Sep
28
Photo by Tony the Misfit
Carmine Gallo writes in BusinessWeek, “The Seven Secrets of Inspiring Leaders” discussing research by Maritz Research which found that only 10% of employees look forward to going to work. The main reason? A lack of leadership. Whilst Carmine was conducting research for the book “Fire Them Up” the following seven techniques were shown to result in inspirational communication:
- Demonstrate enthusiasm—constantly. “Inspiring leaders have an abundance of passion for what they do. You cannot inspire unless you’re inspired yourself. Period. Passion is something I can’t teach. You either have passion for your message or you don’t. Once you discover your passion, make sure it’s apparent to everyone within your professional circle.”
- Articulate a compelling course of action. “Inspiring leaders craft and deliver a specific, consistent, and memorable vision. A goal such as "we intend to double our sales by this time next year," is not inspiring. Neither is a long, convoluted mission statement destined to be tucked away and forgotten in a desk somewhere. A vision is a short (usually 10 words or less), vivid description of what the world will look like if your product or service succeeds.”
- 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.”
- 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 that story… Stories connect with people on an emotional level. Tell more of them.”
- 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.”
- 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.”
- Encourage potential. “Inspiring leaders praise people and invest in them emotionally. Richard Branson has said that when you praise people they flourish; criticize them and they shrivel up. Praise is the easiest way to connect with people. When people receive genuine praise, their doubt diminishes and their spirits soar. Encourage people and they’ll walk through walls for you.”
No leader accomplishes a vision alone. Inspiration is critical to rally people to make the journey and to commit the time and energy required to bring a vision to pass. These seven techniques present some great ways to inspire and motivate people to greatness.
Technorati Tags: Communication, Inspire, Inspiration, Motivation, Story, Storytelling, Leadership, Vision
Sep
28
Photo by Hamed Saber
Jon Ferguson has a great post titled “You Know You’re Not Leading When . . .” that asks the question “Ever catch yourself not leading?” and provide the following check list.
You know you are not leading when . . .
- You wait for someone to tell you what to do rather than taking the initiative yourself
- You spend too much time talking about how things should be different
- You blame the context, surroundings, or other people for your current situation
- You choose not to speak the truth in love
- You are more concerned about being cool or accepted than doing the right thing
- You seek consensus, rather than casting vision for a preferable future
- You aren’t taking any significant risks
- You accept status quo as the way it’s always been and always will be
- You start protecting your reputation instead of opening yourself up to opposition
- You sleep a little too sound
- You procrastinate to avoid making a tough call
- You talk to others about the problem rather than taking it to the person responsible
- You don’t feel like your butt is on the line for anything significant
- You think what you say doesn’t matter
- You ask for way too many opinions before taking action
This is a great list. I think we have all, at one time or another, caught ourselves not leading. I know that I have. Two insights which struck me after reading this list:
- To lead means we are out of our comfort zone, that we lead from the front, that we take risk, that we don not sleep a little too sound. We need to lead from the front. This means we go first, we push to the edge, we take the risk. What percentage of you time do you spend out in the front? What percentage of your time is spend outside your comfort zone? If it’s less than 10% you need to take action as soon as possible!
- Leadership is not a matter of position. We are prone “not to lead” when we begin to rely on our position as “leader”, the fact that we are the manager or have the position of leadership. We must never forget that leadership is a choice. The moment we articulate a vision and take responsibility for achieving it… leadership begins.
Technorati Tags: Leadership, Lead, Management, Business, Status, Attitude
Sep
28
Photo by makani5
“Leaders like everyone else, are the sum of all their experiences, but, unlike others, they amount to more than the sum, because they make more of their experiences.” – Warren Bennis, Why Leaders Can’t Lead
Leaders are continual learners and effective leaders ensure they make the most of their life experiences. It’s important then you understand how to extract the maximum value from what you learn from your experiences as you journey through life. Here are some of what I have learnt about the importance of learning from what life throws at you…
1. Accomplished leaders learn best from experiences: The Leading Blog has a post, “What Is Your Plan For Personal Growth?"’ discussing the importance of having a plan to grow, as discussed in the book “Crucibles of Leadership” by Robert Thomas. Thomas writes that crucibles “are like trials or tests that corner individuals and force them to answer questions about who they are and what is really important to them.” The best learning comes from these types of personal experiences that have been reflected upon and understood.
