In the first part of my story, “How I Created a Leadership System for the Real World – Part 1”, I discussed the challenges I faced as an adolescent and teenager and how one chance meeting with a stranger in South Carolina would spark a journey I would have never expected. Below is the remainder of that journey and how it has shaped my life and those that I have worked with through the leadership models I have developed…
That belief in my self-control would soon be tested with my dad’s diagnosis of pancreatic cancer in August of 1987, shortly before I was to begin my freshman year at Fordham University in the Bronx, NY.
Fordham was 300 miles away from Portland, Maine and I did not want to leave under these conditions. I told my father I wanted to delay school and he insisted that I was not going to put my life on hold for his. Instead, I travelled home almost every 3 weeks to see him..
While at school, I had never experienced such a deep sense of loneliness. Because of my focus on what was going on at home, I never got involved in any school activities. Prior to my dad’s diagnosis, my intention was to head to Fordham and try out for the football team. That option was not possible given the circumstances.
I remember eating lunch every day by myself while on campus. Yet, as painful as this time was, it provided me with an incredible opportunity to build resilience and gain a very deep understanding of who I was at my core. This experience was an opportunity to test the belief that I was in control of my destiny.
My dad would eventually pass away four months later on December 1st and I am grateful that I was able to be at the hospital with him when he died. Shortly after his funeral I returned to Fordham to take my final exams and then prepared to return home for Christmas break.
There are certain experiences or moments in time that we never forget. For me, one of those moments was waiting at the Fordham stop for the Metro North train to start my journey back to Maine and realizing as the train approached that
I would be returning home as an orphan for Christmas.
While the loss of my parents a little more than a year apart was devastating, I believe if I had not met that man in South Carolina, I would not have been prepared to deal with that magnitude of loss. This is not to diminish the importance of my own siblings in supporting me as well. Because through that experience, my understanding of the importance of family and the power of belonging would also shape who I would become and the work I would be called to do. Without them, I would not be where I am.
While I wish I could say that my quest for personal development continued on a positive trajectory during the remainder of college, it didn’t.
I regularly vacillated between my drive to become a better person and my decision to self-sabotage my growth through excessive drinking and other poor choices. During my summers in college, I worked as a bouncer at a popular bar in Portland called Cadillac Jack’s. While I did not look for fights, I was always prepared to get in one. It provided me a position of significance when I did not feel significant.
Looking back on that experience has helped me today because I recognize that the aggression that others exhibit toward their co-workers and others oftentimes is a sign of their own insecurities and unhappiness with themselves. I’ve been there!
What allowed me to not completely self-destruct during the remainder of college was that my internal compass was strong enough to get me back on course before my poor decisions sent me too far in the wrong direction. In all honesty, there were certainly some close calls.
Intellectually, I knew the direction I needed to go but it would be my behaviors that determined my success or failure.
After graduating from college, I got a job as a sales representative for Automatic Data Processing. It was my first experience in sales, and I loved the autonomy and possibilities it provided based on my efforts. It was a profession in which my drive and personality thrived.
Not long after that I married the girl I had dated on and off throughout college and at 29 we had our first child named Joshua on October 28th. The birth of Josh had rekindled a joy that I had suppressed in my life for almost a decade; the celebration of Christmas.
As a result of my dad passing away in December, the sound of Christmas music brought up immense feelings of loss because Christmas was a holiday that I always enjoyed sharing with all of my family. That first Christmas with Josh,
I was finally able experience the wonderful sounds and experiences of Christmas again through a new life.
Just as I thought my life could not experience a deeper joy from the creation of this family unit, I would soon experience a new loss that in many ways was more painful than the loss of my parents. In less than ten months from Josh’s birth, his mother informed me that she was not happy in our marriage and would be leaving me.
There is a saying you often hear around investing that says, “don’t put all your eggs in one basket”, well as it related to my marriage and my son, I did not even own another basket.
The next several months for me were filled with an enormous sense of grief and loss. As I have looked back on this experience, I believe, once again, that my parents and God were watching over me. Instead of a man from South Carolina, it was a child that would help guide me. My focus and responsibility on raising Josh allowed me to grow immensely as a father and as a future husband.
While I initially wanted to blame my ex-wife for leaving me and her son, I knew that this would not make things better. Again, I had an opportunity to test what I had first discovered with Zig Ziglar, my own decisions would determine my destiny, no one else. After resisting the initial desire to want to blame her for our circumstances, I began to look at what I could have done differently.
