Rowitz On Leadership

Most leadership writers try to give their readers a model for action that will help these leadership readers become more effective and efficient. However, no model is perfect. Unanticipated events or people reactions are not often included in these leadership paradigms. This posting will look at thirteen consequences related to leadership response. Leaders need to be realistic and react in a flexible manner as events unfold in different contexts. Here are thirteen reality-based leadership lessons:

1. Not all team members do the work.
2. It is your managers that make you like your job.
3. Most people don’t change. The weaknesses remain. Play to the person’s strengths.
4. Lists and steps don’t solve problems but can guide actions that are process-based.
5. Talent and competency guide action. Talent can only be enhanced but not taught.
6. Not all leaders are the same.
7. No matter how good a job you do, you can still lose your job.
8. Training does not give you all the answers.
9. All plans lead to unexpected results.
10. Don’t expect politicians or elected or appointed officials to value what you do.
11. Resilience is the secret weapon of leadership.
12. People don’t want change and they use budget to justify their resistance.
13. Age is not a good reason to dump professionals on the trash heap.

Perhaps my readers can add reality-based lessons to this list.

It is hard to imagine a family functioning without leadership skills. Families need a 100% commitment on the part of the parents. If one or both parents are working, the 100% commitment needs to occur through the shared leadership of both parents working together. Justice Sotamayor said that her 100% commitment to her career and her dream to be a judge meant that she would need to forego a personal family life for herself. It is difficult to create a balance between work and family when you make a total commitment to career. A 50% commitment to work means that you have only a 50% time available to your family. Thus, two working parents need to compromise so that a 100% commitment becomes possible. The parent who commits totally to the family allows the other parent to commit to work at a higher percentage

Shared leadership involves joint decision-making and the sharing of home responsibilities. Children increase the complexity of family life from reevaluating parental responsibilities, providing for alternate child care when the parents have outside responsibilities, determination of required and voluntary external responsibilities, and adjustments for different leadership styles of each parent. As the children get older, parents will need to develop mentoring skills and skills in delegation. Delegation of home responsibilities will increase as children grow. In addition, the parental leaders will have to learn how to deal with conflict and learn techniques for resolving conflicts and using negotiation strategies. Parents will also need to become good managers of the households resources. Budgeting is an important part of home management. Food preparation also requires management skills. In fact, working people can learn much from leaders at home which serves as excellent preparation for leadership in the work environment.

Many Americans are disenchanted with their elected officials. The recent national deliberations over the budget and the closing of the Federal government and also the conflict over the raising of the debt limit brought the American society to a standstill. The Founding Fathers must have been turning over in their graves. Yet, many did not understand what was going on. Many didn’t care. Some have argued that our society is selfish, prejudiced, pro-gun, anti-immigrant, anti-government, anti-poor, anti-Islamic, and maybe just anti-everything, We need to step back and look at what our democracy stands for. Politics must be more than character assassination. This posting will look at the characteristics of a politician that is also a leader.

A politician needs to be civil to other politicians. Collaboration should be the major orientation to the political process. After all, politics is about change and transformation, The goal of the political process is to improve our quality of life. Political leaders need to find was to address society’s challenges in a civil manner and within budgetary parameters. An elected official needs to not only the people who elected him or her but also the needs and perspectives of those that did not vote for him or her. The leader must not ignore, for example, the 30-50 percent of the population that did not vote for him or her. The political leader needs to study the community and understand all the needs of all the people in his or her jurisdiction. Respect for the President , the Governor , or Mayor is critical in a democratic society. In fact, the political leader needs to show respect for all his or her constituencies. People first and then money concern must be the guiding principle for the political process. Political process must not only be concerned with lobbyists and their financial contributions It sometimes seems that politicians are not concerned with the Bill of Rights unless it relates to their political agendas.

