I have written many blog posts about how to be an effective leader largely based on leading your team or those that you are responsible for. What happens when you are doing everything you can for your team, yet struggle under someone above you?

In the industry we call this managing or leading up.  Yes, believe it or not you can manage your manager.  Some may call this finding a way to “win-win” or finding a way to yes.


           Executive Coach - Kyle Kalloo 

When might you have to lead up?  There are several instances that come to mind;

 - A new manger to the organization unfamiliar with the corporate culture or processes; 
 - An experienced manager that is comfortable (stuck) in their usual (old) ways;
 - A manager that lacks big picture thinking; 
 - A manager fearful and protective of their “turf”

I pondered this idea for a while and in order to share the best possible practices with you I realized I needed to reach out to a subject matter expert, Kyle Kalloo is an executive with many years of experience and was the first person I know to bring up the concept of leading up.  I invited Kyle to do an interview with me and here is what we learned. 

Jeff - Kyle, tell us a little bit about you first.  Your career history and experience. 

Kyle – It has been a while I have been asked that question, because most people now tend to google me before meeting (laughing). I have been in leadership for just over 20 years now. It wasn’t something I planned on, I’d like to think I am an accidental leader. Most times I find companies tend to put me in that role. McDonald’s Canada was my first job and first leadership position. After 8 years with McDonald’s, I continued my leadership at Famous Players in Toronto, before moving on to WestJet based out of Calgary, for just over 10 years. And now the CFO, COO, Executive and Business Coach with Change My Life Coaching. Just recently, I was speaking with my younger brother about some of my elementary school report cards he and my mother found.  Apparently one of those report cards identified a teacher that wrote, something to the effect, they wished I was focus more on my school work instead of trying to run a business. Naturally, that made me pause. Those that know me well, aren’t surprised by that, yet I was. 

Jeff - What does “leading up” mean to you, how would you define that for others?

Kyle – I believe they are two concepts to this; I think people are still confused about the difference between managers and leaders. I support the notion that managers know how to plan, budget, organize, staff, control, and problem solve. Pretty tactful and hands on. Where as leaders tend to create and communicate visions and strategies. They think big and allow the managers to focus on the details. With that said, managing up would be specific and tactful, while leading up is more about being strategic. 

Jeff - How does one know when they may need to start leading up? what are the signs?

Kyle – In simple terms, lack of clarity. When leaders are not clear with their ask or what finish looks like, are great opportunities to start the process of leading up. Often times you hear phrases such as, “Could you take care of this,” and “I need this ASAP,” When they are not clear with the expectations, they believe they are empowering the employee, but they are not. Without being clear, a lot of time is wasted with going back and forth - unproductive. This is not about being spoon fed by the manager/leader, on the contrary, it is more about spoon feeding the manager/leader. And sometimes that is necessary for a few reasons; gaining clarity and leading their expectations. 

Jeff - What would you say are your hands down best practices for leading up?

Kyle – Get specifics. When this is around a project, assignment, or task, it is necessary to seek clarity by asking the right questions. By what time and what day. Do you want me to stop doing what I am already working on to make this a priority. What does finish look like. The manager/leader might not know, and this is a great opportunity for you to suggest. Often times as leaders we don’t live in the details as someone working the front line, in the trenches, so to speak. This is a great opportunity to lead up. Be clear with your priorities. You are responsible for your workload, learning, and development. Don’t get frustrated with additional tasks being put on your plate, often times the manager/leader is not aware and their ask doesn’t’ come from a place to frustrate you.  Keep them informed that something else will have to stop to prioritize another item they need. This will start outlining expectations, so when you go back asking for an extension there will be no surprises. My mother often says, “before it’s a reason, after it’s an excuse”, so if you say you are going to get it done on said date, make sure it’s done or ask for an extension prior to said date.  

Jeff - What if I am trying to lead up, but my boss is resistant? 

Kyle – This is a common question. I think it is for a few reasons; in my experience I find people try to do this right away without first understanding the company’s mission, vision, and values. There is something to be said for doing your time and truly understanding the business first. Regardless of your years of experience in a field or expertise, it is necessary to invest time (conditioning) and understanding in your organization or department. Do not expect to start leading up off the bat. Get to know your team, your leader, and your industry. Foster effective relationships first! Often times, when someone doesn’t agree with me – which is often, I am reminded of two things, 1) because I am not always in the details, they might not have access to all the information.  And that is my opportunity as a leader to involve them and provide said details. Or 2) I don’t have access to all the information and it’s my responsibility to ask the right questions. In my experience, if the above is properly executed and there is still resistance, then the leader is leading from a fear base anxiety, scarcity. 

Jeff - What are your additional thoughts?

