Imagine if you will what it would be like if roughly 40% of a nation’s primary deliberative rule-making body was comprised of HR professionals? Or, retired Air Force generals?  Just let your mind run with that for a second. Continuing with that thread, why should we expect a better result by having our nation’s legislative branch dominated by lawyers, people, according to Thomas Jefferson, “whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, and talk by the hour?”

Before the flaming begins, understand one thing – this is not an anti-lawyer piece. Lawyers and those in the legal profession serve a necessary and useful purpose. Most of them, I suspect are fine people. The principle of having a nation or any large aggregation of people bounded by laws is a good thing.

Yet, too much of a good thing, any good thing, is problematic, whether that “good thing” is principles espoused by HR professionals, military officers, or lawyers. In the latter case, owing in part to the 1.1 million or so lawyers in our midst (and their heavy concentration in government), we have allowed the law to become too much the de facto standard for acceptable behavior. In many cases, we conclude all too quickly (conveniently, perhaps) that if something is legal, it must be okay.

This week, playing out before our very eyes is a sad, sorry affair involving Penn State University, its legendary and now former head football coach, and behavior on the coach’s part that, while within the law, was hardly acceptable. It has been said that, “The law is hardly a lofty standard.” That certainly rings true in this case.

The Penn State saga is an excellent reminder for anyone in a leadership position that compliance with the law ought to be the bare minimum standard for our decisions and behavior. It is for this reason, perhaps, that there is a Danish admonishment that we should always “beware stepping over  the lowest part of the fence.” In reality, the standard that those who follow us quite rightly hold us to is that we will do what is right even (no, especially) in the absence of an established guideline, policy… or law. That standard can indeed be a difficult one to live up to when lives, careers, and large sums of money are on the line, but that’s the deal when we sign on for a role as a leader.

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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 newly released book,Rebooting Leadership. For more information about Bill, his partner Richard Hadden, and their work, please visit theirwebsite, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ContentedCows

For decades, it has been suggested that three things are emblematic of America – baseball, hot dogs, and apple pie. Though it’s hard to argue with this list, I’ll suggest that it could use some updating.

Thinking back on the things that have impacted my life significantly, one of them indeed involves apples, but it is not apple pie. Rather, it is apple (make that Apple) products.

For better than two decades, nearly every word that I’ve “written”, including three and one-half books, has been created or archived on an Apple computer or device. Ditto for every business plan, tax return, letter, photograph, and email. If we’ve met or come into the same sphere at any time during that period, your contact information, ‘er “stuff” is recorded on one (likely all) of those devices. Many of my executive coaching sessions are conducted via videoconference on Facetime. Every morning, I awaken to a claxon-like sound blaring from an iPhone that, contrary to manufacturer’s recommendations, never gets turned off. During time in the gym and aboard airplanes for thousands of hours, music, other entertainment, and sometimes just peace and quiet has been piped into my body via an Apple product and those iconic white earbuds. Speeches are delivered with the assistance of visual aids created and stored on a MacBook Air. My daily schedule and nearly all electronic voice comm. is similarly enabled.

I bought my father Apple computers to add functionality to his life, and enable me to keep tabs on him from 600 miles away during his later years. When I called to wish him a happy 80^th birthday, he proudly informed me that he had given himself a PC (as in WINTEL) computer. When I inquired as to why, he said, “The Mac isn’t enough of a challenge”, a comment that I passed along to Apple founder, Steve Jobs, suggesting that it might be the basis for his firm’s next ad slogan.

Though his products will remain deeply imbedded in my life, like millions of others around the world, I will miss Steve Jobs, a lot. No, I never met him personally, but due to a single leadership characteristic that he had in abundance, my life has been profoundly impacted. That characteristic? High Standards. Apple’s stuff isn’t “insanely great” as Mr. Jobs described it because they have the smartest people on the planet working for them.

No, lots of companies have smart people. Rather, it’s because Steve Jobs had standards that were higher, far higher than others, most particularly when it came to design and execution. Those standards were imposed on the people, ideas, and products that Jobs came into contact with via the company he co-founded. I’m sure the imposing was more welcome some times than others, but it clearly paid off, for Apple customers, employees, and yes, shareholders.

So, while we continue to enjoy the products that he helped introduce, Mr. Jobs may have left us an even bigger gift in the form of his example and an unrelenting insistence on setting a high bar that enabled, indeed compelled people to do something that is entirely too rare… their very best work.

