Obviously, technology has provided instant and unfettered access to each other in ways unimagined just a few years ago. It's nearly an addictive struggle not to look at your iPhone or laptop when texts or emails arrive. Admitting to the addiction is the first step to recovery.

Getting answers almost instantly, communicating with the boss, regardless of where he/she is, or where you are, and sharing work with the office may have hindered our ability or willingness to find the answers on our own, take responsibility for projects and grow as individuals and leaders.

Our connectivity has formed a culture of "group-think." Think I'm off base? Think about all of the "Just an FYI," "Wanted to run this past you first" or "CC-ing," and worse yet, "BCC-ing" our teammates in almost every communiqué we touch. In many cases, acting on your own is a political faux pas for excluding your teammates from every aspect of every decision.

I am clearly an advocate and even an evangelist of a culture of inclusion, but to a point.

When we fail to think and act on our own and accept the responsibility for doing so, we miss an opportunity to learn and grow in significant ways. When leaders fail to encourage this behavior they stifle growth. Technology and group-think have contributed to the Micro-Manager phenomenon.

As leaders, we often ask, "Why can't they think or do anything on their own?" Well, take a hard look at you and your organization's culture of "over-inclusion." I just made up that word. You may not let them think on their own.

Is your team possibly too reliant on you and each other, especially when traveling or otherwise remote? Do you contribute to this dependency? Be honest. Take this week's CEO Challenge:

As we enter the summer vacation season, demand that your leaders of ALL levels set clear objectives before they go on vacation and then turn off the laptop and iPhone. No kidding. No texts, emails, phone calls or drive-by visits. We did it in the old days when the boss went away. Baptism by fire, with clear direction will develop your next tier of leaders. Moreover, don't be a jerk when you or your leaders return.

It's relatively easy to learn from your mistakes, but a CEO and his/her team should also learn from mistakes they didn't make. The team ought to occasionally review bad decisions that weren't made to not only reinforce your decision tree and the good decisions you have made, but also to understand what mechanism kept you from making a bad decision.

Highly effective teams regularly avoid bad decisions - there's a mechanism that keeps them from making bad decisions and they know what it is. They have a strict discipline by which they make decisions, checking off their list at each point along their decision tree.

Take the CEO Challenge. Deliberate with your leadership, or ponder it yourself, and then dissect what it was that made your last potentially bad decision not happen - was it consulting with someone who has more expertise in the area? Bringing in subordinates you wouldn't normally bring in? Was it bringing in a consultant? Consulting with a CPA or attorney?

Look at choices that weren't made, the sale that didn't occur, the merger or acquisition that almost happened, but didn't. Talk about great failures you didn't make. What was the trap door in the organization that caught you and kept you from heading down the wrong road? Something positive happened to keep you from making a bad decision.

Once you determine the triggering event, use it to develop a checklist by which all future decisions will be made. Your checklist should include questions such as:  

• What's the worst thing that could happen? Can we live with that?  

• What's the best thing that could happen? Is it worth it?  

• Is this core to what we do and who we are?  

• Does this fit within the strategic plan? If so, where?  If not, why?  

• If we don't do this, what's the worst that can happen?

There's a lot to learn from bad decisions you didn't make.

Many lessons can be learned from unfortunate failings of the world's larger corporations, and there is no shortage of lessons to be learned from the recent BP situation.

I'd like to stress the importance of the question “what could possibly go wrong?; A strategic plan should include as many of the potential scenarios as possible and a plan of action for each.

How do you and your organization respond/react to tragedies, disasters or embarrassment?

For example, the worst thing you can have in the airline industry is no plan of action for the loss of one of your airplanes.  When I was with Southwest Airlines, though we had not experienced a downed aircraft, we developed a very comprehensive plan for how we would respond to an aircraft incident or accident. The plan included everything from family contact to public and media relations, as well as the other sensitive aspects of an air crash. We reached out to our colleagues at other airlines who had previously dealt with this situation to solicit their best practices, as well as mistakes they made and things they would do differently.

In many cases, and in BP’s case, there is either is no plan of action, the plan isn’t followed, or the plan didn’t work (it was a bad plan). In fairness to BP, irrespective of their plan, working 5,000 feet under the sea is going to be a challenge.

