Leadership

Leadership

Are you Feared or Respected as a Leader?

CEOs; are you feared or respected?  How do you tell if your employees respect you or fear you?

A Team of Yes-men: Feared CEOs either surround themselves with like-minded people, or train people to share their views in a vacuum. Either way they lose…Great CEOs value the opinions of their team whether or not said views happen to be in concurrence with their own beliefs. 

Lack of Interaction: Along the lines of number one above, if executives, management, and staff don’t proactively seek your advice and input then you have a respect problem. They either don’t value your contributions, or they know from experience that you’ll treat their inquiry in a belittling fashion. Over time, many fear-based CEOs unknowingly train their team to think: “Why even try if there is no upside? The boss will never go for that.”

Lack of Feedback: If as a CEO you don’t subject yourself to a 360 review process, then you are not earnestly looking for personal growth and development opportunities. Let’s say that you do utilise a 360 review…if all the responses are positive it is much more likely because you are feared and are thus the recipient of insincere flattery than because you are perfect.

Revolving Door: If you either can’t attract or retain tier-one talent, you are not an effective leader who has earned the respect and loyalty of your team…In fact, upon closer examination you’ll find that you probably don’t have a team. Sad but true…real talent won’t be attracted to, or remain engaged with leaders who operate on fear-based tactics.

Poor Performance:  CEOs who have the respect of their team will outperform those that don’t. CEOs who attempt to use command and control tactics without the necessary underpinnings of real leadership principles will simply not do well. If your organisation is not thriving and growing, then the first thing that should occur is a long look in the mirror…Begin your triage by first evaluating your leadership qualities or the lack thereof.

Ask yourself the following question: If your employees held an election today, would you be re-elected as CEO by a landslide, or would you be voted out? Bottom line…what is rightfully earned and freely given (respect) will always outlast what is imprudently acquired for the wrong reasons (the bully tactics of fear-based control).

Are you Feared or Respected as a Leader?

Do Leaders in Your Organisation have the Skills to Lead Change?

The 2010 edition of the Ashridge Management Index: Meeting the Challenges of the 21st Century indicates that whilst most managers (71%) describe a positive leadership environment within their organisations, only 41% of those surveyed believe leaders in their organisation are developed to lead change well, and just over half state that they feel leaders in their organisation have the necessary skills to lead change.

The report also highlights that 83% of respondents are managing or working in cross-functional and virtual teams. This shift in the way that teams are put together is becoming more commonplace. Although, fewer than half of those surveyed felt that their organisation provides sufficient support for virtual working. For those working in the public sector this figure is just 33%.

Additionally, just over half of those surveyed say that top leaders in their organisation do not spend sufficient time communicating with staff. In spite of the fact that business is aware of the importance of communication, this figure has not changed since 2004.

Do Leaders in Your Organisation have the Skills to Lead Change?

Control the Controllables

Do you ever feel like events in your life have drifted out of control? 

Some days, it's easy to feel that way. No matter how diligently you set goals, visualise results, and affirm a positive outcome, every once in a while your life is going to feel as if it's gone a little crazy. Carefully laid plans go up in smoke - sometimes quite literally. People you counted on, bail out on you. A health or family crisis strikes. An earthquake or volcano puts you back to square one. Suddenly you feel as if you're completely off course, out of control, and lost at sea. 

At times like this, there are a few things it may help you to remember. First of all, no one can control every aspect of his or her life, and adversity comes to all of us, no matter how moral we are, and no matter how good our attitude is. Bad things happen to good people all the time.  

Second, it's important to realise that there is one and only one thing in life that is completely within your power to control, and that is your response to what happens to you. 

When you find yourself overcome with feelings of fear, helplessness, doom and gloom, you can put the brakes on these feelings by gently but firmly choosing to shift the focus of the thoughts that are running through your mind.

Your feelings are a direct result of the thoughts you think, and setting aside some time every morning and evening for positive visualisation, affirmation, or guided meditation is a highly effective way of getting these thoughts back under your control again. Try it. 

