The Top 5 Deadly Sins for Leaders

1. Arrogance and insensitivity to others

Whether it’s yelling, screaming, and berating, or a more subtle approach to letting everyone else don’t they don’t matter, everybody can’t stand an arrogant leader.

2. Not listening

Not listening is another way of displaying arrogance and insensitivity, even if you don’t mean to be.

3. Manipulative

Getting things done by manipulating people shows a lack of authenticity and keeps people guessing what your true intentions are. It fosters a lack of trust.

4. Lack of integrity

Lying, cheating, blaming others for your mistakes – it only takes one mistake to ruin a reputation for life.

5. Selfishness

A “me first” approach, inability to collaborate or build a team, and unwillingness to collaborate.

If you’ve ever been told you display any of these traits, then do yourself and everyone around you a big favour – get some help!

The Top 5 Deadly Sins for Leaders

The Most Effective Leaders Focus On Their People's Strengths

Strengths-Based Leadership is a book which is well worth reading. Why? For a start, on page 10 the authors assert that great historical leaders, such as Winston Churchill or Mahatma Gandhi, have more differences than similarities and that it was the differences that defined them and made them great. Then, their basis for the book is decades of Gallup studies on this topic; the research firm's data includes more than 20000 in-depth interviews with senior leaders, studies of more than a million work teams, and 50 years of polls regarding the world's most admired leaders.

Three interesting findings emerge, which add to our insights into leadership.

The first of these is that the most effective leaders focus on their people's strengths, not their weaknesses. Gallup research shows that focusing on staff strength results in staff who are eight times more engaged in their work than those whose leaders focus on their weaknesses.

Some background is required on the "strengths" referred to in the title. Donald Clifton, an educational psychologist, developed the Clifton Strengths Finder, a measure of personal talent that identifies the areas in which an individual has the greatest potential for growth.

In the last years of his life, Clifton was asked what he had discovered from his 30 years of leadership research. His answer was that a leader needed to know his strengths as a carpenter needed to know his or her tools, so he or she could use the right one at the right time. This, he concluded, was probably all that leaders could be said to have in common. If you spend your life trying to be good at everything, you will never be great at anything. Being "well rounded" inadvertently breeds mediocrity, and in the area of leadership this is no less true. While the best leaders are not well rounded, the best teams are.

This brings us to the second finding, that the most effective leaders surround themselves with the right people. Think of the team in which you work; the chances are high that members were not recruited because of their complimentary differences. This is as true at entry level as it is at board level. The leader, unaware of the issue of strengths, is most likely to surround himself with people who agree with him and who have similar backgrounds and personalities. A company like this will not grow, adapt or change, and this has been verified by Gallup research on thousands of executive teams.

There are 34 themes in the Strengths Finder model and they cluster about four domains of leadership strength: executing, influencing, relationship building, and strategic thinking. A leader who is strong at influencing may well be strong in very different ways, using very different strengths, compared to another fine leader also strong in the general domain of influencing. This is because each of the four domains has eight or nine themes and great leaders appear to be strongest only in four or five of these. Where they are not strong, they will call on team members to supplement, resulting in a work group that works.

The third finding to emerge is that the most effective leaders understand their followers' needs. Most of the research conducted in the field of leadership has focused on leaders to the exclusion of followers - an oddity if you consider that you cannot be a leader if no one wants to follow you. One could argue that studying the impact of the leaders should be good enough: did they consistently produce great results in the classroom, boardroom or operating room? But, as Peter Drucker notes, the leaders who made the greatest impact on the 20th century were Hitler, Stalin and Mao and "if that's leadership, I want no part of it".

To explore why people follow, Gallup conducted a formal study of 10000 followers between 2005 and 2008. The questions were very simply and very clever. What leader has the most positive influence in your daily life? (Pause here and answer this for yourself.) Now identify three words that best describe what that person contributes to your life. (Pause again.) What emerged from their research was trust, compassion, stability and hope (or words to that effect.) These concepts deserve reflection: to know I can trust you, that you treat me like a fellow human, that you assure my present and show me the way to a future.

There is much to ponder in this book.

The Most Effective Leaders Focus On Their People's Strengths

Leadership Means Building a Winning Team

“You win in the locker room first. Then you win on the field.”

Whether we’re talking sports, business, education, healthcare, etc. the key to success is to build a winning team first. Of course this seems obvious but with increasing pressure to reach certain targets and goals and a challenging economy it’s easy for leaders and their teams to become outward focused on numbers and outcomes rather than inward focused on building the right environment, culture, attitude and synergy.

We must remember that it’s not the numbers that drive the people but the people and team that drive the numbers. 

The power comes from the inside and then it extends outward. Just as physical trainers will tell you that to build a strong body you must build your core, to build a strong organisation you must build your core foundation-consisting of your people and team. Without a strong core you’ll have weak energy, weak performance and weak results.

The New Orleans Saints were able to perform at a high level in the recent Super Bowl and as Drew Brees, their quarterback said, “We came together as a team and we believed in each other.” Without this belief, synergy and unity do you think it would have been possible for them to win the Super Bowl?

The same goes for the game of business and life.

