Why self-censor? Good question. Because there is fear present. A fear that talking about what is really going on will carry some consequences or blow-back. In some company cultures, this is rampant and sadly, malignant. Things have been this way for so long, change will be difficult because no one wants to describe the emperor’s body although they have seen him naked several times. It’s a simple act of self-preservation. More than likely, someone long ago named Fred was bold and they were dealt with boldly and swiftly. Just keep your mouth shut or you will be like Fred.

Has there been hostile behavior about suggestions before? Sometimes people will withhold input from a person higher up in the corporate hierarchy because they believe that the superior fin charge of the project, process, or issue in question would resent suggestions that implied a need for change. Sometimes employees believe their bosses would feel betrayed if constructive ideas for change were offered when more-senior leaders were present or their bosses could feel embarrassed to be shown up by a subordinate in front of other subordinates.

Hotlines and suggestion boxes blah! Helping employees feel safe enough to contribute fully requires deep cultural change that alters how they understand the likely costs versus benefits of speaking up. It takes leaders who are committed to spending the time over longer periods of actually listening and implementing some of the employees’ ideas.

Jack Welch rocked it. He implemented a program at GE called “Work Out”. It was a process where Welch turned his people from employees to owners. An employee was quoted at the time Work Out was implemented that they “spent 90% of their time trying to figure out how to screw the management.”  Before Work Out, GE’s management spent all their time telling people what to do and they did exactly what they were told to do. And not one other thing, either, mind you. The Work Out sessions, which started in 1988, gathered people from all levels of the company to figure out how to make the company better. The most powerful thing was managers were forced to answer on the spot to suggestions, when possible.

Turn your company upside down. Every so often, you will find it beneficial to find out from people at all levels of your company about what is really happening. Shop your own store. Eat your own food. Call your own business. Interview new people prior to their 90 day mark to find out true impressions of what is happening. They won’t be intimidated yet, but hurry, they will be assimilated into the culture after the first 90 days and you will have lost a golden opportunity if you have the stomach for it and the desire to make a change in your culture.

 Ten Virtues of Outstanding Leaders: Leadership & Character by Al Gini & Ronald M. Green

This readable distillation of the core common features of successful leaders shows how an individual’s character, and especially their virtue, is the defining factor. Without these ten vital virtues, leadership becomes “misleadership.” The authors, both renowned business ethicists, combine theory with fascinating biographical detail on exemplary leaders such as Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill, and Oprah Winfrey. The result is an accessible text on the ethics of leadership which, unlike many publications that claim to reveal the secrets of success as a leader, is informed by a wealth of exceptional academic experience.

What You’re Really Meant To Do: A Roadmap for Reaching Your Unique Potential by  Robert Steven Kaplan

Robert S. Kaplan is Senior Associate Dean and a Professor of Management Practice at Harvard Business School. He is the author of the popular book What to Ask the Person in the Mirror: Critical Questions for Becoming a More Effective Leader and Reaching Your Potential (2011).

In his new book, Kaplan describes a specific and actionable roadmap for helping you define your own success and reach your unique potential. This effort requires several key steps in an integrated process, as well as a high level of motivation and hard work.

Kaplan proposes specific steps and exercises to help you understand yourself more deeply, take control of your career, and build your capabilities in a way that fits your passions and aspirations. In What You’re Really Meant to Do, he draws on numerous years of experience and real life experiences in helping people achieve their aspirations and re-think their approach to their personal and career development.

Rather than pursuing goals set by others, Kaplan covers in-depth a critical series of issues that you must address in order to set and achieve your ultimate goals. These include assessing your strengths and weaknesses; understanding your passions (and translating them into potential career opportunities); understanding yourself; performance and career management; exhibiting character and leadership traits that help you go from good to great; creating mutually beneficial relationships; and finally, bringing it all together.

Are you open to this challenge? To understanding what are you really meant to do? If so, this book can help you reach your potential.