Control the Controllables

Values Based Leadership

Steve Newberry, CEO of Lam Research Corporation, gives a keynote presentation based on his model of leadership. Newberry is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and the Harvard Graduate School of Business. He has more than 25 years of management and leadership experience in the high-tech industry. 

Values Based Leadership

What Is Your Leadership Brand?

A leadership brand tells people what is distinctive about you as a leader and communicates what you have to offer.

Summarising your brand in a statement is a useful and often enlightening task.

First, answer two important questions:

1. What do you want to be known for?
2. What results do you want to achieve in the next 12 months?

Take these two answers and put them into the following statement: I want to be known for ______ so that I can deliver ______.

Once you have your statement, be sure that you are living up to it. Ask others for input on whether you are achieving your goals and whether they see your leadership brand in the same way you do.

For more, see - http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2010/03/define_your_personal_leadershi.html?cm_mmc=npv-_-MANAGEMENT_TIP-_-MAY_2010-_-MTOD0524&referral=00203

What Is Your Leadership Brand?

A Winner's Philosophy

Dave Brailsford is British Cycling's performance director and the general manager of Team Sky.

His presiding philosophy is that a sports practitioner simply needs to be the best they can be and then everything else will follow.

"You can't do better than your best," he says. "So what we have to do is ensure that every single rider performs at the absolute best of their ability. If that ability is going to be good enough then fantastic, but if it is not, it's not."

"I think people always see the reasons why they can't win," he says. "I have always been someone who thinks why can't I? I think 'why can't I' has been my sort of guiding philosophy.

For more, see - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/cycling/7734030/Dave-Brailsford-leads-Team-Skys-search-for-a-British-winner-in-the-Tour-de-France.html

A Winner's Philosophy

Excellence Under Pressure

Excellence Under Pressure is one of the values of Positive Leadership.

This means:

• UNDER PRESSURE, WE HAVE MORE TIME THAN WE FEEL WE HAVE – USE IT AS A CATALYST FOR ACTION RATHER THAN A CATALYST FOR PANIC
• HOPING FOR THE BEST OR RELYING ON LUCK INDUCES STRESS – MANAGE IT BY ADEQUATE PLANNING
• PREPARE AND PRACTICE -  REDUCE RISK BY CONTROLLING AND MASTERING AS MANY VARIABLES AS POSSIBLE
• STICK TO WHAT WORKS – CRITICAL SITUATIONS ARE NOT TIMES TO TRY OUT NEW TECHNIQUES AND TACTICS
• RESIST THE TEMPTATION TO RETREAT – REVIEW TACTICS, STICK TO THE BASICS, REVERT TO TRIED AND TESTED PLAN B OR C
• YOU CAN ONLY DO YOUR BEST – MAKE SURE YOU DO

Excellence Under Pressure

Summer Reading

Here are some books worth reading this summer:

On leadership:

• Reorganize for Resilience: Putting Customers at the Center of Your Business by Ranjay Gulati – organizing for customer-focus, based on 600 in-person interviews
• Love Leadership: The New Way to Lead in a Fear-Based World by John Hope Bryant – straight talk from founder of Operation Hope, leader on financial literacy for everyone

Personal Development:

The books below are to enhance your development as a leader and a human being.

• Ethics for the New Millennium by the Dalai Lama – brilliant insights into the nature of humanity and how society should develop
• Emotional Intelligence: 10th Anniversary Edition; Why It Can Matter More Than IQ by Daniel Goleman – developing your EQ, not just your IQ
• On Becoming a Leader by Warren Bennis – classic book  on leadership by the world’s best leadership scholar
• Five Minds for the Future by Howard Gardner – on the developing of our minds, tailored to our unique ways of approaching life
• The Sermon on the Mount: The Key to Success in Life by Emmet Fox – the spiritual classic on the greatest sermon ever delivered – and the most relevant to our 21^st century lives
• The MBA Oath: Setting a Higher Standard for Business Leaders by Max Anderson and Peter Escher – about the need for business leaders to have a professional oath comparable to medical doctors and lawyers.

