Speaking of Leadership
Dan on Twitter- danmulhern: Old divisions won't help with new and difficult challenges. Bob King of the #UAW offers a hopeful lead. #leadership http://bit.ly/cug6dA
- danmulhern: Bob King, new head of the UAW, gives me great hope. He will face really difficult contract negotiations in the... http://fb.me/GaTzMteb
- danmulhern: What's the future 4 middle/working class and for #manufacturing? #RobertReich spends 20 mins w me 2 discuss: http://bit.ly/cBsP1F Sat 8AM
- danmulhern: Manage ur mind in the recession. Grt post by @ellenfweber http://bit.ly/bHSQR9 See why I'm having her on Sat's show http://bit.ly/8krEqu
- danmulhern: Got some good ideas for this week's radio show for #LaborDay. Share YOUR ideas or good ????s on my FB fanpage http://bit.ly/bsYBss
Mar
28
Seismic Shifts at Work and Home
Filed Under All Posts, Reading for Leading | 9 Comments
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Michigan got totally blasted by a slow-coming seismic shift away from low-skill, high-wage manufacturing jobs. Now, in the world of families, work and gender, America’s in the midst of a similarly slow seismic shift. Are we ready? Humans aren’t so good at even seeing such slow change-a-comin’. But awareness – which is arguably the most important word in leadership at home and at work – seems to be on the rise.
Last week I presented on a panel at the 2010 Families and Work Conference with Brad Harrington, who’s the Director of the Center for Work and Family at Boston College. We were discussing the shifts in men’s roles. We were considered experts, yet it was the first time either of us – who speak a lot – had addressed this topic. What does that tell you? The gender shifts are massive. The number of women who earn more than their husbands has gone from 1 in 25 (1970) to 1 in 4 (2007). And in the same time, we went from husbands having more degrees than their wives on a 3:2 ratio, to the opposite, 3 wives with more education for every 2 husbands who out-learned their wives.* Of course, educational attainment ties directly to employment status and income, which partly explains why 60% of the job loss in this recession has fallen on men (during one stretch it was 80%). Ouch!
Yeah! for women, who in three generations have blown the doors off to achievement in the economic and political realms. How great for them, their supportive men, economically benefitting families, and especially for society that can now tap 100% of its talent, instead of 50%. But what about men? And what about our children? This week I’ll be at the White House, where the First Parents will be hosting a forum on workplace flexibility. Every workplace should follow their lead and ask how we optimize flexibility. The old model of mom-at-home can be phenomenal for kids, but it’s just not the norm – not any more than men, shoulder-to-shoulder on the assembly line is the way we make cars. In a land of liberty where women want to work, and in a land of economic pressure where families need the income, two-parent and women-dominated families are here to stay.
I believe one of the most vital things we can do is encourage more Man Talk, so we men rise up to our liberation and we meet the huge needs of our kids. We need individual conversations about paternity leave, supporting high-achieving women, and about how to train our boys for a world that demands new levels of communication and collaboration at home as well as at work. Brothers, is this your Budweiser talk with your friends, or the front-seat conversation with your boys? And we need big public conversations about what it now means to be a great man, a gentleman, a strong man. We really need to figure out how our boys are to keep their confidence when these young women are outshining them. It’s astounding but in a generation and a half we have gone from girls being told not to look smarter than the boys, to some boys telling other boys that being an honors student is a girl-thing.
The last thing we need is a gender war. We need strategies to continue to grow great women, redefine great men, and truly figure out how to have our children get our best when it’s hard to figure out who does what any more, and when there’s less time to do it! For a beginning of the discussion men need to have, I invite you to tune in to the podcast of this past week’s radio show on “making work work,” where we explored shifting male roles. The guests were all-stars and the callers fascinating. (By the way college kids and their parents should tune in this week, Saturday 7-9 AM EST, for a show on what to do after college, especially in this tough environment.)
Let’s talk work place flexibility and home life creativity to
Lead with your best self,
Dan
* Richard Fry, D’Vera Cohn, “New Economics of Marriage: The Rise of Wives,” Pew Research Center, accessed at http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1466/economics-marriage-rise-of-wives?src=prc-latest&proj=peoplepress. It’s hard in a newsletter this short to present these educational attainment numbers with total accuracy. So, an explanatory note on the educational attainment comparisons: about half of all spouses have equal educational attainment levels, so the ratios I presented are only for the remaining half who have different levels of educational attainment.
