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:

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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.

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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.

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I am sure you have people under your sphere of responsibility who can perceive a project, problem, conflict or task, obviously think about it and make choices but the outcome is to be inactive, do nothing at all, or do the bare minimum. These folks consume 80% of our management time. It is interesting because only about 3% of the people are like this. We think the group is larger because it is so time consuming.

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Dierks Bentley sings an upbeat country/rock song lamenting a series of choices that cause problems. As he relates the scenario, he asks himself, “What was I thinkin?”   It is a common question people ask themselves when they have made choices that cause them problems. DB is a country singer, but his psychology is right on. Our actions grow out of our thoughts. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “The ancestor of every action is a thought.”

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?”

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In 1969 an English Rock Band, Led Zeppelin, released a song on their debut album entitled, “Communication Breakdown.”

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.

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