The 2nd Language of Leadership

Michael P. Quirk, Patricia M. Fandt

• Publisher: Psychology Press
• Year: 2000
• Print ISBN: 9780805833577
• eBook ISBN: 9781135666132
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

This book focuses on the behavioral and personality areas that can be used to strengthen one's skills and to make wise decisions about when and how to lead. It was written for the working professional who wants to learn what he or she can do by working with their personality to become more satisfied with and masterful in their leadership roles. Good leaders have learned to succeed over time by acquiring the needed range of personal skills, much like one learns a second language. Geared for entry and mid-term leaders, this book is an empirically based training guide to acquire knowledge and implement a plan to help increase one's leadership skills.

Within the framework of 10 chapters, this book:
* promotes a shared recognition of the role that personality plays in leadership by reviewing a case study of representative leadership situation that both identifies familiar personal struggles and organizational changes;
* offers a way of thinking about how personality in general and the Big 5 in particular fills in the gaps and connects the pieces when it comes to how people become effective leaders;
* illustrates how--within the Big 5 framework--to use the 2nd language approach to leverage natural personality strengths and manage weaknesses in an effort to build greater leadership effectiveness;
* makes available 2nd language tools including effective intervention strategies and goal setting techniques based on enabling philosophies to understand what makes this approach accessible and practical to use; and
* reassures that most leadership failures are reversible and that through using the 2nd language approach, these inevitable and sometimes necessary setbacks afford clarity about how to use your style to the best advantage.

1
The Popcorn Chronicles

Synopsis

The Popcorn Chronicles is a case study of leadership challenges during a transition time in an organization. It describes a common situation in today’s work world—the need to increase profitability. Based on the case study, a series of questions are raised about the personality aspects of leadership behavior. These questions set the stage for the development of The 2^nd Language of Leadership outlined in the remainder of the book.

SETTING THE STAGE

We considered several options while beginning this book and making the case for the viability for the 2^nd Language of Leadership. We could have reviewed the literature and called out the limitations of other personality and behavioral approaches. Although that has merit, it is at best argumentative and at worst negative. We could go right into the didactics of personality and leadership theory, behavior change mechanics, and goal setting and achievement. Although that is covered in the book, we doubted it would be the most engaging draw into the 2^nd Language model. What did seem most accessible was to tell a story, to let you see if it is representative of your world and whether the embedded principles of this model come to life in ways that are credible to your living the leadership life.

We have titled the story The Popcorn Chronicles. The basis for the unusual name becomes obvious as you read the story. The story is a senior manager’s retrospective reflection on his interactions with a middle manager. The senior manager has been required to assure that all of the businesses that report to him become profit centers.

As has been observed in many industries, the pendulum has now shifted to a decentralized emphasis on the importance of successful local management as measured by a positive financial margin. Along with a concern for the bottom line, the focus rests on high customer satisfaction with both the quality of service and the product that is being delivered. Within private industry, for example, restaurant franchises, hotel/motel chains, computer/software companies, or insurance organizations, this goal serves the needs of the shareholders who want dividends and the owner whose capitalistic motive is to maximize profit. As for the public domain, similar themes are present. For example, the exclusivity of the U.S. Post Office has been usurped by entrepreneurial mail service companies. This has stimulated U.S. Postal managers to improve performance or relinquish the familiar trappings of control and achievement as represented by budget size, number of employees, and praise and acknowledgment for a job well done. Colleges and universities that have traditionally been nonprofit institutions, whether state assisted or privately funded, are discovering a competitive force in the marketplace with a new focus on higher education as a profit center and a service provided to the paying customer. Like their civilian counterparts, even the Veterans Administration and the Army Hospitals are transitioning into managed-care businesses expected to survive and succeed within a fixed amount of resources deemed to be adequate by the actuaries. This is the world in which most of us live. It is a departure from government organizations operating in an annual cost plus budgeting culture. Private industry’s tolerance for cross-subsidizing low performers has declined significantly.

It is within this new business culture that this leadership story unfolds. The organization is a chain of coffee shops called Roberto’s and our protagonist is Joe Barett. The owner of Roberto’s, Michelle Roberto, had created the business with the objective of distinguishing it from the fast-paced “get in, get out” competition by hiring warm, friendly, customer-oriented managers. Three years after founding the business, she had built 60 stores, with 30 in each of two northeast cities. Without a great deal of revenue targeting, only about half of the stores in each of the cities were making a profit.

