Compassion and Leadership

I have been thinking about compassion this week.  I want to be a compassionate leader, but I also want to motivate people to do their best.  Can both of these things be accomplished by a single leader?

As with many things, it is important to balance these characteristics.  If you are too compassionate, you may send the message that everything is just fine the way it is, resulting in a lack of interest in improvement.  If you push for change too hard or criticize too harshly, then you put people on the defensive and make it harder for them to hear your motivational message.

I found this article to be helpful:  How to Lead with Compassion by Roger Schwarz of Roger Schwarz & Associates.  I think this can be helpful for all staff who are showing leadership as team members and co-workers.  In IT, it can be easy to focus on the technology or the preferred solution without recognizing the feelings that can go along with them.

I am particularly challenged by all this when I get a complaint from a customer and need to take it back to staff for review and improvement.  Most complaints from customer involve at least two sides of the story.  Yes, customers can be irrational and rude sometimes, especially when stressed by technology that isn't working properly.  But staff can sometimes forget to turn on their compassion when faced with an angry customer.  It is very easy to get defensive when you are being yelled at, even if the customer has a valid point.  Communication breakdowns often occur as a result, which just exacerbates the situation.  It is important for us all to dissect these incidents when they happen and learn from them.  To do that, I have to press the IT staff to see if from the customer's point of view, even when I agree that the customer didn't handle the situation well.  Is this a compassionate approach?  I hope it can be, especially if it results in better handling of future situations, leading to less stress and fewer tough incidents in the long run.

Now for a change of topic.  I would really love to read some thoughtful comments in response to my blog posts, but I recognize that it can be a stretch to put yourself out there.  In order to entice some comments, I'll make this offer.  I will deliver a cool prize to the reader on the UMD campus who posts the most interesting or thoughtful response to this post.  The deadline is noon, Friday, September 7.  Apologies to readers who are not local, but feel free to post anyway.

Leadership in Online Classes

When students take an online class that requires participation in an online class discussion forum, do their submissions say anything about leadership?

I was interested in this article that I read today in the Chronicle of Higher Education:
What a Tech Start-Up’s Data Say About What Works in Classroom Forums
by Jeffrey R. Young

In this article, a company that manages online discussion forums for 545 colleges and universities did some data analysis and reached some interesting conclusions.  One particularly interesting conclusion is this:  "One of the clearest trends was that students at highly selective universities are far more likely to ask questions anonymously than are students at other institutions."  I will leave you to read the article for thoughts about why this might be a bigger problem at highly selective universities.  But I recall when I was teaching, it was a challenge for my students as well, even though I did my best to create an atmosphere where questions and discussion were valued.

This led me to think about the difficulty many students have with asking questions, either online or in class.  Many seem to have a deep fear of asking "the dumb question" or just generally appearing stupid in front of their peers.  Asking questions in public seems to me to be a leadership issue.  Because asking questions can help lead a group to better understanding, it is a truly valuable skill.  And because it requires some bravery to overcome the "dumb question" fear, we should all value those who are willing to take this step.

For those of you who are practicing your leadership skills, asking a question or posting an opinion on this blog might be a great way to improve your skills.  Hint, hint!

What Does Success Mean To You?

Here is a quote I received from Lori Green of MOR and Associates:

"The talent of success is nothing more than doing what you can do, well."

Henry W. Longfellow 

I have been writing this blog for a number of weeks now, and I can tell from the statistics that I have some readers.  Now I would like to invite some comments from you readers.  Please use the comment feature in this blog to write something back to me.

What does this quote mean to you?  How does it make you feel about the value of your own work?

What are your priorities?

I am a big believer in setting priorities and then working hard to stick to them.  It can be very easy to drift away from your big priorities and to get distracted by inconsequential tasks that are easier to do (reading email, for example).  My primary strategy is to keep a personal task list, prioritize it, and keep it up on my desktop for regular viewing.  I use it to pull myself back to the high-priority tasks when I get distracted.

Here is an interesting article, "Stop Chasing the Wrong Priorities," by Kelly Goldsmith and Marshall Goldsmith.  This article encourages me to take an broader view than I normally do when I am setting my daily priorities.  Happiness, family, friends, dreams, fun, helping colleagues, and striving for the big win are also easy to overlook when I get too focused on my daily task list.  To be a successful leader, one must balance all the important things in life.

I especially liked the advice to be happy now.  When I was younger, I was always focused on the next big goal, the next big accomplishment, and I promised myself that when I got there, I would be happy.  When I finally earned my doctorate, I was shocked to discover that I wasn't happy.  At that point in my life, I took a big step back and made changes in my approach to life so that I could be happy along the way.

In your leadership journey, be happy along the way.