Making Authentic Leadership Work
In the Master Class on Leadership, I teach how to make authentic leadership work. I try to live my leadership from a place of vulnerability and authenticity. Here is how I work hard to try and make that happen.
There are four elements to being authentic in leadership.
Self Awareness
Transparency in Relationships
Fair Minded Consideration
Positive Moral Foundation
Self awareness is trying to understand what your strengths are, without boastfulness. It means you appreciate the talents, wisdom and knowledge that you have coupled with your experience. It also means you know your weaknesses intimately, but do not wallow in self-loathing about them. Weaknesses are an opportunity to figure out how to compliment your skill set with that of others. The last part is perhaps the one that is toughest to learn – how you can and will respond to emotional stimuli. If I am truly self-aware I know what the best possible response to news of all types can and should be, and I diligently and thoughtfully practice that response. As someone with deficits in the whole feelings department, that has been tough for me to really figure out personally, and I have offended people I wish that I hadn’t – and didn’t mean to.
Transparency in relationships is when the leader is open with their own thoughts, values and beliefs not because they expect everyone to fall in line with that and assume the perspective of the leader in those traits, but so that they deepen their understanding and awareness of where the leader is coming from. Transparency is not an exercise in evangelization. But let us be clear, that being transparent opens up a new type of vulnerability that many leaders struggle with when it comes to issues like homelessness that are often moralized. How a leader really feels about homelessness is new territory for a lot of Executive Directors and Presidents of homeless serving organizations.
Fair minded consideration is about seeking out alternative viewpoints than what we might say are the leader’s own natural conclusions. And in so doing, the leader opens up to considering other ways of doing things. When and how are leaders in your community malleable? When have they proven capable of changing direction based upon the opinion of others? Are there any instances when they openly admit that a different approach than their own holds more merit than what they were trying to achieve?
Positive moral foundation is a call to be ethical and distinguish that which can be called “right” and “wrong” from an ethical perspective in the service we do and the decisions we make. When was the last time you and your colleagues or community had a conversation about the ethics of ending homelessness? I am guessing you have been so busy doing the work you have not got around to that in a while (or ever). Probably the best time to do it is sooner rather than later. Maybe why you do this work is completely different than why they do this work – yet you thought you were on the same page.
Marvin
I had long knew of Marvin. Cynthia of the National Alliance to End Homelessness put a name to him when we did a session together at the summer conference a while back. You know Marvin too.
Who is Marvin?
Marvin is the guy that pops up in your rules for your program. Maybe not by the name "Marvin". But you have served Marvin and created rules because of him.
It goes like this...
Once upon a time there was a guy named Marvin. He did some outlandish shit. You created a new rule because of Marvin. Everyone now must adhere to the rule because of Marvin even though it makes no sense that they do so.
For example: Marvin lit some paper on fire. Now you have a rule that no one is allowed to have a lighter in your shelter or drop-in center or food program. People must turn over their lighter upon coming on the premises. If they do not, services are terminated.
OR...
Marvin once clogged the toilet with toilet paper. Now every person who is going to use the toilet has to ask for toilet paper before going into the john.
OR...
Marvin once wore a Guns'n'Roses t-shirt that other shelter guests found offensive. Now, no rock t-shirts may be worn on premises.
OR...
Marvin once re-enacted the Tom Cruise scene from Risky Business. Now no one is allowed to walk around in underpants or socks or lip-sync.
All of the above are real examples that I have seen in my travels. No joke. And somewhat appalling. But the fact of the matter remains that many service providers and even government funders have rules that were born from anomalies rather than what happens on a day to day basis. The impact of it is such that some people experiencing homelessness are not served - or not served well - because you still have Marvin rules.
So do me a favor (and probably Cynthia too given it was her idea to talk about the Marvin Rule in the first place): go through your policies and procedures. Go line by line. See if there is anything in there that has more to do with Marvin and less to do with most people that you see and serve every single day. Deal with the one off situations as one off situations. Delete any rules that are actually just because of Marvin.
A Letter to Myself of 15 Years Ago
This week I am leading another Leadership Academy on Ending Homelessness. We sold out again. It is a great honour that so many people want to hone their leadership skills on this important social issue. As I was preparing and reflecting on the materials to be delivered this week, I wrote a letter to myself that I wish I had 15 years ago.
Dear Me from 15 Years Ago,
You struggle to listen to others at this stage of your professional development. Maybe you will listen to yourself from the future. Here are important lessons that you should learn sooner rather than later.
Leadership does not mean being superior. It means helping the people that follow you be super. You are smart. But no one likes to be bludgeoned by your intellect. The smartest person in the room is the first to be ignored if you NEED everyone in the room to know you are the smartest person.
If you inspire people, that is leadership. If you feel it necessary to order people, that is a dictatorship. Know how things turn out for dictators? They are obsessed with losing power to the point that they bully others. Don’t do that.
Think first in and last out each workday is the way to go? Working multiple weekends a month? It isn’t. To work your best you must take time to rest. You may think you are impressing others with your commitment to 12 hour days and coming in on weekends. Soon your friendships will fall apart and your marriage will change – and not for the better.
