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President's Column Milton Chang |
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Greetings! I encourage you to attend the first LEOS Annual Meeting being held outside North America, November 10-14, in Glasgow. Special features of this year’s meeting include a 40 Gbit/s Symposium and five Short Courses on Sunday. Last year, we had the first Chapter Retreat to which we invited all Chapter Chairs to attend and share their experiences, thoughts, and best practices. This year, we continue with the Chapter Retreat and add a Technical Committee Retreat, to provide a similar forum where Committee Chairs can share their thoughts. The reception will be held in the new Glasgow Science Center. Knowing how fun-loving our Scottish friends are, you can look forward to a most entertaining evening. Haggis procession complete with bagpipe music, no doubt. Based on your feedback, I am gratified that some of you actually read my rambling. So, I will continue my stream of consciousness: Leadership is a fascinating subject. So much has been written about it with so many different interpretations. I wonder how one can instantaneously recall and follow the long lists of dos and don’ts. And the gurus keep changing on us. Charisma has long been listed as an important leadership characteristic, for example, and now people are saying that too much emphasis on charismatic leaders is the cause of our economic woes. The amazing thing is you see so many people in leadership positions doing the obviously wrong things that you wonder if they really understand what leadership is all about. Over the years, I have tried to internalize what I read, and distill the material to a few principles to guide my actions in business. I hope you will benefit from what I’ve learned. Almost everything that has been written about leadership more or less points to the word “protection.” Based on the principle of “give-to-get” in relationships, a leader must intuitively understand and consciously take care of the needs of employees in exchange for their productivity or even loyalty. Otherwise, what’s in it for the employee to align his/her energy to the goals of the company? Employees are willing to follow leaders who they believe can provide them safety. For example, a lot of leaders in the limelight are charismatic so that’s an easy generalization for employees to have confidence that the company under a charismatic leader can succeed. The same can be said about having a vision, being strategic, or having the ability to communicate. But many great leaders are not charismatic at all and others do not have good verbal skills. The point is each of us has our own ways to convey a sense of safety and security to the people around us, but true “protection” we must provide at the end. Unfortunately, some people in leadership positions are good at faking it rather than providing what people really need.
“Protection” sounds far out when companies are laying off employees, and if this concept is blindly applied can be detrimental. Protection must be viewed in the context of what is good for the company and the individuals involved long-term. I emphasize the importance of “long-term” good because one of the easy pitfalls is to be soft on people. It is all too easy to come up with excuses for non-performance. How would people grow in their ability and skills otherwise, or be happy when they know deep inside they are not being productive? So, I am talking about a professionally demanding organization where people derive their good feelings from being able to perform to their full potential. It is only when we know we are doing well at things that are meaningful and useful that we can develop a positive self-image, feel good about ourselves, and therefore happy. That’s the core of what leaders have to “protect.”
Ultimately the company succeeds because its employees and its leader have succeeded. So let us examine what brings success and look for commonality to align the goals of all parties involved. In order for the company to succeed, employees must be productive and totally professional to provide the best “services” to customers. For an individual employee, based on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, what is of ultimate importance is “self-actualization,” which is to fulfill one’s potential to “be all that one can be.” Given that we spend the most productive time of day at our work, and a group can take on many more significant projects than can one individual, the workplace has the opportunity to become the bigger self for employees. From that standpoint, setting high expectations, providing needed resources so people can succeed, and training people to take on greater responsibilities perfectly align the interests of the company and employees to create a win-win. That’s what great leaders do. Not only will employees be happier, they will have job security consistent with today’s environment, which is to have transferable skills.
What makes a leader successful? Short of being a superman/woman, it is no different from what makes anyone successful, which is having the self-confidence to admit one’s shortcomings and to get help. Great leaders have good people around them, help grow their ability, and instill self-confidence in them. They believe in their people, help them see their full potential, coach them, help them identify and remove obstacles, but never settle for less than excellence. They also accept mistakes as inherent to the process of learning, and have the courage to face and deal with performance issues honestly but with compassion. In that scenario there will be open ended “resource gathering” at every level so that there is nothing the company cannot succeed at. I can get excited just thinking about it. Milton Chang
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