I decided that if I wanted my next relationship to last, I must focus on what I needed to change in my behaviors first. That approach paid off.
A little over a year after I met my wife Cyndi and we had two more children named Grace and Noah. Today, Cyndi and my children are at the center of everything that I do. They have been my greatest gift.
Just as my personal life had experienced great challenges and opportunities for growth, my professional life had experienced many opportunities to develop as well. The most significant came after the divorce of my first wife. Prior to my divorce, I was entering my third year in commercial real estate and while I enjoyed this profession, I realized it was not conducive to raising a ten-month old.
At this point I made the decision to enter that pharmaceutical industry as a sales representative. While never one to enjoy science growing up, I loved the opportunity to learn continuously. It was a wonderful profession that provided my first opportunities to experience my hand at training others and becoming involved in leadership development.
I was supported in my desire to learn more about leadership and completed my master’s in organizational leadership.
While I loved the opportunities that were available, I also became disenchanted with many of the poor leadership behaviors that were being modeled around me.
Drawing on my first experiences with Zig Ziglar, I believed I was destined to create a better leadership model to help individuals, teams and organizations maximize their potential. This would become the C.A.B.L.E.S Leadership System
When I entered the pharmaceutical industry, there was a great deal of emphasis on continually using available research to improve a representative’s knowledge of the disease states and treatments they represented. By doing so, they became more valuable partners with their providers and were more effective at gaining their trust.
During this time I also began to immerse myself in the research around leadership and focused on a select set of behaviors that seemed to have the greatest impact on leadership effectiveness. This was the beginning of the CABLES Leadership Model.
Just as researchers in our company were searching for effective treatments for specific diseases, I was searching for the evidence that would help me identify the most effective approach to developing leaders. To further this growth, I enrolled at Quinnipiac University to pursue my masters in Organizational Leadership.
I was now on a relentless pursuit to identify and validate the behaviors that would help leaders be most effective: professionally and personally.
CABLES was an acronym that represented the six leadership behaviors I had identified as having the greatest impact on the success of individuals, teams and organizations. They included, Congruence, Appreciation, Belongingness, Listening, Empathy and Specifics.
This model was a cross between a swiss army knife and an owner’s manual. Similar to the Swiss Army knife it had an endless number of applications based on such a small set of behaviors. As well, it could be used to identify the root cause of a disagreement and provide the behavior necessary for resolving the conflict.
I was confident that I had identified a better approach for developing leadership behaviors. Unfortunately, up until this point I was unable to gain the interest of anyone that had the authority to promote this new model. I seemed to be surrounded by leaders who agreed on CABLES intellectually but were unwilling to act on CABLES behaviorally.
Looking back, I am convinced that the positive relationships I built with my physicians and staff was the result of my ability to demonstrate many of the behaviors that are today part of CABLES.
As luck would have it, I was assigned an interim manager who took a great interest and a strong belief in the model I had created. Without her knowing it she was displaying many of the behaviors that I had outlined in CABLES.
Looking back at our time together, I witnessed her demonstration of CONGRUENCE and the trust it developed on our team. Her actions always seemed to be in alignment with the companies stated mission and values.
She regularly demonstrated APPRECIATION for the individual contributions of her team and was consistent in her treatment of those on her team. If she had favorites, she did not let them impact her ability to treat those on her team equally.
BELONGINGNESS was something that she instilled on our team.
While there were a variety of personalities, this manager’s approach was inclusive of everyone on her team. I have often believed that Listening is a super-power for those that have been able to do it authentically.
My manager was one of those individuals that demonstrated a sincere interest in what you were saying through her skill of LISTENING.
Next she demonstrated a great deal of EMPATHY for the challenges that those on her team faced as a result of an increasingly distrustful relationship between the pharmaceutical and healthcare industry. She understood the access challenges this placed on her team and did not place unrealistic expectations on how we would address these challenges.
Lastly, she modeled SPECIFICS. This was the behavior of setting clear expectations and intense ownership of those expectations for all involved. On her team, all knew what was expected and how they would be held accountable.
They say history doesn’t repeat but it certainly rhymes. Unexpectedly, the manager that had been such an advocate for my passionate pursuit of a more effective approach to effective leadership was now going to be taking on a new role in a different part of the company.
Soon, I would report to a new manager who had his own motivations and behaviors that were not in alignment with mine.
