Other than the basic requirements – food, shelter, healthcare – on the hierarchy of needs, what do people really want from their jobs?

Last week I attended a presentation from Peter Cappelli, a Wharton professor and thought leader on talent management, where he addressed that question. Based on a study he cited, these are the top five things that a large group of people say they want from their work:

1. Friendly environment
2. Chance to use my skills
3. Chance to do something worthwhile
4. Feeling respected by coworkers
5. The opportunity to learn something new

Is there anything on the list that's really that surprising? If you stop and think about it, you probably want those things from your own work.

Here's the catch on the data that Cappelli shared. He presented it in the content of a talk on managing the older generation of workers and the data comes from a study that AARP conducted on what older workers want.

Is the list really that different that what workers of any age would want? My experience and observations tell me no. People want to work in an environment where they feel respected and appreciated, where they can learn and do their best work.

What does your experience tell you? What's on your short list of the most important things that leaders can do to create a place where people want to work?

Last week, I spent an afternoon sparking a conversation on leadership presence with a group of rising leaders in a well known organization. The conversation turned to how difficult it can be to lead change because there are often a lot of structures and norms in place that create massive barriers to change. That's where leadership presence becomes so critical. Leaders recognize the resistance and figure out ways to move past it. The first step in doing so is not getting pulled back into the churn.

To illustrate that point last week, I told a story that I don't usually tell in professional settings but it just seemed right at the time. When I was growing up in Huntington, West Virginia, my best friend was a guy named Ty Neal. One night when we were in high school, we were hanging out in Ty's basement when his dad, Ted, got home from a meeting at the American Legion hall. He yelled down and asked us to come upstairs for a talk.

He began by asking if we'd ever seen crabs in a pot getting boiled. We said sure but weren't sure where he was going with this. "Here's the thing, he said, there will always be one crab who gets his claw up on the rim of that pot and is just about ready to pull himself out of there. And then the other crabs will grab him and drag him back into the pot. They're not getting out of there, but they're going to make sure he's not getting out either. Both of you guys are smart and talented. You could go places. Don't let them drag you back into that pot, boys."

Mr. Neal shared a lot of wisdom with Ty and me back in the day but the crabs in the pot story is the one that I've always remembered. One of the big challenges of leadership is not getting pulled back into the pot. It's about understanding what the current reality is (i.e. it's hotter than hell in here and if we don't get out, we'll be cooked) and influencing others to come with you to something better while resisting their efforts to pull you back in.

At the suggestion of a friend and client, I read most of Seth Godin's book, Linchpin, over the weekend. It's a provocative read and I recommend it. Godin's point is that the people who make the biggest difference and become indispensable are the ones who break out of the structures of resistance and connect with other humans to do remarkable things. They're the linchpins. Being a linchpin can be scary. Here's what Godin has to say about that:

"If you seek to become indispensable, a similar question is worth asking: 'Where do you put the fear?' What separates a linchpin from an ordinary person is the answer to this question. Most of us feel the fear and react to it. We stop doing what is making us afraid. Then the fear goes away.

The linchpin feels the fear, acknowledges it, then proceeds. I can't tell you how to do this; I think the answer is different for everyone. What I can tell you is that in today's economy, doing it is a prerequisite for success."

Linchpins are leaders. They're the crabs who pull themselves out of the pot and bring the rest of the crabs with them.

What have you learned so far about overcoming resistance, not getting pulled back in and bringing others with you?

P.S. You know from reading this what I've been up to over the years. If you're wondering about Ty, he's the co-founder and co-owner of a restaurant group in D.C. called Matchbox. I wrote about him a couple of years ago. Their newest restaurant brand is named Ted's Bulletin in honor of his dad.

Over the past week, I've been reading Walter Issacson’s new book on Steve Jobs. It's extremely well written and a compelling read. Even if you're not reading the book, you've likely read some of the highlights in the news. One of the stories that's been retold a lot already is what Steve Jobs learned from his adoptive father, Paul.

Paul Jobs had been a Coast Guard seaman as a young man and moved to Northern California with his new wife, Clara, after leaving the service. Paul was very good with his hands and had a mind for all things mechanical. Some of the jobs he had over the course of his life drew on those skills; others not so much. Over the years , though, he spent a lot of his free time rebuilding old cars, repairing things in his garage workshop and building things like fences around the house. He usually had young Steve at his side talking with him about the beautiful designs of the cars that they worked on, imparting a high standard of craftsmanship when they built a fence or cabinets together and setting up a personal workbench space for his son in the garage. Years later, Steve told his biographer that those early lessons from his dad set him on the path to demanding the quality and aesthetic craftsmanship that Apple products are known for today.