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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 newly released book,Rebooting Leadership. For more information about Bill, his partner Richard Hadden, and their work, please visit theirwebsite, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ContentedCows

In a webinar presentation this week entitled, “Building a Go-Fast Organization” sponsored by HCI and Globoforce, I recounted a story in which former U.S. Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger had asked a staff member to do a report on something. When Dr. Kissinger got the report, he sent it back to the fellow with a note asking, “Is this the best you can do?” The staff member re-worked the report and returned it to Kissinger. The same thing happened again. The guy reworked the report another time and returned it to Kissinger, who again asked if this was his best work. The fellow replied that, yes, indeed, this was his very best work, at which point Kissinger reportedly said, “Good… now I’ll read it.” The clear implication was that Dr. Kissinger felt that he was entitled to nothing less than the best effort of those on his team.

This week, Steve Jobs took a step back from his role as CEO of Apple. Not unlike Dr. Kissinger, Mr. Jobs is known for a lot of things, but accepting mediocrity is not among them. The introduction of uber-successful products like the iPod, iPhone, IPad, and Macbook Air would never have come about without Jobs’ relentless focus on producing “insanely great” gear, to use his words.

(One can only wonder how the U.S. Congress would be behaving right now if Dr. Kissinger was the Speaker of the House and Mr. Jobs the Senate Majority Leader.)

Most of us understand deep down that high standards are a necessary requirement of winning. Sure, we whine about it at times, but nobody gets up in the morning and says, “I want to go lose today. I want to go to my job, hang out with some really mediocre people, and do crummy work for a supervisor who is a self-centered weasel.” We get it that high standards and winning performance go hand in hand.

Too often, as leaders, we handicap the performance of our team by setting the bar too low, by holding ourselves and others to a standard that is less, far less than our best effort. We do so for lots of reasons… because we’re tired, or we know our team is tired, they haven’t gotten raises in a while, they haven’t been fully trained or equipped, the list goes on. And all that is probably true.

Yet, when we do that, we step onto a very slippery slope by enunciating that there is a new operative standard called, “good enough.” In so doing, we absolutely incense those who really are giving it their very best. In effect, we are telling them that their expenditure of discretionary effort is foolish. No one likes to feel foolish, to wit a decline in their effort is almost certain, and mediocrity becomes the new norm.

Very frankly, I think sometimes we’re too quick to apologize for having high standards. There’s nothing wrong with asking people to do their very best work. And when we fail to ask for or expect it (starting with ourselves), our chances of getting it are greatly diminished.  I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be on a team where I’m surrounded by mediocrity, or striving to do mediocre things. I’d much rather create a big smoking hole in the ground as the result of a failed effort at something fantastic.

As leaders, it is imperative for us to push through the rough patch that we find ourselves in right now. It is entirely possible to expect (and require) best effort while still being sensitive to the needs, feelings, fears, and aspirations of our teammates. Indeed, that is the only way to secure a better future for them and ourselves. Let’s get on with it.

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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 newly released book,Rebooting Leadership. For more information about Bill, his partner Richard Hadden, and their work, please visit theirwebsite, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ContentedCows

In 1998, Northwest Airlines endured a strike by its pilots, who were members of the Airline Pilots Association. One day while transiting the Memphis airport, I asked one of the picketing pilots what the strike was all about. After ascertaining that I was not a reporter, he gave me his view on the matter.

He told me that nearly 3 decades prior, he had been shot at on a daily basis while flying F-4 Phantom jets off a carrier deck in the Gulf of Tonkin during the Viet Nam war. It was a job that provided him a salary of about $20,000, and personal living space aboard the carrier of fewer than 50 square feet.  He then told me that while his current job paid him about 10 times as much, affording him a 6,000 square foot home, and no bullet holes in his aircraft, the old job was better, much better than his current gig. Responding to my rather obvious question as to why, he said, “Well, Mr. consultant, I know you guys like things in short, 3 word bursts, so I’ll give you one… It’s leadership, stupid!” He went on to define, with all the grace and precision of a laser-guided smart bomb, the differences between his former and then current leadership groups.

If, as a nation, we’ve ever been in a “It’s Leadership, Stupid” moment, it is now. As profiled in our new book, Rebooting Leadership, Harvard professor, Bill George has very aptly noted that the near collapse of our financial system (and ongoing debacles) had less to do with subprime mortgages than with subprime leadership. Truer words were never spoken.