This new manager was much different than my previous manager in behavior and reputation, which did not mix well with my experience, research and beliefs on how to lead effectively. As a result, I was not the most compliant employee. My resistance to his direction and behaviors set me on a path of performance management plans that were self-induced.
In a period of less than a year, all of the ambition and vision I had for contributing to the growth of this organization’s leadership development efforts were quickly slipping away.
Yet, my enthusiasm for the CABLES model that I had created provided me the drive to push one last time. As a part of a leadership program my previous manager had selected me to participate in, I took the opportunity to meet with one of the directors. We discussed my model and while he was enthusiastic about it’s potential, he cautioned me about the likliehood of anyone listening.
He secretly told me that the department that was in charge of developing better teams and leaders in the company was one where individuals would not support new ideas if it challenged their initiatives. I felt the final lifeline slip away.
Here I was, once again, in a place of enormous growth but unhappy with my current circumstances. What really was my path moving forward in life?
It has been said that to motivate young eagles to leave the nest and fly, the mother eagle will often make the nest so uncomfortable that the birds are motivated to leave. In hindsight, this is what I believe needed to happen to me.
The comfortable thing to do was to use my knowledge, passion and drive in the safe environment of that one organization. Yet, the impact I wanted to make globally would require me to go out on my own and create Emery Leadership Group. Emery was my dad’s middle name. In my mind he was a true leader without the title.
In this speech I explain how a Global Positioning System (GPS), a piece of antique furniture, and a smoke detector can change your life.
The GPS presents the opportunity we all have in our lives to act like a GPS and “recalculate” when we are faced with a challenge or poor decision. There is a way to get where we are going if we simply recalculate.
Next, is the example of antique furniture. For those that are collectors, they know that the value is in the naturally aging of a piece, which is often called patina. Yet, when people try to remove this patina, they often times reduce the value of the piece. The struggles and challenges we face in our lives provide similar value and when we ignore them or worse, try and hide them, we reduce our value.
Lastly, I speak about a smoke detector as it relates to the primitive part of our brain which was designed to protect us when a threat was perceived. While a smoke detector in our house is meant to protect us from getting caught in a fire, we have enough sense to know that we don’t need to evacuate the house or call 911 if the smoke detector goes off because of a non-emergency.
Unfortunately, the primitive part of our brain does not know how to decipher a real from a perceived threat and unless we override it, it will take over. Taking risks is an example where your primitive brain may try to talk you out of doing something that is outside of your comfort zone because it perceives it as a threat. This is where we need to override the system and tell ourselves that this is not a real threat. That is where the growth takes place.
As I illustrated above, the obstacles I encountered and The CABLES model that I developed, have provided the greatest growth for me as an individual, a spouse, a father, a leader, and a member of my community.[MR2]
Today, my ability to connect with executives in the C-Suite and employees on the front line is a direct result of the experiences I have had throughout my life.
The drive to be a better man, a better manager, a better dad and husband all came from those formative experiences of failing and then finding a better way to get what I wanted in life, and that’s what I have built for the individuals, teams, and organizations that I am entrusted to partner with.
I believe that I have created the most workable blueprint for personal, professional and organizational success that I’ve ever seen in action. That’s exactly what CABLES is. It’s a blueprint that anyone can apply whenever they need to resolve conflict, find consensus or create a common bond and mission among team members.
Many who have implemented CABLES have written testimonials describing the powerful impact that identifying and modeling these behaviors has had on them personally and professionally.
As a result of my ability to speak with candor and compassion
when working with my clients, I have consistently been able to
forge a high level of trust and create an accelerated level of effective progress.
The CABLES Leadership Model is one that I have adopted in my own life as well. As I have reflected over the successes and failures in both my personal and professional life, I have referred to the CABLES blueprint as the tool to diagnose and problem solve as well as the tool to promote vibrant organizational and individual success. It is my internal compass.
The CABLES Leadership Model has reimagined what it means to lead and has proven that there is a better way. And I am ready now to share that with you.
The CABLES system is freely available for you and you can intellectually learn it in about an hour but without continuous application and support, it is useless. Like any other system, there are important nuances and subtle tuning that must be done for full effectiveness.
The best way to experience it is with a personal demonstration. Read it over, see if it resonates with you, then apply it just once with a family member or associate. I am confident you will experience a benefit.
When the complete CABLES System is modeled, you can expect to see a deeper, more inclusive team culture, higher productivity and ultimately generating more profit due to simply getting more of the right things done along with more goals accomplished.