For good or for bad, parents are leaders. Much like the people who end up in leadership roles in organizations, parents create the environment and teach the lessons that shape perceptions and behaviors. For another example, consider the case of Lynn Blodgett, the CEO of ACS, an 85,000 employee IT business owned by Xerox. In a Corner Office interview with the New York Times this week, Blodgett cited his earliest lessons as coming from his parents. When a health crisis struck one of his sisters, his mom had to figure out a way to contribute to the family income while staying home to take care of her daughter. She leased a data entry keypunch machine, set it up in her daughter's bedroom and got to work. In the process, she trained her other six children how to do the work. Lynn's parents eventually grew that operation into a 1,000 person company that he took over as CEO at the age of 27.

Leaders - whether they're leading at home or in the workplace - are always on stage. Whether they know it or not; whether they like it or not, people are watching and taking their cues from what they see their leaders do. Through what they do and how they do it, leaders shape the future.

If you're reading this, you're likely in a leadership role of some kind. It could be formal or informal. It could be paid or unpaid. The chances are good that someone is watching you and that they're taking their cues from you. It's what I call in The Next Level picking up a big footprint view of your role.

Who's watching you? What do you want them to see? What do you want them to take away from what they see?

My leadership blogging friend Art Petty has a new book out called Leadership Caffeine. It's a series of essays organized by common challenges and opportunities leaders face. The caffeine metaphor comes into play because, as Art writes, the book is made up of "ideas to energize your professional development. Art is an executive coach and author who has been there and done that. He knows what it's like to lead in large organizations and approaches the topic with a refreshing mix of realism and humanism.

His book is a fun one to dip in and out of. It's easy to find little ah-ha nuggets of wisdom in it. Here are a few that made me think that I found this morning:

"You people don't trust each other enough to succeed." This quote is the kicker in a story that Art tells about a Board Chairman he once worked for. The comment stung, but it woke people up and got them redirected. It made me think about the value of calling out the elephant in the room and expecting people to work together to be as good as they can be.

"During every conversation and in every meeting." This quote was Art's response to someone who asked him when he, as a manager, found time to assess the performance of his team. He shares this story in an essay called "What the Boss Hears When You're Talking." It's a good reminder that as a professional and a leader you are always on stage. There are no dress rehearsals.

"A better approach than engaging in 'boss bashing' with your co-workers involves using judo on the situation." This is Art's turning point line in an essay called "It's Time to Quit Blaming the Boss." It's a fact of professional life that everyone is going to have a bad boss at least once in their career. The question is what do you do about it? Art's first suggestion is to "Try increasing your efforts to be respectful and helpful, and to portray a genuine sense of empathy for the burdens this individual bears as a leader and as a person." That seems to me like a reasonable place to start.

As I said, Leadership Caffeine is full of little wisdom nuggets like these. If you liked what I shared in this post, check out Art’s new book. I think you'll like it.

In the meantime, do you have nuggets of leadership wisdom to share with and energize the rest of us? What's your favorite nugget?

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings must be feeling a little bit like a team that ended up on the cover of Sports Illustrated and then started losing games. Last year, Hastings was on the cover of Fortune as its Business Person of the Year. This year, he's getting slammed for what he acknowledges are a series of poor decisions and mishandled customer communications. It's kind of like the dreaded SI cover jinx.

After raising the price for the Netflix DVD and movie streaming package over the summer, Hastings publicly apologized but didn't change the terms of the deal. Then a few months later, he announced that Netflix was going to be just for streaming movies and a spin off company, Qwikster, would handle DVD rentals. Customers would no longer have a master movie queue online at one site. They'd have to go back and forth between the sites if they wanted both streaming movies and DVD rentals. Customers hated that idea and Netflix killed Qwikster a few weeks later. A lot of customers decided to just bail out. Netflix announced a few days ago that they lost 800,000 customers in the last quarter. The company's stock has declined by around 35% in each of the past two days.

Hastings has given a couple of interesting interviews to the New York Times this week - one for the Sunday magazine and one for the Business section. I've been sifting through those articles trying to come up with some leadership lessons from the Netflix slide.

Here are three lessons that jump out at me:

Trust and loyalty are fragile things: People loved Netflix because they could keep their movies as long as they wanted for a flat monthly fee. None of those annoying late fees that Blockbuster used to charge. Netflix basically crushed Blockbuster's business model with that approach. Netflix customers loved and trusted them because the company made their lives a little more enjoyable for a nominal cost. That was the essence of the relationship. The changes the company implemented this year broke that quickly. People trust and have loyalty to other people or companies because they live up to their promises over time. With the changes they made and the way they made them, Netflix broke their promise. Customers walked.

Don't get blinded by the data. In the interviews with the Times, Hastings talked a lot about how the data showed that DVD rentals had probably peaked and were declining. As he found out, the data didn't show how people felt. His comments in the interviews suggest that his decisions were largely driven by the data. Leaders have to tune into the people behind the data.