Mar
21
Morons in a Great Democracy
Filed Under All Posts, Reading for Leading | 65 Comments
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I have avoided political substance for ten years in Reading for Leading and I will continue to do so today on the eve of historic health care reform. The President will soon sign a major health care overhaul bill. If like me, you have heard nine times as much opinion as fact, then you might check the CBS News site for a simple factual summary. Our country needs you to be informed.
I want to address my leadership thought to you, citizens and media (and in a networked and blogging world, citizens are the media) – about the way we’re talking to each other about hugely important issues. And I implore people to be civil and truth-driven, rather than hostile and positional.
I heard a major news radio host on Friday condemn “those morons in Washington,” and I felt physically sick and wondered: am I the only one who finds that comment both repulsive and dangerous? It doesn’t matter whether the statement was made by a left-winger or a right-winger; they’d be equally repugnant. Would we call teachers, cashiers, engineers, parents, (insert your profession here) or doctors – morons? It’s not just offensive but doubly dangerous. First, supposed leaders like this talk show host are condoning name-calling, and that has NEVER solved a complex problem – only made it worse. Second, I wonder, as the spouse of a woman leading through excruciating decision after excruciating decision: why would any self-respecting person enter this field?
I look at representatives like the late Gerald Ford and Paul Henry, the retiring Vern Ehlers, and Carl and Sander Levin and think: morons? Are you kidding? These are spectacular people – brilliant, committed, attentive, doing their best in a complicated and challenging world.
So, here’s a constructive thought: next time you hear someone calling our elected officials morons, jellyfish, or idiots, invite them to run for something. Here’s what they will experience: Representatives and executives – from school board to congress to president – must understand tough issues and tradeoffs, gauge their own personal beliefs, absorb the passions of highly active citizens, assess what most of their highly inactive constituents (half a million in a Congressional district) want, and ask the hard question: if my constituents could see everything I see, would they still believe what the one-line polling question says they feel? What an awesome responsibility and privilege and challenge.
As silly season approaches, these elected people will largely rise or sink to the level of the factual and value-oriented bars we set for them. I hope as a citizen we will all try a little harder to
Lead with our best selves.
Mar
14
The Conference Room Door Closes
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Jack, our 12 year old son, and I went along with my wife to a company where she was recruiting investment for Michigan. Jack and I lined up for a tour of this “great company to work for” and Jennifer was ushered into a conference room and the door closed behind for her meeting. I felt the old ego-twinge and confided to my growing son, “I’m having one of those moments, Jack, where Mom is going into the meeting, and I’m being sent off on the spouses and grandparents tour. Makes me feel unimportant.” And I wondered out loud to him, “Does that make any sense to you?”
“Are you kidding?” he shot back. “I only feel that way all the time!”
Dumbfounded by the intensity of his response and the frequency he expressed, I asked, “Seriously?” “Yes,” he said, “People always treat me like a little kid who doesn’t think.”
What a lesson to relearn! It made me wonder: how many executives complain to their spouses, “You won’t believe it, but the strategy team is meeting without me,” or “The management team is going ahead without even asking our opinions!” But those same people – like me in the situation with Jack – are largely oblivious to the facts that (a) their subordinates often feel every bit as excluded, and (b) they are likely the cause of at least some of that exclusion.
We hardly need to speculate on the results: Feelings of exclusion, thoughts of cynicism, declining trust, and increasing detachment from both the work and the leaders.
Seek to include and to value others’ opinions to
Lead with your best self,
Dan
Mar
8
And the Winners Are…
Filed Under All Posts, Reading for Leading | 15 Comments
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When I saw The Blind Side, I fell in love with Sandra Bullock. Watching her Oscars acceptance speech, I fell in love all over again.
See the movie to watch a great mom – as everyday leader. And see any of these awards ceremonies, where winners are effusive and emotional with their thanks and praise to remember: We don’t accomplish anything great alone. (Oh, there’s always a couple of ungracious winners, like the one woman who interrupted her co-recipient and stole the microphone completely. Who will ever want to work with her in Hollywood?) Generally, the thanks are heartfelt and ubiquitous.
In that spirit, I want to thank the many people who have been commenting on this RFL blog. Lately, the discussions have felt richer than ever before. Let’s keep inspiring and educating each other to lead with our best. I also want to thank the tens of people who wrote me directly after my “shut up” column two weeks ago. I had no idea there were so many kind, positive, and fed-up-with-PC-thinking people out there.
One of the simplest and most enduring acts of leadership is available to you today: Thank the people who help you to
Lead with your best self!
Dan
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