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Overview
Barry Banther knows how to equip you for today’s business world because he knows what lasting leadership is made of. He has identified five qualities that aren’t things leaders have; rather, they are things they give away freely and frequently to everyone they lead in the workplace. By embracing and demonstrating the five qualities expounded in this book, you will become a leader who brings out the best in your associates, whether you’re a new manager or you occupy a C-suite office.
Banther consults with and trains the teams of CEOs of family-owned as well as Fortune 100 companies. He has been the lead consultant on more than 400 leadership development engagements and has written 50-plus leadership training programs that are used by companies worldwide. After a career in broadcasting and, later, teaching and administration at the college level, Banther served three Florida governors as their appointee to oversee private higher education and was elected to an unprecedented three terms as chairman of the Florida State Board of Independent Colleges and Universities.
Having learned the hard way—caring about numbers rather than people—Banther can tell you with confidence that when leaders put others first they themselves become more valuable to their team and their company than any authority or job title could ever mandate! That’s also the best way to grow your bottom line: deploy the right people with the right skills at the right time to create loyal and repeat customers!
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781626340565 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Greenleaf Book Group Press |
| Publication date: | 04/22/2014 |
| Edition description: | New Edition |
| Pages: | 192 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.90(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.90(d) |
| Age Range: | 3 Months to 18 Years |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Chapter 1 Sometimes it takes getting what you have always wanted to discover what you really need. I always wanted to be a manager. My earliest jobs as a kid convinced me that I wanted to be the one making the decisions and not just doing the work. And with one phone call to my house in Atlanta on a very bright June afternoon in 1975 it happened. On the other end of the phone was the owner of a chain of radio stations who was calling me back after an interview I had had with him a few weeks earlier. I was only twenty-three years old, but I had been working in broadcasting since my early teens. I knew what it took to produce the kind of programming that would draw an audience. The owner offered me the job as general manager of his broadcasting company in Baltimore. I had barely hung up the phone when I began to dance around my living room. My dream had come true! I was being given what I thought I wanted and needed—the reins of leadership. But what I really needed was to know how to be a leader, and my painful lessons on leadership were about to begin.I tried the traditional tools. Every new manager thinks he’s ready to be a leader. I certainly did. I had my folders all labeled: 90-day plan, employee review forms, short-term goals, financial goals, company policies and procedures. I was ready. There was nothing wrong with those file folders I had prepared for my new role as the radio station’s general manager. Planning, evaluations, and financial goals are important! But those items are not the most important topic a leader needs to consider in order to start out on the right foot. And that would be a folder labeled in all caps—PEOPLE! Had I picked up on a mentor’s hint she gave me before I left Atlanta, I might not have made the mistakes that I did in that first management role. “You mean that YOU are going to be the GENERAL MANAGER of the station?” I had stopped by to tell my first boss in broadcasting my great news before I left for Baltimore. At the time, I thought she was just surprised and happy for me. But I realize now that she was really suggesting I wasn’t up for the job. That even with all of my experience I was lacking something. Had I asked why she was shocked at my being named to the top spot she would probably have politely told me what I needed to hear: “You’re smart enough for the job, Barry, but if you want to lead people then you have a lot to learn about people.” And she would know. Grace and her husband Carol Lee hired me when I was fourteen. The Lees ran their small community station like stewards of a great community trust. They carried the only local news available to listeners in the area. And even though most of the local population would have preferred around-the-clock country music, Grace and Carol insisted on carrying a variety, from rock to easy listening and even some gospel now and again. Music wasn’t the only thing they broadcast. Each year there would be a “Rotary Day” when local Rotary Club members took turns as DJs for the day to raise money. The Lees were not just owners of this little radio station; they had become the heartbeat of the community. I realized how valuable they were to our town, but somehow I didn’t make the connection between the way they interacted with the townspeople and the way they led the two or three of us who worked for them. Each of us was more than an employee to them. They cared about my family and showed genuine