Joe’s previous job included the introduction of accessories into the coffee shops in order to leverage coffee drinkers into purchasing additional items. He was remarkably successful at anticipating what people might be willing to buy in addition to a cup of coffee and a pastry when they come into the store. Joe’s accessories had contributed substantially to the bottom line.

Based on this success and in consideration of the owner’s need to develop this relatively new business into a money maker rather than a money loser, Joe was seen as an employee with ambition and potential for greater opportunities. As a success-minded owner, Michele decided to promote Joe and assign him one city and a total of 30 stores. She reasoned that if Joe could lead up one effort well, he could do the same with a broader range of responsibilities.

Joe was promoted from an organization-wide product-line manager to a regional vice president with control over all store managers. In this position, he was accountable to Michelle Roberto for the financial improvements of each store in his region. Particularly challenging for Joe was the need to change the store managers’ primary mindset of promoting their stores as a friendly gathering place for people in the community to a situation where the stores were both friendly and profitable.

The specific story has to do with Joe’s relationship with Dianne Sparks, who was the manager of one of the largest and oldest stores. Dianne’s shop was very popular, yet it was consistently in the red. Six months into Joe’s new job, he began to see both acceptance and progress with 10 of the 15 stores that had previously been money losers. However, with Dianne’s store the financial performance had not changed. Joe was far from convinced that his expectations had been heard and accepted by Dianne. In the following, Joe tells the story in his own words.

JOE’S STORY

I had heard a lot about Dianne Sparks from the time I had joined Roberto’s. Dianne’s shop, previously called Old Town Coffee, had been in existence for many years before Michele started the company.

The store, somewhat smaller then, had a unique personality where rich, exotic coffee smells in a well-lit, open setting created a warm, inviting atmosphere. Michelle had observed Dianne’s interactions with employees and customers in a way that conveyed a sense of consideration and well-being. In addition to unusually high quality coffee, the configuration of the shop’s space and assorted tables and chairs seemed to encourage people to sit down and take a break from the demands of home and work. In the past, the shop was one of three commonly owned interlocking businesses: The coffee shop, an art gallery, and a book store were all located on the first floor of a restored, historic brick building. Apparently Dianne had never made a profit, but the prior owner of all three shops was convinced that Old Town Coffee was a magnet that brought art and book-oriented folk to him over the competition. When the original owner sold this set of shops, Michelle purchased Old Town Coffee as a stand-alone business.

What made my job especially difficult in assuring the necessary turn-around for Dianne’s store was her revered status with staff, customers, and Michelle. In essence, she was much loved and implicitly trusted, but she was not doing her job. It was obvious that Michelle wanted Dianne to turn the corner to profit, yet she didn’t want (and given her executive status, didn’t need) to take on Dianne herself. After all, Dianne’s shop was the inspirational prototype in Michelle’s business plan characterized by the slogan “Enjoy your coffee in a relaxed atmosphere.”

As I considered what I could bring to this new challenge, I realized that I had achieved much of my success by being single-mindedly driven to achieve my stated goals. I believe in high quality products and excellent customer service, yet unlike Dianne, no one ever accused me of being warm and relaxed. I was glad that I had a boss like Michelle who valued my contributions to Roberto’s Coffee Shops, and I was stimulated by the regional management promotion. However, I had my private doubts about how good a match I was for this new job. Although 10 of the 15 money-losing stores had begun a positive revenue trend, the net balance of my 30 shops was still in the red. I was concerned about the handful of older shops, larger than the others and carrying proportionately more expense, which were very much steeped in the relaxed culture that Dianne symbolized.

Over the course of my 15 years of working life, I had enjoyed good relationships with the relatively small sales teams that I had lead. We tended to be like-minded, yet I didn’t stay with any group very long. My goals have been to move up the organizational ladder, motivated in part, to be frank, by the prestige and money that such advancements represent. Although my skill set as a leader was proven, I had no history of success (or failure) with the sort of transitional change that was represented in working with Dianne’s group and the others like hers.

Gradually, it became clearer to me that the principal challenge in achieving success in my new role was finding the way to get Dianne on track. I decided that getting Dianne to make the necessary accommodations in business thinking would have a domino effect on the other shops, and then I would make it okay. The very unhappy downside of this thinking was that if I could not make this transition happen, I would most certainly fail. That thought was quite unsettling.

