Effective Leadership Practices NACM Leadership Core Competency Fundamentals Date(s) Educational Program or Sponsor Faculty 2.5 Day Toolbox Instructor Notes Although the outline and content is here for a presentation that illustrates the NACM leadership competencies, it will only come to life when personalized for the audience assembled. In this regard, it is always useful to begin with inquiry. Ask the group to describe their expectations to you. What are they hoping to take away from the workshop? What apprehensions have they got? How would they describe an hour and a half successfully spent? Give them some feedback based on the above while describing the learning objectives for the course. These include: understand the behavior necessary for achieving credibility in the leadership role, know why high performing organizations require a clear vision and well communicated purpose, have developed a vision statement for their courts, understand the importance of working with other organizations beyond the boundaries of their courts, have identified the important organizations with which they must build relationships, be able to identify the component organizational requirements for creating the highest possible performance, understand the basic requirements for doing continuous, skillful diagnosis of the organization’s environment and performance, and, complete an individual action plan for improving personal performance in key skill areas. 10/2/06 2.5 day Workshop

Leader Expectations Exercise What do you expect from your leaders? Instructor Notes Exercise #1 goes here. Use a flip chart to list the answers to this question as generated spontaneously from the class. They will suggest words such as honesty, integrity, support, energy, reliability, and the like. Let them go until they have created as long a list as they can think of. Then note, “This is exactly what your followers expect of you.” You may also want to bring to their attention that most of the attributes they listed have to do with who you are, rather than what you know or can do. Leadership is about character.

Leadership: Isn’t Only… Position and place Skills and systems Tools and techniques Instructor Notes It helps to personalize concepts like these with examples from your own experience or from those of the participants. Generate some examples of people who tried to get by relying only on position and place. What happened? How effective were they?

Leadership: It Is Also… You being you Practicing what you preach Doing what you say you will do “Finding your voice” Instructor Notes This is where a discussion about the importance of character will be valuable. Effectiveness comes more from who you are than from what you are able to do. Consult James Kouzes article to be able to elaborate on the idea of “Finding your voice”. He is essentially saying that effective leaders don’t mimic someone else. They find their own unique pattern of behaviors based on their particular strengths.

Defining Leadership An influence relationship among leaders and followers who intend real changes that reflect their mutual purposes. (Joseph Rost, Leadership for the Twenty First Century). When one or more persons engage with others in such a way that leaders and followers raise one another to higher levels of motivation and morality. (James MacGregor Burns, Leadership). Instructor Notes It will be good for you to read both of these books beforehand. Rost describes leadership as a PROCESS. He assumes that in a post-industrial era that process will be episodic, appearing at every level of the organization, not simply the purview of those sitting at the top. Rost leaves morality out of his definition. Even though Warren Bennis is famous for saying that “Managers do things right; leaders do the right thing”, Rost does not discuss what the right thing is. The Burns quotation differs mainly from Rost by tackling the morality question. Let the class discuss that aspect of leadership here. How does one know what the right thing is, especially in a society that embraces moral relativity?

The Tough Thing About Leadership Part “Do”, Part “Be” Managers do things right. Leaders do the right thing. What is the “right thing” to do? Sez who? Building trust Instructor Notes If you were able to inspire a discussion about “the right thing” with the previous slide, conclude it here with a discussion about how one builds trust. Eventually the group will conclude that trust, along with many desirable qualities of effective leadership, arrives as a result of applying the entrepreneurial principle or the Biblical Law of Reciprocity, i.e., it has to be given in order to get it. Give trust, then eventually you will get trust. Give respect, then eventually you will get respect.

Ten Leadership Responsibilities Help interpret the meaning of events Create alignment of objectives, strategies and people Build task commitment and optimism about success Build mutual trust and cooperation Strengthen collective identity Organize and coordinate activities Encourage and facilitate collective learning Obtain external support and resources Develop and empower people to be leaders Promote social justice and morality Instructor Notes Let the group reflect on this list. Perhaps you will want them to discuss it in small groups. Ask them to determine the extent to which they agree that these are the responsibilities of court leaders. Ask them what we are particularly good at and what we don’t do so well. What do we need to do to improve? Some will be more acceptable than others. Some will be more difficult to assimilate than others, e.g., “promote social justice and morality”.

