Transcript of Jim Kouzes:
Meisha: Welcome to the Meisha Rouser Show! I’m Meisha and this show is all about leadership and professional development. Everything you need to know to be more competent and more confident in your professional life. This show will cover topics like emotional development, communication skills, leading without authority, productivity, and so much more.
Occasionally I am able to bring in some amazing guests and I am really excited and honored to have as our guest today James Kouzes, co-author of the The Leadership Challenge, and his newest book Learning Leadership.
I’m so excited to have James with us. James how are you?
Jim: I’m terrific, Meisha. How are you? And, just call me Jim.
Meisha: Jim, excellent, and thank you. For those of you who may not know Jim, which I’m guessing most of you do, let me give you a little background quickly. Jim is the co-author with Barry Posner of The Leadership Challenge and they have a new book that recently came out called Learning Leadership.
Currently Jim is Dean’s Executive Fellow of Leadership, Leavey School of Business, at Santa Clara University, and also lectures on leadership around the world to corporations, governments, and nonprofits. In 2010, Jim received the Thought Leadership Award from the Instructional Systems Association, the most prestigious award given by the trade association of training and development industry providers. He was listed as one of HR Magazine’s Most Influential International Thinkers, named one of the 2010 and 2011 Top 100 Thought Leaders in Trustworthy Business Behavior, and ranked by Leadership Excellence magazine as number sixteen on its list of the Top 100 Thought Leaders.
Jim Kouzes has been thinking about leadership ever since he was one of only a dozen Eagle Scouts to be selected to serve in John F. Kennedy’s honor guard when Kennedy was inaugurated President of the United States. Kennedy’s inaugural call to action —“Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” — inspired Jim to join the Peace Corps, and he taught school in Turkey for two years. That experience made Jim realize that he wanted a career that offered two things: the chance to teach and the opportunity to serve. It was in his first job back in the U.S. where Jim trained community action agency managers that he found his calling. Jim has devoted his life to leadership development ever since.
I found that interesting, Jim, because I have been teaching your material from The Leadership Challenge for about a decade now. And, to hear that different side of you, what inspired you to go into leadership.
Jim: Thank you Meisha, it was a very inspirational time in our country, and that call to action. I can still feel it – it was -1 or -2 degrees outside, or at least it felt that way on that January day. It was quite an inspiring experience for me and for others. I have tried to live my life according to that philosophy, “Ask not what others can do for you, but what you can do for others”.
Meisha: That is fabulous. And, obviously through your work you have done that. Again, I have been teaching your material for well over a decade and when I always introduce it, most people have heard of The Leadership Challenge and have read it. But, that, especially in HR and organizational or leadership development field, I really feel that your book and the five principals you taught in that book have stood the test of time. They are still applicable today, even with what the world is dealing with now. That book has made such a difference in so many people’s lives. So, if it’s OK, and I do want to make sure we have time to talk about your new book Learning Leadership, but for those people who may not have read it, to go over those five characteristics of being an exceptional leader.
Jim: I would be happy to and thank you for asking. We found that we had a common interest in managerial values initially. That exploration lead to a discovery on our part that we were both intrigued with what it is when leaders are at their best. So, we decided to explore that question. At that time, most people who were in business schools or organizations in the U.S. were interested in what do excellent companies do. But we wanted to know what do excellent leaders do. And so we posed a question to the people we started to interview, “What do you do when you are at your personal best as a leader? Tell us a story of one time when you did your very best.” And, there were a series of interviews and then a series of case analysis of people responding to that question and we came up with a five factor model we call the five practices of exemplary leadership. The first of those is when you are at your best as a leader you are modeling the way. Model the way is the first of the five practices. You are clear about your values and clear about the shared values of the organization. And you personally set an example as a leader by aligning your actions with the values. When you’re at your best you also inspire a shared vision. Leaders inspire a shared vision by first envisioning the future by imagining exciting and noble possibilities and then enlisting others in a common vision and shared aspiration. The third thing we found, Meisha, was that every single case we gathered was about challenge. People do their best when they challenge the process – the third of the five practices. They search for opportunities by seizing the initiative and looking outward for innovative way to improve. And they also experiment and take risks and learn from the mistakes you inevitably make when you are doing something new and innovative. But you can’t do it alone. One of the more important lessons we learned has in fact one of my favorite stories comes from a gentleman who lives in Seattle, Don Bennett. Don at the time lived in Seattle, but now lives in Corte de Lane, Idaho. Don was the first amputee to climb Mt. Rainier. I asked him what was the most important lessons he learned when climbing that mountain. And, he says, “You can’t do it alone.” You have to enable others to act. You foster collaboration and strength in individuals to do their best. And, lastly, it’s difficult to sustain these kinds of extraordinary accomplishments. Leaders have to have to encourage the heart and recognize individuals for their accomplishments and also celebrate the team and its consistency with vision and value for the organization. Those are the five practices that came out of our research.
