The Importance of Self-Belief

In this 2005 interview, former British Lions rugby team captain, Gavin Hastings offers some advice on leading a team. In particular, he emphasises one of the key attributes of leadership when he says that you 'have to believe in what you are doing'.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/rugby_union/article1079923.ece

The Importance of Self-Belief

Managing Your Attitude is a Vital Component to Achieving Great Leadership

Here is a fascinating video insight into the mindset of Nelson Mandela and the importance of a leader displaying the right attitude:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x88c9s_leadership-and-attitude-management_news

Managing Your Attitude is a Vital Component to Achieving Great Leadership

A Leader Taking Responsibility

You do not really need to understand American Football to appreciate this video -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96vAbtpakLg

What you do need to appreciate though, watching in particular the last 30 seconds of the video, is the leadership and responsibility shown by a then 21 year old University student in front of a national TV audience.

This is a powerful example of the great athlete embracing the idea of being a role model.

A Leader Taking Responsibility

The Why of Leadership

Public philosopher Tom Morris expresses something in True Success: A New Philosophy of Excellence that speaks to the why of leadership:


"We all need help. We need guidance for our journeys through life. Even the most successful of us need reminders and fresh, crisp articulations of the truths we may only vaguely grasp that have, in one way or another, led us to whatever we have managed to accomplish. We need to rethink. We need to refocus. How can we get where we still need to go? And how can we best convey to others what it takes to get there together?"

The Why of Leadership

Oudin's Wild Ride Reaches the Quarterfinals

One of the highlights of this year's US Open tennis championship has been the performance of 17 year old Melanie Oudin of the USA, who has now reached the quarterfinals of the Women's Singles.



http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/08/sports/tennis/08oudin.html?pagewanted=all


Speaking of Oudin's performance, the captain of the US Federation Cup tennis team, Mary Joe Fernandez said;

'I'm not sure I expected something like this US Open to happen so soon for her, but I definately saw a fighting spirit. And when you have that determination, that kind of positive attitude and you put in the hard work, good things happen.'

There is an obvious connection here between leadership, determination, positive attitude, hard work and results. Exactly the message President Obama delivered recently to US schoolchildren.

Oudin's Wild Ride Reaches the Quarterfinals

Obama urges students to work hard, stay in school

Showing real leadership in spite of opposition from some Republicans in Congress, President Obama delivered an important speech yesterday to children throughout the USA. In it he said that education 'isn't just important for your own life and your own future. What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country. What you're learning in school today will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future.' The full text of the President's speech can be found at: http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/09/07/obama.school.speech.pdf

Obama urges students to work hard, stay in school

How To Inspire Employees in a Down Economy

Without commitment and engagement, every day feels like a forced march through quicksand. How can you--and your key talent--find a firm footing again?

The message is simple: Remind people that they're part of a culture and organization they can be proud of. Look for and create opportunities for good news and don't be shy about publicizing them. This is the time to re-sell employees, especially high-performers, on the company's value proposition.

http://www.forbes.com/2009/06/08/management-employees-promotion-forbes-woman-leadership-jobs.html

How To Inspire Employees in a Down Economy

Why Should Your Employees Like You?

Managing employees isn’t a popularity contest, but if your workers like and respect you as a person, your company’s bottom line is likely to show it.

Taking careful steps to build trust, respect and goodwill among employees doesn’t just make it more fun to go to work, it can also boost your bottom line. Research by Leadership IQ shows that “the overwhelming majority of employees are not giving 100 percent at work; 72 percent admit that they’re not giving their all,” says Mark Murphy, CEO of Atlanta-based research firm Leadership IQ and author of Hundred Percenters: Stop Making Your Employees Happy, Start Making Them Great, to be released in November by McGraw-Hill. “One big reason is because their boss is not leading them in a way that encourages them to give 100 percent.”

http://www.businessinsider.com/why-should-your-employees-like-you-2009-8

Why Should Your Employees Like You?

Imagination and Resolution - the hallmarks of Sir Winston Churchill's wartime leadership

Jock Colville, Sir Winston Churchill's private secretary said of Great Britain's wartime leader: 'Whatever the PM's shortcomings may be, there is no doubt that he does provide guidance and purpose..... which, without him, would often be lost in the maze of inter-departmentalism or frittered away by caution and compromise. Moreover he has two qualities, imagination and resolution, which are conspicuously lacking among other ministers and among the chiefs of staff.'

