By Amy Remmele

Amy Remmele is a personal and professional consultant, with her formal education and degree in Psychology. Amy co-owns Peak Of Success with her husband and business partner, Dr. Kent Bath. They are the authors of the book, Re-Phrase It: Adding Empathy and Emotional Intelligence to Your Everyday Life, the professionally produced six-hour self-help video, Life Enhancement, and the relationship workbook, Empathy, Communication and Conflict Resolution Home Study Program. Amy and Kent provide assessments, seminars, counseling and consultation to individuals, schools and businesses. Amy is the Convener of the Amherst Task Force for Healthy Communities and on the advisory board of the Small Business Council of the Amherst Chamber of Commerce. Amy balances her career with being the mother of a 14-year-old daughter and 9-year-old twin sons. Amy can be reached at 716-626-5977.

Ask the Life Coach
Answering Life’s
Important Questions

I welcome your questions. They can be emailed to amy@peakofsuccess.com or sent to Amy Remmele, “Ask the Life Coach,” 331 Alberta Dr., Amherst, NY 14226.

I welcome your questions. They can be emailed to amy@peakof success.com or sent to Amy Remmele, “Ask the Life Coach,” 331 Alberta Dr., Amherst, NY 14226.

“Accidental Leaders”

Being a business owner and a member and committee member in many organizations, I get a very good look at the process for choosing leadership. The bad news is that most of the time the process looks the same as on the playground or in a sorority. In other words, leaders are chosen because of charisma, who they know, good looks, style, status or popularity. Very few of the organizations have leaders who were chosen based on the true criteria of a good leader. And very few of the organizations have any formal training for what a leader should look like. When Hillary Clinton, intelligent, articulate and well educated, was running for the presidential nomination, many women made comments about the way she dressed. When it comes time to make life and death decisions, I hope to God the person making them isn’t thinking about whether her shoes match her outfit.

But enough about the bad choices. Let’s take a look at the qualities we really need to consider when electing or appointing a leader. When looking to fill any position, from marathon runner to “king of the world,” there are three elements that the person must possess: the natural talent; the requisite, relevant skills and knowledge; and the passion. So what are the natural talents to look for in a leader? Yes, some charisma is necessary, at least enough to get people to listen. Too much charisma, though, usually means that something else is being ignored or covered up. Does the person know how to listen as well as getting people to listen? I mean really listen with empathy. Can they tell you what your organization’s deepest wants and needs are? When “followers” speak, can your leader truly understand them and then prove it by echoing it back and even identifying what was only said “between the lines?” Listening is not just accidental. It is an art and a skill that must be honed and then kept sharp. And it is absolutely essential for leaders not merely to be good, but great at it.

How is your chosen leader at speaking? They must be an excellent public speaker, able to address large groups without pontification, stumbling or nervousness, and they must be able to express their ideas assertively and succinctly. Be very cautious on this last point. There are fine lines between unassertiveness, assertiveness and aggression. I am on a committee with a woman in the community that often attains leader positions and respect that I can only guess are due to her money making. She is abrasive and whenever she makes points in meetings, she yells them. Remember that this behavior comes from pathology, either the overwhelming need to be right or the desperate fear of not being heard. Not good leader characteristics! Consider also very carefully that while a person may be well connected and know all the right people, he or she may scare away and/or alienate enough of the rank and file members of an organization that the foundation crumbles. I think we can all look back at leaders who drained an organization’s membership roles or who caused good employees to run to other companies. Then there are those on the other end of the assertiveness spectrum, the ones who are known as “nice.” Whenever you hear the descriptor “nice” about a prospect, stop! Unassertive leaders are far more dangerous than aggressive ones because they don’t seem dangerous. Good leaders must have a balance between compassion and toughness. A good bus driver must not tolerate “bad” passengers, and he or she must have what it takes to ask them to leave or if necessary even make them leave. While leaders must be likeable, if there is too much focus on being liked and not ruffling feathers, the bus may go careening off a cliff.

So, let’s assume that you have someone who knows how to listen and how to get others to listen, and is charismatic enough to draw attention, but is not addicted to attention (nothing worse than a leader who is all about “me, me and me”). Now what? Is this person reliable and does he or she hold others to schedules and commitments? Does he balance doing jobs himself and getting them done by delegating? And when he delegates, does he micromanage or can he give the reins that need to be given to others? Can your leader choice make decisions, or does she vacillate between possibilities, unable to take risks? Perhaps she takes so many risks that everyone feels like they are on a carnival ride. Related to this, does your prospective leader gather about the right amount of input and data and then make a decision, or does he delay decisions by seeking information beyond what is useful? Can your choice of a leader take an idea from conception to completion? Or does she come up with idea after idea and just keep jumping around so that the end result is nothing done and way too many “open” projects? And, finally, does your leader choice have the passion it takes to be a great leader? Does he love to lead and to be engaged at that level? Can you see the twinkle in the eyes whenever he or she is at a podium or working on a team project? And is the passion about the leadership and not about the “me?”

We now have a fairly complete profile of a good leader. So when you create a nominating committee to make suggestions for the leadership of your organization, do they have a rubric, a book, some training? Do they have anything to guide them in their decision? If not, then your process is flawed. You are probably ending up with leaders who are popular, well-connected, stylish and charismatic, but whose leadership characteristics are secondary or non-existent. Even if your nominating committee has guidelines that they are following, have they been trained or counseled to beware of “blink” responses? In other words, do they know how to look beyond the automatically attractive characteristics (looks, money, connections) and seek the real leader traits in the people they are considering? In the music world, symphonies now audition musicians behind a curtain because they could not stop the bias toward men playing certain instruments (such as trombones) even when selectors were told not to consider gender. Biases are very strong and must be considered whenever we are making decisions. If you doubt the insidious power of biases, read Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. If you or your group is looking at the “package,” then you are probably missing much of what is inside. Related to this issue is the blink response favoring those who are or have been in leadership positions. I recently heard a woman talk to others about being asked to speak at a local university on “Women and Leadership.” Now this woman has been in a leadership position of a local women’s group that chooses leaders in the manner I discussed in the first paragraph, with no guidelines. Yet here she is, being revered as a “leader” just because she has the label. Beware of the halo we perceive around incumbents!

Before we end, let’s take a look at the bias toward money and success. It may look on the surface that a person who runs a multimillion dollar business or builds a great empire must be a good leader. Think again. Unless you go inside the machine of the organization, you cannot know whether they are making far less than could be made for that enterprise, or ruining lives just to make money. Maybe a better leader could generate ten times the profits or make money and make others happy. When looking at the pyramids of Egypt, you may draw the conclusion that it took great leaders to accomplish such a feat. Until you realize that they were built by slaves!

Amy Remmele is a personal and professional consultant, working with people who want to overcome the roadblocks to success. She has her formal education and degree in Psychology. Amy authored the book, Chief Life Officer: Your Life Is The Most Important Business You’ll Ever Own and co-authored Re-Phrase It: Adding Empathy and Emotional Intelligence to Your Everyday Life, and the relationship workbook, Empathy, Communication and Conflict Resolution Home Study Program with her husband and business partner, Dr. Kent Bath. Amy and Kent provide assessments, seminars, counseling and consultation to individuals and businesses. Amy can be reached at 716-626-5977 or visiting her website at www.peakofsuccess.com.