Two weeks ago I argued that parenting is an excellent leadership crash course because we learn the hard way that it is important to trust oneself, to find an emotional balance and to take care of oneself. Last week I added that understanding and accepting the development eb and flow – rather than trying to control it – is the first step towards mastery in terms of parenting and leadership. 

Building further on the insights of child development, there is another fundamental leadership characteristic that one will never learn at Harvard, but only in the day-to-day family-life: it is the importance of setting boundaries. But first you need to know more about the concept of "matrix".

Matrix

Joseph Chilton Pearce introduced the concept of matrix. According to him, our lifelong development is a series of matrices through which we move. Life begins with three critical matrix periods: the nine months in the womb-matrix, the next nine months in the “in-mother’s-arms”-matrix; and the ninth to eighteenth month “toddler period.” The quality, character, and nature of the first two matrices are determined by the mother, and the third by family and cultural influences.

A matrix is a safe place that provides the energy and the possibilities to discover the next matrix, and if the growing child is provided a corresponding matrix at each stage of development, it will develop, learn, grow and expand. In the safe-space of a true matrix a child can use all its life energy for the subjects at hand, easily absorbing and learning that which is appropriate to his or her age. But if there is no assurance of safety, the child must use a good portion of its energy in defense mechanisms, which divides the mind, splits attention. So first and foremost, parenting aims at providing children with a safe space where they know they belong and are welcomed, wanted, and safe—the ideal learning situation.

The concept of matrix is based on the insights of Jean Piaget – who is generally regarded as the father of child-psychology. Piaget was the first to discover that during each new stage of development, the child’s brain-mind is prepared for the new potentials appropriate to that stage of growth. If appropriate models for those potentials are given in a safe space, learning is automatic, spontaneous and natural.

Below is a very short video showing Jean Piaget as he explains the importance of development in education systems, i.e.: not to teach people what we already know, but rather to enable people to learn and discover new things.

Now isn’t that the main responsibility of a leader; providing a safe place for their team so they can use all their energy for the tasks at hand and the possibilities for absorbing and learning that which is appropriate to the goals of the team?  In my opinion, there is no better school for leaders to learn about building a matrix for their team, than being involved in the life unfolding at home.

Boundaries

OK – now how do we build a matrix in practice for our family and our team? This is the challenge of setting responsible boundaries. Children need firm and just boundaries. Within those boundaries they need the caring love and attention from us as their parents. This is what allows them to develop self-worth, confidence and self-trust. A child raised without reliable boundaries is a child who will grow up confused, unsure of themselves and their behavior, and often acting out negatively as a desperate attempt to have boundaries set upon them.

Setting boundaries is a major test of our maturity level, because it implies setting boundaries to our emotions. As I stated last week, knowing where we stop and someone else starts is the first step towards a healthy emotional relationship: using affection and emotion as a form of punishment or reward in order to control the behavior of our children or team members causes problems in the long run.

Testing and growing

In growing, children seek to and need to define their limits: the limits of their environment, the definitions of who they are and what they are doing, the limits of their peers and adults. That often shows up as testing and disobedience. That is when we need to reaffirm the boundaries.  Again, the same goes for leadership in an organizational setting: your peers and team members will be testing you, the other team members, the goals you are setting, etc… in order to define their limits. 

It’s natural and we should not take it personal. In fact, good parents and good leaders take this testing behavior as an opportunity to build matrix.  We do this by engaging in a conversation in which we reconfirm boundaries, safety and possibilities. The tricky thing here is that we need to be aware that boundaries change over time, as circumstances evolve and people evolve in their behavior with respect to the limits we impose. Also, in our response to unacceptable behavior, we should clarify that it is the behavior we found unacceptable, not the child or the person we are reprimanding.

In the business school of parenting there is no escape: we learn the hard way that whenever we set a boundary, it will be tested – that’s just life with kids. In no time, our kids can make us aware of how wishy-washy or unclear our boundaries may be.