Others need you to demonstrate humility and confidence. You don’t understand what that really means yet. So instead you demonstrate humiliation and arrogance at times. That is a mistake. Humiliating others makes you look weak. Being arrogant makes you an asshole.
For whatever reason, people are choosing to follow your leadership. Stop complaining. Leadership is not a chore or burden. It is a privilege. When people ask you how things are going, focus on a positive development that has happened or a new idea that you are working through. Do not answer, “How are you doing?” with “Busy”.
Listen. It is an underappreciated part of communication and leadership. Spend 60% of your time listening and 40% of your time talking (unless, of course, people are asking you to talk all day). Speak at invitation and at strategic times only. Leaders do not spend all of their time listening to their own voice.
Stop being worried about people leaving you or your organization. Train them so well that they can leave and have an impact on other organizations. Treat them so well they never want to.
People being afraid of you is not working. The people that are following you need to be fearless. Not fearful. Know the difference.
Want to measure the bottom line? Start measuring the outcome of your work, not wondering about the income of your salary. As soon as you learn that this is about making a difference and not about making money, everything will change.
Be brave enough to not only make mistakes but to own them as well. If you are pretending to be perfect you will alienate others around you. Encourage others to make mistakes too, including people that report to you. Do not punish people for trying. Praise them and ask what they are learning.
Competition is bullshit in leadership. Creating competition amongst your followers will only get already competitive people going, and mediocre and low performers to quit. Tearing each other down will only bring all of us nowhere fast.
Find time to be still. Be quiet. Write out your thoughts. Carve time out of your schedule to do these very things. You think this is a waste of time, but you will learn this is key to innovation, reflection, understanding, and deepening your awareness.
Ask for forgiveness when it is necessary. You will harm people. Sometimes intentionally. Often not. Nonetheless, empathise and offer a heartfelt apology. And if you don’t understand the value of forgiveness, think of one of the many things people would forgive you for and measure the value you place on wanting that forgiveness.
Let go of the small stuff you have no control over. Losing sleep over things that you cannot influence makes you a worse leader, not a better one. Influence the big picture and the overall direction. Spend less time in the weeds.
And finally, learn to love your work. Find joy in the privilege to do what you do. If you stop feeling in love, move on and let someone else lead.
One Big Thing
Empathy is a difficult thing to practice. How do we honestly go about having a true identification with, or vicarious experience of the thoughts, feelings, or attitudes of another? If you have never been chronically homeless before, in which ways can you go about deepening your understanding of what it is like to move into housing and go through the radical and disruptive change that comes with doing so?
That's right - radical and disruptive change. Think of any big change you want to make in your own life. Bet it sounds great...the outcome that is. Conceptually, we LOVE change. The practice of change, though, is really, really difficult. It is no wonder, then, that for a person or family experiencing chronic homelessness the concept of being housed is a welcome one that is likely to stir up a range of emotions from elation to fear (sometimes concurrently). But the practice of staying housed is a really difficult one.
Let's explore why a little deeper - and then I have a request for you.
If you have been homeless for a long time, and have a disabling condition, but you have remained alive, there comes a time psychologically when you are no longer working to get yourself out of homelessness. There's like a switch that goes off. And once that switch is flipped you go from trying to escape homelessness to trying to survive or even thrive within homelessness. Your day to day routine is one of being the best person experiencing homelessness you can be. You know where to get food. You know where to attend to hygiene needs. You know where to get clothes. You know where to hang out.
Along comes you (or someone like you) who, in a nutshell says, "Do you want housing?" and to that person who has experienced homelessness for a long time this is, in many instances, going to sound conceptually like a really good idea. If you were that person who has thrived within homelessness, you can likely see the benefits of preparing what you want to eat rather than what is served on that day. If you were that person, you can see the benefits of using your own toilet and shower rather than sharing one with others or signing up for your turn. If you were that person, you can likely see the benefits of locking your own door to feel safer. If you were that person, you can likely see the benefits of determining your own schedule of when you will go to sleep and when you will rise.
None of this means there isn't concern or suspicion. None of this means there is no anxiety. However, the idea of putting this change into practice is alluring and feels worth doing.
Then it happens. And the transition is a hard one. Yes, some of the benefits are realized. But it is also really hard to sustain the change. Why? Because there is a complete disruption of routine and so much of what the person that was homeless knew how to do to keep themselves alive and even thrive. Now there is budgeting for groceries and light bulbs and toilet paper. Now there is cleaning up after meals and the apartment as a whole. Now there is loneliness. Now there are challenges not foreseen.
That same person may want to go back to that which was most familiar - homelessness. That same person who was so excited to have housing may be in a position to give up the thing there were excited to have in order to go back to life before the change. Because change is hard.
Now the request for you to try and increase your empathy.
I want you to think about one BIG change you need to make in your life. To determine what this type of change needs to be, it has to meet the following conditions: it has to be something important to you; it has to be the sort of change that will disrupt your life in some way; it has to be something that would be of benefit to you; and, it has to be hard to accomplish. Some examples of the sort of change you may want to make: repairing a relationship; investing more time to be with your children; maintaining a higher level of cleanliness in your house and car and office; losing weight; quitting smoking and/or drinking; forming a relationship/friendship with someone you have always wanted to have a connection with; maintaining a chronic health condition better.
