• Recent Comments

  • Dan McCarthy on The importance of philosophy to great leadership
  • Jyvgkzyx on The importance of questioning your work
  • balabo_ck on Change fails when employees don’t grasp the rationale for the change
  • balabo_ei on Change fails when employees don’t grasp the rationale for the change
  • What Leadership Demands - Philosophy & Legacy on The importance of philosophy to great leadership
  • suria on Leaders vs. Managers….. Are they really different?
  • Boom Daniel on Leaders vs. Managers….. Are they really different?

• Blogs I Read

  • All Things Workplace
  • Be Excellent
  • Employee Engagement: Results That Matter
  • Extreme Leadership
  • Leadership Now
  • Leading Questions
  • Life 2.0
  • Phil Gerbyshak Challenges You to Make It Great!
  • Servant Leadership Blog
  • Slacker Manager
  • The Changing NHS
  • The Question of Leadership

• Spam Blocked

  183,923 spam comments

  blocked by
  Akismet

The Center for Creative Leadership newsletter had an interesting article "Don’t Give Up On Leadership Character" discussing the development of leadership character. Character a critical foundation of great leadership, in fact, character is the hallmark of all great leaders. Character is important as sound character inspires trust….

"People of genius are admired. People of wealth are envied. People of power are feared. But only people of character are trusted." — Arthur Friedman

Programmes that focus on leadership development usually over emphasise the development of various leadership techniques and methods, with little or no attention given to the development of character. It’s no wonder that one of the most common leadership failures today, are failures of leadership character, and not a failure of technique or method. So how do we ensure that we are developing the character of those we mentor? By incorporating the five E’s of character development into our programmes and mentorship…

The Five E’s Of Character Development

It’s the responsibility of leaders to create the environment that encourages the development of character. The article recommends that the following five E’s, to be considered as a means for character development:

1. Example: Leadership by example leverages the natural human tendency to emulate the behavior of individuals held in high esteem. A leader’s behavior sets the standard for the entire organization.
2. Education: Leaders and organizations should find ways to discuss the importance of character, the potential pressures on and challenges to character, and the short- and long-term implications of a lapse of character. Education might include discussions of case studies and scenarios that involve difficult moral or ethical choices.
3. Environment: The organization’s culture is shaped and developed over time by the actions and values of people in the organization. Senior leaders can establish an environment that is open to character development by creating a clear, detailed, practical set of organizational values and by ensuring that everyone in the organization lives those values.
4. Experience: Senior leaders should ensure that high-potential employees are given "stretch" jobs and assignments requiring them to make difficult choices, which can help them better understand and develop character. These experiences also provide good indications of the character strengths and weaknesses of those who might become the future leaders of the organization.
5. Evaluation: Clear expectations regarding patterns of behavior need to be established and communicated. Leaders can then use feedback sessions and performance evaluations to gauge their progress, reviewing specific instances when their character was challenged and either stood fast or cracked.

This list is a great means of creating an environment that encourages the development of a person’s character. Remember, that….

"The glory of great men should always be measured by the means they have used to acquire it." - Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Photo by by edwardolive ..

 

I believe that great thinking and great leadership go hand-in-hand. Leaders think differently….

• Leaders think differently about themselves.
• Leaders think differently about others.
• Leaders think differently about what’s possible.
• Leaders think differently about life.

Leaders think differently, and that’s what distinguishes them from followers! Your thinking creates your beliefs, your beliefs results a leadership philosophy, which results in leadership attitudes, your attitude, shapes your perceptions and your perceptions guide your actions. It all begins with your thinking….!

 

Since thinking is so important to developing your leadership…… Do you have a space and a place to think?

 

Mark Sanborn makes these great suggestions on thinking….

Thinking is much harder to do without enough space and a good place to do it.

“Space” is about interrupting your typical schedule to think instead of letting it interrupt your thinking. Nobody has time for the important stuff; we make the time needed for the important stuff. Otherwise the unimportant fills up our days. It is the nature of the world we live in.

 

“Place” is important, too. You can think anywhere, but to think better thoughts find better places to think. I love mountains and I love the ocean, so I tend to do my best thinking in one of those places. More often than not I’m at Starbucks down the street from the office doing my thinking, but when I get the chance, I take advantage of inspiring places to think.

 

Make some space. Find a good place. Then think.

 

So, before 2008 over-runs your schedule….. make some space to think….

 

 

Photo by Roadsidepictures

 

Mark McGuinness has collected a bunch of his best posts into one free ebook and has some additional time management  resources here. I found the book filled with valuable time management insights. Given the pressures leaders have on their time, Mark’s time management practices are extremely useful. I case you don’t want to read the entire book here is a summary of the 7 common practices….