interest in all the things I was involved in at the only high school in our county. I wish now that I had paid more attention to their example as leaders whose remarkable concern for others was more than just a strategy; it was who they were. Two days after saying good-bye to everyone I was on final approach to Baltimore/Washington International Airport. I still remember how proud I felt taking a plane to my new job. Most of my buddies back in Georgia traveled to work in their pickup truck. I gathered my luggage and went out to meet my new employee who had come to welcome me and give me a ride. I’ve wished a thousand times to have that ride from the airport to take over again. I would have used the opportunity to get to know this fellow and open up to him. I would have made every effort to send the message that not only was I willing to listen but that I needed to listen to him and the other employees if we were all to succeed together. I really wasn’t rude; I was just disinterested in him personally. I wanted to know about our competition. I wanted to know about our equipment and how well we were set up to expand. I wanted to know all the things that would be important to growing the station but had little to do with growing the team or my relationship with them. It’s been an ongoing fear of mine in subsequent decades that he would show up in a seminar I was leading or a conference where I was speaking on “lasting leadership.” In my nightmare, he jumps up in the middle of my presentation and starts shouting “HYPOCRITE!” And just when I start to explain to him that I changed and became a different kind of person, I wake up—usually in a cold sweat! Throughout our drive north past the city, I told him about my strategic plan and how I wanted to motivate the employees by using clear performance measures. I had ideas about how to improve our programming lineup and sell more airtime. Never once did I ask him a question about his job, his ideas, his aspirations. Thinking back on it, I recall that he didn’t respond directly to me but his body language was saying, “Who does this guy think he is?” He dropped me at my hotel and I got ready for day one of my new life. The owner of the station was in town and he had spent the prior few days dismissing the current general manager to make way for me—his new young protégé. He especially liked it that I could read the P&L statements and that I readily accepted his financial goals. For my part, I viewed authority as the key requirement to leading others, and he had given me the very title that would mean I had all the authority necessary. It takes more than the ability to read a P&L statement or the authority embedded in a title to be a leader who can last for more than a few years, however. Nevertheless, I honestly thought that if my staff would just do what I said we all would succeed financially as well as have wonderful careers— together. In other words, if you couldn’t buy in to my plan and my way of running the business then there must be something inherently wrong with you. The staff didn’t openly resist my ideas but they did voice their own opinions, some of which were based on years in the market. For example, we carried a half-hour program on Sunday morning that was produced in the “Little Italy” section of Baltimore. It was a mixture of music and talk, but my problem with the show was that it was done entirely in Italian. This meant that I had to pay a translator to listen to the broadcast and verify that no FCC regulations had been violated. Over the objection of my staff I made the decision that all programming had to be in English and, therefore, this program was canceled. They tried to impress upon me that it had been on the air for more than twenty years and to convince me that the sponsor of the show was one of the leading Italian businessmen in town. I didn’t listen. I wish I had. Ten days after I took the program off the air we had a visitor in our lobby who identified himself as an attorney for the sponsor. The secretary brought him to my office, and before he could sit down I repeated my decision and reminded him that I was the new general manager of the station and had the authority to do what I had done. Thirty minutes later, I began to get his message. This Italian sponsor wasn’t going anywhere. If anybody was going somewhere it was going to be the station’s “general manager” who had just arrived in town. I put the program back on the schedule immediately and it remained on the air for decades! Learning to listen to my employees and value their opinions was something I would have to learn the hard way. I wasn’t growing the staff. In fact, I was alienating them. But my first year of financial success kept me from experiencing that problem as soon as I might have. It was only later that I realized this truth: if you are not building relationships with your associates that will last your financial success will be short-lived.I grew the bottom line but sabotaged my relationships with my team and didn’t even realize it. My first year in Baltimore was, as I said, a financial success but not so successful by any other measure. We had new programs and new advertisers. We expanded our reach into the community, and despite a tough economic environment, we grew the profit margin. But I pushed my employees (who were loyal and wanted to do what I asked) hard and required them to follow my direction, and