You Can't Manage People - You Can Only Manage Their Environment

Many leaders don't understand what it means to truly motivate people to perform at their best. Here are three principles of motivation that should help you understand what drives people in the work environment:

You can't motivate other people: While there are many leaders who think they are motivational or inspirational, the word "motivation" comes from the root word "motive," so motivation is what moves people to action. The drive or energy to do something can only come from within the person. People only do what they want to do or choose to do. The question for leaders is not, "How can I motivate people?" The question is, "How can I help people be self motivated to do the right things?"

All people are motivated:  You may be thinking, 'I know some people who aren't motivated'. Well, some people are motivated to do absolutely nothing and some are motivated to do just enough to keep their jobs. Others are motivated to do the opposite of what you want them to do. The reality is, everyone is motivated to do exactly what they are doing right now... that is why they are doing it.

You can create an environment where people are motivated to perform at their best: This should be the first lesson in Leadership 101. The key to getting great performance from employees is to create a great work environment. Unfortunately, many managers believe that the key to great results is to control people, and in the process they create an environment that kills creativity, passion, and performance.

You Can't Manage People - You Can Only Manage Their Environment

20 Questions to Ask Other Leaders

As a leader, how do you become a better leader? One of the best ways to grow is to ask other leaders questions. Here are some of the questions you might ask:

1.Can you name a person who has had a tremendous impact on you as a leader? Maybe some one who has been a mentor to you? Why and how did this person impact your life?
 
2.What are the most important decisions you make as a leader of your organisation?

3.As an organisation gets larger there can be a tendency for the “institution” to dampen the “inspiration.” How do you keep this from happening?

4.How do you encourage creative thinking within your organisation?

5.Where do the great ideas come from in your organisation?

6.Which is most important to your organisation—mission, core values or vision?

7.How do you or other leaders in your organisation communicate the “core values”?

8.How do you encourage others in your organisation to communicate the “core values”?

9.Do you set aside specific times to cast vision to your employees and other leaders?

10.How do you ensure the your organisation and its activities are aligned with your “core values”?

11.How do you help a new employee understand the culture of your organisation?

12.When faced with two equally-qualified candidates, how do you determine whom to hire?

13.What is one characteristic that you believe every leader should possess?

14.What is the biggest challenge facing leaders today?

15.What is one mistake you witness leaders making more frequently than others?

16.What is the one behaviour or trait that you have seen derail more leaders’ careers?

17.Can you explain the impact, if any, that social networking and Web 2.0 has made on your organisation or you personally?

18.What are a few resources you would recommend to someone looking to gain insight into becoming a better leader?

19.What advice would you give someone going into a leadership position for the first time?

20.What are you doing to ensure you continue to grow and develop as a leader?

20 Questions to Ask Other Leaders

What Wayne Gretzky Can Teach Us About Leadership

One of the challenges of leading in a tough economy is staying focused on the things that matter. And what matters right now is how you chart the course ahead. Leadership, by definition, is about choosing the right goals and motivating others to pursue them as effectively as possible.

Canadian ice hockey great Wayne Gretzky defined a great hockey player as a person who knows to skate where the puck is going to be. That can define great leadership as well. That ability to "see" where things are going is important. And in business, unlike in sports, you have the additional advantage of being able to DECIDE where things are going.

The power of goals to influence behaviour has been proven so many times in so many ways. The key take-away is that as you look ahead at the final quarter of 2009, it is more important to create challenging and exciting goals that your staff can rally around than it is to lament what has already happened. Move from the past into the future. Go to where the puck is going to be. It's about you being opportunistic about the future.  Leadership has many burdens. It has many joys as well.

What Wayne Gretzky Can Teach Us About Leadership

Applied Materials CEO's best advice: 'The Buck Stops Here'

Mike Splinter, CEO of the Santa Clara, Calif.-based Applied Materials, recalls the best advice he ever got in the following interview ( see -

http://brainstormtech.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2009/09/16/applied-materials-ceos-best-advice-the-buck-stops-here/).

'Before I joined Applied Materials, I worked at Intel for two decades. I recall a session with Andy Grove. It was 1984, and Grove was talking about Intel culture to a group of new employees who were coming in at a senior level. I was running Fab 1, a Santa Clara factory that made chips.

In his talk Grove advised us to always assume it's your responsibility. By that he meant to take on a job, even if it wasn't yours. That's a general thought, but it creates specific action and works across almost any situation, from picking up garbage on the floor to a new product idea.

