EXECUTIVE EDGE - What It Takes to Be a Generous Leader

Information and Skills You Need to Get Ahead

In Leading So People Will Follow, Erika Andersen identifies six characteristics of what it takes to be the kind of leader whom others would follow. One of those is generous. In her book, she explains what true generosity is and how to be generous.

“... Generous leaders share the wealth on many levels. For example, they are quick to give others credit for their good efforts and new ideas. They’re also generous with their knowledge, sharing information with those who need it and teaching others around them how to do what they themselves do well. They are generous with their faith in people; they tend to assume best intent (although they are not naïve) and believe people are generally innocent until proven guilty.”

“Perhaps most important, they are generous with power. The generous leader, having provided the information necessary for success, gives people the authority and autonomy to act on that information. A leader who is fully generous shares both the power to make decisions and the responsibility for dealing with the   consequences of those decisions. She shares the resources needed to execute on the power she shares and the insight and support necessary for people to recover from mistakes and failure. Finally, she is generous with feedback. She takes the time to notice what her staff are doing or not doing, think about what’s great and what’s not, and share with them her observations.”

“Generous leadership makes people feel capable, included and motivated to succeed. It also makes them feel generous themselves. A generous leader is a powerful role model and catalyst for an open, honest, supportive organization.”

It is helpful to have a handful of specific behaviors to focus on. Based on Andersen’s descriptions, leaders who are generous

1. Assume positive intent. When the leader is generous in his or her assumptions, everyone feels good. If I’m an employee and I see that my leader has high positive expectations and believes I can meet them, I’m likely to do everything in my power to make that true.

2. Share power and authority. Effective delegation is the best way for you to

share power and authority. It allows employees to demonstrate increasing levels of competence; you can then respond by offering them increasing levels of autonomy. They become more independent and capable, and you’ll be freed to take on new, higher-level responsibilities as well. When you operate as a generous leader, your

people benefit and respond.

3. Share what they know. One of the more frustrating habits of poor leaders

is to hoard information and knowledge.  When leaders don’t share key information

or knowledge, the organization becomes more fragile. If you’re the only person

who knows how to do an essential thing, what happens when you’re not there? Not sharing critical information and knowledge makes it much harder for people to succeed individually and support the organization’s success.  Generous leaders not only share information personally; they embed information sharing into the operations of the group.

4. Freely give credit, praise and reward. When leaders are chintzy with credit, praise and reward, we feel undervalued and unappreciated.  Over the years, research has shown again and again that one of the key reasons good employees leave organizations is lack of appreciation for their efforts and contributions.

When you as a leader share genuine praise and give people full credit for their actions, ideas and results, almost without exception, they are inspired to do more of the same. Learning to give genuine positive feedback is the simplest and probably the highest leverage place to focus in order to improve your leadership in this area of generosity. Positive feedback is a simple, powerful way to let people

know that they’re headed in the right direction and that you’re noticing and appreciating their work.

5. Provide the resources necessary to succeed. The kinds of resources those

you lead will need in order to succeed in this day and age are things like a fair wage, the tools to do their job (technology, training, good processes, access to information), a safe and civil working environment, reasonable leave policies and fair practices in regard to diversity. If you’re wondering whether those you lead have the resources they need to succeed, the first thing to do is ask them. Manage

your self-talk to ensure that you don’t immediately dismiss any requests or

concerns as unrealistic or greedy.  “Generous leaders want their people to thrive, and they support this intention through their words and actions. When leaders are generous, their people feel cared for, seen and valued. People whose leaders

are generous become more generous in response; they are more supportive of each other, the leader and the business.”

The Generosity of Giving Value

Success depends heavily on how we approach our interactions with people,

according to Adam Grant in Give and Take.  Every time we interact with another person at work, we have a choice to make: do we try to claim as much value as we can or contribute value without worrying about what we receive in return? Social scientists have discovered that people differ dramatically in their preferences for reciprocity — their desired mix of taking and giving. The two kinds of people who fall on opposite ends of the spectrum are called takers and givers. 

Givers prefer to give more than they get. Whereas takers tend to be self-focused, evaluating what other people can offer them, givers are other-focused, paying more attention to what other people need from them. These preferences are not about money: givers and takers aren’t distinguished by how much they donate to charity or the compensation that they command from their employers. If you’re a giver at work, you simply strive to be generous in sharing your time, energy, knowledge, skills, ideas and connections with other people who can benefit from them.