If you would like a graphic of the CABLES Blueprint or would like to discuss further, you can email me at Patrick.
You can also listen to my podcast, Learning from Leaders, to gain more insight into how I help organizations and individuals to rise above their best.
I welcome your inquiry and the beginning of a meaningful conversation about your success, the success of your team and the value this brings to all your stake holders.
“Sometimes adversity is what you need to face in order to [grow and] become successful. For that reason it makes sense to be grateful for adversities that help you grow, even if it is only in understanding and compassion for other’s suffering.”
-Zig Ziglar
Many today are facing adversity on a magnitude they have not experienced at any other point in their life. Over more than a decade I have had the honor and opportunity to assist many individuals, teams and organizations in identifying the behaviors and strategies needed to navigate whatever challenge is placed in their way while continually being for others.
By leveraging my past challenges and mistakes, I have provided a leadership blueprint to help anyone that applies it the ability to rise above their best. While it can be uncomfortable and embarrassing to speak about the challenges I have faced in my own life, It is necessary that I tell the story so others gain an understanding of how and why I have been called to do the work that I do.
As I mentioned, growing up the youngest of ten children in a lower middle-class family from Portland Maine provided me with a great number of experiences that prepared me for the leadership work I believe I was destined to be doing today.
In particular, I experienced several events in the first three decades of my life that guided my journey, developed my abilities and forged my commitment to help others identify and develop the behaviors that inspire empower and compel others to follow their lead and rise above their best
The first decade of my life was one filled with self-doubt, shame and embarrassment. The self- doubt was the result of being born with malformed teeth. On many occasions I can remember being called “ugly” or “yuck mouth”. While these labels eroded away at my physical self-confidence, my emotional wellbeing was attacked by the shame and embarrassment I felt as the result of a condition that caused me to wet the bed until I was in the 4th grade.
To compensate for these challenges, I began behaving in many self-destructive ways which involved smoking cigarettes in 4th grade and drinking before I was in the 8th grade. While the smoking was brief, the drinking and unhappiness with my appearance continued into my freshman year of high school.
Because I believed I had so little control over the two things causing me so much sadness in my life, it seemed that life had already dealt me the losing hand. As far as I was concerned, I was only able to be a passenger in the automobile that was driving me along through life.
Although I seemed to accept this on one level, there was something deep inside that was not satisfied with this belief. I wanted out.
An example of this was in 8th grade while I was driving in the car with my father. I was in the passenger seat, and while stopped at a red light I was watching a homeless person sitting on the sidewalk. In that moment, I found my thoughts battling between wishing I was that homeless person yet realizing that would not solve my problems.
In that moment I began to realize that only I could overcome my challenges and I would.
Transitioning to high school started a period of positive growth for me. On many levels I was beginning to experience some level of control in being able to drive my own destiny.
I was fortunate to attend a private high school which I paid for myself through the schools’ work-study program and a job at a monastery where I ran errands and was a groundskeeper.
During this time, I got braces to improve my smile and became active in sports and working out. While these helped improve my self-esteem, they would not protect me from the struggle I would face when my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer during my sophomore year. I once again felt the driver’s wheel yanked away from me. Over the next year, I would struggle helplessly watching as my mother’s health deteriorated.
She eventually passed away on March 17th, which is the feast day of St. Patrick. Over the following year I focused intensely on working out to deal with my grief and used alcohol to escape the sadness I was feeling from this loss.
Most did not realize the pain I was experiencing on the inside because I hid it behind a loud voice and a muscular shell.
While this was a dark time, my life would soon be altered by one individual and one book in such a profound and permanent way. A year and one month after the loss of my mother, I was invited to go on Spring break by a close friend whose parents had a vacation home in Hilton Head, South Carolina. His parents had offered to bring four of us for the week. In hindsight, I wonder how many times during that trip his parents had regretted the offer to take four, teenaged 18-year-old boys who were only interested in searching for parties on the beaches of South Carolina
One night, while out, we stopped at a gas station to get gas and buy beer with our fake ID’s. I volunteered to pump the gas while my friends went in to purchase the beer we would bring to a party on the beach.
It was a particularly humid night and the air was a combination of gas fumes and the smell of saltwater from the ocean a block away. As my thoughts were imagining how the night was going to unfold, an older, well-dressed gentleman pulled up in high end car at the pump next to me. I was admiring his car and could sense that he was looking in my direction.
