Leadership Principles
Leadership Principles
by Sunbeam Family Services CEO, Jim Priest
Introduction
I am providing these leadership principles in the hope they will help team members and stakeholders of Sunbeam understand the framework of my decision making and leadership style. I want people to understand the basis of the things I say and do and decisions I make. These are some of the principles I live and lead by, and I encourage all team members and stakeholders of Sunbeam to adopt them as their own.
Some who read these principles may think to themselves: “I’m not a leader”. But think again. Whether you realize it or not, you are a leader. It may not feel that way sometimes, but you are. We all have a circle of influence. Someone (or some group) is looking to us as an example and to those people, we are a leader.
When I was a little kid, my mom would always send me out the door to school in the morning with this reminder: "Remember Jimmy, someone is always watching you!" At the time I thought it meant she had other moms out there spying on me!! (She probably did!) But what she really meant was that someone was looking to me as an example. And the same is true for you. The children we teach, the seniors we assist, the clients we counsel, the foster families we serve---even among our fellow employees---people are watching you and me. Whether we realize it or not, we are providing them an example. Is it a positive one? Let's give them an exemplary person to watch and a role model to follow. Remember what Mom Priest said: someone is always watching you!
So here are some of the leadership principles I try to follow and I urge you to adopt.
1. Focus
You can intend to do good things but if you try to do too many things your efforts will be dilute and futile. I believe great leaders begin by identifying the most important things that should be done, writing those down, and staying focused on them until they are accomplished. I intend to be focused on my main mission at Sunbeam which is (1) external: friend-raising, consciousness-raising and fund-raising, and (1a) internal: making sure that we, as an organization, are doing all we reasonably can to put our employees first. Herb Kelleher of Southwest Airlines believed that if you treat your employees very well they will treat your clients/customers very well. If we, at Sunbeam, treat our team members great, our service delivery to our community will be great. I have included more about this internal focus at the end of this document under promoting a culture of “Employee First and Servant Leadership”.
My “focus” principle leads to my second principle: delegation.
2. Delegation
One of Sunbeam’s founding mothers, Lizzie Swisher, once said “None of us can do everything but all of us can do something.” I believe both parts of that statement. All of us can and should be doing our part—but we must remember we cannot do everything by ourselves and we must partner with others, or delegate responsibility, to be reach maximum effectiveness.
As a team member at Sunbeam I will let you do whatever you think you’re big enough to do—and I may ask you to do just a little bit more on occasion because personal growth happens when we are challenged to go beyond the limits of what we think we are capable of. There is a limit to our limits, of course. See my comment on “margin” below. But I believe most of us can do more than we think we can, so if you believe you are not sufficiently challenged in your position, let me know and we’ll find something to help stretch you!
Additionally, I do not need to be—and do not want to be—involved in the details of other people’s work. I don’t need to be copied on emails unless I have asked for that information or you think there is a compelling need for me to know. I trust you are capable of doing your job and until you show me otherwise I will trust you to do it. But I also believe in accountability and I generally set dates by which I would like to see something accomplished or when I need to hear back from you on an assignment. Everyone should follow through on assignments in a timely manner. If you need more time to complete an assignment don’t wait until the last minute to let someone know.
3. Treat People Like Adults
One of the fundamental leadership principle I attempt to follow is to treat people like adults. This means that I and the Sunbeam leadership team will allow and expect Sunbeam team members to make responsible decisions and, then, to live with both the positive and negative consequences of the decisions they make. I believe decisions should be made at the level closest to the situation and I will rarely countermand a decision made by a supervisor.
If team members make good, well-reasoned decisions they will enjoy the benefit of those decisions and if they make unreasonable or immature decisions they will have to live with the consequences of those decisions. Each individual “owns” the decisions they make and the actions they take.
4. Mess up/Fess up
We all make mistakes and almost all mistakes can be fixed if they are dealt with promptly. But to fix them they have to be known. We had a rule at the law firm where I practiced law for many years: if you mess up, fess up immediately. Don’t try to keep mistakes a secret because, as Albert Einstein once said, “The kind of thinking that got you into a problem is not likely the kind of thinking that will get you out of it.”
Our natural instinct is to keep our mistakes and errors to ourselves and try to fix them ourselves. I encourage team members not to do that.
So ask for help in problem solving if you mess up and don’t be afraid to admit mistakes. In fact, admit them quickly. I have found the quickest route to resolving a problem is to own it, sincerely apologize for it, and the work with others on finding a solution.
