The advice I needed when I was 30.

About ten years ago, I gave a bit of unsolicited advice to a college student with dreams of achieving  some pretty big goals by the ripe old age of 30. I took him seriously enough to suggest a plan of action and, a bit reluctantly, he acted on it. Recently, I received a gracious thank-you note from that same man, who is now realizing his lofty dreams. I responded with a second piece of advice that will hopefully be easier for him to follow: “Ask yourself, what kind of leader do I want to be? What’s my brand as a leader? Whatever that is, be authentic.”

When I was a young man, I really wanted people to take me seriously. I wanted to project a no-nonsense image. So, I ordered some very serious letterhead on bond paper with embossed lettering and a serif font and the whole deal. I used emphatic exclamation points in my letters. Of course, the image I was trying to project wasn’t who I really was — a regular laid-back guy who preferred casual clothes, enjoyed a good time, and had a solid midwestern work ethic.  Any leadership skills I possessed had much more to do with an innate sense of empathy than any Machiavellian business school tactics. I wish someone had given me the advice back then that I recently shared with my 30-year-old friend and rising business leader — just be yourself. People respect authenticity.

Here’s something else I shared with him. Humility goes hand-in-hand with authenticity, and the flip-side of humility is vulnerability. Leaders don’t pretend to be something they’re not.  They understand that they don’t have all the answers, aren’t always the smartest one in the room, and that they need help from others. They welcome input. They acknowledge their own mistakes and shortcomings. They keep trying to be better people and more effective leaders.

Today, my personal “note paper” consists of colorful, oversized postcards with big, friendly type. (It’s not ComicSans, but it’s pretty casual.) It’s my hope that when I meet people for the first time, the “real me” matches whatever correspondence or social media we’ve used to connect. Every day, I try to put my energy into being a good leader, not just looking like one. And while I admire and even emulate many wonderful people, I try to stay true to that guy in the mirror — flawed, perhaps, but authentic. That’s the only kind of branding a leader needs.

When you hire the wrong person, own it

I’ve been in business long enough that I have been somebody’s boss, manager, or supervisor for many years. I’ve pretty much enjoyed every assignment I’ve had, but there is one thing I’ve never found easy — firing someone I was responsible for hiring. Especially at an executive level. Let’s face it, this should never be pleasant or even comfortable. But I have learned that there is one thing we should never do — even if it makes it easier on ourselves — and that’s vilifying the person being let go.

I am ashamed to admit that I used to do that. Many people still do. And looking back, the psychology behind this behavior is easy to understand. It’s all about cognitive dissonance. If I hired someone because I thought they were wonderful, capable, and a good cultural fit, and then they didn’t work out, it must be because they either deceived me, took on a radical personality change, or are sociopaths. The thinking is, “I’m a good person and a good manager, so it must be their fault!”

This is not only unfair to the other person, but potentially damaging to your business, because you have failed to identify a problem that needs an effective solution. After all, when you hire someone, it’s because you need a specific job handled. If it’s not being handled, you need to understand why. The best way to approach this is through a debriefing process. Is the individual simply a poor fit with an otherwise effective team? Has the organization or the assignment shifted in a way that requires different skills than that person brings to the party? Did you have unrealistic expectations, hoping that because you admired that person, they would somehow grow into the assignment, or that the assignment itself would evolve? In most cases, you simply hired the wrong person for the job that needs doing right now, and you need to own it. You need to be vulnerable, admit that you tried something that didn’t work, and make the decision to correct the situation. Ultimately, that’s the only fair thing to do for the person separating from the company, and for the company itself. Own the mistake and move on.

There’s another benefit here, too. When people see that you are willing to own your mistakes, they are more willing to tell you the truth, even if it means calling you out on a bad decision. Leaders need their people to tell them when something isn’t working. Sometimes, you may need to debrief with specific members of a team to make sure you don’t repeat the mistake, or try to “solve” the wrong problem. If people trust you, they can help correct or validate your assessment so that you can move forward. With compassion and honesty, the person separating from the company can too.

Why just consume, when you can also create?