In their book The Essence of Parenting, Anne Johnson and Vic Goodman argue: "When we feel threatened and resort to hitting and screaming when the kids test us, or if we feel used and give in when our kids test us, it is time we develop healthy boundaries for ourselves."
And they continue: "Having healthy boundaries is not something we do; it’s a way of life. It’s about taking responsibility for our own well-being and safety.  It’s knowing that no one else is to blame for our feelings. If we’re frustrated or irritated, angry, sad, lonely, or hurt, it’s up to us to recognize what we need to move through and beyond those feelings: a change of heart, more rest, honest communication, asking someone to change his or her behavior, or perhaps just acknowledging the feeling and letting it be on its way"

So once again: we choose our responses to the world and taking care of ourselves is a primary condition for our leadership development and parenting development.
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Recommended reading:
- The essence of parenting, by Anne Johnson and Vic Goodman

Last week I focused on how the experience of parenting can be an accelerator of our leadership behavior; more specifically: trusting oneself, finding an emotional balance and taking care of oneself. Next to that, we can learn from our parenting experience just by observing our children. Observing our kids and taking note of whatever nature is telling us can be extremely nurturing for parents and managers alike. After all, we and our adult colleagues were children once, so the basic laws of growth, control and human behavior apply.

Last week I attended a seminar on parenting by the Belgian child and juvenile psychiatrist Peter Adriaenssens. He underscored that the relationship between a parent and a child is profounder and deeper than any other relationship, even that between spouses. For that same reason, the love, the anger, the fear, the frustration and the learning that occur in that relationship is also bigger than any other training can provide. And so is the uncertainty.

Adriaenssens grabbed my attention when he stated that we should actually congratulate a four-year old saying ‘no’ for the upteenth time and that we should applaud the revolting adolescent who is driving us crazy. As he continued: "These are healthy children who are doing their job – they are growing up to become healthy adults."

The point is that we should allow ourselves to look at the behavior of our children and team-members from a different angle. Very soon we will learn that each human being has his/her own and unique temperament and that every individual has cycles of ebb and flow, stress and calm. The more we are able to recognize and accept these patterns in ourselves , the better we will be able to make sense of the moodiness and crankiness of our family or team.

Witnessing these patterns as they unfold, rather than trying to control them, and recognizing that we choose our responses to the world will give us more possibilities as parents and managers. This is the rock AND the hard place of parenting: keeping a distance and not taking feedback personal is kind of difficult in the most profound and deepest of all relationships. That’s exactly why parenting is a master class for management: if you can do this with your kids, you will be able to do it in any other relationship you are involved in.

Chatting away with Pim last Friday about work, organizational change, the crisis (what else?) and family; he suddenly stated: "to my opinion, there is no better class on time management than having kids".  Maybe he’s right. Or maybe it goes a little deeper than that.

The more I think of it – the learning, the frustration, the 100% exposure, the eye openers and the heartbreaks – parenting may be outperforming any major business school when it comes to learning soft skills and leadership. Sure – it is not being valued to the same extent (understatement) and the prerequisites are a bit different (a GMAT doesn’t get a daiper changed).

There is a Buddhist proverb that states "When the student is ready, the master appears". So it is with parenting as a management skill: we can diligently work our  way through it, or we can observe and learn at the same time. We can be at home with the kids and whine about the business opportunities and master courses we are missing, or we can see our children for the creative capacities and for the richness they are and allow them to educate us. Same setting – different ‘student-readiness‘.

In parenting there are 3 leadership characteristics one gets involved in very close and personal. I strongly believe that if we evolve in any of these three characteristics as a result of our parenting experience, the foundation of our leadership skill-set benefits to a large extent.

1. Being in relationship with ourselves
As many parents will confirm, the search for answers that come from outside ourselves will only return instructions that read like a car manual: "If part C on Diagram F-1 is not working properly, try solution S6 on page 360". Unfortunately we are haunted by the illusion that something has to be fixed in our parenting techniques when we start off as young parents. The only thing it does is fueling our fears and self-doubts.  These nagging doubts keep us looking for techniques and how-to’s. We chase for answers like a dog is after his own tail.

But there is nothing to fix. Nothing is broken. You are OK. I am OK.

The same is true for leadership: there is no prescription for what ails you and your organization. And it is not the number of leadership techniques and degrees in our arsenal that determines the way we experience and react to a situation; it’s our emotional state. And more than anything, our emotional state is determined by our level of self-respect.