If you automatically assume it's your responsibility and do something about it, that makes the company better. Those who can recognize that are the ones who end up being more successful.'

Mike's greatest tips:

Engage your audience. When talking to a group, give the audience a challenge or an objective. It makes the presentation much more memorable.

Stay connected. I read every one of my e-mails. There are a lot of mechanisms to isolate you as CEO. You have to ensure you're finding out what's really going on with employees.

Get others involved early. People are a lot more motivated to execute the things they have to do if they're part of the planning and strategy. Execution is often grinding and hard, so make employees part of the process.

Recognize good work. If I think someone has really done a good job, I'll send a personal note to say it's appreciated. It doesn't matter to me what layer in the company they are.

Know why you're meeting. You need everyone to understand what they're trying to accomplish in a meeting. Is the meeting a communication meeting, or a decision-making meeting? Those things ought to be clear upfront.

Streamline your schedule. Prioritize every day. I focus on three things: financial goals, new-product goals, and people goals.

Balance your risk. You want to encourage people to be willing to take risks. Since I consider myself a risk taker, I like to have a CFO who's much more conservative than I am. We have a good balance.

Applied Materials CEO's best advice: 'The Buck Stops Here'

Ten Principles for Leadership Communication

Here are 10 principles every great leader should know:

http://www.hewittassociates.com/Intl/NA/en-US/KnowledgeCenter/ArticlesReports/ArticleDetail.aspx?cid=1642

And most important of all - choose front line managers for their communication skills. Front line managers have the greatest influence over an employee's engagement. Managers who are good communicators get more from their direct reports than managers whose strong skills lie elsewhere. Managers who are good communicators are the insurance policy for keeping the best workers happy.

Ten Principles for Leadership Communication

Engagement is Not Enough - The Passion Pyramid

Is your passion towards your organisation, the people you work with, and the job you perform as high as it could be?

Your attitudes will be at their highest when the needs that are most important to you are being fully satisfied by your organisation, manager, or team.  For the opportunity to self evaluate, see -

http://www.ictusdev.net/ayers/pyramid.cgi

Engagement is Not Enough - The Passion Pyramid

Conversations with Global Leaders

Here is an extract from a fascinating interview with Dan Vasella, the ceo of Novartis:

Q: What do you think are the most significant lessons you’ve learned about managing, and particularly managing change and adapting? And what do you think are some of the advances, if there have been any, in the art and science of management that really register for you?

Dan Vasella: I would say: number one, you never can do it alone. So you’re also dependent on many others. But at the same time, you should not be shy about standing for what you believe. And in the long term, one of the conclusions I have drawn is you may not please all the time. But the fact that people say, “What he says he really believes,” I think is very important. And I believe you have to be first of all very respectful of people and, I would say, the broader environment too. The respect means one needs to be also very direct and tough when appropriate, because it’s an expression of respect. And it’s often not done because people are afraid. They are afraid. It’s not that they want to be particularly nice or care so much about the feelings of the other. It’s much more that they are afraid to confront with the other realities and then the response of it.

So you have to be able to be very tough and very supportive, if supportive is needed. And you have to give others room. But that doesn’t mean you abdicate authority, because you have been entrusted with authority if you lead something and then you have to exert it. You can not do as if you would not be in charge.

And some people will tell you, “Don’t get involved in this,” or, “This is too detailed,” and I think that’s wrong. You should understand what you are managing and what you’re leading. You should know the key facts. And you should know the people and then know when you let them totally do [it] and you can go to bed, close both eyes, and sleep deeply and well, and you know things are being really done extremely well—and maybe better than you could do it. And when do you have to say, “No. This is not sounding right. It’s not smelling right. And here, I want to understand. And I go deep in detail.”

And I think these give a certain tension also in the organization because they don’t exactly know when is he going to go deep or not. And some people will say, “Well, that’s unpredictability.” And that’s very negative. You should be predictable. And if unpredictability is predicable, it’s also a kind of a pattern which people will know.

If you’re fair and fact based when you intervene, it’s not a problem, because it’s all something which you will elaborate then maybe debate—because, very often, there’s not one right answer but two or three, and you have to choose. And I enjoy choosing together, after having had a kind of a discussion.

Q: Are there tools that you have found that have made this easier than it was 10 or 15 years ago? Or is pretty much the same tough thing?

