1: Understanding Your Motives

Welcome: 00:00

Welcome to Leaders Lift - a podcast for aspiring and existing leaders!

I'm your host, Greg Cunningham and I look forward to being a part of your leadership journey.

Over the next couple of episodes we will be talking about one of the core pieces of a leadership foundation - knowing yourself.

Intro

Knowing yourself is one of the most important things you can do as a leader. It's critical that you understand your motivations, personality traits, default behaviors, tendencies, likes and dislikes and more. Without understanding these things, you could just wander through life and definitely not live up to your fullest potential. In addition, the process of getting to know ourself as a leader can give you the tools needed to help others go through the same journey. It doesn't matter if someone wants to be a leader or has other goals in life, helping them get to know themselves will be crucial to their meeting their fullest potential and as a leader looking to lift others, that should be one of your primary goals.

Motivations will be the first of this series of episodes related to knowing yourself. Each of us has a myriad of motives for wanting to be a leader. I talked about motives in both the state of leadership and the leadership foundations launch episodes. In the episode today we will spend a portion of our time expanding on motives, why it's important to have the right ones and what they should be. We will spend the rest of the episode focused on how to work on our motives.

In a subsequent episode we will dive deeper into understanding our personality traits, default behaviors and how those influence us as leaders and how they interact with others.

Getting Started: 02:10

Let's start off today talking about just a few miscellaneous items just to get us started. One of them is super critical and the others I just want to touch on briefly.

First, you need to have a good idea of what you want out of life. This is critical as it serves as the foundation for who you are trying to become and has a significant influence on your personality style and motives.

This is not something I want to completely dive into in this episode because it probably deserves much more focus than that. But before you build any action plan, I believe you need to understand where you want to go in life and the different layers and drivers for that ultimate goal. So if you don't know where you want to go in life, maybe start there. Ask yourself, what am I looking to accomplish in the future. What stage you are in life will determine how far ahead you want to look. For example, if you are just starting your career, you may want to focus a little more short term but have some longer term goals in mind. If you are a decade or so away from retirement, your goals need to stretch out to your retirement and what you want that to be like. This also implies that as you move through different phases of life, your goals and what you want out of life may change. That's fine. Just get used to adapting and you'll be fine. As you start on your leadership journey, keep in mind where you want that journey to take you so that you have a north start to focus on and to influence key decisions you may have to make. Let me give an example of how having that eventual destination in mind could influence decisions:

My oldest son started playing violin in 5th grade. At the same time he was involved in football, basketball and tons of other things. He showed a talent for and desire to do very well with his music. This continued through middle school. When it came time for high school, we encouraged him to make a decision about where he wanted to spend his time. He attended a very large high school and it just wasn't practical to do everything. He decided to stick with orchestra. As he went through his high school career, that became his focus and most everything in life revolved around his music. He still got your typical high school job, stayed focused on church and scouts (his eagle scout project was doing a small concert for a skilled nursing facility) and his overall academics remained outstanding. But everything still pointed back to music. As it came time to make decisions about college, there were two drivers for him: continue studying music and serve a church mission. He was blessed to find a way to do both of those things. Now he is going into his senior year of his undergraduate work. He is looking at grad school and everything has been built to continue on the path. To fund his schooling that financial aid does not cover he teaches private lessons, plays in small groups for weddings and plays with an orchestra. All of these were deliberate decisions he made because he knew where he wanted to go. I wish I had been that focused when I was figuring out my career.

Another thing you want to be aware of are things you like to do, to be a part of and enjoy accomplishing as well as the things you don't. Every step on our leadership journey is going to have a combination of these things so you need to know where you are willing to endure something you don't like for those things you do that are more important.

And the last thing I want to talk about are your triggers. Triggers are something that pushes you into either a negative or even a default behavior or reaction. Thing about someone running their nails across a chalkboard. For a lot of people that triggers an instant physical reaction. In leadership, we could call these pet peeves, annoyances, etc.

