By Theresa Witham
Last year at CUES Symposium: A CEO/Chairman Exchange, author and speaker Steve Farber spoke about how leadership is—and should be—scary.
He started by cautioning attendees that the term "leadership" can become a business buzzword like "outside the box," "moved the cheese," "re-engineered," or "empower."
"There is a big difference between using the word and doing the behavior," he said. "We've got to make sure we are not posing as leaders and that we do not tolerate the poseurs among us.
"People who think of themselves as leaders without sticking their heads out and taking risks are the poseurs of the leadership world."
CEOs need to be "extreme leaders," he said.
But that is a rather redundant phrase, he thought. "If we are really doing it, it's already extreme. By its nature, leadership is an extreme act," he said, because when you lead, you are:
- transforming,
- changing nothing into something,
- responding to the craziness of our time, and
- taking people where they've never gone before.
An extreme leader, who strives to take a "radical leap, day in and day out," will have the following characteristics:
Cultivates love: This makes people squirm, Farber said, because we are not used to using the words "love" and "work" together. But "cultivating love is at the very foundation of what great leadership is," he said. It is at the foundation of any great leadership act and the foundation of any great business. Our heart gives us the juice to persist.
"Everybody you work with is there by choice. The degree of choice I have is related to how talented I am. If I am that talented why wouldn't I choose to work with a boss that I love, with people that I love, doing work that I love?" he asked.
"In times like these, we're asking people to commit and engage when they are facing uncertainties ... it makes a lot of sense to me to create a culture that people love. This is our best HR strategy, your best talent strategy."
As a leader, if you are asking, "How do we motivate in difficult times?" that is the wrong question to start with, Farber said. "How do I inspire myself?" is the right first question.
Ask yourself: "Why do I love this business/idea/product/credit union/project? And how do I show it?"
"I'm asking you to make it a habit of asking yourself this question," Farber said. "The more difficult it is to answer that question, the more important it is to answer that question."
Generates energy: Now that you know what inspires you, you have to show it. And in order to show it, you need to have a lot of energy.
"You know when you have energy and you know when you don't," Farber said. "You know when you are working with energetic people and you know when you are not."
Ask: "Do I generate more energy when I walk into a room or when I walk out of it?"
The good news is that if you love what you do, you are naturally energized.
Inspire audacity: Audacity is a bold and blatant disregard for normal constraints. With an audacious mindset, you don't think outside the box, but you think "what box?"
"It's not just enough for us to have it; we have to inspire it in other people," Farber said.
"The audacity to think that any one of us … can actually change the world is exactly the right kind of audacity," he said. But it doesn't have to be the whole wide world, he added. "There are different worlds. What about changing the world of your industry? Your credit union? Your community? Your family?
"The credit union world is changing," he said, "so there comes a choice" between dealing with the change or creating the change. "The leadership act is attempting to create the change."
"If I'm still here at 91 and still thinking about what I need to do to change the world for the better, I'll have lived a tremendous life," he said.
Provide Proof: Leaders need to hold themselves ridiculously accountable for their own words. "If I say one thing and do another, at the very least, I'll confuse you and, at the most, I'll disengage you," Farber said.
"The minute you step into a leadership role, you step under a microscope," he continued. People watch everything you do: your body language, how you spend your time, how you allocate resources and how you interact with people.
You can't talk about changing (the world, your town, your credit union) and then do nothing.
"This stuff is scary," Farber said. But you need to ask, "Am I willing to scare myself in order to change the world?"
If you answer "yes!" then you'll need to pursue what Farber calls the "Oh shit!" moment, or the OSM.
Why do you think people are attracted to extreme sports like skydiving, luge or bungee jumping? "Because the OSM is a natural part of the human experience," he explained.
That fear plus exhilaration is intoxicating. And, it's all wrapped up in leadership. "There is no such thing as leadership without the frequent experience of OSM," said Farber. "If there is something you think needs to be done, you have done your research, and the only reason you haven't done it yet is because you are scared to, then that's the reason to do it."
What is your OSM? For me, it's blogging. I'm not afraid of writing, but I prefer to report on something rather than to analyze and opine. So that's why I committed to blogging once a month, either here or over on CUES Nexus Connection.
Granted this is a tiny little OSM conquered, but it's a start, right? My next one? Podcasting. I love podcasts. I listen to a few dozen podcasts regularly. But getting behind the mike and actually talking to people? Ugh. But I think they are useful and I'm going to explore the possibility of podcasts in the coming months. Stay tuned! (In the meantime, check out the Current Issues in Credit Unions podcasts in our archives.)
Theresa Witham is a CUES editor.
P.S. CUES Symposium 2010: A CEO/Chairman Exchange is Feb. 7-11 at the Hyatt Regency Scottsdale Resort and Spa at Gainey Ranch, Scottsdale, Ariz. I have attended this conference for the past five years and I can tell you, it's an amazing opportunity for CEOs and chairmen to work together and strengthen their relationship.