Change Intelligence: Use The Power of CQ to Lead Change that Sticks by Barbara Trautlein

In the world of business, the ability to handle constant change makes the difference between success and failure. Today, executives, supervisors, and project managers have plenty of methodologies for managing change, yet the failure rate of major organizational change is still an abysmal 70 percent.

In this innovative guide, Barbara Trautlein argues that this is because our current approaches are inadequate when not used in tandem with a deep understanding of change intelligence, or CQ—the skill set required to lead a team or company through vital transformations. Inside, she gives readers access to a proprietary, interactive CQ assessment that’s based on substantial research and experience in working with hundreds of top organizations. And after readers learn their own change leader style, they go on to discover practical strategies for leveraging their strengths and shoring up their weak spots.

The Clarity Principle: How Great Leaders Make The Most Important Decision in Business (and what happens when they don’t) by Chatham Sullivan

Leaving Columbia, so far so good. Our trip started great. We left home a little later than we wanted, but everything worked out great on time. Sidetrip: It is always amazing to me the lack of E.Q. some people possess. We are on the shuttle from the parking lot to the terminal and two guys are talking loudly about this video of a plane crash. Meanwhile, the passengers on the shuttle (on their way to board a plane) are wide-eyed and nervous. I simply sat amazed. We got to the terminal, boarded and we were off to our next stop in New Orleans.

New Orleans in the rain with a broken plane. I love NOLA, but not when I am only supposed to be there for 30 minutes. I am not typically a person who gets upset when flights are delayed or re-scheduled due to technical issues. I am glad they find them while we are on the ground! So, we stay relentlessly positive and eat lunch in New Orleans (red beans and rice baby!) and waited for a flight to Nashville. We sat in Nashville for two hours for a flight to Jacksonville. We were originally supposed to be in Jacksonville at 3pm, now it is going to be almost 10pm. As I said, I am always glad the issues are found on the ground and not in flight.

Jacksonville in the evening. We land in Jacksonville and our bags arrive in record time on the belt. I was a little concerned about this since we were re-routed a few times, but our luggage made the jumps with us. Good job, Southwest, we love traveling with you! Picked up our car, a very nice, white Dodge Journey with only 7,000 miles on it. We left the rental car garage, jumped right on to I-95 South toward Palm Coast. Jacksonville is a pretty city in the evening as you drive right through the heart of it. There is a beautiful, blue bridge in the middle of town. We headed right down the edge of Florida on the interstate for about an hour or so to the Hammock Beach Resort, getting settled in around Midnight. Opening the french doors to the Ocean for the first time, made the day of traveling worth it.

Waking up by the ocean at Hammock. I never get tired of looking at the ocean. Something about the vastness of it truly amazes me. The bright, yeallow Sun coming up over the blue horizon of sea renews me in a whole new way.

St Augustine, oldest city in America. Founded by the Spanish in 1565. We traveled about thirty minutes back north on I-95 to check it out. There was no beach time because the rainstorm moved in, so time for some history and shopping. I had been fascinated by Henry Flagler, who was a partner with John D. Rockefeller in Standard Oil. Titan, the biography of Rockefeller is one of my favorite all time books to read. It is a very extensive account of the life of Rockefeller, but mentions Flagler sparingly. In this area of Florida, everything is named for Flagler. As a railroad tycoon, he used his railroads and wealth to open up the state of Florida. He built an amazing hotel in St. Augustine, which is now the Lightner museum and Flagler College is amazing to behold. There really was a huge amount of wealth in the Gilded Age. We ended the day in St. Augustine at the Old City Cafe. I struck up a quick friendship with Peggy, our bartender, who was originally from Kentucky, so we hit it off and had a great conversation about the upcoming weekend’s Kentucky Derby. (The pic of me and Peggy would be lost in the “lost shoe incident”)