Summer Reading

Character

Character is one of the values of Positive Leadership.

This means:

• CHARACTER MAKES TRUST POSSIBLE - TRUST MAKES LEADERSHIP POSSIBLE
• LIVING AND LEADING BY THE RULES
• THE INTEGRAL STRENGTH THAT ENABLES THE RIGHT THING TO BE DONE, REGARDLESS OF ADVERSITY
• WORK TO BECOME WORTH FOLLOWING

Character

Visualisation Techniques

How do athletes, and others who take performance very seriously, bring out the best in themselves?

Athletes began to use leading-edge techniques like mental rehearsal and focused concentration years before the general public had even heard of them. In the early days, we weren't sure then how these techniques worked, but we knew they did. Jack Nicklaus, for example, said that he would "watch a movie" in his head before each shot.

These days, thanks to many researchers, we know more. Researchers at the University of Texas monitored people's brain activities as they performed various body movements and also as they imagined performing the movements. They found that the actual physical movement consistently involved the interaction of several specific areas of the brain. Imagining the movement activated those same areas of the brain. In other words, mental rehearsal of an action puts the mind through a neural workout that is very much like the real thing. 

So whether you're trying to break your own personal best record in a sport or sell a new car to an ambivalent customer, mental rehearsal, or visualisation, can help you prepare for peak performance by walking you through successful strategies and potential pitfalls.  

Visualisation Techniques

Hard Work

Hard Work is one of the values of Positive Leadership.

This means:

• THERE IS NO SUBSTITUTE FOR WORK – IT IS THE PRICE OF SUCCESS
• MUCH CAN BE DONE IF WE ARE ALWAYS WORKING
• EFFECTIVE LEADERS PAY MORE ATTENTION TO PRODUCTION THAN PROMOTION – THEY GET THINGS DONE

Hard Work

Visualising the Finish Line

Visualisation techniques can help you become a better manager of your time.

Sometimes, the hardest part of a job is getting started. You've made your list of things to do. You are very clear about which tasks are "High Priority" and which are not. You know what job to do first, but somehow, you just never get started. You may divert yourself by starting less important tasks, or you may simply procrastinate until you've put so much pressure on yourself you "have to" begin. And with that much pressure on, the chances are you won't do your best work.

Next time you find yourself in this kind of a situation, try using visualisation to help you out. Visualise yourself completing the task. Vividly picture in your mind how good it will feel, what your rewards will be, how smoothly and confidently you will see the job through to the end.

Feel the satisfaction of a job well done. Feel the efficacy and sense of competency you will be generating in yourself. See exactly what it will look and feel like when the task is completed. Do this with your full concentration over and over. You will find it useful, and once started, a project tends to develop its own momentum.

You'll move forward much more quickly if you visualise the end-result before you start. Try it. Take charge of your time and your energy and enjoy the rewards that you'll earn. 

Visualising the Finish Line

Confidence & Poise

Confidence and Poise are values of Positive Leadership.


This means:

• CONFIDENT LEADERS ACCEPT WHERE THEY’RE AT, BUT THEY’RE NOT SATISFIED IN STAYING THERE – THEY ARE SECURE ENOUGH TO KEEP GROWING
• RECOGNISING YOUR OWN STRENGTHS AND LIMITATIONS ALLOWS THE DESIGN OF STRONG TEAMS WHO CAN COMPLEMENT YOUR OWN ABILITIES
• LEADERS WITH CONFIDENCE ACCEPT THE RESPONSIBILITY OF BEING A LEADER
• LEADERS PROJECT POISE AND UNSHAKEABLE CONFIDENCE EVEN WHEN NOT SUPPORTED BY OTHERS
• LEADERS READILY SHARE CREDIT AND GIVE OPPORTUNITIES FOR VISIBILITY TO OTHERS

Confidence & Poise

Philosophy of Life

Do you have a philosophy of life, for yourself? Could you describe your philosophy to someone else, in 25 words or less? 

