Transcripts

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Joe Supervielle:

Welcome to Voices in Local Government, an ICMA podcast to share success stories, ideas, and lessons for local government leaders and their staff. My name is Joe Supervielle. Here to talk about leadership during times of uncertainty and stress is Lawrence Henderson, President and Chief Learning Officer of Business Operational Support Services, that's a strong acronym, I'll let the audience figure it out. So, thanks for joining, Lawrence.

Lawrence Henderson:

Thank you so much for having me, Joe.

Joe Supervielle:

Today, we're going to cover how to build and maintain high-performing teams strategies for effective delegation and motivation and support. But right off the top, ICMA leadership is a big topic. We've heard a lot of great opinions, but why is this one different? We offer this kind of stuff a lot. There's webinars, there's PD, there's other podcasts and blogs. So, what is it about your message that's a little different?

Lawrence Henderson:

Yeah, I know leadership is one of those T-shirts that probably everybody has collected over the years, but what makes it different as I communicate it today is I really get into the practitioners side of this. What does it look like to earn the stripes of leadership and not just pontificate about it. I'm a huge believer in putting our posters into practice and there's something about active leadership that brings about key characteristics that are also an acronym. I like to develop HOT leaders, those that are humble, open and transparent. And the reason why humble, open, and transparent is because those all have an element of leaders being vulnerable.

None of us have lived today before, after a pandemic, and as we continue to transition into what the next normal or series of normals will look like over the years. And so, I truly believe the leaders who lean into this work, who are vulnerable about where they are and where they're not, those are the ones that are going to garner the motivation, inspiration of the people that they're intending to lead.

Joe Supervielle:

Yeah, I think that goes a long way into building trust and we'll get to that. Also, part of the bio, Lawrence is a former US Army officer and part of the Forbes Coaching Council, so it's definitely not all talk. He's got some bonafides to back this up. And part of the bio you sent me, I always ask for that interesting little tidbit, your exact quote was, "I'm a Harley Davidson Fat Boy riding teddy bear with a love for banana pudding." So one, just to clarify, Fat Boy is a type of motorcycle, correct?

Lawrence Henderson:

That is a motorcycle. You're not calling me a fat boy though.

Joe Supervielle:

Okay, just wanted to be clear about that. And two, I don't think banana pudding cracks the top hundred of desserts, so I know it's not a good form for the interviewer to disagree with the guest this early off, but...

Lawrence Henderson:

It's all good.

Joe Supervielle:

... not in my top 100, so we can-

Lawrence Henderson:

Yeah, we're not co-located, so we don't have to get into it to a verbal scuffle, but we're good.

Joe Supervielle:

All right. So, back to the topic. Can we start off just by defining times of uncertainty and stress? Because you named a few of them, and pandemic aside, there's financial stress, there's political divide stress. I mean, you could go down the list and it seems to me you even said that other kind of phrase like new normal. That's just part of life, part of work life, part of being a leader at any organization, but particularly, at local government. So, how do we even really define uncertainty and stress if it's not necessarily going away?

Lawrence Henderson:

Yeah. So, it's amazing. Joe, how. Would you agree that we are constantly changing and evolving? Would you agree?

Joe Supervielle:

Yeah. Well, I hope so. We should be. We should be trying, at least.

Lawrence Henderson:

We should be. And that's generally something that we just kind of throw out there arbitrarily, but times of uncertainty and stress is when you're actually not aware of when you're and how you're evolving. But then when you become conscious to it, you have this freak out moment. And this isn't just the pandemics or these global issues or the day-to-day of fiscal responsibilities or this time, this budget didn't get passed. Every day we do hard stuff, but the uncertainty and stress is our ability as leaders to actually self-regulate. This is the active emotional intelligence that is constant in change.

And so, us going from unconscious leaders to conscious leaders as we navigate these areas of uncertainty and this insinuates, too, we continue to lean into being a team of we and not just me. And this goes into some of the other objectives that we'll dig into.