The lost shoe incident. The rain continued the next day, so we were off in search of more adventures. We had a mid-afternoon lunch at the Oceanside Bar & Grill in Flagler Beach. Great place, right by the ocean surf, so even though it was raining, we had a table just feet from the crashing waves. When we left, Ann Marie decided the waves were too spectacular not to get on camera. I reluctantly agreed to let her go onto the small space of beach and do some filming with her iPhone camera. There is one drawback to being focused, everything else is tuned out, so one minute she was there and the next, she wasn’t. She was so focused on getting the the waves on camera, one snuck in on her and knocked her off her feet. She lost her left shoe. It could have been very dangerous and fortunately she was not swept out to sea. She popped right back up on her feet and retreated to the steps up the beach to where I sat awaiting in the rental car. Hey, it was raining! She believed her iPhone was saved, but it died later that night from water exposure. The film remains on Facebook and she has a new iPhone 5. If anyone on the Eastern Seaboard finds a black and tan platform sandal, contact us.

Dinner in the room, my wife gets bold and eats like a man. We went to the AT&T store in Palm Coast and replaced Ann Marie’s iPhone, upgrading her to a 5. Sean, our sales person was amazingly great. If you live in Palm Coast and need a phone, ask for Sean. We drove up to St. Augustine and went back to the Ole City House Inn, alas Peggy was not working, but the food and drinks were top notch once again. We walked through Flagler College (which has the largest collection of stained glass in North America) and drove around downtown and saw the fort. Arriving back at the lodge, we listened to the Kentucky Derby on the radio. I had picked Verrazano to win. Congrats to Orb. My Kentucky Derby streak continues, I don’t think I have picked a winner since Affirmed in 1978. Yes, I know, that is quite a losing streak for me, but I still get misty and teary eyed during the playing of “My Old Kentucky Home”. I believe every Kentuckian imagines the house they grew up in when they hear the song. We decided to stay in, so we ordered dinner from JT’s down the street. It’s a lot like Angelo’s back home. We had cheeseburgers and fries. My wife is awesome.

The trip home. We spent Cinco De Mayo in St. Augustine. Nothing like a spanish holiday in a spanish-type town!

We toured the fort in St. Augustine Bay, walked around town, snapped a lot of photos and enjoyed ourselves. Traveled about 40 minutes back north to Jacksonville, dropped off the Dodge Journey, got on our plane and flew to Baltimore. We then caught our connection to St. Louis. Both of the flights were fairly bumpy, but any flight that gets you there is a good flight.

The best Southwest Airlines flight attendant line was a song:

“You like us, we like you

Enjoy the flight and our hospitality

Marry one of us

And you’ll fly free!”

Overall, even with the rain, it was a nice little 5 day trip to Florida.

Hammock Beach Resort in Palm Coast was amazing and the service is exceptional. Highly recommended.

Each month, our community publishes the best submissions from the segment of our group which write and publish thoughts on leadership.

The purpose of this monthly compilation is to Advocate Uplifting Leadership And Change Lives by showcasing the “best of the best” posts from our community.

Enjoy reading the posts from these Giants and be sure to leave a comment.

This month’s Best of Lead With Giants is being hosted by Dan Forbes on his blog LeadWithGiants.com .  Jump on over there now to see the best leadership blog posts published this month from the Lead With Giants Community.

Here’s the link: http://www.leadwithgiants.com/leadership/the-best-of-lead-with-giants-may-2013/

Leaders need to find the flow.  Why? When you are in your flow, it is much easier to concentrate. Focus seems to come easier and things seem to work right. Remember, flow starts from the inside to the outside. What things help your internal focus? What things quiet your mind and allow you to enter into your flow? For some leaders, it might be to schedule some time to breathe. For me, I like to pull up iTunes or YouTube and play some music. Some days it’s jazz, other days rock, some days country, it doesn’t matter what it is just as long as it helps me adjust and re-enter my flow.