We were talking with a group of business leaders recently, and we asked the group to raise their hands, if they had a philosophy of life. Everybody raised their hands. Then we asked them if they could write it down in 25 words or less. Only two hands went up. Surprised? We were not.

You see, while each of us probably does have a core philosophy to live by, very few of us could describe it to another person. We don't take the time to write it down. Words, whether on paper or in an electronic file, put substance to our beliefs. The words provide a touchstone that we can go back to, when life presents us with difficulties.

Our behaviour, every day, is a reflection of our beliefs. It is the way human beings are built. No matter what we might say, it is our actions that reflect our core beliefs, our philosophy of living. Everything that we do flows from this philosophy. If it doesn't, that is where stress and anxiety can be found.

Now you may ask, "If I write down my philosophy, what happens if things change, if I change? Do I doggedly follow my 'philosophy'?" That's the beauty of writing things down - the words can be crossed out, erased, and re-written! We are all going to change over time, as we learn the lessons that living teaches us.

So, we will ask this again: Do you have a philosophy of life? Can you describe it in 25 words or less? This weekend, we challenge you to find some quiet time for yourself, and to create your own philosophy - and write it down. 

Philosophy of Life

Judgement

Judgement is one of the values of Positive Leadership.


This means:

• DECISION MAKING IS PART SCIENCE, PART ART.  JUDGEMENT DETERMINES THE RATIO
• ADAPTING YOUR DECISION MAKING APPROACH TO SUIT THE TIME AVAILABLE AND THE CRITICALITY OF THE DECISION
• STAKEHOLDER SENSITIVITY = TAKING INTO ACCOUNT THE IMPACT OF DECISIONS ON STAKEHOLDERS AND ACTING ACCORDINGLY
• STAYING TUNED TO THE RISKS LINKED TO DECISIONS -  ALLOWING FOR MID-COURSE CORRECTIONS

Judgement

A Leader's Values Are Always 'On The Clock'

 

Andy Murray is the Worldwide CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi X and an industry pioneer in the new advertising discipline of shopper marketing. 

You're Always on the Clock from The Soderquist Center on Vimeo.

A Leader's Values Are Always 'On The Clock'

How to Develop Creative Leadership in Your Business

IBM has just released its 2010 Global CEO Study, based on face-to-face interviews conducted with over 1,500 CEOs spanning 60 countries and 33 industries.

Here are some key points from the study:

• Even if the recession is over, 79% CEOs expect the business environment to become even more complex in coming years.
• More than half of CEOs doubt their ability to manage this escalating complexity.
• Western CEOs anticipate economic power to rapidly shift to developing markets, and foresee heavier regulation ahead.
• A majority of CEOs cite creativity as the most important leadership quality required to cope with growing complexity.Creativity in this context is about creative leadership — i.e., the ability to shed long-held beliefs and come up with original and at times radical concepts and execution. And this requires bold, breakthrough thinking. We believe, however, that this isn't about having a lone creative leader at the top but rather about creating a "field" of creative leadership, by igniting the collective creativity of the organisation from the bottom up. In essence, creative leaders excel at creating creative leaders. 

The report identifies a group of standout organisations which delivered solid business results even during the recent downturn. Their revenue growth was six times higher than the rest of the sample and they plan to get 20% of revenues from new sources in the near future.

How do these firms succeed? These top performers focus on developing creative leaders across their organisations, deepening partnerships with employees and customers and achieving operational agility. Creative leaders in these firms are more prepared and willing to make deeper business model changes to realise their strategies. To win, they take more calculated risks and keep innovating in how they lead and communicate. They are ready to upset the status quo even if it is successful and are committed to ongoing experimentation with disruptive business solutions.

Here are some questions we believe you should address if you wish to develop creative leaders who can help your organisation cope with increasing complexity:

• What cultural, political, organisational and technological barriers should your organisation overcome if it has to develop a cadre of creative leaders?
• What structures, reward systems, processes, metrics and goals do you have in place to support creative leaders?
• How do you encourage risk taking and learning from failure? How do you measure it?
• Do you simply adopt best practices learned from industry leaders or do you shape "next practices" that will make your organisation the leader in the future?
• How effective are you in partnering with customers, suppliers, employees and even your competition to improvise "good enough" solutions?

