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#CareerAdvice : #SuccessfulLeaders -7 Warning Signs that Your #Career is Stalling…What Got you Here won’t Get you There. After you’ve Achieved #Success , it’s Common to Stagnate. Look Out for These Signs & Turn Things Around.

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It’s not unusual to see a leader turn a company around and bring it to success, only to fail at the next challenge. Some call it the sophomore slump, but it’s really a case of, “What got you here won’t get you there,” says John Hillen, coauthor of What Happens Now? Reinvent Yourself as a Leader Before Your Business Outruns You.

“Leaders are often victims of their own success,” says Hillen. “They wanted the change; they put the business plan in place. Then they themselves don’t make parallel plans to change with the organization. That’s why leaders often stall on the other side.”

What it takes to become a successful leader is not what you need to remain a leader. Playing at the higher level requires different skills, capabilities, mind-sets, behaviors, and attitudes. “Most leaders get it intellectually,” says Hillen, executive in residence and professor of practice in the School of Business at George Mason University. “Unfortunately, what they often do is focus energy on tinkering with the organization instead of reinventing themselves.”

Only a small percentage of organizations make deliberate plans to grow their executives alongside their business. As a result, leaders need to take it upon themselves to adapt to the new playing field, or they’re at risk of hitting one of seven career stalls, says Hillen.

1. YOU HAVEN’T RE-ESTABLISHED YOUR PURPOSE

Leaders often fail to establish new purpose and direction once they succeed. “When things change and new people are coming on board, purpose and direction must be modified,” says Hillen. “Leaders often struggle to tell a coherent narrative, and people start making decisions at odds with culture or value.”

A warning sign that you’re hitting the purpose stall is when you think you need to hire an outsider to get to the next level. Break through by holding a story-creation session with people from all levels of the organization, suggests Hillen.

“Ask, ‘What are we about here?’” he says. “Engage teams to rearticulate values and purpose that will be easy to communicate to the ranks and out to multiple stakeholders.”

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2. YOUR TEAM ISN’T WORKING TOGETHER ON GOALS

After a success, team members can start acting like freelancers, concerned with their own departments and not agreeing on priorities or strategies, says Hillen.

“The single most critical success factor for high-performing teams is having a shared understanding of why the team exists, what it is trying to accomplish, and how it will work together,” he says.

Work through this career stall by holding frequent meetings or off-sites to ensure team alignment, suggests Hillen. “Create team ‘rules of engagement’ and require team members to hold each other (and you) accountable to them,” he says. “Be explicit about the culture that ties the team together.”

3. YOU AREN’T TALKING TO THE RIGHT PEOPLE

Working at a new level can cause leaders to not make good use of their time. If you feel frustrated that people aren’t following your orders, or if you’re too busy to talk to stakeholders, you’re career’s in danger.

Push through by creating a stakeholder management plan, Hillen suggests. “Who will you put on your calendar regularly?” he asks. “What kinds of conversations should you be having with them?” Concentrate on developing a strategic network, allocating time for people who control your future.

4. YOU CAN’T ARTICULATE YOUR VISION AND MOTIVATE PEOPLE

If you can’t seem to energize employees to own the strategy or spring into action to tackle a new initiative, you’re at risk of another career stall. Instead of blaming others for their inability to “get” it, reassess your communication skills and think of yourself as the “chief explaining officer,” says Hillen.

“Whenever possible, make communication two-way; achieve true communication, not mere transmission,” he says. Communicate more than you believe is necessary to ensure sufficient understanding, and change your style of communication to reach different people.

5. YOUR AUTHORITY IS WANING

Once you’ve achieved success, you need to keep performing at a high level to maintain your team’s respect. If you give people direction but they don’t follow through, or you start getting passed over for promotion, you may have hit a career stall.

“Shift your actions and behaviors to come across to followers in a more authentically and emotionally,” he says. “Empathy works, and builds character.”

Accept a position on the board of a nonprofit, for example, take a community leadership role, or be more involved in your industry, Hillen suggests.

6. YOU FEEL EXHAUSTED AND OVERWHELMED

Once you’re operating at a new level, it can be easy to lose sight of your focus. The danger signs of a career stall here are feeling exhausted and overwhelmed, and less energetic and passionate about what you’re doing and its impact, says Hillen.

Decide which tasks to do, which to delegate, and which to drop. “Allocate your time as if you’re going to ‘make history,’” he says. “Enforce, with the help of an accountability partner, rational percentages of time on your calendar to the leadership work that matters most.”

