Across 20 years in the US Navy Reserve and nearly three decades in organizational development, working with leaders at Carlson Companies, Radisson Edwardian Hotels, and UnitedHealth Group, he’s found the same truth holds everywhere: people can’t be managed, only led, and they choose to follow the leaders they trust. As an Anderson Center Discussion Leader of nearly 8 years, his philosophy is simple: good leaders are honest, curious, and above all, good listeners.
Q: Coming from such a multifaceted background with the Navy, and then in the private sector, are there any leadership tactics or something that’s consistently successful across your time in the Navy and your time in the business world?
KE: There aren’t too many of them. But one of them clearly is that leaders need to be better listeners. A lot of leaders and a lot of managers think their job is to tell people what to do and to fix problems for people when people get stuck. First off, if they don’t listen well, they don’t diagnose the problems well, and so they end up not really fixing things. They also create a codependent relationship, you might say…Good managers listen better, and then they coach better, and they try to develop leadership skills in their people. They try to grow leaders because you don’t want people sitting around waiting to be told what to do, right? You want people to take initiative, take responsibility, and the only way to do that is to listen and understand and coach. Checking in every once in a while, having really good one-on-ones, is really important. A lot of times leaders just get too busy, and they don’t schedule one-on-ones, or if they do, they cancel them. Those meetings are simple things, but they’re the ones that go by the wayside when managers and leaders get really busy.
Q: Are there any common misconceptions people have, or mistakes people make, in regards to leadership?
KE: One that really resonates with me is that leaders and managers think that they can manage people, and they really can’t; because people actually manage themselves. They choose to do work based on how clear things are and how much trust they have with their leader and with their team. Covey’s insight was that you can manage things like processes and spreadsheets, but you can’t really manage people because people have the power to choose. And so, if we can help make goals clear, expectations clear through conversations, through listening, then people will choose to volunteer their best efforts. That’s one misconception. That’s a big one for me: We can’t manage people–People manage themselves.
Another big one that has really come through lately is that managers often think that they have communicated enough that people know what they should be doing. There have been a lot of studies that say that that is not true. Managers under-communicate by a huge factor. They just assume people know what’s going on. There’s this great quote, I think by George Bernard Shaw, that “the single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” We think because we said it that it’s been understood.
Q: Could you tell me about a time a leader or a participant that you worked with completely changed course or had a big shift because of some feedback or some coaching, or maybe a conversation you had with them?
KE: I’m going to go back to my time on active duty in the Navy on this one. I was onboard a ship. I was a division officer leading a division of about 15 sailors. At this particular time, I was assigned temporarily to a school, so I was away. But my division is still doing its job on board the ship, right? Well, my department head, my boss, got angry about something that my guys had done. And rather than talk to the senior chief petty officer, he called me, and he really got angry with me, and I’m thinking to myself, ‘I’m not even there. What is this? What’s this about?’ So, the day after my school was over, I was back on the ship, and I went into his stateroom, and I told him I didn’t appreciate being blamed for something that I wasn’t even here for. I understand leadership; I know I’m always accountable for things. But if something is happening in that moment, tell me about it. Give me a chance then to talk to my guys, and then I’ll see if I can fix it that way, rather than just give me an angry phone call. He went to the U.S. Naval Academy, he was about six-two, and played on the football team. So when I walked into his stateroom, and I’m 5 ’10 and giving up a few pounds, he just walked over to me, and then he smiled and he laughed and he said, “Oh, okay, okay. So that’s the kind of guy you are. That’s the kind of leader you are. Okay, that’s great. So you tell me straight, and we’ll work together better.” And it changed our relationship. And he became one of the best leaders I ever worked for. I know he had that capability all the time, but I guess you know, just being honest with him and straightforward with him, and not being scared because he’s my senior officer, impressed him, and it really helped us, and he helped me grow as a leader. Thank goodness; that could have gone several different ways, but it went well.