Across the years and settings that make up my career, I have been blessed to work with a few phenomenal leaders. People who walk into a conference room and are noticed; even by the person from Finance sitting with her face in her email. People who, not by virtue of their position alone, but by their very presence make others want to impress them. People who radiate energy and accomplishment. People who pay for dinner!
Huh? People who pay for dinner? Yes, people who pay for dinner. You see, there is one thing I have observed about people who have the label "phenomenal leader"; those being led are always looking for the crack in the armor or the subtle, ever so discrete manifestation of one's true self that reveals that this person isn't so phenomenal after all.
That crack, for most of us, comes during the work day when faced with the stress of missed commitments, failure of our teams to perform and realization that the complexities and challenges of the marketplace will require more thought, data, and analysis. This is why most of us, while really good, fall short of "phenomenal". But oh, those phenomenal leaders... They don't miss commitments, their teams perform, and they are always a step ahead of the marketplace, armed with data and a 3-questions-deep understanding of what it means.
Keep them within the confines of the work day and work place and phenomenal leaders are, well, phenomenal. But get them into a restaurant for dinner - a level playing field in that we all eat and most of us do so, at least occasionally, in a restaurant - and opportunities to assess whether they are real or a mere by product of corporate grooming abound.
Here are my five tests of just how well the phenomenal label will survive the restaurant experience:
1. Does the leader manage the work-related to personal-conversation ratio well? I am not looking for someone who says "let's not talk about work at all". And someone who can only talk about work, by definition, is not a phenomenal leader. My test is in the balance of work-related versus personal- conversation. My role model for this is a sales executive with whom I worked at IBM. In my first meal with him, at PF Chang's Chicago, I brought my laptop so I could share a presentation on which I had been working. He led the meal with a "tell me about yourself question", within the confines of my answer learned and retained the names of my wife and three sons, and gravitated so naturally to the "tell me about your work" question that I delivered my presentation and never opened the laptop!
2. Does the leader acknowledge that the hosts and hostesses, servers and fellow guests of the restaurant are human beings? There are extremes here as I've been with more than one male executive who leveraged his position power and wealth to flirt with the attractive waitress. Not phenomenal! And I've been with executives who must have been raised among baboons because they never learned how to say "please" and "thank you". I've even been with an executive who asked a waitress with a cigarette hanging from her lips if the orange juice was "fresh squeezed, with real oranges, on the premises, that morning" as a show of his fine up-bringing! Or, perhaps not. In this category, my phenomenal test is easy: does the executive treat those employed to make her or his experience positive like she or he would like to be treated?
3. Is the leader interesting? Being interesting at work is not that hard. First, we are paid to be there so our standards for what is and is not interesting are low. And last, we are hopefully mindful of our company vision, strategy, and plan of execution as context to whatever is being presented and, as such, we pay attention. But is the leader interesting at dinner? What interests her or him outside of work? What movies has she seen or plays has she attended? What is he reading? To where has she traveled? What experiences has she had and how can I learn from them? And, most importantly, what questions does he ask me to stimulate my thinking and keep me on top of my game even in the midst of the distractions that are the restaurant experience?
The best I've seen at this is a sales executive (noticing a trend?) with whom I worked at Cisco. We had dinner at his favorite little restaurant in Miami where he treated the owners and servers like family and had me so engaged at dinner that we ate for hours and I was genuinely disappointed when it was time to go. His mix of humor with story telling and questions, his ability to relay his life stories in two languages, his interests in life and interest in my story was so powerful that if he invited me back to dinner I would get on a plane and fly to Miami for that sole purpose!
4. Does the leader drink? OK, I'm not advocating for alcoholism here. But I have to tell you that "I'll just have water" sends a message to me that the leader is hopeful that the dinner will end quickly and inexpensively. And a "Do you have Diet Coke?" reply signals lack of thoughtfulness and a worry that the leader is genuinely still selecting soda as her or his drink of choice! Honestly, Pepsi and I got a divorce in the 10th grade.
My preference for a meal is always a glass of wine. If you are phenomenal you will have just one or two and you will appreciate the subtle distinction of good wine versus all other wine. Anything with tonic water or club soda, like Gin or Vodka, works well but a phenomenal leader will know the difference between Bombay Sapphire and Seagrams. And if the situation genuinely calls for restraint from alcohol (like,, it's lunch!!!) a request for sparkling water with a twist of lime is always thoughtful and, actually, quite elegant.
A note about beer.. Beer is fine but always ask for a glass, preferably chilled, and never elect the pint size. I promise, you can have another.
5. Does the leader pay for dinner? Ah, the last test of whether "phenomenal" is "phenomenal"; who picks up the check? This applies to situations where the meal is reimbursable by the company or not. A phenomenal leader always, always, always pays the bill.
A quick recollection from IBM. I went to lunch at the company cafe with an IBM HR executive. The lunch came to $8 for the two of us. The purpose of the lunch was to give the executive an opportunity to recruit me to his HR discipline. When the register rang $8 the executive put his hand on my arm and said "it's on me". That was more than 10 years ago. I have absolutely no idea what we ate. I can't even remember if I took the job! But I remember $8 and that gesture.
I have seen too many instances where the bill has come and the nervousness sets in. Do we split it? Who has to submit for reimbursement? Or, the true, unstated question: "Is this job, company and opportunity to impress a member of my team worth $100 out of my own pocket?" A phenomenal leader would answer "of course, yes".
A Cisco story. A group of HR professionals went to dinner in Silicon Valley. The leader got up 80% of the way into the meal and said, "I'm so sorry, I must go.". The three remaining guests, of which I was one, spent the balance of the meal with a quizzical look about what just happened. This phenomenal leader was, perhaps, not so phenomenal after all. Did she really just eat and run? Who does that? The crack in the armor had been revealed, finally. Our suspicions proven accurate. I asked the waitress for the check. Her reply: "Oh, that woman who left paid your bill on her way out. And she left me a generous tip. Thank her for me, please."
Order had been restored to the universe. She was an Executive! She paid for dinner... phenomenal!
Paul E. DuCharme. September 2012
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