Servant Leaders

Happy Holidays!

I believe the holiday season and the end of the year is an excellent time to step back from our day-to-day routines and reflect upon what I like to call our personal self leadership "pilgrimage."

A key personal leadership lesson I address in the "Camino" workshop is about becoming a Servant Leader. This time of year is an excellent time for us to strive to become a more effective "servant" to those we serve and/or lead.

A perfect example of such a leader is Aaron Feuerstein, the 3rd generation owner and CEO of Malden Mills, the New England manufacture of "climate control" materials like Polertec and Polarfleece.



Feuerstein was a business leader who had built his business based on Talmudic teachings and values that extended far beyond the minimum legal responsibilities he had toward the shareholders of the company. He also built a business that focused on assisting his workers and the community where they lived.

However, when a fire destroyed the company's New England factories in 1995, Feuerstein faced an ethical dilemma. Prior to this time, he had maintained his factories in Maine even though most other fabric manufacturers were closing plants in the US and moving their facilities overseas in order to improve profitability. Now that his factories were destroyed, he had to decide whether to take the opportunity to follow the trend and move overseas where manufacturing costs would have been less, or rebuild in New England.




When asked about his decision, Feuerstein explained that his religious beliefs and heritage guided him in his decision. In other words, he made the decision he made not only for economic reasons, but because he was firmly anchored to core values and guided by a strong moral compass. He stated in an interview with Parade Magazine in 1996 that "I have a responsibility to the worker; both blue-collar and white-collar...I have an equal responsibility to the community." Even though it would have been easier to move overseas, he re-built the plants in the same communities and kept all the employees on the payroll through the period of reconstruction!

What a striking difference this story provides in comparison to the all too common headlines where only the bottom-line, self aggrandizement and greed seem to be the focus of our leaders!

While they may be on a smaller scale, we all face similar dilemmas at one point or another in our careers. What makes Mr. Feuerstein's story memorable is that not only did he give lip service to core values; he acted on them by creating a corporate culture that was securely anchored to core values and was personally guided by a clear moral compass.

We should not be surprised by unethical behaviors of those around us if our only focus is the bottom line, personal aggrandizement or selfish pursuits. If that is our main focus, then we should not be surprised if our actions and the actions of those we influence only focus on ways to improve profitability or increase sales or power at the risk of everything else!

We could all benefit from having the same moral courage shown by Mr. Feuerstein. Let us take the time this season to anchor ourselves more firmly in core values and become more aligned to a clear moral compass so that when we are faced with ethical dilemmas our actions are just as admirable and memorable as Mr. Feuerstein's!

Share your examples of Servant Leaders!

Too often it is the bad examples of leadership that gets our attention. I am interested in gathering from examples of leaders who were anchored to core values, guided by a moral compass and could be considered "servant" leaders. By submitting your example, you will be entered into a drawing for a copy of my book: Magnify Change Leadership: A Practical Guide for Leading Teams in Times of Change! I will announce the winner and share some of the examples in January's newsletter. Click the link below to submit your ideas and/or add your suggestion by commenting on our blog:

http://survey.constantcontact.com/survey/a07e36fvnewgh85wx9y/start

I would be happy to facilitate "El Camino" The Way to Personal Leadership and/or other Magnify L&D workshops for you and your organization or as a public workshop in your area. Don't hesitate to contact us for more information.

Happy Holiday Season!

James Gehrke






5442 South 900 East Suite 203
Murray, Utah 84117
801-266-0849
Europe: (34) 91 829 5109
james.gehrke@magnifyleadership.com
www.magnifyleadership.com

Eight Steps to Leading Teams Effectively in Times of Change

Mark Twain once said, "The only person who likes a change is a baby in a wet diaper" (Hersey et al, 2001, p. 376). From my experience, even babies sometimes don't want to change their diaper! Individuals are naturally prone to resist change. During times of organizational change this tendency to resist may be magnified even further if employees feel the organization has broken or will break their commitment to them as individuals.

In today's environment of constant upheaval caused by cost saving efforts, realignments, outsourcing, etc., a change effort will bring many questions into the minds of employees, including; whether their position will be eliminated; if they will have a cut in pay, bonus, benefits, pensions; if they will need to produce more or do with less resources; if they will be relocated; or if they will face a multitude of other negative consequences because of what the company is proposing. With apprehension about the change, rumors swell and the minds of employees are diverted because of trepidations concerning the upcoming change. As a result, energy and efforts are dampened or diverted elsewhere, and performance suffers.

At a corporate level it may be easy to chart on paper the projected improvements a change will have on performance, raising results from point A to point B, through a number of steps, to help the company arrive at the desired outcome. The increased performance outcomes of a change effort can be measured in financial and production outcomes, improved products or service, improved customer or employee satisfaction or other measures. However, growth toward the desired outcome is not likely to come in a smooth straight line upward due to the fact that employee performance is likely to drop as new changes are begun due to resistance, fear, confusion, distractions, lack of motivation, etc.

