A few days ago, I wrote about the courage to serve the purposeful leader. I concluded that article by asserting that we all have a responsibility to serve our organization’s purpose. If our leader wanders from that shared purpose to a direction that is egocentric and detrimental, we have a responsibility to muster the courage to challenge our leader.
Leaders and followers are BOTH guardians of the purpose. Part of the courageous follower’s role is to help the leader honor the contract. If we do not challenge a leader about dysfunctional behavior, the contract is slowly voided (Chaleff, The Courageous Follower)
Challenge what the leader can change – her behavior and policies. Purposeful challenge must never be about personality or even attitude, and must always be done with a proper motive. The reason we challenge is not to debunk our leader, but to help our leader get back on track to what we are all working for.
Challenge abusive and inappropriate behavior early. If you fail to do so, your collusion with the leader’s behavior will make it even more difficult to challenge later.
Even though we have a responsibility to challenge policies and processes we have concerns about, unless we are asked to do something illegal or immoral, we have a duty to obey. We never have the right to sabotage our leaders and their policies.
If you are a leader, can you accept challenge from your followers, or do your people never tell you no? Better yet, have you set up a system where challenge is expected and rewarded?
One thing Chaleff says that I really love is that we should challenge ourselves before challenging our leader. Before I challenge I always try to ask “am I really behaving purposefully? Is this really about us, or just about me?”
Your challenge will be credible and effective to the extent that you have first assumed full responsibility for yourself and your own behavior.
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One of The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership from The Leadership Challenge by Kouzes & Posner is “Challenge the Process.” When I lead workshops on The Leadership Challenge, I reinforce two key points: challenge the process, not the person; and make the challenge meaningful.
I have been guilty of challenging an idea just for the sake of challenging. There are times when a counterpoint is appropriate to stimulate healthy debate. At other times, “the juice ain’t worth the squeeze” and the best decision is to exercise restraint.
The takeaway for me from this post is to challenge one’s self before challenging one’s leader – this is a key step in Challenging the Process.
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Bret L. Simmons Reply:
September 3rd, 2009 at 12:40 pm
Angie, love your comments! You are so correct, it is the process we challenge. The tough part is there is always a person behind the process, and even when we mean well it can be tough.
I had a leader once that said in public “not every battle is worth fighting.” I understand what he was saying, but I also thought “how sad.” If you don’t learn courage in the small things, you will never have it when the really big things come knocking.
Thanks!! Bret
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Great post, with lots of nuggets of good advice, Bret. Let me add the timing issue.
I’ve experienced two kinds of teams. In one the leader (or the leader and his or her confidents) makes a decision and delivers it. If challenge happens there, it happens after the fact, with the leader “selling” the idea or coercing compliance and team members desperately trying to share ideas that they think will make things better.
The other kind of team encourages challenging as part of the discussion that happens before a decision is made. In teams that are successful with this, it is crystal clear who will make the final decision and that everyone is expected to help implement it. Those teams usually wind up with better decisions and lots more buy-in.
In the first kind of team, the time from start to decision is shorter than the second. But the time from start to implementation is usually shorter in the second.
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Bret L. Simmons Reply:
September 3rd, 2009 at 12:44 pm
Wally, have you been hiding in the back of my classrooms? What you are saying is exactly what I tell my students. You are going to spend the time somewhere, on the front end or the back end, but don’t be fooled, you will have to spend the time. A decision is worthless if it can’t be implemented, and if your folks don’t buy in, it can’t be implemented.
Great stuff, Wally – thanks!! Bret
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I should have told you about the stealth audit, I guess.
The most important insight on that came early in my career when I had the assignment of negotiating with my company’s Japanese branch. I found that the Japanese involved people early in the process. We saw group after group from different parts of the company as the negotiations progressed. When we reached agreement, they were ready to go.
We were not. Once we had come to an agreement with the other company, we had to sell that agreement to our own executive management. That took a couple of months.
In the end it all came out OK, but the lesson has always stayed with me. Agreement and involvement on the front end enables aggressive and timely implementation. Trying to sell the deal afterwards can cause the deal to disappear.
That was thirty years ago. Since then I’ve seen proof over and over of two things. First, you often beat the competition if you work at a faster tempo so aggressive implementation is critical. Second, you get better decisions AND faster and surer implementation if you include stakeholders (especially team members) on the front end.
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Bret L. Simmons Reply:
September 4th, 2009 at 7:06 am
Love this example, Wally. Even though you learned that lesson personally 30 years ago and it has been written about extensively, it still does not dominate practice. Do you think it is a product of our short term thinking? I don’t know. Thanks for sharing!! Bret
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To almost quote the song, “our heroes have always been cowboys.” In so many of our songs and stories and movies and TV shows, the hero is the loner. The hero often overcomes the group. Our cultural bias is to favor the loner over the group. When you couple that with a view of leadership as an exalted calling, you get leaders who make decisions without involving the team.
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Bret L. Simmons Reply:
September 4th, 2009 at 7:47 am
good point, Wally. We have a hard time letting go of our leader as hero mindset. Makes it easier for us to have someone to blame when things go wrong and to credit when they go right. Thanks! Bret
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Congratulations! This post was selected as one of the five best independent business blog posts of the week in my Three Star Leadership Midweek Review of the Business Blogs.
http://blog.threestarleadership.com/2009/09/09/9909-midweek-look-at-the-independent-business-blogs.aspx
Wally Bock
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Bret L. Simmons Reply:
September 9th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
I sincerely appreciate the honor. Thanks, Wally! Bret
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