Celebrate Your Quirks

Anybody who's attended a leadership training event in the last 20 years knows that you need to be aware of your strengths and weaknesses. We talk a lot less in leadership development about the power of quirk, a peculiarity in action, behavior, or personality. Synonyms for quirk include idiosyncrasy, peculiarity, oddity, eccentricity, or the informal term hang-up. Originally, the word was used in the sixteenth century to describe “an unexpected twist.” Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who led the United States during World War II and negotiated with the likes of Stalin and Churchill, could never quite find the courage to fire the cook in the White House. Everyone, including Roosevelt, complained for years. But the cook maintained employment in the White House. An interesting and somewhat revealing quirk that Roosevelt could hold his own with Stalin but avoided a confrontation with the cook!

We are intrigued when other people demonstrate an unexpected twist, and it is time to elevate the quirk in any discussion of authentic leadership. Our quirks are often what is most interesting about us, at least to other people. The truth of the matter is that we all have quirks. However, most of us hide them out of a need to fit in or to conform. The intense force of conformity is well documented in the scientific and popular literature. People who are authentic are willing to rebel against conformity and be themselves, quirks and all. Ask yourself: What is odd or unusual about you—what are people surprised to learn about you?

Carol Gallagher³ completed a research study of women who had broken through the glass ceiling. For every woman who had broken through to the C level, there was a signature characteristic unique to them that everyone knew about. It could be anything from high-heeled shoes to a maniacal devotion to a sports team. The specific thing or quirk was not important. What was important was that it was specific to that individual. In more contemporary times, Madeleine Albright⁴ has talked openly in the press about her pins that she puts on her jacket. She has regularly referred to selecting the pin to send a message to another world leader. Powerful male leaders also have quirks. The many quirks of Steve Jobs were well documented by Walter Isaacson.⁵ However, everyone knows that Jobs always wore a black turtleneck. The black turtleneck was his signature.

Here is a great example of a quirk. I used to work with a nuclear engineer named Greg who wore starched shirts and was the epitome of efficiency, crispness, and shiny military polish. He had a huge IQ and seemed to hold every screw and system in the plant in his head. Nuclear power is a zero mistake environment. At my consulting firm, we had a profile of success for nuclear power leaders titled The Right Stuff. The profile spelled out the competencies necessary to lead in a zero mistake environment. Greg epitomized the model in the way he looked, thought, and interacted with others.

Along with all the right stuff for nuclear power leadership, he had a keen ability to read other people quickly. We were fast friends. About a year into our collaboration, I went to his house for dinner. It was a typical Midwestern suburban home. Then he told me about his plans for the weekend: He was going to a Harley-Davidson convention. He had a whole new leather outfit to ride in and was thrilled to be hanging out with other bikers all weekend. His wife was going, too, as she also loved to ride and was frugal enough not to need new leathers.

I saw a whole new side of Greg that night. We laughed as he told me how different the conversations were on the biking weekends, as the diversity of people who were attracted to riding motorbikes and Harleys in particular was fascinating. I started to understand how he could read people so quickly—he was truly fascinated with all kinds of people and open to all kinds of new experiences. Interestingly enough, his quirk of hanging on his Harley with all the other biker people was one of the reasons that he was such an excellent reader of people.

What are your quirks? What is odd or unusual about you and does not fit into the way people typically perceive you? How could you reveal yourself at the right times? We get into habits and, early on in life, we learn that our quirks should be hidden. Breaking out of habits and being willing to constantly experiment is the next important quality of mind and behavioral habit of authentic leaders.

Video games, corn holing, chess, badminton, making wine, making beer, watching all of the football games at the same time on Sunday night. A hard-core operations guy who loves romantic novels. Judging beauty contests, collecting antiques, an Olympic walker, piloting a plane, fear of flying, fear of the water, fear of heights, and a terrible sense of direction are all quirks that I have observed in an executive population.

A quirk is not simply a hobby. It is something about you that is a little out of the ordinary. Quirks pique people's interest and help them realize that the box or category that they put you is not the whole story. For example, it is interesting when someone who is willing to take bold risks with billions of dollars as a venture capitalist is afraid of heights or of the water.

One last example to ponder: Being a competitive gamer is more interesting if you are a 50-year-old female than if you are a 20-year-old male. It is the unexpected that really grabs people and holds their interest.

