What would you say is your defining moment as a leader?

Leadership is about creating and sharing a vision; finding the right people to execute; listening and refining both the vision and execution.

I'd say re-engineering my business and creating a business vision, mission statement, structure and culture may be the defining moment.

While everything is far from peaches and cream, we've opened (in some part) thirteen (13) offices from Boston to Boca Raton, and have about 55 individuals who have heard the vision, accept some part of the vision and have joined our company.

Time (and hopefully an improving economy) will see if we are successful.

On the downside, there are parts of the vision that just doesn't take, no matter how strong or logical or empirical the argument is I have provided. The group of people I need to buy into certain parts of the vision just won't accept it in action. They accept it cerebrally, but can not or will not act on it. It's due in part to the age group, and years of experience that takes a long time to overcome.

Hi Mike – I read that as almost a two-part question – where is the line for what you want to be and what is your defining moment as a leader.

For me the line came to me at a data center where I was manager of operations and a staff employee, on direction from a programmer, started a JCL at a certain step (old days). The system really messed up and we ended up double-posting the entire bank (for every dollar you put in we added one, for every dollar taken from an account, we took two) – huge problem. The VP called a big meeting and asked ‘who did it’. To me the staff member simply hit GO based on a go-ahead from the programmer, so to me if a finger is to be pointed then it was to the programmer, not the guy at the key-board. But the programmers reported to the VP so he wanted a different head to roll. He asked me who did it and I responded that it did not matter, let’s fix it – he leaned across the desk and swore ‘g-damn it, either you tell me who pushed the button or you get up, walk out, go to your car and drive the ‘f’ away.’. So I did. I got up and walked up and went to my office and waited. At that moment I decided that the wrong head should not be chopped simply because he was seen as expendable and the programmer as more valuable. I was fired for about two hours – then the President ‘hired’ me back. Andy Rooney once said he was suspicious of anyone not fired at least once so I feel I’ve covered that base.

But that was not my defining moment – I think that came when a company Owner told me that he did not take risks because he had employees that he was responsible for to make sure their children ate. That hit me pretty hard and I’ll never forget that massage. May not seem like a eureka moment to most people but it was for me. While it was not MY moment, it was perhaps the most defining one that I’ve experienced as far as being a leader.

Mike,
Thank you for asking a really good question. I had to stop and think about this, I have had a number of defining moments in my career but I think the one that stays with me is this.

I had the good fortune to general manage an operation. When I first arrived the operation was performing ok but was not at high performance. There were a lot of good people in this operation but they were 'caught up in a rut' and I could see that change would be challenging. Despite this I persevered, I developed a vision of a high performing operation, I took team leaders out to visit benchmarks, we travelled together and discussed what we saw. I provide training for these team leaders to equip them with new "Lean" techniques.

During this period I found myself "leading" for most of the time, setting strategy, making decisions, solving problems, dealing with the odd crisis. Slowly, the team leaders were beginning to build up their confidence, the training and benchmarking was starting to take effect.

Then one day, we had a crisis, we had a huge spike in demand not forecast in any way. We were already running 3 shifts and there was little spare capacity. The team leaders came to me with a plan, they got their 'heads together' and devised a way that could solve the problem. They presented this idea to me, I sat back and listened, it was nice not having to "lead". I made some small suggestions and approved the plan, that was it the team leaders "swung into action" and within a few days they were beating the backlog down.

This was the day that I learned to recognize when to stop leading and begin supporting.

I continued to lead when this was required but as much as possible I tried to support first. A real defining moment.

Being in a position of respect & being heard at any stage of your career --- for me is leadership at that juncture.

Beyond, leadership for me is a stage, where you have a bunch of team members, who can trust you for what you do, take your views in its earnest & go around delivering the same. It's a position when you can command respect (not demand) from the team which is willing to walk the extra mile to achieve your target goals.

I've been lucky enough to have various groups of individuals during my various stages of entreprenuerial journey, who helped me in getting the organization moving from ground zero to multi-millions, stuck with me during crisis & continue to support vehemently without any questions asked.

It mayn't always be a vision statement, but an emerging behaviour, attitude, drive and the belief you could inculcate that the team could trust you for anything. All these emotional traits will definitely drive a sound team work around you, if you could achieve that space without any DEMAND, then I would say it's definitely a defining moment for any LEADER.

I remember years ago I was getting ready to bring up one of the first bar code scanning systems in the country (before UPS bar codes) for a very large retailer. The Chairman and CEO told me that….”If this doesn’t work we’re putting 40,000 people at risk. For each employee assume that there is a spouse and 2 children.” This gave me chest pains to the point that I ended up with my first experience with an EKG machine at 25 years old. The good news is that the system worked.
Almost everything I have done since that time involved consideration of the impact on people. It’s a lesson I will never forget.

I was one of the senior mgmt in a huge call center environment--I covered HR & Safety. One day a female employee ran into my office in tears and yelled "he's got a gun....a gun." Then proceeded to tell me who and where this employee was, at which time I had my admin asst call the Police and the GM and brief them. I arrived where the scene described was playing out--a male employee waving around a .32 caliber gun and yelling things at the 1200 employees around him. Succinctly, I calmed him down, discovered the problem, and disarmed him (during which a shot was fired into the floor). All the employees were immediately sent home, operations transferred to another location, police took him into custody, and a Crisis Debriefing set up for the next day with all employees in small groups. A contingency Program was designed targeted to specific incidents and taught to all supervisors and up. So on and so forth....

