Our work and research have identified nine rational, emotive categories regarding the thinking of effective leaders. These categories represent 100 specific, uniquely powerful ideas that drive the thinking of effective people. We have summarized these into nine clusters/categories in the acrostic, PRO-ACTIVE:

Passion: Effective leaders lead with “heart.”
The “To Do” list of MBOs goals and objectives is a critical key to effectiveness, but there is a bottom line difference between MBOs accomplished by utility and those accomplished with “heart.” The most effective people are driven by a constructive passion for results. They have realistic goals and laser-sharp priorities, i.e., MBOs; but the best of the best have more. They are driven by a heartfelt, rational, emotive vision and understanding that energizes their thoughts and actions. They are passionate about all they do.

Relational: Effective leaders value and foster positive relationships.

The leader’s work is leading people who produce results. Leaders cultivate and grow the networks of relationships among themselves, both intra and interpersonally. These positive relationships with people are essential for success. All organizations work in relational structures. At the lowest and least productive level of networks are the relationships of bureaucratic, autocratic and driver organizations. At the highest and most productive levels are the synergistic teams. Effectiveness at any level is built on “the power of positive relationships.”

Optimistic: Effective leaders embody optimism.

Contrary to popular myth, optimism is not “looking at the world through rose colored glasses.” Optimism is looking at the world with realistic hope. Optimism is the opposite of pessimism. Pessimism sees and offers no hope: “It is useless, it will never work, it will never be….” Those who approach tasks and people with pessimism are seldom surprised. They get exactly what the limits of their expectancy prescribe—NOTHING.

Likewise, leaders who approach tasks and people with optimism, expecting outstanding results, are seldom surprised. They get exactly what their positive expectations prescribe—POSITIVE RESULTS.” The attitudes and expectations with which one approaches others is a self-fulfilling prophecy that limits or propels the outcome. Effective leaders have hope.

Affirm-Assert: Effective leaders listen carefully.

Leaders must be eager to receive input. Maturity understands that the best decision is not a matter of “who owns the idea” but of “useful ideas.” People limited to selling their ideas are blocking “different ideas.” No one has the best insight or idea on everything. Effectiveness is about getting useful ideas on the table. Therefore, the best practice is to listen and learn from the input of others. At the same time, effective leaders clearly articulate their agenda without controlling or dominating. It is important for a leader to be assertive but the best take care to assert without stifling others. Therefore, “affirming” precedes “asserting.” The order is deliberate. Effective leaders encourage others’ opinions, thoughts and insights for the good of the whole while making their own contributions.

Confident: The most effective leaders believe they are not egocentric but are confident.

They have a certain faith and trust in themselves, their people and the organization that projects a “can do” attitude in the face of the most difficult challenges. This confidence is a kind of intuitive insight that makes the vision and goals of the future appear objective and actualized long before they are reality. Such confidence inspires and motivates others to believe in and work to actualize the future.

Tactical: Effective Leaders have the ability to see things from both the 50 and 50,000 foot levels.

Tactical thinking is the ability to zoom in from the big picture to the closer picture that reveals the detail of the manageable, component parts that make up the whole. People who lack tactical perspective are easily overwhelmed, frustrated and give up because things seem insurmountable. Tactical thinking enables leaders to identify individual components that make up the whole. It is the ability to “pan out and zoom in” on a problem, project or situation and provide the components of high achievement.

Innovative: Effective leaders are creative.

Creativity is about innovation, new and different approaches through insight and intuition. Innovation is often a slight variation, a new combination or application of putting familiar components together in new ways. It is not so much about a total new idea as it is about a slight variation and subtle difference that impacts different results. Effective people are constantly looking for new combinations, variations and subtle differences that can have a significant impact.

Venturesome: Effective Leaders are willing to risk.

Leadership, on a time line, is about moving from the present to the future. Whenever we project actions into the future, we are dealing with an element of the unknown/uncertainty, which is about risk. It is the leader’s job to lead people with confidence into uncharted waters of the future. Risk aversion is a roadblock. Effective leaders are willing to take reasonable risk and try a different approach.

Enthusiastic: Effective Leaders Show Excitement.

“It’s hard to start a fire with a wet match.” It really is that simple. As the leader, if I am not enthused and motivated about what I are doing, how can I expect my people to be enthused? Effective leaders are caring, engaging and interesting. The best have vibrant, dynamic interactions with others that include differences, strong beliefs, convictions, and spirit that drive and inspire positive outcomes. They are effective, enthusiastic energizers.

Re-Active

While “In-active” people are frustrating and “Neg-active” people are exhausting, “Re-active” people are useful. Leaders need constructively “Re-active” people on their teams. They are problem-solvers and fire fighters; they perform triage. These are the people who jump into action, are at their best under pressure and excel when faced with a challenge. These folks are useful because they get things done and work out the glitches.