The More Experiments the Better

We don't teach enough about Ralph Waldo Emerson in business schools. An American essayist, lecturer, and poet, Emerson was one of the founders of the transcendentalist movement and impacted the collective American psyche in many ways. He was actually quite successful in promoting his ideas about the importance of the individual triumphing over powerful social systems such as organized religion. Although he was quite controversial in his time, he had impact in the first half of the nineteenth century. He ruffled feathers; however, his authenticity cannot be argued.

I regularly share two quotes from Emerson with my clients: “Don't be too timid or squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make, the better.” And, “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”⁶

You are probably wondering what exactly a hobgoblin is. That is usually the first comment from my clients. It does not sound like a good thing! Hobgoblins are imaginary fears. They are depicted in Shakespeare as annoyances that are not to be taken seriously. I find using the term hobgoblin does get the attention of most executives as it is not a buzz word or phrase like synergy or be more strategic.

The general idea behind the hobgoblin quote is that you have to vary your game. Any notion that being authentic means being predictable and the same as everyone else should be squashed. To be sure, being consistent enough that people know they can count on you for certain things is fair. If people know that they can count on you to really listen to multiple aspects of complex issues before sharing an opinion, that is a wise consistency, not a foolish one. A wise consistency is part of the art of authentic leadership.

Authentic leadership development is not a spectator sport. Developing yourself as an authentic leader is not about sitting in a meeting and reflecting twice a month with your coach. It is about making your work life a laboratory and constantly experimenting with new behaviors. The only way to make signature contributions is to mix it up. With clients who talk a lot, I often have them slow down and listen. I often push the ones who listen well to speak up more. You can mix it up in all kind of ways. I recently advised a brilliant tax attorney to reach out and start having lunch with the human resources leaders in his division. The human resource leaders were shocked, and the brilliant tax attorney learned a lot.

Keep trying new things, and some of it will work and some of it will not. You'll begin figuring out who you are and be on the way to actually knowing yourself—as opposed to just talking about knowing yourself. It is critical that you both act in new ways and notice what works. Pausing long enough to acknowledge whether something new has worked or not is essential. The good news is that a five-minute focused analysis goes a long way.

The seven steps of authentic leadership experimentation are:

1. Try a new behavior as opposed to just thinking about it.
2. Write down on a scale of 1–10 how effective it was. Did it work?
3. How did it feel to you on an internal level? Was it awkward?
4. If you were to do it again, what would you do differently?
5. What did you learn?
6. Where else might this new behavior work or not work?
7. Repeat.

Perform these steps every day, and over time, they will become second nature or instinct. Typically, I ask my clients to try one new thing a day for five days. I also ask them to take notes on each of the seven steps for each of the five new behaviors. Then I ask them to experiment with two new behaviors every day. Over time, they are learning about themselves through setting up their own leadership lab experiments. Finding out who you really are is an active process balanced by reflection.

In the current marketplace, it is not enough for experimentation to operate at only the individual level. Constant experimentation is required at both the team and organizational levels as well. We live in an era in which you will either be disrupted or be a disruptor in many sectors of the economy. The steps above can also be applied to strategic experimentation in the following way:

1. Try a new product, service, or strategy.
2. Write down how effective it was on a scale of 1–10. You must decide how much time you are going to give it before you ask this question. It could be 90 days, or it could shorter or longer.
3. Was the product, service, or strategy true to the team's vision of the business in the marketplace? That is the authenticity question. Was it within bounds? Out of bounds? Not a good fit? Is it potentially pointing out what the business could or should become in the marketplace?
4. If you were to do it again, what would you do differently?
5. What did your team learn?
6. How else might this new product, service, or strategy be deployed? Could it potentially work in adjacent spaces?
7. Repeat.

In a recent article on chiefexecutive.net, journalist Dale Buss reported that many top executives realize the need for their companies to make disruptive strategic moves that may even cannibalize their current business. The title of the article is “9 Ways to Get the Board behind Your Disruptive Strategies.” Netflix CEO Reed Hastings recently said, “We need to become HBO before HBO becomes us.” So you have Netflix trying to become HBO and vice versa! Techniques recommended to CEOs in Buss's article include filling your board with flexible personalities and creating a culture of experimentation.⁷

Dealing with disruption and adapting fast affects everyone, including smaller businesses and freelancers as well. Fast Company has titled our current era #genflux, or Generation Flux, calling modern business pure chaos and showcasing people who are dealing with all the disruption and succeeding.⁸ Maintaining an attitude of boldness, flexibility, and experimentation is important for hard-core business reasons as well as in the service of becoming an authentic leader who makes visible signature contributions.

