Egos, defensiveness and leaders

The defensiveness of many leaders to being challenged significantly affects a healthy culture because it shuts down needed discussion and dialogue and keeps staff from speaking fully and truthfully to leaders. In these situations, leaders must either learn new skills or be replaced if a healthy culture is a goal. Where there is not a free and welcome exchange of ideas, you have leaders who need to control others rather than release them. They shut down important candid dialogue, and their ego issues destroy and prevent a healthy culture.

When leaders cannot be challenged, and there is no free exchange of views, ideas, and opinions, a healthy culture cannot exist. In this context, ego becomes the enemy!

Ego is the enemy of good leadership and a healthy culture. Humility is your friend, while ego and pride are your enemies. Why do I say this? Ego causes leaders to overestimate their ability and underestimate the input of others. As a result, ego-driven leaders limit the input from others, don’t engage in robust dialogue, and listen to others poorly.

A fundamental principle of healthy leadership is the commitment to the mindset of "Nothing to prove, nothing to lose, and nothing to hide." Many leaders feel the need to prove themselves, which can lead them to exploit and pressure others to achieve their desired results. This behavior often results in impatience, anger, and a lack of forgiveness towards those who let them down.

What they risk losing is their pride and their agenda. Their leadership is often motivated more by their desire to succeed than by the organization's mission. Ironically, this drive is often fueled by personal insecurity, which hinders them from listening to others or considering advice that does not align with their views. As a result, their ability to access diverse wisdom and perspectives is severely limited.

Ego has a particularly insidious side; it can give rise to narcissism, where life revolves entirely around oneself. While one might believe this behavior stems from a place of security and confidence, it more often originates from deep insecurity. The outward confidence in one’s correctness and the bravado that comes with it often serve as a facade to conceal underlying insecurity.

Over time, the outward displays of confidence and bravado become protective barriers created by the insecure person within. These walls often prevent individuals from recognizing what is happening around them and understanding their role in contributing to organizational dysfunction.

I have had memorable conversations with leaders after conducting extensive interviews within their organizations. What stands out in these cases is the leaders' absolute denial of reality and difficulty in allowing outside perspectives to penetrate their protective walls. Their responses often include disbelief (my staff must be mistaken, or you, as a consultant, misunderstood), anger at their staff for expressing such views, or outright belligerence (I don’t care; I am the leader and will do it my way, regardless). In these situations, the protective barriers are so thick that the culture is unlikely to improve without a change in leadership. The problem is that such behaviors harm everyone around them, creating significant toxicity within the culture.

Ego issues fueled by insecurity hinder individuals from perceiving reality accurately. Secure individuals listen attentively, are willing to admit their mistakes, and are committed to addressing their blind spots and the more challenging aspects of their leadership. They can do this because they are comfortable in their skin and exhibit more humility than pride.

The more secure I feel, the more open I can be. In contrast, the more insecure I feel, the more I tend to hide my deficiencies and weaknesses. As a result, I cling to my ego, feeling that I have too much to prove and too much to lose.

The irony is that our staff knows our strengths, weaknesses, quirks, and deficiencies. When we deny who we are and pretend to be someone we’re not, they can see that we are not being authentic. Insecure and ego-driven leaders often fail to recognize that their refusal to accept reality breeds cynicism among their team members. This cynicism is harmful to a healthy workplace culture, and the leaders themselves foster it.

The adverse effects of ego are numerous. It prompts individuals to belittle others to elevate themselves. Those with inflated egos tend to blame others for their failures and take credit for achievements that belong to someone else. This mindset hinders honest and open discussions because leaders feel too insecure to address differing opinions. An ego-driven person often lacks respect for their staff and disregards the commitments outlined in the Leadership Contract. By trying to elevate themselves, they inadvertently diminish those around them.

In instances where I’ve shared the results of Culture Audits with senior leaders who were perceived by others as unhealthy or lacking leadership skills, they have been utterly shocked and disbelieving of the interview findings. This reaction highlights their poor self-awareness, understanding of those around them, and their resistance to engaging in open and honest dialogue with colleagues.