1. Why you need to be organised to be creative

Choreographer Twyla Tharp, author of the book "The Creative Habit: Learn it and Use it for Life", which I’ve previously reviewed here, directed the opera and dance scenes for the film Amadeus, has this to say about the film’s portrait of Mozart and the importance of being organised and disciplined….

"The film Amadeus dramatizes and romanticizes the divine origins of creative genius. Antonio Salieri, representing the talented hack, is cursed to live in the time of Mozart, the gifted and undisciplined genius who writes as though touched by the hand of God… Of course this is hogwash. There are no ‘natural’ geniuses… No-one worked harder than Mozart. By the time he was twenty-eight years old, his hands were deformed because of all the hours he had spent practicing, performing, and gripping a quill pen to compose… As Mozart himself wrote to a friend, “People err who think my art comes easily to me. I assure you, dear friend, nobody has devoted so much time and thought to composition as I. There is not a famous master whose music I have not industriously studied through many times.”

Twyla goes on in her book to argue that "routine is as much a part of the creative process as the lightning bolt of inspiration, maybe more".

Have you structured you day to be productive?

2. Prioritise work that is ‘important but not urgent’

This practice comes from Stephen Covey’s popular book "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" where he classifies work tasks
according to whether they are important or urgent…

Covey points out that many of us spend too much time on tasks that are urgent and important  – in other words, staving off emergencies by rushing around to solve problems or responding to others’ demands at short notice. Sometimes this is unavoidable – ‘deadline magic’ can spur us on to feats of creative production we wouldn’t otherwise attempt. This can be an exciting and productive experience – but it’s up to you whether you want to work like this most of the time. ….. Covey’s solution is to prioritise work that is important but not urgent… Though this is hard to do on any given day, it is the only way to ensure you are making progress towards your own goals and dreams, instead of merely reacting to what other people throw at you. And over time, the more you are dealing with important things before they become urgent, the fewer ‘urgent and important’ tasks you will have to deal with.

What percentage of you day is focus in urgent thing vs. the important things? Are you focused enough on completing the important things first?

3. Ring-fence your most creative time

Pick your most creative time of day….. then ring fence it for your most creative work. Mark provide this example of how Tim Ferriss author of The Four Hour Work Week writes blog posts, in two phases and at different times of day:

"Separate brainstorming (idea generation) from synthesis (putting it all into a flowing post). I generally note down 10-15 potential points for a post between 10-10:30am with a double espresso, select 4-5 I like and put them in a tentative order from 10:30-10:45am, then I’ll let them marinate until 12am-4am, when I’ll drink yerba mate tea, craft a few examples to match the points, then start composing. It’s important to identify your ideal circadian schedule and pre-writing warm-up for consistent and reliable results." - The Four Hour Work Week Blog

Do you know when you’re most creative? How are you using this time?

4. Avoid the ‘Sisyphus effect’ of endless to-do lists

Mark points out how endless to do lists and interruptions overwhelm us and sap our time and energy….

"The bottom line is that interruptions destroy your concentration. And loss of concentration = loss of creative work. If you’re not careful, you can end up in permanent ‘reactive mode’ – spending your time responding to others’ demands and all the things you have to do instead of the one thing you really wanted to do today…… In short, you need to install a buffer between others’ demands and your response. Otherwise you’ll end up in permanently anxious and unproductive ‘reaction mode’."

I think we often under estimate the cost of interruptions, previously I posted on a study by Study by Time Magazine…

Researchers studying a random sample of office workers and found they got an average of just 11 minutes clear time to a project before being distracted by an e-mail, phone call or verbal interruption from a manager or colleague.

It also found interruptions now took up an average of 2.1 hours of every working day, or 28 per cent of the average person’s nine-to-five schedule, including the time to recover your train of thought following an interruption.

It took an average of 25 minutes to return to a task after being disturbed, according to the magazine.

How often do you get interrupted a day? How much productive time does this sap from your day? Are you diligently protecting your most productive from unnecessary interruptions?

5. Get things done by putting them off till tomorrow

This practice is about slowing down our response and so that we can response by being smart and not by working harder….

"In his excellent book Do It Tomorrow, Mark Forster….. suggests we create a buffer between incoming demands and our response – by making ‘do it tomorrow’ our default response to all requests. Not ‘tomorrow’ as in ‘tomorrow never comes’, but ‘tomorrow’ as in ‘tomorrow’. Not today or the day after tomorrow, but tomorrow."

6. Get things off your mind

The practice is about having a trusted system that you can rely on to remind you of the important things that need to get done, rather than wasting your mental and emotional energy keeping track of your commitments. This allows you to commit 100% to the task at hand…..!

"What if you could dedicate fully 100 percent of your attention to whatever was at hand, at  your own choosing, with no distraction?…. No, it’s not an ancient Zen text – these words are lifted from David Allen’s best-selling book on productivity, Getting Things Done. When I read this section of the book, I grasped the true value of having a system for managing your workload – not merely to be more productive but to reclaim your own mind by clearing out unnecessary mental clutter caused by trying to keep track of all your work commitments."