Imagination and Resolution - the hallmarks of Sir Winston Churchill's wartime leadership

Your Leadership Legacy

You might be your company’s biggest rainmaker. You might be a brilliant strategist. You might be hitting and exceeding performance goals for your unit, your division, your company – every quarter.

But if you jumped ship or disappeared today, what would you leave behind?

What would the people you’ve worked with do differently because they worked with you? What would they think about differently? Would they emulate your behaviors in any way? Or would they be saying “I’m never going to do that/be that/act that way?”

The way that people think, behave, approach work and life as a result of having worked with you – is your leadership legacy. And it has very little to do with your abilities, your measurable performance, your strategic savvy. It has everything to do with who you are, as a person, at work. It has everything to do with your natural role, (as opposed to your title and responsibilities).

Although natural tendencies can be slightly influenced and accentuated, your goal should be to align your intended legacies as closely with your natural style as possible.

The following assessment test will help you articulate your natural role with clarity, as distinct from your career path, current position, or the current condition of your company. It will help you sort out the distinctions between your roles and titles, and identify where you get the greatest satisfaction and where your strengths lie. Ultimately, it gives you something to think about as you plan the kind of legacy you want to leave.

Most people share the characteristics of several types of leaders. Answer the questions in the following test to learn yours:

http://www.yourleadershiplegacy.com/assessment/assessment.php

Your Leadership Legacy

Sporting Lessons: What business can learn from elite sport

Here is an interesting interview with Ric Charlesworth -

http://www.ceoforum.com.au/article-detail.cfm?cid=6244&t=/Ric-Charlesworth--High-Performance-Consultant/Sporting-Lessons-What-business-can-learn-from-elite-sport

Ric Charlesworth is a sports and performance consultant and a former Australian cricketer and Olympic gold medal winning field hockey player and coach. Born in Western Australia, he is a Doctor of Medicine. Between 1983 and 1993 he was a Member of the Australian Parliament.

Sporting Lessons: What business can learn from elite sport

Heroes, Villains and Velodromes

'Nah, the thing that makes us successful is good leadership. But it doesn't just come from the performance director. Leadership happens throughout the programme and it's the key to everything.' Shane Sutton, British Cycling

Team Great Britain put the rest of the world to shame when they took seven of the ten gold medals on offer in the Beijing Olympic track cycling events. How did this nation, not traditionally a cycling powerhouse, get to this point?  This article explains how leadership played its role.

 http://www.cyclingnews.com/features/heroes-villains-and-velodromes-chris-hoy-and-britains-track-revolution

Heroes, Villains and Velodromes

Under the Floodlights

'Winning brings out the qualities in people you admire.' Sir Alex Ferguson

With careful reflection, there are things that can be learned from any team that has a great track record and performance. Here are some valuable take-aways from Sir Alex Ferguson and Manchester United:

http://www.cmoe.com/blog/manchester-united-leadership-teamwork-success.htm
http://www.leadermagazine.co.uk/article.php?id=162

• Embrace change
• Make the effort to develop talent
• Create a culture for winning
• Gain respect, not fear
• Delegate and observe
• Analyse defeat in order to improve
• Be decisive and stand your ground
• Remember small things, like names
• Take care of yoursel
• Make all staff feel part of the team

Under the Floodlights

Leadership Lessons from World Class Coaches

"I don't look at myself as a basketball coach. I look at myself as a leader who happens to coach basketball." Mike Krzyzewski


Each college basketball season draws millions of Americans into a compelling drama that culminates in March Madness. At the center of the drama are the coaches striving for a championship season. Pat Summitt and Mike Krzyzewski are both expected to field highly competitive teams year after year. Retired icons, such as Dean Smith and John Wooden, are remembered for their lifetime achievements in winning championships. Each of these coaches has written books describing how they apply their craft as leaders of student-athletes.

Emerging leaders in all fields can reflect on the ideas and instructive examples in these books to develop their own philosophy of practice. People interested in leadership are intrigued by two basic questions: How do these great coaches amass winning records year after year? What does their leadership philosophy teach us about how to build high-performing teams?