7. YOU’VE ABANDONED LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT

A successful leader’s job is to be a leader of leaders, says Hillen. If you’re unsure of your current leadership team and are starting to no longer trust their capabilities, you could be about to hit a career stall.

“Take command of shaping your organization’s leadership-development programs and play a meaningful role in leading them,” he says. “Commit to becoming a coach as well as a boss, and dedicate discrete time for both.”

While every stall is different, every leader will stall at some point, says Hillen. “They might not hit all of them and not all at once,” he says. “When you’re in a meeting where you are the decision maker, but everybody else has more information at hand, you’re at risk. It should be an epiphany that it’s you and your behavior that needs to be changed.”

 

 

FastCompany.com | July 9, 2018 | CAREER EVOLUTION

#Leadership : The Productive Manager’s Guide To The Holiday Season Slump…Easing Up on Certain Rules this Time of Year Rather than Enforcing them May Actually Lead to Better Outcomes.

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 The approach of the holiday season is something many managers greet with quiet dread. From Thanksgiving onward, a steadily rising wave of excitement and distraction can threaten to get in the way of focused work. But the wisest—and, ultimately, most productive—approach is not to fight it.

Free- Holiday Dinner

Making room for a little festive fun, within limits, can be a great way to bring your team together when they’re having trouble staying focused on their own.

Rules can’t be regularly flouted, as every good manager knows. But there are certain times when enforcing them as strongly as you would at other times is actually counterproductive. As the author Terry Pratchett once wrote, rules exist “so that you think before you break ’em.”

Maybe you have a rule that every team needs to have someone present during business hours in case of an inquiry—makes sense. But is your B2B sales team really going to generate any major leads between Christmas and New Year’s? Is anyone going to be contacting the internal auditors when other teams are down to skeleton crews? Maybe at this time of year, some teams can be let off the hook while vital services like IT keep someone on site.

Think through the typical rules you enforce during the rest of the calendar year, and ask yourself whether they’ll really lead to the desired outcome during the run-up to the holidays.

If there are any you can ease up on, make sure you clearly explain why it will or won’t be enforced. You don’t want it to look arbitrary. Flexibility and understanding are easy ways to show employees that you see them as human beings, and this is an ideal time of year to remind them of that.

 

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MAKE SPACE FOR SILLINESS

People will want to have some fun this time of year. Maybe it’s wearing a Santa hat, or racing tinsel-covered wheelie chairs down the office hall 10 minutes before closing. Don’t license mayhem, but realize that stamping out all the fun will make people grumpy and disengaged. Letting them get away with too much, on the other hand, will stop any work being done. So strike a balance.

Let people get a little more playful in controlled ways—festive decorations are probably fine, for instance, as long as they don’t intrude on others’ concentration. Let people mess around a little in the last week before the holidays, but keep an eye out for too much time being lost.

REWARD GOOD DISCIPLINE

With people so easily distracted, this is the perfect time to give rewards and praise for those who stay focused.

Public praise or recognition from your usual reward system can help deserving team members feel validated, rather than left out for working hard while their coworkers may be slacking off. It’ll also encourage others to knuckle down at a time of year when that tends to get harder.

JOIN IN THE FUN

Trying too hard to be the “fun boss” can backfire. But as a manager, keeping your distance and staying too remote can turn out just as badly.

The holidays are a perfect time to show your fun side. Join in with festivities, but do it as an equal. For the length of a team dinner or happy hour, let yourself be part of the crowd, and talk about sports, TV, and holiday or vacation plans. Just don’t try to dominate the socializing—that will only remind people that you’re still fixated on being their boss.

LET EMPLOYEES CRAFT THEIR OWN CELEBRATIONS

The business—or just you as a boss—can actually facilitate some work festivities this time of year. A lunch together to celebrate the past year’s accomplishments is an easy way to help a team bond. An after-work holiday party can bring folks together and help everyone relax.

A little funding helps, too. Even small investments can create a nice show of goodwill. If you’re paying for a celebration, even in part, then employees are more likely to turn up, rather than ditching work festivities for personal plans.

But there’s a big difference between paying and running the show. If possible, let employees shape the celebrations for themselves. This might mean letting your team pick where to eat or improvising a social committee to plan an office party. Whatever you do, make sure any year-end celebration is inclusive, and that your employees are in control. The more it’s to their tastes, the more they’ll engage with it, decompress, and have fun. All of which adds up to better engagement with the business and their work once the party’s over.

BE FLEXIBLE ABOUT TIME

The holidays can put a lot of pressure on people, especially on their time. They’re shopping for gifts, attending their kids’ school functions, making travel arrangements, and trying to attend a host of social functions—all while working. So try to avoid adding to that pressure.