Dan Vasella: No. My evolution and learnings have been that, in the beginning, I have tried to read, listen, assimilate massively, and then really to practice, and over time to internalize certain things. And others you forget. And so with the approach we have taken, continuous learning is crucial. We have also, with Harvard Business School, regular seminars where the top team goes—I go too. I sit in on the bench and go through the course.
And the question is, when do you become idiosyncratic? How do you get new ideas? How to rejuvenate? And at the same time, it’s a fact of life that you get older. And you have young people. And they are again with more energy, more skills, different skills. Then you need to give them room, and you need to enjoy seeing others grow.

So I think what you do [at age] 40 is different than what you do with [at age] 50 or 60. And so the styles also evolve. You asked about new management techniques, and I would say I have rather the opposite reaction. I go back and I read more in Peter Drucker’s books than on the newest kind of monolithic theme, because what we have watched and observed—and I know you know this in and out—we regularly have one theme which is blown up to a book, a new paradigm. But, frankly, it is just one element which has been specifically well investigated and then, you know, exposed and sold, but it always has been present. So if you go back to the roots, I think you see that most has been said and written.

For the full interview, see -

http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Governance/Leadership/McKinsey_conversations_with_global_leaders_Dan_Vasella_of_Novartis_2401

Conversations with Global Leaders

Why Smart Chief Executives Make Strange Decisions

Business decisions break down when they're based on aspirations and not market conditions.

Here is an excellent article which should make every ceo stop and think again about the process he or she goes through when making key business decisions:

http://www.chiefexecutive.net/ME2/Audiences/Segments/Publications/Print.asp?Module=Publications::Article&id=218917E510A94FE48D3BA14927A8C915

Why Smart Chief Executives Make Strange Decisions

Cassel has spent years preparing for leading role

Here is a great example of how important it is to persevere on the path to leadership. It concerns Matt Cassel, an American football quarterback for the Kansas City Chiefs of the National Football League.

Cassel was drafted by the New England Patriots in the seventh round of the 2005 NFL Draft. He became the Patriots' starting quarterback in Week 1 of the 2008 season after then reigning NFL MVP Tom Brady suffered a season-ending knee injury. According to ESPN research, he is the only known quarterback in NFL history to start an NFL game as quarterback without ever starting at quarterback at college. In his first season as a starter, Cassel became only the fifth NFL quarterback to have passed for more than 400 yards in consecutive games, and the first since the NFL-AFL merger with 60 rushing yards in the same game.

In February 2009, the Patriots used their franchise tag on Cassel, extending him a one-year contract worth over $14 million, the largest one-year contract for an offensive player in NFL history. Later that offseason, the Patriots made a trade which sent Cassel to the Chiefs, who signed him to a six-year, $63 million contract in July 2009.

For more on this amazing story of determination and perseverance to succeed see:

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/columns/story?columnist=garber_greg&id=3583499

Cassel has spent years preparing for leading role

Controlling the Controllables When Under Pressure

As the IOC decides today on the host city for the 2016 Olympics, here are some pearls of wisdom from some of the USA's greatest athletes that can be applied to peak performance in everyday business:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125442050408456947.html?mod=dist_smartbrief

The approach — prepare relentlessly, concentrate on what you can control, stick to your routine, don't get sucked into surrounding hoopla, and focus on what you are doing in the moment rather than on the outcome — will serve you well in the most important moments of your career.

Controlling the Controllables When Under Pressure

Welcome to the Positive Leadership Limited Blog

Welcome to the Positive Leadership Limited blog. The blog is updated regularly with items of relevance to those interested in our work.

Positive Leadership Limited is a strategic leadership consulting firm based in Scotland, which has been established to serve clients located principally in the UK and USA. We deliver advisory and business consulting services which assist the leaders of organisations facing change identify, develop and implement strategies designed to maximise the positive financial and human impact of such high pressure events; and which help organisations develop the leaders of today and tomorrow.

At Positive Leadership Limited, we believe that leaders must deliver both tangible and intangible value to key stakeholders. Leaders must deliver the promises the company makes to employees, customers and investors. We believe that an outside-in perspective, linking customer expectations with employee and leader behaviour, is fundamental to high performance. The integration of theory, applied research and practice is critical to effective interventions and a cornerstone of our advice. All of our work focuses on shared outcomes rather than activities. We help organisations deliver direct value in the form of improved profitability, productivity, quality and customer delight. We shape the intellectual agenda for leadership practices. We combine the insights and knowledge of client leaders with our expertise in order to deliver a unique experience for each client. Whether delivering advisory or consulting services, we collaborate with our clients to make our work interesting, exciting, and relevant. Our advisory and consulting services include: leadership advice in the areas of business strategy, M&A, capital raising, talent development and achieving peak performance under pressure; and leadership consulting in the areas of coaching, mentoring, training, public speaking and writing.

