November 2009
The Blind Side and Our Social Environment
November 28, 2009 by Michael Lee Stallard
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relationship, career, leadership
I highly recommend seeing The Blind Side, a movie about Baltimore Ravens’ offensive tackle, 
Michael Oher. It’s worth the price of the ticket alone to see Sandra Bullock’s tour-de-force performance as Michael’s adoptive mom, Leanne Tuohy. What I especially like about the movie is that it shows how the right social environment helps people thrive in life.
I don’t want to give away the story so let me just say in a nutshell that it was Leanne Tuohy who reached out to Michael. It would have been easy for her to ignore him, but she didn't. Instead, Leanne felt compassion for a young man who was wearing shorts in the winter and hanging around a high school gym just to stay warm. She took the time to get to know him and his life's story. While others saw him as “Big Mike,” a quiet, giant, African-American young man from the Memphis ghetto, Leanne Tuohy saw him as a thoughtful boy with a big heart and protective instincts to match. She called him "Michael," a name he much preferred to "Big Mike." Leanne's insights helped Michael discover who he really was deep down inside and who he could become. These insights helped Michael see himself as a protector who "has the back" of his family and those he loves. It should come as no surprise then to learn that Michael Oher thrived in football as an offensive tackle responsible for protecting his teammates from the defense.
The Blind Side shows how the social environment we live in shapes us for good or ill. Research in social psychology and neuroscience have proven this. To learn more, check out this article from the Atlantic magazine entitled “The Science of Success.” For those who want to dig even deeper into the effects of social environment on people (and especially on the young), I highly recommend watching the video presentation and purchasing the Hardwired to Connect research report based on a research study by Dartmouth Medical School, the YMCA and the Institute for American Values. In addition, I recently did a free webcast for ASTD on neuroscience and its implications for leadership that you can download by clicking here.
The social environment we live in at work affects us too. Is your work environment helping you thrive or killing you? I wrote the book Fired Up or Burned Out to help people understand how important the social environment at work is to employer brand, employee engagement, productivity, innovation and ultimately the performance of individuals and organizations. If your social environment at work is toxic or even indifferent to people, you can do something about it. A good first step is to read the manifesto I wrote for ChangeThis.com. You can find it and download it free along with other articles, podcasts and webcasts, by clicking here: The Connection Culture: A New Source of Competitive Advantage. To go even deeper, read Fired Up or Burned Out and share it with your colleagues, family and friends.
If you are in a country where it is impossible to purchase the book because the values it promotes are threatening to those in power, email me at mstallard@epluribuspartners.com and I'll email you a free pdf version of the book. Recently, I've received requests from individuals in nations with oppressive governments and I'm delighted to share the book with people who are trying to improve the social, political and economic environments of their home countries.
When leaders create a healthy social environment, it helps protect them from their blind side which is often the morale of the people they lead and what's really happening in the organization (or nation). Absent a healthy social environment, nations and organizations inevitably fail when the vast majority of people who feel disconnected lose hope in their leaders and the future. A healthy social environment, what I call a "Connection Culture," keeps everyone feeling connected and like they are part of the group so that all thrive.
Free download: My Webcast for ASTD on Neuroscience Implications for Leadership
November 4, 2009 by Michael Lee Stallard
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Last week I did a webcast for members of the America Society for Training and Development (ASTD). The webcast covers select research findings from the field of neuroscience and their implications for leadership, productivity, innovation and employee engagement. ASTD is the world's largest association dedicated to workplace learning and development professionals. The webcast and slides are available at this link. (Note: clicking on the link will begin an automatic download of the webcast and slides.)
Peter Drucker's Kind of Leader
November 1, 2009 by Michael Lee Stallard
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I don't normally post on Sundays, but today I'm making an exception. Today is Frances Hesselbein's 
birthday and in her honor I'm posting a chapter I wrote about her from my book Fired Up or Burned Out. Mrs. Hesselbein is the chairman of the Leader to Leader Institute. Recently, she was appointed a Chair for the Study of Leadership at West Point.
Mrs. Hesselbein, thank you for your tireless efforts to advance leadership, your passion for inclusiveness, for kids, and for leaders in the social sector. And thank you for the personal encouragement you've given me over the years.
Happy birthday Mrs. Hesselbein!
With respect and admiration,
Michael
Peter Drucker's Kind of Leader
The preeminent management sage, the late Peter Drucker, knew some of the greatest leaders of our times in business and government. If he had been asked to name who he thought was a model leader, would he have chosen President Dwight D. Eisenhower, General George C. Marshall, the legendary Alfred P. Sloan Jr. of General Motors, or one of the many other heads of major companies throughout the world he came to know during his distinguished career? It’s an interesting question, given the reach and influence of Drucker. Periodically in his interviews and writings you will encounter what may be his highest praise for a person who, he once said “could manage any company in America.” Who is she? Business Week featured her on its cover surrounded by...Girl Scouts. Her name is Frances Hesselbein.
Although she had no daughters, Frances Hesselbein began her association with the Girl Scouts when she agreed to help with a troop of thirty Girl Scouts in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, that had lost its leader. It wasn’t long before Hesselbein’s experience with Troop 17 developed into a lifelong commitment t0 Girl Scouting. Years later she would become CEO of the national organization, Girl Scouts of the USA.
Hesselbein increased the Girl Scouts' inspiring identity by showing women how important it was to reach out to girls, given the threats they face such as drugs and teen pregnancy. She helped women to envision the Girl Scout organization as a professional, well-managed organization.
Hesselbein’s leadership style, in fact, it seems her purpose in life, is to bring out the best in the people she meets. Her words and actions embody human value. She has a high regard for people that shows she values them. She has written that good leaders have an “appreciation of their colleagues individually and the dignity of the work their colleagues do.” Her actions show that she “walks the talk.” She keeps up with what’s going on in the lives of the people around her and personally reaches out to them when congratulations or consolation is in order. She invested in improving Girl Scout leaders’ people skills. On her watch she built a conference center to train Girl Scout staff. Frances Hesselbein, as a role model for other leaders across the organization, effectively increased human value in the Girl Scout culture, and her actions were multiplied when other leaders adopted her leadership style.
The energetic leader increased knowledge flow by approaching communication in an inclusive way, expanding information in ever-larger circles across the organization. Rather than lecturing, her style is to ask insightful questions to draw out relevant issues. In planning and allocating the Girl Scout organization’s resources, she introduced a circular management process that involved virtually everyone across the organization.
With Hesselbein as its leader, the Girl Scout organization thrived. When she assumed the CEO position in 1976, the Girl Scouts’ membership was falling, and the organization was in a state of serious decline. She put sound management practices in place. During her twenty-four-year tenure, Girl Scout membership quadrupled to nearly three and a half million, diversity more than tripled, and the organization was transformed into what Drucker called “the best-managed organization around.” Hesselbein accomplished the amazing turnaround with a paid staff of 6,000 and 730,000 volunteers.
By the time she resigned from the Girl Scouts in 1990, the organization’s future was bright. Frances Hesselbein was paid the ultimate compliment by Drucker when he recruited her to be the head of the Drucker Foundation (renamed the Leader to Leader Institute), which is dedicated to carrying out their mutual passion for strengthening leadership in the social sector. It should be no surprise that the foundation’s influence is rapidly growing worldwide with Hesselbein leading the effort. After all, the extraordinary Drucker, who lived to the age of nine-five, knew a great leader when he saw one.