Why Do Some Leaders Succeed and Some Fail?

Tough economic times seem to bring out the best and worst of leaders. Why the difference? The answer may lie in the style of leadership. Powerful leaders distinguish themselves by their capacity to inspire people to action and enroll them as change agents in organisations. Powerful leaders could also be called transformational leaders, and they are very different than authoritarian or transactional leaders who rely on control, dominance, and reward and punishment to get employees to perform.

Jim Collins describes the powerful leader as a Level 5 Leader, which is based on the idea that respect for people, selflessness and a strong commitment to achieve results, bring out the best in subordinates. Level 5 leaders are a paradoxical blend of fierce will and personal humility. They are ambitious for their organisations, but rarely allow their ego to be an obstacle for the success of their organisation.

In an excellent scholarly article by Dr. Stephen Long in the Business Leadership Review in July, 2009, he points out that growing a business during a recession is the ultimate test of leadership, citing companies such as Proctor and Gamble, G.E., Hewlett-Packard, and Microsoft as depression or recession start-ups.

Long proposes that the essential component for leadership success is a leadership style that is powerful but not authoritarian, arguing that the way leaders manage their people has a direct impact on how their team performs. Powerful or transformational leaders create the "will to work effectively and collaboratively--not because employees are coerced, but because they are committed," Long suggests.

Powerful leaders are creative and systemic thinkers, whereas authoritarian leaders rely primarily on logic and linear thinking, "which leads to reasons not to do." Long describes the behaviour of powerful leaders as being able to successfully manage the paradox of change and stability, and being able to construct a mental reality for followers that may not yet exist.

The psychological state of people during tough economic times can be driven by fear and anxiety. These emotions often prevent authoritarian leaders from seeing reality or taking advantage of new opportunities. Authoritarian leaders can be victims of their own emotional roller-coaster of cycles of good and bad times which spreads to followers, whereas powerful leaders have much higher levels of emotional intelligence and display a calm evenness in their behaviour.

Powerful leaders recognise that authoritarian control will not get followers to commit to any initiative during tough economic times, Long argues. People resist being controlled and want to accomplish something meaningful through collaboration.

Finally, it's not enough that the CEO exhibit a powerful leadership style. It means that this style of leadership needs to be developed throughout the organisation so the organisation can not just survive, but flourish.

Why Do Some Leaders Succeed and Some Fail?

Positive Leadership Pays Off

Consider this scenario: An executive walks into the office and has a brief exchange with the receptionist, pointing out problems with the previous day’s work. The executive then holds a staff meeting where the employees are criticised for poor performance or attitudes. Later that day, the executive has an unpleasant discussion with a customer who is complaining about the company’s service. By the end of the day, the executive’s negative: positive exchange ratio is significantly unbalanced.

What does this have to do with leadership, employee performance and ultimately, business results? Two words - positive psychology. The practice of psychology is part of the larger movement championed by psychologist Martin Seligman, the author of Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realise Your Potential for Lasting Fulfilment and Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life.

Research conducted by Seligman and others point to the effect of positive emotions on people, organisations and customers. Among other things, they emphasise the impact of positive attitudes and thinking, optimism and resilience as powerful forces that determine both happiness and success.

In the past decade, scientists have explored the impact positive to negative interaction ratios at work and in people’s personal lives. They found this ratio can be used to predict – with remarkable accuracy – everything from workplace performance to divorce.

This work begun with psychologist Dr. John Gottman’s exploration of positive to negative ratio’s in marriages. Using a 5:1 ratio, Gottman and his colleagues predicted whether 700 newlywed couples would stay together or divorce. He scored their positive and negative interactions in a 15-minute conversation between husband and wife. The follow-up 10 years later revealed he had predicted divorce with 94% accuracy.

So what is the optimal positive to negative ratio in organisations? A recent study by psychologist Barbara Fredrickson and mathematician Marcial Losada found that work teams with a ratio greater than 3:1 were significantly more productive than those with lower ratios. The research uncovered an upper limit of 13:1 at which productivity declined. They concluded that completely blind optimism and unrestrained positivism can actually be counterproductive.

However, Tom Rath, co-author of New York Times bestseller How Full Is Your Bucket: Positive Strategies for Life and Work,says managers and executives need not worry about breaking the upper limit. The levels of positive emotions in most firms are woefully inadequate.

