Dr. Henry Cloud, Boundaries for Leaders: Results, Relationships, and Being Ridiculously in Charge (HarperCollins: 2013)
Psychologist and leadership consultant Henry Cloud argues that people leadership is required to get real results. More specifically, leaders need to lead in a way that engages people’s brains and executive functions. Cloud argues that leaders need to set boundaries for the organization; seven leadership boundaries are required for a results-based organization addressing areas of focusing attention, building a positive emotional climate, facilitating connections, limiting negativity and helplessness, helping people take control to drive results, creating high performance teams and leaders managing themselves. Cloud concludes leaders need to own what they create or allow to exist in terms of focus; culture; communications; positive thinking; empowerment; high performance teams and self-management. “Simply stated, the leaders’ boundaries define and shape what is going to be and what isn’t. In the end, as a leader, you are always going to get a combination of two things: what you create and what you allow”.
Executive Function
Cloud starts by reviewing the executive functions of the brain, which rely on:
attention – the ability to focus,
inhibition – the ability not to be distracted and
working memory – the ability to retain and access relevant information.
He notes the need to move beyond the flight, fight or freeze response of the lower brain. This requires removal of bad stress and provision of time and focus to let executive functions take hold and generate creative responses.
Cloud identifies six behaviours related to leadership functions: 1) goal selection – the ability to choose goals and anticipate outcomes; 2) planning and organization – generating a sequence of steps or strategy to achieve goals; 3) initiation and persistence; 4) flexibility to adapt, think and solve; 5) execution and goal attainment within time; 6) self-regulation.
To enable these behaviours, leaders need to provide the broad structure – boundaries of what is and is not important or accepted; supportive culture – which is both positive (message is what we can do, not what we cannot do) and reduces unhealthy fear (Cloud distinguishes between healthy stress that relates to the gap between current reality and desired target vs. unhealthy stress resulting from uncertainty or fear of blame or reaction from leaders and colleagues). The challenge for leaders is to provide purpose, direction, goals – focus – without providing top-down prescriptive thinking. Cloud is looking for leadership to “clear the field” to allow creativity and innovation; if all things are on the field it becomes too crowded, creates stress and leads to overly quick responses as opposed to executive functioning.
The Power Through Connection and Unity
Psychologist Cloud returns to his training to reinforce the point that relationships that connect and unify people help to manage stress, build support and generate results. This leads to discussion of meetings – recognizing that most employees feel “meeting’ed to death”. Cloud’s response is quite similar to other management gurus – we need to have different kinds of meetings and conversations for different purposes. Cloud advocates a regular structure of meetings that distinguishes the update from the in-depth conversation, citing Lencioni’s example (5-10 minute daily check-in; 45-90 minute weekly tactical; 2-4 hour monthly strategic; 1-2 day quarterly off-site).
Teams and Trust
Cloud’s penultimate discussion is about teams. He argues that teams “need to work together on the right things in the right ways at the right time toward the same goal. They need to perform. And that requires teamwork. And teamwork is only driven by a shared purpose or goal”. That seems somewhat circular, but it also points to the role of the leader – to define purpose and goals, structure and culture – and to ensure the processes are in place to enable effective team operation – people, mind-set, communication. Underlying effective team work is trust. Cloud argues it is a starting point; I would argue trust is also a result – there is a virtuous circle between team, results and trust.
Boundaries for Leaders
Although the whole book is about leadership, Cloud concludes with a discussion about individual leadership behaviours – the need for leaders to manage themselves and not get caught up in the flurry of activity. He notes the need for leaders to seek inputs from outside the organization (fresh energy for the internal system); to identify specific issues that require new thinking; to seek feedback; to set personal boundaries on thinking and fears (e.g. to avoid chasing all new ideas) and to avoid defining oneself by outcomes and to manage time and energy.
Why does Cloud Resonate
There are many leadership gurus; what differentiates Cloud from simply becoming the next “flavor of the day”? Cloud resonates for me in at least three respects: 1) he speaks to the current cult of busyness; 2) he helps bring together a focus on people leadership with the drive for results; 3) he speaks to the need for teamwork at a time when we are seeking to improve teamwork and trust at multiple levels in the organization.
Busyness
Organizatons are being asked to do more with less resources. There is a focus on speed of response, yet an expectation of thoroughness of response. The challenge of responding to the urgent is detracting attention from the important or strategic. Cloud reinforces the requirement for leadership to define the important, to support focus and to enable creativity and innovation through time, attention and perseverance to develop and execute priority strategies.
People Leadership for Results
There is increased focus on management, leadership and development of staff. Cloud’s approach helps connect that focus with generating results. He reinforces that a positive culture, with strong relationships, that enables executive functioning by all staff – operating within a structure that provides focus and sets boundaries – leads to improved results.
Teamwork
Much of Cloud’s consulting practice addresses corporate performance and the roles of CEOs and Executive Teams. His examples abound with teams that have disparate and specific accountabilities yet the need to operate as an executive team working to overall corporate purpose, setting a clear agenda and developing effective team practices. Many teams struggle with the balance between defined individual accountabilities and the collaborative team roles and responsibilities. Cloud’s observations seem to echo the questions raised by team members and executive coaches – what are the shared outcomes and shared responsibilities that give meaning to the team and for which effective team operations are required?