Praise for Leading at a Higher Level

“At Southwest Airlines, we have always strived to lead at a higher level. We truly believe that profit is the applause you get for taking care of your internal and external customers. We have always insisted upon a happy, carefree, team-spirited—yes, even fun—working environment, which we think results in motivated employees who will do the right thing for their internal and external customers. Reading this book will make a positive difference in your organization.”

Colleen C. Barrett, President Emeritus, Southwest Airlines

“This is not just theory. It is the real stuff, tried in dozens of companies big and small. It represents the most concise, practical, and effective thinking on leadership around. Plainly said, this works.”

Gary Crittenden, Managing Director, Huntsman Gay Global Capital,
former CFO of Citigroup and American Express

“Leading at a higher level is a must today if leaders are to rebuild trust and credibility, as we are doing at Tyco. This book will teach you how.”

Eric Pillmore, Senior Vice President of Corporate Governance,
Tyco International

“Leading at a Higher Level translates decades of research and 30 years of global experience into simple, practical, and powerful strategies to equip leaders at every level to build organizations that produce bottom-line results. At Nissan, we have made these principles a core part of our leadership philosophy, better equipping our managers to bring out the great energies and talents of our employees.”

Jim Irvine, Vice President of Human Resources,
Nissan North America

The concepts in Leading at a Higher Level have been used by high performing organizations around the world, including:

Abbott Laboratories

AMF Bowling Worldwide, Inc.

Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield

Applebee’s International, Inc.

Bayer AG

Big Lots Stores, Inc.

Biogen Idec Inc.

Bose^® Corporation

Bowater^® Incorporated

Burger King^®

Callaway Golf Company

Caterpillar Inc.

Cellular One

Chick-fil-A^®, Inc.

Children’s Hospital

The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf^®

Comerica Incorporated

Compaq

CompUSA^®

ConocoPhillips

Domino’s Pizza

Dow Corning Corporation

Energy Northwest

Exxon Mobil Corporation

Fairmont Hotels & Resorts

FedEx Kinko’s Office and Print Services

Fireman’s Fund Insurance Company^®

Foster Farms

Genentech, Inc.

Georgetown University

Hilton Hotels Corporation

Home Depot

Host Hotels & Resorts, (formerly known as Host Marriott)

Hyatt Corporation

Jack in the Box Inc.

Kennedy Space Center

Krispy Kreme Doughnut Corporation

L’Oréal

Mattel, Inc.

Marriott International

MCI, Inc.

Merck & Co., Inc.

The Michelin Group

Microsoft Corporation

Nabisco

Nissan Motor Co.

Northrop Grumman Corporation

Novartis AG

Pepperdine University

Polaris Industries

The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company

Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd.^®

Safeco Corporation

San Diego Padres

S.C. Johnson & Son, Inc.

Six Continents Retail

Sony Corporation of America

Staples, Inc.

Toshiba Corporation

Toyota Motor Corporation

TRW Automotive Inc.

Tyson Foods, Inc.

UCLA

United States Postal Service^®

UPS™

Verizon

Victoria’s Secret

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.

Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission

WD-40 Company

Wells Fargo & Company

Wendy’s International, Inc.

Yellow Pages (GTE)

Contributing Authors

Ken Blanchard

Marjorie Blanchard

Scott Blanchard

Madeleine Blanchard

Don Carew

Eunice Parisi-Carew

Kathy Cuff

Garry Demarest

Chris Edmonds

Fred Finch

Susan Fowler

Bob Glaser

Lael Good

Vicki Halsey

Laurence Hawkins

Judd Hoekstra

Fay Kandarian

Linda Miller

Alan Randolph

Jesse Stoner

Drea Zigarmi

Pat Zigarmi

Leading at a Higher Level

Revised and Expanded Edition Blanchard on Leadership and Creating High Performing Organizations

The Founding Associates and Consulting Partners of The Ken Blanchard Companies

CONTENTS

Introduction: Leading at a Higher Level by Ken Blanchard

SECTION I: SET YOUR SIGHTS ON THE RIGHT TARGET AND VISION

CHAPTER 1 IS YOUR ORGANIZATION HIGH PERFORMING?