We help leaders excel under pressure.

Welcome to the Positive Leadership Limited Blog

Becoming an Energiser

Some people become leaders no matter what their chosen path because their positive energy is so uplifting. Even in tough times, they always find a way. They seem to live life on their own terms even when having to comply with someone else's requirements. When they walk into a room, they make it come alive. When they send a message, it feels good to receive it. Their energy makes them magnets attracting other people.

Just plain energy is a neglected dimension of leadership. It is a form of power available to anyone in any circumstances. While inspiration is a long-term proposition, energy is necessary on a daily basis, just to keep going.

Three things characterise the people who are energisers;


1. A relentless focus on the bright side.
2. Redefining negatives as positives.
3. Fast response time. Energisers don't dawdle.
 
For more on this fascinating theme of leadership see Harvard Professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter's article in -  http://www.businessweek.com/managing/content/sep2009/ca20090929_458961.htm

Becoming an Energiser

Leadership is not exclusive - Sporting Lessons

In the best teams, while leadership is important, it is not the exclusive preserve of one person.

The best sports teams will often change their leader or have different leaders for different situations. For example, one player will be in charge of the social aspects of the team, in cricket the batsmen on the field will have to be their own leaders, or the captain may be substituted for tactical reasons. In the Olympic champion British rowing four, Redgrave, Pinsent, Cracknell and Foster, each athlete had a leadership role at a different time. When motivation was needed they deferred to James Cracknell, for technique Tim Foster, pace to Mathew Pinsent and for team tactics Steve Redgrave. For cohesion, organisation, feedback, etc. they went to their coach.

In business it is all too easy to appoint the chairperson, the manager of the team, and load that person with all the leadership responsibilities, no matter what the task of the team. The reality is most of us can handle some kinds of leadership, few of us can handle all kinds of leadership. Starting up a project is a very different matter from turning it around or enlarging it 100-fold. Few of us have all of the leadership skills necessary to achieve all three tasks. We should learn to swap and substitute the way that sports teams do.

Sometimes these things are also ego driven. Think about Ole Gunnar Solskjaer who spent a lot of his time sitting on the bench at Manchester United. He would enter the game as a substitute when the team needed a goal and would normally manage to produce the goods. Paul Rendall, a not so well known rugby player sat on the bench for England so often he gained the nickname “judge”, but he was greatly valued by the team and when he did get the chance to play performed extremely well indeed. Substitutes have become a vital tactical element of the team performance and are often referred to as “impact players”, such is their heightened value, rather than the apparently derogatory “sub”. In business wouldn’t it be wonderful if we had people whose role was primarily to lift flagging team spirits or to carry out a specific tactical role against the opposition where a weakness has been spotted?

So make comparisons between business and sport but, unless you want to demoralise your players, choose examples from which the business environment can learn. The next time the whistle blows for the start of play in your office ask yourself if you have the persistence to get the information and make the changes necessary to create world-beating performance.

At the start of the game nobody knows who will win, but those who have worked harder in preparation will have a much better chance.

Leadership is not exclusive - Sporting Lessons

What can Leaders and Followers expect of each other?

A leader expects a follower:

1. To have the courage to deliver bad news.
2. To have innovative ideas.
3. To do the right thing and trust that it will be noticed (even if the initial impact on the team is negative).
4. To be willing to take the risk of lead initiatives – even when all of the outcomes or issues have not been clearly defined.
5. To take as much interest in their subordinate’s development as they do their own – training, goal setting, and HR reviews.
6. To seek perpetual education and development.
7. To respond positively to all types of business conditions.

A follower can expect a leader:

1. To provide clear direction;
a. Who are we (values)?
b. Where are we going (direction and strategy)?
c. How will we measure success (outcomes and goals)?
d. What do I need to do right now (immediate priorities)?
2. To give frequent, specific and timely feedback.
3. To be decisive and timely – not careless and impetuous, but clear and unambiguous.
4. To be accessible.
5. To demonstrate honesty and candor.
6. To offer a compensation plan that is fair and based on a clearly understood framework.

What can Leaders and Followers expect of each other?

Leadership Lessons from the Financial Services Market

We are now 12 months on from the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the downfall on some of the world's major financial institutions.

One of the emerging 'stories' of these failures is about how we manage and lead, or rather don’t manage and lead, our businesses in the 21st Century.