5. Margin
Have you ever noticed those lines on the left and right side of notebook paper? They are called “margins”. Generally, you are not supposed to write in those margins but, on occasion, it’s okay to do so. The margins are there to keep you balanced on the paper and to keep you from going off the edge. We have to have margins in our lives to keep us from going off the edge too. We need to strive for balance between our work lives and our non-work lives.
I do not believe any organization should consistently overwork its people and I will strive to insure that we are all working hard—but not having our hair on fire all the time. We must live with “margin”, which means that we do not constantly work to the limits, and beyond the limits, of our time and energy. Occasionally, certain seasons of the year or projects will come along that “max us out”—but we do not want our people consistently working at or beyond the limits of their capacity. If we have overloaded a team member we need to hire help or narrow what we do. For more information on this concept see Richard Swenson’s excellent book, Margin.
6. Creativity
I try to cultivate creativity and want to encourage everyone at Sunbeam to be creative. You may not think of yourself as “creative” but you are! You were creative when you were a kid so you just need to get your creative juices flowing again. Just try new ways of looking at things and don’t be afraid to come up with “crazy” ideas. Change the arrangement of the furniture in your office. Take a different route to work. Do something/anything to disrupt your routine!
Walt Disney, the creative genius who dreamed up Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Disney theme parks, was constantly working on ideas that seemed crazy and out of the box. In fact, if he brought up a new idea at a board meeting and it was not opposed by everyone, Disney concluded the idea was not creative enough and he abandoned the project.
We should not just think “outside the box”—sometimes we should completely throw away the box. The way to come up with good ideas is to come up with a lot of ideas and throw out the bad ones. So don’t be reluctant to think of something new and creative whether it’s a service to offer to our “internal customers” (our team members) or our external ones (clients, donors, volunteers) or a new way of doing things. For more information on this see the book A Kick in the Seat of the Pants by Roger Von Oech (and his second book, A Whack in the Side of the Head).
7. Humor
I believe humor is the oil in the engine of life. By this I mean tasteful, respectful humor. Take your work seriously but don’t take yourself too seriously.
I like to use humor in the workplace, in speeches and in my personal life. It lightens the mood. It creates the lubricant of laughter. I especially like poking fun at myself (and there is plenty to poke fun at!). There are some times and some issues that are sobering and must be approached seriously, but many times we can bridge the communication gap with others by using appropriate humor.
Remember the emphasis is on appropriate humor. We should NEVER misuse humor by being crude, offensive or to demean someone. I was a lawyer for over thirty years and spent much of my time handling cases of workplace harassment that ended up in lawsuits. Most of those cases started out by someone joking in an inappropriate way. If you have any question about whether you should tell that joke, or you get a sense that people are offended by your use of humor, just knock it off and apologize.
8. Confidentiality
Benjamin Franklin said “Two can keep a secret-- if one of them is dead.”
When a matter is supposed to be confidential it should be strictly treated that way. I believe in maintaining a confidence unless there is a compelling reason to share information on a need-to-know basis (for example, if someone is threatening to harm themselves or someone else). Otherwise, if information is confidential (whether it relates to clients or team members) it should not be shared with anyone, whether that be a fellow team member, a Sunbeam stakeholder, or a spouse. This is a supremely important rule and must take command over any inclination we have to share confidential information with others. This means not sharing confidences even with people you think you can trust or someone who promises to never tell what you told. Do NOT give up confidential information under any circumstances.
9. Constructive Conflict
As a lawyer dealing with problems in the workplace I have seen conflicts cause problems. But even more often I have seen problems created by people’s inability to engage in constructive conflict. Being able to have constructive conflict with co-workers is a crucial key to success for individuals and organizations. Unresolved problems or ignoring issues that won’t go away only leaves those problems and issues to fester and get worse.
Conflict has the potential to be constructive but (1) we have to accept and even encourage & embrace a conflict of ideas while (2) not allowing conflict to be personal and destructive. In other words, people have to learn to fight fair. I will promote and encourage a constructive conflict of ideas that will lead Sunbeam to more creative approaches and solutions but everyone must refuse to give in to our natural instinct to avoid or run away from conflict. We must be committed to constructive and civil conflict. For more information on the proper approach to conflict see the book Crucial Conversations and Crucial Confrontations, by Kerry Patterson and Joseph Grenny. The Patterson/Grenny book talks about “accountability”, which is part of constructive conflict, and they quote a New York Times best selling author, Al Switzler:
"In the worst organizations no one holds anyone accountable,
In the good organizations the boss holds people accountable,
and in the best organizations everyone holds everyone accountable.”