NACM Leadership Competencies Be credible in action Create focus through vision and purpose Manage interdependencies: Work beyond the boundaries Create a high performance environment Do skillful and continual diagnosis Instructor Notes Here it is important to note that this slide represents the essence of the course. It is a summary of the results of almost 300 responses to NACM’s inquiry about what court managers should know and be able to do. Each of the five of these themes has significant, specific detail that the NACM survey identified. Time permitting, review a few of those specific KSAs here.

Being Credible in Action Instructor Notes Credibility is the first of NACMs five themes, but it is also the key to other contemporary theories of leadership. Kouzes and Posner have written a book entitled Credibility after determining that this concept was the driver of all other effective leader behaviors.

Credibility? 64 percent said they don’t believe what management says 50 percent said they aren’t informed about the organization’s plans Instructor Notes Yet, there seems to be a significant credibility gap for management in most organizations. In addition to the above data that came from a Business Week survey, the Gallup Organization has determined that 22 million workers are “actively disengaged” from their work. Not only have they no investment in the organization, but many are cynical enough to obstruct other people’s work.

Credibility Quiz What is your greatest strength? What is your greatest weakness? What actions can you take to build on your strengths? What actions can you take to do “damage control” on your weaknesses? Instructor Note Exercise #2 goes here. Administer the Analyzing Your Credibility questionnaire. This instrument identifies the major attributes of credibility identified by Kouzes and Posner. You may want to read their book entitled Credibility as preparation for this segment. After participants complete the brief survey and score it, use this slide to debrief the results with them.

Credibility Decisions and actions consistent, communicate personal values Honest and timely response Know their jobs, meet face-to-face Decide by building consensus Foster communication and community Instructor Notes Use this and the next two slides to summarize the credibility discussion. Research shows that with all our sophistication and modern management technique, the simple act of caring about people will trump them all. The highest performing organizations are characterized by supervisors who have a solid connection to their subordinates based on caring. Yet, again Gallup found that 65 percent of all employees said they had received no positive feedback during the last year.

Credibility (Continued) Provide opportunities to grow and learn People make their own decisions Hold self to same standards, set positive example Give people credit Solve problems and foster success Instructor Notes See previous slide

Being Credible in Action Model the Way (Walk Your Talk) Actions Speak Louder Than Words Credibility Leads to Trust Trust is “the Lubricant of All Organizations” - Warren Bennis Instructor Notes See previous slide

Ethics: A Key to Credibility Managers do things right. Leaders do the right thing. Warren Bennis What’s the right thing? Weigh the pragmatic in the clarifying light of the moral. Max DePree, Former President, Herman Miller Instructor Notes Wrap up this section by again referring to doing the right thing and the central importance of ethics in the modern organization. Time permitting, draw on the numerous contemporary examples of ethical lapses in leadership and the consequences they engendered. (Enron, Tyco, Martha Stewart). Relate your own court-related examples.

Creating Focus Through Vision and Purpose Instructor Notes Exercise #3 goes here. The important point here is that “vision” is not some touchy-feely soft concept that belongs to mystics and spiritualists. There is research proof that organizations with a solid vision outperform those that don’t. Also note that people cannot put purpose in their own work (the key to human motivation at work) if the organization they work for doesn’t know what its vision is.

Vision Put it before them briefly so they will read it, clearly so they will appreciate it, picturesquely so they will remember it and, above all, accurately so they will be guided by its light. Joseph Pulitzer Instructor Notes This is Pulitzer’s yardstick for a good vision statement. All vision statements should be made to pass the four tests described here.

Vision Test A realistic, credible, attractive future A future that is better, more successful, or more desirable than the present A desirable destination An idea so energizing that it, in effect, jump starts the future by calling forth the skills, talents and resources to make it happen Instructor Notes Ask individuals in the class if they have a vision for their own future. Do they know where they are heading? Do they know why? For those who do, how are they ordering their daily lives to contribute to getting there? For those who don’t, how can they be sure they are not simply in an “activity trap”? Relate this individual discussion to organizations. Why would they be any different?

A Common Vision for Court Performance Access to Justice Expedition and Timeliness Equality, Fairness and Integrity Independence and Accountability Public Trust and Confidence Instructor Notes The courts have already done some significant work in thinking about the “What should we be held accountable for?” question. The Trial Court Performance Standards are the result of that work and can be of use to individual courts in considering the need for a vision. Give some personal examples of how the standards have been used by courts you are aware of. Reading the standards will be good preparation for this segment.