Today, there is far too much of a disconnect between those at the very top of our businesses and the rest. As Lehman's collapse seems to illustrate so well, there is a vacuum between top managers and the rest. If you look back at similar stories over the years (Sumitomo, Barings, Daiwa, Allied Irish, Bank of Montreal), you will find that subsequent investigations blamed the failures on bad management. Take away the world management and replace it with “leadership.”

What do we mean by a “failure of leadership?” Several things. First, look at today’s big business model and compare it with 40 or 50 years ago. In the 1960s and early 1970s most businesses were led by engineers, bankers and chemists. They all had one thing in common – they knew stuff! They had become leaders by accident. Employees worked for them because the boss knew what he was doing. Today, those in top management often have only the slightest idea of what their employees are up to. Now most of business is so complex that we rely on people with finely honed, niche skills. CEO's have been known to boast that their traders were, ‘so clever they create complex financial instruments that none of the top managers can understand.’

Second, is the culture, the climate, of the organisation. Société Générale’s Jerome Kerviel (who had an ability to run up a trading loss in excess of €5 billion) has made it clear in interviews that all he wanted to do was be a big success, make lots of money for his bosses and earn a big bonus. If that is the only culture there is, and if that is all he was judged by, then all the controls in the world will not stop it going wrong. When you have a culture based on profit and little else you are in trouble from day one.

Third, in Kerviel’s case (as in others), bosses quickly distanced themselves from him. There was not the merest hint of support. Then, as it became clear that others may have been involved – and even that there had been three suicides in recent years caused by apparent stress to succeed – the leadership moved further away. The message is clear, ‘we’re cutting you loose, we don’t want to even begin to understand your problems.’ By doing that they have de facto told the rest of the firm, we don’t want to understand anyone else’s problems either. They live in their bubble, disconnected from the rest.

So there are three elements at play here that add up to a failure of leadership. One, an inability to understand what your employees are doing, because of the complexity of the process or service; two the creation and reverence of a culture based on pure profit; third a total lack of leadership support for the people.

The question today is whether a solution exists for these huge, complex organisations. Is there a leadership model they can follow?

The answer is that what is needed is to reconnect senior managers with the people in the business. And this does not mean some HR initiative, no matter how well intentioned. What it means is a real connection that pierces the bubble, implodes the vacuum and puts the organisation together again. This is called leadership. But it MUST come from the leadership and be maintained by them day after day. Do not give this to Human Resources; this is not for them. We do not want people playing at this, we want real commitment. Take our three issues as examples.

One, senior management MUST spend real time with those that make the money, generate the ideas, meet the customers. The new power elite, the traders, IT engineers and biochemists have to be able to talk openly with those at the top. Smart companies of course have done this forever as part of their leadership culture.

Two, there is more to a business than profit at any price. These recent events show that this model is not only bad, it is very expensive too! Change the model, change the culture, be more profitable, long-term.

Three, take responsibility. Real leaders (at all levels) do not run away. In the complex world of big business, a blame culture is just as poisonous as a profit above anything culture. It does not have to be like that. Talk, support, take responsibility; that is real leadership and a lot of our big business needs it today.

And if they do not take this advice? Well, there will be another Lehmans or SocGen and another and another. But it does not have to be that way. If you have poor leadership and a culture based on profit, you will pay the price in the end. Far better a well-led, open culture where effective leadership is the only control you really need.

Leadership Lessons from the Financial Services Market

Heart-warming to know Sir Alex Ferguson sees the true value of defeat

This is an excellent article showing why Sir Alex Ferguson has such a record of success as the manager of Manchester United -

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1216387/Ian-Ridley-Heart-warming-know-Sir-Alex-Ferguson-sees-true-value-defeat.html?ITO=1490

Heart-warming to know Sir Alex Ferguson sees the true value of defeat

Are you a Leader or a Manager?

Find out whether you are a leader or a manager by answering these questions -

http://threebrainsynergy.com/leader-manager.htm

Are you a Leader or a Manager?

Leadership Best Practice

These are examples of best practice used by successful leaders. Some of these may already be in your toolkit, others you may have forgotten. Keep this list handy as a reminder of time tested solutions that will make you and your team shine.

1. Use the Power of the Pen.
Recognition is the number one motivator. A simple thank you note is more important than money to most people. Break out the fancy pen you got for your birthday and say thanks to the people who helped to get you there.