I could change my mind quickly. As a result, the staff were constantly having to make last-minute adjustments. This uncertainty consumed resources and sapped their emotional energy. Regardless of my intentions, it was a poor way to build a cohesive team. My direction could often come on a whim. I would be out to lunch with a client, for example, and be asked if we could do a remote broadcast for them or help them with a community project. My answer was always YES. I didn’t bother to ask my team if we could do it. I didn’t get their input about how we would staff the event. I just overcommitted them and expected them to fix it. Because I was making such commitments of time and resources my employees were constantly scrambling. If they gave me any resistance I wouldn’t hesitate to start looking at applications from perspective new employees. Eventually I drove them to do things we couldn’t do or, worse yet, forgot that I had committed us to something in the first place. Obviously (but not to me then), as a result of this approach, I was not building loyalty. And I was not creating an atmosphere of excellence. To the contrary, I was developing a team that was hesitant to act independently, with confidence, because they couldn’t trust me to communicate the direction we were going. In other words, if you worked for me you were better off just waiting for me to tell you exactly what to do. Thinking on your own was probably not going to be rewarded. This would have been the perfect time to slow down and face my dilemma and learn how to build mutually respectful and ultimately profitable relationships with my employees. But I didn’t see it as a problem. As long as the numbers added up at the end of the month, we must be on the right track. At the pace I was going there was bound to be a lot of turnover. Yet I didn’t know how to build a team or even how to identify the best players. From my perspective, money was always the biggest motivator; with the right amount of it, you could get anyone to do whatever you asked. I didn’t understand how important it was to build a relationship with your employees first before you expected them to do your bidding. It was about this time my owner offered me the position of executive vice president and general manager of not only our Baltimore operation but also his Cincinnati station and our new acquisitions in Toledo and shortly thereafter Los Angeles and Tampa. In just two years since receiving that life-changing phone call in Atlanta, I was responsible for all of the stations in our network! Have you ever gotten a promotion or maybe a job offer just in the “nick of time”? My sudden promotion removed any possibility that I would take a candid look in the mirror and start behaving like a leader and not just a business-savvy manager. I set my sight on the horizon. There were new stations to open and new goals to meet. After all, I had been promoted for a reason.
Promotions don’t cure leadership flaws. Those in-the-nick-of-time promotions just cover up our weaknesses. The house was making money but it was a house of cards. I now know that I should have invested more time in my employees. But rather than take a deep breath and reflect on how I was beginning to fail in my previous assignment, I—like many other businesspeople do—took the new opportunity as proof that I was really as good as I thought I was! But what if we are not as good as we think we are? What if our employees are only telling us what they think we want to hear? If that’s the case, then we will miss the critical information we need to make good decisions. Remember the debacle Toyota had with their “accidental acceleration” problem. As it turns out, the top management had been shielded from negative data. Consequently, they repeatedly denied there was an accelerator issue. That delay before they finally admitted the obvious was costly. That data would have helped them avert a disaster. If managers are to succeed at leading they have to work with teams who can speak candidly with them, without fear that the leader will lose his or her self-confidence, self-control, or self-esteem. Any communication short of that will not be enough. I was lucky to receive that kind of candid talk—from the most unlikely place. Despite the fact that I hadn’t encouraged it and, quite frankly, hadn’t asked for it. With my promotion came relocation to our largest station, a 50,000-watt powerhouse in Tampa. This would mean a lot of travel to each market, from Baltimore to Los Angeles. But my energy was concentrated in Tampa at our newest acquisition and soon to be flagship property. This was in the days before email, so our messages from other associates came in the mail. The front office secretary would go through everything and then distribute it. One day she dropped a letter on my desk and headed back up front. She had no idea that that particular letter would be the catalyst for my awakening. Neither did I. Glancing at the return address on the envelope I saw that the letter was from our Baltimore station. And as I unfolded it, I recognized the names listed at the bottom. What kind of letter would those guys write together and send to me? As I read the first lines, I saw that they got to the point quickly. They politely told me they had no interest in working with me in the future! They believed that it was only a matter of time until I failed big-time as a leader because