He broke the silence by mentioning that it looked like we were off to someplace fun. I mentioned we were on Spring break and then commented on his car. He paused for a moment and told me quite casually that I could have one too if I wanted. He could tell by my expression that I did not really believe what he told me.
He went on to ask me if I was familiar with a gentleman named Zig Ziglar or a book called, See You at the Top. I answered no to both of his questions as I was not a fan of reading outside of what was required for school.
He went on to tell me that the secret to getting a high-end car or anything else I wanted was spelled out in that one book.
As he drove away, I promised myself that I would read the book when I returned. Upon returning home two days later, I immediately went to the Portland Public Library, signed up for a library card and checked out the book, See You at the Top. I tore into this book like a large wrapped present on Christmas morning and the gift I received was far greater than any material gift.
The contents of this book were planting seeds in the fertile soil of my heart and mind. I wanted so badly to change my conditions, and this seemed, for the first time ever, to be my way out.
Those seeds, the gift from this stranger at a gas station, were taking hold and shaping the way I saw myself.
The gift of perspective I was given after reading this book would be with me for the rest of my life if that is what I decided. Over the next week I read stories from this book that made me realize that I was not a helpless passenger in my life.
My destiny was in my control regardless of the external forces that acted against where I wanted to go. This provided incredible motivation and forged a strong belief that wherever I ended up would be my choice.
Zig’s message was continually saying to me, “you can be more than you are” and I was starting to believe it. In that week I gained greater awareness of the importance of integrity, generosity, faith, honesty, attitude, hard work and continual learning on becoming the best version of me I could become.
What I realized throughout this process was that I would not change if I only understood Zig’s message intellectually, I would need to behave in ways that aligned with the message. Just as I did not get stronger by just reading about exercising, I would not grow stronger in character by reading about it.
Those realizations have played a significant role in my ability to help individuals and organizations by challenging them to apply what has been learned into their everyday lives.
I have reflected back on my interaction with the well-dressed man that night in South Carolina many times over the years. I had never before and have never since had anyone strike up a conversation with me at a gas pump to suggest a book that they thought I would benefit from reading yet that is exactly what happened.
If I draw on my faith to help explain this interaction, I believe my mother and God had a hand in that moment. I believe my mother saw my life going in the wrong direction and knew that the additional tragedy soon heading my way would permanently derail me if there was not some type of intervention to help strengthen my internal compass. The South Carolina man suggesting I could get the car he had by simply reading a book by Zig Ziglar was that intervention that opened me up to a world that would provide far more than a nice car.
I had been given the gift of realizing that I had control over my destiny.
From that point I read continually from other authors such as Napoleon Hill, Dale Carnegie, Earle Nightingale, Tony Robbins, Les Brown and Wayne Dyer to name just a few.
Little did I realize how the experience of meeting this unknown man in South Carolina would provide the strength I would need to overcome my next series of challenges as well as lead me down the path of creating an extremely powerful leadership program.
I will reveal the conclusion in my next article.
Over the course of the last several months of 2020, we have experienced a series of challenges that most have not witnessed collectively in their lifetimes: a financial crisis, a pandemic, and racial unrest. While each of these by themselves has the potential to wreak havoc, taken together they can be cataclysmic.
That said we also have an opportunity to grow tremendously from this unsavory trio if we change our perspective and our approach to addressing each of these challenges. To be successful, we will need to develop better behaviors for managing our health, our finances, and our treatment of others.
This will require a type of leadership that has been absent in many of the conversations to date: internal leadership. Exercising internal leadership will allow us to grow stronger as individuals, as a community, as a nation, and as a global community.
On leadership, Dolly Parton, once said, “If your actions inspire someone to do more, to become more, to learn more, and to dream more, then you are a leader”. Nowhere in this quote is there a requirement to be an elected official, or to hold any other title of “leader”. The most important tool for leading in this manner is a mirror, which each of us will need to reflect on daily.
Ask first, “how do my personal actions inspire me to dream more, do more, become more, and learn more?” Next ask, “how are my actions inspiring others to do the same?” The answers to these two questions will provide the roadmap needed to grow collectively from the social, health, and financial obstacles facing our world.
Social Unrest
The social unrest that we are experiencing in the United States has once again exposed a long history of inequalities among races, cultures, and genders among others. This exposure provides each of us an opportunity to look at how our actions or inaction have contributed to the suppression or oppression of those around us.