In their book The Essence of Parenting, Anne Johnson and Vic Goodman argue:
"Many of us think that it is selfish to take care of our own needs. We believe that we are being mean to others or irresponsible if we take care of ourselves first; or we think that other’s needs likes and dislikes should take presedence over out own. many of us never learned or even thought about how to listen to the wisdom of the heart, out own inner voice that we have been trained from childhood to look outside of ourselves for direction and validation. Consequently we have lived our lives focused on other people’s needs and feelings while ignoring our own. In the alcohol and drug counseling field we call this Co-depencency"

2. Emotional maturity (and lack thereof)
The path of parenting is full of mirrors and emotional challenges. We get to meet the boundaries of how well we are able to separate our feelings from our children’s while trying to find a balance of emotional maturity. What does being a good parent suggest? Does it mean having well-behaved kids who always mind and who are always pleasant and cooperative? If so, then we are in for a rough ride when our children turn age two or again when they reach adolescence.

[Drawing by my daughter: me writing this article]

If we – as parents or leaders – are not firmly established in our true self or if we have trouble figuring out where we stop and someone else starts – we will be taken to the limits of our endurance. Maturity in terms of being able to separate our emotional state from everyone else’s is essential. And there is no better way to learn about  that than by raising children.

3. Taking care of ourselves
Taking care of ourselves not only makes us feel better, it helps us become more sensitive to our children. The same goes for leadership: if we don’t have the discipline to take care of ourselves, how can we expect our peers and our team to have that balance and discipline? The best definition of leadership I have come across is: "going first". And it extends to taking care of ourself.

"Do as I say, not as I do" just doesn’t cut it; it erodes our credibility. The first step in self management is an increased consciousness: starting to recognize extreme reactions in our lives as red flags and an important warning that an internal cue was missed.

Taking care of ourselves is so basic to living a balanced life. Yet it is strange that so many of us are unable to do it. As Johnson & Goodman say:
"Did our parents forget to tell us about this? Is this a variation of the concept <<suffering leads to salvation>>? It does not take a genius to figure out that stress and exhaustion do not lead to kindness and sensitivity"

If we are able to see parenting as a gift instead of a burden the ‘master will appear’ in everyday situations and lessons will hit us when we are least expect it. The lessons may be blunt and hard to take.

Being vulnerable, open and allowing ourselves to make mistakes are the parenting and leadership behaviors that make the difference along this path. No one said it would be easy – but no one said it ‘d be so enriching.

Disclaimer:
Being the author of this post and parent at the same time does not make me untouchable or perfect. I consider myself an average parent, not better than any other parent or leader who is trying to make the best of it.

Recommended reading:
- The essence of parenting, by Anne Johnson and Vic Goodman

Related posts on this blog:
- Play – Like Children Play (November 16th, 2008)
- My Inconvenient Truth (part 3) (June 14th, 2008)

In any organizational change project you will be taking people through some difficult phases and you will have to heavily rely on people to make a shift from the current reality to a future state. In such a situation, mutual trust and good relationships are sometimes the only things to hold on to. But how do you manage that?

I’d like to refer to the metaphor of the emotional bank account that is often used by Stephen Covey. It’s like a financial bank account into which you can make deposits and take withdrawals. The currency of this bank account is trust, so its statements tell us something about the relationship you have with your friends, family, associates, customers, etc.

The most important of all deposits into the emotional bank account of trust is empathy. Covey defines empathy as: listening to another person within his or her frame of reference. Empathy tells you what the important deposits are to that person.  The key is to always develop a relationship that produces win-win agreements, so the feeling is that everyone wins. But to do that, you have to deeply listen to other people to find out what the win is for them.

There are two other important ways to make deposits on that emotional bank account: apologizing and thanking (yes – it’s as simple as that). First, as Marshall Goldsmith notes, humbly admitting mistakes and apologizing is a critical component of leadership, both in our personal and professional lives. Admission of mistakes and careful distillation of lessons learned, in fact, can strengthen the bond between you and the people around you. The same goes for expressing gratitude (that is: beyond what is ’socially’ expected).

But if you are in a state of denial and don’t have the humility to admit that you’ve made a mistake, then you’ve just taken another withdrawal and people will come to not trust your apologies and your asking for forgiveness. So trusting the people around you, showing it to them, and trusting yourself to do so is an important competence for managing organizational change.

This is a small inquiry into the nature and causes of the grumpy boss. At the same time I would like to add new name to my list of guru’s: Manfred Kets De Vries. This INSEAD professor is most famous for his research on what he claims to be ‘neurotic organizations’.