In one instance, individuals had been telling the leader for decades that he should step aside and take on a different role due to his inadequate leadership abilities. Instead of heeding the advice of the many who expressed their concerns, he listened only to the few who praised him as a great leader and stubbornly refused to step down. In the meantime, the organization suffered a severe decline; key staff members became disillusioned and left, and there was an urgent need to re-envision the mission and plan for the future.

The individual's deep-seated insecurity and ego blinded them to the realities of their abilities, the needs of the organization, and the feedback from those around them. This organization faced multiple issues that required attention, and it is unlikely to make progress with this leader in position. It is a tragic example of how ego can undermine the development of a healthy culture. A resolution is unlikely to be achieved in situations like this unless boards take action.

Unfortunately, even when a board is in place, there are often inadequate feedback mechanisms to assess the health of the organization's culture. Typically, problems become severe before any effort is made to understand what is happening. During this time, valuable staff members leave, demoralizing the remaining employees. In the case mentioned above, exit interviews with staff revealed significant issues with the senior leader, yet there was a lack of initiative to address the situation. Consequently, the cost to the organization was substantial. Ego can truly undermine a healthy culture.

A leader's maturity can be gauged by their willingness to engage in open and honest dialogue about any issues that affect the team or organization's success. The most effective leaders encourage and promote candid discussions surrounding important topics because they understand that open dialogue leads to the best solutions. They do not shy away from being challenged; rather, they welcome it.

As a leader, do you promote open and honest dialogue? Do you encourage a genuine exchange of ideas and allow your team members to challenge you? If your answer is no, what insecurities are holding you back? Are you afraid of not having all the answers or not getting your way? Whatever the fear may be, it often stems from your own insecurities, and these insecurities can significantly impact your leadership.

The secret of being a self defined leader who can also stay in relationship

One of the key elements of Emotional Intelligence is the ability to negotiate relationships. It is the inability to negotiate relationships successfully that is at the root of a great deal of unnecessary conflict. One of the critical skills of good EQ is being self-defined. A self-defined individual can tell you what they think even when they know that you will disagree with their position. They don’t insist that you see the world as they do, and they are OK if you don’t.

However, the second part of self-definition is also important. I can disagree with you and still be in a relationship with you. Think about that in terms of the political divisions that are tearing up America and much of the world.

This is what it means to be able to negotiate relationships in a healthy way. Poor EQ will state a position and insist that you agree with it. If you don’t, you are marginalized and demonized. After all, you don’t get it. Good EQ, on the other hand, can negotiate relationships with people who are very different from us. This skill is needed in a diverse world, whether inside or outside the workplace. The ability to disagree, engage in honest, candid dialogue, and still stay connected would prevent a lot of conflict. 

This ability for leaders is crucial to creating cultures of open and candid dialogue. By taking a position that may not be popular (which is how all innovation or improvement usually begins) a leader is encouraging others to do the same. It is then in the clash of these views and perspectives that the best solutions are typically found. The alternative is the common groupthink behavior that stifles and hinders progress. 

To this point, healthy leaders don’t have a problem with apologizing when necessary. Even when they don’t really need to, they do it because it will alleviate stress or controversy. I recall a time when I made what turned out to be a controversial decision (the right decision, but one that was hard for my organization to swallow). Being a blogger, I wrote a blog post for my staff entitled “Just get over it!” My intention was to explain the decision further and then encourage people to move on.

Unfortunately, many took offense at the blog title. I apologized (though I didn’t need to, but I wanted to lower the angst) and wrote a new blog titled “Build a Bridge and get over it.” It was a way to apologize for how my prior communication had come across and give me another chance to move us forward. It worked, but I had to apologize for it to work.

Healthy leaders keep short accounts. One of my practices is to “Walk toward the barking dog.” If I have offended someone or created an issue, rather than walking the other direction, I will engage the individual, seek understanding, and do whatever is necessary to put the issue to rest so we can move on.

These may seem like small things, but they are not. Much of our leadership capital is based on relationships. The ability to negotiate healthy win-win relationships is a key to good leadership and reflects good EQ.

Becoming aware of our own Leadership derailers

If you lead others, there is a good chance that you also struggle with leadership derailers. Actually, every leader does. The question is not whether they have potential derailers but whether they know what their derailers might be. 