Albert Einstein once said, “the world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who witness evil and do nothing.” The destruction of others’ property should not be confused with “doing something”. To address our current social and racial unrest requires all of us to take out the mirror and look at how our own beliefs and biases have contributed to the deterioration of our society.
One essential behavior that seems to be lacking is empathy. When we take the time to demonstrate empathy toward others, we suspend our judgment of them. In the city which I live, our city hall was overrun with people who chose camp out demanding better treatment for the homeless.
My initial response was to think that these individuals were not taking responsibility for their choices. It wasn’t until I read several stories of individuals that had untreated mental illnesses or had been on their own since they were in their early teens that I realized that my quick judgment of these individuals was not that simple.
While some may have abused the situation, the majority sincerely needed our help. We have a responsibility to help those in need. Through our positive actions, we have the ability to help others become more and do more. Change starts with each of us focusing on being for each other and not being for self.
How will you take personal responsibility for improving your community?
Pandemic
For many, the recent pandemic has created incredible levels of fear and anxiety about their health. While we anxiously anticipate a vaccine and effective treatments for Covid-19, this recent crisis offers us the opportunity to reflect on how our lifestyle choices are helping protect us or putting us at risk for serious consequences if we acquire the virus.
While many look to scientists and governments to address the pandemic, there is one thing that each person can do that will have a far greater impact on their health and wellbeing than a vaccine. That “one thing” involves taking personal responsibility for your health.
Our immune system is elegantly designed to protect us from pathogens that threaten our health. Yet, when we eat poorly, don’t exercise, and allow stress to remain uncontrolled, we are increasing our susceptibility to the thing we are trying to avoid. Yes, our poor behaviors have actually made us more vulnerable to what we are so fixated on avoiding. This recent crisis provides an opportunity to assess how we need to modify our lifestyles so that our immune systems can do its job most effectively.
How will you take personal responsibility for improving your health?
Financial
As a result of the recent pandemic, our economy is suffering and unemployment is at historically high levels. Once again, this crisis provides us an opportunity to examine our own financial health and our past decisions regarding how we have spent and saved. We have become a society that has confused nonessential things with essentials.
The need for a bigger house, another piece of jewelry, one more video game or one more piece of clothing has created an environment where people have overleveraged themselves. What’s more insane is that this consumption has often been to impress people that we don’t even like.
The financial crisis we are currently experiencing can provide an opportunity to pull out the mirror and ask ourselves what do we really need to be happy? Is my current job providing me the financial security I need? Has my spending contributed to my own crisis? What do I want my financial future to look like? When we take the time to reflect on these questions now, we can course-correct to a better and more stable future.
How will you take personal responsibility for improving your finances?
The financial crisis, social unrest, and pandemic we are experiencing today provide us the greatest opportunities to reflect on three critical areas of our lives: our finances, our connectedness to each other, and our health. Pain and struggle have been placed at our doorstep and we will now decide whether to learn from them and grow stronger or to place the blame on others and be destroyed by them.
Marcus Aurelius once said, “Nothing has such power to broaden the mind as the ability to investigate systematically and truly all that comes under thy observation in life.” Many things have happened in the first half of 2020 that has provided the opportunity for us to broaden our minds.
It’s time to play an active role in rebuilding and avoid being victims.
I am, Patrick Veroneau, I am the CEO of Emery Leadership Group and the host of the Learning from Leaders podcast. My focus and obsession are on helping individuals, teams and organizations develop the behaviors needed to inspire, empower, and compel others to follow. Email me here.
In a world where companies are readjusting and re-evaluating how to lead remotely as well as maintain their company’s culture from a distance, the need to provide leadership development training as part of an employee’s onboarding could mean the difference between their success and failure.
A 2015 MRI Network, Recruiter Sentiment Survey, suggested that employees are ten times more likely to leave a company in year one than in year five. The reasons for an employee leaving within the first year are often the result of the employee not feeling a connection to the culture of the organization or dissatisfaction with what they expected to be doing and what they were actually doing.
There is a simple and often overlooked solution to address early turnover and reduce the high costs that are incurred in replacing lost employees. It involves introducing various leadership training as part of the onboarding process.
It is often said that leadership does not reside in a title. Yet, If this has become such a widely accepted observation, why is it that most organizations wait until an individual has acquired a title before they begin to develop them as a leader?
