The Affirmation Principle: How Effective Leaders Bring out the Best in People

By Bernard M. Curtis

Take a look in any bookstore, whether on line or brick-and-mortar, and you will fi nd
dozens, even hundreds of books on leadership. But the focus of most of these books
will be on the mechanics of leading. But leadership is more than the act of leading.
Leadership is about the quality of relationships and infl uence.
In The Affi rmation Principle, Dr. Bernard Curtis advances the proposition that
organizations can bring out the best in people and achieve extraordinary success by
understanding how to lead and care for the human spirit. Dr. Curtis begins by presenting
the business case for the importance of organizations to understand the benefi ts of
valuing people. In part one he explores the unstated contract between employees and
employers, describes what organizations must do to connect with their people, and
challenges leaders to have the courage to change. In part two, he shares a new concept
and model of leadership based on human-affi rming behaviors and sound humane
principles. In part three, Dr. Curtis shows how leaders value to the organization can be
measured, how they can become more accountable, and what they can do to bring out
the best in their people.
The Affi rmation Principle offers some keen insights into the leader-follower relationship.
This book provides some new tools to help the serious leader take their leadership thinking
and skills to the next level.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 19, 2012
• ISBN: 9781479707935

Bernard M. Curtis

Bernard M. Curtis is founder and president of Human Development Strategies, a leadership training and development company in Austin, Texas. He has been an educator and developer of organizational leaders for more than 20 years. Bernard has developed and facilitated leadership skills training for such companies as AT&T Broadband, ITT Sheraton Corp., Ingram Micro Inc., Sun Healthcare Group, and Unifi ed Grocers, Inc. He also provides coaching and mentoring for organizational leaders through the use of intense dialogue, 360-degree feedback assessments, and continual training. As an educator, Bernard has taught executive education and leadership development courses at California State University, Long Beach (CSULB) and organizational leadership courses at University of California, Irvine (UCI) extension. He specializes in leadership training, executive coaching, team development, and organizational effectiveness. Bernard earned his doctorate in organizational leadership from Pepperdine University, Malibu, California.

Book preview

Copyright © 2012 by Bernard M. Curtis, Ed.D.

Library of Congress Control Number:       2012915814

ISBN:             Hardcover                     978-1-4797-0792-8

                        Softcover                       978-1-4797-0791-1

                        Ebook                             978-1-4797-0793-5

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

110391

CONTENTS

Introduction

PART ONE THE SPIRIT OF LEADERSHIP

1 Leading The Human Spirit

2 Valuing Human Dignity

3 The New Employee Contract

4 Organizations With Soul

5 The Courage To Lead Others

PART TWO LEADING THROUGH AFFIRMATION

6 The Case For Human-Affirming Leadership

7 Leadership: The Human-Affirming Approach

8 Challenging Your Beliefs About Leadership

9 Principles To Lead By

10 Leadership Is About Relationship

11 Building Trust Through Affirmation

12 Affirmation Through Coaching And Development

PART THREE THE HUMAN-AFFIRMING LEADER

13 Value Of The Human-Affirming Leader

14 Affirmation Through Personal Accountability

15 Bringing Out The Best In Others

Dedication

To my wife and best friend, Theresa, who affirms me every day of my life; and to the memory of my mother, Lois Louise Jones, who instilled in me great personal values that continue to serve me well.

INTRODUCTION

This book is about improving the relationship between leaders and followers. It is about helping you get the best from your people by understanding the importance of the relationship that you have with them. The relationship between leaders and followers is critical to the success of any organization. The dilemma for many organizational leaders is how to reconcile the need for control with the need to maximize work output, which they realize requires the employees to be internally motivated.

Of course there is no magic algorithm that can be applied to human behavior. Humans are complex beings, and each time you encounter someone, they may respond to you differently and you may not always know what to expect from them. Nevertheless, as a leader you can develop more knowledge and skill about how to work with your people in a way that will give them more internal motivation and align their goals with those of the organization.