Then, I want you commit to doing it for 100 days minimum. I want you to keep track of your progress and your setbacks. I want you to spend time discerning how you feel throughout the change process. As you are comfortable, I want you to share your change with others, and all that goes with it. I want you to own every time you feel like giving up and going back to how your life was before you started the change process, and what you did to keep going. And then I want you to try and relate this back to how a chronically homeless person may feel in trying to sustain the change they are going through when they move into housing.
Remember, change is hard - and if you get through 100 days you will have to keep working to sustain the change still. For example, did you know that 6 out of 7 people that have a heart attack return to the lifestyle that caused their heart attack within 18 months of having their heart attack? That's how hard change is to sustain - even when it is a matter of life or death.
And here is my change that I will own out loud in this blog for transparency and which has been an issue in my life ever since I broke my hip a number of years back - I am going to take the steps necessary to lose 38 pounds. I need to for the sake of my health. It will be hard because I most often eat in restaurants and spend a lot of time on planes in a sedentary environment. It will come with sacrifice because when I am home I would much rather spend time with my kids than go out and exercise. I have had setbacks in previous attempts. I will see how close I move the needle towards achieving the goal within the first 100 days. Through my struggles to achieve this, I hope to deepen my empathy with just how hard change really is to accomplish. What will you do?
Hope
Hope is the only currency we really deal in. Not false promises. Not dreams of a better day. Hope is a nuanced belief that life is worth living; that tomorrow can be better than today; that next week can be better than this week; that next month can be better than this month; that next year can be better than this year. Hope is about leaning into expectation, while concurrently creating the reality of that expectation. To have hope is to take meaningful action toward a desire future. As a belief, hope requires us to move from a crossing of the fingers and wishing upon a star to doing the work to create the desired future we want.
Hope is difficult to quantify. There are not any reliable “hope” performance metrics. How many times did you help a family or person experiencing homelessness find hope? is not a common reporting question – nor should it be. Yet, if you don’t believe and support hope for every person you serve, you are likely in the wrong profession. You can’t say you support hope for some people you serve, but not for others. You can’t decide that some people are lost causes. The moment you think some people will never escape homelessness for stable housing is the same moment that you likely reached your tipping point of burn-out. Hope is essential for trauma-informed care and the spiritual scarring that comes with living through an exacerbated traumatic cycle. The impacts of the trauma may never totally heal, but that doesn’t give you an excuse to abandon hope or to think that recovery is hopeless.
Hope is one of the foundations of a recovery-orientation to this work. A future where people move forward from the impacts of their mental illness is one that requires hope. Reclaiming capabilities, rights, responsibilities, roles and the like will not happen without hope. Hope makes us champions of a future not yet realized. Ask yourself not only if you believe in hope – but if you are living hope. And if you are not, then time for deep reflection on how you put hope into practice.
The Three Metrics I Admire Most
When a community starts wondering what data to collect and look at when measuring progress to end homelessness, it is easy to generate a number of pieces of data that may be interesting to look at. Before you know it, there are over a hundred fields...the proverbial elephant being a horse drawn by committee. And what happens? The data does not get captured. Or it is inconsistently captured. Or there are time delays in data entry. Overall - a bunch of crap.
So if you want to simplify this - the Brown M&Ms if you will - focus on measuring three things really well.
1. How long are people staying homeless?
This is not how long people have been homeless and using YOUR services. This is not how long people are homeless from the time you connect them to a housing program until the date they move in. This is a measure of their entire homeless episode.
Once you get this data of high quality, then you can start to look at other factors such as whether household composition, age, gender, race, acuity level, place of receiving services, etc seems to be influencing whether people are having shorter or longer experiences of homelessness.
2. How many people have a positive destination out of homelessness?
What this really means is how many people moved into housing (with or without your help) or reunited to a safe and appropriate housing situation with a relative. Start by looking at the number of people. Once you have that data of high quality, look at the number of households (a family unit has more than one person). Then, when the data on the number of people and the data on the number of households is of good quality, you can choose to dig deeper and look at things like the size of the household, the composition of the household, demographics, acuity level, regional or neighbourhood analysis of where people are moving, which landlords or property management firms people are most likely to be housed through, etc. You could also look at what percentage of all people that were experiencing homeless within a prescribed period of time found a positive destination.
3. Of all those that had a positive destination out of homelessness, how many came back into homelessness?
You need to know the data from point 2 above in order to figure out the answer to this important data point. You want to know which people that had a positive housing destination touch the homeless service delivery system again, either through shelters or street outreach. Then you can go back to point 1 and look at how long people are homeless if they come back into homelessness. This would help you understand whether or not people are being rapidly re-stabilized into housing if they lose housing. You can also dig deeper to understand whether things like acuity level, neighbourhood they move into, composition of household, demographics, specific landlords, who the support provider was, etc. seem to be a more influencing factor in your community of when people return to homelessness.