As I prepared to speak to Dianne, I spent some time thinking about our interactions to date and how they had gone. I originally met Dianne during my occasional visits to her shop when I was peddling my product line of accessories. I found her to be uniformally gracious in receiving me, but not especially engaged or enthusiastic about the various books, compact discs, coffee mugs, or espresso machines I was introducing. I enjoyed my time in the shop where, as was their wont, I was accepted in a pleasant, welcoming fashion. My accessories sold acceptably well, although I never heard the employees mention or recommend any of these products to customers.

When I was selected as the regional manager, Michelle went with me to all the stores including Dianne’s. Michelle announced to the assembled staff that I represented a key link to a successful future where a good cup of coffee, a relaxed atmosphere, and profit could all be aligned. Staff in most of the shops seemed intrigued and encouraged by the introduction. Dianne’s group, although characteristically warm and accepting of us as people, didn’t seem to signal any sense of urgency, necessity, or excitement in association with our message.

I subsequently established a regular meeting time with groups of five to seven managers who had shops contiguous to one another. I also established a quarterly “sit down” with Dianne and the others to track their progress. Actually, because I had a sense that the change in culture might be particularly difficult for Dianne and her group, I had met with them and gave them a presentation above and beyond the initial introduction that Michelle had arranged. The essence of my message was that although Roberto’s had promise as a business, the store simply would not succeed without all the shops carrying the weight of their expenses and producing a profit margin. I provided Dianne and her staff with seasonal charts of historical financial performance, along with marketing strategies for bringing in existing and potential clientele for more regular and expanded use of our services.

I spent a great deal of time explaining how to make customers aware of our accessory products and work site coffee service. In addition, I focused on the achievable goal of closing the gap between current and desired performance. Dianne was quiet but polite during the presentations. In short, I had delivered the message, and it was difficult to imagine that any reasonable person would not move quickly into action mode to make the needed adjustments in business practice.

Six months later, Dianne’s financial performance remained flat with no appreciable change. This was dumbfounding to me. It was as if Dianne and her coworkers didn’t believe or care that they would fail as a business and lose their jobs. I both believed and cared about this fate, and it was not one I wanted to accept. It became clear that Dianne, although a nice person, lacked the personal strengths I possessed myself, including being realistic, ambitious, and, if necessary, aggressive. Emboldened by my view that Dianne’s deficiencies could cost me my job as well as hers, I determined to meet with her and her staff, repeat my prior presentation, and raise the fear level to get them moving in the right direction.

I called Dianne and told her to expect me at their monthly 2-hour staff meeting. I gave her the range of my thinking. She replied that she thought it would be helpful if we met face-to-face in the next several days to get ready for my visit. Although I had no confidence that such a meeting would be useful to me, I could not think of a reason not to meet, so I agreed to do so. I had more or less decided that the necessary adjustments would occur in her shop despite her and that it was essentially my job to get people on board and activated. In other words, Dianne could be relied on to be a warm person liked by staff and customers, but she certainly was not going to take the local lead in the desired direction.

When I met with Dianne, I was surprised to find her quite assertive in challenging my perceptions that without a reinforced wake-up call from me, her shop was not going to make it. She reviewed the history of her coffee shop, and offered me a vivid sense of what she and her longstanding colleagues had accomplished over the years. It became clear that although the shop epitomized an affable and genuinely warm atmosphere to all who crossed its threshold, this was not just some passive alignment between a group of 1960s-era, laid-back folk and a coffee shop. Beyond this natural fit, Dianne and her coworkers reliably and purposefully made the necessary effort to assure their business was unique and satisfying in a predictable and sustaining way. Dianne was straightforward in communicating to me that it was only this past year that the expectations had shifted to profit. She elaborated that although financial data and marketing plans were of course useful, they are about action. In many of their discussions in recent months, she and her coworkers had conceptualized how to build up from their rich and valued work culture and business to one that made money, too. She had cut out articles from The Wall S...

Table of contents

• Contents
• About the Authors
• Preface
• 1 The Popcorn Chronicles
• 2 Personality: An Organizing Role in How Leaders Succeed and Fail
• 3 Personality Fundamentals and the Big 5 Concept
• 4 Three Languages of Leadership
• 5 2nd Language Challenges
• 6 Leadership Development Strategies
• 7 Learning to Lead: The Good News
• 8 2nd Language Goal Setting
• 9 3rd Language
• 10 Where We’ve Been and Where We’re Going
• Appendix
• References
• Index