Habits
Making positive leadership a habit
I am being hounded by the Substack algorithm to publish another post. It’s my own fault: I set up the algorithm to bug me. If this sounds much like my recent post on Wearables and the Daily Management System, it is… and isn’t. Today, I am writing about the habit of positive leadership. It just so happens that the mostly-helpful nudge—let’s put a pin in the notion that nudges are checks in plan-do-check-act cycles—that I get from Substack to write is helping me to make writing a habit.
Some definitions (the grammar)
Habit - a behavior that, after sufficient repetition, becomes automatic (Clear, 2019)
Positive Leadership - a set of leadership approaches (transformational, authentic, servant, ethical, distributed) that emphasize the strengths of followers and fosters a positive and affirming culture for high performance and human thriving (Cameron et al, 2017)
Practice - repeating a behavior to get better at it (Me, Today)
Management Processes - sequences and steps managers use to get a group to accomplish tasks (Me, Today again)
The Daily Experience - a place in time and space where people and processes coincide and where managers operate management processes, sometimes aware of their leadership approach (Me, Yes, again)
How it fits together (the logic)
Positive leadership in practice looks like taking action: doing things to influence people. The things a positive leadership does slide into these five frameworks: building trust, acting with integrity, driving out fear, encouraging innovation, and developing people through teaching and coaching. Positive leaders also need a place to practice these things. The daily experience in time and space is the leader’s only regular opportunity to practice as they operate management processes. Also, when pursuing Transformational Operational Excellence, managers operate standardized management processes that center on the customer and solving problems. Arguably, when managers practice positive leadership enough, it becomes their habit.
Questions for Executives to Ponder (the rhetoric)
Who wouldn’t want a manager who built trust, acted with integrity, drove fear out of the daily experience, encouraged innovation, and developed me and my teammates though teaching us and coaching us?
What executive wouldn’t want an organization full of managers practicing positive leadership?
What board wouldn’t want a C-suite full of executives practicing positive leadership?
What shareholder wouldn’t want a board full of positive leaders?
What city?
What state?
What country?
Ok. I’ll quit.
It’s All pdCA (one of Rodger Lewis’ famous quips)
Without a “leader above” practicing positive leadership, especially developing the “leader below” by teaching them and coaching them in positive leadership, it won’t happen. So many organizations I come into contact with think that simply committing to an intervention will get the change. But, commitment and practice are two very different things. Practice does require commitment but commitment doesn’t demand practice: only leaders can demand practice. For example, I want to be a good cello player, but I don’t practice - no one is demanding it of me. If someone was—a teacher/coach—I’d be more apt to practice.
Moreover, the teaching/coaching cycle described above needs a context: a practice field or a weekly lesson. In business, it requires a manager operating management processes in the daily experience as a proving ground for developing positive leadership. In a future post, I’ll tackle what we’ve called the Coaching Cycle: a management process that specifically guides the practice of developing people.
Structure helps.
Even the so-called proving ground requires structure for practice. Practices have plans, have people doing things, have coaches checking things, and coaches meting out adjustments and actions for improvement. Practices have pdCA.
My mentor, Rodger Lewis, of Toyota, would quip that “it” (the elusive and wildly complex Toyota Way) is ALL PDCA (plan-do-check-act). At first, I thought he was delusional: he would quip multiple times daily. Then slowly (over the period of a decade and more) I began to get what he meant.
Every management process that we standardize transforms and improves improvement, production, and strategy execution. Furthermore, every process that we standardize introduces or reinforces the pdCA cycle.
The Bottom Line: Practicing pdCA and Positive Leaderships Transforms Organizations
Organizations transform at the rate of leaders practicing pdCA and positive leadership.
And, while practice may not always “make perfect,” it does build habits.
I am truly grateful for Substack nudging me to write and post.
Your team members will be truly grateful for your “leader above” nudging (nay: pdCA-ing!) you to practice positive leadership in today’s daily experience.
References
Cameron, K., Quinn, R. E., & Caldwell, C. (2017). Positive leadership and adding value–a lifelong journey. International Journal of Public Leadership, 13(2), 59-63.
Clear, J. (2019). Atomic habits: an easy & proven way to build good habits & break bad ones. Unabridged. Penguin Audio, an imprint of the Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group.
I remember you asking me what my Pdca was for daily rounding and other things I did on a routine basis out of habit. The simple question hit me like a brick. Years later I still remember the moment and where I was. I had a successful career doing many things by gut feel and habit but they lacked the structure of a purposeful pdca. I had used pdca to improve a lot of processes but did not have string habits of using it to improve how I thought, how I listened and how I communicated. The simple question was a powerful moment because it helped me change how I coached and communicated.
I also recall saying to you, “Dave you are suggesting I change the way I have led for 30 years. I have had a successful career and you are asking me to change the things that I am comfortable with”. That was hard to hear.
I also remember the aha moments of finally understanding you when I was on the other side of a change and would tell folks, “If you are not a little uncomfortable, you are not pushing yourself enough to improve your leadership!”
Thanks for sharing your wisdom.