Kyle – When I speak with other leaders, I am told I am pretty hard on them.  I think rightfully so, because it is their responsibility to inspire and tap into the natural resources of people that want to do meaningful work.  Our best years of our lives are spent at work, mostly working for someone else. And in the absence of a process people will create their own. Leaders have an opportunity to create and influence an environment that provides meaningful work and a safe environment for their employees. Employees’s responsibilities are pretty simple, do the work you were hired to do first, participate in your own learning and development, ask for what you need, and help others.  

As you can see, Kyle has great insight for the concept of leading up.  As a professional coach Kyle can be contacted at:
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Kyle Kalloo,
CFO, COO, Executive and Business Coach,
Changemylifecoaching.ca 844-910-7111

Lead up, down and all around.  Most importantly, lead always,

Jeff

Usually I end up writing my posts based on various inspirations, sometimes I see a quote that grabs my attention. Other times I have an interesting work or personal life experience and find inspiration in writing about it.  This time I would like to ask you!  Let me know by voting on various topics below and I will blog about it for next week!

Also, my website host has changed the subscription service so if you want to receive updates on new posts please add your e-mail address to the update subscription to the lower right. 

Thank you for your input!

Jeff 

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I have many leaders out there that inspire me, one leader Simon Sinek; himself a speaker on leadership topics is very inspirational.  He wrote the bestselling book “Start With Why”, many of you have heard me speak about the concept of starting with why and how the question “why do you do what you do” is in many cases impossible for us to answer… More on this in a future blog post.

Today, a quote from Simon Sinek caught my attention:

“We react to emails.
We talk to people.”
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​The past two weeks I have facilitated several leadership development programs and coaching a lot of leaders on their development.  I would say the focus these past two weeks has been on “leadership presence” and “relationship building”.  I have a scenario for you to consider, put yourself into this situation;

You walk into your manager’s office; you ask “May I have a few minutes of your time?”
Your manager, “Yes of course! Please, come in, have a seat”
Your manager turns to you, looks you in the eyes and says “What is going on? How can I help you?”

Off to a great start right? 

Then it happens… the sound of an e-mail arriving on your manager’s computer “beeeeuuuuu”… You watch as your well intentioned manager turns from you to their computer screen, “click” opens the e-mail that at its worst, is nowhere close to an emergency (who sends an email “fire, fire, fire!”).  Then the “clickty clack” sounds of hands on a keyboard fill the room… “It’s ok! Keep talking! I am listening!” your manager says to you with a warm smile.   Has this ever happened to you?

Like Sineks quote, the email is merely a reaction, the same happens with text messages and phone calls.  When we accept distraction in these situations we are severing the relationship with the human being sitting in front of us.  Put yourself in the shoes of the person that came to speak with their manager, how would it feel to know that they are choosing an inanimate object over you?

Talking to people means being present, and being present does not mean just “showing up”.  The excuses I often hear about these situations are “I can multi task”.  The question I ask is “how many conversations are you repeating because you were not present in them the first time?” 

I have some tips to enhance your leadership presence:

As the manager:

When someone sits down to have a conversation with you (building the relationship) turn off the power to your computer monitor.  Turn your mobile phone to vibrate or silent and turn it over so the screen is facing down.  DO NOT allow yourself to wander back to whichever task you were doing before and think very hard about the types of calls you may have to accept in exceptional circumstances.

As the person meeting with the manager:

Very simple.  If at any time they get distracted and start typing on the computer, texting or taking a phone call.  Stop talking and wait.  Your leader is likely going to encourage you keep talking, don’t.  Just politely say you will wait until they are finished, stick to what you said and just wait. 

As another of my favourite inspirational leaders Susan Scott says “the conversation is the relationship”.  For me that means the conversations we have or do not have directly equal the quality of the relationships with those people in our lives.  Remember, a person talking at you while you type away is someone talking to themselves and you working beside them.
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Enjoy the conversations,

Jeff 
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“Can you update your Pisano?” “Meet me by the shell gate, deck 2 midship” “tell me”.

Aviation is full of acronyms and made up words. Shiplife? times that by about 100.

I was fortunate having grown up on the water as part of my parents business that I learned the difference between a boat and ship, port, starboard, aft, fwd, bow and stern.  What I didn't know was the alternate language that crew use to name or describe something.  For example, when I joined the ship I heard many crew members use the word “Pisano”.  They would use it in reference to confirming information, “please take this form to your Pisano” a crew member would say to another.

For my first 30 days on the ship I thought and believed that “Pisano” was a supervisor of some sort on the ship, I in fact believed that it was a position or rank onboard.  When I found out that “Pisano” meant “person from the same country as you” I felt, well, out of touch.  I was so confused… I now happily share this story with new hires as an example of what it is like to adjust to ship-life.  Although it is an Italian word, every nationality on the ship uses it.  

What are some other words/terms have I learned?