Now more than ever it’s time to energise your people, communicate with them and move them in the right direction with a shared vision, focus and purpose. Negativity and fear are knocking your people off balance. It’s time to regroup, refocus, re-energise and create a strong core. With a solid foundation and a winning team you create strength on the inside that can withstand the negativity, naysayers and adversity on the outside.

Culture, players and coaches win championships. It’s their beliefs, actions, talent and teamwork that make the difference.

Leadership Means Building a Winning Team

Ideas for Developing Your Leadership Skills

What can boxing teach us about leadership?

1. Be resilient and retain the the desire to succeed

The boxer is characterised by a drive to complete and win many rounds of punishment. The boxer also has to demonstrate huge commitment to training, which is driven by desire – this in turn is based on a personal ambition that is nurtured and encouraged over many years and pushes an individual to go beyond the normal boundaries of performance. (One of the reasons sport is probably a good vehicle for testing desire is that it engages the emotions in a way that business sometimes fails to do for many people.)

2. Develop passion to inspire genius

To be a true genius, people must have heart; geniuses possess a passion that makes them do extraordinary things. How can we expect people to raise their games if they are not inspired by what is happening to them in the workplace? Therefore, senior managers and business owners need to understand what makes people tick – their core values and beliefs, for example. Emotional intelligence teaches us to be self-aware so that we can appreciate what drives our people.

3. Be positive and address situations

A positive mental attitude is built around a self-belief that makes you a winner whatever the circumstances. It always seeks a solution to problematic situations; it does not lay blame to others and rarely looks backwards, accepting what has happened and building on it. In business, management often spend too much time investigating why they find themselves in a predicament, and too little time addressing the situation.

4. Bring out the charisma

One of the key elements of leaders operating in team-based environments is charisma. Charisma can be interpreted as the personal character that attracts and engages followers. This can take many different forms; even if leaders aren’t overtly charismatic, they can earn the respect of their followers by their undying commitment.

5. Be inspirational through good times and bad

In a team environment, inspiration is the leader’s ability to transfer all of their relevant personal characteristics to the rest of the team. The leader uses his charisma to inspire the other team players to push their own boundaries. If the team has the right people, the leader should be able to inspire people to push their personal performance limits when they probably least want to, when the pressure is on.

6. Banish your ego

Ego is one of the key reasons for an individual failing to succeed. Ego stops an individual from learning and developing the attributes to succeed in the long term; it makes them think they are better than they actually are. Boxing is ideal for removing the ego, as a lack of awareness of your personal weaknesses can have painful repercussions.

7. Take the knocks – and get back up

The boxer’s road is long and lonely. Coaches are a great help, but a huge percentage of drive is personal. When things are not going well, the easiest route is to pull out and give in. A special character is needed to get up seven times after being knocked down six times (as demonstrated by Rocky). In the ring, the pressure pushes the individual forward. But self motivation is key to personal development when there is no pressure to succeed. Drive is the ability to channel energy in the required direction; it ensures the individual focuses on the end result and does not lose sight of the objectives to be achieved.

8. Be confident that you can drive change

Self-confidence is different from ego, in that it encourages learning and does not think that the individual is ‘too good’ to improve. The boxer needs self-confidence to make the other elements work. The business leader needs to believe that he or she can make a difference and alter the path that the organisation is taking. One of the biggest obstacles to decision-making is the fear of making a mistake. In business, leaders are great at hiding their fear and disguising it in different ways. In boxing, fear leads to indecision which means you will lose. Something needs to be done.

9. Hone your inner strength to maintain your will to win

Many people feel the boxer’s strength is their physical attributes. However, the very best boxers’ key attribute is their inner strength. The physical body is likely to give in quite early on in proceedings, depending on the level of training. However, there are numerous instances when the biggest and most physical boxer has failed to win against a physically weaker opponent. Inner strength drives determination and a will to win.

10. Push yourself – mentally and physically

Boxing involves the greatest integration between the mind and body. Leaders need to explore how far they can push their physical being, and in doing so develop their mental strength. Physical training that pushes the individual beyond their boundaries tests their determination and mental will to progress.

Ideas for Developing Your Leadership Skills

Leading through Facilitation

Successful executives focus not on handing down orders, but rather on facilitating collaboration, says SunGard CEO Cristóbal Conde. To make that happen, Conde uses a Twitter-like platform to enable his global workforce to share ideas and brag about their successes. "It's more like being the producer of the show, rather than being the lead," he says. "By creating an atmosphere of collaboration, the people who are consistently right get a huge following."

For  more, see - http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/17/business/17corner.html?ref=business

Leading through Facilitation

Leadership Requires Self Discipline Throughout the Organisation

The Positive Leadership™ game plan for winning provides a seamless link between the values of Positive Leadership™, the strategically aligned results which must flow from these values and the ability to sustain these values and deliver these results, even when under pressure. 

The market is the ultimate test or competitive arena for those who share the values of Positive Leadership™. Preparing to win and win consistently in such an arena requires exceptional talent, preparation and support. Being a successful competitor in business is at the heart of leadership, in the same way that it is in sport. Positive Leadership™ draws extensively on lessons from elite sport and recognises the importance of developing the ability to thrive under pressure and use the competitive arena as a source of advantage over others.  The winning edge requires the ability to display mental toughness, confidence and poise.