When leaders display positive emotions, others take note, and more importantly, action. Positive leaders don’t sit back and wait for things to improve. Instead, they are always trying to catch excellence in action. They call attention to what is right, rather than looking for things that are not working or need to be fixed. The raises the organisation’s positive ratio and its productivity.

Positive leaders raise the flow of positive emotions, not just because it’s the nice thing to do or to be liked. They are less concerned with what they can get out of their employees than they are with looking for opportunities to invest in their employees. They understand the degree of positive leadership can significantly affect their company’s bottom line.

Positive Leadership Pays Off

Leading Through Change

Harvard Business School Professor John Kotter is widely regarded as the world's foremost authority on leadership and change. His is the premier voice on how the best organisations actually "do" change successfully.

Here is Kotter's 8-Step Process of Successful Change:

SET THE STAGE

1. Create a Sense of Urgency.

Help others see the need for change and the importance of acting immediately.

2. Pull Together the Guiding Team.

Make sure there is a powerful group guiding the change—one with leadership skills, bias for action, credibility, communications ability, authority, analytical skills.

DECIDE WHAT TO DO

3. Develop the Change Vision and Strategy.

Clarify how the future will be different from the past, and how you can make that future a reality.

MAKE IT HAPPEN

4. Communicate for Understanding and Buy-in.

Make sure as many others as possible understand and accept the vision and the strategy.

5. Empower Others to Act.

Remove as many barriers as possible so that those who want to make the vision a reality can do so.

6. Produce Short-Term Wins.

Create some visible, unambiguous successes as soon as possible

7. Don’t Let Up.

Press harder and faster after the first successes. Be relentless with instituting change after change until the vision becomes a reality.

MAKE IT STICK

8. Create a New Culture.

Hold on to the new ways of behaving, and make sure they succeed, until they become a part of the very culture of the group.

Leading Through Change

Seven Ways Inspiring Leaders Communicate

Whilst Carmine Gallo was conducting research for the book Fire Them Up!: 7 Simple Secrets to: Inspire Colleagues, Customers, and Clients; Sell Yourself, Your Vision, and Your Values; Communicate with Charisma and Confidence the following seven techniques were shown to result in inspirational communication:

• Demonstrate enthusiasm—constantly. “Inspiring leaders have an abundance of passion for what they do. You cannot inspire unless you’re inspired yourself. Period. Passion is something I can’t teach. You either have passion for your message or you don’t. Once you discover your passion, make sure it’s apparent to everyone within your professional circle.”
• Articulate a compelling course of action. “Inspiring leaders craft and deliver a specific, consistent, and memorable vision. A goal such as "we intend to double our sales by this time next year," is not inspiring. Neither is a long, convoluted mission statement destined to be tucked away and forgotten in a desk somewhere. A vision is a short (usually 10 words or less), vivid description of what the world will look like if your product or service succeeds.”
• Sell the benefit. “Always remember, it’s not about you, it’s about them. In my first class at Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, I was taught to answer the question, "Why should my readers care?" That’s the same thing you need to ask yourself constantly throughout a presentation, meeting, pitch, or any situation where persuasion takes place. Your listeners are asking themselves, what’s in this for me? Answer it. Don’t make them guess.”
• Tell more stories. “Inspiring leaders tell memorable stories. Few business leaders appreciate the power of stories to connect with their audiences… No amount of data can replace that story… Stories connect with people on an emotional level. Tell more of them.”
• Invite participation. “Inspiring leaders bring employees, customers, and colleagues into the process of building the company or service. This is especially important when trying to motivate young people. The command and control way of managing is over. Instead, today’s managers solicit input, listen for feedback, and actively incorporate what they hear. Employees want more than a paycheck. They want to know that their work is adding up to something meaningful.”
• Reinforce an optimistic outlook. “Inspiring leaders speak of a better future… Extraordinary leaders throughout history have been more optimistic than the average person. Winston Churchill exuded hope and confidence in the darkest days of World War II. Colin Powell said that optimism was the secret behind Ronald Reagan’s charisma. Powell also said that optimism is a force multiplier, meaning it has a ripple effect throughout an organization. Speak in positive, optimistic language. Be a beacon of hope.”
• Encourage potential. “Inspiring leaders praise people and invest in them emotionally. Richard Branson has said that when you praise people they flourish; criticize them and they shrivel up. Praise is the easiest way to connect with people. When people receive genuine praise, their doubt diminishes and their spirits soar. Encourage people and they’ll walk through walls for you.”