Horses are flight animals. Growing up on a horse farm in Kentucky gave me a unique perspective on these animals. Anything can spook a horse. Spooking them means something abrupt happens, they rear their heads and typically off they go in no particular direction. Anything, and I mean anything can cause this. It takes a trusted trainer or several minutes to pass before they get calm again. Some leaders are like this. An external event pops up and away they go! When an emergency breaks out, they have one of their own. They just don’t have a leadership flow. It’s more like riding the rapids than gently rowing a stream.

Get on top of your game, whatever your game is. Knowing your strengths really helps you get into and maintain your flow. Finding the balance of staying in your strong skill-set area and occasionally venturing outside your comfort zone for growth is a good way to look at it. Leaders who know their role and can articulate their game typically can easily slip into and outside of their flow. Why would you be outside your flow? Because no one can be “on” 24/7. In order to be good in your flow, you need rest and energy.

Get immersed. When you are doing what you do, totally immerse yourself in it. Keep distractions to a minimum. Throw yourself into it. When I am speaking, doing a workshop or working with a client, I am totally into the flow. The time flies by when I am working my craft because I am totally into what I am doing. Sometimes I am totally amazed at the things I do and say because I am so into it. When I step out of the flow to review what just happened, it is a totally different mindset and feeling than the one in the moment. Get into it!

You need energy. In order to achieve the kind of flow we are discussing here, it takes a tremendous amount of energy. It takes energy to be focused, immersed and to be the best. It takes energy to maintain your concentration. It takes energy to stay on a track and line of thinking. It takes physical energy to maintain the grind of daily activity and the pace of leading others. Working out and exercising helps your stay in the flow because it helps build up your energy reserves that are required.

Questions for you:

Have you ever been in the flow?

What did it feel like?

What sorts of things caused it or did you do it on purpose?

What things are you doing when you feel like you are in the flow?

A few steps away. I believe we are always just a few steps away from being in the flow. As a leader, you are always better in the flow than you are when you are out of the flow. Believe me, those around you think so too. What is prohibiting you from being in your leadership flow?

Know your customer. Yep, it’s just that simple. When we are thinking of bold moves to triple our sales, being first to do this or that or marketing a dynamic offer that is too good to be true, which oftentimes is just talking about it until we are blue in the face. I promise you they are more tired of hearing it than you are of talking about it. We are overlooking the simple, fundamental of knowing our past, present and future customer.

How old are they? This is the most common fact we have heard or maybe are asked about our customer. Commonly referred to as the demographic. Are they 18-25 or 18-49? Are they 25-54 or 55+? I don’t know about you, but I percieve there is a huge difference in an 18 year old and a 49 year old. There is a huge difference in a 25 year old and a 54 year old person. Demographics were invented by research companies and media outlets to group people into age ranges for analysis. Some of these ranges are simply way too broad, yet people spend billions each year trying to reach these broad demographical ranges. My first piece of advice is to focus the demographics of your customer where your target customer actually fits. You don’t have to be tied down to a demographic, you can create your own which fits your customer and business. This is for analysis by you, not for purchasing advertising purposes.

Psychographics is where it’s at. Many people know demographics, but some are not familiar with psychographics. It’s the study of how your customers behave, their interests, their attitudes and thier lifestyles. Where do they live? What is the value of their home? Are they married? How many kids? What do they spend discretionary income on? Is it on your product or service or something else?

Record, record, record. How much data do you get on your existing customers? It is important for you to know their purchasing activity. How much? How often? When? Can you spot any trends forming with your purchasers? The thought is, the better you know your existing customers’ habits with you, the better relationship you can forge with them.

CRM= Customer Relationship Management. This may be old hat to some and new territory for others. Having a CRM database system helps you keep up with all of this viatl information on your buyers. It helps you store their contact information as well as some of the data I have previously mentioned. There are many on the market, cheap to expensive. They are work to maintain just as any system is. In some companies, their CRM data is the most valuable assets they have. It is part of the goodwill of the business and helps drive or establish it’s true value. Wouldn’t you love to have Apple’s CRM data?