Wherever possible, try to be a little more flexible than usual about time. Shuffle schedules around so people can let off some steam when they need to and take care of the responsibilities in their personal lives that tend to pile up during the season.

If you offer flex-time, now’s the chance to let employees use it, and simply make up any additional time off in the New Year, once things settle down. They’ll feel less stressed, better engaged, and more positive about work—not to mention their lives outside it.

 

FastCompany.com | MARK LUKENS |  12.02.16 5:00 AM

#Leadership : How Successful Leaders Communicate With Their Teams…Choosing your Medium — Text or In-Person? — and Keeping your Message Decisive and Focused are Just Two of the Key Strategies.

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One of the most critical factors for your success as a leader will be how you communicate with your team. On a primary level, communication is all about exchanging information, whether that means brainstorming as a group, delegating responsibilities, setting expectations or alerting others to a problem.

It might be awkward to call out an employee, but it will make the team stronger

Related: 5 Ways to Effectively Communicate With Employees

The completeness, accuracy, timing and form of your messages will directly affect how your plans are carried out.

Beyond that, how you communicate can play a massive role in the morale of your team — how you treat your employees will have a direct impact in how they respect you, respect one another and ultimately perform on the job.

So, what is it that makes successful leaders so good at communication? What strategies are they using?

 

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Strategies for success 

Take a look at some of the most successful communicators around you (and those in a bigger spotlight), and you’ll see the following traits:

Choose your mediums carefully. First, make sure you’re considering your medium(s) carefully. Being able to send out a mass text or voice message to your employees is important. These channels are appropriate for notifying your team of a last-minute meeting change but wouldn’t be for sending out the scope of a new project.

In the same way, email isn’t the best way to start a long back-and-forth conversation — especially if it concerns a sensitive subject. Learn to read the situation and decide on the appropriate medium; in the right form, your message’s effectiveness will spread.

Consider your tone and direction. This is especially important when speaking to someone face-to-face. When delivering messages, remember what you’re trying to accomplish and how you may come across. For example, if an employee has done subpar work or missed a deadline, you want that person to improve so the problem doesn’t happen again; you don’t want this employee to merely feel guilty about the error.

Frame your wording to achieve this goal; instead of scolding or reprimanding, use a friendlier tone with a corrective direction. You’ll accomplish far more, make your intentions clear and preserve morale this way.

Related: 4 Strategies to Connect With Millennials

Be as concise as possible. Good leaders strive to remain as concise as possible. Speaking and writing concisely is all about conveying as much information as possible in the smallest possible space, which saves time and maximizes the effectiveness of your writing. Grammarly has a fantastic article worth the read if you’re interested in digging into how to become a more concise communicator.

Keep your messaging decisive and focused. When writing or giving a message, you need to be decisive and focused, which means avoiding rambling, or working through a problem out loud. Speak only when you have something meaningful to say, and make sure your point is clear to whomever you’re speaking with. You can use a service like Evernote to better organize your thoughts, tasks and goals, and work on defining your thoughts in firmer frameworks this way.

Be proactive. Telling someone about a new project requirement isn’t effective if that someone is already halfway through the job. Try to be as proactive as possible by telling your employees early on what you expect from them. Set your expectations long before any actions are taken; and when something comes up, let your team know about it as soon as possible.

One easy way to put this into practice is to set more alerts on your phone and make use of calendar apps; this will force you to consider the timing of your messages, especially for things like follow-ups.

Always be available for conversation. This is important for building morale within your team. You can’t possibly be available for conversation 100 percent of the time, but you need to make your team feel comfortable communicating with you. Show patience and appreciation for their thoughts and opinions, and they’ll be more willing to share with you when they have a problem, when they need help or when they see something that can be improved.

Listen actively to every team member. Finally, listen actively to every member of your team. All team members are valuable, and their diverse range of opinions will open you up to new ideas and help you see flaws and inconsistencies you were previously blind to. Do this early and often to build trust within your team.

Executing the model

If these actions look intimidating to you, or you don’t have a track record of successful communication, don’t worry. Nobody is born an effective communicator; just as it takes us time to develop our understanding and use of language, it takes time to refine our skills as efficient communicators.

Related: Why ‘CEO’ Really Means Chief Communication Officer

With practice and dedication to improving your abilities, you can become a communicative and respectable leader in your environment.