Purpose and Court Performance Individual Justice in Individual Cases Appearance of Justice in Individual Cases Provision of a Forum for Resolving Legal Disputes Protection of Individuals from Arbitrary Use of Government Power A Formal Record of Legal Status Deter Criminal Behavior Rehabilitate Persons Convicted of Crime Separate Some Convicted People from Society Instructor Notes You might want to begin this segment by asking the group to list the purposes of courts (or gather them in small groups to achieve consensus on such a list). After they report back their results, share this list with them. Professor Ernie Friesen has developed this list of the purposes of courts by asking the question of judges and court managers across the nation. This list can supplement the trial court performance standards when attempting to determine the vision and mission of a court.

Purpose and Court Performance (Continued) Preserve order in society Reconcile relationships Protect those who cannot protect themselves Instructor Notes See previous slide

The Vision Thing Is the vision statement you prepared: Implementable? Inspirational? Likely to garner widespread acceptance? Instructor Notes Having given the class an opportunity to develop vision statements, use this slide to debrief their products. Use these questions to evaluate their work.

Strategic Leadership Purpose Priorities Capacity Context Action Alignment Instructor Notes Use this taxonomy to show the practical connection between vision/purpose/ strategy and action. They are not pie-in-the-sky concepts, but have a practical link to organizational operations. The ultimate aim is the achievement of alignment, where everyone can trace their individual contribution to the organization’s purpose. Everyone needs to have a “line of sight” in this way.

Three Key Questions Where are we now? Where do we go? How do we get there? The difference between being an entourage in an activity trap and an organization with a focus. Instructor Notes These are the three key questions that lead to alignment. Describe courts that you know which are nothing more than entourages following the king around, often caught in an activity trap. Contrast them with courts that are managed strategically and have a focus. Which is the better place to work?

Putting Purpose in Their Work What specific actions can the court leader take to help employees put purpose in their work? Instructor Notes Exercise # 4 goes here. Ask participants to think of a time when they determined a task to be very important, urgent, needed to be done. Then ask, “Who needed to motivate you to do it?” The answer is “nobody”. When we see purpose in our work we are very likely to motivate ourselves to do it. It’s internal. If people are not motivated by their work, perhaps they see no purpose in it. Have the class consider the question on this slide. Gather their responses on chart paper.

The Essence of It All Focus on Contribution Instructor Notes Peter Drucker told us 40 years ago that the effective executive is always focused on “contribution”. He is still writing about that today. The big question he would have us all ask is, “Why am I on the payroll/” What is it I do that is of such value that they pay me for it?” He claims that if everyone in the organization had a positive answer to these questions, it would be completely effective—lean and mean.

Beyond the Boundaries: Managing Interdependencies Instructor Notes Drucker again inspires this part. He says that, “There are no results within the walls of an organization.” In other words, the answer to the “How well are we doing?” question lies in the hands of those we serve. Knowing this, it is important for executives to think beyond the boundaries of the organization and build appropriate relationships there. Use the Trial Court Performance Standards here to note that they call for courts to balance Independence and Accountability.

“There are no results within the walls of an organization “There are no results within the walls of an organization.” - Peter Drucker Instructor Notes Use this slide to foster a discussion about what that means for courts. Who are we here to serve? What are their legitimate needs and expectations? How well are we doing? How do we know that?

Answering the “Cassidy Question” Who are those guys? Who are the people, which are the institutions with whom the court has interdependencies? What do they need from you? What do you need from them? Instructor Notes When working beyond the boundaries, there are several questions that need to be answered if one is to be effective. Use this slide to have the group answer them. The “Cassidy Question” refers to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid asking “Who are those guys’?

What They’re Telling Us 35 percent feel the justice system works and people get the justice they deserve 62 percent disagree Opinion Research Corporation, 1997 Instructor Notes Use the next two slides to make the point that when we ask those beyond the boundaries of the court, “How well are we doing?”, the results show that we have some work to do in terms of our perceived performance. Bring the message of these two slides to the group by using state or local survey results for the jurisdictions represented in the class.

More of What They’re Telling Us 80 percent- Cases are not resolved in a timely manner Over 50 percent- Judges do not give adequate time and attention to each individual case Over 50 percent- Courts do not make sure their orders are enforced 40 percent- Court rulings are not understood by the people involved in case 40 percent- Courts are not in touch with their communities Instructor Notes See previous slide

What the Public Wants Responsiveness Recovery Spontaneity Concern Instructor Notes A number of customer service studies have concluded that there are four common expectations people have of the organizations that serve them. Generally, this has been private sector research. Link this slide to the next one which lists the desires of public sector clients. Use these two slides in combination to ask participants to evaluate their courts. How well did they do? Where do we need to make improvements?