No excuses. Not having a formal CRM system is no excuse for not knowing your customer. You may not feel you are even big enough to have one of these and at the same time, you need profiles on your customers. The CRM program may make it easier for you, since it is already formatted for data insertion, but it is going to be work regardless. I will high suggest the work comes with huge ROI and payoff for you in the long run. For example, wouldn’t you be better at interacting with your customer if you could pull up and review their data prior to a meeting? Remember, the brain is designed to create data, not store it. You would feel more comfortable reciting the wife/husband and children’s names from the profile than actually having to pull them from your mental data bank…and what if you forget and get them wrong? Ugh.

It’s a never ending process. Knowing your customer as fully as possible is never ending. If you really get into it, the momentum you experience will be business transforming. When you can intimately know your customer, you can serve them better. You can identify prospects faster. Make offers that truly interest them which aren’t not simply based on the lowest price. The more you focus on your customer and future customers, the more your business will serve them and you better.

1. Your Belief in People

This is fundamental to leadership. Leadership is about influencing people and your influence is never neutral. Having this knowledge equips you to know you have a certain responsibility when you wield your leadership influence. Use your leadership powers for good. People are not machines, they do not all react to inputs the way computers and other resources behave. They are the most complicated entities on the planet and your belief in them in central to your leadership capacity. You must be versatile and alert to get the most growth for them and from them.

Rate yourself from 1-10 in this area. (If you look at people as cogs in a wheel, it would be low).

2. Change Intentional For Positive Transformation and Not For Change’s Sake

Some leaders are addicted to change to change’s sake. They initiate new drives and new objectives simply because they need the change from an emotional perspective. Leaders should always be thinking of change  as a necessary tool in the positive transformation of an organization or individual, yep, it’s about them or it, not you. If you, as a leader, need some change because you are bored, just make sure it doesn’t affect others in a negative way. See #1.

Rate yourself from 1-10 in this area. (If you are a change addict, it would be low)

3. Taking Responsibility, But Knowing Where The Boundaries Are Located

Leaders are leaders because they accept the reins of responsibility. They step up and lead. They coach and teach. The problem is they also often go across the line and take too much responsibility. When leaders do this, they actually stunt the growth of their followers and set them back, rather than developing them to move forward. Leaders who solve problems for their people will notice them back in a short time with a new problem, with the follower thinking it is completely different, simply because the problem is different.

Rate yourself from 1-10 in this area. (If you are too hands-on, it would be low)

4. Be A Catalyst, But Realize Experential Learning Is Where Growth Happens

Leaders are teachers and catalysts for growth, but sometimes they start to think they are the growth providers rather that the followers’ doing and experience. According to Michael M. Lombardo, Robert W. Eichinger  and the Center for Creative Leadership, 70% of learning and development comes from experiences and problem solving, while 10% comes from courses. This is hard on us teachers, but if we stay in the theoretical realm, we do our employees, followers and organizations a huge disservice.

Rate yourself from 1-10 in this area. (If you don’t provide experential opportunities, it would be low)

5. Band People Together As A Team, But Realize Teams Are Made Of Individuals

Leaders like to think of themselves as team builders, and that is one of our responsibilities. Molding and shaping people into groups which make a difference and achieve results is a really satisfying endeavor and accomplishment. A trap leaders sometimes fall into is they go too far in trying to make everyone comply to rules and standards which nullify individual voices and talents to a point of becoming bland. Conversely, these leaders will sometimes put the emphasis of improvement on the system, rather than the individuals individuals involved, removing vital challenges these individuals thrive on improving. The power of many teams is diversity and we sometimes drain that power in the intention of unity and group-think. Leaders who can allow individuals to retain their uniqueness while participating within a team are rare and unique themselves, they have a great sense of role clarity for each, strong team member and use it for a benchmark to help them flourish in the team environment.

Rate yourself from 1-10 in this area (If you succomb to fear that individual talent endangers the team, you would be lower. If you believe the stronger the individual talent is, the stronger the team can be, you would be higher.)

