With the passing of U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg (D–NJ) this week, some very large shoes have opened up in our national government. I will leave it to others to speculate on how NJ Governor Chris Christie might temporarily fill those shoes, preferring instead to recall a powerful lesson I learned from Mr. Lautenberg early in my career, when we both worked at ADP. It’s a lesson worth passing on, so here goes.

Approximately six months after graduating the University of Miami school of business, I took an HR manager job with Automatic Data Processing (ADP) in Miami, and enjoyed a five year run that also included assignments in Chicago and at the company’s New Jersey headquarters. Shortly after appointment to the NJ position, I went to New Jersey for an orientation of sorts.

On the evening after my first day in NJ, my wife and I made our maiden voyage into New York City.  Driving into the city, we got stuck in an accident-induced monster traffic jam at the bottom of the Lincoln Tunnel. We sat there for about 90 minutes, breathing noxious fumes being spewed from the buses and trucks around us. After a short visit to the city, we made it back to our hotel in Clifton, NJ where we both spent a very unpleasant night being sick to our stomachs from having ingested so much foul air.

The next morning, I probably should have stayed put in the hotel, but I wasn’t about to make a bad first impression with my new bosses and co-workers, or so I thought. At the beginning of each meeting in the morning, I told my host about my little problem and asked the location of the nearest restroom. In one case, in a meeting on the executive wing (I’ll never forget the purple carpet), my host pointed to an unmarked door about twenty yards away, and said, “There’s the closest one, but since it’s Mr. Lautenberg’s private facility, you probably should use the regular men’s room unless you just can’t get there.”

My worst fears were realized about twenty minutes into our discussion when I was startled by a loud noise and suddenly the urge to hurl was immediate. I bolted down the purple covered hall, through the door, and nearly flattened the President and CEO of ADP as I made my way to the porcelain facility. As I was slinking out of the bathroom, Mr. Lautenberg’s assistant, Ellie Popeck looked up from her desk and said, “Mr. Lautenberg wants to see you for a minute.” That was about the last thing in the world that I wanted to hear right then.

She ushered me into his office, and I’ll never forget that he stopped what he was doing, got up, smiled (yes), shook my hand and said, “Well, we’ve already met, why don’t we get introduced?” As I resumed breathing, we probably spent fifteen to twenty minutes in which he wanted to know all about me, what I had done in my earlier ADP assignments and what I hoped to do in my new one. We also discovered that we shared a common birthday and heritages that involved lots of work but little money. This guy was listening, really listening, and he didn’t have to. After all, we were separated by two very large rungs on the org chart. But listen he did.

Later on, as I got the chance to observe him in action, it was clear that Frank leveraged his listening skill in lots of ways. He had been ADP’s first salesman, and remained quite active in selling our payroll and accounting services – a process that starts not with talking, but listening. In 1982 he was elected to the U.S. Senate, and quickly earned a reputation as a legislator who could get things done, again from a willingness to listen and consider the views of others. Indeed, he was able to work across the aisle to sponsor and help pass a great deal of legislation having to do with public safety and national security. As but one example, when you travel on commercial aircraft today you can thank Senator Lautenberg for the fact that you are not seated in a cabin filled with cigarette smoke.

Let’s all take a lesson from Mr. Lautenberg and realize that no matter how big and important we get (or think we are), none of us is too big to listen to and be informed by others.

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A pathfinder in the arena of leadership and employee engagement, Bill Catlette is a seminar leader, keynote speaker, and executive coach. He helps individuals and organizations improve business outcomes by having a focused, engaged, capably led workforce. He is co-author of the Contented Cows leadership book series, and Rebooting Leadership. For more information about Bill, his partner Richard Hadden, and their work, please visit their website, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ContentedCows

Over the course of her life, my mother taught me more about leadership than any class I ever took on the subject, or any one boss I’ve worked for. The lessons were usually prompted by life experiences that she seized on as teachable moments. Her last lesson for me, now permanently seared into my being, took place in the nursing home where she resided, about six months before her death.

 For about seventeen years, my mom, and my dad as her ever-faithful caregiver, dealt with the ravages of Alzheimer’s disease. No matter what, he visited her daily, cared for her, and kept the nursing home staff on their toes with respect to her care.

Nearly every waking minute of her time in the nursing home was spent in a “merry walker”, a wheeled contraption made of PVC that allowed her mobility, but afforded protection against falling. Anyhow, mother was famous (6 years in one of those places allows someone to become famous) for scooting around the home in and out of public spaces and various other folks’ rooms, befriending and talking with them. As time wore on and her disease progressed, the “talking” was reduced to something that gave every appearance of being gibberish. The contents of her “hard drive” had been pretty well erased back to early childhood as the result of cognitive erosion caused by the disease.