• “Tell me” - It is universal amongst crew when you call them that the start of the conversation almost always goes like the below.  The conversations are all so fast and efficient, “tell me” is the common way of saying “whats up?” or “what can I do for you?”.  
  

• ME - “Hi, it’s T&D Jeffrey”
• THEM “Hi! Tell me”

• I-95 - Down in the belly of the vessel, in the crew areas there is a massive corridor that on most ships runs straight from the bow of the vessel to the stern.  It is the “crew highway” that allow crew, supplies and equipment to move from one end of the ship to the next.  Most ships also have an I-94, a smaller corridor running in parallel.  When the ship is turning around between voyages the I-95 is very very busy and crew are asked to transit via I-94 to avoid congestion.

• Turn Around Day - This is the day between voyages, it is like a symphony, brain surgery and magic all rolled up together.  In one day (usually 8-12 hours) the ship arrives, disembarks thousands of guests, turns over all the state rooms, cleaning, sanitizing.  The ships garbage and recycling is offloaded and new provisions including food, beverages, glassware, and a number of other supplies are brought onboard.  This day is very busy for the ships HR team, it is all hands on deck as we prepare to receive the “sign-ons” and disembark the “sign-offs”.  Each turn around day there will be an influx of crew leaving and coming the number differs from ship to ship the largest ships in the fleet there can be up to 250 sign-ons, on my ship the average is closer to 40.  In this group up to 25% are new-hires whereas the rest are returning crew coming off vacation.  The HR team splits up to manage the process, I head out to the crew bus with the Crew Relations Specialist and we start to receive the sign-ons, verifying their documents, passports etc.  Clearing them through security, bringing them onto the ship and then running each person through their contract and sign-on paperwork.  Then we hand then to the medical team who verify their medicals and fitness for duty.  The day is not done there… We have to explain the training and process and then we greet them later in the day at the HR Centre to take their pictures and issue their crew ID’s. 

The dictionary is growing, I wonder how many words, terms that I will bring home with me…

• RING! RING!, RING! RING!! “Hello”
• “Hi! It’s Mom!”
• “Hi Mom! tell me…” 

Speak well, 

Jeff  

You wont find much information online that provides a full picture of what it is like to live and work on a ship, mine being a 90,000 ton floating city with 850 crew and 2200 guests.  

One of the first things I learned, or rather, came to know was that time means almost nothing on a ship.  What I mean is that the date is irrelevant, we count voyages, and voyage days.  So, Tuesday June _ or Saturday June _ are referred to as “Day 3” or “Day 5”.  The only reason I know that Friday has rolled around is that I lead the weekly Jewish Shabbat prayer service onboard, and if that wasn’t indicated in my calendar I would have no idea it even happened. 

Time, as far as hours go is also another factor.  7:00AM or 7:00PM mean nothing, the ship is always working.  Now, we take breaks and have rest time but the only part of the day that signifies to me that it is night time is 6:00PM.  Why? because that is the time I change into my formal evening uniform.  The amazing thing is that I could teach 3 classes, have 4 meetings and conduct 8 interviews and if you told me it was 9:00PM I would have no clue.  

Now, don't assume that we work all the time, because we don’t.  In fact, every crew member has strictly monitored and enforced rest and duty rules.  So we always are ensured 10 hours of rest every 24 hours.  The difference from a land or “shoreside” based position is the ship is humming and alive 24 hours a day.  We plan for this and schedule accordingly.  This is also another reason why the date doesn’t matter, the only thing that matters is if it is Day 2 or 7. 

Meals are another interesting aspect.  The crew are offered 3 main meals a day, snacks are always available and then a late night hot meal is also available for those working night or off hour shifts.  Because the time doesn't matter you really have to pay attention to the clock so that you don’t accidentally work through a meal… 

Your cabin is determined based on your rank and role on the ship.  One of the things that I have come to love though is that, because crew cabins are generally on the lower decks of the ship is that I can hear the ocean running along the hull of the ship and that sound is the most amazing, therapeutic white noise I have ever experienced.  I may have to download this sound for when I return home for my vacation.  

A final fringe benefit of living and working on a ship is the commute.  I can walk out of my cabin and be at my office in less than 3 minutes, 6 if I stop by the coffee shop.  Gym? I can be there in 2 minutes.  This is huge, back home if I wanted to leave work to go to the gym I would need to carve 4 hours out of my day to do a 2 hour workout.  On the ship? 2.5 hours from working to gym to showered and back to work or off and relaxing.  

Live well,

Jeff

So, here I am.  Sitting in Seat 20A on my Lufthansa flight to Munich.  It is June 17th and after 3 months on the Serenade of the Seas I am “transferring” to another ship, the Grandeur of the Seas.  In a few days I will join the Grandeur to serve out 4 weeks before signing off at the end of July to start my 2.5 months of vacation.