of the way I had interacted with them, other staff, and even customers. Specifically, they said I had failed them as their leader on several counts: You don’t listen to us. You make promises to us and then don’t deliver on them. You change priorities so often we can’t trust your decisions. You don’t value us! You see us as ends to a means… and so on. Pretty tough words from people you thought were your friends. With the benefit of time, I now recognize they were, indeed, acting like true friends by confronting me. If the letter had been mean-spirited I would have just dismissed it out of hand. But this was different. These men were all Christians who gave more than lip service to their faith. And that’s the attitude they conveyed in the words of that letter. They showed appreciation for what I had accomplished but thought the way I had done it was unacceptable. It really doesn’t matter how any of us comes to realize that we need to work on our leadership skills. The point each of us must ask is, what am I going to do about it? A lot of leaders simply blame their followers and move on. Others blame their circumstances and just live to repeat the same behavior. But there are a few, and I am blessed to be among them, who neither blame their circumstances nor continue to repeat the same behavior for a lifetime. Instead, they get serious about examining what it takes to lead effectively and repeatedly over a long period of time. But I didn’t do that right away. At first I replayed in my head all of my actions during the previous two years, and I could counter each of their criticisms with a corresponding management strategy that proved successful. But that was shallow. These men weren’t disputing my ability to produce results; they were distancing themselves from me because they didn’t want to work in the kind of environment I had fostered. And, after thinking about the content of their letter for several weeks, I realized I didn’t want to work in that kind of environment either. If you produce results but lose the support of your team then you will forever be building a new team. Hardly a formula for genuine success. There was enough truth in what they said, and enough of my original goal to be an effective leader still in me, that I decided to try to change. But substituting one set of motivational gimmicks for another would be a lateral move. I would have to think hard about what real change in my leadership would look like. I had begun teaching a night class at a local private college in addition to my day job among the broadcast group. The subject was “communication,” so it was a perfect fit for me to do more research on what separates lasting leaders from those who can stay in the game for only a season. Have you had trouble lasting for more than a season? Is that why you are reading this book? Like me, have you gotten just enough feedback to realize that you can’t reach the next level in your company, your community, or your life if you don’t make the transition from one who acts like a leader to one who lives like a leader? Perhaps knowing what I did at my own crossroads will help you make your next move.I made a decision to resign. My boss agreed to meet with me at the Tampa Airport. We took a booth in the hotel restaurant near the terminal. It was a quick conversation. I explained to him that I wanted to step aside and work full-time at the college where I was teaching so I could learn alongside the students about how to lead with purpose and passion. The college needed my help and I knew it would be a chance for me to grow. He thought I was fine as a manager and didn’t see a problem. But I felt that I was not a competent leader. Although I was very good at making change happen, to lead at the most successful level would take more than just knowing the numbers. The company owner wasn’t impressed with my decision. And as he began to explain what it would cost me financially to walk away from my employment agreement, I will admit that I had second thoughts. But the words from that letter still haunted my mind and I knew what I had to do. I had come to realize that a leader’s true power comes from influence not authority. You can’t fake influence. In Texas they have the disparaging remark, “He’s all hat, no cattle.” In other words, he’s acting like something he’s not. If I knew anything after resigning from the radio stations I managed it was this: I would not fake it anymore! My decision to resign was less than a day old when the aging president of the college, a man of great faith and vision, asked me to join his team to help him in the transition to a new president, who would not be able to serve full-time. Since it was a private Christian college my compensation would be minimal, but the opportunity to grow would prove to be invaluable. He had asked me before but now was the right time, the right move for my awakening. I would be in a supportive learning environment while taking the best of what I knew and sharing it with students not that much younger than me. It was a quick exit strategy with a soft landing. It was more difficult to take that job than I thought it would be, however. I was immediately cast into a leadership role that stirred my “old” expedient leadership style because I had not yet fully grasped what the “right” leadership style was. But I was more open and ready to learn a replacement style. And I was able to help