“Accomplished leaders say that experience is their best teacher. They learned their most meaningful and important leadership lessons — lessons that they’ve integrated into their own leadership style—through crucibles. These were critical events and experiences, times of testing and trial, failure more often than grand success, that grabbed them by the lapels and demanded to know ‘What do you stand for?’ and ‘What are you going to do?’ A situation arose that did not respect age, gender, generation, nationality, talent, or charisma; all it asked was that the person step up and be someone or do something they’d never been or done before.”
2. Learning from Experience is not an automatic process: Learning from experience is important for effective leadership. However, learning from experience, does not just happen. It’s surprising how few people take the time to reflect on and learn from their experiences. Learning is not an automatic process and people do not automatically learn from their experiences.
Unless we take the time to engage in reflection, we will end up repeating our mistakes, unable to extract learning from our experiences.
Whenever we take a break and review, analyze and evaluate our experience of new information, with the goal of increasing our understanding, we are busy reflecting. It’s through this process of reflection, that our life experiences are transformed into learning and deeper self-understanding.
3. We learn from life’s experiences through the process of reflection: Reflection is triggered by events in our life’s and especially crucibles. Reflection is the process of mulling personal experiences over and over in our mind. During this process we’re asking ourselves a number of probing questions, examining our experience from different perspectives and making connections with previous experiences.
As we reflect on the events and circumstances in our lives, we seek to understand our behaviours, looking for what caused us to react and behave the way we did. The goal of this introspection is to gain a deeper self-awareness and understanding. We learn best from life’s experience when we have a chance to think about our behaviours and it’s underlying causes. Through the process of reflection, we become an observer of own own thinking and actions.
"We should be careful to get out of an experience all the wisdom that is in it - not like the cat that sits down on a hot stove lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove lid again - and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore." - Mark Twain
The process of reflection is initiated by thinking and questioning our feelings, behaviours and actions. This allows us to gain an understanding of why we’re getting the results we are and what we need to do differently, to improve and create better results.
It’s a common belief that we we all learn from experience, this is partially true, learning from experience is not an automatic process. We don’t learn just because we have an experience. We learn best from evaluated experience. Learning occurs through the deliberate process of reflection. After all you’ll always be more convinced by what you have personally discovered than by what others have found.
4. Schedule time for reflection: We learn when we take the time required to reflect on our experiences. We make on of the biggest mistakes if we think that learning from life’s experience is going to happen automatically. You don’t own your experience until you understand them.
5. Slow down: We deceive ourselves if we think that by doing things faster that we will be more productive. Slow down and take time to think and reflect on your experiences.
6. Take responsibility: By taking responsibility for what’s happening in our lives we move from being the victim to the owner and author of our lives. We must take responsibility for the results we are getting in our lives. Blame nobody. As soon as we blame we become the victim and justify our actions. Start by asking yourself, “What choices or decisions could I have made differently?”, “How have I interpreted these events?” and “Has my interpretation on these events contributed to this situation?”
“Experience is not what happens to you but it is what you make of what happens to you.” - Aldous Huxley
Reflect on the following:
- Are you slowing down enough to think about your daily experiences?
- Have you set aside time to think and reflect on your experiences?
- Do you make it a habit to learn from your experiences?
- What surprised, angered or made you happy this week? Why?
Technorati Tags: Leadership, Learning, Reflection, Reflect, Business, Experience
Sep
28
Trust is the foundation of effective leadership. Dennis and Michelle Reina, founders of the Reina Trust Building Institute and the authors of “Trust and Betrayal in the Workplace”, discussed in the article titled “Building Sustainable Trust” (pdf) the behaviours of people we are and are not inclined to trust.
We are inclined to trust people who…
- Are self-aware.
- Take responsibility for their role in the relationship.
- Demonstrate that they consider the best interests of others rather than just themselves.
- Do what they say they will do.
- Practice the values they tell us are important to them.
- Are willing to recognize and consider both sides of the story.
- Listen and respond to our needs and interests.
- Are willing to think about what they have to give as well as what they hope to receive.
We are NOT inclined to trust people who…
- We experience as selfish and self-absorbed.
- Do not demonstrate an interest in the needs of others.
- Are not willing to accept responsibility for their actions.
- Gossip/talk about others behind their back.
- Blame others without looking at their role in the experience.
