“I don’t think that’s what we’re saying here at all, Greg,” the principal retorted. “The leader has a responsibility to hold people accountable. However, there are several ways to point out deficiencies while allowing people to keep their dignity.”
I surprised myself by offering, “Remember, especially in our organizations, that we are dealing with volunteers who also happen to be adults. They are not slaves and they are not animals we’re free to beat. Our job as leader is to point out any gaps between the standard that has been set and their performance, but it does not have to be an emotional event. The leader may choose to make it an emotional event, but it doesn’t have to be that way.”
The preacher piggy-backed on my comments with, “The word discipline comes from the same root as disciple, which means to teach or to train. The goal of any disciplinary action should be to correct or change the behavior, to train the person and not to punish the person. And discipline can be progressive—first warning, second warning, final warning, and finally ‘you don’t get to be on the team anymore.’ John is right, none of those steps needs to be an emotional event.”
“Let’s move along,” suggested the coach. “How is the word kindness defined in the dictionary, Theresa?”
Theresa flipped back several pages before answering, “Kindness means ‘giving attention, appreciation, and encouragement.’” Simeon wrote it out.
Kindness—giving attention, appreciation, and encouragement
The teacher explained, “Like patience and all the character traits we’re discussing, kindness is about how we act, not about how we feel. Let’s take the work of attention to begin with. Why would the work of giving attention to others be an important character quality for a leader?”
“Because of what we learned from the Hawthorne Effect,” I surprised myself by answering.
“And what, may I ask, is the Hawthorne Effect, John old buddy?” the sergeant quizzed me.
“Best as I can recall, Greg, some Harvard researcher many years ago, I think his name was Mayo, wanted to demonstrate at a Western Electric plant in Hawthorne, New Jersey, that there was a direct and positive correlation between improved worker hygiene and worker productivity. One of the experiments involved simply turning the lights up on the plant floor and sure enough, worker productivity suddenly went up. As they were getting ready to move on to study another facet of worker hygiene, the researchers turned the lights back down so as not to mix up the variables. Guess what happened to worker productivity?”
“It went back down, of course,” answered the sergeant, sounding bored.
“No, Greg, worker productivity went up again! So the effect of increased productivity did not come from the cause of the lights going up and down but from somebody paying attention to the people. It’s become known as the Hawthorne Effect.”
“Thank you for sharing that, John,” the teacher acknowledged. “I’d forgotten that story. Paying attention to people was what was important. And I have come to believe that far and away the greatest opportunity we have to pay attention to people is by actively listening to them.”
“What exactly do you mean by ‘active listening,’ Simeon?” the nurse asked.
“Many people wrongly assume that listening is a passive process of being silent while another person speaks. We may even believe that we are good listeners, but what we are often doing is listening selectively, making judgments about what is being said, and thinking of ways to end the conversation or redirect the conversation in ways more pleasing to ourselves.”
The principal offered, “Will Rogers once said that if we didn’t know it was our turn to speak next, nobody would listen!”
Simeon nodded with a smile. “We can all think roughly four times faster than others can speak. Consequently, there is generally a lot of noise—internal conversation—going on up in our heads as we’re listening.”
I had to admit that as Simeon was saying these words my mind was back at home thinking of what Rachael might be doing.
“The work of active listening takes place up in your head,” he continued. “Active listening requires a disciplined effort to silence all that internal conversation while we’re attempting to listen to another human being. It requires a sacrifice, an extension of ourselves, to block out the noise and truly enter another person’s world—even for a few minutes. Active listening is attempting to see things as the speaker sees them and attempting to feel things as the speaker feels them. This identification with the speaker is referred to as empathy and requires a great deal of effort.”
The nurse added, “At the birth center, we refer to empathy as being fully present with the patient. And by being fully present, we don’t just mean physically but mentally and emotionally as well. It’s not easy to do, especially when there are so many distractions tugging at you. It’s a gift of respect to be fully present with someone who is giving birth, to actively listen and anticipate her needs. In my early days as a maternity nurse, I would often be there physically but I was psychologically miles away. When we are fully present, I think that the patients, often on many different levels, sense the difference and appreciate the effort.”
The principal nodded and said, “You know, there are essentially four ways we communicate with other people—reading, writing, speaking, and listening. Statistics show that when it comes to communicating, the average person spends roughly 65 percent of the time listening, 20 percent speaking, 9 percent reading, and 6 percent writing. Meanwhile, our schools do well enough at teaching reading and writing, and perhaps they even offer a speech elective or two—but they make virtually no effort whatsoever to teach the skills of listening. And those are the skills the kids will need to use most.”
“Interesting, Theresa. Thank you.” Simeon went on, “And what are the conscious or unconscious messages we send to people when we extend ourselves by actively listening to them?”