2. Understand the Importance of Emotions.
Feelings are a part of daily life and daily business. When people get hurt feelings they become poor performers, so make sure you deal with these issues sooner rather than later.

3. Great leaders have one thing in common - Passion!
If you're not turned-on about what you're doing your team won't be either, so show them that you're excited and watch them get fired up.

4. Communication is the most important thing in any business relationship.
If you don't use effective Business Communication Skills you're leaving money on the table and not getting the most out of your people. Don't be afraid to take a brush-up course and listen to hints from those who are in the positions you want. Chances are they got there because they're great communicators.

5. Do a Company Evaluation at least once a year.
Ask your team members to respond in writing to important questions like, "What do we need to change?" and "What do we need to keep doing more of?" This is your most powerful tool for a fifty thousand-foot view of your business.

6. Create a Company Mentoring Program.
Every person in and entering your company should have a mentor. A mentor's job is to help a new or junior staff member feel welcomed as well as to answer any questions. Having a mentor builds confidence and creates motivation to go above and beyond.

7. Make sure your teams are balanced with both Innovators and Implementers.
If everyone on a team is an Innovator, nothing will get done. Similarly, a team of only Implementers will create nothing new. Make sure you have a balanced team.

8. Remember that Customer Service Rocks.
The two most profitable customer service tips people use are; first, a full return/refund policy, which eliminates risk on the part of your client and encourages them to "step up to the plate". Second, never say "NO" to clients. This policy creates the opportunity for you and your client to find other ways to do business together, rather than you telling them you can't or don't provide a particular service or product.

9. Achieve goals by getting team member buy-in.
If your people have input into your goals they will put more energy into helping you achieve them. Ask them what they think and you'll get their dedication in return.

10. Implement a Knowledge Lunch.
Keep your team up to date by having a lunch meeting once a month where you discuss your business. You can even bring in vendors and external advisors to help keep your team connected and current.

11. Deal appropriately with Fear in the Workplace.
When team members are in fear for their livelihood, they do not perform at their highest level. Providing a forum to safely talk about these fears will go a long way toward helping achieve superior performance.

12. Don't just be a manager, be an Evangelist.
You need to believe in what you and your company are doing and to share the power of that belief with your team members. A good leader can't become great if they don't inspire faith in their company.

13. Pursue Failure.
Failure is not an ending, it is a stepping stone to the right answer. Stop beating yourself up for mistakes and see them as an opportunity to begin again with additional information, knowledge and experience.

14. Remember that the Fish Stinks from the Head Down.
That means that you are responsible for everything that goes right, and anything that goes wrong. Remembering that leadership is the most important component of your business, and that the buck stops with you will help you keep your "fish" fresh.

15. Having Fun Increases Productivity and Profit.
In companies where people have fun, the productivity and the profit are higher. The American Psychological Association has published surveys about this, and it¹s a fact. Take the example of Southwest Airlines - do you know that "a sense of humour" is on their job application?!

16. Beware of Invalidation.
The number one motivation killer is making a team member feel "less than". If you mistakenly say the wrong thing to someone, apologize immediately. You'll look like a responsible leader rather than an insensitive bully.

17. Learn to maintain your composure under pressure.
Thomas Jefferson said, "Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain cool and unruffled under all circumstances."

18. Join a Mastermind group.
To keep your skills sharp and get answers to difficult questions get into a group of non-competing peers. The greatest minds in business have used Mastermind Groups to help them excel in their chosen fields.

19. Learn to ask Powerful Questions.
The right question at the right time can eliminate major problems or help a team member find the best answer available.

20. Learn to Deal with Difficult People.
There are specific techniques to deal with different types of people. Learn how to tell avoidance from arrogance and denial from insecurity.

These tried and true twenty tips will help guide you to make the right decisions at the right times, for the right reasons. Leadership is an art form, and the best of the best use many of these proven techniques.

Leadership Best Practice

Learning from Failure

Failure is a great start. This may seem ridiculous to someone in the throes of a professional defeat, particularly if they’re used to succeeding. Yet at the heart of a loss is an opportunity, one that a leader doesn’t hesitate to seize. While it’s easy to get caught up in negativity, don’t dwell on what others may think of your defeat, and don’t pitch a tent in your own fear about it. Leadership means finding the blessing in the defeat. Your response to a failure, more so than any success, points the way to achieving your full potential as a leader. As Michael Dell (the founder and ceo of Dell Computer Corporation) says; 'at Dell, innovation is all about taking risks and learning from failure.'