Any Scots who follow this blog will know that in today’s Six Nations Rugby international versus Wales, Scotland unfortunately showed what happens to the desired result when a team fails to display the values of Positive Leadership™ when under pressure.

However of much more importance than the result is the health of injured Scotland winger Thom Evans. Our thoughts are with him.

Leadership Requires Self Discipline Throughout the Organisation

Four Actions to Survive the Recession and Emerge Triumphant

Here are some interesting post recession leadership lessons from Harvard Professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter:

'In these difficult days, doing nothing is not an option. Passivity will only make things worse. But what can we do when there is little or no new investment? Here are four useful actions I've seen work effectively.

Move while others are distracted. This is the strategy of a very successful long-term CEO who has steered a European company into global prominence as one of a handful of industry leaders. He cultivates important relationships during times of crisis when competitors are looking elsewhere, enabling him to make acquisitions others coveted but couldn't get.

This is also how Continental Airlines, under Gordon Bethune, profited when the Northeast electric power grid went down for two days in 2003. Other airlines cancelled hundreds of flights, while confident Continental's empowered employees kept their flights going. Noting the stranded passengers from other airlines when LaGuardia and Kennedy airports closed, Continental ran extra flights from Newark, thereby rescuing the passengers and making millions of extra dollars for those two days. Competitors lost money and goodwill.

Announce and own a grand concept. Okay, you might not be able to raise money for it nor do much about it now, but you will be well-prepared when markets recover. Ideas are cheap to begin to articulate and brand--and priceless once established.

In early November, as the financial crisis was still fresh in its horror (and Obama's election still fresh in its exuberance), Sam Palmisano announced "Smart Planet," a new IBM concept, via a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. The intention for now is to stimulate discussion and pin down the idea of intelligent networks for future infrastructure, or any of the other aspects of a smarter (more information-infused) capacity for roads, buildings, supply chains, etc. With a modest communications effort, IBM can put the "smart planet" idea on public policy agendas and "own" an idea ripe for action whenever recovery occurs.

You don't have to be an IBM to own ideas. A few years ago, colleagues and I at Harvard floated the idea of ‘Advanced Leadership’, a new stage of higher education and kept the idea alive even through a standstill at Harvard during a transition of presidents. We did things that cost nothing, such as writing a working paper, speaking at conferences, and getting colleagues interested. We were ready when new initiatives were supported again, and we "own" a well-received innovation idea.

Get rid of things that have outlived their usefulness. This is a personal lesson, since I deal with crisis by removing basement clutter or giving away old clothes - nothing like that clean closet feeling and the action is under my control. The same principle applies to businesses. Turbulent times demand that resources go to the high potential areas. If a company is still too cluttered with product SKUs that proliferated unnoticed, declining lines of business, meaningless rules or reports, or the like, do the housecleaning, fast. Even those who don't like it will understand.

Concentrate on helping your users, clients, or customers succeed. Always good advice, but now we have to really mean it. Obviously, companies dependent on their revenue-paying customers cannot afford to stand by while those customers decline. Sometimes that involves giving them extras for nothing.

Leaders of a large consulting firm have told their staff that they should worry more about their clients than about themselves, thinking up ways their clients can survive, even if every microsecond isn't billable. Or if you are a supplier of a diagnostic tool to hospitals, for example, and see a cost-saving idea outside of your area of expertise while hanging around the hospital, pass it on.

Generosity might not get you anything now, but you'll be well-positioned for the future, hopefully with healthier customers and bigger ideas.'

Four Actions to Survive the Recession and Emerge Triumphant

Leadership Means Getting The Best From Your Team

A team is a collection of individuals and the leader’s job is to create an environment for the team to achieve ever-greater things together.  While in theory it is a good idea to treat everyone the same, reality is quite different.  Everyone is special.

Some high-achieving individuals are giving you their best effort most all of the time. They are totally devoted to the company and have been known to work day and night to do their best, while others simply don't have that kind of dedication or self-motivation.  

So next time you stand in front of everyone in the company and implore the entire team to dig deeper and try harder, you stand a chance of pushing "Mr. or Mrs. Hard Driver" right off the cliff.  “What does he want from me?  I’m working as hard and as fast as I can.  I’ve devoted my entire life to this company.”  Meanwhile, “Mr. Low Achiever” is wondering what he is going to order for lunch and is minimally fazed by your exultation's. 

Oftentimes you need to spend one-on-one time helping over-achievers to throttle back the engine a bit.  They need balance in their life to keep performing at a high level and the leader is uniquely qualified to make certain they stay fresh and motivated as the high achiever is the last person you want to lose.  They will appreciate the extra attention and if you are going to focus on lifting the effort it is always best to lift the effort and spend valuable management time with your best employees.

That is why leaders need to choose their words with more care when they are speaking to large gatherings of diverse team members.  