The Upside of Your Weaknesses

In business, we psychologists use personality assessments and 360 evaluations to help leaders understand their strengths and weaknesses. Personality inventories vary in complexity and are widespread. The 360 feedback tools are either quantitative or qualitative. Quantitative instruments ask raters who are peers, subordinates, and superiors to rate executives on a scientifically validated competency model. The qualitative 360 method involves interviewing key colleagues and asking directly for their perceptions of a person's strengths and weaknesses.

In recent years, through the contributions of thought leaders such as Donald Clifton, Marcus Buckingham, and Tom Rath, there has been an increased focus on strengths in the assessment process. Donald Clifton is often called the father of the strengths movement in psychology. Through the work of Marcus Buckingham and Tom Rath, developing strengths has become an accepted approach to talent development. The general idea is that your energy is better invested working to get even better at your strengths than working a lot just to potentially get to average on a weakness. This model resonates with most people and makes them happy when they leave a meeting. Yeah, let's focus on our strengths!

The effect of the strengths movement has been positive overall, as a balancing out needed to happen—not to mention the fact that people are much happier when they are using their strengths on a daily basis. Knowing your key strengths and using them at least 50 percent of the time is important. Your strengths are a big part of who you really are. However, your strengths are not the whole story.

As in all things, we Americans tend to move toward excess. We believe in all things—except moderation, as my European friends tease. The reality is that due to the strengths movement, many people are afraid to say “weakness” and use the euphemism “developmental area.” In contrast, authentic people are willing to say they have a weakness in a safe environment. Even more important, they are aware of their weaknesses. Some weaknesses truly are developmental areas, and some are going to continue to be weaknesses. Authentic leaders know the difference between a weakness that is not going to change and one that they need to focus effort on developing. The reality is that some weaknesses can move to strengths with focused effort.

Weaknesses and vulnerabilities are underrated in the current strengths-focused environment. Authentic leaders are able to use their weaknesses to empower the team. Leaders who tend to miss the details can rely on individuals on their teams who are good at that and appreciate them for their competence. Leaders who tend to love the detail can stack their teams with people who see around corners with ease and actually listen carefully to those people. Embracing your own weaknesses as a leader allows you to see the strengths of others more clearly and elevate the whole team.

Owning weaknesses and vulnerabilities in the right way is an important part of a leader's authenticity and individuality. Research by Zenger and Folkman has clarified that extraordinary leaders—defined as the absolute best who are in the top 10 percent when compared with all other leaders—have one or two extraordinary strengths and one or two really bad flaws.⁹ Yes, people who respond to the 360 are aware enough of the flaws to ding their bosses on it during the assessment. It is a myth that extraordinary leaders are good at everything.

The biggest struggle that my clients have with vulnerability is not knowing the answer. Thinking and saying I don't know, what do you guys think? is a courageous act of authenticity. Most people wind up in leadership roles because they are able to figure out the answers a lot. The challenges faced by leaders today are complicated. Maintaining the façade that you know the answer is actually dangerous because that façade will keep people from telling you what you need to know to make good decisions.

People respond and connect to other people who are real, flaws and all. Leadership is fundamentally about human relationships. We follow people we trust. Bren?? Brown's qualitative research has made it clear that vulnerability is one of the keys to interpersonal connection that is beyond the superficial, ego-defended chatter that often passes as conversation.¹⁰ Brown's TED talk on the power of vulnerability went viral in 2010. To date, almost 20 million people have viewed that TED talk. Clearly, it struck a chord. Many of us have a gut reaction to hide the stuff about ourselves that we think will keep other people from accepting us. In order for deeper human connection to happen, leaders must allow themselves to be really seen vs. being an image of perfection. Leaders who desire to be authentic must reframe vulnerability as being powerful in a different way than they typically think of power. The power of vulnerability is not the power of having the answer. However, the power of vulnerability may be the key to leaders unleashing the talents of their teams to discover many potential answers to complex dilemmas.