 

Entrepreneur.com | November 30, 2016 | Larry Alton

 

#Leadership : 20 Habits of Unsuccessful and Ineffective Leaders (Infographic)…What Not to Do If you Want to Succeed in Leadership

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A few weeks ago I wrote an article which focused on the bad habits of leaders which should be avoided, as I thought this was just as important as modeling ourselves on the best. Due to the popularity of this article I produced an Infographic, using Visme, that you can download and share.

Free- Stones stacked on each other

The article was based on my 25 years of experience in leaderships, highlighting some of the habits of unsuccessful and ineffectual leaders that I have seen, and in some cases, their justification for having them.

These are habits best avoided, if possible!

1. Believe They have All The Answers

They know that the reason that they have been put in charge is that they are smarter and better than everyone else. So when it comes to deciding strategy, solving problems, or resolving issues, there is no need, or point in involving anyone else.

2. React, Don’t Respond

Driven by their emotions, they react quickly to situations without worrying about factsor the repercussions of their actions.

They can always show good emotional intelligence by apologizing later.

3. Take Big Risks, The Bigger The Better

They like to gamble and take big risks. Believing in the adage “Nothing Ventured Nothing Gained” and that Smart Risk taking is for wimps.

When I questioned a decision that one boss was taking his response was, “that’s not your concern I get paid big bucks to take the big risks and make the tough calls.”

Personally, I though he got paid the big bucks to take the right risks and to be successful, but what did I know.

 

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4. Believe That Talking About It and Doing It Are The Same Thing

I always remember the first boss I worked for, when the CEO asked him how it was going, he said: “It’s going great, we have been discussing the problem for two days now.” The only problem was that was two days that the business couldn’t operate, and we were no closer to finding a solution.

5. Focus On Blame Not Solutions

It’s better to know who’s fault it is so that we can fire them and make sure this doesn’t happen again.

6. Believe Their Own PR

There is a big difference between confidence and arrogance; the former helps build trust in the leader, the latter destroys it. As soon as you start to believe your own PR, then you are leaning more towards arrogance and starting down a path that is going to end in tears.

7. Don’t Waste Valuable Time on Planning And Preparation

Sometimes you just have to dive and get it done. Don’t worry about what’s involved, or whether you’re focused on the symptom or root cause, just do it. My favorite comment was “we can’t  afford to spend time and money on planning; we just need to get started”.

Which was interesting because we found the time and money to do it again correctly, after that first attempt failed badly.

8. Hire People Beneath Them

As a leader, it is critical that you are the most skillful and knowledgeable member of the team, that way everyone can focus on their job rather than working out how they could replace you.

I worked at one company where the boss told me that he liked to recruit from the bottom quartile because it kept the costs down. He then added, “the only problem with that was the results sucked.”

9. Focus Instant success

It’s all about results, and if we find that they are not coming, then we need to move quickly on to another topic.

They believe that a lot of short-term success will lead to long-terms success.

10. Focus On The Big Picture, Not The Details

Don’t worry about the details, focus on the big picture, as that will keep you motivated. We all know the devil is in the details, but that could lead to concerns, a lack of belief and even worse de-motivation.

11. Focus on Weaknesses Not Strengths

As leaders we cannot have or show any weaknesses, so we need to work on eliminating them, or failing that, hiding them.

12. Confuse Stubbornness With Determination

“Winners never quit, and quitters never win” is a great approach to achieving results.

However you’re bordering on stubbornness if your approach is failing but you refuse to change it.

13. Don’t Play Well With Others

It’s hard to play well with others when you adapt a command and control approach to leadership. People like to be led not managed.

14. Think Praise is For Wimps

It’s ok to praise people once we have achieved success, but praising people just to keep them happy is not a good approach to building a strong, resilient team. We’ve got to be mean to keep them keen, and praising people too often makes a team soft.

15. Take Don’t Give

The more we take, the more we have, that’s how winners are made.

It’s a dog eat dog world, and we have to fight for our share.

16. Quick to Criticize

If you want people to improve, you need to point out their mistakes quickly and clearly. It’s also best to do this publicly so that others can learn too.

17. Easily Distracted

Never content with their current goals they are constantly looking for the next big thing that the get involved in. I think the reason for this is it’s much easier to start something new than to finish something important.

18. Make Excuses

There are a million and one reasons why things don’t work out as planned, so it’s not always our fault, and we need to remember that so as we don’t become too de-motivated. One boss told me never ever accept responsibility it could be career limiting, always have someone ready to blame or a good excuse handy.

19. Love To Micro Manage

It’s hard to trust everyone, so by micro-managing your staff, you can keep a close eye on things, and look to offer advice or step in if things start to go wrong.

20. Practice Inconsistently

It’s great to be inconsistent because it keeps your team guessing, which in turn keeps them on their toes. Predictability, on the other hand, can lead to complacency.