Stay curious. Ask broad questions. Listen. There's a great story in one of the articles about Hastings sitting in a hot tub with a friend and telling the guy that he was going to spin the DVD rentals out of Netflix and into Qwikster. The guy told Hastings that it was a terrible idea. Hastings ignored his friend because he thought CEO's shouldn't put much stock in their friends' opinions. When the company ran focus groups on Qwikster, all they asked about was what people thought of the name. In the interviews Hastings referred to some of the decisions he'd made as arrogant. That seems fair. One way to avoid the arrogance that can come with success is to stay curious, ask broad questions and listen.

I'm sure many of you are Netflix customers. Are you sticking with the company or have you already left? From a leadership do's and don'ts standpoint, what else have you learned from the way Hastings has handled things this year?

One of the many intelligent things that Socrates said is "An unexamined life is not worth living." In an era when many professionals are running flat out until they crash, taking time for self examination usually ends up falling into the category of important but not urgent. The downside of that, of course, is that the urgent things end up overwhelming the important things that a little bit of self examination might have identified.

Fortunately, Mike Figliuolo has come up with a simple yet powerful approach to self examination in his new book, One Piece of Paper. The big idea is to boil your personal philosophy on four basic aspects of leadership down to one piece of paper. Mike offers a series of questions and exercises to help you do that. One of his core tools is what he calls the maxim. The maxim is a simple idea that you hold in your head to remind yourself of how to act. An example that Mike offers is "What would my grandmother say?" (As I wrote earlier this year, that question also worked for Tim Sanders.)

To give you an idea of how Mike's approach works in real life, I've considered a few of his questions in the aspect of Leading Yourself and will share my one piece of paper (less than that actually) answers with you:

What guidelines do you live by?

My maxim is follow the Boy Scout law.

The story behind this maxim is rooted in how I grew up. I wanted to be a Boy Scout because I wanted to go on adventures with my grandfather the Scoutmaster. A lot of the leadership principles I try to live by today come from the Scout Law starting with a Scout being trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly and courteous. When people refer to me as being "such a Boy Scout," I take it as a compliment.

When you fall down, how do you pick yourself back up?

My maxim is no situation or condition is permanent.

The story behind this maxim is based on life experience. I've lived long enough to learn that things change. Good things change and bad things change. On more than a few occasions, time has shown that the good things maybe weren’t so good and the bad things maybe weren’t so bad. I have a paperweight on my desk that my wife gave me that has a quote from Winston Churchill, "If you're going through hell, keep going." That's pretty much the only viable option when things aren't working out the way you hoped they would. Keep going.

How do you hold yourself accountable?

My maxim is get it on the list.

The story behind this maxim is no one's going to hold me more accountable than me. In order to meet the commitments I've made to others, I have to get my tasks on a master list and be diligent in working the list.

The format above is straight from Mike. The answers are my own. His process really makes you think. It gets you off the dance floor and onto the balcony. That's a pretty good place to do some self-examination. I encourage you to check out One Piece of Paper.

In the meantime, how would you answer Mike's three questions on Leading Yourself? Feel free to share your thoughts with the rest of us.

October 1, 2011 marks the retirement of Admiral Mike Mullen from the U.S. Navy and from his role as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Washington Post's David Ignatius offers a nice recap of the Mullen years in an exit interview column with the Chairman. I'm an admirer of Mullen and his leadership but have not had the opportunity to meet him.

So, as he retires, I thought I'd ask someone who knows and has worked with Admiral Mullen for his perspective on the leadership qualities he has shown over the course of his career and in his final job as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. George Sterner is a retired U.S. Navy Vice Admiral. His career included command of two nuclear submarines and the Naval Sea Systems Command. He is also the first person I interviewed for my book, The Next Level.

In this guest post, Admiral Sterner uses stories to illustrate the leadership qualities of Mike Mullen including his preparation, collaboration, listening, action orientation, courage, honesty and thoughtfulness for others.

Let's hear from Admiral Sterner:

I first encountered the Chairman as "Commander" Mike Mullen when he came to see me while I was managing the Navy's torpedo exercise assets. His Pentagon boss had directed him to, " ... go see Sterner and find out why the surface Navy is not getting their share, ..." of one thing or another in my program. This was not an unusual tension between the budget offices in the Pentagon and the procurement officials in the acquisition commands. Fortunately, we both did our homework before the meeting. Out of our meeting grew a lasting relationship and respect that served us well. Captain and later Admiral Mullen frequently sought input from the technical offices in our organization to get another perspective before he moved on an issue.

