Posts

#Leadership : 6 Things Great Leaders Do Differently…Behavior can Change, & Leaders Who Work to Improve their Skills get Results.

/in /by

Great leadership can be a difficult thing to pin down and understand. You know a great leader when you’re working for one, but even they can have a hard time articulating what it is that makes their leadership so effective.

Free- Boat going Nowhere

 

It was recently rumored that Starbucks’ CEO Howard Schultz would run for president, but Schultz shut the idea down almost immediately. He wrote in an article:

“Despite the encouragement of others, I have no intention of entering the presidential fray. I’m not done serving at Starbucks.”

Schultz commitment to his company over the temptation of the limelight is interesting. What’s admirable is his desire to be a leader who serves.

Service isn’t just something Schulz gives lip service to in the press; his mission is to create a company where people are treated with respect and dignity, and he backs this rhetoric up with his money and time. Starbucks will spend $250 million over the next 10 years to put benefit-eligible employees through college, and Schultz wakes up every day at 4:00 a.m. to send motivational e-mails to his employees (the email he wrote recently asking employees to show empathy for customers who have been affected by the plummeting stock market is an interesting example of this).

It’s through a leader’s actions—what he or she does and says on a daily basis—that the essence of great leadership becomes apparent.

“Dream more than others think practical. Expect more than others think possible. Care more than others think wise.”   –Howard Schultz

Behavior can change, and leaders who work to improve their skills get results.

In Schultz’s case, he’s been honing his leadership craft for three decades through, among other things, the direct coaching and mentoring of leadership expert Warren Bennis at USC.

Not everyone can take on Warren Bennis as a mentor, of course, but when it comes down to it, improving your leadership skills is within your control. You just need to study what great leaders do and to incorporate these behaviors into your repertoire.

There are six critical things that great leaders do that really stand out. Any of us can do the same.

#1 – They’re kind without being weak

One of the toughest things for leaders to master is kindness. Kindness shares credit and offers enthusiastic praise for others’ work. It’s a balancing act, between being genuinely kind and not looking weak. The key to finding that balance is to recognize that true kindness is inherently strong—it’s direct and straightforward. Telling people the difficult truth they need to hear is much kinder than protecting them (or yourself) from a difficult conversation. This is weak.

True kindness also doesn’t come with expectations. Kindness is weak when you use it in a self-serving manner. Self-serving kindness is thin—people can see right through it when a kind leader has an agenda. Think of Schultz, who dedicated $250 million to employee education with no strings attached, and as soon as employees finish their degree, they are free to walk out the door. That’strue kindness.

 

Like this Article ?  Share It !    You now can easily enjoy/follow/share Today our Award Winning Articles/Blogs with Now Over 800K+ Growing  Participates Worldwide in our various Social Media formats below:

FSC LinkedIn Network: (Over 10K+ Members & Growing !)   www.linkedin.com/in/frankfsc/en

Facebook:   http://www.facebook.com/pages/First-Sun-Consulting-LLC-Outplacement-Services/213542315355343?sk=wall

educate/collaborate/network….Look forward to your Participation !

Continue of article:

#2 – They’re strong without being harsh

Strength is an important quality in a leader. People will wait to see if a leader is strong before they decide to follow his or her lead or not. People need courage in their leaders. They need someone who can make difficult decisions and watch over the good of the group. They need a leader who will stay the course when things get tough. People are far more likely to show strength themselves when their leader does the same.

A lot of leaders mistake domineering, controlling, and otherwise harsh behavior for strength. They think that taking control and pushing people around will somehow inspire a loyal following. Strength isn’t something you can force on people; it’s something you earn by demonstrating it time and again in the face of adversity. Only then will people trust that they should follow you.