Meisha: Nice. Going back to when I was saying that The Leadership Challenge is like the bible for the organizational development field and for the leadership development field, because really any leadership book you see out there is usually talking about one or more of these practices. That is why I highly recommend this book, for any of you out there that have not read it. And by the way, the entire book is like one big quote. Open it to any page and you can get inspired. It really is a wonderful book on how you can really step into your leadership abilities.
Jim, real quick we are going to take a quick commercial break and when we come back I would love to hear about your newest book and what inspired you to write it.
——Commercial Break—–
Meisha: Welcome back to the Meisha Rouser show and we are talking today with James Kouzes, co-author of The Leadership Challenge and Learning Leadership.
Jim, I’m curious…what inspired you to write the Learning Leadership book?
Jim: When we were talking, Meisha, about what leaders do when they are at their best, we talked about the five practices model. One of the things that people kept asking us…in fact, Meisha, if I was to ask you what’s the most common question that you would think Barry and I get when we speak about leadership? What would you say intuitively is the most frequent question we get asked?
Meisha: I’m guessing it is: are leaders born or are they made.
Jim: Your absolutely right. We heard that so often that we stopped and asked ourselves what is behind this question. Why are people asking this question? We never got a question that says are managers born or made. Nobody ever asked that question. So there is an assumption that you can train managers, but leadership it seems to be that there is something different, something special about it. People assume perhaps that not everybody can learn it. So, we wanted to explore this question. And, that was the origin, we wanted to scratch that itch because it was just happening so frequently. So, we began to explore this question. We took a look initially at our data, as we have three million people in our database, three million leaders and constituents in our data base, and we wanted to take a look at the data and what does the data tell us. And, so if I were to ask you another question, Meisha…What percentage of people of these three million have absolutely zero leadership capability? What would you say?
Meisha: I would say they all have leadership ability. I believe everybody is capable of being a leader.
Jim: The positive answer is that everybody does, in fact that is very close to the truth. The number is 99.99987 percent. So the whole question are leaders born is made – I have never met a leader who was not born. We are all born. That is not really the important question. It’s what you do with what you have between the time you are born and the time you die that is the most important questions. “What am I going to do with what I have?” Most of us have the capacity. There are only .000013% of people who lack leadership ability. That is, they showed no capacity. Now, in a 100-person organization, that number is zero. In a 1,000-person organization, that number is zero. In a 10,000-person organization that number is zero. In a 100,000-person organization, that number is still zero. It takes a million people to find one person who has no capabilities to lead whatsoever. There is a whole mythology about leadership that has to do with special qualities, special capabilities, special traits. But, in fact the data does not suggest that. So, what is inhibiting us in learning to lead? And, that was the question we wanted to answer. And, on the positive side, what can we do as individuals to help ourselves, and what can organizations, and leaders in organization, do to help others to grow their leadership capabilities?
Meisha: Excellent. What were the five learning lessons?
Jim: The key lessons that came out of this exploration – first of all, you have to believe that you can lead. If you don’t believe that you can lead then you can’t, because you won’t put in the effort into learning. The second is that you have to aspire to excel. Most of us that are listening to this show today have probably been watching the Olympics at one time or another over the last couple of weeks. Those individuals who competed in the Olympics had an aspiration to be the best that they could be at their sport. The same is true for those that become exemplary leaders. They have an aspiration to be the very best they can be. You have to challenge yourself because that is where the learning is. You have to engage in things you don’t know how to do, not just in things that improve on your strengths. You have to engage in things you may not be very good at. But that you know that if you do them you will be more exemplary as a leader. You have to engage in support. That is, you have to surround yourself with a team of people who can help you grow and develop. Again, going back to the Olympics – take a look at those athletes. They all had coaches, supportive families, they were there in the stands cheering them along. They were running their race or they were swimming their laps, or jumping, or doing whatever they were doing, running the decathlon, marathon – there were people there cheering them along. There were people who coached them along the way. The same is true for leadership. And, lastly you have to practice deliberately. You have to put a lot of energy and effort in becoming better than you are. And, if you do all those five things I guarantee you that you will become a better leader tomorrow than you are today.