Leadership Means Getting The Best From Your Team

Leadership is Critical to Success

“The truth is that no one factor makes a company admirable. But if you were forced to pick the one that makes the most difference, you’d pick leadership.” (Warren Bennis, 1998)

Effective leadership has proven results, from the release of employees’ potential to improved financial performance at the bottom line. If you need convincing, take a look at the research:

• According to the Institute for Strategic Change, the "stock price of 'well-led' companies grew by over 900% over 10 years, compared with 74% for poorly led companies".
• In research with Harvard Business School, executive search consultants Odgers, Ray & Berndtson found that the quality of leadership accounts for some 15-20% of the total variance in companies' performance.
• Ineffective leadership was found to be the cause for the removal of CEOs in 73% of cases, exceeded only by financial or ethical malpractice and mental or physical incapacity.

If, as some commentators believe, "understanding leadership is the ‘single most important task for society today'." (Donald Krause, 1997), organisations need to make sure that they are doing everything possible to develop today’s and tomorrow’s leaders.

According to the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development’s (CIPD) training and development survey 2005 which measured the attitudes of 664 training managers, “91% believe there is a direct link between investment in leadership development and business performance” and “98% believe that well-designed leadership activities can have a positive impact on the bottom line.”

Leadership is Critical to Success

Five Ways for a Leader to Motivate the Team

1. Lead with Optimism - Negativity and fear are likely knocking your people off balance and it’s time to regroup, refocus, and unite to create a winning mindset, culture and positive team environment. Now, more than ever, is a time for positive leadership. Now is the time to uplift, encourage and inspire your teams. When your people talk about the challenges, you talk about the opportunities. When others talk about why they can’t succeed, you give them every reason why they can. So often the difference between success and failure is belief and as a positive leader you need to inspire this belief and optimism in your people.

2. Jump into the Trenches – You need to be humble and hungry. Humble in that you seek to learn, grow, and improve every day, and hungry with a passion to work harder than everyone else. Now is not a time to be barricaded in your office. Now is a time to be in the trenches with your people, leading, working, and building a successful future.

3. Fill the Void - These are uncertain times. Employees are questioning how their industries and jobs will be impacted by the current economy. They’re unsure about what actions to take. Unfortunately this uncertainly creates a void and where there is a void, negativity will fill it. In the absence of clear and positive communication, people start to assume the worst, and they will act accordingly. Make transparency the norm, not the exception—after all, the more you communicate, the more you foster trust, and the more loyalty is built. Talk to your team members often, and let them know where they stand. Host frequent town hall meetings, host a weekly conference call, send out a daily email, and share your positive vision for the future. As a leader, you must continually communicate, communicate, and communicate.

4. Share a Positive Vision – Rally your team around a positive vision for the road ahead. Instead of being disappointed about where you are, decide to be optimistic about where you are going. Vision helps you and your team see the road ahead and it gives you something meaningful and valuable to strive towards. Discuss where you have been, where you are going and why you are going there. Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream/vision and he changed the world with it. Share your dream and improve your organisation with it. After all, if you think your best days are behind you, they are. If you think your best days are ahead of you, they are.

5. Teach Your People to Be Heroes, Not Victims - Heroes and victims get knocked down. The distinction between the two groups lies in the fact that heroes get back up while victims simply give up. Help your employees to realise that they are not victims of circumstance. Rather, remind them that they have a high locus of control—in other words, they have a significant influence over how things turn out. Faith and belief in a positive future lead to powerful actions today! Life is a story, and the story we tell ourselves and the role we play determines the quality and direction of our life. The most successful people and teams are able to overcome adversity by telling themselves a more positive story than the rest. Instead of a drama or a horror movie, they define their life as an inspirational tale. Instead of being the victim, they see themselves as a fighter and over-comer.

Five Ways for a Leader to Motivate the Team

A Positive Video That Every Leader Should Watch

We came across this award winning video entitled "Validation" recently. The video demonstrates the power of positive and genuine reinforcement - one of the most effective things a leader can do to achieve an immediate uplift in results.

A Positive Video That Every Leader Should Watch

Purpose: An Essential Component of Positive Leadership

A key value of Postive Leadership™ is Purpose.

We all have personal stories that define our purpose and direction in life. The question becomes, is that personal purpose aligned with the purpose of your organisation? It is the leaders of the organisation who must make sure that the company's purpose is clearly defined and understood, fostered and reinforced. If leaders also encourage employees to understand their own purpose and direction and how it connects with the company's, employee engagement, personal satisfaction and performance increase.

In his book, It's Not What You Sell, It's What You Stand For: Why Every Extraordinary Business Is Driven by Purpose, Roy M. Spence Jr. writes: "A real purpose can't just be words on paper. It has to get under the skin of every member of your organisation....If you get it right, people will feel great about what they're doing, clear about their goals, and excited to get to work every morning."

This is especially important in turbulent times. Dupont CEO Ellen Kullman talked about the importance of purpose during tough times at Wharton's 2009 annual Leadership Conference when she was describing her crisis leadership principles. She was surprised during weekly informal meetings with employees that the "number one question was about whether we are going to stick with our mission." She realised that people were scared and wanted clear direction. "Making sure that people understand the mission — and linking their daily activities to the company's broader purpose — is essential to reducing fear, maintaining morale and keeping employees motivated," she said.

