Frustrated leaders often ask me, "Why won't my employees take any initiative?" To be sure, before you can overcome employee reluctance to take initiative at work, you need to explore the conditions that cause employees to avoid it in the first place. Here are some reasons they might resist:

1. They don't know that you want them to take initiative. Managers often assume that their employees know, or ought to know, that they want them to take initiative. Unless you tell them, they won't know.


2. The rules get in the way. Having too many written or implied restrictions leaves little room for initiative taking and forces employees to surrender their creativity to the chain of command.


3. You're a micromanager. Why would employees take initiative when you tell them in painstaking detail how to do every aspect of their jobs, or override them when they do take initiative?


4. You've taken away their self-esteem. If your negative-leadership approach has convinced employees that they are inept, they'll be unlikely to take on extra work and open themselves to additional criticism.


5. They don't understand the big picture. Half of all workers are unable to see a link between their jobs and their organization's objectives. If they don't know what they're trying to accomplish, they can't see beyond their current task.


6. They're afraid. Humans have an innate desire to contribute, but that passion conflicts with our natural instinct to protect ourselves against things we fear--things like rejection, failure, embarrassment, or retaliation. Unless you make it safe, taking initiative is scary.


7. They want to avoid failure. Individuals who take failures personally have an exaggerated sense of their own incompetence. They view taking initiative as futile since they expect to fail.


8. They're lazy. Believe it or not, some employees are lazy; for them, taking initiative means doing extra work.


9. Someone has burned them before. Some workers are still nursing wounds from prior initiative-taking episodes. Someone empowered them and they took some initiative; then, that person stripped away their power and criticized or humiliated them.


10. They don't see YOU taking any initiative. If you're not willing to travel outside your comfort zone, why should they do it? As a leader, you must summon the courage to chart the course, venture into the unknown, challenge defeat, and risk disappointment. Your initiative will encourage others.

BONUS REASON: They're only in it for the money. Employees need to know how aligning with the organization's values will meet their personal interests and needs. Without frequent confirmation from their leaders, employees might decide the organization's values are not what they thought they were. If they perceive, whether accurately or not, that management changed or somehow misrepresented the values, employees feel unaligned, lost, and foolish for having trusted the employer. As a result, their initiative diminishes and money becomes their primary motivator. Bookmark this post on del.icio.us

Rick Monday was just minding his own business. His business was baseball; playing center field to be specific. His team, the Chicago Cubs, was at Dodger Stadium for a three-game series against Los Angeles. It was April 25, 1976 and the country was celebrating its bicentennial. It was the bottom of the fourth inning.

Two people ran out of the stands and onto the field, one of them carrying an American flag under his arm. They stopped in left-center field, knelt down, and spread the flag on the ground. One of the men doused the flag in lighter fluid. The other lit a match. Rick Monday decided to make this his business.

He ran toward the protesters. "To this day, I couldn't tell you what was running through my mind except I was mad," said Monday. The wind blew out the match, but they quickly lit another. That's when Monday arrived. "I saw them go and put the match down to the flag. It's soaked in lighter fluid at this time. Well, they can't light it if they don't have it. So I just scooped it up."

With the rescued flag in hand, Monday continued running toward the Dodger dugout, where he turned over the flag for safekeeping. While police escorted the protesters off the field, Monday resumed his post in center field. The Dodger fans began to applaud him. As the meaning of what they had just witnessed hit home, they cheered louder. A message went up on the scoreboard that read, "Rick Monday...you made a great play." The crowd came to their feet, giving Monday a standing ovation. People began to sing, "God Bless America."

Rick Monday is a hero. He took action for his convictions that April day in 1976. Today, he publicly advocates for a Constitutional amendment prohibiting burning the American flag. Thanks to people like him, the Senate is debating such an amendment this week.

Thirty years later, Monday reflects on the significance of that day. "What they were doing was wrong then, in 1976. In my mind, it's wrong now, in 2006. It's the way I was raised. My thoughts were reinforced with my six years in the Marine Corp Reserves. It was also reinforced by a lot of friends who lost their lives protecting the rights and freedoms that flag represented."

Make a great play of your own. Stand up for your convictions! Bookmark this post on del.icio.us

Question: what could be more demotivating than learning that your work is no longer relevant? Answer: finding out that senior management considers your values irrelevant. That's the message officials of the Ritz-Carlton hotel could be sending their employees in a recent move to overwrite the chain's founding principles.

For over twenty years, the Ritz has epitomized excellent customer service and organizations in every industry have idealized their "Gold Standards" approach. Workers adhered to a set of values known as the "Ritz-Carlton Twenty Basics" from which the company takes its motto: "We are Ladies and Gentlemen serving Ladies and Gentlemen." But now the company is replacing those values with a list of service guidelines that are relaxed to satisfy the modern traveler. For instance, rather than rushing to carry a hotel guest's luggage, employees are now "empowered" to determine if the guest wants to relinquish a laptop computer.

A Wall Street Journal article featuring the changes quotes current Ritz-Carlton chief Simon Cooper: "It's all about staying relevant. Ritz-Carlton has the best and most recognized luxury brand names in the world, and we need to focus on 'relevant luxury.'"

But how will the 32,000 "ladies and gentlemen" who work for Ritz-Carlton react? These employees learned the Twenty Basics during orientation, had them reinforced at daily departmental briefings, and carried pocket-sized, laminated cards on which they were inscribed (former president and COO Horst Schulze said, "Every employee has the business plan of The Ritz-Carlton in his or her pocket, constantly reinforcing that guest satisfaction is our highest mission."). I think many of those workers will justifiably feel unaligned, lost, and foolish.