Altogether he distinguishes five types of neurotic organizations that reflect the neurotic patterns of their leaders. In many organizations the neurotic leadership traits start like solid strengths that become a weakness over time. For example a leader’s careful attention to the action of rivals becomes a paranoia as his healthy wariness becomes a unmitigated suspicion.

That’s kind of what happened to our poor grumpy manager. If you have a closer look you will find that the grumpy boss is of the compulsive type.

One can imagine that these neurotic styles of leadership have a firm traceability back into the different developmental stages of childhood. In other words: there is a clear link between these neurotic styles of leadership and the extent to which caretakers, parents, siblings and teachers have been able to channel childhood helplessness and the developing "sense of self" into a psychologically healthy person. As Kets De Vries notes: "Inadequate resolution of these childhood tensions often produces feelings of rage, a desire of vengeance, and a hunger for personal power. If that hunger is not properly resolved in the various stages of childhood, it may be acted out in highly destructive ways in adulthood.

So there you go: next time you clash with a grumpy boss, take the above compass to guide you. When you are managing your boss you will be able to have more empathy as you discover the childhood tensions that remain unresolved. Good luck and hang in there – I feel sorry for them too

Some time ago I posted an article on burnout and just recently I shared my view on the causes and effects of grumpy bosses. Until now I only vaguely realized that both were related with each other, but since I used the car – engine – driver comparison as a metaphor the relationship is getting pretty obvious. As I stated before job control (as opposed to ‘job demands’) or ‘autonomy’ is the bottom line when it comes to employee burnout. When people are supported by the right level of autonomy, context, framework, tools etc. in order to cope with the job demands then the job is stimulating rather than exhausting. If not:… well … quite the opposite. The research of Professor Barsade points out that autonomy can act as a buffer on stress – and actually decrease job burnout. That same research points out that a lack of respect accelerates burnout when the autonomy is low. Now, picture this: the grumpy manager that I introduced some weeks ago, with his powerful people-engine wants to control everything – so he shifts the gears into Neutral and he starts pushing the car himself. Every initiative of a project member to bring the project forward is scrutinized, reworked and criticized until it is completely according to the flavor of the boss. People stop using their brains as pro-active initiatives are discouraged by micromanagement. The engine is not ‘empowered’ because of fear of it getting out of control.




If the engine is not empowered: that is a lack of autonomy. If that boss is pushing the pedal to the metal – with the gear shifted in Neutral - it only makes a lot of noise and smoke: that is the lack of respect. So there you go: the car driver’s guide to employee burnout: – The powerful engine: skilled people – The grumpy driver: grumpy boss – The pedal to the metal: high job demands – The gear shifted in Neutral with the engine on: low autonomy (job control) – The damage to the engine: employee burnout By the way, if you type in ‘burnout’ on youtube, you get all kinds of movies that illustrate this comparison in terms of cars. Do I need to paint a picture?

Every once in a while I meet bosses and project managers who are very tired and extremely grumpy. You probably have met these kinds of managers too or maybe you are one of them. They seem to be carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders. They are literally looking after everything and are trying to manage everything into the last detail. They have everything under control and they work very hard to keep it that way.

However, when I look at the results of these managers and compare it to the results of other – less grumpy and less tired – bosses and project managers I see no major differences. So there must be a way to achieve the same level of excellence with less suffering. In my humble opinion the answer is ‘yes’ and it is all tied to the manager’s maturity level: being able to let go of the control and to empower his people. Let me explain with the simple comparison of the project team and the engine of a car (*).

Grumpy Car Drivers

The grumpy managers I have met so far are action oriented, results driven and demanding so they hire the best people, which gives their project engine a lot of horsepower. Quite soon they kick off the project – the initial combustion to get the engine running. But then – since they want to control everything – they shift the gears into Neutral and they start pushing the car themselves. Every initiative of a project member to bring the project forward is scrutinized, reworked and criticized until it is completely according to the flavor of the boss. People stop using their brains as pro-active initiatives are discouraged by micromanagement. The engine is not ‘empowered’ because of fear of it getting out of control.