Many business and organizational leaders who have been internally promoted within their organization are “Re-active.” You see, if you are a problem solver and a fire fighter who “fixes things” for the organization, you get noticed. This notice typically comes in the form of more responsibility and promotion. While such people are useful, we also know that most individuals internally promoted within their organization tend to be reactive, and it is their reactive ability that gets them noticed and promoted. Sound good? Enter the “Peter Principle.”

The Peter Principle says that in business/organizations, people tend to be promoted to a level of incompetence (Laurence Peter and Raymond Hull, 1968).  The Peter Principle holds that members of business/organizations are promoted so long as they work competently. Sooner or later, they are promoted to a position at which they are no longer competent. I would suggest that they do not suddenly become incompetent, but that their “thinking” becomes counter-productive as they move along the responsibility line of supervisor, manager, leader and executive.

How do “Re-active” people think? Some examples of “Re-active” thoughts are:

Responsive: Ready to respond
Emergency focused: Waiting for a problem to solve    
Affected: Stimulated by problems        
Compelled: Driven to resolve problems
Tied-up: Kept occupied and engaged in circumstances
Inflame: Excited by actions and feelings
Victimized: Controlled by external means
Enslaved: Burdened and controlled

The problem with “Re-active” thinking is that it operates in the past and under the control and influence of past circumstances. The very nature of reaction is response to a stimulus. That means the stimulus is in control. Problem solving, crisis management and conflict resolution are reactive activities. They cause one to respond to a stimulus, but effective people quickly move from a reactive stage to the initial stage of problem solving.

Effective, constructive leaders are “Pro-Active.” It is rooted in a way of thinking that promotes choices that drive constructive, effective decision-making and moves individuals, team and departments in a positive, rational and optimistic direction. “Pro-Active” leaders facilitate the circumstances and environment that leads to constructive results.

What about negative people? While inactive people are frustrating, negative people are exhausting.

As leaders, we work hard to inspire and motivate our staff and move the team forward. And with a sigh or a smirk (let alone a disparaging comment) a negative person can cripple our best efforts. Negative people are so frustrating that an entire business has developed around countering the negative person.

The industry is motivational posters and sayings. Companies spend lots of dollars annually to line their halls and meeting rooms with inspirational business posters. You can almost tell what the naysayers in a company are saying by the countering themes of the posters that are on display. But again, the tactic is at the surface problem of negative behavior and fails to address the root causes of negative thinking. The irony of the motivational market has been captured by the de-motivational market. There is, in the market, a negative poster to counter every positive poster and, I suspect, given the cynical twist, the naysayers are winning. (After all, I am a positive person but just jaded enough that I enjoy the despair products as well.)

The problem is not the negative behavior. The problem is negative thinking and choices. How do negative people think? Some examples of “Neg-active” thoughts are:

No, Not, Never: Do not waste your time. It will never work.
Expect Negative/Exclude Positive: A good outcome is a fluke.
Gloom and Doom:  The Sky is Falling.
Apprehensive: Everything that can go wrong will go wrong.
Condemning: That’s dumb.
Troubled: Not worth the risk.
Ill-fated: It is bound to fail.
Vindictive: I hope it fails.
Entrenched: Why change?

People who think in negative terms will make negative choices that result in negative expressions. If we want to change outcomes, we must challenge the person to change his/her thinking.

Leaders repeatedly ask me: “Why do people act/behave as they do?” (The question is typically asked in the context of problematic and counter-productive actions.) But I would expand the question to, “Why do I act/behave as I do, for good or ill? What drives effective, productive actions? What drives ineffective, counter-productive actions?”

Let us begin our discussion at the point of observation. As leaders, we observe, over a period of time, individual actions and performance and form general characterizations about each individual. We label these as their personality or reputation that, in turn, becomes an expected behavior. This personality or reputation is a pattern of unique behaviors and characteristics that is consistently displayed. This reputation takes on a “persona” as the “external visible self” which we title, “personality.” There is no discernable difference between one’s reputation and personality. People are outgoing or aloof, controlling or cool, calm and collected, high strung, confident, mean spirited, negative, workaholics, considerate, unproductive…etc.

If we drill down below the surface of the immediate behavior, we observe that people make choices that produce behaviors. People choose to be engaging, which appears to be outgoing. People chose to take charge, which appears to be controlling. People chose to worry, which appears as anxiety.

At this point, I sense objections. Some say, “I do not choose these behaviors. They occur without a thought. I just do it.”

I agree. Many of our actions are routine habits that seem natural and automatic. But, there was a time and place where the pattern was established based on conscious or subconscious thoughts and choices.

If we drill down even further the next questions is, “What drives my choices?”