Joe Supervielle:

All right. So, I mean your passion for this topic is coming through already. Can you tell us a little bit about why it's so important to you? Where did your journey start and how'd you get to this point?

Lawrence Henderson:

When I transitioned out of the Army back in 2015, in my mind I had this bias that the civilian sector and private, they were going to leadership training like I was in the military. And then I got out here and I was like, "Man, there is a gap in leadership development." And I remember being an individual contributor, and I think the leader mentioned to me that they had went to one Fred Pryor course in their 20+ year career, and they were just trying to figure this leadership thing out themselves.

But someone who in the military really drank the Kool-Aid of being a coach, teacher, mentor on this side of life, I found that that was a gap in actual development of leadership, actual development of characteristics to get real time interaction and engagement. And so, I wanted to see leaders be better as they engaged the human beings they were asking to do the things. And so I leaned into it. Jumped headfirst into my master's degree program, human resources and organizational development, but then also, leaned into the world of professional development coaching and leadership coaching. So much so, I'm the guy with four coaching certifications and a toolbox full of assessments and all those good things because I want to be able to be a resource to an organization and not someone who just comes in again and wags my finger at them, telling them they're not doing it right.

Joe Supervielle:

Yeah. Well, I like to hear that. I'm laughing because sometimes that is the training, especially at big organizations that just have to cover hundreds, if not thousands of people. Like here's this mass catchall training and maybe some finger wagging and then check the box and move on. So, I'm glad that's not your approach and I think that's why this is working out. So, circling back to you said being self-aware as a leader of the uncertainty and stress, personally and for your team, what specific challenges can we identify so that they can be understood and then managed, maybe city manager, assistant city manager, department head for the local government audience today?

Lawrence Henderson:

So, if you think about every single one of us in these different positions regardless of the level, we have a position description, we have this list of things that it says we should be doing every day. But then it's that leader who's been there maybe has some tenure or you feel this obligation to jump in when you see team members struggling or different things like that. But what you end up doing is you go into fix-it mode, which on the back end may not want to hear this, you're also enabling. You're taking away the opportunity for that team member to get the reps that they need to evolve into what we need them to be.

And so, as leaders sitting back and saying, "Hey, okay, do you have the training that you need?" And then open that question up, "Hey, what training do you believe you need?" And then begin to offer resources so they can do the things. But in essence, I say we got the hero complex. And so, you get those leaders who come in and they like to check the box, they save the day. But then they have to go back to their list of things and they're like, "Oh, man. I owe stuff."

And then that stress and that uncertainty, it starts up and then the anxiety that I spend so much time doing something that I actually should have let somebody do, now I got to press and stress and do my stuff. And so, it's getting that leader to not only be self-aware about what their things are, but then stop themselves pause to say, "Okay, I need to bring people with me, so that we all can grow and learn together." Instead of being those islands of excellence or single points of failure.

Joe Supervielle:

So, how does that leader get over it when their rebuttal might be, "Yeah, but this project is due. It needs to be this at this standard, and if I don't step in, it's going to fail or not be good enough."

Lawrence Henderson:

Yeah.

Joe Supervielle:

So, you're telling me to let it fail? What?

Lawrence Henderson:

Yeah, so here's the deal. Not necessarily let it fail, but jump in where necessary. Again, bring people with you. There was this amazing thing we used to do in the Army, and I've actually used it on several leaders. We used to call it right seat, left seat ride. Anytime I went into a new organization and I was the new guy, I used to sit with the old leader and I was in the passenger seat, if you will, the illustration of being in the car. He was driving or she was driving and I was watching, I was observing. And then there came a point where it was like, "Okay, now you try."

And so, this is a fundamental, and if anybody out there is familiar with situational leadership, that's called development in Level 1. Most of our employees they desire, they have already an intrinsic motivation to do well at work, but when we rob them of that by doing it for them, we begin to cause them to do this other thing. Like, "Well, oh, man, my boss doesn't trust me." And you brought up that word trust. "My boss doesn't believe in me." And they begin to internalize. We begin to individually internalize these things.