I learned that I become a "team leader" under difficult circumstances, can use my Negotiation Training in unfamiliar situations, can manage and make the right split-second decisions under fire (no pun intended)while remaining calm. I also learned that people who you least expect to create these incidents are generally the ones that do. I am still shocked as to the person who caused this incident.

Let me first acknowledge that this response is a bit longish....

I was a young buck, and had just been hired as a mid-level manager in the warranty department of the (then) largest home-builder in America.

What I was dropped in the middle of ("Can you hit the ground with your feet running?", they asked) was so much worse than the deep end. It was a whirlpool, and I felt myself immediately caught in the flush.

Warranty claims on new homes were coming in faster than they could be processed, and warranty calls were being performed an average of a year after claims were received. Warranty tech turnover redefined revolving door. A few were quitting, but most were being fired within their first year when they were unable to bring the numbers down. Metrics.

8 months later, 100% of all warranty claims were being processed within 2 weeks, and validated repairs completed within 30 days, unless ordered parts dictated otherwise. Employee satisfaction was rising. Best of all, warranty claims themselves were down 62%, department staffing had been reduced over 50%, and department overhead and costs had been decimated.

The effect on the customer, while wildly popular and industry changing, is not the point of this post, so I will forego that for now.

The defining moment in leadership for three other managers and me occurred, not by drawing a line in the sand, but via an epiphany a few weeks into my employment. I was so stressed I was ready to revisit my decision to work for this company. I scheduled an evening meeting at a local dive to talk frankly over a few drinks. I had decided I had nothing at all to lose, so I was going to leave it all on the table; say what I thought openly, honestly, directly.

What I said was simple: the problem did not rest with warranty, or with customer service. It was systemic, and if warranty did not begin acting as a feedback loop immediately, requiring it's knowledge be utilized by each department for its own procedural betterment, the problem could only get worse. As each warranty claim was serviced the problem had to be, not only fixed, but chased back to its source and resolved in such a way that it could never happen again.

The next day back at corporate, the four of us launched our plan. We had nothing to lose. We all agreed that getting fired would be a relief, if it came to that.

We were not popular with other departments, at first. Production, which was tasked to start a new home on every plat every day, and complete homes for move-in in 45 days or less, did not like being told they had to also pay attention to quality. Subcontractors were not pleased that they had to step up their game or lose their place on the bench, especially since corporate was squeezing more pennies out of their take every day. The management team was not pleased, at first, that a few upstarts from a back-end department no one cared about (we were a money drain, not a money maker, after all) were flexing muscle and directing other department personnel.

But then we experienced real, bottom line building results. We had access to everything being done wrong in every department. Once the management team accepted that their departments could, in fact, be improved, consensus was generated. Then came a whole new team concept. Our little group of four had become a movement, we were noticed by national executive management, and today the entire corporate team dynamic has changed according to what we had started.

My defining moment was not a line in the sand, but an epiphany:

1) I had to put it all out there, and act for the betterment of the team without regard for the initial hardship to myself, even the risk that I might be fired
2) I had to speak directly, openly and from my heart, and trust people to listen and respond
3) I had to be willing to jump in the water and pull the entire ship, if that would realign the course to one that works
4) I had to be willing to speak as openly, directly and from my heart to the president as I was to the laborer, and as respectful and carefully to the laborer as to the president
5) Leadership does not care what position its host holds; the course of civilization has more than once been changed by farmers and factory workers

These are the fundamentals by which I lead today. It was easy then, because I faced either termination or stress and dissatisfaction either way. It is sometimes harder, but always effective and worth it.

By the way: I was taught in school and by mentors that communication was a learnable art. There is a current discussion about communication: art or skill at http://www.focus.com/questions/communication-competency-skill-art . It is my view that it is neither. I would encourage everyone who hasn't to both read and seriously ponder the book, "Leadership and Self Deception: Getting Out of the Box".

Together, let's put the fun back into work!
Belldon Colme
belldoncolme@gmail.com

Thanks for all the great answers. When I ask this question, there are a variety of different types of answers. Some come through difficult personal experiences and others through work-related ones. Almost always, some difficulty brings out the best in others.

Mike...

I was one of the senior mgmt in a huge call center environment--I covered HR & Safety. One day a female employee ran into my office in tears and yelled "he's got a gun....a gun." Then proceeded to tell me who and where this employee was, at which time I had my admin asst call the Police and the GM and brief them. I arrived where the scene described was playing out--a male employee waving around a .32 caliber gun and yelling things at the 1200 employees around him. Succinctly, I calmed him down, discovered the problem, and disarmed him (during which a shot was fired into the floor). All the employees were immediately sent home, operations transferred to another location, police took him into custody, and a Crisis Debriefing set up for the next day with all employees in small groups. A contingency Program was designed targeted to specific incidents and taught to all supervisors and up. So on and so forth....

I learned that I become a "team leader" under difficult circumstances, can use my Negotiation Training in unfamiliar situations, can manage and make the right split-second decisions under fire (no pun intended)while remaining calm. I also learned that people who you least expect to create these incidents are generally the ones that do. I am still shocked as to the person who caused this incident.

Great answers Michael and Belldon. Thanks.