the school make significant advancements in their physical plant, their accreditation, and their approach to students. In fact, within a few years I was asked to move from being in the administration of the new president to becoming the president of the college. At that point the school needed someone who could get results in fundraising, student development, and greater community awareness. And although I was focused on understanding how lasting leaders make the transition to living like a leader, there was still a lot of “let’s go reach the goal” in me. That’s exactly what the college needed. Little by little I was inching forward. When some of the weeds of my former management style popped up, I would mow them down—only to see new ones sprout. I had planned to be at the college for just a few short years, but the tasks to accomplish were daunting and we were making progress. So I stayed for more than a decade, which was a year or two longer than I should have. Luckily when my years as an administrator and professor came to an end, three specific events put the final shape to my growth as a leader. First, the governor of Florida, who had observed my work in turning the college around, asked me to serve in his administration as a member of the State Board of Independent Colleges and Universities. Second, I continued to volunteer by teaching a community Bible class. Third, I joined the leadership team of a highly successful training company in Tampa. As the governor’s appointee, I had to work with people both within his political party and across the aisle. Real negotiation on issues affecting the lives of hundreds of thousands of college students required the leaders involved to be collaborative. This was my do-over. Instead of trying to be the smartest person in the room, I began to build professional relationships based on mutually beneficial goals. That meant really getting to know every member of the team. I vividly remember one afternoon when I was meeting with our state board staff and asked them their opinion about a pending matter. I didn’t interrupt them and I didn’t even spout off my own idea. Rather, I caught myself listening. I was no longer in the small world of the radio stations or the friendly halls of academia. But I was also not the same leader I had been. I had read constantly about the lives of leaders who had lasted while I was still at the college. Searching for clues in each person was my constant vigil. And slowly but subtly I began to notice that their followers often responded similarly to their leadership. They would make comments like, “I always felt like he listened to me.” Or “I was more than just an employee. He really cared about me.” Or “He was quick to recognize when I had done a good job.” I tried to build those values into my life as I went on to serve governors Bob Martinez, Lawton Chiles, and Jeb Bush. One was not from my political party and I tried to resign upon his election, only to be asked by the local leader of his party to stay on for another term because, as he put it, I knew “how to get diverse people to take common action.” My fellow board members likewise recognized my work and elected me to back-to-back terms as chairman of the State Board of Independent Colleges and Universities. We had regulatory oversight of a hundred-plus colleges and universities, with better than half a million students, and our leadership was scrutinized constantly by our constituents, the legislature, and the press. I not only survived that scrutiny, I thrived through it. Leadership that begins by putting others’ interests first has the strength to forge lasting relationships. For the first time in my business career, I saw that reality coming to life in and for me as a leader. While I was leading state board initiatives across the state I was also teaching a Bible class to businesspeople and other individuals who were seeking to better understand life and faith. This forced me to study ancient truths about how ethical relationships are formed in humility, compassion, and even love. Our group would study on Monday night and I would try to apply what we learned throughout the rest of the week. Sometimes it would be three steps forward and two steps back, but the momentum was steady. The words of the letter that challenged my very right to lead kept motivating me to find a better way to lead. They also motivated me to become a better person. I wasn’t focused any longer on just “techniques” or “tactics.” I began to see leadership as an expression of who I was and not just what I did in my career. My work life was, correspondingly, supporting my personal growth. Scott and Terry Hitchcock, who owned a prosperous training franchise in Tampa, helped me immensely to become a better person. They actually reminded me of Grace and Carol Lee, who had hired me as a teenager to work for their rural radio station. Scott and Terry put me in a leadership position over their sales team while at the same time allowing me to learn timeless principles about the very kind of leader I wanted to become by teaching leadership training classes. What I was learning as I prepared to lead training sessions, could be applied in my public role as well. All of this growth could have occurred back in Baltimore but it didn’t because of one significant fact: at that time I didn’t see the need to grow as a leader; my focus was solely on the bottom line.