The key to staying in touch with reality regarding both your strengths and weaknesses is to invite real-time feedback. You do not have to bring a psychologist like me into the mix to receive quality feedback if you have the courage to deal with your own vulnerabilities and weaknesses on a regular basis. You have to make it easy, normal, and regular for people to give you feedback.

It will not likely be comfortable for you at first. When Cheryl Sandberg first joined Facebook as COO, she set up what she termed Feedback Fridays with the baby-faced CEO Mark Zuckerberg.¹¹ Sandberg was older and considerably more experienced than Zuckerberg but knew that open communication between the two of them was going to be key. Every Friday, they would meet for the purpose of Mark giving her feedback regarding what was working or not working. He, in turn, asked for feedback as well.

This real-time feedback is what happens in the most productive, authentic business alliances. It is not always the most comfortable thing to do, but it works and serves as more than an ounce of prevention. I have clients who ask their direct reports for feedback in every one-on-one meeting. I tell my clients not to use the word feedback. Just go for it. The term feedback is too abstract and laden with meaning these days. The questions that I have my clients step up and ask are:

• What am I doing or not doing that is helpful to you?
• What am I doing or not doing that is making things difficult for you?
• How is being a part of this team working for you?

The key to getting real-time feedback is that you have to be willing to be vulnerable and tolerate the discomfort long enough to hear it. Tolerating the discomfort does not involve justifying or grimacing. The key is that you have to maintain eye contact nonverbally and ask questions verbally. This exercise is not for rookies! It also is highly effective with your peers. Your peers are more likely to give you the unvarnished truth.

Meaning Matters

What is the meaning of your work? You are not going to get an e-mail outlining the significance of your work. The yearning for meaning and significance in your work will not likely go away. Many people in your organization of at least five different generations may be struggling for an answer to the basic questions of meaning or significance. The why behind the doing really matters in human motivation. In the words of U2, many of us still haven't found what we're looking for. You are the one with the power to contribute meaning to your work.

It is a nice fantasy to believe that the meaning of your work and life will be spelled out for you via e-mail or even snail mail. Toward the end of Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, a restaurant hostess opens an envelope that contains the meaning of life.¹² Finally, the answer! She opens the envelope with nonchalance and reads it. The meaning of life is: “Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.” The hostess closes by sardonically saying that this answer is not going to bring people out to see the movie. Pornography would be a better bet!

Not much has changed since the 1980s, except we now know that we should eat some fat. The ever-present quest for meaning at work has cropped back up again in the form of Gen Xers and millennials pressing the issue. A recent article in The Wall Street Journal was titled “I Don't Have a Job. I Have A Higher Calling.”¹³ A job is not just a job anymore, as the leadership of all kinds of companies attempts to frame the company's core task as meaningful. Many employers are essentially trying to make an announcement to everyone to clarify exactly how their work is meaningful. It reminds me of the climactic scene in Monty Python.

Research has made it evident that people who are clear about a higher purpose in their work are more satisfied, engaged, and willing to go the extra mile.¹⁴ However, the process of deriving purpose from your work is an inside job. What is meaningful for one person is not meaningful to the next. As nice as it would be to have an organization spell it out for us, it is up to us as individuals to figure out what is meaningful to us. There are no shortcuts. People who are authentic are aware of what is meaningful to them. The question is not What is the meaning of work or life in general? The question for people who want to become more authentic is What is meaningful to you?

Your signature contributions will likely come from doing things that you personally find meaningful. Research in psychology has made it clear that meaning is self-determined. How do you figure that out? You must become skilled at noticing when you feel emotions that you connect with meaning and purpose. Positive psychologists have provided a tool to help you get started on the journey to discovering what provides purpose and meaning for you. Christopher Peterson and Martin Seligman completed an ambitious project that served to organize human virtue and character.¹⁵ Years of study culminated with the development of an assessment instrument titled the VIA strengths finder.