Set up ‘buckets’ to capture your commitments, to do lists arranged by your work context so that you do consume valuable mental and emotional energy trying to remember the things you have to get done….

7. Review your commitments

Reviewing your commitments help to keep things off your mind so you can focus……. Mark suggests that you need to review your commitments…

1. First, and most obviously, to make sure you actually do the tasks on your to-do lists!
2. If you don’t review the lists regularly, you’ll soon stop trusting them and won’t be able to use them to get things off your mind.
3. To think about how you’re going to approach your work. It’s tempting to ‘get going’ first thing in the morning, so you feel like you’re getting things done – but whenever I do this, my day is always less productive and more stressful than on days where I take 10 minutes to review my commitments and decide how I’m going to tackle them.
4. It helps you step back and see the ‘big picture’ of your work, weigh up priorities and make decisions about your next steps.

 

Overall I thought this is a great list of time management practices….. So which two of these practices are you going to implement over the next 21 days?

 

Photo by polafol

 

"The mediocre manager believes that most things are learnable and therefore that the essence of management is to identify each person’s weaker areas and eradicate them. The great manager believes the opposite. He believes that the most influential qualities of a person are innate and therefore that the essence of management is to deploy these innate qualities as effectively as possible and so drive performance." - Marcus Buckingham, The One Thing You Need to Know

This is a critical skill that managers and leaders need to develop and one of the most difficult. The ability to recognise a person’s strengths, weaknesses, personality and style, then deploy them into positions that play to their unique individual qualities, makes great teams and great teams are the hallmark of successful leadership. However, before managers and leaders can recognise and leverage the strengths of others, they have to believe that:

Leaders grow most in their areas of strength!

The key challenge is our mindset. We are too often focused only on our weaknesses. In fact we are often so focused on our weaknesses we don’t consciously leverage or develop our strengths. Try this quick exercise, take a piece of paper and make a list of your top 10 weaknesses….. Now, take another piece of paper and list you top 10 strengths. How did you do? If you’re like most people, you found it more difficult to list your strengths than your weaknesses. Take some time this week to list your top 5 strengths and describe them in some detail. Looking at your strengths ask your self how does your current job, goals and vision leverage these strengths? Are you leading from your strengths?

 

Business Week has an article "The Seven Secrets of Inspiring Leaders" that reminds us of the importance of inspiration to leaders. A recent recent Maritz Research poll found that:

"Only 10% of employees look forward to going to work and most point to a lack of leadership as the reason why…"

The article discusses the following seven techniques that leaders can use to inspire their employees:

1. Demonstrate enthusiasm—constantly. "Inspiring leaders have an abundance of passion for what they do. You cannot inspire unless you’re inspired yourself. Period."
2. Articulate a compelling course of action. "Inspiring leaders craft and deliver a specific, consistent, and memorable vision. …. The power of a vision set everything in motion."
3. Sell the benefit. "Always remember, it’s not about you, it’s about them. In my first class at Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, I was taught to answer the question, "Why should my readers care?" That’s the same thing you need to ask yourself constantly throughout a presentation, meeting, pitch, or any situation where persuasion takes place. Your listeners are asking themselves, what’s in this for me? Answer it. Don’t make them guess."
4. Tell more stories. "Inspiring leaders tell memorable stories. Few business leaders appreciate the power of stories to connect with their audiences. … No amount of data can replace [a] story….. Stories connect with people on an emotional level. Tell more of them."
5. Invite participation. "Inspiring leaders bring employees, customers, and colleagues into the process of building the company or service. This is especially important when trying to motivate young people. The command and control way of managing is over. Instead, today’s managers solicit input, listen for feedback, and actively incorporate what they hear. Employees want more than a paycheck. They want to know that their work is adding up to something meaningful."
6. Reinforce an optimistic outlook. "Inspiring leaders speak of a better future….. Extraordinary leaders throughout history have been more optimistic than the average person. Winston Churchill exuded hope and confidence in the darkest days of World War II. Colin Powell said that optimism was the secret behind Ronald Reagan’s charisma. Powell also said that optimism is a force multiplier, meaning it has a ripple effect throughout an organization. Speak in positive, optimistic language. Be a beacon of hope."
7. Encourage potential. "Inspiring leaders praise people and invest in them emotionally….. When people receive genuine praise, their doubt diminishes and their spirits soar. Encourage people and they’ll walk through walls for you."

Leadership is key to employee engagement, innovation and success. Are you investing in building your leadership ability? Are you setting a good example, setting vision, inspiring others, remaining optimistic and investing in others?