On the subject of leadership, Dolly Parton once said, “if your actions inspire someone to do more, to dream more, to learn more, or to become more, you are a leader”. If organizations were to adopt this definition of leadership, it would make sense to develop an onboarding system that identified and developed leadership behaviors for new hires.
You may be reading this and saying to yourself, “that sounds great but how can it be accomplished?” The answer is to identify a set of behaviors that can be identified and developed at the time the employee is brought onboard.
This is not to be confused with presenting the company’s mission, vision or value statements to employees. This is more foundational and actually provides the opportunity for employees to fully embrace whatever mission, vision and values are stated for the organization.
To make it easier for new hires to identify and develop a set of effective leadership behaviors, the organization could start with an acronym called CABLES: Congruence, Appreciation, Being for Others, Listening, Empathy and Specifics. New hires could be instructed that each one of these behaviors was intended to help them develop a stronger relationship bridge with their new counterparts, one cable at a time. They could be outlined as follows:
- Congruence– The first behavior to introduce would be the impact of congruence and consistency on developing trust and engagement. Employees would discuss the importance of ensuring that one’s words and actions remain in alignment. Introducing this behavior would hopefully demonstrate the organization’s commitment to what its stated mission, vision, and values are and encourage new hires to make sure individuals at all levels of the organization were in alignment.
- Appreciation- The next behavior would stress the importance of appreciating diversity as well as appreciating other’s contributions. First employees would be exposed to the negative impact unconscious biases have on relationships and performance of fellow employees. New hires would be presented with situations that showed how, oftentimes, how they perceive someone is not often accurate and can negatively impact the performance and the relationship with those employees when not understood. The second part of appreciation would involve helping new hires recognize the impact that recognition of performance has on future performance. Just because “that’s what someone is paid to do” doesn’t mean that there is not a need to be recognized for that effort. Recognizing people’s accomplishments remotely and on calls still holds tremendous value.
- Be for others- The third behavior involves contribution and connection. When new hires are exposed to the impact that contribution has on the relationships of those they work with as well as the health of the organization, motivation and engagement are enhanced. A strategy that is often mentioned by Gary Vaynerchuck of Vayner Media, is the 51% rule, which encourages an individual to approach any interaction with the intention of providing 51% of the value. When that happens, you are always giving a little more than you receive. As part of this behavior, the ability of a leader to create an environment of belongingness is critical. We essentially are pack animals. As such we need each other for survival. This becomes even more important in a remote working environment.
- Listening- The fourth behavior is around listening and its impact on healthy relationships and team engagement. Helping new hires identify effective ways to listen and be aware of others’ verbal and non-verbal signals, helps build trusting relationships. Lack of genuine listening makes for an unstable relationship bridge. In a remote setting, listening takes on greater importance. Helping people develop this skill right at the beginning will create an environment of greater communication.
- Empathy- Helping new hires identify and understand the impact that empathy provides to the individual and team effectiveness is vital. The ability to demonstrate that you are sincerely attempting to see things from another person’s perspective creates an engineering highpoint in the construction of a strong relationship bridge. Great distances can be spanned when we use empathy in building a stronger connection. Many people are dealing with grief that has often been unaddressed. The loss of autonomy, milestone events, and the elimination of social outlets all have an impact on our wellbeing and need to be recognized. Helping individuals develop empathy will help teams support each other as the environment continues to change.
- Specifics- Helping new hires understand the importance of setting clear expectations is important if an organization is trying to improve communication. When employees are able to identify and develop procedures for establishing clear expectations, for themselves and others, they are able to communicate on a higher level. Helping new hires understand the impact and ability they have to set and request clear direction from others will help to increase collaboration and a team’s effectiveness.
Your new hires are the engineers, architects, and builders of the relationships they will develop within the organization. When they are provided with the opportunity to identify and develop leadership behaviors, like CABLES, the entire organization benefits. Employees that are introduced to these types of behaviors, in the beginning, are better equipped to navigate the different personalities and communications that they will face down the road.
What kind of bridge has your organization built to bring people onboard?
Patrick Veroneau is the CEO of Emery Leadership Group and the host of the podcast Learning from Leaders. He is the creator of the CABLES Leadership development model that has impacted thousands of individuals, by helping them identify the behaviors that will inspire, empower, and compel others to follow their lead. He is obsessed with finding better ways to help those around him to rise above their best. He can be reached at Patrick or you can schedule an exploratory call with him here.
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