If you are challenged by your shareholders as to what your disaster recovery plan is, would you have a good answer?  Worse yet, if the worst thing that can happen to your company happens, how are you going to handle it?  Historically, companies who handled disasters with transparency and humility, faired well in the media and the courtroom. You will recall, Tylenol did an excellent job, Toyota didn’t.

Take the CEO Challenge.  Identify which scenario your company could be faced with.  Do you have a plan of action for the worst thing that could happen?  Do you have a great plan with which you’re confident ?  Or do you have a bad plan?

How do you know your plan is good?  Has it been scrutinized?  As we’ve said before with your strategic plan, invite outsiders (attorneys, CPA’s, media specialists, your competition) to look at your plan to the extent that you can with confidentiality.                           

Just a few examples of the worst things that can happen to your company include:

- an attack on employees

- a natural or man-made catastrophic event such as a tornado, plane crash, or something happening to the building

- misinformation or a public relations scandal

- a defective product (Toyota)

- loss of a major resource (oil, steel, sugar, copper, etc.)

How will you and your organization be judged if the worst thing happens?

A reason that CEOs rarely get unfiltered information is that they are often inadvertently surrounded by sycophants, and you may not even know it.

If you were surveyed about your performance and one of the questions asked was “do you play favorites,” you might not do as well on that question as you think.

Unfair access to the CEO can happen for several reasons.  You will spend more time with your immediate reports, such as your CFO, CIO, etc., based on their functionality.  This is perfectly acceptable and employees understand it.  You may spend a lot of time with your star performers, those who regularly deliver outstanding results - Creativity, Productivity and Effectivity - this also makes sense and inspires employees to do better so that they too can get more attention from the CEO.

What is demotivating is the CEO spending an inordinate amount of time with someone you have a relationship with outside of the office due to interests - cycling, church, children, a working relative, etc.  Or sycophants who are just darn good actors, complimenting you and laughing at all of your jokes.

It’s statistically likely that you spend an unfair amount of your corporate time with people who seem to really like you than you do with the people who are really productive and contributing the most to the organization.

To use Marshall Goldsmith’s (author of What Got You Here Won’t Get You There) example, think about the family dog.  For most folks, the pet will receive more affection than even the spouse, because the pet loves unconditionally.

Your leadership can be undermined by the fact that you show unreasonable favoritism, whether or not you know you’re playing favorites.  

High-performing leaders don’t play that game.

The head coach might be on a cycling team with the second string place kicker, their kids might attend the same school, they might live in the same neighborhood and arrive to the training facility at the same time.  Yet the coach is focused on his assistant coaches (your executives) and his star players (your high achievers) at practice, on the field, and on the sidelines.  The head coach does not spend an inordinate amount of time with his/her second string place kicker at work.  

Your CEO Challenge this week?  Identify who you spend the most time with and why.  Step back and look at it from another angle.  Are these people the most Productive, Creative and Effective?  Or do you share your time with those with whom you are most comfortable?

One of the obstacles facing many executives is that they are often the figure in the tower, spending their days well out of reach of lower level employees.  This "tower syndrome" not only encourages a perception of superiority, it prevents an executive from truly understanding the day-to-day operations and interacting with employees who just might have the answer.

Challenge yourself this week, by coming down from the tower and spending a day in the Customer Service department, or any department for that matter.  Answer the phones and help solve the problems of your consumers.  You'll learn a lot about how the department is run, which challenges the department faces, what your customers expect from your service or product, and what efficiencies can be improved upon at a lower level to improve the overall performance of the company.

Be a great leader by walking a mile in their shoes.

Have you made a leadership resolution for 2010?

Try this...when everybody comes back to work, listen.  If you want to be a great leader, you must first be a great follower.

Stop talking in meetings and start asking probing questions.  Don't be the expert, sit back and listen to what your employees have to say.  Learn from them.  Ask questions, not prosecutorial questions, but probing questions, such as: "Have we considered...?"  "What thought has been given to...?"  "What if we tried...?"

Solicit input from everyone at the table.  Ask the people who aren't speaking up for their opinion.  Call out quiet Sally.  "Sally, what could go wrong with this scenario?"

Don't provide your expertise, make no statements, but rather ask questions and watch your people develop.  Try it, it's not as easy as you think.

Be a great leader by being a good follower in 2010.