The economic meltdown has provided us with many lessons from leaders of embattled companies and they all point to one clear approach for success: Leaders must keep their company's purpose alive and in the forefront.

Here are some questions to consider as you examine whether you are bringing your purpose to life in your company and the marketplace:

• Do your employees know what the company's purpose really is?
• Do they feel like they have a personal connection to that purpose and their role in achieving it?
• Do your clients and customers clearly understand your purpose and what it means to them?
• Are you willing to make the hard decisions that need to be made to remain true to your organisation's purpose?

As leaders, it is our job to leverage purpose to affect real change. A key element of leadership is to inspire. In order to impact people several levels below you, leaders must create a level of inspiration that will galvanise employees in a direction and create a “magnetic north” for them to move towards. Where does that inspiration come from? Some leaders believe they can inspire others through charisma. This can be true in the short term, but this approach is like serving appetisers; they satisfy briefly, then make your employees hungry again. By clarifying your company's true purpose “how it makes a real difference in the lives of others”, and then connecting your personal leadership purpose to that broader company purpose, you will be able inspire employees in a more meaningful, lasting way.

Purpose: An Essential Component of Positive Leadership

Great Teams Should Always Have an Enemy

In addition to being an extraordinary CEO and marketer, Apple’s Steve Jobs is without a doubt one of the great pitch-men of our time … or any other time, for that matter. He can create a buzz like nobody’s business and he gives the most inspiring commencement speech, as we’ve noted in the past.

Recently, in an “employees only” town hall style meeting a few days after the iPad launch, Jobs demonstrated that he’s also a master motivator of employees.

This excerpt, as reported by Wired, is a stunning example of uniting the troops against a common enemy:

'Jobs, characteristically, did not mince words as he spoke to the assembled, according to a person who was there …

On Google: We did not enter the search business, Jobs said. They entered the phone business. Make no mistake they want to kill the iPhone. We won’t let them, he says. Someone else asks something on a different topic, but there’s no getting Jobs off this rant. I want to go back to that other question first and say one more thing, he says. This don’t be evil mantra: “It’s b***s***.” Audience roars.

In addition to taking some pretty pointed stabs at software-maker Adobe, mostly related to its notoriously buggy Flash software - which the iPhone still does not support - Jobs throws down the gauntlet when he challenges Android/Google to ”keep up with Apple’s iPhone updates.” '

In retaliation, the Google faithful are shooting back at Jobs, according to gawker.com’s Valleywag blog:

“I don’t know where people get the idea that competition is evil,” writes Paul Buchheit, the ex-Googler who invented “Don’t Be Evil,” along with Gmail and FriendFeed. One current Googler says he plans to tack up Jobs’ “very motivational” quote beside his monitor; another says Jobs myopically “sees all competition as zero-sum.”

Rivalries like this one, while appearing to be somewhat juvenile and over-the-top, can have a powerful impact by galvanising employee’s resolve to develop groundbreaking products and meet critical and often extremely challenging product deadlines.

While we hoist Apple’s Steve Jobs up on a superstar-CEO pedestal, one of his relatively unexplored talents is his ability to inspire groups of developers to great heights. For example, he told the first Macintosh design team that they were there to “make a dent in the universe.” And they did.

It should come as no surprise therefore that we think it is important that: “Great teams always have an enemy.”

Great Teams Should Always Have an Enemy

How Leaders Can Develop More Effective Thinking in their Organisation

"Where success is concerned, people are not measured in inches, or pounds, or college degrees, or family background; they are measured by the size of their thinking." David Schwartz

Here are 5 ways for leaders to devlop more effective thinking within their organisations:

1. Cultivate big-picture thinking - this means clearly outlining the team vision and promoting teamwork in such a way that team members see the "big-picture" and how their individual roles fit with that of their teammates. Remember, big-picture thinking can keep you and your team focused (on target), striving for what many others cannot see (beyond the here-and-now), and ready to seize the moment at just the right time.
 
2. Engage in focused thinking - this means thinking about issues with a sense of clarity. In doing so, be sure to prioritise any short- and long-term goals, remove any potential and existing distractions, and maintain a "strength focus" (i.e., spend the majority of your time using your gifts, talents, and best skills). Take the time to focus your thinking (especially when surrounded by multi-taskers). In the long run, you will be more efficient and get more done by focusing on one task at a time.

3. Harness creative thinking - this means taking what you have learned and experienced in the past and turning these experiences into something even better. Your creativity (i.e., ideas) might very well be your most valuable coaching resource. And your ideas do not have to be original or new. Creativity generally has its seed from the past and is often modeled from those whom have gone before you. In the end, creative thinking will help you learn more, challenge the status quo, and draw others toward you and your ideas; especially those that are looking for "options" on the road to success.

4. Employ realistic thinking - this means understanding the difference between what you wish to happen and what is most likely to happen. It is absolutely necessary for you (the coach) to define reality and set the stage for what is to come. Realistic thinking takes away the "wish factor" and helps to provide a solid foundation from which to start. Realistic thinking also takes away the "hope factor" as it requires your team to face reality, better define their goals, and more clearly understand the strategies needed to carry out the game plan. In addition, you can help to alleviate unneeded worry and doubt by assessing the pros and cons of the situation and examining the "worst-case" scenarios (so that you are ready for things if they don't go as planned).