Derailers are behaviors, words, actions, or responses that prevent us from acting maturely as leaders.  For instance, the CEO who does not like to be challenged and responds defensively when they are, shutting down critical discussions that senior teams need to have, is dealing with derailment behavior. His/her defensive behavior is a derailer. The behavior is immature leadership, which could threaten their ability to lead well.

Leaders who do not accept and even solicit feedback from others exhibit derailing tendencies. Their lack of receptiveness to the input of those they work with prevents them from seeing themselves clearly and the state of the organization they lead. Their inability to listen to others and accept feedback creates a toxic environment because candid dialogue cannot be had, and real issues cannot be addressed.

Ironically, it takes the input of others to help us understand our derailing tendencies, where our leadership is coming from immature emotional intelligence rather than mature. It highlights the importance of leaders being inquisitive about their own emotional intelligence, receptive to feedback from others, and committed to addressing the derailing tendencies that negatively impact their team members. 

Here is something to consider. Most derailers are not about competency but rather about the emotional intelligence of the leader and how their EQ hurts their leadership, the organization, and those they work with.

It is relatively easy to recognize the derailers in other leaders because we have experienced them. It is often harder to see them in ourselves because we are used to our tendencies. This is where we need people around us who we give permission to speak into our lives and leadership. 

Leadership derailers can be simple, such as the tendency to not solicit feedback from others or ask the kinds of questions that would give us insights into what is truly happening in the organization or team we lead. They can also be more complex, such as narcissistic tendencies that elevate our own leadership at the expense of others. In either case, it comes down to an EQ issue where we have a needed growth opportunity. Derailers hurt our leadership, and they hurt those we lead if not recognized and addressed. 

When I led teams and organizations, I would periodically ask my associates if I did anything that really irritated them. Is there anything I am doing that you think others should do? Is there anything you wish you could discuss with someone, but haven't felt free to do so? In this way, I was being proactive in soliciting feedback and permitting them at the same time to speak candidly.

In the Intelligent Leadership coaching of the John Mattone Global organization, we help leaders understand their leadership styles' relative maturity or immaturity to move toward healthier leadership. This is achieved through a combination of healthy discussions, testing, 360-degree feedback, personal development plans, and a coaching process designed to foster the learning of new behaviors.

The challenge for anyone who leads others is to give permission and opportunity for those around us to speak candidly with us about potential derailers in our leadership. It could make the difference between a highly successful leadership tenure and one that comes off the tracks prematurely.

 

How organizations can inadvertently compromise the quality of their service

 

Almost every organization I have worked with would  say that they are committed to quality work internally and quality services externally but often the reality does not live up to the goal. This is particularly true among non-profits but it is not only resident there. Often it is the result of several overlooked factors that inadvertently compromise the quality of their work.

One of the first things that comes to mind is that of poor hiring methods. When we hire without doing do diligence to the qualifications of the applicant or the skill fit we often end up paying a steep price later. There is an adage that says "hire slow and fire fast" and it has great merit to it. Many organizations don't realize the bottom line impact poor hires have on them. First, unqualified individuals do not make the organization look good. Second, it takes more unqualified individuals to get the job done than one highly qualified individual. Thus there is both a financial and service quality variable in our hiring practices.

In addition when we choose to compensate below the fair market value of a job we drastically reduce the number of qualified candidates who will consider working for us. Here is the irony.  We end up hiring more individuals to do a job than we need because we got what we were willing to pay for. So in an attempt to save money in salaries we actually spend more money than we needed to. This is particularly true with churches and Christian non-profits but it can be found in the for profit sector as well.

Another common mistake is to pay too little attention to the Emotional Intelligence (EQ) of those we hire. Even highly competent individuals can hurt the organization if they exhibit poor EQ. They can hurt others on the team internally and create issues with customers externally. Considerable attention ought to be given to the issue of an individual's EQ in the hiring process as well as in ongoing education in this area. For more on Emotional Intelligence see "Signs of good and bad EQ."

Finally, in the desire to save money, some organizations do not provide the necessary tools to staff to get their job done efficiently. This can be training, technology and software or the necessary ongoing mentoring. It is unfortunate that the investment already made in these staff is lost when they either choose to leave or cannot fulfill their job with excellence because of the neglect of their supervisor.