No leader accomplishes a vision alone. Inspiration is critical to rally people to make the journey and to commit the time and energy required to bring a vision to pass. These seven techniques present some great ways to inspire and motivate people to greatness.

Seven Ways Inspiring Leaders Communicate

How Do Teams Win?

Have you ever noticed that many of the leadership clichés we live by are not living up to their reputation? Leaders flippantly throw around sound bites of so-called “wisdom,” picked up at conferences or from leadership books and use them without truly questioning whether or not they are true or even useful. Bit by bit, these clichés have reached the status of “conventional wisdom” – widespread beliefs that are not only untested but untrue – also causing havoc in the workplace.

For example, take the cliché, 'There is no “I” in Team'. How often do you hear leaders reminding their teams, “There is no ‘I’ in TEAM.”? Maybe this is the exact problem with teams. While no one is ostentatiously taking all of the credit, they are still allowed to think that they have worked harder than others, are far more valuable than others, or were not to blame for the lack of results. While they may no longer be discussing these beliefs publicly, they are spending a great deal of organisational resources colluding with co-workers behind the scenes, meanwhile not improving their own approaches or performances. Far worse is the fact that no one is taking accountability for their part in creating the current results.

There may not be an “I” in the word “TEAM” but there certainly is an “I” in WIN! And in “PRODUCTIVITY,” “IMPROVEMENT,” “DRIVE FOR RESULTS” and “COMPETITVE.” In teams that are able to succeed in challenging circumstances, there are plenty of “I’s” being used – with the account of how we got to where we are today with the current results.

How Do Teams Win?

Leaders need to set clear expectations and goals. They then need to focus the energy of the team on either achieving the desired results or learning what to adapt next so that the desired results can be achieved. Learning and results will only come when each team member is able to honestly assess their results without considering the circumstances. Next, they need to ask themselves whether or not they hit the mark and then account for their own actions, assumptions, behaviours and choices that contributed to the shortcomings of the team. Only with this clear line of sight directly acknowledging what “I” did to contribute, can one know what exactly they need to change so that they can choose to respond differently in the future.

Advice on how to reach the finish line:

1) Leaders must be very clear about the results that are required from teams. Team projects were approved and budgeted resources based upon a business case that outlines which results are necessary to even justify the investment. Do not allow the team to re-write the business case mid-project.

2) Subsequently, leaders need to be incredibly honest about a team’s results. If the team nailed it – great! Celebrate and reward. But if the team did not reach the mark, stop giving them credit for effort or allowing them to applaud lackluster results and justify shortcomings by “considering the circumstances.” There will always be circumstances and teams need to learn to succeed in spite of circumstances – that is the value they add, mitigating the risks of the circumstances while implementing and executing.

3) Lead the team through a thorough accounting of their contributions to the results. If the team had great results, ask each member of the team to account for the decisions, choices, approaches and behaviours that led to the success so that they can intentionally duplicate it in the future. If lackluster results were delivered, ask each member to identify ways in which they contributed to the end result. Their responses need to begin with, “I chose,” “I denied,” “I assumed,” “I did,” “I didn’t,” “I needed to have” and “I acted” (This is where the “I” in TEAM comes in and the magic starts to happen!). Once each individual can identify how they specifically contributed, they can then commit to what they will do differently in the future – facilitating great learning, individual development, and better future results. And most importantly, the team becomes immune to circumstances when it comes to results.

Every great leader needs to firmly insist on quite a few “I’s” in team in order to restore results back into the workplace!

How Do Teams Win?

Leadership That Inspires

Here are some interesting observations from former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, speaking in a recent video interview at his London office with author Dr. Henry Cloud. The video aired first in the 2009 Maximum Impact Simulcast:

'During my ten years in office, I learned to have the courage to lead. At first, I wanted to please all of the people all of the time. But when you’re governing that’s impossible. You have to do what you believe is right. You can’t follow the air of public opinion; at times you even have to challenge it.

Leadership is the same from teachers to coaches to entrepreneurs. Every leader must be prepared to make a decision and assume responsibility for it, even when people don’t like the decision, fight against it, and criticize your motivation for making it. Leaders stand up when others stand back.

For me, the most important trait in a fellow leader wasn’t charisma or brilliance, but reliability.

Leadership in tough times requires a particular manner of expression. First, be honest if you’re going to have to make major changes. Second, inspire people that you can get through it.

I can’t think of a single person in the top areas of life without these characteristics:

1) Self-belief
2) Hard work
3) Ability to rise from failure.