But as leaders, stop yourself. Stop yourself from going in there and saying, "You know what? Hey, watch me. And then I'm going to let you try." And so, even if that project is due, bring people with you because what we're also bad at, too, is doing the after action review. You took it, you said, "Ah, I need to get it done." But then you never actually went back and closed the loop of saying, "Hey, this is how I got it done this fast." And so again, that humility saying, "I'm not thinking less of myself. I'm just thinking of myself less." Bring people with you, so they know how to do it next time.

Joe Supervielle:

Okay, so maybe the word fail was a little harsh or extreme on my end. But it's still that putting the extra effort in on the front end can pay off. And it's like that cliché we've heard about, "Don't catch the fish for him, teach them how to fish, and then you got another fisherman there." But again, it is easier said than done because the volume of work adds up and the resources are usually short and it's still tough, but worth doing. So, that can transition into building those high-performing teams. You can't have a high performing team unless you have a majority, if not all the people at that level.

So, as you're teaching and bringing them along and observing and then getting better at it and ultimately letting them take the steering wheel, as the leader, how do you work out who to assign what, how much? Some projects are, there might be a lot of hands up because it's high visibility or there's going to be some credit on the back end. People want to professionally develop. They want to maybe have that chance at the promotion, so they want the job.

That could be a tough thing, too. It's not just, "Oh, can I even find someone good enough for this," and say, "I've got lots of people that can handle this. How do I choose who to assign the lead to?" How would a leader go about that?

Lawrence Henderson:

Yeah, so it's about capacity assessment. It's that leader sitting back and saying, "Hey." And this is assuming they know people's career, aspirations, and all the rest of these things. But also, you understand individual capacity. Yeah, everyone can raise their hand because it may be high visibility or different things like that. But as the leader, a part of that role is to identify capacity. It's understanding that Joe has the capacity to be a lead on two projects, but a team member on three. And so, when there becomes imbalance of workload, that's where people get stressed and all the rest of these things because again, identifying capacity is not just about what they're capable of, it's actually also what learning gaps that they have as well.

And so, it may be a mix of, "Hey, I'll sign you this work, but also assign you this learning opportunity, so that I can get you up to speed." But it's that leader being fully engaged with the individuals, not just the team. Because the idea is we say, "Ah, we want high performing teams." But here's the deal, you got to build high performing individuals. And that is a sustainability strategy, not just a one-off in like, "Oh, man. You messed up on that, Lawrence."

"No, I actually didn't know how to do it, but I didn't want to tell you that because I didn't feel comfortable telling you that because in this organization, it's not safe not to know." So, everybody says, "Yes, I can do that," when I'm trying to figure it out along the way.

Joe Supervielle:

Yeah, which can also be, I'm a proponent of remote work, but that can be more difficult in a remote environment where it's easier to keep your head down and not point something out when you're not necessarily up to speed on it. So, I'll have a couple different scenarios for you here, and then again, you put yourself in that leadership shoes and walk us through how you would handle it.

But the first scenario would be, I guess a good and bad thing. So, it doesn't matter if it's local government, private business, whatever. Say you have a team that has achieved that high performance bar and has proven it. The results show it. It's not just stock. But their interactions with other teams or even the organization as a whole is maybe still struggling a little bit or the revenue numbers haven't hit, whatever the case might be. Where that specific team starts building an identity of that's stronger as a team than the organization as a whole, which again, can be a good thing that pride in your own team members, but also, part of that, these other people aren't carrying their weight and now, it's frustrated as a team like, "We're doing all this stuff and not even getting credit for it."

And the analogy, I'll give there using another sports one is that, hey, we have an all defensive back in football. The whole defensive secondary is above average, they're doing great, but there's no pass rush, so they're getting burned constantly after five, six seconds of coverage. And on top of that, the offense is no good. The quarterback keeps fumbling the ball in their own 20. We're given a short field to work with and now, next thing our stats don't look so good, we're getting fingers pointed at. So, it can sometimes devolve into an us versus them within your own team. How do you avoid that as the leader?