Givers are able to develop and leverage extraordinarily rich networks. By virtue

of the way they interact with other people in their networks, givers create norms that favor adding rather than claiming or trading value, expanding the pie for all involved.

Givers reject the notion that interdependence is weak. Givers are more likely to

see interdependence as a source of strength, a way to harness the skills of multiple

people for a greater good. When givers put a group’s interests ahead of their own, they signal that their primary goal is to benefit the group. As a result, givers earn the respect of their collaborators.

Because givers tend to be trusting and optimistic about other people’s intentions, in

their roles as leaders, managers and mentors, givers are inclined to see the potential in everyone. By default, givers start by viewing people as bloomers … they simply start by seeing everyone as talented and try to bring out the best in them. They see potential where others don’t, which sets in motion a series of self-fulfilling prophecies. In roles as leaders and mentors, givers resist the temptation to search for talent first. By recognizing that anyone can be a bloomer, givers focus their attention on motivation.

The Generosity of Empowerment

Empowerment is the natural result of both personal and organizational trustworthiness, which enable people to identify and unleash their potential, Stephen R. Covey points out in The 8th Habit. The empowerment enthrones self-control, self-management and self-organizing. It taps into passion, energy and drive — in short, voice.

In organizations where people do every day what they do best, there’s lower turnover, higher productivity and higher customer satisfaction.

Managers must overcome their inability to give up control. With empowerment,

control is not lost. It’s translated into self-control. This comes when there is a

commonly understood end, with agreed upon guidelines and supportive structures

and systems, and when each person acts as a whole person in a whole job. In this

“directed autonomy,” managers shift from controllers to enablers: They remove barriers and become a source of support.

Successful empowerment depends on management’s commitment to work with

team members by win-win agreement. The result is an overlapping of the four needs of the organization (financial health, growth and development, synergistic relationships with stakeholders, and meaning/contribution) with the four needs of the individual (physical — survival, health and security; mental — growth and development; social/emotional — relationships; and spiritual — meaning

and contribution.

It’s essential that executives build a culture where people are allowed — even expected — to push back against a decision that would result in serious consequences to the overall mission and values of the organization.

The role of the supervisor is to set up the conditions of empowerment and then to

clear the path and become a source of help as requested. This is “servant leadership.”  It’s empowerment that creates heartfelt commitment and excitement.

We grow personally when we give ourselves to others and our relationships

deepen. We begin our search for wisdom by admitting how little we know and how much we need others.

People are extremely sensitive to a leader’s use of patience, kindness, empathy and gentle persuasion. Such characteristics activate the consciences of others and create emotional identification with the leader and the cause or principles for which he or she stands.

The Imperative to Give and Receive Feedback

People can benefit from feedback only if they believe and accept the feedback they’ve been given, assert John H. Zenger, Joseph R. Folkman, Robert H. Sherwin, Jr. and Barbara A. Steel in How to Be Exceptional.

Accepting feedback is a function of four broad sets of skills. First and foremost is the ability to be humble and reflective. Humility comes when people start to understand that it is the reactions of others that really matter in terms of their leadership effectiveness.  Their effectiveness as a leader is determined by others.

The second factor is personal honesty and integrity. People who are more honest and straightforward with others tend to be honest and straightforward with themselves.

The higher the level of perceived honesty and integrity, the higher the level of openness to receiving feedback from those around you.

The third factor is engaging in the development of others. Our research indicated that those who were better at accepting feedback also tended to be more effective at developing others. Development is contagious. When people do it for others, some of it is bound to rub off. Having the perspective that others ought to improve and develop new skills makes it much more likely that they themselves will be open to feedback on what they can do to improve. One of the powerful tools to develop others is to provide them with useful feedback. That works best, however, when the leader has set the example by seeking feedback from the subordinate, welcoming any and all messages that would help the leader be even more effective.

The final factor is taking action and initiative to move forward and respond to the feedback. Passive acceptance is a helpful start, but without action, nothing   changes.  Those who accept feedback and move forward start to respond with energy and enthusiasm about improving their performance. They provide others with a clear vision and goal how they will do it. Finally, after they start, they follow through on their commitment to execute the change. 