 

 

Inc.com  | October 5, 2016 |

BY GORDON TREDGOLD

Founder and CEO, Leadership Principles

 

#Leadership : 5 Insights from a Classic Leadership Book by an Executive Coach Who’s Helped over 150 CEOs … If you’re Set on Progressing in your Career, You’ve got to Commit Yourself to a Course of Personal Development, Which will Likely Be as Uncomfortable as it is Rewarding.

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“What Got You Here Won’t Get You There“ highlights the 20 workplace habits that keep business leaders from success.  Author Marshall Goldsmith, a top executive coach who’s worked with more than 150 CEOs and been named multiple times to theThinkers50 list of influential management thinkers, published the bestselling book with Mark Reiter in 2007.

marshall-goldsmith

Marshall Goldsmith.YouTube

His goal was to help managers at all levels pinpoint exactly which behaviors they need to change and how to do it.  The thrust is that just because you’ve been able to get by with your counterproductive habitsdoesn’t mean you’ll be able to reach the top of your field with those same tendencies.

If you’re set on progressing in your career, you’ve got to commit yourself to a course of personal development, which will likely be as uncomfortable as it is rewarding.

Below, Business Insider breaks down the book’s five most important insights on becoming an effective leader:

1. Don’t fall into the ‘superstition trap’

Your destructive habits — from taking credit for others’ efforts to constantly making excuses — probably aren’t what helped you reach this level of success, and they definitely won’t help you get further.

Here’s Goldsmith:

“One of the greatest mistakes of successful people is the assumption, ‘I behave this way, and I achieve results. Therefore, I must be achieving results because I behave this way.’

“This belief is sometimes true, but not across the board. That’s where superstition kicks in. It creates the core fallacy necessitating this book, the reason that ‘what got us here won’t get us there.’ I’m talking about the difference between success that happens because of our behavior and the success that comes in spite of our behavior.”

 

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2. Technical chops aren’t enough for leaders

Interpersonal skills get more and more important as you climb the corporate ladder.

Here’s Goldsmith:

“At the higher levels of organizational life, all the leading players are technically skilled. They’re all smart. They’re all up to date on the technical aspects of their job. …

“That’s why behavioral issues become so important at the upper rungs of the corporate ladder. All other things being equal, your people skills (or lack of them) become more pronounced the higher up you go. In fact, even when all other things are not equal, your people skills often make the difference in how high you go.”

3. Your effectiveness as a leader is based on others’ perceptions of you

What you think of yourself doesn’t matter as much — so stop trying to conform to some arbitrary notion of your unique self.

Here’s Goldsmith:

“It’s an interesting equation: Less me. More them. Equals success.

“Keep this in mind when you find yourself resisting change because you’re clinging to a false — or pointless — notion of ‘me.’ It’s not about you. It’s about what other people think of you.”

4. Listening to what other people say is the most important skill for a leader to develop

That’s especially true if you’re trying to change your habits.

Here’s Goldsmith:

“The only difference between us and the super-successful among us — the near-great and the great — is that the great ones  [fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][listen] all the time. It’s automatic for them. For them there’s no on and off switch for caring and empathy and showing respect. It’s always on. They don’t rank personal encounters as A, B, or C in importance. They treat everyone equally — and everyone eventually notices.”

5. You need to pick and choose your areas of improvement

It’s best to focus on what’s causing the biggest problem among the biggest group of people.

Here’s Goldsmith:

“Take a look around your office. Someone’s the best salesman. Someone else is the best accountant. Someone else is the best manager. No one is the best at everything.

“This isn’t a license for mediocrity. It’s a reality check. It’s your permission to deal in trade-offs and pick one thing to improve upon rather than everything.”

 

Businessinsider.com | August 26, 2016 | Shana Lebowitz

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#Leadership : Why Bullies Make Bad Leaders…So Why Do we Think that #Bullies Make for Good #Leaders ? Bullies Might be Good at Gaining Power, But they Make for Terrible Leaders.

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There is a dangerous and destructive idea fomenting in American society today, and it permeates almost every aspect of modern life. From politics to business, our society is increasingly mistaking aggression for strength, and bullying for leadership. One need only look at the nature of Donald Trump’s bombastic, aggressive, and wildly popular Presidential campaign for proof of this disturbing trend. In times of difficulty, the allure of bully is seductive yet ultimately disappointing. Bullies might be good at gaining power, but they make for terrible leaders.