One early fall Sunday afternoon, dad and I paid her a visit. Having a visit with mom wasn’t exactly a simple process, as it first involved doing a complete sweep of the building just to locate her. After a twenty-minute search, we finally found her in a hallway not far from one of the nurse’s stations. During our “conversation”, in which it was impossible to decipher anything she was saying, my mom kept pointing at me, more specifically toward my feet. Frankly, I had pretty well written off the entire exchange as gibberish until finally, something made me look down to where she had been pointing, and to my complete shock, noticed that my left shoe was untied. All along she had been trying to tell me that!

The lesson I came away with is that listening, really listening can be hard. It takes work, and it takes suspending judgment if you really want to absorb and comprehend what someone is trying to tell you. The people who work on our teams deserve no less effort and attention in that regard than our mom’s do.

I’m no longer able to tell my mom thank you for all the lessons she taught me over the years. If you have that opportunity, take it… today and every other day.

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A pathfinder in the arena of leadership and employee engagement, Bill Catlette is a seminar leader, keynote speaker, and executive coach. He helps individuals and organizations improve business outcomes by having a focused, engaged, capably led workforce. He is co-author of the Contented Cows leadership book series, and Rebooting Leadership. For more information about Bill, his partner Richard Hadden, and their work, please visit their website, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ContentedCows

Our good friend, Phillip Van Hooser has written a new book: Leaders Ought to Know: 11 Ground Rules for Common Sense Leadership, published by our publisher, John Wiley and Sons. Here’s an excerpt from the book: “Honesty builds respect; respect builds trust — leaders ought to know that, but sometimes it’s hard for leaders to maintain honesty and confidentiality.”

Leaders Ought to Know: Maintain Honesty and Confidentiality

“Casey is a front line supervisor.  During a weekly supervisory meeting, Casey’s department manager announced a plan to transfer one of the team’s newest members to another division.  The affected employee was unaware of the transfer decision.  The supervisors were cautioned about maintaining confidentiality.  The manager wanted to meet with the affected employee before the news became public.” Less than an hour after the meeting, out of the blue Casey was approached by the employee in question.  “Do you know anything about me being transferred?” he asked.  “No, I don’t know anything about that,” Casey responded before walking away. “Moments later Casey returned to the employee with this startling revelation.  “I lied to you a few minutes ago.  You asked what I knew about a transfer and I said I knew nothing.  The truth is that subject was discussed during a meeting I was in this morning.  Unfortunately, I’m not at liberty to share details — your manager will do that — but I wanted to be honest with you.” ‘The surprised employee responded, “Thanks.  I appreciate your honesty.” ‘Casey voluntarily shared this very personal leadership experience with me.  His admission sparked a wonderful discussion.  We marveled at how easy it is for leaders to play loose with the truth—and how often it happens in organizations.  We also agreed that leaders often disregard the impact such dishonesty can have on their reputations.’

The Honesty Game

‘Leaders Ought to Know Ground Rule #5:  “Leaders don’t play loose with the truth; Leaders lead from a position of unquestioned honesty.” (Excerpted from Leaders Ought to Know: 11 Ground Rules for Common Sense Leadership, John Wiley & Sons, releasing April 22, 2013.) Thankfully, the most considerate leaders fully understand that honesty builds respect; respect builds trust; and trust builds leadership reputations.  But the converse is also true.  Dishonesty (including those harmless little “white lies”) undercuts respect; unearned respect erodes trust; and eroding trust destroys leadership reputations. Simply put, Leaders Ought To Know the honesty game is one conscientious leaders cannot afford to lose.

Now it’s your turn: What are some ways leaders can rebuild a reputation when they’ve been less than honest or confidential?“Join the LinkedIn Discussion Now.

Phillip Van Hooser, Leadership Expert, Keynote Speaker, Author – Leaders Ought to Know: 11 Ground Rules for Common Sense Leadership

One needn’t look far this week to hear the cries of anguish, and claims that Yahoo boss, Marissa Mayer is taking the company and its workers back to the stone age with her decision that, in the near future, Yahoo staffers need to get back to work, literally.

Not so fast. Granted, telecommuting has its advantages, lots of them, both of the cost and lifestyle variety. Indeed, each of us maintains a principal office at our residence. We tend to be early adopters of the types of technology that make this workstyle more seamless and effective. Yet, there are times when proximity is more important than convenience.