Lawrence Henderson:

Yeah, so it goes back to we, not me. And that can happen as a business unit, as a department to where again, that intern, that leader has potentially lost sight of the macro vision of the actual organization. And so, it's funny. I've had this at several levels in my leadership journey where early on, I'll admit to the audience. I had a pretty sizable ego through throughout my career, and I was that organization. I thought I had the most high performing team. And we were like, "Hey, we're going to win," which in turn, the mindset of somebody had to lose.

Well, I began to reframe that and said, "Okay, the win-win?" Win-win inherently has a collaborative and open to learning mindset. And so, one of the biggest things that I've done over the years, particularly with coaching teams and leaders of teams is saying, "Hey, you achieved the mission statement, your objectives for the year, your goals. You're ahead of lead line, if you will. You're ahead of your milestones, but what would it look like to support or reach out to a peer who may not be as far along?"

And it began to foster this ownership mentality, not just in your section and in your department, but for the organization to say, "Hey, as an organization, can we support others winning in every opportunity so that we not looking islands of excellence as a unit. But now, we're supporting each other being open to learn."

And the funniest thing that happened is in those organizations led to some of my team members being pulled and promoted into other departments because we were willing to cross and collaborate and all the rest of those things. Because they're like, "Hey, I know these are your leaders and you got all pro defensive back, but do you think he'll be open to a trade?" I'm like, "Heck, yeah, they'll be open to a trade." Especially if the opportunity for a capacity increasing, because I was in touch with what my people desired from a career trajectory.

And so for me, I was able to go ahead and this is chess, not checkers. And so for me, early on in my career, I was playing checkers. It was very tactical, it was very just one move at a time, jump a person and all the rest of that. But when I began to play chess, I was like, "You know what? If it's really about the organization," and I really respect this organization and all of us winning, then I'd be like, "All right, I know the moves that my team can make and I want to be a resource partner." I changed my mentality about it being about me, but how can I now fold into becoming a resource partner, which is why my business is set up the way that it's set up today.

Joe Supervielle:

And do you have to communicate that to the team members, so they know early on that that's the case? And it's not just the leader playing chess in the background. They're-

Lawrence Henderson:

Definitely. That's the transparency part of leadership. That's why this is different because I'm being transparent to say, "Hey, when we reach our things," because the last thing I want is to get our people and individuals this mindset of "I'll just say yes to things." No, let's get good where we are. Let's build up an excellence in a presence where we are, so we can take care of the main thing then we have the opportunity to overarch and teach the organization the bigger main thing.

And this is that development. This is that upskilling along the way where a leader in getting them out of themselves be like, "Well," and I had one leader in particular, Joe, who said to me, he was like, "But sorry, we're winning here. Why do I have to help? Why do I have to support?" And then when I help them understand the bigger picture, they were like, "Oh, so we all could look good." I was like, "Yeah, there's not just awards at our level. There's awards at the next level and there's awards at the next."

So, you tap into the individual needs of your people and get them to see the bigger picture from where they are, not from where you are. Because a lot of times leaders try to press upon people, again, their ideas about it, but if you can't connect to that person's individual motivations, you can't call them in to call them up. And so. that's the idea when I began to reframe. That's how I was way able to tap in to different motivations.

Joe Supervielle:

You just said individual motivations. No one really likes admitting or asking though, "Well, what's in it for me" question. And you can say that about yourself or as the leader, you can ask that on behalf of your team definitely to understand it. And it's not a bad thing. It can be, yeah, you might think you have these individual objectives and tasks and then therefore, you did a good job and might get your merit raised or promotion or whatever. But there's a "What's in it for me?"