How to Develop Creative Leadership in Your Business

The Physiology Of Leadership

In his book, The Talent Code: Greatness Isn't Born. It's Grown. Here's How. author Daniel Coyle looks at three basic elements of the development of talent: "ignition," which basically means motivation, "deep practice" and "master coaching." 

Each is valuable on its own, but their convergence is the key to developing skill. For each he offers practical real-life examples. For example, for deep practice, he writes about how Brazil emerged as a world hotbed for football even though until the 1950s it was nowhere on the world football map. He credits deep practice as developed by Brazilian youth when they indulged in a sport called "futsal"--football in a room, played with a ball half the size but twice the weight of an ordinary soccer ball. Futsal gave Brazilians deep practice and increased myelin effects to directly strengthen their skills on the football field.

Deep practice is a conscious activity, involving a cycle of distinct actions. Ignition is a hot, mysterious burst of passion, an awakening, and it is indispensible for firing up a person's motivation. Master coaching means guidance and feedback from a disciplined, committed coach. The development of great skill relies on the help of teachers who have the ability to nurture talent.

This book shows exactly how you can develop the skills of an expert.

The Physiology Of Leadership

The Importance of Positive Emotions

Dr. Barbara Fredrickson, Kenan Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, discusses her new book, Positivity: Groundbreaking Research Reveals How to Embrace the Hidden Strength of Positive Emotions, Overcome Negativity, and Thrive in this video:

The Importance of Positive Emotions

A Recipe for Greatness

In order to become great at any profession, whether it is being a nurse, professional athlete or corporate leader, it is critical to have a philosophy that guides your actions and behaviour.  Without such a philosophy, you will easily become distracted by the multitude of various avenues open to you each and every day.  You will lose focus of your goals and aspirations and, unfortunately, experience the frustration of having tried to follow several paths half-heartedly instead of one with a single purpose.  But it does not have to be this way at all.  We each choose every day what principles and postulates we will use as the guiding paths for our life.  

The main point is to decide what your philosophy of greatness is and do everything you can to adhere to this philosophy on a daily basis. 

Many of the building blocks below come from quotes and ideas included in the books of great athletic coaches.  These ideas have been grouped together based on the theme they represent.  The first three components below compromise a general attitude or view you must have in order to become great.  These all-encompassing principles permeate the remaining nine categories on achieving greatness.

  

General Attitude

Personal Action  The single most important component of becoming great is making yourself become great.  If you want something bad enough, you will achieve it.  If you do not achieve it, you will die trying, you will achieve something equally as satisfying, or you will realise you did not want it that bad.  Remember that "you are the maker of your own fortune." 

The Dream  Once you believe you can control your future, you then get to decide what the future will be.  Some might argue that the first categories should be reversed because you must have a dream before you can act on it.  However, if the first two are reversed, the dream of your future is the driving force.  While the dream is vital to becoming great, it cannot come before the person because then, by definition, you do not have ultimate control of your future, the dream does.  

Personal Responsibility  Personal responsibility goes hand in hand with personal action.  If you control your own future, then you are responsible for your future.  This is true whether your future turns out great, or turns out poorly. To conceptualise these first three categories and how they work together, think of it this way: you control your future (personal action); you get to decide what that future is (the dream) and you are responsible for how that future turns out (personal responsibility).

Attributes of Great Athletes   

#1  Enjoy Living  

In order to become great, you have to enjoy becoming great.  This means that you wake up every day and look forward to making yourself better that day.  However, this is easier said than done, especially when many of the experiences along the way may not be fun.  But if you can enjoy the learning that occurred in these experiences and be satisfied that you made it through an experience many others could not, you will enjoy yourself much more.  Like the song says, "Don't worry- be happy".  

#2  Leadership 

In order to become great or help others become great, you have to act great.  It is not enough to think great.  If you are not going to act as you think, you cannot expect to achieve what you want to achieve.  Also, you cannot expect others you lead (students, athletes, employees, etc.) to act great if you do not act great.  