One of mine is when people don't seem to care or want to live up to their potential. Having spent a lot of time in call center environments, I have seen this over and over again. We would hire someone that had all the potential in the world to go beyond just sitting on the phone and taking call after call after call. But they either wouldn't pay the price or got caught up in the entitlement attitude so many seem to have today. So they stayed on the phones.

It's worth the effort to pay attention over the next while and notice the things that stress you out, make your blood pressure rise or are just super annoying. Write them down and then decide which are negatively impacting your journey and work on it.

Wrapping up this section, keep in mind that all of these things are going to change over the course of your journey. As you gain new experiences your goals will change, what you enjoy and don't will change and you may overcome certain triggers and enjoy new ones.

What is important to do, and this will apply to most everything we cover on this podcast, is to be deliberate in your leadership journey vs. being passive. What do I mean by that? If I understand my goals in life, then I can make deliberate decisions to keep me on the paths towards those goals. If I don't understand then, what happens to my decision making. Do I take the easiest route? The path that seems the most fun? Or I ended up going with the flow and someone else makes those decisions for me.

Think about this in terms of learning. At some point we are going to talk about the need to be a life long learner. Formal education can be a part of that. But also, there is experiential education. So what do you think would be better? Should I be an active leaner or a passive learner? Do I actively manage my career and associated experiences so I can learn what will make the biggest difference in my life, or do I just go with the flow and hope that I learn some good things along the way?

My recommendation: be active and deliberate. You do that by knowing yourself, your goals, making deliberate decisions, documenting your journey. Those are a few of the ways to be deliberate.

Overview of Motives: 08:25

Let's just do a quick review of three categories of motives. For today, I've categorized them into those that are generally positive, some that are practical or situational motives and then those that have great potential to be negative.

I do want to point out that most any motive generally can be good or bad. Sometimes good motives taken to extremes can turn negative. So it's important to keep all of these in perspective and to prioritize them.

Generally Positive

Making a difference

Lifting - helping others meet their potential and achieve their goals

Being a multiplier (see the book)

Be part of a team

Serving

Practical Motives

Because that is when you are the most engaged - I think this is one that is very overlooked but is also difficult to pinpoint.

You have talent in this area

Leading is a way to accomplish your core objectives (founders)

No one else is stepping up

Potentially Negative (depending on how you prioritize them)

Money

Fame and Recognition

Power or Control

Pride and a lack of trust (need to do things my way)

You don't have a choice

We all most likely have some all three types. In fact, if you think about money, that is almost always a motivator in some way shape or form. I think all of us see a need for money in our lives but very few of us want to make money just to say we have a lot of money. I choose to believe that the world is not filled with Scrooge McDuck's who just pile up gold coins in a vault so they can swim in it. That definitely exists but I think most people identify what they want to do in life and then prioritize their income based on that. So in most cases, what we do with the money is more of a motivator than the money itself. We will expand on this in a bit.

Why is doing things for the right reason so important?

I'm sure someone is wondering, do my motives matter if I still do the right thing. I think my answer to that would be absolutely yes it matters. It may not make a difference in that one individual decision but how does it impact decisions in the future. Real power to lift comes from a combination of having the right balance and prioritization of motives combined with the ability and opportunity to do so and then exercising all of those consistently over time.

Don't get me wrong, even with the right motives, you won't always stay on the right path. Again, all of us are human and make mistakes and sometimes we end up tripping over ourselves or falling on our faces. But the right motives give you a much better shot at consistently being on the right path vs. wandering aimlessly.

I say wandering aimlessly and that's maybe a little bit extreme. Let's talk about money as a motivator here. If the accumulation of wealth is someone's primary or only motivator then that is going to be a huge factor in their decisions. They will look for the opportunities that would make them the most money even if there are some major downsides - say extreme travel commitments that conflict with their family goals. But if that motive stays on top, eventually someone is going to offer them enough money to make it worth it. On the flip side, if an individual knows that their money is only good for what they can do with their families because of the money, regardless of what that is, then they are more likely to try and find something that is more balanced.