This article shares and interprets important leadership lessons culled from the books of two of these extraordinary coaches, Mike Krzyzewski (Coach K) of Duke University and Pat Summitt of the University of Tennessee. Although their personalities and styles differ in many respects, each has a philosophy of practice that generates overall team resilience and exceptional results--a philosophy that can be applied to your leadership needs, as well.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0HTO/is_3_35/ai_n24994739/

Leadership Lessons from World Class Coaches

The Language of Leadership - 3 Steps for Inspiring Change

Here is some thoughtful advice from Dr Maynard Brusman on three steps which will enable the language of leadership to be most effective in times of change - when staff will be most wary and suspicious of leadership: http://www.expertclick.com/NewsReleaseWire/the_Language_of_Leadership_3_Steps_for_Inspiring_Change,200928447.aspx

The Language of Leadership - 3 Steps for Inspiring Change

Accentuate the Positive

We chose the name Positive Leadership Limited for our company because we believe that the right attitude is essential to great leadership.

Here is an interesting article - http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1112311.html%20- - from the Israeli press about Tal Ben-Shahar (http://talbenshahar.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=38&Itemid=52 ), formerly a teacher at Harvard but now based in Herzliya, just north of Tel Aviv. Ben-Shahar began his career lecturing shipping officers on leadership and motivation but is now a recognised global expert in the area of positive psychology.

Accentuate the Positive

'On-field' leadership at age 18

For those of you unfamiliar with University sport in the USA, the story of 18 year old Matt Barkley is impressive. Tomorrow night he will start his first game at the key position of quarterback for one of the top college football teams in the nation, the Unisversity of Southern California. At 18, Barkley will be appearing in front of 76,000 fans and a national TV audience of millions.

A key role of the quarterback in American Football is to direct all the offensive plays and to be a leader on the field. Here is what Barkley says about taking on a leadership role for the first time in such a high profile game -

http://www.espn.go.com/blog/ncfnation/post/_/id/5689/pac-10-qa-matt-barkley .

Very mature!

'On-field' leadership at age 18

Winning Ugly and Playing to Win

“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.”  Vince Lombardi


Winning Ugly is the smart attitude in tough times. It’s fast and furious, rough and ready, profoundly emotional. What does it involve?

• Expect the unexpected. No one has been here before. If you feel you’ve got it under control – you’re probably headed in the wrong direction.
• Control the controllables. There are some things you can control – so control them! Costs. Suppliers. Sometimes your people!
• Focus on what’s core
• Act fast. Consumers aren’t waiting for your next planning session. Fail fast, learn fast, fix fast.
• Face Forward. Stand tall. Be brave. Don’t let your clients play it safe. Inspire them with your confidence.
• But Winning Ugly is not just for tough times. It’s for every time.

Think about this year's Wimbledon men’s singles final between Federer and Roddick. Andy Roddick played the best tennis of his life and epitomized many facets of the classic Winning Ugly attitude. He stood his ground, fought for every point, never gave up, changed his game to absorb the better player’s game, and took his chances when they occurred. His greatest strengths were his endurance, preparation, and determination. However, what made more of an impact was a beautiful player, Roger Federer, Winning Ugly.

In reality, Roger Federer didn’t really Win Ugly. What he did was refuse to lose. He didn’t fold, didn’t give in, and didn’t back down. He only broke Roddick in the very final game of the final set. Roddick played liked a champion but Federer never gave up believing. As Vince Lombardi said, “Winning is a habit”, and that’s what got Federer through. He simply wasn’t prepared to lose. He reached into his memory bank and remembered that he had won 14 Grand Slam tournaments. Roddick didn’t have this to fall back on. Federer's strategy was Winning Ugly personified. In real terms, it was “not losing”. Even though Federer was mostly outplayed during the game, he just would not admit defeat. He didn’t beat Roddick, he just refused to lose.

When these tough times end, those people that have adopted this approach will come out even stronger than before.

IMD Professor George Kohlreiser writes about a similar concept - he calls it 'Playing to Win' in a recent article - http://www.imd.ch/research/challenges/TC044-09.cfm .