5. Utilise strategic thinking - this means planning beyond one day at a time. And it's more than planning one week at a time. Strategic thinking is about looking far enough "down the road" to have the needed time to develop the most direct path toward achieving your goals and objectives. Such thinking allows for efficiency in planning, time to maximise strengths, and time to customise the best plan of action. So, be sure to break down the long-term plan, identify the real issues ahead of you, match your resources and personnel, and build on the fundamentals that are already in place.

How Leaders Can Develop More Effective Thinking in their Organisation

Leadership and the Onside Kick

Here are some more reactions to ‘the play’ in Sunday night’s Super Bowl:

‘Sean Payton's risky Super Bowl play exemplifies effective decision-making in the presence of ambivalence.

What drives a leader to make the kind of creative, game-changing decision that New Orleans Saints’ coach Sean Payton came up with in the locker room on Sunday night while The Who were cranking out 12 minutes of the same-old, same-old during the Super Bowl half time show?

It's hard to be sure in Payton's case, but, strangely enough, ambivalence may play a key role. As in: The greater a leader's ambivalence toward a strategic situation, the greater the likelihood he or she will respond by taking action in a novel, risky way.

Payton's decision was definitely both novel and risky: When the Saints came back onto the field, they refused to simply kick the ball to the opposition, as has happened at the beginning of every other half in Super Bowl history. Instead, they tried their very best to keep it for themselves. The onside kick trick worked (barely), and New Orleans ended up with the ball. The Saints went on to get a touchdown that eventually led them to their win over the Colts.

The question of why some leaders come up with bold ideas in tough situations and some don't  has been an obsession for many researchers. Nils Plambeck of HEC in France and Klaus Weber of Northwestern studied the attitudes and actions of 104 German CEOs who were confronting a complex strategic issue a few years back—namely, the looming enlargement of the European Union. The researchers found that if a CEO simultaneously viewed the coming event as potentially both positive and negative—and if those simultaneous convictions were intensely held—the leader was more likely to take organisational action in response. Not only that, the action was likely to be of greater scope, novelty, and riskiness.

"A top executive's ambivalence about an issue does not get in the way of reacting," Plambeck and Weber write in a recent issue of Organization Science, nor does it "paralyse organisational action responses." Instead, the leader's view of a situation as both good and bad creates what psychologists call "emotional arousal" and heightened alertness. That's partly because CEOs, like the rest of us, typically are quick to categorise developments as good or bad, black or white. When an issue shapes up as both positive and negative, there's a resulting "sense of unusualness" that stimulates "a more creative and deliberate" search for responses, Plambeck and Weber write.

So was there something about the Saints' situation at half time on Sunday night that seemed both positive and negative? Or was Payton already in a state of "emotional arousal" from simply having taken New Orleans to its first Super Bowl? Either way, his sense of the unusualness of the situation led to very creative search for solutions. That's more than can be said for the remnants of The Who, who found no particular reason to do anything creative despite the unusualness of their playing in front of tens of millions of people.'

Provided by Harvard Business — Where Leaders Get Their Edge

Leadership and the Onside Kick

Obtaining the Most from Your Team

The US retailer, Nordstrom, has a simple approach to recuiting talent: recruit the right people and encourage them to do what they were hired to do.

The Hall of Fame baseball manager, Casey Stengel, put the same lesson another way when he was asked, What has made you the best baseball coach in the world? He replied, 'I don't trip my players on their way out of the dugout.'

Countless organisations and leaders create impediments that prevent their employees from delivering on the promise of their value proposition. Don't you fall into this trap!

Obtaining the Most from Your Team

Great Decisions and Consistent Execution Lead to Great Outcomes

"I wasn't worried. I was terrified."

'So said New Orleans Saints kicker Thomas Morstead about the moments leading up to the onside kick he took to start the second half of last night's Super Bowl game. And if he was terrified, one can only imagine how Saints coach Sean Payton felt. Having called the play, he's the one that had most to lose—professionally speaking—if it didn't go exactly according to plan.

What Payton went through in calling the crucial play is something that anyone in a decision-making role can learn from.

As we know by now, of course, the kick went exactly as Payton and the Saints hoped it would, turning out to be the defining play of the game. At such times, it can seem that it was destined to be so—that no other outcome was possible. 

The reality, however, is that what occurred on the night was merely the coming together of a series of factors—many of which have equivalents beyond the football field.

Preparation

It's no secret that modern-day football is a game grounded in meticulous preparation. Indeed, the amount of statistical analysis would put many a business to shame, as would the levels of practice required from players—under the watchful eye of a management team committed to excellence—to ensure that their performance levels are as close to optimal as possible.