Don Carew, Fay Kandarian, Eunice Parisi-Carew, Jesse Stoner, and Ken Blanchard

The Right Target: The Triple Bottom Line

A High Performing Organization SCORES Every Time

The HPO SCORES Model

The HPO SCORES Quiz

CHAPTER 2 THE POWER OF VISION

Jesse Stoner, Ken Blanchard, and Drea Zigarmi

The Importance of Vision

Effective Versus Ineffective Vision Statements

Creating a Vision That Really Works

A Compelling Vision Creates a Culture of Greatness

Vision Is the Place to Start

Make Your Vision a Reality

Vision and Leadership

SECTION II: TREAT YOUR CUSTOMERS RIGHT

CHAPTER 3 SERVING CUSTOMERS AT A HIGHER LEVEL

Ken Blanchard, Kathy Cuff, Vicki Halsey, and Jesse Stoner

Getting Legendary SCORES from Your Customers

Creating Legendary Service

Serving Customers at a Higher Level

Deliver Your Ideal Customer Service Experience

Permitting People to Soar

Wallowing in a Duck Pond

Give Your People Wings

Creating Legendary Service Requires Gung Ho People

SECTION III: TREAT YOUR PEOPLE RIGHT

CHAPTER 4 EMPOWERMENT IS THE KEY

Alan Randolph and Ken Blanchard

What Is Empowerment?

The Power of Empowerment

How Past History Blocks Change to Empowerment

Tapping People’s Potential: A Real-World Example

Learning the Language of Empowerment

The Three Keys to Empowerment

CHAPTER 5 SITUATIONAL LEADERSHIP^® II: THE INTEGRATING CONCEPT

The Founding Associates

Matching Leadership Style to Development Level

Development Level Varies from Goal to Goal and Task to Task

The Importance of Meeting People Where They Are

The Three Skills of a Situational Leader

Effective Leadership Is a Transformational Journey

CHAPTER 6 SELF LEADERSHIP: THE POWER BEHIND EMPOWERMENT

Susan Fowler, Ken Blanchard and Laurence Hawkins

Creating an Empowered Workforce

Creating Self Leaders Through Individual Learning

The Three Skills of a Self Leader

CHAPTER 7 PARTNERING FOR PERFORMANCE

Fred Finch and Ken Blanchard

Establishing an Effective Performance Management System

Partnering and the Performance Management System

Partnering as an Informal Performance Management System

CHAPTER 8 ESSENTIAL SKILLS FOR PARTNERING FOR PERFORMANCE: THE ONE MINUTE MANAGER^®

Ken Blanchard and Fred Finch

One Minute Goal Setting

One Minute Praisings

Reprimanding Versus Redirection

The Fourth Secret of the One Minute Manager

CHAPTER 9 COACHING: A KEY COMPETENCY FOR LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT

Linda Miller and Madeleine Homan Blanchard

Definition of Coaching

Five Applications of Coaching

CHAPTER 10 SITUATIONAL TEAM LEADERSHIP

Don Carew, Eunice Parisi-Carew, Lael Good, and Ken Blanchard

Why Teams?

Why Teams Fail

Five Steps to High Performing Teams

The Miracle of Teamwork

CHAPTER 11 ORGANIZATIONAL LEADERSHIP

Pat Zigarmi, Judd Hoekstra, Ken Blanchard, and Drea Zigarmi

The Importance of Managing Change

Why Is Organizational Change So Complicated?

When Is Change Necessary?

