In this age of globalization, it is smart to wonder if there is a way to get the best from people regardless of race or nationality. While doing the research for my book, Self-leadership (McGraw-Hill, available Sept 2012), I discovered an interesting dynamic between an organization’s business culture and leadership style and the level of personal autonomy of its employees.

People who work under a leader who is very direct or for a company with an authoritarian culture will have difficulty expressing their personal autonomy in terms of speaking up, making decisions, being creative and innovative. They may passively accept this command-control style, however, it is more likely that they will become dis-engaged or even resentful.
This scenario does not support Self-leaders, who thrive in an empowering culture.

What can be done to bridge the gap and build high performing individuals and teams in Asia?

1. Teach responsibility

Each person should be responsible for their own thoughts, feelings and actions. We need to send a clear message that we respect people as individuals and expect them to manage themselves. Reinforce this by constantly asking, “What do you think about this?” “What do you feel about this?” Initially you may be met with silence, but persevere, make the environment safe to speak up. When an employee points out a problem, gently push the responsibility back and ask, “What can you do about this?”

2. Be clear about accountability

Make sure you are crystal clear about what each individual (rather than the group) is accountable for. Let them know not only what their targets are, but also what behaviors you expect to observe on the way to achieving them. I appreciate that this may seem like a command and control style, but if people have not had autonomy they cannot initially make these judgments. Over time you can shift your style to work with people to set their own targets and behaviors and eventually they will do it themselves.

3. Never SHOUT

In Asia, if you shout or lose your temper you will likely lose the respect of your people and they will probably shut down and become quite unproductive.

4. Separate person from performance

Self-leaders not only take feedback, they seek it out; but when giving feedback in Asia with people who are not yet Self-leaders, you must be doubly careful to make the feedback about the action and NOT the person. If you say, “You wrote a lousy report,” it will be interpreted as “You are lousy.” Whilst it may seem cumbersome at first you will get much better results if you learn to say something like, “I know you to be highly competent and so I know you will want to rework this report to show more clearly how you analyzed the problem, what your conclusion is and what action you suggest we take.”

People in Asia on the whole are committed and hard working. While their education has often emphasized the acquiring of knowledge rather than independent thinking, this does not mean they are not capable of it. If the power differential between boss and sub-ordinate is reduced at a controlled rate and if they are encouraged and acknowledged for having an authentic voice then productivity and innovation will be unleashed.

Women often complain that, ” Men Don’t Listen”. They may be correct, some men and for that matter, some women don’t listen. What is perhaps closer to the truth is that men ‘listen’ for the things that are important to them that are phrased in a way that they understand.

I live by the maxim, “The meaning of communication is the response you get”, which puts the onus on the communicator to be flexible in their communication style to get their meaning across.

Today I spoke  on this topic at the Women’s Leadership Forum 2011, “Gender Diversity for Success” on November 3, 2012 in Singapore. If you attended please give feedback in the comments section and you can view the slide deck here.

This conversation highlights the dangerous lack of preparedness that many leadership teams are in. If 2012 is going to be uncertain or tough, then shouldn’t we get ready for it? Shouldn’t we put the best leadership team in place and make sure they have the competencies required? Or is this a non-essential expense?

Consider that, post the Global Financial Crisis, many leadership teams were decimated by cut backs and organizations are talking about growth when they don’t have the bench strength of talent to achieve it. It is frightening that less than 10% of executives have a plan to develop their strengths and the more senior they get; the less likely they are to receive constructive performance and strategic feedback.

My friend’s organization has 20,000 plus employees and I happen to know that engagement is low and in certain sectors attrition is high. It costs, on average, 18 months’ salary for each manager or professional that leaves, creating a massive financial strain. The engagement or commitment levels of employees are critical to an organizations success and yet with an increased work-load and smaller work-force employees are feeling stressed and fragile.

You would think that now is the time to align the leadership, and engage people through focusing on developing the skills to face ‘The New Norm’ that will be 2012, but perhaps this is a non-essential expense?

A PWC survey showed that 66% of CEO’s say that talent gaps are their biggest fear, whilst 52% are worried about the competition poaching their top talent. And in Asia, where 90% of CEO’s think growth will come from, there exists an alarming shortage of highly competent people leaders.

If this is not a compelling argument to make a strategic commitment at developing and retaining top talent then I don’t know what is. Unfortunately companies are highly sensitive to cost and see this activity as an expense rather than an investment. To an extent, I can actually sympathize with this view. Many so called leadership training programs are either outdated ‘cookie cutter’ approaches or they are just too academic. Such programs suck up time and money and don’t often deliver a tangible or measurable result.

If you are going to develop your leadership talent you are going to have to go beyond the generic leadership competency list that HR has kindly put on a Power Point slide. You are going to have to identify what specific behaviors do you want your leaders to role model. These can be as fundamental as that ability to give constructive feedback or have a crucial conversation without it degenerating into conflict. More advanced behaviors might include the ability to re-frame a challenging business situation and be able to identify opportunities or to communicate strategy in a way that middle management can delegate and execute.

