Do a Lady Gaga

Perhaps never in a million years would I have imagined I would post the headline of "Do a Lady Gaga," on a leadership blog.     What Lady Gaga did during this past Sunday's Oscars, however, is certainly worthy of note.

She made us talk about her.   Not in a Miley-Cyrus-let-me-shock-you type of way, but in a positive "Gee, I had no idea" type of way.

A Sound of Music medley?   Lady Gaga?    Really?

She nailed it.   As a result, I, for one, have a new found appreciation for her abilities as an artist. Previously my evaluation was that she had both talent as a pop musician and a marketer;   but on Sunday she presented a side of her talent that I had no idea existed.

So the question is, do you have talents that your team does not know about?     And if you presented those talents, would your team have a new found and deeper respect for your leadership?

There were two key things that Lady Gaga did.   One:   she surprised us.   Never underestimate the value of a constructive surprise.     Don't you love it when something unexpectedly great happens?  Everybody does.   Surprise your co-workers with something they never imagined you could do, or with a positive reaction to a challenging situation, or even with a completely different take on a traditional dilemma.

Lady Gaga also added  to our perceptions of what we formerly believed she could do.   She demonstrated that she could do so much more than we had imagined and by doing so, she added dimensionality to her persona and the popular perceptions of her (and also probably added several hundred thousand additional fans in the process!)

So, show 'em what you can do.   Surprise them.  Make them talk about you.  You will have proved something to others. . .and yourself.

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My book "Courageous Questions, Confident Leaders" is available on Amazon Kindle.

Non-GMO Leadership

Not to get all Birkenstocky about this - but I am a great believer in organic leadership.   Much as I believe organic food to be healthier, I believe that leadership without synthetic additives is more effective. 

In this case,  the synthetic additives would be"formulas" or "systems" that blanket-guarantee success to the leader without any consideration of what is natural to the leader or the specific workplace.

There are books. . .there are speakers. . .there are seminars. . .all of which promise spectacular leadership results if one simply pastes the given, magic formula into the leader's repertoire and if (and here's how the money is made) the formula is followed precisely, voila, success is assured.

The problem is, I've seen enough failures that I can tell you that success is not assured.   Moreover, any formula that doesn't take into account the leader's and team's natural strengths and weaknesses is pretty much doomed to failure.

There is nothing wrong with reading the books. . .going to the seminars. . .and learning what we can as leaders, providing we recognize the following:

• We need to adapt what we learn so that it will work for us
• We need to adapt what we learn so that it will work for our teams

I'm reminded of the time that we were all supposed to carry day-timers - how our days would change!   How our free time would be multiplied!      How our teams would respect us -  if only we carried our daytimers every single minute of every single day with the reverence heretofore applied to the holiest of books!

Truth is (and experience showed)  daytimers worked great. . .for some people.     Other people were much more effective using other tools to organize themselves.    The really smart people took a few of the principles from daytimers and applied those to a methodology that they knew would work for them.  

So it is with leadership.   Cutting and pasting a formula is a synthetic alternative.  Recognizing what strengths and weaknesses a leader may have. . .and then adapting learning to those. . .strengthens a leader's ability to be effective and wholly genuine with their team.

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My book, "Courageous Questions, Confident Leaders" is available for e-readers, PCs and tablets on Amazon Kindle.