#3  Teamwork 

People can't become great by themselves.  Sure, you must do most of the work and take personal responsibility for making yourself great, but no one has become great in isolation.  Teammates, coaches, a spouse, friends and/or family have helped in some way to make you great.  

#4  Commitment 

As stated earlier, it is not going to be easy to become great.  You must be willing to put forth much time and effort.  After all, if it were easy everyone would do it.  Continually strive to become better and better at what you are doing and learn as you proceed.  

#5  Learning 

You must find out what works for you and what does not.  If you strive to learn as much as you can every day, it is impossible not to become better.  And if you become better and better each day, you will eventually become great.  

#6  Decision-Making 

To become great, you must make great decisions.   However, all of your decisions will not be great.  Thus, you must have the foresight to know when you have made a bad decision and change it as soon as possible.  The main point is to think before you act.  

#7  Preparation 

Preparation is doing all the little things that separate becoming good from becoming great.  This includes some of the characteristics listed earlier such as learning and commitment.  Without preparing yourself to become great, you are destined to remain average.  

#8  Respect

To become great, you often have to work with, through or around others who are a part of your path to becoming great.  In doing so, you must respect their rights and treat them as you would want to be treated.  You must also respect yourself and stand up for your rights when that time arises.  If you and someone else are both going after the same dream, and if you believe there can only be one winner, enjoy the challenge the opposition brings.  Respect your opponents, but do not fear them. 

#9  Risk 

At some point in your journey to become great, you will face risk.  When this occurs, do not back down.  Do not take a stupid risk or take a risk every time.  But if you never take a risk, you will always wonder "what if", and this is a very frustrating way to go through life.  If you truly believe that you are the maker of your own fortune, then taking a calculated risk is the only possible solution.  

Summary

While these points are only a sample "recipe for greatness," they should serve as a solid basis for formulating your own recipe.  It will take much time and dedication for you to complete your own, but it will be a worthwhile experience.  It will not only help you learn more about yourself and your beliefs, it will provide concrete evidence to serve as a guide for your colleagues and team mates.  Good luck in your quest for greatness!

A Recipe for Greatness

The Importance of Positive Energy

When business legend Jack Welch says that great leaders have lots of positive energy and Pete Carroll, former coach of USC football credits positive energy as a key ingredient to winning two national championships, people listen, take notice and start asking questions. What is positive energy? How do I develop it as a leader? How can I infuse my team with it?

In order to build a positive company, then, it is essential that there is not only a positive leader but a positive leadership executive team who believes in nurturing and developing a culture of positive energy. 

If you have positive energy trickling up the organisation but your leaders and managers are causing negativity to flow down, the positive energy gets surrounded like the sun on a dark, cloudy day, creating a negative culture. With this in mind, it is important to ‘nurture the root’. Leaders who run successful, positive companies know that when you take care of the root of the tree you will always be pleased with the fruit it supplies. If you ignore the root, eventually the tree will dry up and so will the fruit. 

To fuel your business and generate growth with positive energy and ingrain it in everything you do here are a few best practices and strategies that will get you and your team moving in the right direction:

·        Hire Positive People and Enhance Communication

·        Fill the Void with Positive Energy - constantly and systematically 

·        Eliminate Energy Vampires

·        Drive with a Shared Vision and Purpose. (Vision helps everyone in the organisation see the road ahead and focus on the goals that will lead to their destination while purpose inspires them to work longer, harder and more passionately.)

The Importance of Positive Energy

Purpose

Purpose is one of the values of Positive Leadership.

This means:

• UNDERSTANDING WHY WE DO WHAT WE DO
• UNDERSTANDING WHY A BUSINESS MATTERS TO ITS EMPLOYEES
• LEADERS NEEDING TO BE WHAT THEY WANT TO SEE.

Purpose

Honourable Compromise

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani talks about 'honourable' compromise - the governing style that makes bipartisanship possible for 'people of principle':

Honourable Compromise