None of these actions are meant to hurt the quality of an organizations work but all do so inadvertently. My philosophy has always been to hire slow and well, pay competitively, give staff the tools they need and have as few staff as necessary. You can do that with the right staff.

It only takes one person to hurt a team

 One of the realities of teams is that it takes only one individual who is not in alignment with the rest of the team to significantly impact the unity of the team. This can be a result of any number of issues. For instance, they:

• may not be in agreement with the direction of the team or organization
• do not pull their own weight in terms of productivity and results
• may have attitudes that are counterproductive to a healthy team: cynicism, sarcasm, lack of trust, or some other unhelpful attitude
• may like to do their own thing and are not committed to working as a productive team member
• may have Emotional Intelligence (EQ) issues that disrupt the health of the team
• may not be teachable or coachable
• may be very smart and successful but will not cooperate with others
• may be a team leader who does not know how to lead

Here is the reality. It takes only one member of the team (paid or volunteer) to pull down the rest of the team and take a huge emotional toll on the other team members.  All of this hurts the overall missional effectiveness of the organization and creates discouragement among team members.

Ministries often ignore these situations in the name of "grace." We hope they will go away, but they rarely do without intentional and direct intervention. When we do not resolve these negative behaviors, we unfairly punish the rest of the team, who must live with the unhealth of one member, and we hurt the missional effectiveness of the organization.

If you have a situation where a team member is not in sync and is hurting the team, consider these options.

Provide very direct and immediate feedback in person and follow up in writing indicating the problems and the necessary changes that are necessary if they are to continue to play a role on the team and in the ministry. Be direct, honest, and defining. Indirect communication is unlikely to work in these situations.

Establish time parameters in which the issues must be resolved, or they will be placed on a probationary status. If they need additional coaching during this time, provide it and always give honest, direct feedback verbally and in writing.

If there is not adequate progress, place the individual on a probationary status (in writing - always document) with the understanding that if there is no appropriate resolution, they will not be able to continue on the team or with the organization.

Be willing to let them go and transition them out of the organization if they do not meet the requirements of the probationary period.

Your willingness as a leader to take appropriate steps in cases like this sends a powerful message to the rest of your team that you care about their health and the health of the organization. When one does not take these steps, the opposite message is sent - and clearly read that our organization does not take health seriously. Other staff have reason to be unhappy if unhealthy, emotionally unwell, or unproductive team members are left in place. What it says to the rest of the team is that they are not valued. Lack of action also fuels cynicism toward leadership and their unwillingness to deal with situations that are at odds with organizational values.

The emotional and energy toll that is paid for allowing an unhealthy team member to continue is higher than we realize until the issue has been resolved and we finally realize the price we paid. Don't allow one individual to pull the rest of the team down.

Questions to ask about the intellectual capacity and EQ of potential board members

Serving on a board, church or otherwise, requires a special intellectual capacity or ability. This is not about education - many educated people have limited intellectual capacity and many who lack higher education have it along with good common sense.

It is the ability to think conceptually, to visualize what could be rather than simply what is, to be able to focus on the big picture and concepts rather than on the small picture and details and enough personal flexibility to be open to new ideas, and work constructively with other board members. It is also the ability to entrust staff to do what they must do and to always be pushing the missional agenda of the church or organization. It includes the ability to problem solve in creative ways rather than simply to fall back on what they have seen before in another church or organization.

Not everyone can do that and too often we bring well meaning, even Godly individuals onto our boards who actually hinder progress by their narrow views, inability to think conceptually and who believe that board work is guarding the status quo and controlling staff. Those who have worked on boards with people who do not have the intellectual skills enumerated above know how frustrating that can be. 

Among other considerations you may have in choosing board members it is helpful to ask the following kinds of questions:

• Do they think big picture of small picture (You want them to think big picture)
• Can they engage the future of the organization or simply deal with status quo? (You want them to think future)
• Do they exhibit personal flexibility or are they inflexible in their thinking? (You want them to be flexible)
• When problem solving do they see all the pieces or just some of the pieces? (You want them to think of all the pieces)
• Do they like to micromanage or empower? (You want them to empower)
• Can they trust staff or do they need to know everything before staff can act? (You want them to trust)
• Do they work synergistically with others or do they need things their way? (You want them to work synergistically)
• Do they think missionally or like to deal with inconsequential issues? (You want them to think missionally)
• Are they articulate and thoughtful or confusing and quick to make judgements? (You want them to be articulate and thoughtful)
• Do they exhibit personal humility or are they proud and overbearing? (You want them to exhibit humility)
• Do they have all the answers or are they open to discussion and flexible in the solution? (You want them to be open and flexible)
• Are they able to negotiate conflict or are they black and white and tend to see winners and losers. (You want them to be able to negotiate conflict well)
• Are they generally positive or negative in their outlook on life? (You want positive people who believe good things can happen.