We gravitate to confident leaders because confidence is contagious, and it helps us to believe that there are great things in store. The trick, as a leader, is to make certain your confidence doesn’t slip into arrogance and cockiness. Confidence is about passion and belief in your ability to make things happen, but when your confidence loses touch with reality, you begin to think you can do things you can’t and have done things you haven’t. Suddenly it’s all about you. This arrogance makes you lose credibility.

Great, confident leaders are still humble. They don’t allow their accomplishments and position of authority to make them feel that they’re better than anyone else. As such, they don’t hesitate to jump in and do the dirty work when needed, and they don’t ask their followers to do anything they aren’t willing to do themselves.

#4 – They stay positive, but remain realistic

Another major challenge that leaders face is finding the balance between keeping things positive and still being realistic. Think of a sailboat with three people aboard: a pessimist, an optimist, and a great leader. Everything is going smoothly until the wind suddenly sours. The pessimist throws his hands up and complains about the wind; the optimist sits back, saying that things will improve; but the great leaders says, “We can do this!” and he adjusts the sails and keeps the ship moving forward. The right combination of positivity and realism is what keeps things moving forward.

#5 – They’re role models, not preachers

Great leaders inspire trust and admiration through their actions, not just their words. Many leaders say that integrity is important to them, but great leaders walk their talk by demonstrating integrity every day. Harping on people all day long about the behavior you want to see has a tiny fraction of the impact you achieve by demonstrating that behavior yourself.

#6 – They’re willing to take a bullet for their people

The best leaders will do anything for their teams, and they have their people’s backs no matter what. They don’t try to shift blame, and they don’t avoid shame when they fail. They’re never afraid to say, “The buck stops here,” and they earn people’s trust by backing them up. Great leaders also make it clear that they welcome challenges, criticism, and viewpoints other than their own. They know that an environment where people are afraid to speak up, offer insights, and ask good questions is destined for failure.

Bringing It All Together

Great leadership is dynamic; it melds a variety of unique skills into an integrated whole. Incorporate the behaviors above into your repertoire, and you’ll see immediate improvement in your leadership skills.

What other behaviors define great leadership? Please share your thoughts on leadership in the comments section below as I learn just as much from you as you do from me.

Travis co-wrote the bestselling book Emotional Intelligence 2.0 and co-foundedTalentSmart, the world’s #1 provider of emotional intelligence tests and training, serving 75% of Fortune 500 Companies.

Forbes.com | January 13, 2016 | Travis Bradberry

#Leadership : The Change Habitat – 70% Percent Of Change Managers Are Wrong…Top Managers Should Lead Only One Big Change Program: The Creation of a Change Habitat. 70% of All Change Initiatives Fail

/in /by

 

There Seems to be a Veiled Arrogance in the Statement “70% of Change Initiatives Fail”. It basically says, “We know what workers should be doing, but most of them are either too stubborn or too ignorant to do it.” This know-it-all attitude to change programs has generated mountains of books and herds of change consultants advising top managers to create a sense of urgency, walk the talk,get employees involved, form a team of change champions, celebrate short-term wins, and communicate, communicate, communicate!

 

You’ve probably seen this statistic before. It has been repeated again and again by reputable sources such as Forbes, Harvard Business Review, IBM and McKinsey. And even though more than one expert has claimed that the statistic is wrong, it is a fact that change programs have a bad name among workers, and one of the biggest frustrations of top managers is that people resist all change.

But what if the change managers themselves are failing?

The problem lies in beliefs about who is responsible for launching change and how change is implemented.

– Gary Hamel

 

Like this Article ?…Share It !    You now can easily enjoy/follow/share Today our Award Winning Articles/Blogs with Now Over 300K+ Growing  Participates Worldwide in our various Social Media formats below:

FSC LinkedIn Network:   www.linkedin.com/in/frankfsc/en

  • Twitter: Follow us @ firstsunllc

educate/collaborate/network….Look forward to your Participation !

continue of article:

Your Business Is Like a City

I frequently claim that organizations are similar to cities. Instead of a geographical boundary, businesses have an economic boundary. But most of what people do in businesses–they way they collaborate and compete and they way they lead and follow–can be compared to how people manage themselves in cities.