Change Gets Derailed or Fails for Predictable Reasons

Focus on Managing the Journey

Surfacing and Addressing People’s Concerns

Organizational Leadership Behaviors

Involvement and Influence in Planning the Change

CHAPTER 12 STRATEGIES FOR LEADING A CHANGE

Pat Zigarmi and Judd Hoekstra

Nine Change Leadership Strategies

CHAPTER 13 MANAGING A SUCCESSFUL CULTURE TRANSFORMATION

Garry Demarest, Chris Edmonds, and Bob Glaser

Gung Ho!: A Starting Point

Culture by Default, Not by Design

Senior Leaders Are Skeptical about Culture

The Importance of a Compelling Vision

From Gung Ho! to a Proven Cultural Transformation

Managing a Successful Cultural Transformation

Critical Success Factors for Cultural Transformation

SECTION IV: HAVE THE RIGHT KIND OF LEADERSHIP

CHAPTER 14 SERVANT LEADERSHIP

Ken Blanchard, Scott Blanchard, and Drea Zigarmi

What Is Servant Leadership?

Applying Servant Leadership

Great Leaders Encourage Their People to Bring Their Brains to Work

What Impacts Performance the Most?

Being a Servant Leader Is a Question of the Heart

Driven Versus Called Leaders

The Plight of the Ego

What Servant Leaders Do

Servant Leadership: A Mandate or a Choice

CHAPTER 15 DETERMINING YOUR LEADERSHIP POINT OF VIEW

Ken Blanchard, Margie Blanchard, and Pat Zigarmi

Elements of a Leadership Point of View

Developing Your Own Leadership Point of View

ENDNOTES

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

SERVICES AVAILABLE

INDEX

List of Illustrations

Illustration	Page
Figure 1.1 The HPO SCORES™ Model	12
Figure 3.1 The Implementation Role of Leadership	49
Figure 5.1 The Situational Leadership® II Model	77
Figure 5.2 Matching Leadership Style to Development Level	82
Figure 6.1 Points of Power	96
Figure 6.2 The Needs Model	100
Figure 7.1 The Partnering for Performance Game Plan	110
Figure 7.2 Situational Leadership® II Leadership Styles	116
Figure 9.1 The Coaching Sweet Spot	151
Figure 10.1 Team Performance Process	168
Figure 10.2 The Team Charter	173
Figure 10.3 The Stages of Team Development Model	175
Figure 10.4 Situational Leadership® II Team Leadership Styles	182
Figure 10.5 Situational Leadership® II: Matching Leadership Styles to Team Development Stages	183
Figure 11.1 The Stages of Concern Model	198
Figure 12.1 The Leading People Through Change Model	216
Figure 12.2 Perceived Loss of Control Increases Resistance to Change	218
Figure 14.1 The Leadership-Profit Chain	269

Introduction

Several years ago, my wife Margie and I went on a safari in South Africa with some family and friends. We had been on a number of safaris over the past 20 years, but this time I saw some things differently. The jungle appeared more vicious, competitive, and territorial than ever before. If you’ve ever heard a lion roar, it sends chills up your back. When our long-time guide, Gary Clarke from Topeka, Kansas, imitates the lion’s roar, he shouts, “It’s mine, mine, mine, mine!” That’s because when the lion roars, what he’s really saying is, “This is my territory. Don’t mess with me.” In fact, lions will kill their sons if the sons challenge their fathers’ control over their territory.

The reason I saw this more vividly than ever before is that I had decided on this trip that I was going to find out as much as I possibly could about Nelson Mandela. We had been at a dinner party where people around the table were asked to share what person—of anyone in the world—they would love to have dinner with. It was a quick decision for me. I said, “Nelson Mandela. I would love to have dinner with a man who was in prison for 28 years and treated cruelly, yet came out of that experience full of love, compassion, and reconciliation.” On the trip, I began to read Mandela’s autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom.