These are matters of EQ and intellectual capacity and they directly impact the health and effectiveness of a board and therefor the organization the board serves. Again, it is not about educational level. It is about the ability to think well and understand the big picture of the organization - in order to help it move forward. Think about the board members you know who do this well and those who lack these skills. There is a difference! The quality of your leadership is only as good as the leaders you choose.

Creating cultures of excellence
AddingtonConsulting.org

Two key reasons for confict within organizations

Think about these equations:

Healthy people + wrong role = conflict

Unhealthy people + wrong role = conflict

Unhealthy people + right role = conflict

Healthy people + right role = effectiveness

These equations illustrate three truths. First, it explains why conflict is so prevalent within organizations. Second, it illustrates the importance of hiring healthy individuals who have good EQ and understand how to relate to others in healthy ways. Third, it reminds us that even healthy people when they are in the wrong role can create conflict with people around them.

The keys to avoiding conflict are having healthy individuals in a role that is consistent with their wiring. When this is compromised, conflict is likely to result.

Unhealthy individuals, especially in leadership roles create conflict regularly. It can be a result of poor or non-existent people skills, inability to resolve differences or conflict, poor self awareness, hubris and a quest for power or any number of EQ (Emotional Intelligence) issues that leaves a wake of relational issues behind them.

When hiring, pay close attention to EQ skills and deficits. If you miss something and find that an individual leaves relational issues in their wake, get them coaching and if that does not work, move them to a position where they will not cause conflict. Don't allow an individual to create ongoing issues within your organization. It is counter productive, will hurt your return on mission and is unfair to staff who are impacted.

What about conflict with healthy individuals who are cast in the wrong role? This is conflict based in the skill set of the individual and not in their Emotional Intelligence. For instance, you can have a leader who does not know how to delegate, who micromanages, who changes their minds on a regular basis, who has no definable strategy and we could go on. This is not because they are unhealthy people. It is because they are in a job that is inconsistent with their wiring.

Getting the right people into the right role is absolutely critical to building a healthy organization. If you need to make adjustments for this to happen - do it. The alternative of conflict is a trade off you don't want to make.

Overestimating our skill and underestimating our weaknesses

It should not be a surprise that we are often prone to overestimate our skill and underestimate our weaknesses. This can have the affect of trusting our instincts too much in the first instance and not understanding how our weaknesses impact others in the second. 

Take for instance, an individual who is good at strategy. Because they have skill in determining strategy they can downplay the input of others, trusting their own analysis and conclusions. Yet, no one has the ability to think of all the consequences of any strategy or anticipate all the variables that can impact its success. Thus by not listening to others this leader is hurting the organization in their overconfidence in their own abilities. Their good ideas can fail because they overestimated their skill. 

It is not unusual for highly skilled individuals to fail to bring others into the conversation - a weakness born out of confidence and a perceived lack of need of others. In their overconfidence they also underestimate the impact of not listening to those around them. Few things are more demotivating than to give helpful and valid input to a plan and to have their leader either ignore it or dismiss it as irrelevant. 

In both cases the organization is served poorly - as well as people in the process. 

Pride plays a role in this equation. We like to think the best of ourselves and our abilities but we should also be realistic. Healthy individuals with good EQ understand their strengths and weaknesses as well as the shadow side of both. That awareness allows them to compensate for their weaknesses and ensure that they don't over rely on their strengths. In fact, that is a pretty good definition of a humble individual. They have a realistic view of themselves. 

How do we avoid these tendencies? One is to be aware of them and to ensure that we involve and listen to others. The second key is to solicit feedback from those we really trust. Feedback from others is an absolute essential part of growing our EQ as there are things we don't see about ourselves and never will unless others point them out. In order to hear feedback, however, we need to overcome our natural defensiveness. 