 

Technorati Tags: Leadership, Management, Business,Vision, Optimism, Inspiration,Stories, Selling, Action

Photo by Aprevit

As leaders we need to be constantly learning and growing, one of the best way’s to grow is by having a few good mentors to guide you on your journey. A mentor is defined in the Wiktionary as "A wise and trusted counselor or teacher". whilst this is a good definition, it only refers to the traits of a mentor, is does not really help one understand what an effective mentor should do. I like to think of a mentor as a guide, someone who can help us make our way successfully on our journey. To help one successfully navigate through life, a guide is a great help as…..

• …a guide has been there before
• …a guide has more experience than you
• …a guide shows you the way
• … a guide keeps you away from dead-end trials
• … a guide helps you steer clear of the quicksand

One of the failings of mentor / mentee relationships, is a misunderstanding of what the relationship should look and feel like. This is why this post by David Maister titled, "Are you being mentored?", discussing what we should be getting from our mentors was useful to me. David challenges us by asking, do you currently have someone who:

• Is reliably, dependably on your side, but is not afraid to critique you?
• You can rely on to tell you the truth - gently, but nevertheless the truth?
• Helps you understand how you are perceived, inside your organization and in the marketplace?
• Helps you extract the right lessons from your disappointments and failures?
• Keep you from getting carried way with too much enthusiasm about your successes?
• Watches you and lets you know when you are failing to keep things in balance?
• Acts as your sounding board for your new ideas before you launch them, so that you can refine them (and sometimes abandon the crazier ones?)
• Suggests new things for you to consider?
• Helps you see things from fresh perspectives, and helps you think things through, without substituting their judgment for yours?
• Helps you understand the politics of the organization you are in or have to work with?

We all need mentors who can challenges us to stretch and grow. Usually leaders need more than one mentor to speak into their lives, as one would typically find one person who can fulfil the list described above, in the various areas of our lives.

• Do you have a mentor(s) that speaks into your life?
• Looking at the above list how healthy are is your mentor / mentee relationship?

 

 

Photo by balsamia

 

A happy New Year to you all! As I did last year, I am posting on the progress this blog has made over the last year.

 

Overall

 

• Number of Posts: 109
• Number of RSS Readers: 1062 up from 300 in 2006
• Number of Spam Comments Received: 26,787 !!!
• Total number of visitors in 2007: 185,264
• Total number of unique visitors in 2007: 147,010
• Average Time on Site in 2007: 00:02:23

 

The Top Posts of 2007

 

Just in case you missed some of the great posts from 2007, these were the most read posts of 2007….

 

1. The ten C’s of employee engagement
2. Book Review: The Five Dysfunctions of a Team
3. Learning from the life of Benjamin Franklin
4. Talent is Never Enough
5. 5 Principles of Innovation
6. Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die
7. Your Boss Has an Attitude Problem
8. The Importance of ‘Know Why’ over ‘Know How’
9. The gap between strategy and execution
10. 8 Skills That Separate Leaders Who Perform from Those Who Don’t

 

The Top Five Categories of 2007

 

1. Quotes
2. Getting Things Done
3. Book Reviews
4. Role Models
5. Leadership Practices

 

Top 10 Visiting Countries

 

1. United States
2. United Kingdom
3. Canada
4. Australia
5. India
6. South Africa
7. Philippines
8. Germany
9. Malaysia
10. Singapore

 

Wishing you all a great 2008! Hoping that this blog will continue to add value to your lives as we all strive to become the change we wish to see in the world, leaving a legacy the will touch many generations…..

 

New years in San Francisco (Photo by *christopher*)

 

• Welcome to The Practice of Leadership!

  Get updates by RSS

  Get updates by e-mail:

  
  

• Link to Our Supporters

  • Performance Management
  • Staffing & Employment Leaders
  • purell hand sanitizer
  • Paul Asplin - CEO of DAS
  • Succession Planning
• 
  

• Explore More Leadership Topics

  Attitude Book Reviews Career Change Character Clarity Collaboration Commitment Communication Conflict Context Conversation Creativity Culture Decision-Making Definitions Dissent Energy Engagement Execution Experience Failure Feedback Focus Framework General Getting Things Done Goal-Setting Growth Innovation Inquiry Inspire Lance Armstrong Leadership Development Leadership Practices Leadership Succession Learning Lessons Management Meaning Meetings Mental Model Observe Paradox Passion Personal Leadership Philosophy Planning Practice Purpose Questions Quotes Reality Reflection Relating Research Resources Results Risk Role Models Self-Awareness Self-Knowledge Sensemaking Strategy Strengths Style Success Systemic Talent Teamwork Thinking Thought Leadership Time Management Transition Trends Trust Values Vision

• Quote of the Day

  “Nothing so conclusively proves a man's ability to lead others as what he does from day to day to lead himself.”
  -- Thomas J. Watson

• What I support...