In that vein, I will submit that rather than wait for someone in elected office to do the job, each of us should bear just a little more perhaps than our rightful share of responsibility, and take steps individually and collectively to pull our national automobile out of the ditch, onto the road, and set it in motion in the right (make that correct) direction.

Following are five leadership precepts that we would do well to heed at the moment:

Leaders are Optimists

Operating on the well-proven premise that you get what you expect to get, leaders are optimists. They wreak optimism. They realize that for the same reason that crowds associated with parades almost always out-number those at funerals, people will not follow a pessimist for long.

As a nation, we need to get our heads out of… the sand (I’m so tempted to say something much more graphic), and realize that America’s future is as bright today as it ever was. We just need to get our mojo back. We may not have the market cornered on brains and good ideas, but we have more than our fair share. We have abundant (yes, abundant) natural resources, including hydrocarbons that burn. Though failed by individuals at times, we have a system of government that works for the most part, and let’s be reminded that it’s a damned sight better than all the others. Most of all, we have our liberty. So, step #1 to regaining our altitude is to fix our attitude, each of us. The “good ‘ole days” weren’t all that great, and today is not as terrible as the folks on the cable “news” outlets would have us believe. And yes, I lost a bunch of money in the market this month, too.

Leaders Display Courage

Courage is defined neither by the absence of fear, nor an overabundance of brass (as in cojones). Rather, courage is at once a matter of being willing to stand tall in the face of both physical and moral pressure or threat, to be willing to do what is right regardless of possible pain, discomfort, economic loss, or unpopularity. You are afraid, but you proceed anyhow.

So, too, is courage a matter of being willing to act in the face of uncertainty. If I hear one more business leader whine that the uncertainty of tomorrow is keeping them from taking steps today to grow their business, I’m going to puke on their wingtip loafers. As Warren Buffett put it recently, “In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield.” There is always the risk that the world will end tomorrow, too, but we don’t hold our breath just in case it does.

Each of us needs to summon that moment from our youth, or some other time in our lives, when we stared down a mean looking dog and continued walking down the street. Just as a congressman (or woman) with an ounce of courage would say, “no” as readily to Grover Norquist as they would the Teamster’s Union, each of us must find it in ourselves to call bullies or haters by their rightful names, and evict those who like to yell, “fire” from crowded theaters. Why not insist that facts, rather than partisan objectives and shrill rhetoric rule the day for a while?

Leaders Build Commitment

The process of harnessing the attention and effort of others begins deep within the leader themselves. We must be masters of our own time, priorities, and attention if we’re asking others to follow us. We must have, and be able to credibly articulate an abiding sense of purpose, direction, and priority.

In his book, Beating the Street, uber-successful investor, Peter Lynch maintained that people ought not invest in something unless they could explain it with a crayon. The same holds true for those of us who would lead others. If we can’t explain with that same blunt instrument what we’re about and where we’re going, then we can’t explain it well enough for today’s rightfully cynical audience, and people won’t buy it. Mr. President, take note.

We must ask and expect that our elected representatives focus like a laser on things that really matter, and that are in our strategic national interest. There will always be 2^nd and 3^rd tier issues that can be dealt with as time permits, but at this point we have neither the time nor other resource to deal with them. If, as Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz has suggested, we should get their attention by withholding campaign contributions until they figure this out, so be it.

Leaders Subordinate Self Interest

If we, as leaders, are to have any hope of gaining the commitment of followers in any endeavor, we must elevate the legitimate interests of the organization and those we lead above our own selfish wants and ambitions. We don’t have to take a vow of poverty or anything, just remain very clear about whom we are there to serve.

Indeed, one of the chief causes of the aforementioned pilot strike at Northwest Airlines was that senior, C-level officers had, at the same time that they were forcing pay cuts on company employees, like hogs at the trough, taken overt, outrageous steps to enrich themselves.

Similarly, the most glaring leadership failure of the recent debt ceiling fiasco was the nearly unanimous disregard for the financial security and reputation of an entire nation, in pursuit of narrow, partisan, and in some cases, personal interests. Many of our so-called “leaders” (more accurately, “politicians”) seemed only too willing to drag Americans (indeed the world) through weeks of clumsy, bad faith negotiations with the attendant anxiety and uncertainty, willing to allow the nation to go into default, but by golly, they weren’t going to abandon their “ideals” or do anything that might risk their political standing. In choosing such a path, many may have created their own term limits (so maybe something good will come from it, after all). Nonetheless, I’ve seen 3 year-olds behave in less self-serving ways than our elected officials have of late.