One of my favorite things about the annual Maker Faire is not just the scale and scope of the inventions — which are awesome — but how it never fails to inspire me to make something myself. It’s my belief that we all have an inborn urge to create, but it’s become so much easier to just consume that we’ve shut off that part of our soul. It’s as if the process of curating ideas, or aggregating art, or sampling and sharing scientific innovation is as powerful as making something from scratch. But they are different things entirely — and it has everything to do with what you get out of the process.

If I want a fine work of art to display in my home, I’ll visit some art galleries and purchase a piece by a true artist. But if I want the satisfaction of playing with color and form and fabric, if I want to experience and learn from the creative process, I need to jump in without worrying about whether the results will be “good.”  If you want to provide secure shelter for your family, you’ll buy a house from a trusted builder. If I want the adventure of creating something with your kids that they’ll play in for hours on end, you’ll build a treehouse.

The thrill of making something isn’t reserved for artists or engineers or architects. You can bake a cake. Plant a vegetable garden and share your goods with the local food bank. Make up a story for a grandchild. Write a haiku. Join a garage band and make music. Organize a reading club and build a basis for fellowship. Build a team where none existed before.

If we are very lucky, we’ll make something that can be shared and that matters to other human beings. But I suspect that most things get made because their creators gave in to the urge to just do it. The reward is the journey of creation, how it makes us feel when we explore this part of our brain and express a secret corner of our soul.

Making things makes us better people.

A case for standing up for people others put down.

In recent years, we’ve been inundated with news about industries, corporations, athletic teams, colleges and even faith-based organizations who have dismissed leaders because of egregious misconduct.  Many of these transgressions had gone on for years while others turned a blind eye, and I give a lot of credit to the trailblazers who have denounced both the perpetrators and those who protected them. Still, I wonder how much of the ensuing remedial action was for show, and how much was a sincere interest in reparation.  I worry that, as individuals, we are all too willing to abdicate responsibility for abuses perpetrated on someone else, simply because they aren’t happening to us.

I’m always uncomfortable when I hear colleagues talking about horrible things inflicted on  “other people” at places they used to work or do business. Sexism. Racism. Ageism. Entitlement. Intimidation. I want to shout, “And that was OKAY with you? Why didn’t you call them out?” Have we become apathetic about injustices that happen outside our immediate circle? Or are we afraid of what might happen when we speak up for each other? Is “integrity” just something we pay lip service to, but don’t embrace in our personal code of conduct?

The other evening I was going to dinner with some friends when a man near us began loudly pestering a young woman. I told him he was being disrespectful and asked him to stop. Later, the friends I was with told me I shouldn’t have said anything, not because it wasn’t my business, but because the guy could have pulled a gun. Seriously? Have we reached the point that we won’t to do the right thing because we’re that afraid? I only did what I would want someone to do for my wife or daughters. I’d want someone to have their backs by telling him it’s NOT OKAY.

What do you think? Are we justified in calling out someone when they are being disrespectful to another human being? Is it a duty? What if it’s a colleague? What if it’s our boss? My intuition says that, as a society, our moral reprobation has a governing effect on bad behavior.  In that sense, we owe it to each other to police outrageous behavior. Not with “shaming.” Not with righteous indignation. But by simply demanding that people treat others the way we all want to be treated.

Many companies have a stated code of ethics. At Freeman, I think most people can list our key values, even if they can’t recite the entire code of conduct. It begins with integrity — with its implication that we behave in the right way whether or not anyone is watching.  At what point do we take this personally, especially when is it easier to just look the other way? What’s the point of a code of ethics that is subordinate to embarrassment, fear, or ambivalence?

It’s something we each need to consider for ourselves. Especially those of us in leadership positions, where it’s critical to model the behavior we expect see in others.  How do we want people to treat our spouses, our family members, ourselves? The thing with bad behavior, as we’ve seen in all too many news stories, is that the longer people get away with it, the harder it is to stop. Abusive behaviors can become institutionalized anywhere, but only if the people who witness it do nothing. Don’t wait to act, or only do it for legal reasons; let’s do it because it’s the right thing to do. Maybe a word from you is all it takes to turn things around.