In the article, he talks about how in today's economy there is a danger that the prevailing mindset becomes a negative one and that in order to lead a switch to the idea that we are poised for a recovery, leaders need to “lead at the edge” – or – in other words, lead the way to a positive mindset and a state of inspired energy. Moving forward requires a mindset change and that means taking control by strengthening one’s resolve to “play to win”.

The first step is for leaders to actively understand the pain that they and their people are going through. With this empathic state, leaders can then direct employees to look towards the benefits and opportunities often buried within a crisis. Playing to win requires good risk assessment, a clear game plan and most importantly, the ability to inspire people through knowledge and new ideas to join the ride.

Leaders who can genuinely help people to see that “a change has a benefit” can turn “being a hostage” and being helpless into an active engagement. This is what it means to “play to win.” The opposite is focusing on fear and avoidance of pain which is then in fact “playing not to lose.”

Once again, notice the close parallels between the concepts applicable in sport and in business; the hallmark of the Positive Leadership approach to developing a 'game plan for winning'.

Winning Ugly and Playing to Win

Reinventing the Managerial Mindset

Here is an interesting article by Professor Bill Fischer of IMD - http://www.imd.ch/research/challenges/TC039-09.cfm .

In it he argues that in today's extremely volatile world, business leaders need to think about re-engineering the mindset of their managerial team as well as re-engineering the DNA of the organisation. This means being willing to 'fail often in order to succeed sooner'. A key to competitive success will be the ability of the leader of the organisation to energise the people around them with inclusion, respect and empowerment.

Reinventing the Managerial Mindset

CEO's say how you treat a waiter can predict a lot about character

Here is some interesting perspective on the importance of leaders displaying the right type of character, coupled with a list of Raytheon chairman and ceo Bill Swanson's so called 'Unwritten' Rules of Management -


http://www.usatoday.com/money/companies/management/2006-04-14-ceos-waiter-rule_x.htm 

In the Business 2.0 article that made Swanson's little book famous, they expounded on his rules and added the following:

1. You can't polish a sneaker.

2. You remember 1/3 of what you read, 1/2 of what people tell you, but 100 percent of what you feel.

3. Treat your company name as if it were your own.

4. When faced with decisions, try to look at them as if you were one level up in the organization. Your perspective will change quickly.

5. A person who is nice to you but rude to the waiter is not a nice person. (This rule never fails.)

6. When facing issues or problems that are becoming drawn out, 'short' them to ground.

CEO's say how you treat a waiter can predict a lot about character

20 Ways to Win in Business

Lord Coe, former Olympic champion and now chairman of the London 2012 Olympic team, gives his advice on how to 'win in business' in this fascinating extract from his recently published book: The Winning Mind -


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/fameandfortune/5104949/20-ways-to-win-in-business.html

20 Ways to Win in Business

'The Zone' separates the great from the good

Here is an intersting article about the space sportsmen call 'the zone' -

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/golf/uspga/5999707/US-PGA-a-dream-to-have-Tiger-Woods-and-Padraig-Harrington-in-the-zone.html

'The Zone' separates the great from the good

Get gratification from what others do

Some fascinating insight from Shantanu Narayen, president of Adobe on leadership;

'Q. What’s the most important leadership lesson you’ve learned?

A. I really honed a lot of my leadership skills and style at Apple. I worked for Apple for many years, and I had a mentor, Gursharan Sidhu, from whom I learned just a tremendous amount. I think two leadership lessons really stand out for me. He forced me to think about doing things that I did not think were possible. Challenging individuals by setting goals and then letting them use their ingenuity to accomplish them is something that I hope I can pass on as part of my leadership style. If you set a common vision and then get really scary-smart people, they do things that amaze you. The other aspect of being a good manager has always been getting gratification from what others do, because the higher you get in management, frankly, the less you do yourself.'

 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/19/business/19corner.html

Get gratification from what others do

A Brainwave in the Study of Leadership

New research suggests that management qualities can be traced to activity in identified regions of the brain -

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/925070dc-72e1-11de-ad98-00144feabdc0,dwp_uuid=02e16f4a-46f9-11da-b8e5-00000e2511c8.html

A Brainwave in the Study of Leadership