ToughInterviewer

My experience in leadership is limited to the world of business. I’ve never led men into battle or won an election. However, I believe that the core principles of good leadership transcend boundaries and definition. It’s up to leaders and followers alike to recognize bullies when they rear their ugly heads and instead put their faith in those who lead by strength, sincerity, and example.

Never mistake aggression for strength

So why do we think that bullies make for good leaders? The blame lies in our evolutionary history. Throughout our time on this earth, the most aggressive, loudest member of the group became leader. As a result, our brains have evolved to associate aggression with high status. That’s why even normally rational people often sympathize with Trump, despite the fact that his proclamations are frequently nonsensical.

I think that the real problem here is that people mistake aggression for strength. In reality, strength of character has virtually nothing to do with aggression. We as a species simply fall victim to our evolutionary biases. Real strength comes from a quiet determination to do what is right, make the difficult decisions, and serve the interests of the team. In my personal experience, the individuals who make the best leaders aren’t aggressive. Instead, their quiet confidence speaks louder than any blustering.

 

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Recognize the strength in humility

If you think about the demagogues and bullies we see throughout society, you’ll quickly realize that they have one thing in common: Pride. Arrogance and pride are the hallmark of the bully, and they fundamentally undermine their ability to lead. Instead, I believe that effective leaders are humble in thought, word, and deeds.

I’ve found that it is really difficult to take a back seat, especially for young founders. Throughout my career and early on at BodeTree, I had an underlying fear that my position and authority was tenuous because of my age and relative lack of experience. This previously caused me to jockey for attention and praise in an attempt to find validation. However the more I did this, the less confident I felt.

I’ve since realized two things are necessary in order to have the confidence to always put others before yourself: trust and humility. The inescapable fact is that you are never as smart, talented or lucky as you think you are. Trying to prove otherwise is a recipe for disaster.  Having the humility to recognize your own shortcomings is the path to success. This sense of humility, coupled with a team that you trust, respect and admire can make it possible to easily put others before yourself.

Servant leaders succeed where bullies fail

Our society needs more servant leaders, both in business, politics, and personal life. Servant leadership inverts the typical evolutionary concepts of power, where one individual at the top of the heap exerts control over those below them. In contrast, the servant leader shares power and focuses their attention on making those around them successful and happy. In doing so, servant leaders develop true loyalty and support from those they lead and find long-term success.

This is not a new concept, yet it is put into practice far less frequently than it deserves. It was Lao-Tzu who wrote, “The highest type of ruler is one of whose existence the people are barely aware. Next comes one whom they love and praise.Next comes one whom they fear. Next comes one whom they despise and defy.”

It’s time that we as a people fought back against our primal urges and learned to better reject bullies. Instead, we must look to servant leaders who can be successful in the long-term. Whether it’s in business or politics, servant leaders succeed where bullies fail.

 

Forbes.com | April 1, 2016 | Chris Myers

 

 

Chris Myers is the Cofounder and CEO of BodeTree, a web application designed to help small businesses manage their finances.

 

#Leadership : 7 Mistakes Leaders Make That Make Everyone Miserable…“Look for 3 Things in a Person: Intelligence, Energy, & Integrity. If they Don’t Have the Last One, Don’t even Bother.” –Warren Buffet

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From Enron to Volkswagen, we’ve watched in horror as leaders who lack integrity have destroyed businesses time and again. But the real tragedy happens when regular leaders, who are otherwise great, sabotage themselves, day after day, with mistakes that they can’t see but are obvious to everyone else.

Free- Locks

In most cases, it’s slight and often unintentional gaps in integrity that hold leaders, their employees, and their companies back. Despite their potential, these leaders harm their employees and themselves.

“Look for three things in a person: intelligence, energy, and integrity. If they don’t have the last one, don’t even bother.” –Warren Buffet

Dr. Fred Kiel did the difficult job of quantifying the value of a leader’s integrity for his book, Return On Character, and his findings are fascinating. Over a seven-year period, Kiel collected data on 84 CEOs and compared employee ratings of their behavior to company performance.

Kiel found that high-integrity CEOs had a multi-year return of 9.4%, while low integrity CEOs had a yield of just 1.9%. What’s more, employee engagement was 26% higher in organizations led by high-integrity CEOs.

Kiel describes high-integrity CEOs this way: “They were often humble. They appeared to have very little concern for their career success or their compensation. The funny point about that is they all did better than the self-focused CEOs with regard to compensation and career success. It’s sort of ironic.”

Kiel’s data is clear: companies perform better under the guidance of high-integrity leadership. “Companies who try to compete under the leadership of a skilled but self-focused CEO are setting themselves up to lose,” Kiel says.

