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Is leadership complicated? A visit to any bookstore certainly suggests so. Shelf after shelf sits full of books on leadership. Amazon.com offers more than 10,000 books on leadership. An aspiring leader, or a person looking to become a better leader, can easily become overwhelmed.
The abundance of leadership advice available reminds me of my late father trying to teach me how to be a better golfer. His golf skills were exceptional, and he wanted to share every last tidbit of his wisdom with me. But the result was the opposite of what he intended. I had so many of his ideas swirling around in my head about how to swing a golf club that my performance became worse instead of better.
Fortunately, I eventually broke free of this paralysis by analysis. I asked my father to give me a short list of simple tips. Professional golfers call these “swing thoughts.” Once I had my swing thoughts, I was able to play golf free of overthinking.
Having studied managers and organizations since the late 1980s, I’m convinced that there is a similar value in simplicity where leadership is concerned. Leaders need a set of swing thoughts to guide them as they try to steer their organizations in positive ways. So here are three. And, as a bonus, they are easy to remember because they all start with the letter P.
People. One of the best leaders I know is Larry Thornton. Larry owns seven McDonald’s outlets in Birmingham. Some of these he built from the ground up while others were purchased from other franchisees. In one of the latter stores, Larry encountered an employee named Miss Burtiss. For years, assembling salads was her primary role in the restaurant. Because some customers buy salads early in the day to eat later for lunch, Miss Burtiss had been told to assemble all the salads in the morning.
However, when salads sit for hours, the flavors become less distinctive. This led Larry to ask Miss Burtiss whether she thought it might make sense to create just a few salads for the morning customers and then assemble the rest of the salads later in the day. As Larry and I describe in our 2023 book You Have to Live, Why Not Win?, Miss Burtiss’ reply contains an important lesson.
“Mr. Thornton, I’ve always thought that’s what we should do. But as long as I’ve been working, ain’t no boss ever asked me what I thought.” Her previous bosses didn’t value Miss Burtiss enough to ask for her input even though she knew more about salads than they did.
Because Larry sought out Miss Burtiss opinion, she felt valued from that point forward and customers enjoyed a better product. Leaders can improve simply by giving people who are doing the work a voice in how the work gets done.
Perception. Decades of psychological research has made it clear that people interpret situations in ways that make them look and feel good. For example, individuals will typically overestimate the degree to which they contribute to a positive outcome and underestimate their role in a negative outcome. Understanding these perceptions can help leaders develop a motivated and content workforce.
Suppose, for example, that you supervise a team of salespeople. In consultation with each of them, you set goals for their sales levels. Fast forward to when it’s time to assess their performance. Salespeople who didn’t meet their goals will tend to perceive that factors beyond themselves created this failure. They might blame the quality of the product, for example, or accuse their colleagues of stealing their best prospects.
As a leader, you want to acknowledge these perceptions without allowing them to dominate the discussion. External factors might be a partial cause of not meeting a goal, but a leader needs to steer a salesperson to owning up to his/her role in the failure so that adjustments can be made that allow future goals to be met. Conversely, allowing your subordinates to cling to a faulty perception that they have little responsibility for a disappointing outcome will ensure that such outcomes continue to happen.
Perseverance. People in leadership positions who flee from difficult situations struggle to gain credibility with subordinates. Often these people change organizations regularly. When adversity walks through the front door, they scurry out the back door. Perhaps they sense that their poor leadership skills are about to be discovered and they need to stay one step ahead of the posse.
Good leaders, like Larry Thornton, demonstrate perseverance. One of Larry Thornton’s favorite aphorisms is “if you can’t take anything, you can’t have anything.” Larry began working for Coca-Cola United — a regional bottler based in Birmingham — in 1979 as a sign painter making $5 an hour. Through a series of ups and downs, and triumphs and tragedies, Larry remains with the company today as a member of its board of directors. After overcoming a series of roadblocks, Larry opened his first McDonald’s in 1992. He remains a franchisee to this day.
These long tenures required perseverance, but they gave Larry credibility as a leader that simply couldn’t be acquired through any means other than the passage of time. When Larry advises the CEO of Coca-Cola United, his suggestions are backed by 44 years of hard-earned experience with the company. When a new franchisee asks Larry for advice navigating McDonald’s corporate requirements, Larry’s answers have credibility in part because they are grounded in 31 years attending the school of hard knocks.
In sum, leaders should consider these three swing thoughts as they seek to lead their organizations to improve:
1. Listen to your people. As motivational speaker Ken Blanchard once noted, “All of us are smarter than any one of us.” Leaders make a mistake when they believe they have a monopoly on wisdom or that they’re the smartest person in the room.
2. Recognize that perception isn’t always reality. When a bad outcome happens, your team may need to be steered toward understanding and accepting their role in the outcome.
3. Perseverance creates credibility. If you have scars from surviving past business battles, they will inspire your team to follow you. But leaders who shrink from battles cannot inspire people to fight.
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