Often we are afraid that soliciting feedback is a sign of weakness. It is actually a sign of strength. We have the desire and courage to receive feedback. Only strong people do that.

Emotional Intelligence and it's correlation with organizational culture.

It is a given that the Emotional Intelligence of an organization is the sum of the EQ of its members. In other words, the organization's EQ reflects the general emotional health of its people. When I ask people about the culture of their workplace, they can quickly identify the positive and the negative aspects of their organization. What they often don't realize is that they are describing the EQ of those who work there. 

In effect, the EQ of the organization (which reflects the EQ of the individuals within the organization) creates the organizational culture. There is a direct correlation between EQ and culture. So, if one is going to change the organizational culture it becomes necessary to grow the EQ of its members. 

For instance, if one has a culture that is rife with gossip, back stabbing, unhealthy competition, conflict and people taking credit when they should not or blaming others when they are to blame one has a dysfunctional culture that reflects poor Emotional Intelligence among its members. The core issue is not the culture but the people who make up that culture and their level of emotional health.

The lower the EQ of the staff, the more dysfunctional the organization is. The higher the EQ of staff, the healthier the organizational culture. And the culture almost always reflects an organization's leadership as people take their cues from leaders.

Because we don't often think of organizational culture as related to the EQ of its members, we become frustrated with our inability to deal with issues in our organizational culture. However, by teaching and coaching in EQ we can directly impact the culture of the organization in healthy ways. 

All cultures have positive and negative aspects to them. Take a moment and think about the problematic areas of the culture of your team or organization and armed with that knowledge, do some teaching and coaching in the requisite areas of EQ that are involved in the problematic areas.

For examples of the signs of good and poor EQ, click here.

Core issues every leader needs to pay attention to

Almost all leaders struggle with some core issues related to their leadership. Maturing in our leadership role requires us to resolve these core issues and manage them – if we cannot fully deal with them.

The first is the need to be loved and accepted. This is a universal need of course, but leaders who need to be loved and accepted by those they lead set themselves up to fail. Good leadership is about calling others to something higher than themselves. That will mean creating discontent in the status quo which will inevitably mean that leaders will not always be popular or loved. In addition, a need to be loved by those we lead makes it difficult to push into areas of needed growth by our subordinates. Fear of being unpopular will keep me from pushing into difficult subjects and difficult issues.

Remember, there are many ways to fulfill our need for love and acceptance: God, spouse, family, friends, and even our dog. But for a leader, while being loved by those we lead is a perk it is not always going to happen. Counterintuitively, respect comes to a leader when they have been willing to call the organization to a higher purpose, often against the grain of the status quo.

A second and critical issue all leaders must deal with is to train our minds and emotions to not take issues personally. We need to see issues as separate from us and allow free discussion regarding those issues without taking it personally. In fact, the warning signal that we are taking it personally is that we become defensive – which means that we have made the issue about us and thus feel a need to defend our position. Once we have made the issue about us, if we don’t get our way, we lose and none of us like to lose.

What usually loses when we make issues personal is the mission we are going after. If we can learn that the mission is not about us and to depersonalize differences of ideas and strategies, we will be able to invite the best of people’s thinking and remain free from defensiveness. Any time we are feeling defensive we have allowed the issue to be about us rather than the mission.

And then there is the issue of pride: thinking that my views are the best and my answers better than those of others. The problem with pride is that it becomes a filter through which we see life and leadership and the filter is faulty. It keeps us from hearing the truth when others share it, fools us into thinking that we are right when we are not and prevents our own growth and development.

Wise leaders, therefore cultivate trusted relationships where they can get honest feedback, cultivate an open atmosphere on their team where all ideas can be put on the table and cultivate introspection to ensure that they are developing humility over pride.

All three of these core issues for leaders need to be paid attention to all the time. Being able to manage them brings freedom, growth and allows us to lead from a healthier place.

Five EQ skills that can transform a team or organization

The average level of Emotional Intelligence (EQ) within an organization or team has a direct impact on the success of that group. The higher the EQ skills of a team, the better they relate, the more candid they are, the less conflict they have, and the health of relationships is stronger. All of these contribute to greater cooperation, more innovative thinking, cooperation, and a lack of infighting and politics. This also applies to boards and in the church world to congregations.