Leaders give up the luxury of self-pity. You can’t lead and moan at the same time. Leadership positions are voluntary. You chose to lead, therefore don’t complain about the burdens of being in charge.

Action Plan:

• Make a “no-whining” pact with a fellow leader within your organisation. Whenever either of you complains about the demands of your job, you owe the other person a pound.
• Have a “So what?” criticism ceremony. Jot down the main criticisms leveled at you or your decisions during the past month. Once you’ve put them on paper, ceremonially burn them over a candle. This exercise is intended to remind you that being a leader invites criticism. People will disagree with you, and you need to be able to handle their disapproval.'

For more, see - http://www.leadercast.com/dl/2009/09summary_tonyblair.pdf

Leadership That Inspires

The Role of 'Soft Power' in Effective Leadership

Joseph Nye is Harvard University distinguished service professor and Sultan of Oman professor of international relations. He is the author of many books and articles on international relations, including his most recent book, The Powers to Lead: Soft, Hard, and Smart.

In this Harvard John F Kennedy School of Government Q&A he talks about modern day approaches to leadership and how they relate to power:

'Q: Your latest research focuses on modern day approaches to leadership and how they relate to power. Please discuss some of your most compelling findings.

Nye: I am interested in “soft power,” the ability to get what you what through attraction rather than coercion and payment. I had originally applied that idea to international relations, but in my new book I try to apply the concept of soft power to individual leaders. What I’ve found is the way we talk about leadership is quite inaccurate. We have in our minds a sort of a leader as the person who gives orders, the king of the mountain, and the orders sort of cascade down to below. And that fits with hard power, payment, or coercion. But if you think about a networked world, that we have in the information age, then you realize that a leader isn’t the king of the mountain. The leader is in the center of the circle and he or she has to be able to attract people to them and that requires soft power, the power to get what you want through attraction rather than coercion. So as we think about leadership there’s a great danger that we say – as President Bush has said – the leader is the “decider.” More important is how do we pick the goals? How do we decide who decides? How do we decide the timing of deciding? What I’ve discovered is the leader has to have these soft power skills to attract people, not just give orders.

There are three skills that are most crucial in the exercise of soft power – the first is emotional intelligence, the ability to control your own emotions and use them to reach out to others; second, the idea of composing a vision of the future that attracts others; and third, communication skills including both rhetorical skills and also the ability to use non-verbal communication tools. Those three crucial soft power skills have to be combined with hard power skills in organizations, in politics, and so forth. When we restrain our definition of leadership to only top-down, king of the mountain, we miss the crucial role of soft power in effective leadership.

Q: When we discuss leadership we must also discuss the ability to persuade and to bring about the changes that you as a leader wish to affect. Can you expound on that topic?

Nye: An effective leader uses soft power to bring others to share his or her vision of where we should go. Now, that vision of where we should go may be partly developed by the leader in consultation with others. It may also be a vision which the leader has developed from his or her background, but the ability to persuade others that this is where they want to go is absolutely crucial.

One way to examine leadership is through a model in which most people lead from the middle. A leader in the middle has to think in terms of a compass. There’s a boss above them, sort of to the north, and they have no hard power with the boss; they have to persuade him or her. There are collaborators to the east and the west, who are the different agencies, organizations, or groups over whom they have no authority, and they have to attract them to get cooperation. Then they have followers or subordinates over whom they can use their hard power to get what they want. But, frankly, they must also be able to get those subordinates to buy into their vision, which is very difficult to do by coercion alone.

So persuasion as an aspect of soft power becomes particularly important. Most of us are really leaders from the middle. Very few of us have no boss above us and very few fail to require cooperation from people on either side of us.'

For Professor Nye's view on the importance and use of 'smart power' on the international political stage see - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8udhM8QKxg

The Role of 'Soft Power' in Effective Leadership

The Importance of Exercise

Regular exercise is the best way to stay physically healthy, and it also offers psychological benefits to counteract stress.

Exercise can increase your sense of being in control, strengthen your self-esteem and help you regulate your emotions. It offers a healthy distraction from stressful situations while inducing the relaxation your body needs to dissipate its stress hormones. Regular exercise also leads to improved effectiveness as a leader.

In research involving executives around the world it has been found those who exercise regularly rate significantly higher on leadership effectiveness, as judged by their bosses, peers and direct reports, than men and women who exercise only sporadically or not at all.