Every leader has the responsibility to hone his or her integrity. Many times, there are integrity traps that have a tendency to catch well-meaning leaders off guard. By studying these traps, we can all sharpen the saw and keep our leadership integrity at its highest possible level.

1. Fostering a cult of personality. It’s easy for leaders to get caught up in their own worlds as there are many systems in place that make it all about them. These leaders identify so strongly with their leadership roles that instead of remembering that the only reason they’re there is to serve others, they start thinking, ‘It’s my world, and we’ll do things my way.’ Being a good leader requires remembering that you’re there for a reason, and the reason certainly isn’t to have your way. High-integrity leaders not only welcome questioning and criticism, they insist on it.

 

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2. Dodging accountability. Politicians are notorious for refusing to be accountable for their mistakes, and business leaders do it too. Even if only a few people see a leader’s misstep (instead of millions), dodging accountability can be incredibly damaging. A person who refuses to say “the buck stops here” really isn’t a leader at all. Being a leader requires being confident enough in your own decisions and those of your team to own them when they fail. The very best leaders take the blame but share the credit.

3. Lacking self-awareness. Many leaders think they have enough emotional intelligence (EQ). And many times, they are proficient in some EQ skills, but when it comes to understanding themselves, they are woefully blind. It’s not that they’re hypocrites; they just don’t see what everyone else sees. They might play favorites, be tough to work with, or receive criticism badly. And they aren’t alone, as TalentSmart research involving more than a million people shows that just 36% of us are accurate in our self-assessments.

4. Forgetting that communication is a two-way street. Many leaders also think that they’re great communicators, not realizing that they’re only communicating in one direction. Some pride themselves on being approachable and easily accessible, yet they don’t really hear the ideas that people share with them. Some leaders don’t set goals or provide context for the things they ask people to do, and others never offer feedback, leaving people wondering if they’re more likely to get promoted or fired.

5. Not firing poor performers. Sometimes, whether it’s because they feel sorry for an employee or simply because they want to avoid conflict, leaders dodge making the really tough decisions. While there’s certainly nothing wrong with being compassionate, real leaders know when it’s just not appropriate, and they understand that they owe it to the company and to the rest of the team to let someone go.

6. Succumbing to the tyranny of the urgent. The tyranny of the urgent is what happens when leaders spend their days putting out small fires. They take care of what’s dancing around in front of their faces and lose focus of what’s truly important—their people. Your integrity as a leader hinges upon your ability to avoid distractions that prevent you from putting your people first.

7. Micromanaging. You see this mistake most often with people who have recently worked their way up through the ranks. They still haven’t made the mental shift from doer to leader. Without something tangible to point to at the end of the day, they feel unproductive, not realizing that productivity means something different for a leader. As a result, they micromanage to the point of madness and fall off schedule. An important part of a leader’s integrity rests in giving people the freedom to do their jobs.

Bringing It All Together

The bad news is that these mistakes are as common as they are damaging. The good news is that they’re really easy to fix, once you’re aware of them.

Forbes.com | February 16, 2016 | Travis Bradberry 

#Leadership : 10 Ways To Spot A Truly Exceptional Employee…Take Notice of what’s Not Mentioned: Coding Skills, Years of Experience, Business Degrees, etc. These Things Matter, But they Won’t Make you Exceptional.

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A recent international study surveyed more than 500 business leaders and asked them what sets great employees apart. The researchers wanted to know why some people are more successful than others at work, and the answers were surprising; leaders chose “personality” as the leading reason.

Free- Man reaching to Sun Rise

Notably, 78% of leaders said personality sets great employees apart, more than cultural fit (53%) and even an employee’s skills (39%).

“We should take care not to make the intellect our God; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.” –Albert Einstein

The problem is, when leaders say ‘personality’ they don’t understand what they’re referring to. Personality consists of a stable set of preferences and tendencies through which we approach the world. Being introverted or extroverted is an example of an important personality trait.

Personality traits form at an early age and are fixed by early adulthood. Many important things about you change over the course of your lifetime, but your personality isn’t one of them.

Personality is distinct from intellect (or IQ). The two don’t occur together in any meaningful way. Personality is also distinct from emotional intelligence (or EQ), and this is where the study, and most leaders for that matter, have misinterpreted the term.

talent

The qualities that leaders in the study called personality were actually emotional intelligence skills. And unlike your personality, which is set in stone, you can change and improve your EQ.

Exceptional employees don’t possess God-given personality traits; they rely on simple, everyday EQ skills that anyone can incorporate into their repertoire.