The consequences of a drop in performance during change can have negative consequences for individuals (less bonus, loss of pride, future impact on review ratings, spiral negativity which could worsen results further, etc), on the team leaders (not making targets, less bonus, lack of ability to maintain team motivation, etc), and for the larger organization (slower time in implementing change, not reaching target outcomes, etc). Perhaps for this reason there are statistics which show that success rates for change efforts in Fortune 1000 companies are less than 50% and even could be as low as 20% (Harvard Business Review, 1998, p. 140). Team leaders can apply a process to help lessen the dip in performance and shorten the time to implement the change and regain
performance, benefiting the organization, the manager and the individual employees. This process includes the following 8 steps:

1. Build an environment of trust with the employees in order to create an environment where employees are more open to ideas and more willing to discuss possibilities and problems associated with change.

2. Link the change effort to a common team value in order to help employees feel they can relate to the change effort at a personal level. This increases the desire and motivation to change.

3. Articulate and communicate a clear message about why the change effort is needed and will help the team. This links the facts and figures supporting the change to the team value. Communication should frequent throughout the effort.

4. Establish a vision with the employees regarding the possible advantages of making the change in order to help the team define for themselves where the change will take them.

5. Collaborate for solutions with team members so that employees have the opportunity to identify the driving and restraining forces in the change effort and identify action steps for implementing steps to implement the change and overcome the restraining forces.

6. Establish and celebrate wins along the way. The leader should actively orchestrate wins and celebrations so employees can see that the change effort is important and see that changes in behavior will lead to positive outcomes.

7. The leader must manage performance around the change. This includes coaching those who need support with the change, disciplining or removing those who continually resist the change or have decided to fight against it, rewarding positive changes, hiring employees who have the new capabilities needed in the change effort, etc...

8. Constantly monitor the process and the results to ensure that the change effort is on track.

What My '74 Pinto Teaches Us About Ethical Decision Making

Since my first car was a Ford Pinto, I have always been interested in the case study of the Ford Pinto. For those of you not old enough to remember, the Pinto had a slight defect in the design of the gas tank, causing it to explode when the car was involved in even small rear end collisions! The case provides an interesting study into approaches to ethical decision making.

There are three possible approaches to make when making ethical decisions; a consequentialist approach, a deontological approach and a psychological approach. In a consequentialist approach, the decision maker would base their decision by focusing attention on the consequences of their action (Trevino and Nelson, 2005, p. 89). In the deontological approach, the decision maker would base their decision by focusing on what is right or wrong based on common values and rights of individuals and/or groups (p. 91). A decision maker basing their action on a psychological approach may vary their actions based on the level of their of cognitive moral development (p. 115).
In the Ford Pinto case, an individual who took a consequentialist approach could easily make the decision which Ford did and produce the car despite the possibility of having the gas tank explode on low speed rear-end collisions. Furthermore, they would likely agree with Ford that the car did not need to be recalled once it was on the market. A decision maker using the consequentialist approach would look at the consequences for the broadest number of individual and groups as possible and make their decision based on doing the least harm and the most amount of good to all. Since the data showed that there were no more accidents with the Pinto than with other vehicles and the company's stakeholders would greatly benefit from keeping the costs low and bringing the car to market as fast as possible; they easily could have decided that the most benefit would come from going ahead with the design since there would be many who would benefit and likely no more than what existing standards permitted would be harmed. This is what Ford did despite numerous explosions and deaths.
On the other hand, a decision maker using the deontological approach would easily have decided not to move ahead with production and/or to recall the car once it was on the market since this individual would base their decision on a set of moral values and/or the a code of individual rights. They would likely argue that the car should not be produced because it would be ethical wrong to knowingly hurt defenceless individuals or because a small group of people harmed or killed. Unless the rights of these individuals could be protected, the decision would be not to produce the car, or if it was already on the market, the decision would be to recall the car and make the necessary repairs.

The results of a decision of an individual following a psychological approach could vary depending on several influencers. An individual, for example, may have agreed to move forward with the sale of the Pinto and/or not to recall it from the market because they may have been highly influenced by others in the company. Because of this influence they may have feared punishment from management or they may have hoped that by supporting the majority opinion that they would have been rewarded in some way. Even if the individual wanted to strive for the best possible behavior for themselves and the company, they might still not have decided to redesign the Pinto's tank because they could have been highly influenced by the majority of decision makers in the company and not felt strong enough to go against their will. There are others who may have felt strong pressure to follow the "letter of the law," which Ford was complying with. Therefore, they would have felt no legal reason for making the design change. Only if they had a highly developed feeling of moral obligation might they have felt the need to go against the trend within the company in order to uphold the rights of the minority "regardless of the majority opinion (p. 115).

A closer review of our own approach to ethical decisions is important for individuals and for companies in order to avoid other similar personal and organizational disasters.


By the way, I survived my 1974 Ford Pinto! I was never rear-ended!