Even on the bigger picture where if the organization succeeds as a whole, that's still the thing you can feel pride in, put on a resume, put in for your next application. Tell a bigger story, than just, "I did X, Y, and Z. So, I was part of a project, or I led a project that accomplished this." And it pays off for everyone. Hopefully, win-win is the goal.

Lawrence Henderson:

Yeah, definitely.

Joe Supervielle:

So, on that note, the next scenario, the question also that makes people uncomfortable at time is money. How, as a leader, again, this could be the team lead, department head, all the way up to the CEOs, city county manager, how do you handle bonuses and raises? It's tough because it's also, merit is a tricky word. It's hard to judge that, especially if you're not in sales with an exact number. When you're doing operational support or background work, it's hard to really quantify sometimes. But these bonuses or phrase allotments can be flat based on team metrics or company metrics.

They could be individual. They could be a combination. People get uncomfortable and maybe unhappy when they see money here and not there, and it's tough. So, as a leader, how do you handle the money topic? Because again, no one really wants to talk about, but it's a thing, and it's not going away and people notice.

Lawrence Henderson:

Yeah, yeah. So, I love this one and I hope I am not making it sound this simple, but it is. This is about accountability and ownership and it's about having a shared responsibility of what the metrics and the goals look like. And this happens. We probably have just gone through annual reviews depending if we're on the fiscal year and all the rest of these things or that it's coming up. This is when this conversation happens of how to achieve that goal. And then the leader, your responsibility is to communicate consistently along the way how people are doing because the shared ownership and accountability of this is managing clear expectations, moving towards the goal.

And then this is where that shared transparency of saying, "Hey," and you brought it up earlier with the first scenario. This is where being communicating to your team to say, "Hey, we are doing good. We're on milestone or ahead for you to receive this level of bonus or merit increase. However, the organization, this is where we need some support in some other departments for people to lean in. And this is how this computes as far as your bonus is concerned." Because a lot of people don't understand there is a formula to get an overall organizational bonus or a merit increase. And again, this is getting people out of the me to the we, and saying, "Hey, you may be doing well, but the overall organization financially fiscally is not doing well. And so yes, this may have been the case at the beginning of the year, but we said along the way, this is where the entire organization needed to be."

And this is that transparency to say, "Hey, keep doing your job. Keep identifying where we're losing or where the gaps are. And so, that by the end of the year, we could potentially set ourselves up to receive what we've projected and also maybe ahead of lead line." And in particular, I'll never forget one of the best lessons I learned along the way. I had a leader who actually sat me down and actually gave me a lesson in how to actually calculate the merit increase that we would get or we projected to get based on the company's entire fiscal responsibilities and execution for the year. That was the best lesson I learned as an individual contributor. My manager sitting me down and saying, "Hey, here are the numbers, here is the formula. Okay, now let's go through an exercise and you figuring out this time next year."

Because I was a trainer, I was a coach. I didn't necessarily make the company money, but this is also where she was like, "Hey, this is how you impact the organization and if you don't do these things, this potentially actually creates this turmoil that actually won't get us to that metric number." And so, as a leadership development guy, I was like, "Oh, man, I need to lean in. I need to make sure Joe and his team have leadership development training. I'm doing individual coaching, because I want them to be motivated. Encouraged to keep doing the things down on the production environment."

And then, of course, the city manager is making sure that, "Hey, we are not losing things where we shouldn't lose things." It should be a plus, it should be earning some things, but we're behind where we were fiscally the year before." And so, it's just being able to communicate from the business side of things. But that also is us as leaders, teaching our people how to see the things, not just, "Did we get it or not?"

Joe Supervielle:

So, can you share that formula?

Lawrence Henderson:

So, the metric at this level, it was 1.5 of the overall previous income times like the EBITDA, from so the tax part. It was this whole thing. I was like, "I would have never came up with that myself." I think you probably could figure out on ChatGPT. It might spit out a formula.

Joe Supervielle:

Yeah, I was going to say there are formulas and sometimes employees are a little not shocked by it, but realize that that number actually needs to be higher than you think per person.