The nurse replied, “The fact that you are willing to set aside all distractions, even mental distractions, sends a very powerful message to the speaker that you care. That he or she is an important person. You’re right, Simeon, listening is probably our greatest opportunity to give attention to others on a daily basis and convey how much we value them.”
The principal added, “Early in my career I used to believe my job was to solve every teacher’s or student’s problem when they came to me. Over the years I have learned that just listening and sharing the problem with the other person eases their burden. There is a cathartic effect in being listened to and being allowed to express feelings with another person. On the wall in my office at school I have a quote from an old Egyptian pharaoh named Ptahhotep that says, ‘Those who must listen to the pleas and cries of their people should do so patiently. Because the people want attention to what they say even more than the accomplishing for which they came.’”
The teacher smiled approvingly. “Paying attention to people is a legitimate human need and one we must not neglect as leaders. Remember, the role of the leader is to identify and meet legitimate needs. I can still recall what my mother told me the day I married my beautiful wife Rita, God rest her soul, fifty years ago this month. She told me never to ignore a woman. Not heeding that advice with Rita got me in hot water more than once! One of the primary works of love is paying attention to people.”
“Now that I think about it,” I began, “when we had our union drive back at the plant I was told repeatedly that the employees felt like we had forgotten about them, that we weren’t paying attention to them as we had in earlier years. On the other hand, the union was sure paying a lot of attention to them during the campaign and the employees were eating it up. I guess people will find a way to get their needs met.”
“Thank you for sharing your comments, all of you,” the teacher responded. “Now back to our definition of kindness. Theresa read to us that kindness was giving attention, appreciation, and encouragement to others. Do you believe people have a need for appreciation and encouragement, or is that ju
st a want?”
The sergeant snapped, “I don’t need any of that appreciation jazz. Just tell me the job to be done and it’ll get done. It’s the same way I lead my troops because that’s what they signed up to do and what they’re paid to do. Why on earth should I have to do all this warm and fuzzy stuff?”
The preacher answered first. “William James, probably one of the greatest philosophers this country has ever produced, once said that at the core of the human personality is the need to be appreciated. I think anyone who would say that he does not have a need to be appreciated would probably lie about other things too.”
“Easy, preacher,” the sergeant cautioned.
The nurse jumped in with, “Greg, I always thought the military was big on giving out medals and ribbons as a public demonstration of its appreciation for service and accomplishments?”
“A wise general once said,” the principal added, “that a man would never sell his life to you, but he will give it to you for a piece of colored ribbon.”
I also spoke up, “Imagine if I said to my wife, ‘Honey, I said I loved you when I married you. If that ever changes I’ll be sure to get back to you. And by the way, I’ll be sure to bring the paycheck home once a week.’ Now wouldn’t that be a special relationship?”
To my surprise, the sergeant was nodding to each of the comments without a fight.
The nurse volunteered again, “One of the mentors in my life was my first charge nurse in Labor and Delivery nearly twenty years ago. She once confided in me that she liked to picture in her mind’s eye that every employee was wearing one of those sandwich billboard signs. On the front side, the sign would read ‘Appreciate Me’ and on the back side ‘Make Me Feel Important.’ That woman had great authority with people. I just didn’t know what to call it at the time.”
The teacher marched on. “Kindness, one of the labors of love, can be expressed regardless of your feelings for someone. Again, love is not how we feel about others, rather how we behave toward others. Let me read to you what George Washington Carver had to say about kindness. He said, ‘Be kind to others. How far you go in life depends upon your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, tolerant of the weak and the strong. Because someday in your life, you will have been all of these.’”
The coach said, “I think that it’s also important to give praise to people. Catch them doing something right instead of being like the ‘seagull manager’ and constantly looking to catch people doing something wrong.”
“You know the old saying, we find what we’re looking for,” the preacher offered up. “And it’s so true. Psychologists call it ‘selective perception.’ For example, my wife and I began looking for a minivan after we had a child and I became interested in Ford Windstars. Prior to looking for one to buy, I had never really noticed them on the road. Once I became interested, however, I began to see them everywhere! I thought it was a conspiracy or something. I think the same is true with being the leader. Once you begin looking for the good in others, watching out for people doing things right, suddenly you begin to see things you’ve never seen before.”
The teacher added, “Receiving praise is a legitimate human need and is essential to healthy relationships. However, there are two important things to remember about praising people. One, is that the praise must be sincere. Two, it must be specific. Just walking into the department and saying ‘Everyone did a great job’ is insufficient and may even cause resentment because perhaps everyone didn’t do a great job. It is important to be sincere and specific by saying, ‘Joe, I appreciate the fact that you produced two hundred and fifty pieces last night. Great effort.’ You want to reinforce the specific behavior because what gets reinforced gets repeated.”
“Let’s look at the third word in our love definition, humility,” the principal suggested, leafing through the dictionary on her lap. “Humility is defined as ‘being authentic, without pretense, not arrogant or boastful.’”
