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Assessing, selecting and developing talent focused leaders.

Leadership Blog

Mike Abrashoff

Lead By Example

One of the critical issues facing organizations today is safety….not just safety in the workplace but safety in all facets of our personal lives. After all, if people get injured at home, it affects their on-the-job performance, as well as medical costs.

No matter how hard we may try, you can’t order safety. It’s a culture we have to create and each person has to feel it personally. A US Navy destroyer is an inherently dangerous place and no Captain, no matter how good he or she thinks they are, can order safety. In the year prior to taking command of USS Benfold, 31 sailors out of a workforce of 310 were involved in some type of injury producing mishap. The first afternoon after I took command of the ship, one of my sailors was involved in a DUI off base after going to a bar after work. The very night I took command of the ship, one of my sailors was severely beaten in a mugging because he walked out the wrong gate of the base after sunset in one of the worst parts of town. It was a newly reporting sailor who didn’t know that you don’t go to that part of town after sunset. That fact wasn’t included in our welcome aboard program for newly reporting personnel.

Are all of these connected? Absolutely!!! It speaks to the culture that we try to create. You can never have a great organization if your top priority is not the safety of your people. The one thing that drove me throughout my entire tenure was that I never wanted to write the parents of any of my sailors and tell them that their son or daughter wasn’t coming home because of something we did or something we failed to do. When I looked at safety on the ship, I assumed my sailors wanted to be safe and so everything I looked at was whether our processes facilitated a safe culture.

We implemented a program whereby every week, I would focus on one of the 24 divisions. I would inspect their work spaces for safety and other hazards. I would observe sailors doing their maintenance and quizzing them on the safety precautions. I reviewed their safety training program and participated in seminars with them. During these events they could ask questions about anything they weren’t sure about. I wanted them to understand that the concept of safety was portable to their families and personal lives, as well. We trained on the dangers of drinking and driving and if they were drinking, they could call a local cab company to give them a free ride home which was then paid for out of our morale fund (and not taxpayers money). By the way, we also tried to create a culture of respect whereby sailors didn’t have to go home after work and blow off steam and drink to excess.

Any sailor could stop any process if they thought safety was being impaired. Any sailor had a direct line to me if they thought their chain of command wasn’t sufficiently concerned or didn’t see what they were seeing. Every sailor knew that I felt their safety was a top priority of mine and not just lip service.

The result? My last year in command, there were two minor incidents; down from 31 incidents two years prior. Was I satisfied? No!!! Two is two too many. But we never missed an opportunity to try and drive that culture of excellence and safety. They go hand in hand.

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Mike Abrashoff

National Military Month – Interview with Captain Mike Abrashoff

How has serving in the Navy impacted your leadership skills?

Most Americans don’t understand that the military faces the same pressures that the corporate world faces. We don’t get to choose our missions. We don’t get to choose the people we work with. And…we don’t have unlimited resources to get the mission accomplished. In fact, we are in an era of declining resources. Amidst all of this, we still have performance metrics that we have to hit…just like the corporate world.

The military is a living leadership laboratory and nearly everyone is put into leadership situations at an unusually young age. Since there is no such thing as a perfect leader, leadership development is a lifelong endeavor. The best leaders are those who are self-aware and understand how they show up at work. I really never had that true self-awareness until I had been in the Navy for 16 years when I saw a leader get jeered as he left a ship for the final time. For the first time, I stood back and asked myself how many times my direct reports cheered when I left a previous position. Thus, I set out on a journey to view myself through the eyes of my crew. Today, the corporate world calls these 360′s. My goal wasn’t to be liked, but rather respected and trusted. From that day forward, before I made any decision, I would always put myself in the shoes of those I was trying to influence. What do I have to do to get their engagement, their support and their buy in I eventually came to realize that 50 or 60 % of my job was figuring out how to effectively communicate and get people going in the right direction.

The other major thing that I learned in the Navy is to sit back and observe other leaders, gauge their impact as leaders, and how I can learn from them. Some leaders are ego driven. Some lead with humility. I learned in the Navy that the best style for me is something I call “excellence without arrogance.”

How important is teamwork in a corporate environment?

I think it all depends on the position. Organizations need leaders and also individual contributors. I have a family member who has a PhD and strove to become the department chair because it paid more money. She soon found out that she was miserable in a leadership position. Her team wasn’t happy, either. What I have learned over the years is that a team reflects the personality of the leader. If a leader is upbeat and optimistic, the team will be, too. If the leader is downbeat and pessimistic, the team will be as well. She soon realized she was happiest and most productive being an individual contributor. After much soul searching, she decided to give up the extra money to do what gave her the most satisfaction. She is in a research role and making great contributions to the organization without having to be on a team.

However, there are many positions in organizations that do require great teamwork and that is tough to achieve. Those that get it right have loyal and dedicated customers. They gain evangelists who are out there extolling why it is so great to work with that company. It helps you to drive business excellence, which keeps you safe in tough economic times. Teamwork puts you in the best competitive space against your adversaries. Those who get it right have a better shot at controlling their own economic destiny.

What are some tools that every leader needs to posses in order to take command?

As I mentioned, I think great leaders have tremendous self-awareness. That is one of the things I am helping companies do with my talent development group, GLS WORLDWIDE (www.glsworld.com). Great leaders need to understand their strengths but also their blind spots and how they are showing up at work.

You blend that self-awareness, technical and leadership ability and that is the ticket to success. In my work, I use the research of Dr. Robert Hartmann who discovered, through extensive research, that all individuals primarily exhibit one of three thinking styles: (1) a people or intuitive approach, (2) a task or approach or (3) a systems or conceptual approach. A great leader needs to know where he or she is coming from in order to lead better. The mistake most organizations make, including the military, is to put task oriented people in positions of leadership without the self-awareness that they may be lacking the people skills necessary to lead.

What advice can you give to leaders looking to make a change in their attitudes? How can this change lead to the effectiveness of their team overall?

You can learn a lot about leadership from just about anywhere. When watching children’s soccer, you always see the kids rushing to where the ball is…not to where it’s going. Great leaders are those who have the foresight to know where the ball is going and then build the team that is going to get them there. I call it seeing the handwriting on the wall before others even see the wall. People are very complex machines. We live in a very dynamic world. Those who are able to envision and articulate where it is you need to go will be the ones who continue to control their own destiny.

These are extraordinarily challenging times. No matter how technologically complex your business is, it all comes down to people. That is the challenge of our times. Attracting, training and equipping the work force of tomorrow. That’s how you gain a competitive advantage and how you control your own destiny.

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