 Have you ever seen a local TV station complain that 70% of citizens fail to watch their programs?  Would it bother you to know that 70% of business ideas fail to get paying customers? How would you rate a politician bemoaning the fact that 70% of voters fail to vote for him?

There seems to be a veiled arrogance in the statement “70% of change initiatives fail”. It basically says, “We know what workers should be doing, but most of them are either too stubborn or too ignorant to do it.” This know-it-all attitude to change programs has generated mountains of books and herds of change consultants advising top managers to create a sense of urgency, walk the talk,get employees involved, form a team of change champions, celebrate short-term wins, and communicate, communicate, communicate!

When you see the organization as a modern city, instead of a traditional army, change becomes a very different phenomenon. No marketer, politician, or entrepreneur would blame the public for 70% of ideas not catching on.  The people’s resistance to change is what others would call the manager’s failure to make a difference.

Fortunately, you can address this issue.

Create a Habitat of Change

What’s needed is a real-time, socially constructed approach to change, so that the leader’s job isn’t to design a change program but to build a change platform—one that allows anyone to initiate change, recruit confederates, suggest solutions, and launch experiments.”

– Gary Hamel

What Gary Hamel refers to as a change platform–which is a rather technical term–could better be called a change habitat.

Habitat /ˈhabɪtat/

The natural environment in which a species or group lives; the natural home of an organism; the environment one is accustomed to living in.

Managers should lead only one big change program: the creation of a change habitat.

A change habitat is an environment in which change is natural. It is the home for people who feel comfortable suggesting, introducing and implementing changes. It is an ever-changing environment that workers are accustomed to living in. Such a change habitat has at least five preconditions:

  • A higher purpose toward which people can self-manage;
  • The autonomy for workers to do what they believe is best;
  • Sufficient connectivity which enables sharing ideas in a network;
  • Ample transparency for everyone to know what is going on;
  • A feeling of safety that allows people to experiment and fail.

When you have these in place, there is little need to roll out change initiatives as a manager, to get people involved and to communicate, communicate, communicate. In all but a few cases, it is not even your job to create a sense of urgency or to celebrate short-term wins. The major of a city doesn’t do that, so why would you?

Your job as a manager is to create a habitat that is optimized for adaptation, exploration, and innovation.  Forming teams of champions for every change of direction is a waste of your time! Allow your creative workers to do this themselves. If you don’t think they’re smart enough, then why did you hire them in the first place?

Will you care that 70% of the change initiatives of your workers are going to fail? You shouldn’t. In fact, informal investors would tell you this statistic is a rather impressive number. They are used to 90% of their startups failing. The world of business has become too unpredictable to plan and roll out top-down change initiatives. Top-down change is too slow and too risky.  By offering your employees a change habitat, you let the crowd do its job for you. Maybe 70% of those changes will fail, but–by offering purpose, autonomy, connectivity, transparency and safety–it is you will likely succeed.

Forbes.com | September 22, 2015 | Jurgen Appelo

 

 

#Leadership : How To Make Your Company’s Culture of Innovation More Than Just A Nice Idea…In the #Workplace, Encouraging Creative Problem-solving is far easier in theory. By Taking the Needed Steps to Alleviate any Overpowering Fear of Failure, You can Steer your Team Onto the Right Path.

/in /by

Here’s what I Did to Turn our Office Culture Around & Encourage Employees to Share their Ideas Without Worrying about Rejection. – Manpreet Singh, Founder and President of TalkLocal

Develop an Effective Knowledge Transfer System

As a startup founder & investor, it’s not enough for me to merely value innovation and creativity: I must also manage the hazards associated with new ideas. After all, employees who routinely bring novel ideas to their colleagues are likely to experience more rejection, failure and even embarrassment than others in their career. The question is, how do you encourage your team TISI NaN% to innovate despite the risks?