Lawrence Henderson:

For sure.

Joe Supervielle:

It can sometimes be discouraging, but it's like, "Hey, I do all this and why can't I get paid this?" And well, there's a lot more that goes into that, and it's hard. You touched on it earlier, even with your right seat, left seat analogy, but talk to me a little bit more about how to delegate, because some of the best leaders I've observed or even reported to, had plans for this. They understood it intellectually. But again, you get into that day-to-day haze sometimes and resources are short, priorities add up, and they end up stepping in more than they need to. And even if it's not them personally doing it, they might rely on a couple go-to people to get other stuff done.

Again, I don't know if there's an exact formula necessarily, but what is the approach for delegation? Because I'll also say sometimes the best leaders, they'll jump in, another cliché, like roll their sleeves up, get the hard work done. But I would say sometimes, "Hey, we're actually paying you too much to do that work." I know that sounds weird. It's not that they're too good for it or above it, but if you're making VP level money, maybe you shouldn't be building an email, or one example. So, if I was just the CFO or the chief human resources person, I would say, "Well, wait a minute, we're paying you how much to do what?"

Lawrence Henderson:

It's that elevation, Joe. Yeah, no, so there's something, I don't know if the audience is, and they'll probably Google it now, the Eisenhower Task Matrix. You probably heard the terms, what's urgent and important. And so a lot of times, whether it's city government or private sector or anything else like that, everything is urgent and important. No, it's not.

Joe Supervielle:

No, it's not.

Lawrence Henderson:

It may be urgent and important, but it's not always.

Joe Supervielle:

And the person sending you the message thinks it's urgent and important, but you might know it's not. But you still have this weird obligation because they think it is and it doesn't do.

Lawrence Henderson:

Exactly. Right. And the differentiator, Joe, is when you look at, go back to your position description, the things that are on your position description should go in that urgent and important bucket. But then there's it's important, but it's not urgent. That whole top line, that's yours to keep an eye on. And so, what the urgent and important is the stuff that I need to do now, the stuff that I need to pay attention to, because this is how it has impacts on my role in the people that I support. That's that bucket.

But then the important, not urgent, those are the things that have schedules. I'm a project lead. I need to make sure emails get sent out. I need to make sure this stuff. But then there's this delegation box. It's urgent and important, but not to me. I need to keep awareness of it and I need to make sure, Joe, as one of my people, it's important. I need to make sure Joe has that. And this is where the trust but verify. This is where that leader, it's in the bucket of important, not urgent. I need to make sure Joe's doing it, and what are the project team meetings that I just need to listen to, not lead.

And so, for a lot of leaders, because it's attached, it has importance and urgency, they believe they need to jump in and roll their sleeves up. Yes, there's a time and a place for that. I'm not saying that there won't be those times where it's just like something comes in hot off the press, everything's not hot off the press. But in city government, especially when it's legislative time and different things like that, and you're trying to get a budgets approval for the next year and all the rest of those things, yes, everything's hot off the press. Here's the deal.

Joe Supervielle:

Sorry to interrupt. Pet projects from council members or managers might have a experience in that.

Lawrence Henderson:

Right, and again, this now goes to it's urgent and important to them, but here's the deal, pull people with you. This is that moment go back to pulling people with you to say, "Hey, they need this. But you know what, Joe is a better team member on that for me. Joe will become my point of contact. And here's my job as the leader, make sure Joe has everything he needs to be successful in that." And then take yourself off of the email chain. Remove yourself from the To line to the CC line.

Joe Supervielle:

That's a little thing, but it's big because then...

Lawrence Henderson:

It's huge.

Joe Supervielle:

... you're not obligated to be the like, "I expect this person to answer." You're just copied on there for...

Lawrence Henderson:

Awareness.

Joe Supervielle:

... awareness, exactly.

Lawrence Henderson:

That's it. And I think a lot of times when people see themselves in the To line, they automatically blank out and they're like, "Oh, God. They want me to do that." Be like, "No, I sent it to you because I know you're in charge of that group. That's why I sent it to you." Now and again, in the back of people's minds, sometimes we believe people have an expectation without even asking.