So this book is about helping you develop as a leader. But the only way that you can achieve excellence as a leader and move your organization to higher levels of accomplishment is to commit to working at it! Just reading this book will not be enough. Even if you agree with many of the concepts and highlighted passages that are important to you, you will still not achieve the excellence that you seek. To ascend to the next level of leadership that you desire, you must implement the concepts and work through the challenges presented here. You have to begin to live the principles that you believe are important.

Your personal leadership development requires you to take action. Doing it is doing it! There is no substitute for taking action. Learning about it is not doing it. Thinking about it is not doing it. Talking about it is not doing it. And planning for it is not doing it. Only doing it is doing it!

If you are serious about maximizing your learning and increasing your leadership competence, the process model below will prove to be a valuable tool. The model can be used not only for leadership development but for maximizing your learning where the approach is heuristic. The heuristic method of learning requires a person to engage in self-discovery, personal exploration, individual understanding, experimentation, and solve problems on their own. This is the nature of the learning that you will be required to undertake if you want to continually develop as a leader. Given the heuristic nature of leadership development, consider the following process.

Maximizing%20Personal%20Development%20-%20Fig%201.jpg

Figure I-1. Maximizing Personal Development

This model consists of four major steps in maximizing your learning: (1) experiencing a developmental event, (2) internalizing new learning, (3) constructing meaning and application, and (4) implementing behavioral change. There are also two subprocesses: process scaffolding and application scaffolding. Let’s begin with a discussion of the first step, experiencing a developmental event. Whether it is leadership development or any other personal learning challenge, the first thing that happens is having a new experience. A new developmental event can be a workshop, a seminar you attend, a crisis you have to handle, a problem to be solved, or even reading a self-help book. You can probably think of many more activities that create an opportunity for learning. Each of these and more provide you with an occasion to experience an event that gives you a chance to learn. Often the event that you are experiencing may not seem like a learning opportunity, but you are always learning even when you don’t realize it. It is important to be mindful of what is happening in your environment so that you recognize these critical learning moments.

But experiencing a developmental event is just the beginning. Once you experience a developmental opportunity (and here we’re talking about reading this book), then it becomes necessary to internalize the new learning. As you read the chapters, you will discover some things that you might want to change, rethink, analyze, explore, or even do over. You internalize the new learning by taking it to heart and giving it serious consideration. You consider the new information important enough to believe that it could be beneficial to you and actually make your life better. But how do you begin constructing meaning and application from this new learning that you have embraced? The first step is to think about your current situation and find ways that the new learning links to what you are now doing. Here is an example. Roger Heflin, a customer service manager, attended a leadership workshop on personal accountability. He learned that there are several behaviors that he has exhibited in the past that showed nonaccountability. He learned that some strategies for avoiding accountability were reneging, rectifying, retreating and resisting.

During the training session, Roger took this learning to heart and realized that he needed to change his behavior and create a culture where accountability was the foundation of all actions in his organization. To construct meaning out of this learning, Roger began to reflect on all of the situations he could think of where he was avoiding accountability. He took the time to actually document several cases for both himself and his people. This exercise in reflection and documentation is called process scaffolding and was how he constructed meaning from the learning. He linked the learning to what was actually happening in his real world. There are many ways that you can build a scaffold to effect your transition from internalizing new learning to constructing meaning. Build whatever process you need to link these two steps.

Now it’s time to move from constructing meaning to actually implementing the change. Before you implement any change in your behavior or interactions with your employees, it is important to build the application scaffold. The scaffold is the framework or structure that is used to assist you in building your new learning. Just like in process scaffolding, where you used reflection and documentation to build a bridge between internalizing new learning and constructing relevant meaning, application scaffolding is used to move your learning to the action phase. This action phase is implementing the changes that you have determined are beneficial. As an example of application scaffolding, our customer service manager Roger Heflin might want to structure a communications framework with his people to help him deliver the message of increased accountability. That scaffolding might also include a process for allowing them to explore ways to bring more accountability to the workplace and giving them a voice in implementation. Scaffolding is important because too many managers come away from a learning experience and want to simply start being different. This will confuse your people, and it provides them no opportunity for a buy-in. When implementing changes in your interactions with your direct reports, seek to build a temporary framework that will facilitate building stronger relationships and trust.

