I spent three long, cold years working on the construction of the Arrabelle Hotel and taking advantage of the occasional powder day in Vail, CO from 2005-2008. While I certainly got my fair share of drawing coordination disputes, contract interpretation arguments, schedule over-run lashings, fishtails down I-70, and Yeager shots from the top of a ski, I was also exposed to some fantastic leadership education at Colorado Mountain College from Bob Vanourek.
Mr. Vanourek is a Harvard grad and ex-CEO of several troubled companies where he performed dramatic turnarounds and brought these organization from the point of tarnished ethical reputation and barely being able to make payroll to a position of sustainability. All of this is fantastic accomplishment, but what most impressed me with Mr. Vanourek is the style of leadership he was presenting and his excitement about sharing his application of experience with the community of the Vail Valley.
Bob was presenting a style often referred to as the "new paradigm" of leadership focusing on collaboration, servitude, and alignment of the people. He does an analogy of people of an organization being pepperonis on a pizza pie and factions being bridged by going through the pepperonis (people). I found it very admirable for someone who admitted to being a subscriber of the "old paradigm" during much of his career where leadership was pegged as fearless, powerful, authoritative and all-knowing to now adamantly teaching the new paradigm and even developing his own 7 dimension Core Leadership Model which is described as follows:
Construction is an industry that has long preached the "old paradigm" where leadership pounds their fists, intimidates, and hollers their way around a job in an effort to motivate and align their workforce. While this method may show short term results, Vanourek and others (myself included) believe that a shift to the "new" paradigm of collaboration, emotional control, and servitude is the better, more sustainable path toward long term progress and success.
- Healthy personal core. The best leadership emerges when one has a healthy core for a foundation. Taking care of one’s body, having a “leadership mind” with ego minimized, being under emotional control, and a personal moral compass based on core values in your heart or spirit are essential.
- Sincere belief in people. The best leadership has a true belief in the capabilities of other people. Yes, we are all human and make mistakes, and sometimes some negative action must be taken if someone is evil, but great leadership means being truly connected to people, trusting and being trusted, treating people with dignity and respect, helping people develop to whatever their greater capabilities are, and helping the group synthesize and operate by a set of shared values.
- Skilled approach to work. The best leadership is often bundled with authority, power, and/or managerial roles. Learning effective techniques for improving these skills improves a leader’s effectiveness. These skills include planning, prioritizing, time management, delegating, being decisive in uncertainty, staying in reality to ensure results are achieved, and paying attention to how the results are achieved. Are the results accomplished in accordance with our shared values?
- Effective communication. Excellent leadership is greatly facilitated by effective listening, motivational speaking from the heart, clear, crisp, incisive writing, and behavior that reinforces the central message and the shared values. Communication also involves the selection of the necessary topics without avoiding the tough issues.
- Synthesize a shared future. Great leadership involves being in touch with people’s deepest needs and desires. It involves drafting and redrafting what the people truly want, even if they may not be able to articulate it themselves. It touches deep issues like purpose/mission, shared values, and an inspiring future vision. Great leadership synthesizes and articulates this shared future for the group.
- Collaboratively align. Most organizations are dysfunctional even though people work hard and have good intentions. Great leadership involves a truly collaborative process that helps the group define and understand their purpose, values, vision, goals, strategy structure, metrics, action plans, and feedback systems. When groups are aligned, they can soar.
- Willingness to risk substantive change. Great leadership involves the incredibly hard capability, after all this good work has been done, to realize that something has radically changed. Everything may have to be dumped, and one must start over using the same patient, collaborative process. Casualties may be involved and loss. Expectations may have to be changed. And the work must be done by the people themselves, not the authority figure.
With our industry in near shambles and revolutionary change seeming imminent, a leadership paradigm shift could be just what we need. We have to at least do something.
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