The Importance of Exercise

Winning is all in the Mind

Sir Steve Redgrave CBE won gold medals at five consecutive Olympic Games from 1984 to 2000. He has also won three Commonwealth Games gold medals and nine World Rowing Championships gold medals.
Redgrave is one of only four Olympians to have won a gold medal at five consecutive Olympic Games. This achievement has led to him being hailed as Britain's greatest Olympian.

Redgrave's new book, Inspired relates the stories of fellow sportsmen and women that spurred on his success.

Here is his view on the importance of self-belief:

'When we came off the water having just won the gold medal in Sydney, the BBC was waiting to interview us. "When did you know you'd won the race, Steve?"

"After 250 metres." "D'you mean with 250 metres to go," Steve Rider corrected me, clearly thinking I'd be crazy to imagine the race won after only an eighth of the distance. "No, I mean after 250 metres," I said. I wasn't joking.

I know that some people thought I was arrogant. That's a peril of self-belief. It might have appeared arrogant in that exchange with Steve Rider, but it was only the truth. I genuinely felt that at the time, mainly because the belief doesn't spring from nowhere. It arrives because you work like a dog for years and years and years.

Self-belief is probably the most crucial factor in sporting success. The bodies are roughly equal, the training is similar, the techniques can be copied, what separates the achievers is nothing as tangible as split times or kilograms. It is the iron in the mind, not the supplements, that wins medals.'

Or as Muhammad Ali, one of Redgrave's heroes said: ' Champions aren't made in gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them: a desire, a dream, a vision. They have to have late-minute stamina, they have to be a little faster, they have to have the skill and the will. But the will must be stronger than the skill.'

Winning is all in the Mind

The Importance of Leadership Development

A crucial element in turning talent to business advantage during this recession is leadership development. It is no exaggeration to say that today's economic crisis is a leadership training and testing ground, under the most stressful conditions. So every organisation must step up and use the current economic situation to test and develop its next generation of leadership. At the same time, it must also make sure it is looking after its current leaders, communicating with them and supporting them

Here, insights from Robert Thomas's book, Crucibles of Leadership: How to Learn from Experience to Become a Great Leader are especially appropriate. In the book, he argues that what matters most in leadership development is not just innate capabilities but what one makes of experience—particularly the traumatic and often unplanned crucible events that challenge one's identity as a leader.

As Thomas writes, "The ability to find meaning and strength in adversity distinguishes leaders from nonleaders."

The point is to turn the current economic situation into a learning experience that can benefit current leaders, as well as those who will form the next generation of leadership. Burt Tansky, CEO of Nieman Marcus, noted recently: "I've been telling many of our young people who have never been through this [kind of downturn] to study what's going on today, study the kind of things that are being put in place to minimise the stress, because as their careers develop, they're going to have to face some of this again."

The next step, then, would be for organisations to institutionalise those insights into what's happening today and use them to advance leadership capabilities throughout the organisation.

Honda Motor Co., for example, has historically used work projects as the foundation for developing leaders. Honda project managers are expected not only to produce results but also to create a learning contract with the company around the leadership skills developed during the course of the project.

Applied to a recessionary environment, that kind of project-based, experiential approach to leadership development can make young leaders attuned to what they are learning, and help them share experiences with their peers.

It is easy enough to say that companies that can rally their people will have a better chance to thrive during and after the economic downturn. But effective talent management is not simply a matter of exhortation or charisma. Close, comprehensive and scientific analysis of the capabilities needed to achieve high performance is vital.

It's workforce talent that is feeling the effects of today's economic crisis most profoundly. At the same time, this crisis could well be the period when strategic talent management finally comes of age.

The Importance of Leadership Development

Be Aware of How Your Behaviour Affects Others

When leading a group of people, large or small, it is important to have a clear understanding of how your behaviour is perceived by the people who report to you. Continually building your own self-awareness will increase your effectiveness as a leader, and the respect your team members have for you. Take time out at the end of each day to think about how people have responded to you in the interactions you've had:

• Were they listening to what you said?
• Did anyone appear to be impatient with you?
• Did they go silent on you or back off?

These behavioural cues tell you whether your leadership approach is working, or if it needs to be adapted. But to recognize these cues, you have to be looking for them.

It may not register for you immediately that someone has stopped listening to you or that they are getting impatient, because your mind is focused on your own agenda. That is why some reflection time at the end of each day is so valuable so you can learn from the interactions you've had that day.