Add up your total score in these five areas and self-evaluate where you think you might have an improvement-oriented need.

Let’s examine three things. Features. Advantages. Benefits.

Features are the tangible components of the product or service.

Advantages are the results you hope to produce.

Benefits are the emotional experiences produced by those features and advantages. This is the key as to why people make choices.

Imagine this. What if every time a person purchased an SUV and drove it home, their entire neighborhood stood in front of their homes as you drove by and berated you because you chose to buy that particular vehicle? How would that experience make you feel? Pretty lousy, huh? You would feel a huge amount of disapproval from your friends and neighbors regarding your choice. What would happen to SUV sales?

People do not choose features or advantages. They choose emotional outcomes, many times based on the power of affiliation. What group does it put you in? Why do people buy Nike or Under Armor? It makes them affiliated with a powerful brand and they love the emotion they feel when they wear it. They want to “be like Mike”.

Remember, logic helps people understand it, but emotion causes them to act.

Think about this. What groups have you chosen to be a part? What moved you to choose that particular group? Therein lies the power of affiliation. Smart organizations know the power of affiliation sets them apart from other companies. This is propelled by having a strong culture which makes people feel they are a positive part of something bigger than themselves. A desired group and/or a winning team. The Waste Management Company has stated they do not market their company for outside marketing opportunities. They engage in these marketing opportunities simply so their employees will have pride and feel “that’s my company”! This is leveraging The Power of Affiliation.

The Power of Affiliation draws people to Social Media. Outlets like Facebook, Twitter, Linked In and Google + continue to grow. Why? Because they provide easy ways for people to become affiliated with each other. They make being part of a desired group easy. When you combine simple, easy with desire and connection you get a growth expansion.

Dreaming when we were young was easy. Did you notice? When you were a kid, it was easy to imagine the picnic table as a boat or the tree as a space ship? Dreaming of possibilities was as easy as breathing. What did you want to be when you grew up? I now believe part of the secret is to never let parts of us grow up. Being an adult or being mature does not have to = stuck.

What about how life is? Life tends to be more about what you decide to commit yourself to than about external influences. Many people wait a lifetime for an opportunity to present itself. Others out in the arena of life are fully involved with and consumed by what they perceive their dream to be; they are the ones who are much more likely to achieve their vision.

Some easy steps to go back to dreaming

Journaling. The best dream-catching/starting practice I know. Bringing your intangible thoughts into the physical, tangible world is something everyone should do. The Chinese say, “the faintest ink is better than the strongest memory”. Take the time to be alone with your thoughts and commit them to paper systematically.

Develop Courage. Slowly but surely begin to face your fears. What are the things you have previously feared to even think of doing? Make new friends? Speak in front of a small group or perhaps share with people you hardly know? Let’s be simple. Developing courage does not mean you have to do high-risk things at the start. Do not put life and limb in danger to feel courageous. I say start slow and small. Celebrate the little victories of faith you achieve prior to tackling an elephant of fear. So, expose yourself to a couple of little situations which will stretch you.

Develop a disatisfaction with the status-quo. People who dream are inherently unhappy with the way things are. They always believe things can be better. You must, of course keep up with your current commitments and obligations, while at the same time, feel a sense of anticipation of change for the better.

Read biographies. Ah, one of my favorite things. A really good friend just gave me the new biography of Joesph Kennedy for my birthday. When you read the lifetime exploits of other great leaders and entrepreneurs, it helps develop your dreaming capacity. When you read these great books, take notes on things which move you or resonate with your own life and situation. My favorite biography is “Titan, The Life of John D. Rockefeller” by Ron Chernow.

Remember this.  Dreaming is only the beginning and is there to be a stimulus, not the finale. Dreaming is a fabulous start to a process of planning to take you to new panoramic experiences your life can provide for yourself and those you lead.

Please feel welcome to add to my thoughts and list. If you are interested in some of my additional thoughts on this subject follow the links below:

Where Futuristic Thinking Can Take You

The Importance of Dreaming