Public Sector Customer Wants (In Order of Importance) Information and communication Responsiveness Problem resolution On-time, reliable, consistent service delivery Competent personnel Accuracy Courteous and friendly service Instructor Notes See previous slide

Improving External Relationships Partnership Interdependence Integration Shared Knowledge Common systems and Procedures Trust Instructor Notes Use this slide to introduce the “Evaluating Relationships” exercise noting that there are six major areas that support effective external relationships. Use the exercise as a means for participants to evaluate their own courts. Ask them, “How was it when you first started with the court?”, “How is it now?” “Are things getting better or worse?”

How Are We Doing? Where are your greatest external relationship strengths? How are you accomplishing this? How were those relationships created? Who had to be involved to make it work? Instructor Notes Exercise # 5 goes here. Use this slide to continue the debriefing of the exercise.

Fostering Collaboration Welcome differences Listen with understanding Be empathetic Identify parameters, procedures, ground rules Create vehicles for communication Facilitate problem solving Deal with “here and now” Emphasize “better/worse” rather than “good/bad” Instructor Notes Use this slide to conclude the conversation about external relationships. These are “tips” for building effective long-term relationships.

Leadership Beyond the Boundaries Work on Relationships Begin With Inquiry Listen Understand Interdependencies Anticipate Needs Manage Expectations Keep Up the Dialogue Instructor Notes Use this slide to conclude the segment on working beyond the boundaries. These are some tips for improving boundary management. Emphasize them as you think best. Give examples from your own experience of effective and ineffective approaches to each. If you like, they can be used as a checklist for the group. Have them identify their most pressing needs and their greatest current strengths. This is a good place to provide some tips on active listening techniques.

Creating a High Performance Work Environment Instructor Notes This is the central piece of the leadership curriculum. All roads lead to a high performance work environment. Discuss with the group what this means. What does it mean to have a high performance work environment? What does it look like to you? What will you notice if you see one? From the leader’s perspective discuss the idea of service and servant leadership. The best leaders ask questions like, “How can I help?”, What do you need from me in order to do your job better? They use their power and influence for people and with people, not on people. Discuss the idea of process improvement and enabling people to do reengineering on the fly. Allow work teams to develop their own best processes.

Exercising Influence Beyond Organization Structure and Formal Authority Power in Your Position, or, Power in Your Person, or, Both? Instructor Notes The leader has “position” and “person” as potential sources of power. Position is a gift from the organization, but is never sufficient. Knowing that no leader has any power unless it is granted to him or her by followers, eventually the effective leader creates power through his/her person. Expertise, information, connections, common values and objectives all assist the leader in being given a grant of power by followers. You may want to research French and Raven’s, “Sources of Social Power” or Natemeyer’s “Power Perception Profile” for this segment.

Examining Court Performance The Court Performance Inventory Measures Your Perception of How Well the Court Is Doing At Achieving….. Access to justice Expedition and timeliness Equality, Fairness and Integrity Independence and Accountability Public trust and confidence Instructor Notes Exercise # 6 goes here. Use this slide to introduce the Court Performance Inventory exercise.

Reasons Why People Don’t Do What You Want They don’t know what you want them to do They think something else is more important They don’t know what “finished” looks like They don’t have the resources They don’t want to Instructor Notes Part of the performance problem has to do with the degree of agreement on expectations and the motivation of people at work. Three slides, beginning with this one provide the basis for a brief lecture on the subject.

People will do what you want if they… Are capable Have well defined jobs Know what is expected of them Have the knowledge and skills to perform Have adequate tools Receive feedback on performance Perceive rewards for performing as desired See purpose in their work Instructor Notes See previous slide.

People will ask… Can I do it? If I do it, will it be worth it? Will I be treated fairly? Instructor Notes Most theories of motivation at work can be summed up in these three questions. You may want to read some material on expectancy theory and equity theory to explain the background to these questions.

Assumptions of the World’s Best Leaders Each person’s talents are enduring and unique Each person’s greatest room for growth is in areas of his or her greatest strength Instructor Notes It is curious that most of our management training is devoted to overcoming weaknesses. We take the things you are good at for granted and attempt to “wire brush” your weaknesses away. However, the interesting fact is that the best managers concentrate on one’s strengths and attempt to build on them. They create star performers by developing further what one is already good at. This is the beginning of and secret to high performance.