Humility—being authentic and without pretense or arrogance
The principal asked, “How is this important for a leader, Simeon? Most leaders I know are very egotistical and full of themselves.”
“Damn right,” the sergeant jumped in. “A leader has got to be in charge, strong, able to kick butt when necessary. I’m sorry, but I just don’t buy into that wimpy, humble stuff.”
The preacher took him on again with, “The Jewish Torah, which is the first five books of the Old Testament, claims in the book of Numbers that the most humble man who ever lived was Moses. Now remember who Moses was. He was the guy who smashed the Ten Commandments down the mountain in a fit of rage, killed an Egyptian man for hurting a fellow Hebrew, and was constantly arguing and fighting with God. Now does he sound like a wimpy, poor-pitiful-me kind of man to you, Greg?”
“What’s your point, preacher?” he replied sarcastically.
Mercifully the coach interjected, “I think what we want from our leaders is authenticity, the ability to be real with people—we don’t want them puffed up and stuck on themselves. Egos can really get in the way and become barriers with people. Know-it-alls and arrogant leaders are a real turn-off for most people. Such arrogance is also a dishonest pretense because nobody knows it all or has it all together. Humility to me is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking about yourself less.”
“We need each other,” the nurse said quietly. “Arrogance and pride pretend we don’t. The ‘lie’ of rugged individualism that is so prevalent in this country creates an illusion that we are not and should not be dependent upon other people. What a joke! Another set of hands pulled me from my mother’s womb at birth; another set of hands changed my diapers, fed me, nourished me; another set of hands taught me to read and write. Now another set of hands grows my food, delivers my mail, collects my garbage, provides my electricity, protects my city, defends my nation; another set of hands will comfort and care for me when I become sick and old; in the end, another set of hands will lower me into the ground when I die.”
The teacher leafed through his notes and said, “An anonymous spiritual teacher once wrote, ‘Humbleness is nothing more than a true knowing of yourself and your limitations. Those who see themselves as they truly are would surely be humble indeed.’ Humility is about being real and authentic with people and discarding the false masks. What comes next, Theresa?”
“Respectfulness,” the principal began reading again. “Respectfulness is defined as ‘treating other people like they’re important.’”
Respectfulness—treating others as important people
“That’s it, now you’ve lost me for good!” the sergeant said. “I mean, I started getting nervous when you were talking about influence and love. Now you’re saying that I have to kiss people’s butts with kindness and appreciation and respect. Listen, I’m a butt-kicking drill sergeant and you’re asking me to do something that is just not my style. You’re asking me to do something that is unnatural for me.”
“Greg,” Simeon replied quietly, “If I were to bring the top-ranking person in the Army to your base and into your barracks, I imagine you would be very respectful and appreciative; you might even exhibit many of the behaviors we’ve been discussing. To put it in your terms, I would probably see a lot of ‘sucking up’ going on, wouldn’t I?”
Looking the teacher dead in the eye, the sergeant answered, “You’re damn right you would! The general is a very important man and he deserves and will get that respect from me.”
“Listen to yourself, Greg!” I said. “You’re saying that you know how to be respectful and appreciative, you know how to kiss butt, but you’re only willing to do it for those people you see as important. So you’re capable of the behaviors but very selective of the recipients for your attention.”
The teacher took over from there. “Do you suppose we could treat everyone we lead like a very important person? Imagine treating Chucky on the fork lift like he was the president of the company, or our st
udents like they were school board members, or nurses like they were doctors, or grunts like they were the general. Could you, Greg, treat each member of your platoon like a very important general?”
“Yeah, it’s possible, I suppose, but it would be pretty difficult,” the sergeant reluctantly conceded.
“That’s right, Greg,” Simeon continued, “As I keep saying, leadership requires a great deal of effort. Leaders must make the choice about whether or not they are willing to extend themselves for those they lead.”
“But I only give people respect when they earn it!” the sergeant continued to object. “After all, respect is earned, isn’t it?”
The nurse, in her usual soft and friendly voice, answered, “I’m afraid that old saying might also be a bad paradigm for a leader. I’m a believer that God didn’t create human rubbish, only people with behavior problems. And we all have a few behavior problems. But shouldn’t someone get ‘respect points’ just for being a human being? Theresa’s definition of respect was ‘treating people like they’re important.’ I think we should add to the end of that definition, ‘because they are important.’ And if you don’t buy into that idea, then try out the idea that they should get ‘respect points’ just for being on your team, in your platoon, your department, your family, your whatever. The leader has a vested interest in the success of those being led. Indeed, one of our roles as leader is to assist them in becoming successful.”
That woman continued to amaze me.
Looking at his watch, the Sergeant said, “OK, OK, I get the point but we better get going. We certainly wouldn’t want to miss the noon church service, now would we?”
THE TEACHER RESUMED immediately following the second chime.
“What is the next word in our definition of love, Theresa?”
The Servant Page 10