Never be afraid to hold anyone in the organization accountable for their actions.
10. Humility
None of us is perfect (see “relaxed style/perfect performance” below) and we all have many things to learn. I strive to stay humble and respectful of all people, regardless of their place on the social ladder or organizational chart and I believe humility is a key characteristic to leadership success. Humility does not mean thinking less of yourself but it means thinking of yourself less. Humility is inconsistent with cockiness but it is consistent with confidence. You can be confident in yourself and your ability to do your job and still be humble.
When I was a youngster there was a lady in our church who frequently sang solos in the morning service. If anyone came up to her after the service and complimented her she would always say “Oh, no. I wasn’t in the best voice today. I wasn’t very good.” That sounds like humility, but it wasn’t. All it did was put more emphasis on herself. This woman seemed unable to respond to a compliment with confidence and humility. A nice, crisp “Thank you” would have been a sufficient response for the church soloist even if she did think she was not in the best voice.
If you focus on serving others and have a healthy (and not inflated) self-respect for yourself, you can become a humble person. Being humble and showing respect to everyone is an absolute requirement to work at Sunbeam.
11. TEAM
(Together Everyone Achieves More). I am collaborative in my leadership style and I want collaboration to be infectious throughout our organization and with other organizations in our community. Sunbeam has different programs and assignments but we are all pulling on the same oar: helping the community. We do not want “program silos”—we want a unified, collaborative approach to the delivery of services.
Here’s an example of what I mean: when my wife and I were raising small children we had the kids participate in “Saturday morning chores” around the house. Each of us had chore assignments but we also had a saying “We’re not done until we’re ALL done!” This meant that if you finished your chore assignments first you were to help others with their chores until everyone was finished. This is the kind of attitude and culture I want us to adopt at Sunbeam.
12. Integrity
I strive always to be a person of integrity. Remember when you were back in school in math class and talked about “integers”? The teacher told you that integers were “whole numbers. That’s because the root meaning of the word integrity is “wholeness”. Which means you are “undivided”. So if you are a person of integrity you are a “whole and undivided person.” You are the same kind of person and make the same kind of moral choices even when nobody is watching.
Most of us know the right thing(s) to do but sometimes our ethical choices are not so clear. Each day we face a variety of ethical decisions, some affecting us, some affecting our family, some affecting Sunbeam and our clients. If you are ever unclear about the ethics or morality of something, just ask. Talk with a supervisor or call our Employee Relations department.
Usually our integrity is initially compromised in the small things. We don’t wake up in the morning and say to ourselves, “I think I’ll rob a bank today.” More often we are faced with small compromises of our integrity: to gossip, to cheat on something small, to tell a half truth. C.S. Lewis, a famous author once wrote, “The safest road to hell is the gradual one - the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.” What he was saying was we must resist the temptation to compromise in small things because small compromises will ultimately lead to big consequences. Never allow your decisions, great or small, to dilute your personal integrity or the integrity of Sunbeam.
13. Being Other-oriented
Being “other oriented” means thatwe put other people first and are motivated by serving people and the mission of Sunbeam and not our own self-interest. I want to personally remember—and I want all of us to remember—that our mission is not about us and the money we spend is not ours. Whether it’s the money we spend in programs or on coffee in the office, we want to always keep in mind that we are trustees of the funds and the facilities invested in Sunbeam and we need to be “other oriented” in all we do.
Many years ago I attended a series of meetings at my church led by a travelling preacher named Stephen Manley. Dr. Manley was a powerful speaker but, unfortunately, I recall very little of what he said. But here’s what I do remember about him. On a Saturday morning we had a men’s breakfast at a local hotel and gathered to hear Dr. Manley speak. He was seated at the head table, far from where I was, but after everyone was finishing up their bacon and eggs, and before he began to speak, I observed Dr. Manley quietly go around the room with a coffee pot, refilling everyone’s coffee mug. Here was the noted preacher—the speaker of the hour—taking on the task of a servant. I have never forgotten that “lesson in the flesh” about being other oriented.
I believe this is an important component of servant leadership; being oriented toward serving others will help us keep our priorities straight.