Consider this: Soon after they are hired, employees start observing and interpreting the norms of their organization's cultures. They look for mutual expectations--which of their own interests and needs are consistent with the values of their organizations. Once they feel aligned, individuals can start envisioning their own place in supporting their organization's success. But when the organization's values change, employees become confused about their roles. And, eventually, unaligned workers leave, accepting new employment outside the organization.

Employees who joined Ritz-Carlton because they shared its customer service values must now wonder if those values still exist. Those who cannot come to grips with the changes will be checking out soon. Bookmark this post on del.icio.us

Accountability. Everyone is talking about it in this post-Enron era. It simply means that we want our employees to take responsibility for their actions. So why, ask managers everywhere, are people reluctant to hold themselves accountable at work?

By definition, the word "accountability" is threatening. It underscores that management expects you to account for your actions. Just look at its synonyms: answerability, burden, culpability, fault, guilt, incrimination, and liability. Yikes! And you want your employees to welcome the idea of accountability?

But fear alone is not stopping workers from accepting responsibility for their work. Management's failure to feely give away their authority is a bigger cause. When employees have little or no influence in how they do their jobs, they will resist any effort to hold them accountable. After all, if your micromanaging supervisor tells you in painstaking detail how to do a task, why should you shoulder the blame for unsuccessful results?

And there's the impasse: Managers hesitate to empower workers who won't be accountable, and employees resist accountability because their leaders won't empower them. What now?

Give in. If you want your employees to be accountable, then give them something for which to be accountable. Giving authority to workers--who are ultimately responsible for the outcomes of their actions, anyway--is a prerequisite to holding them accountable. Bookmark this post on del.icio.us

Shortly after the Lay/Skilling convictions, a magazine reporter called me for a quote. Specifically, she wondered if I had any advice for middle-level leaders suffering under the rule of unethical managers. Blow the whistle, I advised. If senior management declines to listen, or if they hear but refuse to address the wrongdoing, ask yourself, "Is this really the place I want to work."

"But how do you determine when it's time to leave a bad manager?" she asked. "That's the million dollar question," I said, wishing I had a better answer for her. Her question nagged at me for days, until I found clarification in the archives of my personal experience.

I worked for nearly twenty years for the same company, during which time I reported to some awful managers: some who micromanaged me; some who claimed my good ideas as their own; some who were painstakingly slow in making routine decisions. Through it all, I persevered, able to generate enough self-motivation to outweigh their demotivating leadership styles. Looking back, these weren't bad people. They were just bad managers.

Then one day, I began reporting to an unethical leader. He gave less consideration to crossing moral lines than he thought about crossing his legs. And he expected unquestioning support for his actions from those who reported to him. I found myself, after two decades, finally reporting to a manager for whom I could not work. So I left.

What was the final straw? What distinguished the countless poor managers for whom I had worked and my last boss? Unlike the earlier leaders who were simply bad managers, this one was a bad person. Although there's always hope that a bad manager can develop strong leadership skills, there's little chance of redeeming a bad person.

So, dear reporter, here's my better-late-than-never response to your question, "When should you leave a bad manager?" Hang with your bad managers--maybe you can help them get better. But when your leader is a bad person, leave immediately! Bookmark this post on del.icio.us

As Jack Hayhow points out in his post today, good enough should never be good enough. But who should be the judge of our work?

When Winston Lord worked as an aid to Henry Kissinger, he presented the Secretary of State with a draft of a presidential foreign policy report. The next day, Kissinger called him into his office and asked, "Is this the best you can do?" Lord responded, "I thought so, but I'll try again." A few days later, Lord turned in another draft. Kissinger summoned him the next day and inquired, "Are you sure this is the best you can do?" Lord said, "Well, I really thought so. I'll try one more time." This routine went on eight times, with Lord submitting eight drafts and Kissinger asking each time, "Is this the best you can do?" On the ninth try, after Kissinger asked him the question, an exasperated Lord said, "I can't possibly improve one more word." Kissinger looked at Lord and said, "In that case, now I'll read it."

Only you can determine when you've done your best. So ask yourself every day, "Is this the best I can do?" Bookmark this post on del.icio.us

Irving Olds, who was chair of U.S. Steel's board in the mid-1900s, recognized half a century ago that which recent corporate scandals have taught us all: that the boards of most companies, presumably assembled to guide the actions of the organization, are often just window dressing. "Directors are like parsley on fish," Olds said back then. "Decorative but useless."

Unfortunately, many companies today can say the same about their mission statements. While corporations form boards because the law requires them to, most create mission statements because modern-day leadership theory says they must. We intend for mission statements to identify the organization's purpose, describe its philosophy, and establish a distinctive marketing position. Walk into any company and you'll likely see its mission statement, handsomely framed and hanging in the lobby. But when its only use is to garnish an empty wall, even the most beautifully crafted mission statement is decorative but useless.

Most companies fail to utilize their mission statements effectively. Mission statements help inspire a culture and drive the employee behavior necessary to achieve the organization's goals. They help workers identify a connection between their personal values and those of the company. But what truly inspires employees is not reading about those values on a plaque. It's seeing them in action through their leaders' behavior. Today's leaders must demonstrate their organization's values--not simply print them on a poster--in order to secure their employees' trust.

If you want your employees, those who enlist with your organization because they connect with its values, to stay aligned with your mission, then show them through your behavior that those values are for real. Demonstrate those values proactively, every day, and you'll transform your mission statement from an ornamental wall hanging to a source of constant inspiration. Bookmark this post on del.icio.us