To achieve measurable result requires seeing developing and retaining talent as a core business function and putting some metrics around the results. It requires an attitude of preparing people for the challenge ahead and not just making do. The approach of just doing the odd training here or there when the budget allows probably is an ‘unnecessary expense’, because if the business doesn’t fail, it will fail to capture the growth that it so desperately desires.

…the practice of intentionally influencing your thinking, feeling and behaviors to achieve your objective.

Self-leaders have a drive for autonomy, can make decisions, are more creative and persist, even in the face of adversity.

Some of the intentional behaviours that characterise Self-leadership are; self-awareness, self-goal setting, self-motivation, positive self-talk, assertive communication and the ability to receive and act on feedback.

Becoming a Self-leader and maintaining Self-leadership is a self-development activity; but organizations that encourage Self-leadership reap the benefit.

We (Bryant & Kazan) propose that Self-leadership should be the foundation of any organizational development or program. To skip the Self-leadership piece is to leave out a significant part of the puzzle of developing a learning organization.

As you can see from the above diagram, Self-leadership strategies support all levels of leadership development. If you would like to find out how we can help you develop your Self-leadership feel free to contact us.

So how can a leader be humble when he/she has to be so good?
Research (Tangney 2002) identifies a number of key features of humility:

1. An accurate (not underestimated) sense of one’s abilities and achievements.
2. The ability to acknowledge one’s mistakes, imperfections, gaps in knowledge, and limitations.
3. Openness to new ideas, contradictory information and advice.
4. Keeping one’s abilities and accomplishments in perspective.
5. Relatively low focus on self and the ability to “forget the self”.
6. Appreciation of the value of all things, as well as the many different ways that people and things can contribute to our world.

Each of these attributes of humility can be practiced, alone or with the help of a coach. The alternative is to be drawn towards narcissism. The narcissist has a positive view of themselves which is fuelled by fantasizing about fame and success, trying to publically outperform others and winning admiration. Narcissists have a feeling of entitlement, that they deserve special treatment, and are focused on collecting those rewards.

Many corporate cultures fuel the narcissistic personality because this type of behavior can deliver short term results. The price that organizations must pay is that the narcissist is hypersensitive to threats to their esteem and are likely to react with anger and aggression at any sign of disrespect. Such a culture will be low on cooperation and collaboration and high on defections.

In Jim Collins’ book “Good to Great” he found through surveys that humble leadership (opposite of arrogance) was one of the many leadership traits that contributed to the long-term success of organizations. Humble leaders get involved, are willing to listen to opposing viewpoints, and have high self-esteem. They have high moral values, which causes them to be centered on doing things right for the right reasons. They energize others, and believe their talents are a gift to be kept in perspective both in the work place and in their personal lives.

In our Self-leadership programs we stress the importance of developing a healthy Self-esteem that allows the individual to welcome both positive and negative feedback without over-reacting to either. In working with leadership teams, we stress discovering your own strengths and the strengths of your colleagues which make us more accepting of weaknesses and creates the cognitive trust and collaboration to win as a team.

So consider this; you may not be perfect in every way but that is by design, leadership is about playing to your strengths, minimizing your weaknesses and developing trusting relationships that get the job done.

I think it has to do with our tribal mentality, it somehow serves us to think of “The Others” as different and therefore inferior to our tribe. And yet when we meet people one-to-one we discover that, whether they live in a high-rise in Manhattan or a yurt in Outer Mongolia, people are interesting and generous and have a sense of humour.

I am a fan of the mythologist, Joseph Cambell, who made the observation that the human race missed an epiphany. When the Apollo Astronauts stood on the moon and watched the Earth rise we should have all had a massive shift of consciousness. All the world’s religions talk about God or gods looking down on us from above, and now we have experienced the same perspective of ‘looking down’ on Earth. What should we realise when we see our beautiful blue green planet spinning in space? We should realise that we are all One Tribe on One Planet, dependant on it and each other to survive and prosper.

Why do we miss this perspective? Are we hard wired to think in term of them and us; Shi’ite or Sunni, Catholic or Protestant, Democrat or Republican, Male or Female, Black or White?

Yes, we are all unique and different and that’s what makes us the same. Is it easy to honour and respect those differences? I know it’s not for me. I struggle to look for sameness and often default to finding what’s ‘wrong’ about another person. I am, however, aware of my weakness and my Self-leadership journey is to overcome my programming, to see each human as my brother and sister. Does this mean that I will agree with what others do and say, “Hell No!” but I know that by making them wrong I will not be able to influence them.

If leadership is about influence then we must, as Stephen Covey tells us, “Seek first to understand and then be understood”. So my brothers and sisters do you agree or disagree?

Self-leaders have a drive for autonomy, are more creative and persist, even in the face of adversity. Shared-leadership allows team members to influence peers, superiors and sub-ordinates with the objective to lead one another to innovation and the achievement of high performance objectives.