The answer: My thinking drives my choices that drive my behavior that builds my reputation/personality. I think in terms of meeting and being with people. I make a choice of engagement and demonstrate a pattern of being warm and outgoing. The reputation I establish is one of being an extravert. Or, conversely, I think that meeting people is stressful and awkward and I choose to be private and stay to myself. The behavior demonstrates aloofness and I build a reputation of being introverted – all based on my thoughts that work themselves out into actions. “The ancestor of every action is a thought.”

Thinking

I use the word “thinking“ as an umbrella term to describe all the cognitive processing in my conscious and subconscious thoughts. My thinking includes my assumptions, attitudes, values, beliefs, convictions, prejudices, biases; basically my conclusion about myself, my work, others and all of life. Then I use these thoughts/conclusions to filter all I take in through my perceptive senses. I use them for recognition, interpretation and expectation; meaning, my thinking not only sets in motion my behaviors but also becomes the key to understanding.

Perceive-Think-Choose-Act

I use a simple process diagram to illustrate the concept: Perceive >Think> Choose>Act.

We perceive the world around us through our “six” senses (sensory skills include intuition/emotional intelligence) that constantly pick up stimulus hardwired directly to our brain where we “think” about what we have perceived. That perception is evaluated using our filters of recognition, interpretation and expectation, leading us to our thoughts about what we perceived. We then make choices based on that thinking, and act.

Over the next series of posts, I will explore examples of thinking using this model.

The Lyrics: “Communication breakdown, it’s always the same, I’m having a nervous breakdown, drives me insane!” As a college student, I actually listened to and enjoyed the music; and, as an activist, was critical of “The Man’s” failure to communicate. Today, my taste in music has changed and now in the position of being “The Man,” I find communication breakdowns annoying.  Communication breakdowns continue today as a leader’s nemesis. Today, amid the proliferation of communication devices, portals and digital systems, communication breakdowns not only persist, they thrive and flourish.

We ask leaders, “What is the single, most critical, problematic, leadership issue you are currently facing?”

“Communication” appears on 97% of the lists. In fact, communication breakdown is the single, most common response.

The most common root causes of communication breakdowns are:

•Failure to appreciate one’s responsibility to communicate
•Making false assumptions about what others already know and understand
•Failure of the communicator to have a clear understanding of what is being communicated
•Habits of speaking in jargon, popular metaphors and “pc” slogans
•Insecure feelings that cause one to hide his/her lack of understanding
•Rushed, harried panic believing that one does not have time for communication
•Impatience with the discipline and details communication requires
•Failure to appreciate an individual’s contribution to the whole
•Big picture oriented, thus missing the detailed components
•Low “EQ” (emotional intelligence) causing one to miss subtleties in communication

What Are The Keys To Effective Communication?
Effective communication begins with a mental picture of the expected outcomes. A leader cannot communicate what he/she does not conceptually comprehend. To communicate, the leader must be willing and able to:

•Conceptually understand and clearly communicate expectations (i.e., visualize and verbalize  expectations).
•Accurately depict strategies and plans to meet expectations (i.e., describe a general sense of direction, functional detail and required resources).
•Enable and facilitate people to accomplish realistic goals (i.e., goals need to be “positive, rational, optimistic,” as well as specific, worthwhile, and measurable).
•Encourage performance to exceed expectations (i.e., value both internal and external customer needs, encourage continuous improvement and communicate with stakeholders).

Five Communication Talking Points for Leaders:
There are five simple points that, if articulated and answered as questions by leaders, will improve communication. These are:
1  Vision: Where are we going? (The 50,000-foot view. Paint a verbal picture of the end result describing what the completed task will look like when it is finished.)
2. Expectation: How do we expect to get there? (The focused ground level perspective. What needs to be done to accomplish the goal and how will the element be fit together?)
3. Value: Why are we doing this? (Why is this important, what is the reason and purpose driving this goal?)
4. Contribution: Where do “we” (you and I) fit in? (Identify and communicate the valuable contributions of each person involved, letting them know why and how they are important to the success and how they make an important difference.)
5. Timing: When will we get there? (Laser sharp priorities, deadlines, target dates and time lines.)

Busy leaders often underestimate the task of clearly communicating expectations. The fact is, communication is one of the most powerful and important tasks of a leader’s responsibility. An effective communicator is parallel to an effective leader.
Leaders often ask: “How often must I communicate these things?”
The answer: “As often as the questions are asked.”
You know you have communicated accurately and effectively when you hear those you lead communicating to others the vision, expectation, value, contribution and timing.
Once people understand these key points, the vast majority will respond with appreciation and motivation to meet expectations. Since most people want to be effective and be part of a success, the information communicated in answering these questions provides the resources for empowering their success and, consequently, the leader’s and the organization’s.

As I face difficult communication situations and breakdowns as a leader, I accept and believe “I am 100% responsible for my communication.”