When I compared what I saw in the jungle with how Mandela had reacted to his treatment, I realized that in many ways we as human beings are just intelligent animals. And being intelligent animals, we can choose every day whether to be self-serving or serving. Jungle animals, like the lion, can’t make that choice. They have to protect their territory. It’s not in their nature to share with other species. And yet, just as Mandela did, we as human beings can make choices to live and lead at a higher level, to be serving rather than self-serving. But when you look at the leaders around the world—whether they’re running countries, businesses, churches, educational institutions, or what have you—too many people are choosing to be self-serving rather than serving. Why is that? Because they don’t have a different leadership role model. They have been conditioned to think about leadership only in terms of power and control. That’s what this book is all about—a different leadership paradigm. We want to help individuals and organizations lead at a higher level.

Leading at a Higher Level

What is leadership? For years we defined leadership as an influence process. We believed that anytime you tried to influence the thoughts and actions of others toward goal accomplishment in either your personal or professional life, you were engaging in leadership. In recent years, we have taken the emphasis away from goal accomplishment and have defined leadership as the capacity to influence others by unleashing their power and potential to impact the greater good. Why did we do that? Because when the definition of leadership focuses on goal accomplishment, one can think that leadership is only about results. Yet when we talk about leading at a higher level, just focusing on goal accomplishment is not enough. The key phrase in our new definition is “the greater good”—what is best for all involved. We think leadership is a high calling. Leadership should not be done purely for personal gain or goal accomplishment; it should have a much higher purpose than that.

What is a higher purpose? It is not something as internally focused and self-centered as making money. As Matt Hayes and Jeff Stevens contend in The Heart of Business, when it becomes obvious that profit, which is a legitimate goal, is the driving reason for being in business, everyone—stockholders, top managers, employees, customers, suppliers, and the community—quickly becomes self-serving. They focus on their own agenda and personal enrichment. Employee loyalty and passion often go out the window as the point of work becomes simply to get as much as you can for as little effort as possible.¹

What is the answer to this dilemma? A higher purpose—a key element of what we will refer to throughout this book as a compelling vision. In Hayes and Stevens’ terms, it is something outwardly focused, it requires sacrifice—in other words, it takes precedence over any short-term goal like profit—and it is intrinsically honorable.

Leaders can be successful in the short run if they emphasize only goal accomplishment. What tends to fall by the wayside is the condition of the human organization. Leaders don’t always take morale and job satisfaction into consideration—only results count. They forget what the point is. They don’t have a higher purpose. In business, with that kind of leadership, it is a short leap to thinking that the only reason to be in business is to make money. An either/or is added to people and results. Leaders falsely believe that they can’t focus on both at the same time.

When you are leading at a higher level, you have a both/and philosophy. The development of people—both customers and employees—is of equal importance to performance. As a result, the focus in leading at a higher level is on long-term results and human satisfaction. Leading at a higher level, therefore, is a process. We define it as the process of achieving worthwhile results while acting with respect, care, and fairness for the well-being of all involved. When that occurs, self-serving leadership is not possible. Why?

Self-serving leaders think that leadership is all about them and not about the best interests of those they serve. They forget about acting with respect, care, and fairness toward all involved. Everything is about their own self interest. It’s only when you realize that it’s not about you that you begin to lead at a higher level.

Why Did We Write This Book?

In 2006 we wrote the original edition of this book for several reasons. First, our dream was that someday everyone will know someone who is leading at a higher level. Self-serving leaders will be a thing of the past, and leadership throughout the world will be composed of people who, as Robert Greenleaf said, “serve first and lead second.”² We wrote this book to help make our dream a reality.

Second, the vision of The Ken Blanchard Companies is focused on leading at a higher level. This kind of leadership begins with a vision. Jesse Stoner and I wrote a book called Full Steam Ahead! about the power of visioning. To us, a compelling vision tells you who you are (your purpose), where you’re going (your preferred picture of the future), and what will drive your journey (your values).