The boss complains that he always has to take care of everything – and he does. He also complains that nobody ever takes any initiative – and indeed they don’t; people are discouraged to do so. The project does not advance as it should, the boss is very tired, the skilled people are also tired of being told what to do in the last detail and all the fuel (i.e. resources: time, money, manpower and attention) are wasted. These managers would be better off with a project bicycle than a project car with a powerful engine.

Turbo Managers

We all know that these bosses should just be shifting that gear into Drive and empower their team of skilled people, consciously making use of time, money, manpower and attention. However, in their minds they are already doing that and they may even be pushing the pedal to the metal – but with the gear shifted in Neutral it only makes a lot of noise. People only do what they are being told because the more our grumpy man uses his reins the less they will use their brains.

Changing the gears of this project car from Neutral to Drive will not require the boss to “do” certain things differently or to “do” more things. Instead it will require the boss to “be” a different driver. The basic question here is: “Who am I being that I always have to take care of everything and that nobody ever takes any initiative?” This type of question refers to Ben Zander’s The Art of Possibility and here is my personal answer to that question…

An empowering manager is not the driver of the project car but the turbo of the engine. Instead of controlling the engine in all its details a turbo is committed to the performance of the engine. The function of a turbo is to aerate the engine when the engine needs extra performance. Turbo managers are committing rather than controlling; they hold themselves responsible for creating the circumstances for better engine performance. So the solution is not a quick fix like changing the oil or the tires, but a transformation from a driver into an engine part.

The Real Driver

You may wonder: “when the project manager is the turbo of the engine – who is at the steering wheel and controlling the pedals?” The customer is. And the manager no longer ‘assumes’ what the customer needs. Again this requires the manager to give away another part of his control: reporting about the delivery part of the project (when the customer does not follow the project car from close by the project manager can report any status he wants).

As you can guess Turbo Management (wow, a new buzzword is born!) requires two fundamental changes:
1. The boss is no longer controlling the project like a grumpy maniac but declares himself as an empowering part of the engine;
2. The customer needs to be in the driver’s seat – which makes more sense since the customer knows the road and the destination better than the boss or the project manager.

It’s just a thought that came to my mind…

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(*) Regular readers of my articles will note that this article builds further on the 2003 article “Communications Antislip Training for Project Managers“.

Here is a talk/performance by one of the living legends in the world of music. Ben Zander is a leading interpreter of Mahler and Beethoven and the co-author of the best selling book The Art of Possibility. To my opinion the below movie tells more about leadership than any course on that subject in any business school.

These are some of the elements that hit me most in this movie and they pretty much sum up the essence of leadership.

Learning to commit instead of control

He demonstrates how beginners concentrate on each step. As we grow up and learn we are able to see past the individual step and instead see the whole movement. The same goes for leaders: beginners always try to control each step and mature leaders are rather committing to the whole movement instead of trying to control each step.

Mature leaders are committing rather than controlling. As Zander conveys: “It is one of the characteristics of a leader that he does not doubt for one moment the capacity of the people he’s leading to realize whatever he’s dreaming.”

Later in this performance he says: “A conductor does not make a sound. He depends for his power on his ability to make other people powerful… As a leader your job is to awaken possibility in other people.”

Without mentioning the word, what Zander is talking about is ‘empowerment’. How I wish I knew about his insights when I was an MBA student – it would have helped me through those dull academic definitions that completely – utterly – miss the point.

Responsibility

Through the metaphor of music, Zander shares his insights on taking responsibility. If eyes of your audience aren’t shining you should ask yourself ‘who am I being that their eyes aren’t shining?’. This question puts you in the position of what I would call “radical responsibility” and this entails both, good and bad news. First: you declare yourself ‘being in the driver’s seat’(Zander calls this ‘being the board’) and the bad news is: there are no excuses after that declaration.

Vision

Zander demonstrates how so many different people with individual ideas and situations can all be moved by one single piece of music at the same time. All humans are different but we can all connect through music. If a conductor were the leader of an organization, his vision would be the music that connects all different minds and motivate them to commit to the same goal. Of course, in order to do so there is one final ingredient to leadership, and that is passion…

Passion

The ’shining eyes’ would not have been there if there if there wasn’t a spark from the leader. There is no better way to talk about leadership than to demonstrate it, and that is what Zander does – fuelled by his passion for music.

Related articles:
- Always Remember Rule Number 6! (December 6th, 2007)
- Redefining ‘Responsibility’ (October 22nd, 2007)