Meisha: That is awesome. I was able to hear you talk at Gonzaga’s Leadership Symposium. And, one of the things that you had mentioned, too, and the whole idea around this book, is the understanding that leadership is something you are constantly learning and constantly working on every day. And, I loved one of the things you talked about is to carve out deliberate times during the day, for example with listening skills, to take 10 minutes in a meeting and to really practice your listening skills.
Jim: Yeah. We have to turn our organizations into practice fields and not just playing fields, and find opportunities during the day to practice a skill that we may want to improve. It might be a strength and we just want to get better at. And it also may be something that we get feedback on, that we are not doing very well, and we really want to develop that skill and ability. Because when we are at the work place for so many hours in the day, we can find opportunities during that day to practice certain skills and abilities. Most organizations don’t treat normal everyday activities as practice opportunities. But, if you’re in a meeting, as you were saying, why not use that as an opportunity to practice your listening skills. Or to ask somebody to video tape you on their phone so you can watch it afterward and assess how well you did. You can have a coach in the room. You can have somebody from HR sit in and observe you. You can ask a team member for feedback. There are all kinds of ways in which you can use a normal everyday activity at work to practice gaining new skills.
Meisha: Love it. Another key point I really liked in the book, and you mention this a number of times in the book, is that authentic leadership cannot come from the outside in. It comes from the inside out. Could you say a little bit more on that one?
Jim: Well, one of the things that we know from our research is that individuals who are clear about their values and beliefs are much more likely to be viewed by others as exemplary leaders. I’m more engage in my work as a leader by 25% if I am clear about my own philosophy. And, my constituents are 40% more engaged in the work that they do when I am clear about my philosophy. And, other research shows very clearly that those who lead primarily from value based motivation outperform those who lead from instrumental or external rewards, like getting a promotion or bonus or some other kind of tangible reward. And so, all the evidence is very clear that looking inward and discovering what you believe in and then behaving in ways that are consistent with that is central to becoming an exemplary leader. One of the things, Meisha, that is important on the learning side is that when people spend just a few minutes every day reflecting on what’s important to them – and this research was done with students in universities – they found that they did better in school. The same is true about the work place. So it enhances your capacity to do well when you spend a little bit of time writing about, reflecting about what you stand for and believe in. People who write daily about what is important to them, their values, it makes them feel more powerful, more in control of their lives, prouder, stronger, more loving, connected and empathetic, than those who don’t bother to reflect at all about what is important to them in their lives.
Meisha: That is so huge. Again, it is something so simple that I think a lot of people put off because they don’t make it a high enough priority. Hopefully, by listening today they start to prioritize doing that again.
Jim: Yeah. Listening to yourself and just saying what are the values and beliefs that should be guiding my decisions and actions today and how am I going to behave in ways that are consistent. And the next question at the end of the day is, how did I do? Did I live my life today at work consistent with my values and beliefs, or could I had done better? What am I going to do tomorrow to ensure I live my life at work and at home in a way that is consistent with what is important?
Meisha: Nice. We have about a minute left. So, the newest book, Learning Leadership, is available now. And, Jim, you mentioned during the break that you a Barry are working on the 6th edition of the leadership challenge. When do you think that might be out?
Jim: The 6th edition will be out in the spring of 2017. So, a little under a year from now. About nine months from now we will have that new book. We are exploring up to date data, new stories, international data…so it’s a fun project. We are looking forward to that. It’s the 30th year that the book will be in publication.
Meisha: Wow. That’s amazing. Time goes by so quickly. So now during that time, during these next 9 months, are you still available for speaking engagements?
Jim: Oh yeah. In fact, I’m going to be leaving soon. I’m heading off to Boston. Then from there I will be heading to Kuwait, and from there to Qatar, then back to Huntsville, Alabama. I’m still traveling around doing this work because it really is the love of my life.
Meisha: That is so wonderful. Again, thank you for all of this work that you do, and that you and Barry are bringing to the world. It’s been really amazing and so helpful in moving leadership to that next level. And, thank you again, so much for joining us today.
Jim: Well, thank you very much, Meisha, and thank you for the excellent work that you do in bringing this message to your listeners. I really appreciate the opportunity to be here today and to share some of this information.
Meisha: Thank you, Jim. And, thank you everyone for listening today here on 1150 KKNW and have a wonderful day.