•Reflect on a recent failure, loss, or defeat. How did you respond to it? Did you get caught up in the externals of it / did you try to sidestep it? Or did you find new possibilities in it?

•What shift in your own beliefs about inevitable professional loss or failure would allow you to see them as openings for a better future for yourself and your organisation?

Learning from Failure

The Top Five Managerial Fallacies Concerning Layoff Survivors

Today’s epidemic of layoffs requires managers to formulate strategies that will help their organisations recover from the ravages of downsizing and return to productivity and in order to do that, they need to reevaluate some misperceptions associated with downsizing.

Here are the top five layoff fallacies (according to author David Noer) along with critical managerial strategic responses:

1. Fallacy: There is a direct relationship between reducing “people costs” and organizational productivity. A layoff on a Friday will result in productivity gains on the following Monday.

Reality: The overwhelming consensus of downsizing research is that layoffs do not achieve their going in productivity goals. Survivors of most organisations are angry, depressed, anxious and fearful. They are not able or willing to take risks or focus on increasing customer service. At the very time organisations need them to be the most creative and energetic; they lie down in the trenches, absorbed in their own toxic survivor symptoms.

Strategic Response: Organisations need to move beyond layoff administration and planning into formulating strategies for layoff recovery. This involves re-recruiting demoralized employees and working to help them overcome debilitating survivor emotions.

2. Fallacy: Survivors will work hard because they will be grateful that they were lucky enough to keep their jobs.

Reality: Layoff survivors are not motivated by luck. In fact, evidence is clear that the opposite happens – they are demotivated by survivor guilt and its cousins: anxiety and depression.

Strategic Response: Managers need to examine and, if necessary, reframe their assumptions concerning survivor motivation. In order to return to productivity, survivors need coaching and empathy. Reminding layoff survivors that they should be grateful won’t motivate them; it will only make them feel deeper levels of survivor guilt.

3. Fallacy: Organisational leaders should not tolerate any whining and complaining.

Reality: Without the healthy externalisation of layoff induced anger, fear, and anxiety, employees will remain crippled by layoff survivor sickness. In fact, research shows their symptoms will get worse.

Strategic Response: Counter cultural though it may be, managers need to develop organisationally sanctioned processes that facilitate the venting of repressed feelings and emotions. Healthy venting is a necessary means to the end of moving employees back to productivity.

4. Fallacy: In tough times, the most effective managers “suck it up,” are tough minded, and don’t tolerate “touchy-feely” distractions.

Reality: “Sucking it up” is precisely the wrong strategy for dealing with downsising, change, and transition. It is a defense mechanism - a form of evasion that anchors behaviour in the past and prevents productive engagement and personal growth.

Strategic Response: Leadership in the post-layoff environment is a helping, not a controlling relationship, and requires reaching out, not closing down and hiding behind a facade of toughness and control. Organisations that have successfully helped employees rebound from the trauma of layoffs have required their managers to learn and apply basic helping skills.

5. Fallacy: Once things get back to normal, the epidemic of downsisings will stop and job security will return.

Reality: We are experiencing a fundamental shift in the psychological contract that connects employee to employer. When the economy becomes more positive, the frequency of mass layoffs will diminish, but long-term, lifetime employment with one organisation is a thing of the past.

Strategic Response: It is important that the wrong message not be communicated. Managers need to emphasize that employees will have to rely on maintaining transferable marketable skills and continually cultivate their professional network. That will provide the only true employment security in the brave new world of the new psychological employment contract.

Managers today are operating within a pandemic of layoffs. It is essential that they formulate strategies that help re-recruit organisational survivors. Confronting the fallacies concerning layoffs and formulating strategies to facilitate a return to organisational productivity and employee motivation will directly impact competitive advantage and sustainability.

The Top Five Managerial Fallacies Concerning Layoff Survivors

Leadership Development

Economic turmoil. Global competition. Shrinking markets and margins. Layoffs, increasing cynicism and mistrust.

These difficult times require exceptional leadership.

We understand the challenges leaders at all levels face in staying true to their personal convictions, acting swiftly in times of uncertainty, being accountable for the business - and all the while inspiring others to greatness.

Although traditional management skills and business competence get executives promoted, research indicates that being trustworthy, showing empathy and creating meaning are the characteristics that differentiate truly exceptional leaders.