Because one thing I used to do be like, "Hey, you sent this to me?" but I'm going to ask you another question. "Hey, what is this? What's the timeline? What's the expectation of completion or level of effort?" We don't give ourselves the space to ask more questions. We just go into go-mode and you end up doing a whole lot of work. And they're like, "Nah, this is not what I was expecting." So, now, not only did you waste time doing something, you're now I'm about to spend time reworking something that you actually should have just paused on the front end and asked the right question.

Joe Supervielle:

Yeah, and maybe from the other direction, too. If you are the person sending that message, maybe reevaluate how urgent is this really. And if you have to email a VP or director, maybe that little caveat of, "Just let me know who on your team I can work with." So, you're preempting the, "I don't expect you to solve this for me today. Just let me know what the next step is, and I'll take it from there."

And you said earlier that CC line, you can copy your boss and sometimes even message them on the side saying, "Hey, this is just so you're aware of it. Please don't feel the need to step in or solve this for me. I got it."

Lawrence Henderson:

Yeah, and Joe, and to that point, too, I love that awareness of the sender. There's an olden Marshall Goldsmith article who he's the executive coach, and he wrote, this is what he said, "It's not a fair fight when the CEO is involved." The same thing goes for senior leaders. When a leader speaks or a leader sends an email, you're not conscious of the ripples you just caused. When, it's like again, somebody in that legislative seat, that leader, that's like when you send an email, you send people into action mode. And so you have to be conscious if those details that you just listed out, if they're not present in that message, that person you just sent that to, they're emotionally triggered by getting an email from this leader in the city. They automatically go into action mode.

And so, you have to be conscious about when you're sending something, send all the details that you have, and I love the adding of that expectation of the person you're sending it to. And then also, too, say, "Hey," I love this one, "Let's get on a call, so I can give you an additional details, and so for your questions." Just add that in there. Open the conversation. Not just, it looks like a directive. It looks like a directive in an email that is missing a whole lot of essential information.

Joe Supervielle:

Last of the three big topics, motivation and support. This one's a little bit more open-ended. There's staying motivated as the leader yourself. There's motivating your team. You said it earlier, individual people are going to have different things that work. Some people love the praise, some people don't need it. Some people they want to just see the financial reward. Some people want growth. It's often a mix. There's not really a pick one only. Again, a big topic, so you take it where you want. Where are you with motivation and support as a leader? And then spreading that to your team for the bigger picture success.

Lawrence Henderson:

Right out the gate, motivation is your individual responsibility. Leader is not responsible for motivating you. Not tap dancing, not figuring out your favorite song to play in the loudspeakers.

Joe Supervielle:

No, sorry to interrupt. Again, I'm laughing because I agree with that, but that's not necessarily conventional wisdom. A lot of it is like how do you be the cheerleader for your people, too? And I don't know, sometimes my reaction is, maybe it's just me, I don't need or want that.

Lawrence Henderson:

No.

Joe Supervielle:

But I'm glad to hear you said that.

Lawrence Henderson:

Motivation is different. If I bring in apples or donuts, you're like, "I actually eat before I get here." And you said it virtually, not having meetings before 9:00 because I'm not even two cups in of coffee in the morning and you're trying to have an actual strategy meeting with me at 8:00. Don't do that to me. That demotivates me.

And so, individuals are responsible for their motivation. Leaders are responsible for inspiration. And so, it's actually being able to communicate a clear purpose, vision and direction. That inspires people, like, "Oh, there's a why to my work."

Joe Supervielle:

Yeah, the why is big. We've touched on that on other podcasts and ICMA content. It's not just what we're doing and how, why, because if not, it's really hard to stay engaged.

