Presentation to City of Saint Louis Park Professional Development Program on March 9, 2911. Public employees from Saint Louis Park and other communities. Focus on integrating management with leadership perspectives. Emplowering others to improve the world.

1. Leading and
Managing
Saint Louis Park
Learning and Development
March 9, 2011
Chad Weinstein
Ethical Leaders in Action

2. ELA’s “Guidelines for Grownups”
• Confidentiality Expectations
• Engagement
• Respectful Candor
• Thoughtful Expediency
• Comfort and Fun

3. Agenda
• Introduction
• Virtues of Ethical Leadership
• Leadership Goal: Engagement!
• Skills
• The Power of Purpose

4. “Business ethics is so…negative.”

5. Empower others
to improve the world

6. Who does ELA serve?

7. Ethical Leaders in Action
Leadership Development Model
Leading
Self
Leading Leading
Others in Context

8. Among my teachers…

9. One conventional viewpoint
Management Leadership
• Process-oriented • People-oriented
• Resources are key. • Vision is key.
• Managers seek to • Leaders engage and
maximize the value of bring out the best in
human resources. their people
• Measureable Outcomes • Observable Outcomes
• More science than art. • More art than science.

10. One conventional viewpoint
Do Stuff!

11. One conventional viewpoint
The right right
Do Stuff !

12. Ethical Leaders in Action
Virtues of Ethical Leadership
Clarity Creativity
Service
Competence Courage

13. Service
Being serious
about
empowering
others
Exercising
will in support
of collective
aims

14. Clarity
Imagination
and Vision
Reality and
analysis
Moral Clarity:
Values

15. Creativity
Divergent
thinking:
“out of the box”
Convergent
thinking:
“in the box”
Problem-
solving

16. Competence
Practical
wisdom and
judgment
Technical
knowledge
Communi-
cation

17. Courage
Doing right,
In the face of
difficulty

18. Your Turn: in Four Groups
Describe a time when you saw this virtue in
action in your department. (You can’t be the
hero of your story.)
Select one story for the group to tell, and one
lead storyteller. Draw a picture on your flip
chart that helps to tell that story.
When we reconvene, we’ll discuss how to
stimulate these virtues in our departments
Groups: North: Clarity
South: Creativity
East: Competence
West: Courage

19. Measuring Engagement
• Retention
• Safety
• Customer Service
• Productivity
• Profitability
Source: Gallup G12 Summary

20. Employee Engagement Drivers
• Clear expectations for
performance
• Adequate materials
and equipment
• Ability to succeed
in assigned roles
• A supervisor who cares about subordinates
• Co-workers committed to quality work
• Opportunities to learn and grow
Source: Gallup G12 Summary

21. Relational Leadership Model
HIGH
TO WITH
punitive relational
authoritarian authoritative
Pressure
stigmatising respectful
NOT FOR
neglectful permissive
indifferent protective
passive easy/undemanding
LOW HIGH
Adapted from Social Discipline Window - Paul McCold and Ted Wachtel - 2000

22. How do you lead?
TO WITH Relational
Leaders
Pressure
offer high
pressure,
high
FOR support
NOT

23. ELA’s Foundational Values for
Public Agencies
• Excellent Public Service
• Sound Stewardship of Resources
• Fairness to Employees

24. Tough conversations?
“I’m promoting Sandy over you.”
“We must find a way to achieve the same result at
lower cost.”
“ I know you can do better.”
“I’m tired of your grousing.”
“That’s unsafe.”
What makes a conversation tough?

25. Listen like you are wrong;
Speak like you are right.
• Title borrowed from Robert Sutton, The No
Asshole Rule.
• Skills are easy to discuss, harder to
implement.
• Communications problems are notoriously
sneaky – we cannot observe ourselves as
others see us!

26. Leaders Listen!
• Perceive – with whole being
– Most people blunt their own perceptions.
– Cops sharpen perceptions to survive and succeed
• Suspend analysis and action
– Cops learn to draw conclusions and to act swiftly
– Act, but deliberately.
• Ask, ask, ask ask
– Action bias leads to “internal storytelling.”
– Inform your narrative with input from others.
We need to learn how to deliver
pressure and support to each person

27. Giving Feedback
• Past: What happened
– Observable events and facts
Fair – First person and objective
Process is
working
WITH
• Present: Why it matters
others – Consequences of actions.
– Implications
• Future: Required Changes, Directions
– Changes in actions or behaviors
– Reinforcement to repeat positive actions
What does “Relational Leadership” teach us
about giving feedback?

28. The Critical Art of Apology
• I am sorry
– I understand your concerns and my mistake(s)
– I sincerely regret both my actions and their impact
• It won’t happen again
– I commit to change
– I am accountable for that commitment
• Thank you for bringing this to me
– I appreciate the trust you demonstrated
– I appreciate the opportunity to apologize and change
A mistake – or crisis - becomes an opportunity
to strengthen a relationship

29. Why think about “Fair Process?”
“Process”
includes
anything
from We are most likely to trust and
giving
co-operate with individuals and
feedback to
a single FF
systems - whether we win or
to setting
lose - when we experience fair
departmental
strategy
process.
Kim & Mauborgne, Harvard Business Review, July – August 1997

30. The Three Elements of Fair Process
• Engagement
– Stakeholders invited to participate
Fair – Participants have an opportunity to be heard
Process is
working • Explanation
WITH
– Process and rationale are clearly explained, along with
others decisions and outcomes.
– Explanation is respectful – it is also often educational.
• Expectation Clarity
– When decisions are made, implications for all
stakeholders are clearly articulated.
– Everyone knows what to expect, and what is expected
of them.

31. Fair Process does not mean:
• Democracy
• Consensus
• Happiness or Contentment
• Accommodation of individual wishes
or whims
• Command relinquishing legitimate
decision authority or accountability
A good indication of a fair process is when people who do not
“get their way” understand why and how a decision was made,
and acknowledge that the process was fair.

32. Learning from Sisyphus
• Sisyphus angered
gods through a
variety of antics.
“Accounts vary.”
• His sentence was the
worst thing the
storytellers could
imagine for a smart,
engaged person.

33. A virtuous cycle
Purpose
Pride Expectations
Performance

34. The oldest leadership seminar
If we
• Safety and comfort
aren’t
telling
stories, • Tactical information
others
surely
are! • Problem-solving
• Strategic decisions
• Who are we???

35. Thank you for your attention!
Chad Weinstein
Ethical Leaders in Action, LLC
cweinstein@ethinact.com
651-646-1512
“We enable ethical leaders to achieve
extraordinary results”