In this video, inspirational speaker, Andrew Bryant shares a contingent model for developing leaders with self-leadership.

The ideal Mentee is:

High potential, commmited to their career, hungry to learn and disciplined enough to execute what they have learned.

In short, the ideal mentee is leadership material.

An ideal Mentor is:  

• Someone who has experience in field (they have been there before).
• Someone interested in developing others.
• Someone prepared to take another by the hand and guide them through the territory.
• Someone who asks questions that the mentee doesn’t ask themselves but ought to.
• Someone trustworthy who inspires confidence.
• Someone who will be there in time of need.

The Mentor needs to develop the following skills

1. Supporting
2. Listening
3. Validating growth and development (Cheer leading)
4. Questioning
5. Giving feedback to behaviours and skills
6. Guiding and offering perspective

At our mentor trainings we work on all these skills, but perhaps the most difficult is questioning. Questioning, because the art of mentoring is in the balance between guiding and self-discovery. In medicine, prescription without diagnosis is malpractice; it is therefore essential for the mentor to fully understand the mentee and their situation before offering advice. What worked for the mentor might not work for the mentee or their situation.

After asking questions the mentor can use his or her experience to point out ‘traps for young players’ such as misplaced priorities and pot holes that the mentee has not yet seen. An important role for the mentor is to help the mentee align their goals and values to those of the organization. Ultimately, the mentoring relationship can only be successful when the mentee takes their destiny in their own hands and takes action to achieve their goals.

The Principle of Mentoring

The principle of mentoring is to balance challenge with support. Too much challenge with not enough support and the mentee shuts down. Too much support and not enough challenge and the mentee just feels validated in their status quo.

If the mentor does too much for the mentee, they may actually compromise the mentees ability to reach their full potential. Ideally, when the correct frame of mind is identified the mentee will facilitate the mentee to integrate that and to take action.

Questioning

Here some ‘starter’ questions to use when mentoring.

• What do you want to get out of this session?
• What are your career objectives?
•  What is happening for you now?
• How do you know this?
• How do you feel about what is going on?
• What judgments are you making about people, the company or this situation?
• What have you learned from that?
• What do you most need from me right now?
• What questions does that raise?
• What result do you want?
• What options are open to you now?
• What is your biggest difficulty or problem?
• How can I help you move forwards on this issue?
• Can you think of three options for action?
• What are the pros and cons of each of these options?
• What first steps are you going to take before our next meeting?
• Whose responsibility is it to make this happen?
• On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely are you to do this action?

Mentoring is NOT telling someone what to do or just giving advice. When the Mentor asks questions they allow the Mentee to reflect and synthesise and prepares them to apply new behaviours.

Done well, mentoring is beneficial for the mentor, the mentee and the organisation in terms of engagement, sharing  of knowledge and most importantly developing future leaders.

Done badly, mentoring becomes a chore for senior managers and increases the cynicism of would be high potentials. For more on this read the post, ‘Does Singapore Lack Leadership Skills?’

I recently passed the ICF’s exam for Professional Certified Coach. Among requirements are; completion of coach-specific training, a minimum of 750 professional coaching hours, a written exam a recorded and live coaching session assessed by two examiners against 11 competencies.

The process was involved but rewarding because I have now had my coaching skills bench-marked and validated and have a clear path to ongoing mastery.

The majority of my Singapore and International coaching clients are corporate at the executive leve;l and until recently have cared more about referral or established brand than credentials. Things are changing and many of my larger client’s, especially the banks, have been setting up internal business processes that require coaches to be credentialed. To this end I am happy to comply with and uphold the highest level of professional behaviour.

As a leadership consultant and executive coach living in Singapore and working across Asia, I am often asked; “is there is a difference between Western and Asian Leaders?”

The answer is “yes” and “no”. Leaders worldwide need to ask the same questions:

• Where are we going?
• What is our strategy? (how do we get there?)
• How do we execute?
• Is our team ready? (learning and development)
• Do we have enough bench strength for growth and sustainability (succession planning)

In addition leaders must be able to engender trust and effectively communicate their messages.

The difference between East and West is a matter of focus and style. In the Asian managers and companies tend to focus on execution, whereas in the West, creativity and innovation are more valued. In the East there is emphasis internally on command/control, the ‘how’ the do things, whereas Western companies tend to look externally at their customers and clients.

Asian employees are more likely to do what is asked whereas western employees are more likely to be free agents and independent thinkers .

Of course these observations are all generalisations but I think the key take-away is that both styles have merit and if we can appreciate and take the best of both we can be better leaders.

A lot of my work in the last couple of years has been equipping leaders with an understanding of different cultures. Western managers in Asia have needed to learn how to get the best from their employees and up and coming Asian leaders have needed to learn how to communicate in a style that is valued in Western companies.

There is currently an imbalance, more Westerners are heading up operations in Asia than there are Asian heading up operations in the West; it will be interesting to see if this tips in the next few years. What do you think?

Leadership Development in Singapore
Executive Coaching in Singapore