Positive Leadership

Positive Leadership

Positive Leadership: Why Good Leaders Make You Feel Safe

Positive Leadership: Why Good Leaders Make You Feel Safe

Positive Leadership: Wholeheartedness

Brené Brown is a research professor at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work. She has spent the past ten years studying vulnerability, courage, authenticity, and shame. She spent the first five years of her decade-long study focusing on shame and empathy, and is now using that work to explore a concept that she calls Wholeheartedness. She poses the questions:

How do we learn to embrace our vulnerabilities and imperfections so that we can engage in our lives from a place of authenticity and worthiness? How do we cultivate the courage, compassion, and connection that we need to recognise that we are enough – that we are worthy of love, belonging, and joy?

Positive Leadership: Wholeheartedness

Positive Leadership: Be Yourself, But Don’t Overshare

A rise in team-based workplaces has heightened the demand for managers who are “authentic” and “instantly intimate.” But sharing your thoughts, feelings, and experiences at work can sometimes backfire.

Here are a few pointers for effective—and authentic—self-disclosure:

Consider relevance. Before sharing personal information, ask yourself if it’s germane to the situation. Make sure it contributes to the overall goal of building trust and engendering better collaboration.

Understand the context. Some societies are more inclined than others to disclose personal information. Investigate regional and organisational norms about sharing so that you’ll know when it’s best to keep quiet.

Delay or avoid very personal disclosures. In some workplaces, you will eventually find it safe and helpful to share; in others you’ll realise it’s unwise to do so.

For more, see: http://hbr.org/2013/10/be-yourself-but-carefully/ar/

Positive Leadership: Be Yourself, But Don’t Overshare

Positive Leadership: Authentic Leadership

No one likes to work with someone who is false. For people to trust that you’re being genuine, they need to know where you stand. 

Here are two ways to be sure you’re being true to yourself and connecting with others:

Have a point of view. Know your stances on major work issues and be open and willing to engage in conversations about them. To have leadership presence, others need and want to know where you stand — they don't want to have to guess or be blindsided midstream.

Be transparent about your position. Know the difference between navigating the political waters of your organisation and actually becoming the politics itself. Get support for your initiatives but be clear about what you are doing, why you are doing it, and how you are doing it.

For more, see: http://blogs.hbr.org/video/2013/04/improve-your-leadership-presen.html and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4nqCoIBtVo

Positive Leadership: Authentic Leadership

Positive Leadership: The Power of 'Thank You!'

Thank You!

There are two powerful words every leader needs to learn, know and use daily.  It doesn’t matter whether you lead a group of 2 or 200, these two words will change your team and the culture of your organisation.

When you express these words, generosity flows.  When you fail to use these words, it can send a negative message.  Its absence says, “I can accomplish the vision without you.  You don’t necessarily matter.  You are not essential.”

A leader is only as good as her people.  Just like a great coach is only as good as his players.  Do your players know you appreciate them?  Do they know without them nothing gets accomplished?

Thank you can change your team.  It can change the way your people come to work every day.  Your success is built on the hard work of others.  That’s a fact.  It’s true for every leader.

Are you grateful for their contribution and efforts? More important, do they know it?

Thank you helps a leader create a generous and grateful culture.  Everyone wants to be appreciated.  Everyone wants to know they matter.  Anyone can issue a salary cheque.  People want to know they make a difference.

Leaders set the tone and culture of an organisation.  If you want to have a generous and grateful culture, learn to say thank you often.  It’s free and has a huge ROI.

People don’t read minds.  If you don’t tell them they are appreciated, they may assume you don’t.  True or not, it carries a negative impact.

Five Simple Ways to Say Thank You

1. Details count.  Be specific with your thank you.  If you want impact, it’s in the details.  Don’t be vague and generic.  Be specific as to what they did and how it impacted the team, department or organisation.  Let them know you are grateful for their contribution and effort.

