Compassion Is A Needed Leadership Skill

While perusing a news site I came across a story that published the names of ten actors that have a reputation for being difficult and hard to work with in the entertainment industry.  This opinion piece was drawn from insiders that had either worked with the actors or known someone who had.  

Needless to say, sometimes the most talented have a reputation for being the most difficult. 

We have all heard stories of how difficult Steve Jobs was at Apple and how his genius gave him a pass as his vision and tenacity produced new technology advances and products that greatly enhanced our personal and professional lives.  Sure a CEO can be aggressive, demanding, and set incredibly high expectations for the workforce and the desired outcomes for the company.  Being able to layout an incredible vision just comes with the title. 

In most cases, these CEO’s are accountable to the stockholders and the pressure of making a return on the group’s investment is a constant source of motivation and can contribute to that “creative arrogance” that some are known for in their respective industries.  Plus, these leaders have high expectations placed upon them by their corporate Board of Director’s with organizational goals, research and development plans, and strategic objectives to achieve. It’s life in the hot seat.  No wonder it can be lonely at the top with all these demands on these individuals. 

Okay, have I provided enough cover or excuses for these leaders and their behaviors?  Do we all need more convincing that positive results, at the cost of withstanding bad behavior, may be good for the balance sheet, but it will take it’s toll on the workforce?  One popular leadership author addresses the “wake” a successful employee can leave behind. Is that wake one of collaboration and teambuilding or one that is destructive and leaves workforce casualties as a result? Sure success was attainable, but at what cost?

Yes, we all have difficult people in our workforce and there is a fine line between acceptable and destructive behavior.  If you are attempting to create and sustain a workplace culture that values collaboration, trust, and connectedness, then allowing a rogue high achiever with bad behavior on your team will come at a cost.  That fine line cannot go unchecked or you run the risk of having your team dividing, or worse yet, dissolving.  Sure profits and success are great, but at the risk of losing a great workplace culture, consider the long-term impact in allowing this behavior.

Maybe you are that creative arrogant leader.  Your success is built on the backs of well-intentioned and talented employees that desired to work in your highly demanding workplace under your increasing, and sometimes unattainable, expectations.  It’s incumbent upon you to see individuals for who they are and what they offer to avoid letting your arrogance divide or dissolve your workforce.  

A compassionate leader can still hold those same high expectations, and in the end, gain more from their workforce because employees want to be known and valued by their leader. 

As you look at 2015 as a time for setting new expectations, and changing behaviors, look at the success you currently have and ask, “Who on my team is doing a great job and needs encouragement to get even better?” and “What can I do as a leader to get to know my team better to help them understand that I value who they are what they are accomplishing?”  These essential questions will make a difference for you and your team.     

Set your best intentions as a leader or employee on valuing those you work with while holding high the banner of excellence and high expectations for all.  When we invest in helping others improve, everyone succeeds. This practice sets our sights to be more, do more, and achieve more in 2015. 

Your compassion is an important element of effective leadership and one that trumps arrogance and contributes to the bottom line of profits and employee satisfaction.

3 Words Every Employee Needs to Hear in 2015

This past year we have seen lots of unrest in the world and here at home.  From our journalist being beheaded by terrorist extremists, Russia invading the Ukraine, Ebola entering the United States, racial strife with grand jury decisions, and the political elections shifting power in Washington D.C.  One thing is constant, and that is change. 


As a leader you process these events yourself and at times, if you let them, these shifting and uncertain circumstances can impact your day-to-day productivity.  The unrest in the world also impacts your workforce and they need your vision, words of encouragement, and grounding perspective to push forward in 2015.  You have the responsibility to inspire, comfort, and challenge your team to greatness and your efforts in this area are the investment you need to be making.

Your leadership should include personal time with each leader on your team.  Who are they as people?  What are their interests, hobbies, and passions apart from work?  Developing a connectedness with individuals allows you to build trust and experience a professional closeness that will also involve personal information from each of you that contributes to a healthy working relationship.


As you enter 2015 the three words as a leader that resonate with your team center on trust.  The concept of trust actually runs counter intuitive to what many experience with the world events around them.  Many individuals on your team do not trust what is happening around them so hearing about trust from you will catch their attention and allow you an inroad into their lives as a result. 