Leaders don’t need to go searching for these skills either (though it doesn’t hurt when you find them); their duty is to help everyone on their team harness these skills to become exceptional.

Just consider some of the EQ skills that leaders and managers commonly mislabel as personality characteristics. These are the skills that set exceptional employees apart.

They’re willing to delay gratification. One thing an exceptional employee never says is, “That’s not in my job description.” Exceptional employees work outside the boundaries of job descriptions. They’re neither intimidated nor entitled; instead of expecting recognition or compensation to come first, they forge ahead in their work, confident that they’ll be rewarded later but unconcerned if they’re not.

 

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They can tolerate conflict. While exceptional employees don’t seek conflict, they don’t run away from it either. They’re able to maintain their composure while presenting their positions calmly and logically. They’re able to withstand personal attacks in pursuit of the greater goal and never use that tactic themselves.

They focus. Student pilots are often told, “When things start going wrong, don’t forget to fly the plane.” Plane crashes have resulted from pilots concentrating so hard on identifying the problem that they flew the plane into the ground. Eastern Airlines Flight 401 is just one example: The flight crew was so concerned about the landing gear being down that they didn’t realize they were losing altitude until it was too late, despite alarms going off in the cockpit. Exceptional employees understand the principle of “Just fly the plane.” They don’t get distracted by cranky customers, interoffice squabbles, or switch to a different brand of coffee. They can differentiate between real problems and background noise; therefore, they stay focused on what matters.

They’re judiciously courageous. Exceptional employees are willing to speak up when others are not, whether it’s to ask a difficult (or “embarrassingly” simple) question or to challenge an executive decision. However, that’s balanced with common sense and timing. They think before they speak and wisely choose the best time and place to do so.

They’re in control of their egos. Exceptional employees have egos. While that’s part of what drives them, they never give their egos more weight than what is deserved. They’re willing to admit when they’re wrong and willing to do things someone else’s way, whether it’s because the other way is better or it’s important to maintain team harmony.

They’re never satisfied. Exceptional employees have unparalleled convictions that things can always be better—and they’re right. No one is ever done growing, and there is no such thing as “good enough” when it comes to personal improvement. No matter how well things are going, exceptional employees are driven to improve, without forgetting to give themselves a healthy pat on the back.

They recognize when things are broken and fix them. Whether it’s a sticky desk drawer or an inefficient, wasteful process affecting the cash flow of the entire department, exceptional employees don’t walk past problems. “Oh, it’s been that way forever,” simply isn’t in their vocabulary. They see problems as issues to be fixed immediately; it’s that simple.

They’re accountable. If you’re a manager trying to decipher a bungled report, “It’s not my fault” is the most irritating phrase in the English language. Exceptional employees are accountable. They own their work, their decisions, and all of their results—good or bad. They bring their mistakes to management’s attention rather than hoping no one will find out. They understand that managers aren’t out to assign blame; they’re out to get things done.

They’re marketable. “Marketable” can mean many things. Inside the organization, it means “likeable.” Exceptional employees are well liked by co-workers. They have integrity and leadership skills (even if they’re not in an official leadership position) that people respond to. Externally, it means they can be trusted to represent the brand well. Managers know they can send these employees out to meet with clients and prospects without worrying about what they’ll say or do.

They neutralize toxic people. Dealing with difficult people is frustrating and exhausting for most. Exceptional employees control their interactions with toxic people by keeping their feelings in check. When they need to confront a toxic person, they approach the situation rationally. They identify their own emotions and don’t allow anger or frustration to fuel the chaos. They also consider the difficult person’s standpoint and are able to find solutions and common ground. Even when things completely derail, emotionally intelligent people are able to take the toxic person with a grain of salt to avoid letting him or her bring them down.

Bringing It All Together

Take notice of what’s not mentioned: coding skills, years of experience, business degrees, etc. These things matter, but they won’t make you exceptional.

What other qualities make people exceptional? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below as I learn just as much from you as you do from me.

 

Forbes.com | February 9, 2016 | Travis Bradberry 

 

#Leadership : 3 Signs Your Leadership Style Is Too Tough…Sometimes #Leaders can Push their Folks so Hard that #Performance Suffers.

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There are four fundamental leadership styles: Pragmatist, Idealist, Steward and Diplomat.

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#Leadership : 12 Easy Phrases to Massively Improve Your Leadership…At the Heart of Great leadership is a Desire to Serve Others, to Empower them & Foster their success. Here are 12 Phrases that Every #Leader should be Saying–a Lot

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These 12 phrases are small but powerful. Use them daily and you can be sure your leadership is moving in the right direction.

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