2. Let the public know.  When you give a “thank you” and praise in public, you create loyalty.  Your team will go through a wall for you.  Bragg about them in public and mean it.  It can have more impact than a monetary reward.

3. Be true and authentic.  If the “thank you” is not sincere, it doesn’t matter.  It has to be honest.  It can’t be over used and fake.  People will see through unauthentic praise.  It will have a negative impact.

4. Write it down.  People love to get encouraging notes.  Keep blank note cards in your desk or close by.  Every week, write someone on your team a thank you note.  Take a few minutes and write out a note.  Be specific and let them know what they did, how hard they work and what it means to the organisation.

5. Equal opportunity.  Your “thank you’s” need to reach the front lines.  The people who create and impact the bottom line.  Go deep down the organisational chart with the thank you.  It’s not just for high-level employees.  Practice equal opportunity praise.  Everyone makes a difference and helps you achieve your vision.  Let all of them know it.

There is tremendous power in thank you.  Create a culture of generosity and gratitude.  You are only as good as your people. They need to know it!

Positive Leadership: The Power of 'Thank You!'

Positive Leadership: The Leader is There to Enable Others to Flourish

The Rev. Nicky Gumbel , Vicar of Holy Trinity Brompton (the largest Anglican church in the UK) and a former barrister, tweeted his take on leadership as his opening to 2013 (@nickygumbel). 

This is a pin-the-on-the-wall-and-look-at-it-every-morning checklist.

•             L ove

•             E ncouragement

•             A uthenticity

•             D aring

•             E nthusiasm

•             R espect

•             S ervice

•             H ope

•             I ntegrity

•             P erseverance

Ancient scripture wisdom repackaged for the modern age. The Rev. Nicky is known internationally for developing the Alpha Course – the most popular introduction to Christianity course in the world. He has been described as a natural leader – confident but self-effacing holiness.

New areas of leadership study – Servant Leadership and Authentic Leadership – emphasise a deep sense of morality in the leader, and a concern for the welfare of others that is greater than the desire to self promote. The leader is there to enable others to flourish.

Positive Leadership: The Leader is There to Enable Others to Flourish

Positive Leadership: The Importance of Core Values

Jeanne Bliss, Author of  I Love You More Than My Dog visited the Zappos headquarters to talk Customer Loyalty with ceo, Tony Hsieh. In this video, Tony talks about the importance of the 10 Zappos Core Values.

Positive Leadership: The Importance of Core Values

Positive Leadership

Positive Leadership

Positive Leadership: How to be an Authentic Leader

How To Be An Authentic Leader

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Positive Leadership: How to be an Authentic Leader

Positive Leadership: Defining Leadership - 'How to Be, Not How to Do'

Frances Hesselbein is the Founding President and Chair of the Board of Governors of the Leader to Leader Institute, formerly the Peter F. Drucker Foundation for Nonprofit Management.  She served as CEO of the Girl Scouts of the USA from 1976-1990. 

Learn more about her definition of “leadership” here:

Positive Leadership: Defining Leadership - 'How to Be, Not How to Do'

Authentic Leadership: How You Can Take the Lead

Betsy Myers can tell you what being an authentic leader means to her. As a woman who has had careers in the private, corporate, and political arenas, Ms. Myers knows that being an authentic leader requires tremendous self-awareness and the right team of people who will act as your support group. 

Ms Myers served as a senior adviser to Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign. Prior to this appointment, Myers was the Executive Director of the Centre for Public Leadership at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. 

Ms. Myers has drawn her inspiration to succeed and her support from a broad collection of people: her colleagues, public and political leaders, and close family and friends. She knows that leading an authentic life plays a critical role in the making of an authentic leader.

Authentic Leadership: How You Can Take the Lead

Positive Leadership and World Leadership Day

Positive Leadership is delighted to announce that its ceo, Graham Watson, has accepted an invitation to become Scotland's World Leadership Day Ambassador (www.worldleadershipday.org).