 

I was repeatedly impressed with his ability to listen to the inputs from the technical community, regardless of rank or position. He didn't dwell on issues but thoughtfully collected information as an active listener, considered both sides of an issue and then moved forward. This was a refreshing approach, almost unique, in our vast bureaucracy. (Remember, we were working in a world where a thousand people can say "no" but only one could say "yes," or so it seemed most days!)

 

I have never known him to side-step an issue or shy away from making the tough decision, even when others might counsel against it. Most importantly, there were very few surprises; if you had an issue with his approach you were seldom blindsided when you heard the public version. 

 

The most endearing trait in the Chairman's persona is the thoughtfulness that goes into every aspect of his work, ... day-in, day-out , ... with the most junior Sailor to the most senior official. Even today, as you see him in news spots with World leaders across the globe, you can almost feel the respect, the thoughtfulness and the sincerity of the man. He is truly a great American and has served his country well. Bravo Zulu!

Writer's note: "Bravo Zulu" is a Navy flag hoist signal from the days of only line-of-sight communications. It was hoisted by the Fleet Commander to acknowledge a particularly impressive feat. Today it is almost universally interpreted, in written or spoken messages, as "Well Done."

Earlier this year, I wrote a blog post called Can This Marriage (Customer, Team, Leader) Be Saved? in which I referenced a book called The 5 Love Languages and riffed a bit on how those might be applied at work.

A couple of days later, I got a nice email from Dr. Paul White letting me know that he was co-authoring a book with Dr. Gary Chapman, the author of Love Languages, on how they could be applied in the workplace. 

It's out now and is called The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace.  I spent some time talking with Dr. White yesterday and, with his permission, recorded the call so you could listen in. He talks about what the research says about motivating through appreciation and the top ways in which most people want to be appreciated. Here's the interview:

He was also nice enough to share his top ten easiest ways to show appreciation to almost anyone.  You can download that here. 

This stuff is easy to do and likely to make a difference, folks. Think about it:

• What kind of difference does it make for you when your boss or a co-worker expresses their appreciation?


• What kind of difference would it make for your team members if you expressed your appreciation in a way that works for them (hint:  something beyond the "great job everyone" email)?


• What is your number one idea for anyone who wants to do a better job of showing appreciation to others at work?

One of the great truisms in leadership coaching is that a strength when overused becomes a weakness. For example, the strength of confidence, when overused, looks like arrogance. The overconfident leader is so convinced of his or her world view that they quit questioning, listening or observing anything that might challenge it.

This idea is on my mind this morning for a couple of reasons. First, like many Americans and people around the world, I've watched dumbfounded these past few weeks as overconfident politicians were willing to take our economy to the brink in service of a worldview. The second reason is a New York Times book review I read over the weekend on The Theory That Would Not Die: How Bayes' Rule Cracked the Enigma Code, Hunted Down Russian Submarines, and Emerged Triumphant from Two Centuries of Controversy.

If you're mathematically inclined, you'll enjoy the review. I'm not, but I did anyway. Here's my big take away from the review by John Allen Paulos. Paulos writes that Bayes' theorem comes down to three questions:

• "How confident am I in the truth of my initial belief?
  
  
• On the assumption that my original belief is true, how confident am I that the new evidence is accurate?
  
  
• And whether or not my original belief is true, how confident am I that the new evidence is accurate?"

Those seem like three very good questions for leaders to regularly ask themselves.  What difference would it make to the quality of your decisions and the impact of your leadership if you and your team asked those questions on a regular basis? What other questions should you be asking yourself to make sure your strength of confidence is not tipping into arrogance?

Today's post is a guest post by David Burkus, the force behind the LeaderLab blog where he focuses on how to put leadership theory into practice.  If you like, what David shares in this post, you'll love his new book, The Portable Guide to Leading Organizations.

Airport bookstores are crowded with books on leadership, and each one seems to promote a "leadership lack." They'll each begin with phrases like "The most pressing issue in organizations is that leaders lack integrity...or empathy...or strategy...or even humor. These books continue by laying out the author's simple framework for developing the perfect leader. On and on the dialogue goes to the point where readers become be confused because the 21 Unassailable Edicts of Leadership are different than the Seven Routines of Really Efficient Leaders.  It would be a poor move to add to this confusion. With this in mind, we will admit that we do not believe our "leadership lack" to be the most pressing issue in organizations, just the easiest to fix.

Leaders lack an understanding of leadership theory.

These airport leadership books provide decent advice that is easily digestible. And because it is easily digestible, leaders continue to gorge themselves on it until there is very little room left for real, solid theory. Most see theory as complex and hard to digest. When leaders think about leadership or organizational theory, they think back to the 400+ page textbook they had to buy in business school. "Seems like quite an undertaking," leaders think. So they cheerfully hand their money to the cashier and board the plane with the latest, pocket-sized "leadership" book.

Leaders lack an understanding of leadership theory because it isn't presented in pocket-sized form.