Just one more example: think about education. I grew up in an era where the perception was that the only way you could be successful in a career was to have a degree in that career area. I personally didn't get my degree in business until I was already well into my career and for me, all it was was checking a box to say I had a degree. That was a good thing because my first real career transition would not have happened without the degree. But I distinctly remember taking a course final and reading one particular question and the possible answers. In my mind, I knew what the right answer was but I also knew that if I chose that answer, it would be incorrect on the test. What they were looking for in that particular test was something that was completely useless in the real world. Well, I still chose they answer the test creators wanted because I needed credit for the course.

I'm helping my youngest son think about his future from a career standpoint and the conversations we are having are much different than my own experience. He may need a degree or he may not. What is most important for him though is that he learn the skills he needs to be successful in his chosen field. Can he get that from a college degree? Maybe if he goes to class for the right reason (he is not a big fan of school or class). Are there other ways he could learn the same information and skills - absolutely?

I have a daughter that was/is even less fond of school. She just completed a 5 month course to be a pharmacy technician and is now doing her hours to complete her certification. This was a much better course for her. It was short enough to complete (she never would have stuck with a full college degree), provides her a great career opportunity that allows her to be around people which is important to her. This was a decision she made after learning a bit about herself and then figuring out what she wanted and needed to focus on.

Practical Ways to Deal with Motives

So what are some practical things we can all do to better manager our motives vs. let them manage us.

First, and I know I say this a lot, but you need some honest self evaluation. Who knows you better than you? You can always follow self evaluation up with other tools and getting feedback from those around you but I always start with self evaluation.

One other word of advice here - do your self evaluation before life forces you to do it. This comes from my own experience. If your motives are out of balance, or you are consistently acting against what should be your core motives, life has a funny way of "helping" you realize it.

Here are some questions that you can use to get started on an self evaluation:

What do I love doing the most and why?

When I have to make key decisions, what are the core values I use to evaluate a decision?

Example: Helping develop a team member vs. saving a project

When it comes to leadership, what do I like the most about it?

Example: the acknowledgement of being a leader or helping others?

If someone asked you what your ideal job title would be, what would you answer?

Example: VP vs. Mentor

When someone compliments your team on a successful whatever, who gets the credit?

Example: you vs. the team or someone on the team

How do you build your team?

Putting people in the place of most potential or just hiring folks to do what you want

Letting folks struggle and grow (giving back the marker) vs. taking over and doing it yourself - this one shows that you care more about perceived short term success vs. helping others

Putting aside compensation (and the need for it), what would you do if you could do anything, and why?

A second practical approach would be to take all the motives above, and any others you want to add in, and then putting them in priority order - your priority order. This is another one where you need to be absolutely honest about it. Once you have them in the right order, then you can start asking another set of questions like:

How do these motives align with my overall life priorities?

Example: if my goal is to help my kids learn to problem solve and be independent but my primary motive is control or doing things my way, don't those conflict?

How would this motive at this priority level impact my overall life goals?

When I have key decisions to make, which motives will most influence the decision that I make?

If I could rank the motives in an ideal way, what would that be?

How have my motives and the priorities of those motives changed over time?

What kind of changes do I want to make? Then pick one, make a plan and execute on it.

A Few Reminders

None of this stuff is chiseled in concrete. You should expect things to change over time and be willing to do so. Very few decisions that we make in life are final and can't be adjusted or course corrected.

While it is difficult to change the core of who you are ( we will talk about this a lot in the personality episode), that doesn't mean that you can't make adjustments.

Having some of the perceived negative motives is not bad in and of itself.

Everything needs a balance.