What your employees need to hear from you is simple, powerful, and empowering.

“I trust you!”


When your team starts to process the fact that you do trust them, it directly impacts their day-to-day activities, productivity, and their increased contribution to the work at hand.  Your trust fuels the workforce engine and individuals will try new ideas, develop new procedures, and will align with the workplace culture that rewards individual success and accomplishments.


So let’s be honest.  If you have a leader or employee on the team that you do not trust, you have an obligation within the first quarter of 2015 to do something about it.  Things in your workplace will not change without your strategic, meaningful, and intentional effort.  Meet with that employee, detail your thoughts, and ask for corrective action and follow through on their part. If they take steps to change their behavior, trust can be built or restored.  If you do not see the expected and needed changes, your coaching should encourage him or her to seek another opportunity, even if that includes seeking employment with another organization. 

Be assured that if you choose not to deal with employees you do not trust, that decision will impact your entire workforce.  Everyone knows when there is a disconnect or unrest on your team.  Your actions as a leader communicate to everyone that you may value trust but not the work that it takes to establish and maintain it.  Let 2015 be the year that you trust more, connect more, and increase your impact as a leader and organization as a result.    

Yes, Rudolph Provides Us a Leadership Lesson

Santa & Rudolph 1964

It has been said that this is “the most wonderful time of the year” and many of us focus on events with friends and family as we celebrate the holidays.  As leaders this is a great time to refocus and refresh as the New Year is just days away.  I found myself captivated by the idea that Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer turned 50 this December.  I still remember vividly the Santa commercial as he glided through the snow sitting on a Norelco shaving head.  Those were great memories, and now as an adult, I see the leadership lesson in this childhood-animated story.

Rudolph had the gift of a nose that lit up and his reindeer friends ostracized him for being different.  However, this uniqueness was a gift years later when Santa needed that special skill to light the way on a foggy Christmas Eve.  Had Rudolph not been there at the right time and place, the delivery of toys would have been delayed and millions of children would have suffered as a result.  Rudolph, as we all know, saved the night, and in essence, became Santa’s number one helper in the process.

That is a classic story and one that still delights millions of families annually.  

So what is that one gift that you have as a leader that lights the way for your workforce?  What are those gifts that you see and appreciate in your leadership team?  Who do you as a leader turn to in your hour of need for help from someone on your team?

Be assured, if you do not know your team well, you cannot call upon them to utilize their unique giftedness to help not only in times of need, but in times of growth, development, and change too.  You as a leader need to not only be strategic but also tactical in your business operations.  Knowing your team’s strengths and weaknesses serves a leader well when he or she invests the time to analyze and understand the team dynamics.  Those strengths are assets and those weaknesses can be targeted areas of growth when individuals are encouraged to pursue development to shore up those personal areas to benefit the team as a whole.

You may not encounter a foggy night where you need a flying reindeer with a blinking red nose to light the way, but be assured that you will find yourself from time-to-time in a situation where your leadership will be tested and you’ll need someone else’s help.  Find that Rudolph on your team and ask them to step up to exercise their gifts to benefit the organization. That investment of your time early on puts you in a place where you know your workforce and success will be possible because you will know whom to call and when. 

Make 2015 a time to capitalize in getting to know your workforce and your leaders even better.  Allow them a chance to show off what they know and what they can do so that when the time comes they can exercise their unique gifts to make it through an organizational challenge, growth opportunity, or crisis.  

Sony Hacking & Speaking With Good Purpose

Within the past few weeks Sony Pictures was illegally hacked and an enormous treasure trove of corporate secrets were released to the public for all to see. Several hundred gigabytes of financial data, invoices, bank accounts, promotional activities, celebrities’ personal data, emails from Sony executives, movie release schedules, and unreleased movie scripts were included in the stolen data dump.

According to press reports, “Every aspect of Sony Pictures' business is out in the open — audits, budgets, budget overages, bank accounts, wire transfers, invoices, financial forecasts, legal documents, personal notes and emails, strategic documents, plans and presentations.”  The cost to their business will be long-term and the damage to Sony Pictures may really not be known for sometime as security experts are only beginning to now assess the breach and its real implications on their business.