You will know your self-awareness is increasing when you:

• Hear yourself making comments about your own behaviour, such as: "I think I may be talking too much..." or "I may have been a little abrupt with my response...".
• Accept and acknowledge feedback about things you have said or done without reacting defensively or justifying your behaviour.
• Are willing to apologise when you recognise your behaviour has been inappropriate.
• Ask for feedback when you think your behaviour is being perceived as inappropriate.

Be Aware of How Your Behaviour Affects Others

Learning from Legends

Learning from Legends and Learnings from Legends - Business are two excellent books by ex rugby internationalist, John Eales, once voted Australia’s greatest Wallaby.
 
Learning from Legends, the first book in the Learning from Legends series focuses on Australian sporting heroes, with a collection of stories adapted from in-depth interviews conducted and written by John Eales.

Australians love their sport and grow up watching and wanting to emulate their sporting heroes. The influence of sports stars is unmistakable and their stories help us to learn more about what it takes to not only be a leader, but also to understand the responsibility that comes with it. With more than 40 subjects, John Eales tackles candid topics, seeking to uncover the driving factors that have enabled these Legends to learn their lessons, reach their goals, and now pass on to us the essence of what it takes to lead successfully.

Legends include - Layne Beachley, Herb Elliott, Liz Ellis, Grant Hackett, Pat Rafter, Louise Savage and many more.

Learning from Legends

The Reason Tiger Woods Is Number One

The Reason Tiger Woods Is Number One

What It Takes to be Number 1

"Winning is not a sometime thing; it's an all the time thing. You don't win once in a while; you don't do things right once in a while; you do them right all the time. Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.

"There is no room for second place. There is only one place in my game, and that's first place. I have finished second twice in my time at Green Bay, and I don't ever want to finish second again. There is a second place bowl game, but it is a game for losers played by losers. It is and always has been an American zeal to be first in anything we do, and to win, and to win, and to win.

"Every time a football player goes to play his trade he's got to play from the ground up — from the soles of his feet right up to his head. Every inch of him has to play. Some guys play with their heads. That's O.K. You've got to be smart to be number one in any business. But more importantly, you've got to play with your heart, with every fiber of your body. If you're lucky enough to find a guy with a lot of head and a lot of heart, he's never going to come off the field second.

"Running a football team is no different than running any other kind of organization — an army, a political party or a business. The principles are the same. The object is to win — to beat the other guy. Maybe that sounds hard or cruel. I don't think it is.

"It is a reality of life that men are competitive and the most competitive games draw the most competitive men. That's why they are there — to compete. To know the rules and objectives when they get in the game. The object is to win fairly, squarely, by the rules — but to win.

"And in truth, I've never known a man worth his salt who in the long run, deep down in his heart, didn't appreciate the grind, the discipline. There is something in good men that really yearns for discipline and the harsh reality of head to head combat.

"I don't say these things because I believe in the "brute" nature of man or that men must be brutalized to be combative. I believe in God, and I believe in human decency. But I firmly believe that any man's finest hour, the greatest fulfillment of all that he holds dear, is that moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle — victorious."

Vince. Lombardi, NFL Hall of Fame Coach
1913 - 1970

What It Takes to be Number 1

Inspiration

This video really is what life is all about. About striving to be better, doing things outside your 'comfort zone' and not giving up. It focuses on sports but it can be applied to any dream you have in life. The trick is to have a strong emotional attatchment to your goal to drive you forward.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aucOyuCyW8&feature=related

Inspiration

Succeed with a Positive Attitude

Succeed with a Positive Attitude

Never Give Up On Your Dreams

Never Give Up On Your Dreams

Desmond Tutu on Leadership

Desmond Tutu on Leadership

Have a Purpose as a Leader

Have a Purpose as a Leader

The Leader in You

The Leader in You

Nothing is Impossible!

This video brings home the message that our sporting heroes work hard for their success everyday:

Nothing is Impossible!

President Obama Awarded Nobel Peace Prize

The Norwegian Nobel Committee announced today that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 is to be awarded to President Barack Obama for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples. The Committee has attached special importance to Obama's vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.



Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play. Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts. The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations. Thanks to Obama's initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting. Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened.

Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future. His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population.

President Obama Awarded Nobel Peace Prize

Fierce Leadership

Fierce Leadership by Susan Scott is a remarkable leadership book for its candor and practicality. She gets to the heart of many relationship issues that prevent us from really connecting with others and limit our performance.