As you read this book, be mindful of the opportunities for personal development and use the model to help you get the most out of your learning. I have divided the book into three parts. Part 1 is entitled The Spirit of Leadership and focuses on the relationship between leaders and followers. It challenges you to rethink how you perceive employees and what your organization provides for them. Part 2, Leading through Affirmation, presents an approach to leadership based on the principles of human-affirming behaviors. Part 3 examines the Human-affirming Leader and his or her value and accountability and what it takes to improve the relationship with and get the best from their people.

Your journey begins now, and I hope that you will take advantage of both the content of this book and the learning process. Please note that all assessments and exercises in this book can be downloaded for free at www.hdstrategies.com.

PART ONE

THE SPIRIT OF LEADERSHIP

Chapter 1

LEADING THE HUMAN SPIRIT

The traditional focus of leadership development, organizational management, and human resource professionals has been on using theories and concepts grounded in quantitative research. But many are beginning to realize that these theories, concepts, and practices without the element of the human spirit is like having a car without the engine; you have to push it to get it to move. When the human spirit of employees is recognized, acknowledged, and embraced, the organization moves forward without the push from external forces; the engine of the collective human spirit propels it forward.

What for the soul is allure, for the spirit is beauty.

Novalis

The reality is that leaders are actually leading the human spirit of each employee every day. People bring their knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) to the organization, but they also bring their individual spirit. It is a mistake to ignore this reality and function as though you are only leveraging the employees’ KSAs as just another resource to achieve organizational goals. A thesis on the human spirit is beyond the scope of this book, but it is important that I define what I mean by the human spirit. The human spirit is the intangible, internal, motivational essence of a person that generates the desire to connect, contribute, commit, or engage in any human activity, and to create what will be personally, organizationally, and socially beneficial. This internal motivational essence can be supported or suppressed, nurtured or nullified, encouraged or discouraged, affirmed or attacked by organizational leaders.

When negative leader behavior is used to damage the human spirit of employees, there will be a significant decrease in the employee’s internal motivation to commit to the organization’s goals and to contribute his or her best. The breaking of an employee’s spirit results in the elimination of any internal motivation, and the individual goes through the motions of performing with no hope for recognition, reward, or acknowledgement. There is nothing for the employee here except a paycheck, and that is not enough motivation to deliver extraordinary performance. The human spirit is the critical element in individual performance and contribution.

Those managers who believe that they have the power to make people do what they want done and to treat them any way they please in order to achieve organizational goals are operating based on a false premise. They assume that they can use power and force to get people to commit, contribute, and engage in an extraordinary way. It is possible to have short-term control over people’s lives and their bodies to accomplish some specified tasks. But these management approaches will never make it possible to control the individual’s mind and spirit. Because of economic challenges and limitations on personal finances, people will often stay with an organization for the paycheck. They will perform well enough to remain employed but will not contribute their essence. In other words, they will not be internally motivated to embrace the organization’s values, beliefs, mission, vision, or goals. If the mind and the spirit could be easily controlled, then every leader could comfortably manipulate followers to conform. All employees would then change their lives to work and behave according to what the leader wants. Fortunately that is not the case, and leaders must become enlightened and understand the importance of positively influencing the human spirit.

As human beings, we each have a mind and spirit that is separate from others, though we still have a connection with others. The enlightened leader knows that it is not easy to control the mind and spirit of another because one does not easily give away his or her freedom to think, reason, judge, or decide. The manager can influence the employee to work at a certain level of performance through rewards or punishment but cannot force anyone to change what is in their heart, mind, and spirit.

ALTRUISTIC LEADER AFFIRMATION

The more effective approach to connecting with employees and getting their best is through altruistic leader affirmation. Fundamentally, altruistic leader affirmation (ALA) is a framework of personal values, attitudes, beliefs, principles, and behaviors that creates a cultural environment of caring, concern, need satisfaction, and support, which are the drivers of increased follower commitment and connection, which then become the antecedents for increased organizational performance. ALA presumes a cause-and-effect relationship between leader behavior and employee performance. Based on the theories of John Locke, that which produces any simple or complex idea is named cause and that which is produced is effect. This means that to a significant degree, the level of employee performance (effect) is influenced by the behavioral interactions with the leader (cause). Having a sagacious understanding of this principle and embracing it as a guide to your leader/follower interactions will increase your ability to get the best from your people.