Self belief

Let's not forget that calling the play was no split second decision for Payton. It came at the second half kickoff, following a break in the action of around 45 minutes—ample time to quail in the face of pressure. While the rest of the country was watching The Who play their greatest hits medley, Sean Payton was wrestling with whether or not to follow the status quo or his own instincts. At stake: his reputation and his team's chances of staging a comeback. Under similar circumstances, maybe 99 percent of coaches would have opted for a safer kick-off—a decision no one could possibly blame you for. The decision not to listen to the voices—whether inner or those of colleagues expressing doubt—advocating for the easy, trusted path was what allowed everything else to follow. While typical stakes in business tend not to be as high—or as visibly deconstructed—being fully committed to your own decisions is the only way to get members of your team to believe in them enough to execute them effectively.

Communication

Watching a replay of the events from last night, it's clear that every single member of the Saints team that took the field for the second half knew exactly what their given role at that moment was. How many of us can raise a hand and say that of people in our own organisations—or even of ourselves, at times? Effective communication is the key to letting people know exactly what is expected of them. If they see confusion and indecision, that will be magnified throughout an organisation. If, however, an organisation's goals are communicated clearly and effectively, the chances of them being executed are significantly higher.

Long-term results are everything

Had the onside kick turned out successfully but the Saints gone on to lose, the chances are that it would already have been forgotten; no-one much cares about the single successful decision in a losing campaign. As such, Payton's half-time decision is only important in terms of the wider narrative. While there's no such thing as a Super Bowl for business, the wider narrative at stake for most of us is the ongoing success and health of our companies.

Making one good decision and resting on your laurels isn't going to help anyone.

Making a good decision and following up with consistent execution of everything else that you do well, however—the pattern the Saints followed last night—is the stuff great teams, and companies, are made of.'

This article was written by Phil Stott, who is a staff writer at Vault.com in New York. Originally from Scotland, he has also lived and worked in Japan, South Korea and Eastern Europe. He holds an MA in English Literature and Modern History, and a Masters in Research in Civil Engineering, both from the University of Dundee.

Great Decisions and Consistent Execution Lead to Great Outcomes

Why Leadership Complacency Hurts

That crashing sound you hear is not an accident caused by sudden acceleration of your hybrid car; it is the continuing toppling of idols, such as hybrid car companies, off their pedestals. Listen hard, lest you be next.

Toyota, the world's leading auto company, faces a series of product problems causing a $2 billion recall, an investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and a galling loss of face for a company from face-conscious Japan. This follows its first annual financial loss in 50 years, with profitability regained partly through cost-cutting.

And if these weren't enough reminders about fallen idols for one week, the Super Bowl did not feature the New England Patriots, whose period of NFL dominance snapped this autumn among hints of eroding focus and discipline.

All too often, long periods of continued success are undermined not by the competition but by self-inflicted wounds.

Winners become sinners when confidence turns into complacency and arrogance. They over-estimate their own invincibility and under-value mundane disciplines. Whenever someone feels on top over a long period of time, they are tempted to neglect the very fundamentals that helped them succeed in the first place. They might even start to feel that the rules don't apply to them.

Success means that people or teams or organisations survive long enough to need maintenance, repairs, and reinvestment. Winners undergo natural ageing processes, as people get older, slow down, leave. Facilities, tools, and bags of tricks get older, deteriorate, and run down. Newcomers might get less rigorous training while long-timers forget what they learned. As momentum runs down, people and buildings begin to look run down. Neglect takes on tangible physical manifestations, such as out-of-shape bodies or broken windows. Add to this the pressures in a recession to cut costs and defer expenditures.

Erosion begins by removing a process or discipline. Let's defer those roof repairs for another year... Let's cut out one practice; we already have so many... Let's save time by eliminating the weekly team meeting... The Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster was said to be caused by engineers neglecting small portions of routine safety checks because they had done so before, and nothing had happened. Oops.

Whether you head a company, lead a good cause, or coach your child’s football or hockey team, your job is to root out complacency. Remember to:

• Keep up the essential disciplines every single day, not skipping a single one.
• Keep checking everything carefully.
• Repair, renew, relearn, and reinvest regularly.
• Don't rejoice in others' misery, because you could be next.
• Thank anyone who points out flaws. Listen to disgruntled customers or disaffected constituencies.
• Treat even small setbacks as occasions for redoubled efforts.   

“Winning is great, but sometimes it takes a loss to get you motivated again. It humbles you down to reality," said one high school athlete. That youth speaks truth! Although he might not be old enough to drive a Toyota, he is headed in the right direction.

For more on how winning streaks and losing streaks begin and end, see - Confidence: How Winning Streaks and Losing Streaks Begin and End 

Why Leadership Complacency Hurts

Does Your Leader Keep You Mentally Engaged When Times Are Tough?

An interesting thought -

Is Sean Payton America's Best CEO?

What impressed most about the New Orleans coach was how he kept his underdogs and Super Bowl rookies mentally engaged even after they'd immediately fallen behind the favourites, 10-0. That is the hardest task of any coach or CEO. As you take the measure of CEOs and political leaders, ask yourself: How many stack up to Sean Payton? Answer: Very few!

Does Your Leader Keep You Mentally Engaged When Times Are Tough?