Bring out the best in others. Serving others as their leader is not about lip service or a title on a door. It’s a way of life. A transparent and giving life that is dedicated to bringing out the best in others—especially those who look to you as their leader. A giving life inspires followers to embrace both you and your goals. Perhaps no one has evidenced that more than Frances Hesselbein. Between 1965 and 1976 she went from being a volunteer Girl Scout leader to becoming the nonprofit’s CEO—the first to come from within the ranks in 67 years. She held that job for more than 14 years, during which time she is widely credited with turning the organization around while growing membership to 2.25 million and a workforce in excess of 700,000. Years ago Peter Drucker, the father of modern management, was asked who he thought was the greatest leader in America. Since he had consulted with the likes of Jack Welch and most of the Fortune 100 leaders, his answer came as a surprise. Without hesitancy Drucker replied, “Francis Hesselbein, the CEO of the American Girl Scout movement. She could manage any company in America.” And now the real question, how did she do it? Hesselbein has been quoted repeatedly saying that one of her secrets is, “The first item in your budget should be learning, education and development of your people.”2 And she developed the now legendary approach of “circular management” where the leader sat in the middle of the organization chart, not at the top. From that perspective, the leader can better plan, guide, and inspire performance. Our current economic realities now require that kind of leadership. I started out as a manager thinking my job was to sit at the top, but over time I began to move toward the middle where I could lead with influence. These experiences continued to shape me. What’s shaping your growth as a leader right now? Are you leading from the middle or are you stuck trying to command from the top? Which are you relying on, authority or influence? With the advantage of years I can look back and see just how important those self-focused years in broadcasting and the self-sacrificing years in private education were in my development. Both served me well to prune and strengthen me. And during those years I began to see what it was about some leaders that made them last. They had in common an approach to working with people that earned them the right to be followed. That’s not just another strategy, however; it’s more of a lifelong journey. I hope the experience of reading this book and going online and taking the leader’s gift assessments will inspire you to become a fellow traveler!
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction 1
Chapter 1 Learning to Lead-the Hard Way 5
Chapter 2 The Way Out Is In! 19
Chapter 3 The Gift of Being Open to Others: "I want to know you!" 33
Chapter 4 The Gift of Investing Time in Others: "I want to see you grow!" 53
Chapter 5 The Gift of Listening to Others:. "I want to hear your ideas!" 71
Chapter 6 The Gift of Offering Encouragement to Others: "I want to help you!" 91
Chapter 7 The Gift of Expressing Appreciation for Others' Abilities; "I want to talk about your strengths!" 107
Chapter 8 A Sure Investment 131
Chapter 9 Seeing What No One Else Sees 143
Chapter 10 Leaving a Legacy 153
Appendix: These Gifts Work at Home as Well as at Work 165
Notes 169
About the Author 173
What People are Saying About This
“This wonderful book shows you what to do to bring out the best in every person, and get greater results as a leader and manager than ever before.”
“Barry's five, simple steps reinforce the truth behind leadership: successful leaders give more than they take. A Leader's Gift can help you fundamentally change your leadership style to get the best out of your business, your employees and the best out of yourself.”
“Barry shows that the bottom line isn't made up of numbers; it's made up of human potential. A Leader's Gift offers five actionable steps to help first-time leaders and C-suite executives tap that potential and get the best out of their employees. Implementing these simple changes every day will make a world of difference!”
“Easy-to-read, practical advice that helps you evaluate your leadership style and challenges you to do better by your company, your colleagues, and yourself.”
“Barry understands the difference between being called a leader and being a leader. He challenges you to self-reflect on your style and this is a benefit whether you are an established, new or aspiring leader. His five gifts outline exactly how being a selfless leader can benefit your team's engagement, motivation, morale and bottom line.”
"Unlike most leadership books, author Barry Banther has actual experience in the trenches of the business world!!! In A Leader's Gift, the author lays his entire career bare as a learning tool — the wins, the losses, and the hard won lessons — and gives the reader an extraordinary guidebook for today's leaders to follow. As a former C-Level Executive I HIGHLY recommend this book for your personal library. If you are serious about leading today's tech-savvy, independent thinking workforce, I suggest you immerse yourself in Barry's guidance."
“A Leader's Gift gives smart advice about being a leader that makes a difference. Barry makes you feel like you're getting coached by a friend, not an advisor.”