Good Morning,
My current read is “The Leadership Secrets of Billy Graham” by Harold Myra and Marshall Shelly (http://www.amazon.com/Leadership-Secrets-Billy-Graham/dp/0310255783). It is full of amazing information on all levels of leadership and much of it is very practical in everyday life. So far I am about 1/3 the way through the book and learning a lot.
In one section there is a quote from Ben Franklin, where Ben is giving advice to John Paul Jones via letter. He wrote:
“If you should observe an occasion to give your officers and friends a little more praise than is their due, and confess more fault than you can justly be charged with, you will only become the sooner for it, a great captain.”
This is alignment with Jim Collin’s work in Good to Great where Level 5 Leaders when looking to give praise, look out the window, and when looking to find fault, look into a mirror. Ben Franklin just takes it a step further.
The challenge, though, is the nature of leaders and managers to protect their pride and ego by giving blame, withholding praise, and refusing to share in the fault.
A sad part of this is those leaders who wish to be strong and never admit mistakes, or rarely give praise, are often seen as hardnosed bullies who people fear and or hate working with.
How long does a good team run at top performance being driven by fear? Usually not long.
Giving praise, even when we give too much at times is okay, per Ben Franklin, so long as it is not given to the point that every little thing gets praised, making the praise itself mundane. Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson in the One Minute Manager talk about finding people doing something right and praising them. By giving praise at these times, we reinforce the behavior we want from our teams.
In the second part of the advise, we learn that leaders who allow themselves to be vulnerable to their teams will find their teams will more readily follow them, understand them, defend them and work harder for them.
I like knowing that my managers are fallible humans like myself. I can identify with that.
A leader who pretends to be flawless in the face of his team or direct reports, is often nothing more than a phony who is scared to appear human. To maintain that facade, they often become cold and distant. Not the type of leader I want to follow, much less be myself.
From the man who gave us ‘A penny saved is a penny earned’ , here is another pearl of wisdom for everyone who will ever be in a leadership position.
It is assumed John Paul Jones took Ben Franklin’s advice and headed into the history books.
Question is, will you heed his advice?
Enjoy!
Sanford Berenberg
Sanford@berenberg.net
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