Great Leaders Look for talent in every role Focus people’s performance on outcomes rather than force them into a stylistic mold Treat each employee differently Spend most of their time with their best people The Gallup Organization Instructor Notes As a result, great leaders tend to be talent scouts. They find an individual’s talent and fit it to the needs of the organization. They don’t treat everyone the same, and unlike others, they don’t spend an inordinate amount of time with their “basket cases”. Instead, they look to their best people and ask, “What can I do to help you get better at what you already do well?” You may want to read Marcus Buckingham’s “First, Break All the Rules” and “Now, Develop Your Strengths” as preparation for this section.

Doing Skillful and Continual Diagnosis Instructor Notes Tomorrow’s executive must be a diagnostician. In today’s complex organization there can be no “one best way” of doing things. Therefore, the leader must be forever the analyst, looking at every process, procedure and staff assignment to make certain they are achieving the intended result. One the one hand, they must find standard ways of doing things, but when they become outmoded habits, uproot them and use the organization’s scarce resources in another way. As the sign on the wall at Milliken and Company says, “In God we trust. All others must bring data.” Today’s leader needs data.

Effective Diagnosis Purpose People Process Know what you are doing and why People People don’t fear change. They fear loss. Process Eighty percent of your people problems are systems problems. Instructor Notes There are three major pieces to the diagnostic puzzle. This slide describes them. The only one requiring additional preparation is the second. Read some of the material written by Cynthia Scott over the last twenty years to discover what she means by “People don’t fear change. They fear loss.” Her point is that the change itself does not inspire fear in people. It is the perceived loss of competence, relationships, security, territory or sense of direction that cause fear in people. If we can moderate or eliminate them we can manage change more effectively. Juran is the originator of the assertion that 80 percent of your people problems are systems problems. Fix the problems with work process, communication systems and the like and you fix your problems with people.

Diagnostic Necessities Organization Vision, Mission, Goals, Objectives Feedback Beyond the Boundaries Process All value-added Continuous Improvement Group Focus on contribution Effective teams Individual Performance management Key conversations Instructor Notes If a leader is to be an effective diagnostician, he/she must concentrate on these important variables. Ask the group to review this list and determine where court leaders they know tend to do well and where they don’t do so well.

The Need for Metrics The things that get measured get done. If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. Inside and outside. Leaders anticipate. Not only, “How did we do?”, but… “How are we going to do?” A Balanced Scorecard will help. Instructor Notes The adage says that, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” This slide provides the rationale for that statement. It leads in to a discussion of the balanced scorecard as an innovative tool for measuring court performance.

The Leader as Diagnostician Instructor Notes The Balanced Scorecard has rapidly become the tool of choice for leading organizations because it allows one to consider leading as well as lagging indicators of performance. Rather than focus solely on financial performance, it permits examination of other performance indicators including customer perceptions and process effectiveness. To prepare for this segment you may want to consult Norton and Kaplan’s series of balanced scorecard articles in the Harvard Business Review.

Creating a Scorecard In your group, select 2-3 variables for each of the four scorecard areas that you think are the most important for continuously answering two questions: How are we doing? Compared to what? Instructor Notes Exercise #7 goes here. Use this slide to have participants work in small groups to create a balanced scorecard for courts. Instruct them to keep the number of variables to a minimum. Even if they choose only 4 in each category, that means a total of 16 variables must be routinely measured in order to answer the “How well are we doing?” question. Twelve to sixteen is probably ideal. More than that would be difficult to track.

21st Century Leadership Development Stop concentrating on the leader See leadership as an episodic affair of a group (not a desired way of life of a single individual) Educate people to use influence, not authority Develop people to work in a non-coercive relationship Develop people’s collaborative skills Build trust among diverse people (leadership relationships are based on mutual trust) Joseph Rost Instructor Notes Use this wrap-up slide to inspire a conversation about the future requirements for leadership. Joseph Rost suggests some interesting shifts for the post-industrial world. Have the class evaluate his six main themes. What will that mean for leadership in the courts? What will have to change if these themes are to be realized? Prepare by reading Leadership for the Twenty-First Century by Joseph Rost.

Wrap-Up: Individual Action Planning Review the NACM Competencies Which is your greatest strength? Which is your greatest weakness? What actions can you take to build on the strength? What actions can you take to improve on your weakness? By when? What result do I expect if I do so? Instructor Notes Exercise #8 goes here. Close the session by giving participants some time alone to develop a personal action agenda for improving their leadership effectiveness when they return to work. Have them share their results briefly with table-mates. Conclude the workshop by having a few volunteers share their agendas with the larger group.