World Leadership Day ('WLD') celebrates and promotes authentic leadership around the world on or around March 20th of each year and, works collaboratively with its Ambassadors, sharing common beliefs, vision and values. Positive Leadership shares the beliefs, visions and values of WLD.

The core beliefs of WLD are:

• Leadership determines everything.
• Every individual is, innately, a leader, creator and innovator.
• Authentic leadership is courageously demonstrating one’s innate/authentic self, liberating all to so lead, thereby revealing humanity’s unlimited abilities.
• Authentic leadership is fundamental to the health and well-being of all humanity.

The vision of WLD is:

• A world that recognises, engages and cultivates the expression of the innate leader in every person.

The mission of WLD is to:

• Celebrate World Leadership Day as an annual, growing, international event to inspire, connect and transform leadership thinking and development across the globe.
• Inspire processes worldwide to recognise, engage and cultivate the innate leadership dimension and leadership skill development in every person to give them the courage to step into the unknown territory of leadership.
• Unite leaders across generations, gender, and cultures to engage in real meaningful dialogue for collective learning and inspired leadership action that addresses the critical issues facing us in the 21st century.

The core values of WLD are:

• Truth
• Love
• Freedom.

Positive Leadership Limited is delighted to be associated with World Leadership Day in this exciting capacity and looks forward to hosting a World Leadership Day event in Scotland in 2012.

For more information, please contact: graham.watson@positiveleadership.co.uk

Positive Leadership and World Leadership Day

The Impact of Authentic Leadership on Organisations

Bruce J. Avolio, Executive Director of the Center for Leadership and Strategic Thinking at the University of Washington Foster School of Business, discusses authentic leadership and its impact on organisations.

Authentic Leadership - Bruce Avolio from Foster School of Business on Vimeo.

The Impact of Authentic Leadership on Organisations

What is an Authentic Organisation?

An organisation is authentic when its actions, its character, and its sense of purpose are aligned with and support each other. 

An organisation can be authentic only when: 

• The organisation knows ‘who it is” and what characteristics make it distinctive. 
• People in the organisation understand why these distinctive features are meaningful.
• The organisation knows what it is striving to create in this world. It has a sense of purpose that goes beyond the products and services it offers.
• The organisation knows how its distinctiveness fuels and adds unique insight to the pursuit of organisation’s purpose.
• The organisation has a few signature actions, behaviours and products that bring to life the organisation’s meaning, and move it towards its purpose.
• Both the purpose and the distinctive, meaningful characteristics of the organisation resonate with stakeholders and draw members, customers, and constituencies to the organisation.
• The organisation actively supports its members, customers, and constituencies in their own authenticity as they work with the organisation to achieve its purpose.

What is an Authentic Organisation?

Authenticity

What does it mean to be authentic in today's world? It doesn't mean just being different or standing out from the crowd.

"Genuineness." "Authenticity." These words are hard to say and, for many people, even harder to be. Here is what we think it means to be authentic. First of all, authentic people are aware of their thoughts and feelings, and they behave in ways that reflect those feelings. They don't see any need to "Put on an act" to impress or control others. They accept their vulnerabilities as well as their strengths, and they know that accepting something isn't necessarily the same thing as liking it. Do you know something else? Because they accept themselves for who they are, they accept other people, too.

Authentic people don't laugh at jokes they don't think are funny. They don't change their identity, like chameleons, depending on who they are with or where they are. So, if you want to grow as a person, take time to really know yourself. If you're not completely happy with what you find, don't worry too much. Work on accepting yourself for what you are, right here, right now, and on being truly authentic.

Carl Rogers, a world famous psychologist, once said that when we accept ourselves exactly as we are, change becomes much easier. 

Authenticity

The New 21st Century Leaders

Here is some fascinating insight into a new leadership model for the 21st century from Harvard Professor Bill George:

'During the last half of the 20th century, business leadership became an elite profession, dominated by managers who ruled their enterprises from the top down. Influenced by two World Wars and the Depression, organisational hierarchies were structured along military lines, with multi-layered structures to establish control through rules and processes. People climbed the ranks in search of power, status, money and perquisites.