- Make snap judgments and draw conclusions before hearing all the information.
- Are not open and receptive to the ideas and views of others.
- Change the rules all the time.
- Are inconsistent in their behavior so we don’t know what to expect from one interaction to the next.
- Distort the truth by omitting information for their own purposes.
Considering your behaviour over the past week, are you someone who can be trusted?
Technorati Tags: Trust, Behaviour, Leadership, Management, Relationship, Integrity, Betrayal
Sep
14
How leaders build trust
Filed Under Leadership Practices | 1 Comment
Trust is one of the most critical requirement for effective leadership. Building and sustaining trust in organisations is a critical leadership practice and it’s one the never ends. Dennis and Michelle Reina, founders of the Reina Trust Building Institute and the authors of “Trust and Betrayal in the Workplace”, have developed a model of trust, which provides a roadmap describing how Transaction Trust is built and sustained. The model is named transactional trust, as the authors believe that trust is an exchange, you have to give trust to get trust in return. The Transaction Trust model is discussed in the article titled “Building Sustainable Trust” (pdf), which is illustrated below:
The three components of the Transactional Trust model as illustrated above are as follows…
Contractual Trust
Contractual trust concerns how expectations are managed and how boundaries are set. Dennis and Michelle Reina describe contractual trust as implying
“… a mutual understanding between people; each will do what they say they will do.”
To improve the level of contractual trust you need to:
- Manage expectations
- Establish boundaries
- Delegate appropriately
- Encourage mutually serving intentions
- Keep agreements.
- Be consistent.
Communication trust
Communication trust is about the context and content of communication between people. Dennis and Michelle Reina describe the nature of communication trust as follows.
“Trust influences communication and communication influences trust.”
To improve the level of communication trust you need to improve communication in the following ways:
- Share information
- Tell the truth
- Admit mistakes
- Give and receive constructive feedback
- Maintain confidentiality
- Speak with good purpose
Competence Trust
Competence trust is about ensuring you have the necessary skills and knowledge, that people involved have the competence to make the journey. Dennis and Michelle Reina describe the essence of competence trust reminding us that…
“Those responsible for implementing change need to be involved in designing the change.”
To improve the level of competence trust you need to involve people, to do that you need to:
- Acknowledge people’s skills and abilities
- Allow people to make decisions
- Involve others and seek their input
- Help people learn skills
In Summary
Dennis and Michelle Reina describe how these three components work together…
“Contractual Trust sets the tone for engagement and direction and shapes roles and responsibilities. Communication Trust establishes information flow and how people talk with one another. Competence Trust allows individuals to leverage and further develop skills, abilities, and knowledge.”
Trust is built or destroy by how leaders behave, how they contract, how the communicate and their competence. Reflect on the above and rate your self on each dimension on a scale from 1 to 10 (1 being poor and 5 being excellent):
- The extent to which you have developed contractual trust in your team?
- The extent to which you have developed communication trust in your team?
- The extent to which you have developed competence trust in your team?
What three actions can you take over the next few weeks to improve the area where you have the lowest rating?
Technorati Tags: Trust, Leadership, Management, Business
Sep
14
Photo by by lumaxart
Having previously posted on the distinction between leadership and management, the recent discussion by Bob Sutton on his view of the differences between leadership and management in his post “Leadership vs. Management: An Accurate But Dangerous Distinction?” caught my eye. In the post Bob makes an important point concerning how the distinction between management and leadership affects the conduct and behaviour of leaders…
“… although I think this distinction is more or less correct, and is useful to a degree (one emphasizes the focusing on the bigger picture and the other on the details of implementation), I also think that it has unintended negative effects on how some leaders view and do their work. Some leaders see their job as just coming up with big and vague ideas, and treat engaging in conversation about the details of those ideas or the details of implementation as mere management work that is ‘beneath’ them, as things for ‘the little people to do.’ Moreover, this distinction also seems to be used a reason for leaders to avoid the hard work of learning about the technologies their companies use and the people that they lead and to make decisions without considering the roadblocks and constraints that affect the cost and time line, and even if it is possible to implement their grand decisions and big ideas…. But one characteristic of the successful dreamers I think of — Francis Ford Coppola, Steve Jobs, folks at Pixar like Ed Catmull and Brad Bird — is that they also have remarkably deep understanding of the industry they work in and the people they lead, and they often are willing to get very deep into the weeds. This ability to go back and forth between the little details and the big picture is also evident in the behavior of some of the leaders I admire most who aren’t usually thought of as dreamers… am all for grand visions and strategies. But the people who seem to make them come true usually seem to have deep understanding of the little details required to make them work — or if they don’t, they have the wisdom to surround themselves with people who can offset their weaknesses and who have the courage to argue with them when there is no clear path between their dreams and reality… I am not much rejecting the distinction between leadership and management, but I am saying that the best leaders do something that might be most properly called a mix of leadership and management (a great example is HP CEO Mark Hurd) , or at least, lead in a way that constantly takes into account the importance of management. And some of the worst senior executives use the distinction between leadership and management as an excuse to avoid learning the details they need to understand the big picture and to select the right strategies.”