14. Approachable and teachable
I personally want to be—and I would like all of our Sunbeam team members to be—approachable and teachable. If I am doing something wrong or have unintentionally offended someone, I want to hear about it. I also want to learn from others and am always open to being taught. Author Brandon Triola writes:
I’ve had lunch with Millionaires. I’ve eaten with celebrities, successful musicians, authors, and more. In all my run-ins with people who ride the wave of life through ups and downs and still manage to come out on top of the water – their keys to success are always similar, simple, and powerful. I have noticed something astonishing about all of them – They’re all Teachable.
Approachable and teachable means being open. A person who others are not afraid to approach with a corrective suggestion or critique. It means being humble. Not thinking more of yourself (or less of yourself) than you should. It means being willing to listen and learn, even from someone you think knows less than you (many times you find out they actually know more than you.)
15. Give the bottom line first
One of the things that comes from spending 34 years as a lawyer is the deep rooted desire to “cut to the chase” and “get to the point”. So whether you are preparing a memo or an email or engaging me in a conversation, I will appreciate it if you first give me the “bottom line” (whether it’s a recommendation or conclusion or the ultimate question). If you’ll give me the bottom line right up front you can then back fill with whatever information I need to better understand it. I would like this same approach with documents prepared for the board and its committees or those outside the agency. I also have a strong inclination toward short meetings with a written agenda. This is not to say that meetings or conversations need to be “all business” or “brusque”, but we can accomplish more in less time if we stay focused and on task.
I’ve found if you give people the bottom line first—then give them the important information they need—they will listen better to what you have to say. Cut to the chase.
16. Informal in style, perfect in performance
I am a pretty easy person to work with and for; my style is usually rather informal, friendly and fun. But our relaxed style should never be interpreted as slackness or used as an excuse for less than perfect performance in delivering our work product or services to our community. I like letters and documents to be carefully proof read and “letter perfect” before they go out the door. I want there to be consistency in how we present our services, our logo, and our information to the public. We want to be as near perfect in what we present to the world as possible, recognizing that none of us is perfect and we all make mistakes.
But attention to detail communicates excellence and inspires confidence that we know what we’re doing. As motivational speaker Larry Winget once said “Coffee stains on the drop down tray makes airline passengers question the engine maintenance.” So whether it’s the way you speak, your appearance, your correspondence, or the state of your office or building, let’s never have anyone question Sunbeam’s engine maintenance!
17. Employees first
The general approach and culture that I want to create, and to be promoted by all leaders at Sunbeam, is to be servant leaders and put employee/team members first.This does not mean that team members are always right or always get their way. What it does mean is that we place a high priority on listening well to employees, reinforcing good performance and behavior, and making Sunbeam the kind of place where team members love working.
This principle stands conventional management on its head and is based, in part, on the philosophy of a leader I greatly admire: Herb Kelleher, former president of Southwest Airlines.
Southwest’s first flight was on June 18, 1971 and it initially struggled. That fall, the company was losing money with inconsistent ridership. Southwest faced the prospect of either laying off employees or selling a plane. “We’ve always taken the approach that employees come first,” Kelleher says. “Happy and pleased employees take care of the customers. And happy customers take care of shareholders by coming back.” So Southwest sold the airplane.
Herb’s advice to aspiring leaders? Be humble; work harder than anyone else; serve your People. I think humility is the most important because if you don’t have humility then the other two--working hard than anyone else and serving your people--probably won’t happen. I think you have to be humble and not carried away with your own title or position in order to accomplish the other two.
That’s the kind of organization we want Sunbeam Family Services to be.
18. Core Values
At the base of all good leadership are core values. What is the internal compass that gives you direction? What are the main things you want to be remembered for at the end of your life? If you do not have core values that are “top of mind” and guide your life, you are liable to drift without purpose or conviction or be unduly influenced by others.
My three core values—and the three things I’d like chiseled on my tombstone when I die—are these: Integrity, Encouragement, Enthusiasm.
Integrity is being the same kind of person whether or not someone is looking. It means being a “whole”—integrated—person. Not two faced. Not swayed by the opinions of others. Steady, reliable, trustworthy and always consistent.
Encouragement means to put courage into others. To help them be their best. To praise them in pubic and critique them, if necessary, in private. I want to be the kind of person that makes others better every day.
Enthusiasm means more than cheer leader, rah-rah hype. The root word of enthusiasm is the Greek word En Theos, meaning “in God”. I want to be a cheerleader for people but I want to be more than that. I want people to see God reflected in the way I live and lead.
Think about what YOU want YOUR core values to be. Write them down. Then live into them.