Altruistic leader affirmation is not theoretical but practical. It is an approach to leader/follower interactions that can produce significant improvements in workplace relationships and productivity. There continues to be research that shows a significant correlation between the behavior of leaders and employee productivity. There is also research that indicates that more effective leadership emanates from leaders with spiritual values; those leaders who take care of the needs of the human spirit in the workplace will produce outcomes that are favorable for both the organization and the individual. Below is a list of words that will help you understand what is meant by altruistic leader affirmation.

Words Associated with Altruism and Affirmation

Altruism is a way of being as evidenced by the leader’s desire to be generous, benevolent, unselfish, magnanimous, humane, considerate, and caring. Altruism is about having the courage to engage with employees in a way that affirms their humanity and their value. Affirmation is about actions. It is about confirming and approving the employee’s contribution, knowledge, skills, efforts, and successes. It is about acknowledging their commitment and correcting their failures in a way that says, I’m here to help you succeed. The challenge is to produce a change in your belief system about employees and what motivates them. ALA is not mysterious or complex, but it can be difficult. One must effectuate a change in thought and perspective in order to see the world of employees differently.

PROPERTIES OF ALTRUISTIC LEADER AFFIRMATION

The organization that creates and sustains a culture of altruistic leader affirmation will generate a sense of unity and alignment of purpose. Such organizations will have an environment that exudes an effortless, positive movement toward goals and a sense of unparalleled teamwork. The following properties of an organization with ALA provide an opportunity to examine your own organizational culture and assess the level of performance.

• A sense of connectedness

When observing any organization where ALA is ingrained in the culture, the phenomenon that will be most apparent is the emotional and psychological relationships between people. There will be a strong indication from everyone’s behavior that they understand each other’s role and their own link to each other and to the purpose of the organization. This sense of connectedness will show itself in people’s desire to support each other’s work and to share information. There will be no need for the manager to intervene and insist or even suggest that someone should help a coworker; the effort on the part of one employee to another will already be made. A lack of connectedness requires increased effort on the part of the manager to get people to work together. It also increases the probability of less than optimum work productivity.

• A sense of sanctuary

Organizations that are vibrant and create a great place for people to work will provide a sanctuary for employees. By sanctuary we do not mean a place for employees to seek refuge from a troubled world! What we mean is the creation of a place where employees are valued, supported, encouraged, affirmed, and respected. The workplace becomes a place where employees know that they will be treated fairly and justly and ethical behavior is a top priority. Employees know that they will not be asked to do things that are wrong, deceitful, unethical, or illegal. In their workplace they can rely on executives and managers to be trustworthy and as transparent as possible.

• A sense of well-being

An intangible but important property of ALA is the ability and personal motivation of each leader to ensure that each employee has a sense of well-being, i.e., knowing that they will be provided for in the areas of mental and physical health, as well as benefits that assist in having a balanced work life. The work environment is such that it creates a positive state of mind for the employee, which enables him or her to function effectively and efficiently and perform to maximum capacity. Employees feel good about themselves and others, and this supports the desire for connectedness within the organization.

• A sense of self-worth

Everyone wants to be valued. Everyone wants to be acknowledged and recognized for making a contribution. The organization with strong ALA will have created institutional and personal ways to show employees that they are valued and important. This may be done through the use of rewards, generous compensation packages, expansive health benefits, public recognition of accomplishments, and of course positive person-to-person interactions with managers and executives. However, these kinds of efforts should not be undertaken unless the organization has built a foundation of trust within the organization and these programs genuinely reflect the heart of the organizational leaders and managers.

• A sense of values alignment

The challenge that many organizations have is getting employees’ values aligned with the organization’s values. Values are those beliefs that propel a person to action. In the case of any organization that wants employees to accept its set of beliefs as their own and