Lawrence Henderson:

Definitely. And when it comes to that motivation and support, once we identify what motivates people, and it really bogs my brain how a lot of people still aren't familiar with Maslow's Hierarchy of Need. And so, Maslow, the first two levels are that safety and psychological need, like "Do I have enough pay?" That's why money comes up a lot because they're like, "We do a lot for little." For us as organizations finding out what those first two tier, have we met the needs in those first two tiers, those individual motivations, and why Joe wants more vacation time. Probably because Joe is married, Joe has kids, it's the things.

Joe Supervielle:

Yeah, Joe doesn't use his vacation time, but I should.

Lawrence Henderson:

There it is.

Joe Supervielle:

Yeah, so that is interesting. And I again want to circle back one more time. You're not really responsible for motivation as a leader, but inspiration. It's the purpose of why we're doing this, but those are still intangible things. So, how do you communicate that without it coming across like HR speak or clichés or the subordinate. I hate to use that word, but one of the people on your team believes you to an extent. And it's not that they think you're being disingenuous, but they're still a little bit like, "All right, he's giving us the speech again, but what does this really mean?" How do you transform that or turn the corner from talk to action?

Lawrence Henderson:

This is where I love in the trainings we do, building up the leader as coach. And the leader, not loving the sound of their own voice, this is going back to that humility and pausing when they're giving off this locker room message, they're like, "Yah, yah. Rah, rah, rah." And then they pause long enough to say, "Hey, I know that sounded good. It breathed well. But what'd you hear me say?"

And the most amazing thing happens, it could be a room full of people listening to the same message, but we have individual takeaways. And what you'll begin to listen and hear as a leader is you actually are hearing what was important to them. What they pulled out from your message, what was important to them. And then this is where the leader, get out of your ego, be open and said, "Man, I thought everything that came out of my mouth was gold and you only took that?"

And so, getting the why, like, "Why was that the thing? And again, not an interrogative response, but really curious like, "Man, Joe, you got a why." Because Joe listened for what was important to him in his role. We want to desire a connection to the work and how we can contribute. That's motivating for people. That's listening for their why. And if you as a leader just go out pontificating about this miraculous, like this amazing plan that you created in a vacuum, and then you just hand it to people and expect them to know what to do with it, you're missing an opportunity. You're missing an opportunity to fully tap in to what is motivating them to do the work, even when we're not around.

And so, one of the biggest things is you have to hear back from your people. That paraphrase, "Hey, I'm going to pause right now. What'd you hear me say?" "Okay, yep, we got to do this, we got to do this, we got to do this." "Why? Why in that order?" And you'll get some people that say, "I don't know." "Okay, now I need to go in depth. I need to explain a little more. Okay." And then you begin to pick up the pieces.

Joe Supervielle:

Yeah, the real feedback loop where you're hearing it, you're adjusting it and you're doing small course corrections. Instead of just one day realizing, "Oh, I've lost the room."

Lawrence Henderson:

There it is.

Joe Supervielle:

And then I'm not an effective leader at that point. Obviously, it ties back into building the high performing individual, the high performing team, and ultimately, the high performing organization. So, busconsultingllc.net is the website. And the first three people to message Lawrence on LinkedIn will get a free individual coaching session. So, we'll link that on the podcast webpage and you can also just search for Lawrence on LinkedIn. So, Mr. Henderson, thanks for your time today. I appreciate it.

Lawrence Henderson:

All right. Thank you so much, Joe.

 

Episode is sponsored by

Guest Information

Lawrence E. Henderson, Jr., president & Chief learning officer, Business Operational Support Services (BOSS), LLC

Episode Notes

Lawrence Henderson shares insights on how to move from leadership cliches to behavior and habits that:

• Build and maintain high performing teams
• Effectively delegate
• Inspire and support

Resources

Message Lawrence Henderson on LinkedIn and mention ICMA's Voices in Local Government podcast for a free 1-1 consultation.

Eisenhower Matrix to prioritize tasks by urgency and importance (or a lack of) to decide what to do, delegate, or hold.

Free, self-guided website solutions demo from CivicPlus.