This week is one of those times for us. We went to considerable trouble and expense to get in the same airspace (Marriott’s Gateway Atlanta hotel if you must ask), to talk about marketing and new books. Not unlike some of the logic that likely backed up Ms. Mayer’s decision, our decision was influenced by the fact that telephonic (or other electronic) communication only takes you so far.

Communicating is about more than emoting. It’s about making meaning. Getting belly to belly affords much greater clarity. You get a better sense not only of what was said, but what wasn’t. It’s more personal. You can see the other person limp from a recent spill at the gym, and empathize with them. You can smell fear in their breath, or see their body language suggesting hesitance, but only if you get close enough to them. These are things that you’ll never get on a Skype or FaceTime session. You never get to shake their hand or give them a pat. I will submit that claiming that electronic communication leaves nothing out is akin to saying that phone sex is as good as the real thing. Chew on that for a minute.

As a leader, dealing with people exclusively (or primarily) on an electronic basis has a lot of shortcomings. One of them is that you have fewer ways to really get to know them and size each other up. That inhibits the trust building process by a huge factor. Just as people can use the technological curtain to mask themselves socially, the same thing happens in the workspace. You never get all the pieces of the puzzle when dealing with someone on a purely electronic basis. Just ask Manti Te’O if he might have been better off having at least one real date.

If working remotely is effective for you, or your organization, we’re all for it. It does for us, too. But let’s not kid ourselves. Sometimes you simply need to put everyone in the same airspace for awhile.

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A pathfinder in the arena of leadership and employee engagement, Bill Catlette is a seminar leader, keynote speaker, and executive coach. He helps individuals and organizations improve business outcomes by having a focused, engaged, capably led workforce. He is co-author of the Contented Cows leadership book series, and Rebooting Leadership. For more information about Bill, his partner Richard Hadden, and their work, please visit their website, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ContentedCows

Last week, in his coming out confession before Oprah Winfrey and a yawning world, cyclist Lance Armstrong implied that, when it occurred, he didn’t feel that his persistent cheating in cycling competitions was wrong because everyone else was doing it.

A day or so later, invoking the example of her older sister, my three year old granddaughter offered the same reasoning when corrected by her mom for running in the house.

It would be one thing if this were confined to a handful of super-star athletes and young children. But it’s not. Witness the facts that, in corporate America:

• Precious few organizations are adequately training their new staff members these days, either because “we can’t afford it” (have you priced ignorance lately?), because “they won’t be here long anyhow” and, you guessed it… because everyone else is doing it. Really?

• Many organizations continue to irritate customers by off-shoring customer-facing call-centers to countries where the language and culture don’t mesh particularly well with those of callers because… A. They think it’s cheaper, and B. Everyone else is doing it.

• We see managers regularly overlooking meaningful performance and behavioral discrepancies in the workspace because, you guessed it…

Please pardon the rather closed-minded point of view on this, but everyone else is NOT doing it. Moreover, for those of us who are considered business leaders of any stripe, we get paid to set the bar higher, first for ourselves, and then others. Averting our eyes to this reality can, in the short run, be a source of competitive edge. But the problem is, where (and when) do you draw the line? How do you put the worms back in the can? How do you un-do the example that has been set for all those who are watching?

Here are three things that leaders at different levels can do to keep things on a higher plain:

1. Senior leaders – Make it known throughout your entire organization that those who lie, cheat, or steal will be ejected like a virus. At the same time, be clear that people will not have their employment terminated for doing what they truly considered to be the right thing. (This is distinct and apart from those who, over time, demonstrate bad judgment).

• Level 2 Leaders – Make sure that your new and emerging leaders get the benefit not only of appropriate training offerings, but of your good example as well. Insist that they always set the bar high, and teach them how to coach their team-members to higher levels of performance and behavior.

• Front Line Leaders – Never forget that those who look to you for guidance and direction also look to you to paint bright lines about what behavior is in and out of bounds, and then to hold people’s feet to the fire, regardless of who their uncle is, or whether or not they are a star performer.

We are convinced that the cumulative effect of these behaviors actually puts your team in better position to win yellow jerseys that you won’t later have to give back.\r\n

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A pathfinder in the arena of leadership and employee engagement, Bill Catlette is a seminar leader, keynote speaker, and executive coach. He helps individuals and organizations improve business outcomes by having a focused, engaged, capably led workforce. He is co-author of the Contented Cows leadership book series, and Rebooting Leadership. For more information about Bill, his partner Richard Hadden, and their work, please visit their website, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ContentedCows