It’s not an either-or proposition. These leaders integrate what appear to be paradoxical leadership characteristics of Competence and Connection:

• Business Aptitude and Trustworthiness
• Internal Attunement and External Attunement
• Clarity and Depth
• Responsibility and Empathy

These leaders also modify their behaviour to respond to the needs of their followers and the circumstances they encounter – while simultaneously remaining true to who they are. They don’t try to emulate celebrity CEOs or bosses they admire. They understand that leadership is a relationship with their followers.

Leadership Development

Are You Practicing Positive Leadership?

Over the past decade, scientists have explored the impact of positive-to-negative interaction ratios in our work and personal life. And they have found that this ratio can be used to predict — with remarkable accuracy — everything from workplace performance to divorce. This work began with noted psychologist John Gottman’s exploration of positive-to-negative ratios in marriages. Using a 5:1 ratio, which Gottman dubbed “the magic ratio,” he and his colleagues predicted whether 700 newlywed couples would stay together or divorce by scoring their positive and negative interactions in one 15-minute conversation between each husband and wife. Ten years later, the follow-up revealed that they had predicted divorce with 94% accuracy.

So what is the optimal positive-to-negative ratio in organisations? A recent study by psychologist Barbara Fredrickson and mathematician Marcial Losada found that work teams with a PNR greater than 3:1 were significantly more productive than workgroups that did not reach this ratio. Positive emotions, however, need to be grounded in reality: Their research also uncovered an upper limit for positive-to-negative ratios of 13:1. When workgroups exceed that PNR, things are likely to worsen; completely blind optimism can be counterproductive — and downright annoying — in some cases.

But managers shouldn’t worry about breaking the upper limit. The levels of positive emotions in most organisations are woefully inadequate and leave substantial room for improvement.

Leaders need to be very conscious of how their emotions and behaviour impacts their followers. As mentioned leaders need to actively manage the tension between “being positive” and the need to “face reality”. To manage this tension positive leaders remain engaged, but focus on the future they’re trying to create. Always accepting responsibility to be the difference they want to see in others.

How positive are your interactions? What’s your ratio? Have you consciously chosen to be positive?

Are You Practicing Positive Leadership?

Classic CEO 'Pitchmen'

Ever since former Chrysler Chairman Lee Iacocca appeared on US TV ads in the early 1980s, daring viewers to buy a better car if they could find it, there have been waves of corporate chiefs 'going Hollywood'. Here are a few classics with links to commercials:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-biz-classice-ceo-commercials,0,4010849.photogallery

Classic CEO 'Pitchmen'

Respect

“R-E-S-P-E-C-T….Find out what it means to me.” Aretha Franklin

If you were to take a look at 100 corporate value statements, you would most likely find the word “respect” on at least 90% of them. Respect usually ends up high on the list of those “what do employees value most” lists. Everyone wants and deserves a little respect at work, especially from their leaders.

So what does it mean to show respect as a leader?

R = Relationships. Do you have a transactional relationship with your employees? That is, you pay them X pounds, and they give you Y amount of work? Are they just another “human resource” to you? Or have you taken the time to cultivate a relationship, based on mutual respect and support?

E = Everyone counts, no matter who they are, at any level in the organization. Great leaders don’t selectively dole out respect, in a way that serves their own agendas. Want to judge the true character of a leader? Watch how they treat the cleaning people.

S = Support your employees. This means making sure they are paid fairly, are given the resources needed to do their jobs, barriers are removed, and sponsorship is obtained for their work. When they succeed, let everyone know. When they make a mistake, stand by them.

P = Please and thank-you. As a manager, you don’t have to ask your employees to do anything – you can simply order them. As a leader, if you treat them as if they do have a choice, they’ll end up exceeding your expectations. Saying thanks and showing sincere appreciation is another way to show respect. Most managers think they do a good job at this…. most employees think they don’t. Try doing it until it feels like overkill, and then you can pull back if people start complaining (it’s rarely happened).

E = Encourage every employee to grow and develop, in order to reach their full potential. Be a coach, a mentor, and a teacher. Set aside time on a regular basis for career and development discussions. Help your employees become more that they thought they could ever become. Better yet, help them become greater than yourself.

C = Care. That’s right, care about your employees. Care about their success at work, their families, their health, their goals, and their satisfaction. Here’s a test: do you know the names of your employee’s children? Do you give them a card on their birthday? What’s the first thing you do you do when an employee or family member becomes seriously ill? Ask how soon they can get back to work, because there are important project deadlines that can’t be missed? Or organize a delivery of flowers and food to their home?

T = Treat people how they want to be treated (the platinum rule), not how you want to be treated (the golden rule).

Respect