Leaders are Grown-Ups With High Standards

Deep down, we all understand that high standards are a necessary precursor to winning, and let’s face it, none of us get up in the morning saying, “I wanna go lose today. I want to hang out with mediocre people and do some really crummy work for a third rate company, or live in a AA+ nation.”

We must accept the fact that America will be exceptional only so long as we, each of us, maintains an adult perspective and is willing to live up to high standards. Whenever high standards and lofty expectations get divorced from one another, the outcome is akin to what happened at Chrysler and GM and Lehman Brothers.

Not everybody deserves an “A’, re-appointment, or re-election. Sometimes, “no” really does mean no. We can start by explaining that to our kids, together with the fact that life is not a TV reality game where the losers are voted off the island, but get to come back at season’s end.

I, for one, firmly believe that America’s glass is indeed half full and that our best days really are ahead of us. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t want to be here. Let’s get going.

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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 newly released book,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

This past March marked the 100th anniversary of New York City’s Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, one of the deadliest workplace disasters in U.S. history. 146 garment workers, mostly young immigrant women, died in the fire. As with too many things, it took a tragedy to bring about long overdue changes both in the garment industry, and in workplace safety in general.

While in some ways, we’ve come a long way with workplace safety, the anniversary provides an opportunity to reflect on the topic, and especially the role of leaders in keeping people safe at work.

Let’s be clear: Safety is everyone’s job. Repeat. Safety is everyone’s job. It’s the leader’s job to be sure that everyone knows that. Quality, productivity, organizational direction – you name it. The leader’s job is to set the vision, communicate it, model it, and help keep followers on track. The same goes for safety.

No sensible person would argue the merits of a safe workplace. Most of its benefits are self-evident. But there are others – significant, but less obvious.  Of course, people can’t work as well (or at all) if they’re hurt (or worse). But let’s not overlook the fact that if people are worried about their own safety, or if they have to make cumbersome adjustments to their work in order to stay out of harm’s way, they can’t possibly give their full measure of effort. They’ve got to slow down – beyond the reasonable “slow down” that comes with giving due care to the job.

When a leader shows (not just says) that safety is a big deal, that leader demonstrates, in a clear and compelling way, that he or she CARES about his or her followers. And take this to the bank: we know that people simply reserve their best effort for leaders who care about them as humans.

In April, we administered an employee survey and conducted training for Alaska Clean Seas, an Oil Spill Response Organization (OSRO) operating on Alaska’s North Slope. Talk about dangerous work. In January, I visited their Prudhoe Bay operation, in preparation for the project. (That’s what we do. And we’ll do the same for you, if you ask us to work with you.)

From the moment I arrived in the aptly-named Deadhorse, Alaska, I was fed constant reminders of safety. Holding handrails (both inside and outside), eye protection, wearing seatbelts, appropriate clothing for Arctic weather, safe footwear, the list goes on. While every ACS worker I encountered made me safety-conscious, the issue of safety has no greater champion at ACS than President and General Manager Ron Morris.

What’s been the effect of an unrelenting focus on safety at ACS? The event for which they brought us to Anchorage in April was, among other things, a celebration of a remarkable milestone: Ten years without a lost-time accident at Alaska Clean Seas. You read that right. Ten years. No lost-time accidents. That doesn’t happen by…well…by accident. It happens only through leadership, and a commitment by everyone in the company.

So, Bill and I weren’t surprised when Ron Morris opened the Anchorage meeting, held on the 10th floor of the Captain Cook Hotel, with a safety briefing. Here’s how to escape in the event of fire, earthquake, or anything else that makes outside look better than inside.

So leaders – a few to-do’s to make sure you’re executing your leadership responsibilities with respect to safety:

• Mind yourself first. Model safety in all you do. At work, and away. Seatbelts, helmets, handrails, smart moves. Whatever means safety in your world.
• Keep your eyes and ears open for hazards, especially of the not-so-obvious variety.
• Keep your mind open to suggestions from others about potential hazards, and ways to make your place safer.
• Develop systems and processes that encourage safety awareness, and make it easier to comply. Be sure people fully understand the consequences of carelessness.
• Emulating our friends at Alaska Clean Seas, celebrate your success with safety, but never grow complacent.

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Richard Hadden is a leadership speaker, author, and consultant who helps organizations improve their business results by creating a great place to work. He and Bill are the authors of the acclaimed business classic Contented Cows Give Better Milk, and Contented Cows MOOve Faster, and the brand new book Rebooting Leadership. Learn more about them and their work at ContentedCows.com.