In summary, here are ten characteristics for a political leader:

    1 Civil

    2. Collaborative

    3. Transformative for society’s good

    4. Respect for others

    5.Willing to compromise

    6. Represent all the people not just the followers of their political party

    7. Support the Constitution and the Bill of Rights

    8. Set governmental priorities from a people-first approach, but within budgetary constraints

    9. Work together and share the leadership

    10.Make passed legislation implementable even if you don’t completely agree with it

Americans love sports and games. We spend a great amount of time watching sports. We will often reject some social events if it will mean that we would miss watching a specific sports event on television. We often thank our creator for TIVO or other device that will let s watch our favorite sports later in time. Being a spectator is a passive event. However, these events do teach us about sportsmanship. They also show us many examples of non-sportsman ship like activities like the violence which seems to be part of most hockey games. We have also incorporated these spectator events which allows us to have a party with friends while we watch a sports event. Superbowl day has almost become a holiday with all sorts of food and socializing. By now, you should be asking the question of what this all has to do with leadership. To answer this question, we need to distinguish between being a spectator and a participant.

Leaders are more than spectators. They are participants. They learn many things from playing games and participating in sports. They learn about working in teams. They learn about rules of the game and how to take the lead in games. They learn about collaboration and working together to accomplish certain ends. They learn to deal with conflict and its resolution. They see that each member of the team can affect outcome only with the cooperation of all the team members. Teams exist in many parts of the leader’s life from our family, our religion, our community, and our society as a whole. Our lives are governed by our beliefs and values. Leaders know that we must understand our culture and how to help our communities accept change. In previous columns, I have discussed how leaders develop their personal leadership skills. This blog posting begins to explore how we learn our team-building leadership skills.

Over the last four decades, I have read hundreds of books on leadership and management. I have held leadership roles and taught people about leadership and how to be a leader. Despite my life in leadership study, I still have many questions that are left unanswered or only partially answered. I would like to share some of my questions, I have my own partial answers but wonder how my readers would answer these questions. Here we go:

1. How come there are so many conflicting definitions of leadership?
2. Why doesn’t any theory seem to fit my leadership challenges?
3. Where does biology impact my leadership?
4. How come I can’t use my leadership skills in all situations and contexts?
5. If I am such an excellent leader, why do I have so much trouble using my leadership skills at home?
6. Why doesn’t my boss realize that I am a leader?
7. When I retire, how come I cannot let go of my organization?
8. Why do I have trouble letting my direct reports lead?
9. For my health-based colleagues, how will my leadership and my organization be affected by the Affordable Care Act?
10. How do I lead in a government agency?

How would you answer these questions/ Share your answers with your colleagues. What questions would you add to my list?

In previous postings and in my book PUBLIC HEALTH LEADERSHIP, I have discussed the five levels of leadership. As leaders develop their skills, each level builds on the skills developed at a previous level. In review, the first level involves the development of personal leadership skills that become the driver for all leadership activities regardless of level. Each of us needs to develop a leadership mindset and a series of experiences that define us as a leader. These personal skills will develop over a lifetime. The second level of leadership supports our work with teams and becomes the foundation for all our collaborative leadership activities. Team leadership is critical to all our public health and human service activities and our problem solving work. Our personal leadership skills help us to work well with other team members. The third level provides us with context. Teamwork often occurs within the context of organization and the leadership skills that will provide us with the wok and values necessary to develop our personal skills and team leadership skills. The fourth level puts us in the community where we need to work with others and to guide the work of our organizations so that they reflect the needs of our organizations. Thus, each of the four levels of leadership skill development develop a complex array of tools for carrying out our leadership work.

Now it is necessary to add a new fifth level to our model. This level includes the leadership skills necessary to work in a global environment. Public health issues are global in nature. Many have argued that leaders must think globally but act locally. Health and disease are global issues but public health practice activities are carried out at the local level. Epidemiologic surveillance needs to be a global as well as a local concern. Disease does not respect borders. The sixth level is the importance of communication and the necessity of spreading our good as well as our not so good acts to our colleagues so that we can all learn from our actions. Thus, our model of leadership levels must expand to better reflect the ways that we as leaders work.