There are five EQ skills that can literally transform a team or organization if leadership focuses on them, trains their staff, and communicates these skills regularly. These five skills can be learned, but we must also unlearn some unhelpful habits to get to a place of health.

The first skill is that of self-definition. Self-defined individuals think for themselves rather than simply taking the party line, verbalize their views even when it may be lonely, and do not worry what others might think of them. They are secure in who they are and what they believe. Innovation experts say that this skill, along with a culture that invites it is one of the most significant keys to innovation.

The second skill follows from the first. It is the ability of a team to engage in robust dialogue where any issue can be put on the table, with the exception of personal attacks or hidden agendas. Where this does not happen, it is almost exclusively the fault of leaders who are threatened by direct dialogue that might rock the boat. The ability to engage in robust dialogue invites ideas, observations, and innovation, while the inability kills both ideas and innovation.

A third skill is essential to the first two, and that is a non-defensive attitude on the part of all team members. It is an attitude of "nothing to prove and nothing to lose" where we do not have to be right and where we approach our work with open rather than closed minds. Defensiveness shuts down conversation, whereas non-defensiveness invites conversation, ideas, dreams, innovation, and the ability to look at situations with new eyes.

The fourth skill comes into play when we don't do the first three as well as we could: conflict resolution: the ability to quickly address conflict, de-escalate the issue, look for a win-win solution, and normalize the relationship. Conflict is not bad. Unaddressed conflict, however, is toxic. Think of the mental and emotional energy that is spent in unresolved conflict. People can be taught how to resolve conflict and to think of it in three steps: address it, look for a win/win solution, and normalize the relationship.

The fifth EQ skill that can transform a team or organization is the simple agreement to ban gossip. Gossip is the transmission of second or third-hand information to others that is prejudicial or first-hand information that is harmful and which need not be shared. All gossip is toxic to relationships, teams, and organizations so a concerted effort should be made to eradicate it.

Take a moment and think about what your team or organization would look like with these five skills being lived out by all members. They can be taught and practiced, and over time, they will transform your team or organization.

Ways that organizations inadvertently compromise the quality of their services

Almost every organization I have worked with would  say that they are committed to quality work internally and quality services externally but often the reality does not live up to the goal. This is particularly true among non-profits but it is not only resident there. Often it is the result of several overlooked factors that inadvertently compromise the quality of their work.

One of the first things that comes to mind is that of poor hiring methods. When we hire without doing do diligence to the qualifications of the applicant or the skill fit we often end up paying a steep price later. There is an adage that says "hire slow and fire fast" and it has great merit to it. Many organizations don't realize the bottom line impact poor hires have on them. First, unqualified individuals do not make the organization look good. Second, it takes more unqualified individuals to get the job done than one highly qualified individual. Thus there is both a financial and service quality variable in our hiring practices.

In addition when we choose to compensate below the fair market value of a job we drastically reduce the number of qualified candidates who will consider working for us. Here is the irony.  We end up hiring more individuals to do a job than we need because we got what we were willing to pay for. So in an attempt to save money in salaries we actually spend more money than we needed to. This is particularly true with churches and Christian non-profits but it can be found in the for profit sector as well.

Another common mistake is to pay too little attention to the Emotional Intelligence (EQ) of those we hire. Even highly competent individuals can hurt the organization if they exhibit poor EQ. They can hurt others on the team internally and create issues with customers externally. Considerable attention ought to be given to the issue of an individual's EQ in the hiring process as well as in ongoing education in this area. For more on Emotional Intelligence see "Signs of good and bad EQ."

Finally, in the desire to save money, some organizations do not provide the necessary tools to staff to get their job done efficiently. This can be training, technology and software or the necessary ongoing mentoring. It is unfortunate that the investment already made in these staff is lost when they either choose to leave or cannot fulfill their job with excellence because of the neglect of their supervisor.

None of these actions are meant to hurt the quality of an organizations work but all do so inadvertently. My philosophy has always been to hire slow and well, pay competitively, give staff the tools they need and have as few staff as necessary. You can do that with the right staff.