In the last quarter of the twentieth century the stock market became increasingly short-term, causing corporate leaders to concentrate on quarterly earnings, often to the exclusion of long-term growth. In the past decade it all blew up, from the ethical scandals exposed by Enron and WorldCom to the Wall Street meltdown. As a result, people lost trust in business leaders to build sustainable institutions instead of serving themselves and short-term shareholders.

What happened? The hierarchical model simply doesn't work anymore.

The craftsman-apprentice model has been replaced by learning organisations, filled with knowledge workers who don't respond to "top down" leadership. Seeking opportunities to lead, young people are unwilling to spend ten years waiting in line. Most important, people are searching for genuine satisfaction and meaning from their work, not just money.

In response to these changes, a new generation of leaders is reshaping the best-led global companies. Authentic leaders focused on customers are replacing hierarchical leaders that focus on serving short-term shareholders. Typical of these leaders is Unilever CEO Paul Polman, who recently told the Financial Times, "I don't work for the shareholder. I work for consumers and my customers."

In the 21st century the most successful leaders will focus on sustaining superior performance by aligning people around mission and values and empowering leaders at all levels, while concentrating on serving customers and collaborating throughout the organisation.

Aligning: The leader's most difficult task is to align people around the organisation's mission and shared values, which is far more challenging than making short-term numbers. Gaining alignment is especially difficult in far-flung global organisations where local employees may be more loyal to native cultures than their employers, especially regarding business practices.

Traditional leaders thought they could solve this problem with rulebooks, training programmes and compliance systems, and were shocked when people deviated. Aligned employees commit to the mission and values of the organisation, and want to be part of something greater than themselves. Johnson & Johnson is a classic case of an aligned organisation that uses its famed Credo to guide global employees in their actions.

Empowering: Hierarchical leaders delegate limited amounts of power in order to retain control. In contrast, 21st century leaders empower leaders at all levels, combined with sophisticated accountability systems to ensure commitments are met.

Front-line leaders without direct reports are especially needed. Here's an empowered leader who sets standards of excellence for other employees  in Medtronic's heart valve facility. A Laotian immigrant, she told me, "I make heart valves that save people's life. I do my own quality control, because if one of the valves I make fails, someone will die. At Medtronic 99.9 percent quality is very good, but I couldn't live with causing someone's death. My satisfaction comes from the 5,000 people alive today because of heart valves I made."

Serving: As Polman points out, the leader's first obligation is not to shareholders, but rather to customers. CEOs who spend too much time listening to Wall Street risk ignoring their most important stakeholder — their customers. Any organisation that doesn't provide its customers with superior value relative to competitors will find itself going out of business. Employees are much more motivated by serving customers than they are by getting stock prices up, and that's what leads to innovation and superior customer service. Satisfied customers and motivated employees are key to sustaining revenue growth and, ultimately, shareholder value.

Collaborating: The challenges businesses face these days are too complex to be solved by individuals or even single organisations. Collaboration — within the organisation and with customers, suppliers, and even competitors — is required to achieve lasting solutions. Leaders must foster this collaborative spirit, eliminating internal politics and focusing on internal cooperation. After becoming CEO of IBM, Sam Palmisano transformed IBM's long-standing bureaucracy into an "integrated global network," shifting to "leading by values" and breaking down silos that kept people from collaborating.

The ultimate measure of effectiveness for leaders is the ability to sustain superior results over an extended period of time. Organisations filled with aligned, empowered and collaborative employees focused on serving customers will outperform hierarchical organizations every time. Top-down leaders may achieve near-term results, but only authentic leaders can galvanise the entire organisation to sustain long-term performance.

We need them to rebuild the trust that has been lost in capitalism.'

For more, see - http://blogs.hbr.org/imagining-the-future-of-leadership/2010/04/the-new-21st-century-leaders-1.html

The New 21st Century Leaders