fixed date/time for 90 minutes a week every week. This would go on for the next eight weeks. At the end of the eight weeks, his direct reports are confident and able to perform their new assignment.
Only when employees are confident about their skills will they be able to voluntarily reach out to struggling team members. They also understand their capabilities and limitations. Their self-confidence is so high that they are not bothered when they seek help.
Only when you have a group of people bonding together as a team and glued by self-confidence will they perform at higher levels of performance.
Do you recall the name of your favorite high-school teacher? Of course, you do. Mine is Ms. Bautista, our high school Filipino teacher in Colegio San Agustin. I had the privilege of taking her class.
I was first enrolled in Colegio San Agustin or CSA at grade one. My grade school and high school memories are fleeting. This comes with age. As years go by, I can remember only bits and pieces of my school days. The names of some of my classmates already elude me. I also forgot how some of them look like.
However, two teachers stand-out. They are Ms. Bautista and Mrs. Tolentino. Both teachers stood out from the rest because they believed in my potential. They believe that all students have great potentials. I was not the brightest student in my class. I would even position myself at the lower half of the class in terms of average grades.
Despite my lackluster grades, these two teachers believed that I can do better. They saw potentiality rather than problems. They kept encouraging me instead of putting me down. Other teachers would take a stand that if you are less than average then they leave you at that. A few teachers only care about their pay and benefits.
Ms. Bautista and Mrs. Tolentino would find ways to encourage me and others to try to perform better. We were encouraged to be better. They took the time to explain again the lessons we did not understand.
Fast forward to corporate life. Similarly, the leaders I recall with respect and admiration are those that showed confidence in my abilities. Whenever I or my colleagues made a mistake, these leaders would talk about why the mistake happened. We would then discuss how to resolve the problem and prevent a recurrence.
These leaders also took the time to develop us. Our development was intentional and planned. They know that a great part of their responsibility is to develop their direct reports and their people. I recall these leaders from the lessons I learned from them. This is very similar to the teachers I recall.
On the other hand, countless times, I witnessed various leaders that immediately attack employees for mistakes rather than figure out the cause of the problem. They start looking for who to blame instead of helping resolve and prevent a recurrence. The default decision is guitly based on the grapevine. Guilty, based on other people’s opinions. Guilty even before hearing out the concerned employee.
I had the opportunity to work with over two dozen leaders in my corporate life. However, very few of them I can recall by name. The ones I can recall are leaders that raise up their teams rather than bring them down. They stand out so clearly that they are easily recalled. They stand out because I try to emulate their leadership style and be like them. They stand out because they are servant leaders.
Teachers are like leaders. They have hundreds, if not thousands, of followers throughout their careers. The ones that stand out are the ones that believe in and take the time to develop their students. The ones that stand out are the ones that make a difference in their student’s life. They stand out because just thinking about them puts a smile on my face. They stand out because they are servant leaders to their students.
Great teachers improve their student’s life.
How about you? Who are your favorite teachers and why? If they are still around, I strongly suggest that you reach out and thank them.
“It is important for us to have leaders with the Fear and the Love of God.” Major Vico Sotto
Our Victory Pastor Marc Constantino shared a story about our Mayor Vico Sotto in todays 9 am service. Pastor Marc had a friend that was working on-site at a public works program. It happened that Mayor Vico Sotto dropped by to check how the program was coming along.
Pastor Marc’s friend was able to have a brief conversation with the Mayor. After a few minutes, Mayor Vico Sotto was asked why he did not have a big banner on the site saying “A project of Mayor Vico Sotto.” I am certain that you have seen such banners in different cities. The former Mayors of Pasig used to love having such banners all over the city.
Mayor Vico Sotto politely smiled and said that he could not do that. He cannot put up a banner saying that it was his project. This project is funded by the people of Pasig. It was not right to claim that it was his project.
This is a far cry from the other mayors who blatantly claim credit over the public works in the city as their project. They dare to claim this even when the funding is coming from the taxpayers of the city.
People seated in positions of power want to hold on to power. That’s where the problem begins. It’s no longer about serving their people. It’s not about servant leadership. It is now about self-serving leadership. This is when greed creeps in. This is when decisions are no longer beneficial for the people they serve. Decisions are now swayed by personal interest.
Pastor Marc wonderfully stated a question to ask ourselves when making decisions – “Does my decision glorify God or does it glorify me?”
Leaders from organizations, corporations, governments fall into the same trap. Do their decisions honor God and the people they lead? Are their decisions wise with the guidance of the Holy Spirit? Are their decisions based on just knowledge on how they can better their lives?
It’s unfortunate to see them claim that what they are doing is for the common good. They would show themselves as sacrificing for the people they lead. Are they? Do their decisions glorify God?
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. Proverbs 9:10
For as long as leaders do not have the humility to fear and lean on the Lord for wisdom then their intentions are questionable. Their decisions are questionable no matter what they claim.
For as long as leaders do not serve the people they lead then they are quietly serving themselves.
Let me leave you with two points:
Leaders, fear the Lord and you will be able to decide wisely.
Leaders, your decisions should glorify the Lord.
This is one of the pillars of true servant leadership.
Great Leadership + Productive AI = UNSTOPPABLE BUSINESS 