Adaptive Leadership: Self Management – A Tribute to a Mentor

During the writing of this series in Adaptive Leadership I have reviewed some notes and messages from my mentors over the years. One of the persons who has impacted my life is Frederic Hudson, PhD, the founder of The Hudson Institute of Santa Barbara. During (and since) my Coaching training it was clear to me that Frederic has dedicated his life to teaching and coaching renewal in adults., He is a role model for adaptive leadership. The note below is an example of how Frederic encouraged us in Coaching Training to “pay attention” to the idea of self management. In this note he summarizes concepts from Peter Drucker’s book “Management Challenges for the 21st Century. Written over 12 years ago it is still full of direction and wisdom for being an Adaptive Leader and Coach. I have “bold lettered” some nuggets. Thanks Frederic.

Frederic Hudson, PhD

Greetings Again to the Coaching Class of May 1999. In his new book, MANAGEMENT CHALLENGES FOR THE 21ST CENTURY, Peter F. Drucker, noted professor of management at Claremont Graduate School, says the following about self-management—all very pertinent to the art of coaching.

“We all must learn to manage ourselves. We have to learn to develop ourselves. . . . The only way to discover your strengths is through feedback analysis. Whenever you make a key decision or take a key action, write down what you expect will happen. Nine or 12 months later, compare the actual results with your expectations. . . .  This simple method will show you what you are doing or failing to do that deprives you of the full benefits of your strengths. . . .

“To be able to manage yourself, you have to ask, ‘What are my values?’

Ethics requires that you ask yourself, ‘What kind of person do I want to see in the mirror in the morning? What is ethical behavior in one kind of organization or situation is ethical behavior in another. To work in an organization whose value system is unacceptable or incompatible with one’s own condemns a person both to frustration and to non-performance. . . .

Organizations, like people, have values. To be effective in an organization, a person’s values must be compatible with the organization’s values. They do not need to be the same, but they must be close enough to coexist. . . .

“At 45, most executives have reached the peak of their business careers, and they know it. After 20 years of doing very much the same kind of work, they are very good at their jobs. But they are not learning or contributing or deriving challenge and satisfaction from the job. And  yet they are still likely to face another 20 if not 25 years of work. That is why managing oneself increasingly leads one to begin a second career. There are three ways to develop a second career:

“The first is actually to start one. . . .  We will see many more second careers undertaken by people who have achieved modest success in their first jobs. Such people have substantial skills, and they know how to work. They need a community, but above all they need challenge.

“The second way to prepare for the second half of your life is to develop a parallel career<usually in a nonprofit organization: a part-time engagement in the administration of their church, for instance, or the presidency of the local Girl Scouts Council. They might run the battered women’s shelter, work as a children’s librarian for the local public library, sit on the school board, and so on.

“Finally, there are the social entrepreneurs. These are usually people who have been very successful in their first careers. They love their work, but it no longer challenges them. In many cases they keep on doing what they have been doing all along but spend less and less of their time on it. They also start another activity, usually a nonprofit. . . .

“There is one prerequisite for managing the second half of your life: you must begin long before you enter it. When it first became clear 30 years ago that working-life expectancies were lengthening very fast, many observers believed that retired people would increasing become volunteers for nonprofit institutions. That has not happened. If one does not begin to volunteer before one is 40 or so, one will not volunteer once past 60.

Similarly, all the social entrepreneurs I know began to work in their chosen second enterprise long before they reached their peak in their original business.

“There is another reason to develop a second major interest, and to develop it early. No one can expect to live very long without experiencing a serious setback in his or her life or work.  . . . At such times, a second major interest (not just a hobby) may make all the difference. . . . In a society in which success has become so terribly important, having options will become increasingly vital. . . .

 ”Managing oneself requires new and unprecedented things from the individual, and especially from the knowledge worker. In effect, managing oneself demands that each knowledge worker think and behave like a chief executive officer. . . . Knowledge workers outlive organizations, and they are mobile.The need to manage oneself is therefore creating a revolution in human affairs.”