I intended to be more active with blog posts, alas, here I am posting after all this time.  There are several reasons for the delay, namely;

 - Ship life was far busier than I ever imagined
 - Internet is a challenge 
 - I had/have no concept of time while on the ship

As I said in my previous post, I took a leave from my airline career to give a long time dream a try.  I accepted a role with the worlds leading cruise line to serve as Training & Development Manager onboard a ship.  What surprises many that I talk with is that cruise ships are so large now that they require a full human resources team onboard to provide full life cycle HR services.  My role as an educator is to provide learning, educational support, coaching and leadership development to more than 850 crew members. 

The role is a blend of corporate trainer/hr consultant/safety officer.  I would say that I spend about 30% of my time actively facilitating with the remaining time spent one-on-one with crew, onboard leadership or in meetings.  

One of the interesting elements that I have noticed about my role, is that the position of Training & Development Manager or “The T&D” as we say on this ship, is that it is a much beloved role by the entire crew.  The T&D is known as a safe person to talk to, a mentor, guide, moral compass.  This is a change from previous experience where the role of Training Manager could be perceived more as “enforcer”.  

My very first post on my blog was about how I explain my role to people, settling on “I teach”.  On the ship, when meeting and socializing with guests I have found that my answer to “and what do you do on the ship” I proudly respond with “I am the ships teacher”, a warm and wide smile generally appears on their faces as they discover that behind the scenes, crew support and crew welfare are on the top of the priority list for the organization.  

So, here I am, in 20A.  I will arrive in Munich, change planes and then jet across the atlantic to Washington DC where I join my next ship.  Although I will enjoy the day off in between I can’t wait to meet my next crew and see what I can do to help make their dreams come true.  

Keep learning, 

Jeff  

First and foremost my apologies for not posting here in a while.  It has been a crazy few months both personally and professionally.  I have not previously shared much about my personal life, but, I think it adds some context to my past few months.  Since my last post I have;

• Concluded and implemented the largest project of my career, a regulatory behemoth that involved over a year of work and will save my employer up to $3,000,000 per year.  This project dubbed the "1/50 Project" which I promise I will do a separate post on essentially changes the Canadian regulatory requirement of 1 Flight Attendant for every 40 passengers onboard an aircraft to the global standard of 1 Flight Attendant to every 50 seats installed on an aircraft.
• Purchased a new home.  Stressful and exciting.  I take possession sometime in June or July.  I swore when I built my last house that I would never build new again... I also discovered that when I shop for a new home I am in fact very picky and having something that is a new build suits my slightly OCD personality.
• Developed and launched 3 training programs and a massive amendment to the Flight Attendant Manual.  This year, I worked with my team to try something new.  We "flipped the classroom" with most of the program in relation to practical and skills based activities.  We have had a few classes come through already and the feedback has been very positive. 
• Requested and was granted a 1 year leave of absence from work.  I am very fortunate to have this opportunity, something that few people are afforded.  
• Wait!? What!? ^^^ a leave of absence??? Yes, it is time to take a break from what I am doing, expand my horizons and take stock of where I am.  What am I going to do? More on that at a later time too.  I know, I know, why all the suspense? Well... I have to keep you all interested after all ;-)

A lot more than the above has taken place but I would say those are the "key" pieces that have occupied my time and attention.


Until next time (soon!),

Jeff 

Well, it is about time I got around to talking a bit more about my own company.  Today was a special day for my airline, Canadian North and for the Canadian Football League.  Never before has either organization celebrated their unique brands as they both did today.  

Today we unveiled our first "logo-jet", branded with the official logo of all 9 CFL franchise teams.  Over a hundred spectators representing employees of both organizations, plus many members of the media were present as we literally dropped the curtain unveiling the spectacular homage to Canadian Football. 

My role was to represent the Flight Attendant group, myself and 9 other colleagues all donned our uniforms in order to be brand ambassadors.  I don't get to wear my uniform very often, my usual day to day life revolves around the office and of course the classroom.  

However, today was a great reminder of why it is that I do what I love.  Of the many hats that I wear, deep down, everything I do is because I am a Flight Attendant.  Watching my colleagues celebrate a great day and moment for our company was an amazing culture booster.  The pride was visible on the faces of each and every employee. 

We are not the biggest airline in the country, and we often hear "who are you guys again?" or "where do you fly to?".  To know that because of the industry leading service we provide, and the impeccable standards each employee sets for themselves we are able to secure national contracts such as this one. A contract that will take our people, and our beautiful airplanes to even more corners of the country.

I am proud to represent Canadian North, and to be counted among the hardest working and most dedicated aviation professionals one could ever dream of.  

With flying pride,

Jeff

Check out the TSN coverage from today, watch how we painted the aircraft and then dropped the curtain for all to see. 

http://www.tsn.ca/video/cfl-canadian-north-unveil-custom-painted-plane-1.138618