The purpose of The Ken Blanchard Companies is to help individuals and organizations lead at a higher level. Our mission statement reflects our new definition of leadership:

Our picture of the future is

• Everyone is trained to lead at a higher level.

• Every organization is led by people leading at a higher level.

• People are motivated to lead at a higher level by observing people who lead at a higher level.

Our operating values are

• Ethical Behavior: Doing the right thing

• Relationships: Developing mutual trust and respect

• Success: Operating a profitable and well-run organization

• Learning: Always growing, inquiring, and developing

These values are ordered by rank. In other words, we won’t do anything to improve the company’s profitability that is unethical or that doesn’t honor the relationships we have with our customers, our people, our suppliers, and our community. We realize that making money is not the higher purpose of our business.

You might say that this all sounds like Pollyanna—overly optimistic. That may be, but these are the standards we have set for ourselves. And these are the same high standards we want to help you and the people in your organization reach through this book. Helping individuals and organizations lead at a higher level is our passion, both for your organization and our own.

Finally, in many ways this book spells out our leadership point of view. Extensive research shows that effective leaders have a clear leadership point of view and are willing to share with others these beliefs about leading and motivating people. We hope reading this book will impact your leadership point of view.

How This Book Is Organized

Over the years, I have found that in organizations where leading at a higher level is the rule rather than the exception, people do four things well:

• They set their sights on the right target and vision.

• They treat their customers right.

• They treat their people right.

• They have the right kind of leadership.

This book is organized into four sections. Section I focuses on the right target and vision and integrates our work on the triple bottom line, the characteristics of a high performing organization, and the creation of a compelling vision.

Section II highlights treating the customer right and integrates our work on legendary service, raving fans, and customer mania. Today, everybody should realize that their customers are the reason that their organization exists.

Section III focuses on treating your people right. This is where the rubber meets the road. If you don’t empower your people and treat them right, they won’t take care of your customers, and in the long run, you won’t get your desired results. This is the longest section of the book, because your treatment of people is leadership in action. This is what The Ken Blanchard Companies has been focusing on for more than 30 years. In this section, we start with empowerment and then examine four leadership domains: self leadership, one-on-one leadership, team leadership, and organizational leadership.

Section IV zeros in on the right kind of leadership. Here we’re not talking about leadership style; we’re talking about character and intentionality. My travels over the years through organizations of all shapes and sizes have convinced me of two things: Effective leadership starts on the inside, and the right kind of leadership is servant leadership. This is a leadership not based on false pride or fear, but one that’s grounded in humility and focused on the greater good. With the right kind of leadership, leading at a higher level can become a reality.

This section also includes our thoughts on determining your leadership point of view. This turns the focus to you. Here we assist you in pulling together many of the concepts you have learned and help you integrate and apply that knowledge to your own leadership situation.

Writing this book has been a labor of love. Pulling together our best thinking from more than 30 years of working together, it truly is Blanchard on Leadership. With new chapters on culture and coaching, this second edition includes not only Margie’s and my thinking, but also all the wonderful contributions of our founding associates—Don Carew, Eunice Parisi-Carew, Fred Finch, Laurie Hawkins, Drea Zigarmi, and Pat Zigarmi—and other fabulous consulting partners who have really made Blanchard “the home of the authors,” including Scott Blanchard, Madeleine Homan Blanchard, Kathy Cuff, Garry Demarest, Chris Edmonds, Susan Fowler, Bob Glaser, Lael Good, Vicki Halsey, Judd Hoekstra, Fay Kandarian, Linda Miller, Alan Randolph, and Jesse Stoner.

We think everyone can lead at a higher level, whether at work, at home, or in the community. We hope that regardless of your position, the size or type of your organization, or the kind of customers or people you serve, you will learn some important information in this book. We also hope this book will help you lead at a higher level and create a high-performing organization that not only accomplishes your desired results but is a welcome harbor for the people you touch. May good come out of your reading of this book.

Ken Blanchard
San Diego, California
Spring 2009