But these strengths are not like strengths on corporate competency models, such as being strategic or leading a team. These are 24 character strengths: creativity, curiosity, judgment, love of learning, perspective, bravery, perseverance, honesty, zest, love, kindness, social intelligence, teamwork, fairness, leadership, forgiveness, humility, prudence, self-regulation, appreciation of beauty and excellence, gratitude, hope, humor, and spirituality. It is through the exercise and cultivation of these strengths of character that we can find meaning in our work lives. An accountant who practices the virtue of honesty and holds that dear is likely to be doing meaningful work. An employee who sees that a new product is not going to work and speaks up is practicing bravery, and that is likely to be meaningful to that employee. An executive with the character strength of forgiveness who takes a risk and hires someone who has a criminal past is likely to experience meaning in work regardless of whether the company is selling insurance or building routers.

The character strengths are organized into six virtues: wisdom, courage, humanity, justice, temperance, and transcendence. Peterson and Seligman studied every culture and every religion throughout the ages to come up with the six major virtues. You can take the assessment at www.viacharacter.org and see what you think about the model and your results.

The VIA character strengths are much closer to what New York Times columnist David Brooks has recently called eulogy virtues rather than résumé virtues.¹⁶ Résumé virtues are the skills you bring to the business. For instance, do you see opportunities, or know how to pull the levers to make a business profitable? Eulogy virtues are deeper and the things people will say about us when we die. You don't hear much at funerals that could be put on the dead person's résumé. You hear a lot about kindness, bravery, humor, and perspective at funerals. One of the challenges of authentic leadership in business is to lead and promote both résumé and eulogy virtues, or in VIA terms, character strengths. You do not have to choose, but you do have to be clear about what eulogy virtues you hold dear. What would you want said about you at your funeral? Authentic leaders are clear about what is important from a character perspective. This requires self-examination and thought.

On a practical level, figuring out exactly what you hold dear and value is a first step toward deriving meaning from your work. Meaning is derived at work through the expression of your unique character. Character has two definitions. The first definition of character is the mental or moral qualities distinctive to an individual. Our moral qualities or values are unique to us as individuals, and as Peterson and Seligman have clarified, there are recurrent patterns throughout history regarding what humans find to be virtuous or meaningful.

The second definition of character also has relevance to the development of authentic leaders. A character is a person in a novel, play, or movie. Characters are developed or revealed in such great works. We must notice how we are developing over time and realize that what gives us meaning at one phase of our professional or personal lives may not give us meaning five years from now. The quest for meaning and purpose is a daily one and requires us to pay attention because meaning matters.

The baby boomers also set out to change the world in the 1960s. So, the Millennials and Gen Xers entering the workplace and expressing a desire to change the world is not really that shocking. Changing the world only happens when people are practicing their strengths of character. Looking for a way to change the world can actually be a cop-out and help you avoid figuring out how to be yourself. Doing the work of figuring out how to be yourself is much more achievable than an action plan to change the world.

It is easy to get caught up in thinking that you need to be Nelson Mandela, Gloria Steinem, or Martin Luther King, Jr. and change the world in order to have meaning in your work. One of my personal heroes of late is author and consultant Marie Kondo. Marie's work addresses the real problem in the developed world of people being overwhelmed by too much stuff. Her book titled The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up has been purchased by at least 2 million people globally.¹⁷ She counsels people to get rid of objects that do not spark joy. To be sure, helping people get rid of clutter sounds less awe-inspiring and virtuous than ending apartheid. Most people are not aware that objects spark emotions and likely have not really thought about that. Her work enables people to get more done that matters in their lives because they are not distracted by clutter and therefore become more aware of their own emotions. That is practical, real-world value in the lives of people.

The Workouts

• Ask yourself the George Bailey questions cited at the beginning of this chapter next Tuesday. Write down your answers. What did you learn? Apply your learning in some way on Wednesday. It can be small. For example, one of my clients decided to not allow himself to use the mute button if he had a conference call. It kept him more engaged because he could not type or text other people if everyone was listening.
• Give the seven steps of authentic leadership development a try. Practice one new behavior. Again, think small. For example, if you usually talk too much, talk less. If you tend to hold back, speak up twice in your next meeting.
• Take the VIA strengths-finder assessment at www.viacharacter.org. It is available free of charge online. There is no catch. Figure out how you can use one of your character strengths more often in your current role. What would it look like to practice curiosity or another one of the 24 character strengths more often in your current role? Be careful, you may start to experience meaning that is self-determined!