As a manager, you have the responsibility to plan, organize, implement, delegate, and control. To be a leader, however, you must also inspire your staff, your colleagues, and your workplace. You have the ability to take these people to greater heights,

Quit Your Job, Enjoy Your Work

Making Your Workplace More EnjoyableBy Garth S. Johns

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2012 Garth S. Johns
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4759-2716-0

Contents

Acknowledgments.......................................................................viiIntroduction..........................................................................1Chapter 1: Elements of Effective Leadership...........................................5Chapter 2: Leading by Serving.........................................................15Chapter 3: Leading with Emotional Intelligence........................................29Chapter 4: Work/Life Balance..........................................................43Chapter 5: Silos and Organizational Constipation......................................58Chapter 6: Let's Have Fun.............................................................73Chapter 7: Be Nice....................................................................90Chapter 8: The Importance of Ethics and Integrity.....................................106Chapter 9: Conflicts Can and Do Happen................................................126Chapter 10: Change in the New World of Work...........................................145Chapter 11: Being a Better Manager through Coaching and Mentoring.....................165Chapter 12: Alternative Work Arrangements.............................................184Chapter 13: Concluding Remarks........................................................199Notes.................................................................................205

Chapter One

Elements of Effective Leadership

Quick, who is the most influential leader in all of our lives? For those of you who suggest Gandhi, Obama, Churchill, Mother Teresa, or other significant political or social figures, you may be mistaken. Even those of you who may have placed my name in this list (thanks, by the way) may be slightly misguided. These are the names that regularly arise together with organizational directors, sports heroes, and miscellaneous others in numerous research studies that have been undertaken over the last year or two. (All right, it was more like a show of hands during my various workshops and presentations given in that time, and I know it's not very scientific, but ...) Without much doubt, most of those whose names were put forward as great leaders (with the exception of mine) had the potential to inspire great numbers of people through good times and bad. What incredible influence they have carried.

However, I would respectfully submit that the most influential leaders for most of us are our own mothers and/or fathers. After all, they are the ones who, for the first 20 or so years of our lives, were in the driver's seats in terms of inspiring us to greater heights—or not! Mothers and fathers as leaders? Why not say the same about soccer coaches? What about teachers? Union executives? Service club presidents?

One of my key premises when writing Common Sense Leadership is that everyone can lead and you don't need a title to do so. After all, leadership is defined not by our titles but by our actions. My own definition of a leader is simply "one who inspires others to achieve greater personal heights or higher levels of performance." (1)

Our mothers and fathers have unfortunately often been relegated to the status of being "just Mom," just as a receptionist I recently spoke with was, in her words, "Just a receptionist." However, parents, for most of us, have been held in a special place in all our hearts, and they have had such a huge impact on our lives that it is high time they were recognized as leaders. By the way, I appreciate and respect that in today's world, there are so many others who serve as primary caregivers; my terms mother and father should be taken to include others as well. Certainly, they can be the most inspiring people for each and every one of us. They can help us to achieve greater personal heights, and they teach us about ethics, values, and principles.

However, once we get to the workplace, others take over. Could it be that the life lessons taught by Mom and Dad carry over to the workplace? I believe the answer is yes and that the practices and principles that need to be promoted at work are often developed, learned, and encouraged at home as well. Leadership is integral to providing a culture and management style that fosters a healthy, productive, and even fun workplace. We are all leaders in some sense, regardless of whether we hold the title. Learning about what makes leadership effective will improve the workplace and the world we live in.

A few years ago, I began the journey that was to become my first book, Common Sense Leadership. The intent at that time was to try to convince readers that all of us have a role to play as leaders. However, the more I have researched the topic of leadership and the more I read about it and spoke with staff and organizations about it, the more I came to appreciate something so simple and yet so profound. Work is important, but work is only a part of the totality of our lives, and work can be enjoyable. Yes, we can even have fun there. If I achieve nothing else in my life, I hope to be able to contribute, through this book and my everyday efforts, to the creation of a work life where it is okay to be happy. A workplace where staff aren't regularly looking over their shoulders, fearful of colleagues, bosses, and others. A workplace where one does not put work ahead of family, friends, personal health, and one's own spiritual well-being. Perhaps it is time to quit our jobs and start to enjoy our work. Effective leadership is part of how we achieve that.

However, despite our best efforts as leaders, there are challenges to achieving a healthy, fun workplace. In his book, Coming to Our Senses: Reclaiming the Dignity of Organization Life, Ron Knowles noted, "Organization life is plagued with serious contradictions. They are well known to anyone who spends time in businesses, government departments, or not-for-profit agencies ... The biggest contradiction is the contrast between the fast-moving, customer centered, efficient organizations, which have emerged from the recent era of radical transformation and the human angst and despair which seem almost universal in those same organizations." (2) Examples of these contradictions are found everywhere and in far too many organizations:

• When we recruit new staff, we tell them how great we are. We tell them we are team oriented, progressive, supportive, and concerned about them as individuals. When they leave, they tell us at exit interviews how demoralized they were, how we didn't care about developing them, how negative the environment was, and how poor our management practices have been. While this isn't the universal experience, it is more prevalent than we care to admit.

• We crave outstanding leadership but so often practise something totally different.

•We know how to resolve conflicts through third-party interventions, but we have no idea how to make staff "play nice in the sandbox" together, promote effective conflict resolution, or otherwise manage conflict in a positive, proactive, and productive fashion.

• We talk about our people and note how important they are in our missions, visions, and values, but how often do we expect them to be available to us on a 24/7 basis (especially those who are not paid for overtime)? Why do many managers insist on playing favourites? Why do we so often fail to...