We can think of no activity, which if broadly practiced in an organization, will have more beneficial impact on building strengths in leaders than if they learn to readily give and receive feedback, but especially to freely ask for feedback from those around them.

The Generosity of Not Finding Fault

When you understand how consequences influence performance, you realize that

finding fault with people for inappropriate performance is unproductive and unfair,

according to Aubrey C. Daniels in Bringing Out the Best in People. They are simply behaving in a manner consistent with the consequences they are receiving now and have received in the past.  The role of leaders in every organization is not to find fault or place blame, but to analyze why people are behaving as they are

and modify the consequences to promote the behavior they need.

This approach to management does not overlook poor performance. Nor does it seek to use only positive reinforcement to attempt to create some type of unrealistic, utopian organization. Quite the contrary. 

The management system we should create employs all of the consequences appropriately and skillfully to stop problem performance and promote the kind of behavior that supports the organization’s goals.

The first step when attempting to change the way people perform is to understand why they are currently behaving the way they are.  We now know that people do what they do because of the consequences they experience following their actions. Therefore, it is helpful to discover what antecedents are setting the stage for the behavior to begin, and it is necessary to know what consequences are causing the behavior to continue.

The ABC (Antecedent-Behavior-Consequence) Analysis is a simple method

for systematically analyzing the antecedents and consequences influencing a behavior.  This analytic technique will allow you to understand behavior from the other person’s perspective, even when it appears to be unproductive, irrational or self-defeating.

Antecedent: Something that comes before a behavior that sets the stage for the

behavior to occur.

Behavior: What a person does.

Consequence: What happens to the performer as a result of the behavior.

Once you view performance in terms of ABC, you will be able to develop solutions

to performance problems that you may never have attempted in the past. 

In the ABC Analysis, consequences are classified on three dimensions:

1. Positive or negative. This dimension answers the question, “Is the consequence

positive or negative from the perspective of the performer?”

2. Immediate or future. Here we want to know, “Does the consequence occur as

the behavior is happening (immediate) or some time later (future)?”

3. Certain or uncertain. This dimension expresses the probability that the performer will actually experience the consequence. 

Understanding and managing consequences is the most effective way to improve performance.

Goals are antecedents for either reinforcement or punishment. If people are punished when they fail to reach a goal, they will reach the goal only to avoid the punishment. On the other hand, if people reach their goals and receive positive reinforcement, they will not stop when they get to the goal but will continue to perform at their best, knowing that more positive reinforcement will be forthcoming.

The belief that goals improve performance interferes with the effective use of goals. If goals are set but there are no consequences for either success or failure, the goals will produce no improvement and will ultimately be a waste of time.

Very clearly, the purpose of setting goals should be to increase opportunities for

positive reinforcement. If this is the purpose, we should want many, not few, goals. And, contrary to common sense, the best mistake to make in goal setting is to set the goals too low. The reasons for these techniques may be obvious by now:

1. If the goal is low, it increases the probability of success. If the goal is reached and success is celebrated, the motivation to do even more the next time is increased.

2. If goals become the antecedent for positive reinforcement, then the more

goals you have, the more occasions for positive reinforcement.

The mistake that is most commonly made when setting goals is associated with the word challenging. The concept of “challenging goals” usually causes managers to set fewer goals and to set them too high. Fewer goals, harder to attain, equal very few opportunities for positive reinforcement and reward. The fastest way to change individual behavior is to set small goals, reinforce effort and celebrate attainment.

Remember, positive reinforcement accelerates the rate of improvement. The only way we can achieve dramatic improvement in anything is with lots of reinforcement.

THE GENEROUS LEADER

In a recent Executive Insights interview with Erika Andersen, author of Leading So

People Will Follow, Soundview’s host Andrew Clancy asked about the leadership quality of generosity. Here is an excerpt from the interview:

Soundview: What is it that makes a leader generous?

Erika Andersen: Good leaders understand that their success depends on the success of others. If you’re just an independent operator, it doesn’t matter, your success depends on your efforts entirely. But if you’re a leader — if you’re leading other people — you cannot be successful without them being successful. All boats rise, right?

So good leaders realize that, and therefore, on a daily basis, our concern is to support others’ success, and that’s the essence of generosity. If a leader focuses on “How can I help you be successful?” day to day, then many things will arise out of that that feel generous: giving you resources, giving you knowledge, assuming you have positive intent to get over obstacles –– all those things that come across to people as generous.