Ultimately, I’ve learned that my personal values alone can’t create a robust culture of innovation. For example, at my company, a social media editor recently started noticing a persistently dismissive attitude coming from certain quarters regarding her collaborative projects. In one extreme case, she was mortified when a project (a stylized promotional video) was scrapped over what boiled down to the employee’s editing choices. Team members lambasted the video, getting it pulled without offering constructive criticism beforehand.

Imagine if that were our response to every lost sales lead or dip in quarterly performance: it would be both paralyzing and counter-productive.

In the workplace, encouraging creative problem-solving is far easier in theory. By taking the needed steps to alleviate any overpowering fear of failure, you can steer your team onto the right path. Here’s what I did to turn our office culture around and encourage employees to share their ideas without worrying about rejection.

Lead by Consensus: Put Feedback on the Meeting Agenda

My team used to email one another to get feedback. Besides being inefficient, emails offered an easy out for those who preferred to avoid confrontations. Ironically, this silence only increases the risk of failure and can still hurt feelings. To nip this communication method in the bud, we’ve placed all projects on the weekly meeting agenda to mandate those uncomfortable conversations. There are now face-to-face discussions about each project, which makes the office a safe space for critical engagement with one another. This in turn also produces shared clarity on project design and purpose while generating ideas for improvement and greater results. And with more engagement comes more shared responsibility for both successes and failures.

 

Like this Article ?…Share It !    You now can easily enjoy/follow/share Today our Award Winning Articles/Blogs with Now Over 300K+ Growing  Participates Worldwide in our various Social Media formats below:

FSC LinkedIn Network:   www.linkedin.com/in/frankfsc/en

  • Twitter: Follow us @ firstsunllc

educate/collaborate/network….Look forward to your Participation !

continue of article:

Have the Last Word

Another barrier to direct critical feedback among team members was my own presence. I’m less risk-averse than most, yet my very vocal feedback made some team members too reliant upon me to catch every possible pitfall. Given my position and involvement, it was easy for team members to bring their concerns to management rather than have that possibly awkward dialogue with the project leads themselves. Now, my silence during meetings opens the door for the voices of other team members. Of course, I maintain the last word at every step of the process, but the emphasis is on last – and that makes all of the difference.

Make the Non-Starter a Conversation Starter

Most off-the-wall ideas never get implemented, so giving a constructive response to unviable suggestions early on can help your team members come up with more effective plans in the future (as opposed to shutting down their creative thinking). It’s critical that everyone has an evolving understanding of company goals, priorities and resources. At TalkLocal, we now deliver more frequent and detailed reports on our analytics, resource allocation, and where improvement is most needed. As a result, team members feel more empowered to offer informed feedback, and rather than falling silent, they are ushered towards a new way of critical thinking that allows them to produce more sophisticated and viable ideas over time.

Highlight the Anonymous Idea Box

As employees grew more seasoned, I saw fewer of those enthusiastic but naive suggestions, which was a problem in and of itself. In order to encourage new employees to not fall into a similar trap, we decided to dust off our suggestion box and encourage the team to bring up and discuss any anonymously submitted ideas. Through this process, we’re bringing new employees into our growing culture of innovation, while still helping them shape their thinking as they grow with the company.

Today, our social media editor remains creative, recently reducing our e-marketing costs while increasing click rates through better targeting, proving that one success is worth a dozen failures. Furthermore, not a day goes by that a team member doesn’t propose a way to change the company for the better — which makes us better regardless of whether the idea is implemented or not. As the inherent value of an innovation-powered workplace continues to energize and inspire our team, I’m confident that our tangible value will continue to grow as well.

Manpreet Singh is Founder and President of TalkLocal, a home services marketplace that turns online service requests into a live conversation with the right available business in minutes.

 

Forbes.com | August 7, 2015 |  Young Entrepreneur Council