Being a Champion

A great champion is not just a person who is good at sport. You do not become a champion because you have a great drive or a great forehand; these are just part of the package. You need discipline. You need a strong sense of self, combined with a special sort of humility. You need the taste for work. You need self-criticism, you need a self-belief that defies logic and reality. Being a champion involves the whole person.

Being a Champion

Leadership Development in the Public Sector

Perhaps one in 10 public sector workers will lose their jobs in the coming spending squeeze, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) said recently. But delivering more with less is perfectly achievable, it argues — or at least it would be if the calibre of management was up to the mark.

The message is echoed in results of a survey published recently by recruitment group Hays. Among more than 1,200 public sector workers who responded in January 2010, only 16% of managers and 12% of junior staff thought their organisations had the resources to manage a reduced budget, while 35% of managers thought their leadership training was deficient.

For more, see - http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/feb/03/public-sector-management-quality-cuts

Leadership Development in the Public Sector

Controlling your Thoughts and Emotions

Here are some things that don't exist: A bad day, a boring book, a demeaning job, and an ugly dress.

Now why do we say that there is no such thing as a bad day or an ugly dress? Shakespeare had this idea in mind when he said, "Nothing is good or bad, but thinking makes it so." You see, if the dress was truly ugly, every single person we asked would say, "Yes, that is ugly." But what are the chances of that happening?

And if the day was truly bad, then no one could possibly be having a good day on that date, could they? And even if two people share the very same experience on the same day, one of them may call it bad and the other one may say, "Now wait a minute. There is another way to look at it."

And that is exactly our point. There is always another way of looking at things. So, why in the world would you voluntarily choose a way that is negative, devaluing or that makes you feel badly? You have the ability to control your thoughts and your emotions.

The first step is believing that not only is it possible, but it is possible for you. And when you feel you can do it, then you try. And the more you try, the better you get at it. Negative feelings that once dominated you can be made to go away, and the time it takes you to banish them will grow shorter and shorter. Until one day you may surprise yourself by saying, "You know, I cannot remember the last time I really felt angry or depressed!"

Controlling your Thoughts and Emotions

A Leadership Task - Aligning Strengths

There is a distinction between leadership and a leader. Leadership as a process is larger than the individual leader. That is important because leadership happens in relationship with others and within a context. There are many kinds of leadership; thought leadership; market leadership; political leadership, spiritual leadership. Leadership as a process brings a vision into reality by harnessing all the organisation’s assets: its products, services, technologies, customers, processes, systems, reputation, individual talents, knowledge, and skills. These collective assets are the strengths of the organisation – the positive core.

Peter Drucker wrote in his 1967 classic, The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done (Harperbusiness Essentials): “To make strength productive is the unique purpose of the organisation. It cannot, of course, overcome the weaknesses with which each of us is abundantly endowed. But it can make them irrelevant.”

So if, in fact, a key task of leadership is to create an alignment of strengths, then imagine the possibilities of strengths connected to strengths? What might that look like and why might that be worth striving for?

For leadership to create an alignment of strengths, it most likely means looking at organisations with new eyes. What if we were to look at organisation not as problems to be solved, but as miracles to be embraced? What if we were consciously to look for the good and hold up the achievements and the successes; to invest generously and respectfully in inquiring into existing organisational strengths and assets? What if we were to invite people to tell their stories of when they felt most energised, enlivened and valued at work. And we listened. Really listened. What language would employees, customers, vendors, media be using? Is it uplifting and positive? What are their stories of experiences with all the products, services and people?

The most important part of this is when you focus on what works well, and what you want, it creates upward spirals and you begin to know and enact your capabilities, your potential and what you want more of. Performance will improve, as it is most energising and creative to have people talk about what they can do and what they aspire to. Two maxims come to mind:

• What you focus on grows.
• People support what they create.

To connect strengths to strengths and to see anew, with an appreciative eye, and to facilitate the positive leadership capability so that it creates flourishing organisations is work that is meaningful, joyful, rewarding and essential.

A Leadership Task - Aligning Strengths

Are You Afraid of Success?

We all know that people can be afraid of failure, but did you know that many people are afraid of success?

No one likes to fail. But some people are so focused on the possibility of failure that they become over-anxious and unable to perform. Their fear of failure actually creates failure.

There are people who manage to sabotage their own efforts, often unconsciously, not because they are afraid of failure, but because they are afraid of success.

You see, we all carry around a mental picture of ourselves, and if success is not a part of that picture, we are in trouble. While a part of us wants success and all that goes with it, another part is silently saying, "That is not like me. I am not comfortable with this kind of responsibility," or something along those lines.

We may be perfectly capable of success in other ways, and we may have all the necessary skills and abilities. But it is like growing a pumpkin inside a jug. You can slip a flowering pumpkin vine inside a jug, and the pumpkin will grow to be jug-shaped. Later, you break the glass and you have a jug-shaped pumpkin.

You see, your picture of yourself, your self-concept, is like the glass jug. It tells you where your limits are. Techniques like affirmation and visualisation are used to help when you want to get a bigger jug or, in other words, when you want to comfortably stretch your idea of who you are and what you are capable of.

With practice, you can get to the place where neither failure nor success will upset you.

Are You Afraid of Success?