One of the areas of data that has gotten the most press is the private emails from Sony executives detailing their personal feelings about celebrities.  It’s clear that personal opinions shared privately have the power of derailing relationships once they are made public. In one exchange, Sony Pictures Entertainment co-chairman Amy Pascal and producer Scott Rudin call Angelina Jolie a "spoiled brat" and suggest that President Obama may enjoy the movie "Django Unchained." 

These executives never imagined that this email exchange would ever be seen by anyone else, let alone, the people they were bantering about.  What they thought privately, put in writing, and shared through an email server was hacked and shared with the world.  I am not sure that being embarrassed fully captures their feelings knowing this happened. 

The situation with Sony Pictures is nothing new when you compare it to the number of individuals annually that encounter identity theft.  What makes this situation so unique is the fact that this corporation is at the epicenter of our celebrity culture.  They are creating, dealing, and promoting the fantasy and joys of fame.  The harsh reality of Hollywood’s cutthroat tactics rarely gets the spotlight that this hacking scandal has produced.  

This is a great reminder to every leader that matters of privacy can quickly become public fodder by a few strokes at a keyboard. So think about this situation as a leader.  Do your public comments match your private conversations?  Do you build others up in public and then tear them down in private?  Are you a leader that speaks and shares with good purpose?  

When your private conversations don’t align with your public comments, you as a leader are breaking trust with your workforce and that directly impacts productivity and workplace satisfaction.  When your team feels that you trust, value, and care about them, they invest more in the work at hand and find greater satisfaction knowing that the values of your leadership are seen in a combination of your words and actions. 

It’s clear that circumstances like what has happened to Sony Pictures brings us all to the same conclusion. You have the ability to encourage, praise, and think the best of others.  Taking the time to do just that matters, especially when your private comments may go public. 

“Encouraging others can be the catalyst to unleashing their greatness.”  Rob Liano

Think - Act - Inspire

I was captivated this week with the launch of the Orion spacecraft.  After it had circled the world twice, and then splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, I was inspired to think about the future mission to an asteroid and even the planet Mars.  As a child of the 1960’s, my thoughts returned to the words of former President John F. Kennedy.   

“Well, space is there, and we're going to climb it, and the moon and the planets are there, and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there. And, therefore, as we set sail we ask God's blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked.” John F. Kennedy, September 12, 1962

Thinking big!  President Kennedy set the stage, cast the vision, and set the team, and country, in motion to get to the moon.  Less than seven years later on July 20, 1969, Apollo 11 landed on the moon.  The following day, Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on another planet.  A dream realized and a goal achieved. 

The space race spawned young and old alike to dream and plan for the impossible.  It set ablaze their imaginations and caused many to desire, think, and dream bigger.  To set their minds on achieving what was at the time impossible.  In numerous interviews the original cast of Star Trek details the hundreds of people who they have spoken to over the years that were so inspired by the television show that they pursued a career in science, technology, engineering and math. 

The impact of President John F. Kennedy’s speech unleashed a decade of possibility and he can be credited with pushing a generation to thinking, acting, and dreaming bigger! His actions and words set the tone at a national level that impacted individual households to start looking up from their day-to-day challenges to be captivated by the possibilities of what might lie beyond their communities, countries, and the stratosphere. 

Do you as a leader think, dream, and plan big?  What is the vision that you are casting that gets your team, company, and organization inspired?  Do you take the time to be intentional about these activities?  Your position as the leader should be one that includes pushing the boundaries of possibility. 

You have been given a unique position as a leader and your ability to communicate, inspire, and set your teams thoughts on what is possible, even when it sounds impossible, are actions that take a good workplace and transform it into a great workplace.  Employees are a company’s greatest asset.  Treating them well is expected.  Inspiring them to do, think, and achieve more is directly tied to the words and actions of the leadership. 

President Kennedy could have set his sites on just earthly ambitions in his 1962 speech. His desire as a leader helped propel an entire generation, and even in his death a year later, people still wanted to attain what he had challenged them to achieve.  As you set your sites on 2015, what are you going to challenge your workforce to achieve?  What impossible task is possible with their collective blood, sweat, and love? 

The sky is the limit and the moon is just beyond your reach.  “Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.” Napoléon Hill