Though the title may seem provocative, the term fierce refers to the type of leadership that engages and connects with people at a deep level. The fierce leaders’ most valuable currency is relationships and emotional capital. Scott writes, “Everywhere, people are hungry to connect, to be seen and known as the unique individuals they are, and this has an immediate and powerful impact on how we design business strategies and market our products and services and ultimately on whether our businesses succeed or fail. Yet much business communication is still stuck in the information age. Too often we treat our conversations and our relationships as we do our e-mails—one way, directive, quick, clipped, efficient.”

Scott suggests another approach to some widely accepted "best practices" moving for instance, from 360 Anonymous Feedback — to 365 Face-to-Face Feedback. The goal here is to have “open, honest, face-to-face conversations, 365 days a year, with the people central to your success and happiness…. When we stay current with one another, our formal performance reviews will contain few, if any, surprises.”

She also suggests a change in emphasis from Hiring for Smarts — to Hiring for Smarts and Emotional Intelligence, from Holding People Accountable — to Modeling Accountability and Holding People Able, from Employee Engagement Programs — to Real Engagement, from Client Centricity — to Client Connectivity, and from Legislated Optimism — to Radical Transparency. The exercises at the end of each chapter are designed to help you implement these ideas in your own leadership role and have been well thought out.

Some leadership lessons: 

• A careful conversation is a failed conversation because it merely postpones the conversation that wants and needs to take place.
• What argument am I waging? Are you waging? What are we trying to be right about? The question is not whether our beliefs are right or wrong. We can tell the stories, point to the evidence, build an impressive case. You’re right! Who could possibly argue with the facts? The question is, how are your beliefs working for you?
• John Doerr said, “The moment of truth is when you ask, ‘Are these the people I want to be in trouble with for the next five, ten, fifteen years of my life?’ Because as you build a business, one thing’s for sure: You’ll get in trouble.”
• In meetings, people stubbornly cling to their ideas (sometimes at length!) in an attempt to impress others with the brilliance of their thinking. Their goal is to influence. It does not occur to them that an equally valid goal would be to be influenced, to have their own learning provoked. Nothing new emerges, because individuals are focused on being right rather than on making the best possible decisions for the organisation.
• The culture is not some nebulous and mysterious force out there somewhere. You are the culture. I am the culture. And each of us shapes that culture each time we walk into a room, pick up the phone, send an e-mail. Fierce leaders know that they influence the culture one conversation at a time, responding honestly or guardedly when asked what they think.

Fierce Leadership

Talent Management in a Recession

Best-selling business author Jim Collins once wrote that “[Good to Great Companies] are rigorous, not ruthless … To be rigorous, not ruthless, means that the best people need not worry about their positions and can concentrate fully on their work.”

Experience suggests that the following recommendations are essential for C-level executives during turbulent times:

• Get ready ahead of time - you need to be ready to start the engine and open up the throttle at any time.
• Make good use of bad times to prepare for recovery by investing ahead of the cycle in leadership that creates a good business and productive working atmosphere.
• Make sure you have the right leaders on board to drive the organization and multiply their impact through their leadership team.
• Focus on the right leadership competencies for your business and develop the skills of your individuals and leadership teams to keep your talent from walking.
• Ensure alignment of business and people strategy, and make people issues a priority – leaders should be communicating consistently and frequently.

By studying the profiles of leaders who have succeeded under difficult and uncertain circumstances, the following five competencies appear to be the most critical for success:

• Strategic orientation: demonstrating complex thinking to refocus and develop insightful new strategies, reshape core business units and align work cultures.
• Change leadership: driving for improvement through people, transforming and aligning an organization in a new and challenging direction, possibly reinventing the company, keeping people onboard through tough times and difficult decisions.
• Team leadership: building effective groups and leading successfully under difficult circumstances, providing guidance and support in times of insecurity.
• Results-focus: boosting business results and focusing on the right (re)sourcing instead of downsizing, ensuring execution and follow-through.
• Building capability: strengthening the organisation by acquiring top talent and developing teams and potential successors with special projects and behavioural feedback.

The current economic environment and its unparalleled recession are certainly placing unusual stresses on today’s senior managers. However, focusing on a clear business strategy to beat the competition and ensuring that you have the right talent in place to deliver that strategy in these difficult times will certainly create a more positive can-do environment and a more powerful team performance with which to tackle the situation and steer through the storm.

Talent Management in a Recession