Exploring My Own Motives: 24:58

I thought I would share just a little bit of my experience related to motives and why I am so passionate about understanding our motives and being deliberate about them. This is also a good example of how motives can change and how various motives mix and match.

When I was in college, I got married and we had our first kid. At the time I was think about going to med school but I had a young family, was trying to work full time, had a church assignment that took up a significant amount of time and was carrying a full class load. It was absolutely too much. So my wife and I sat down and evaluated our priorities and decided that education would have to wait. I was working at a bank call center and with that transition I started what I would consider my business career.

At that time, my goals were centered on trying to balance family and career but I also felt a lot of drive/pressure to provide for my growing family as one of our main goals was for my wife to be able to stay home with the kids. Shortly after this transition, I was given an opportunity to step into an early management role. Over time with that organization, my responsibilities steadily increased. At times I was able to balance things well but at other times I was not. One example of not: when our third child was born I took a week off to be home with her and the family. Two days in my wife sent me back to work because I was essentially working. That was not great. I should have realized that things were out of whack.

At one point we had an opportunity to relocate to Texas. It was good timing because we had been talking about maybe moving out of state and exploring what other parts of the country were like. We thought it would be good exposure for our kids. So we made the move. It was a big transition but it was a great opportunity all round.

A couple of years after we moved, I went to work for another company. It was a step down in title, I went from VP to Sr. Manager, but it was a deliberate decision to take on an opportunity to build an organization from scratch. Several years later, I realized I was tired of being on call 24x7 and asked to move into a more strategic role. Shortly after that, we decided that we wanted to be closer to extended family and give two of our kids the chance to see what small town life was like. So we moved back to Utah.

A couple of years after that I got laid off for the first time. When I look back at that, I realized that it was probably a good thing because I had gotten complacent. I was making good money, working from home (before it was such a big deal), traveled occasionally and had good balance (I didn't have to work 50 hour work weeks and my schedule meant I could do things with the family). But what I didn't see is that I wasn't growing. I was focused on the money I was making and how good I had it.

When I got laid off, I started a consulting business. It was going alright but I missed the more consistent income. I was recruited by a large tech company and when I say the compensation and benefits package, I thought I had totally arrived. I had never thought I would be part of something like that. A while into that new situation I met with a financial advisor and talked about retirement. This is something I had never really focused on because we just hadn't had much in terms of disposal income. I had done the bare minimum but all of a sudden I had the opportunity to really invest in retirement and the advisor showed me some really big potential numbers. That must have triggered something in me because I started seeing my progress at work, my assignments and everything that came up as an opportunity to contribute to those numbers. For a while I was able to keep a decent balance between these competing motives. But eventually, I started putting pressure where there didn't need to be any. I tried forcing things that didn't need to be forced and unfortunately, some of my default behaviors that I had worked so hard over the course of my career to identify and mitigate, came back. This just threw things even more out of balance.

I'm talking about this to help you see where at times in my career I made good decisions for the right reasons. Other times, I struggled to make the right decisions because I had let some of my lesser motives take too high of a priority. This is why I encourage you to do a self evaluation and ask others around you. After I moved on from the tech company, my wife and my family all came forward and said how worried about me they had been. They had seen the stress and pressure and it was a huge concern. It would have been much better if I had been able to identify the issue months earlier and deliberately work on it.

Some of you have probably had similar experiences. If you haven't, I'm sure there will be times when you are greatly tempted, even for good reasons, to let your motives get out of balance. Resist that as much as you can. Stay focused on your overall life goals. Adapt as life changes and be deliberate. And hopefully you can avoid some of these pitfalls that I’ve run into over my career.

Wrap Up

So that wraps up part 1 of our knowing yourself series. Part 2 should be coming in two weeks. In the meantime, take some time to focus on your motives. Maybe even try out one or two of the suggestions from today's episode. Understanding your motives a little bit better will prepare you for part 2 when we start talking about personality styles. That's an episode you won't want to miss.