I agree with Bob concerning the effect that the distinction between leadership and management has on the behaviour of leaders where “Some leaders see their job as just coming up with big and vague ideas, and treat engaging in conversation about the details of those ideas or the details of implementation as mere management work that is ‘beneath’ them, as things for ‘the little people to do.’”. I have also observer this behaviour in many organisations. It is also true that great leaders have a good grasp on the details of the industry and the job at hand, they need to understand an practice the word of leaders and the work of managers.
It is also true that many of the organisations today tend to be over managed and under led. This requires that a focus on developing a leadership practice. It does not mean we stop or reduce our management discipline. We need both to be effective.
I agree that the distinction between management and leadership is useful, as it help us become more self-aware, giving us insight into when we are behaving as leaders and when we are behaving as managers.
If you assess your behaviour over the past few months, what percentage of your time was spent on management (the details) and what percentage of your time was spend on leadership (the big picture)? What have been the results? Was this an effective use of your time?
Technorati Tags: Leadership, Management, Theory, Business, Style, Attitude, HR
Sep
14
Derek Sivers has a great post on Abraham Maslow’s and his 8 Ways to Self-Actualize. Maslow defined as self actualisation follows:
"Self Actualization is the intrinsic growth of what is already in the organism, or more accurately, of what the organism is."
One of the interesting insights concerning Maslow from this article is that:
“Maslow studied healthy people, most psychologists study sick people.”
Rather then studying sick people and seeking to avoid the issues and challenges faced by these people. Maslow studied healthy people and identified what drove them to be healthy and successful. This approach resulted in some really interesting insights. Maslow came to the conclusion the man is basically good and that man has a natural drive to become the best person that he can be. Maslow also recognised the need for man to live a life that is an expression of himself and a life that is founded in moral and ethical behaviour. That man has a longing to live as a person of character. His research led him to articulate the following eight ways to self actualise:
- Experience things fully, vividly, selflessly. Throw yourself into the experiencing of something: concentrate on it fully, let it totally absorb you
- Life is an ongoing process of choosing between safety (out of fear and need for defense) and risk (for the sake of progress and growth): Make the growth choice a dozen times a day.
- Let the self emerge. Try to shut out the external clues as to what you should think, feel, say, and so on, and let your experience enable you to say what you truly feel.
- When in doubt, be honest. If you look into yourself and are honest, you will also take responsibility. Taking responsibility is self-actualizing.
- Listen to your own tastes. Be prepared to be unpopular.
- Use your intelligence, work to do well the things you want to do, no matter how insignificant they seem to be.
- Make peak experiencing more likely: get rid of illusions and false notions. Learn what you are good at and what your potentialities are not.
- Find out who you are, what you are, what you like and don’t like, what is good and what is bad for you, where you are going, what your mission is. Opening yourself up to yourself in this way means identifying defenses - and then finding the courage to give them up.
Technorati Tags: Maslow,Growth, Self-Actulize, Development, Leadership Development, Leadership, Management, Business, Motivation
Sep
3
Photo by Hamed Saber
People fail to lead when they act from the stance of a victim. People fail to lead when they act from a sense of helplessness. You have a victim attitude and are failing to lead if you recognise any of the following symptoms:
- You take no action until you have satisfied that you have complete information. That you understand all the steps and risks involved. This means you fail to act and nothing happens.
- You wait for authority and permission to act from those higher up on the organisational ladder.
- You expect senior management to provide you with all the answers and the solution to your problems.
- You place safety ahead of your vision.
- You avoid conflict by not raising issues and concerns which need to be address for any real change to occur.
This is not a leadership attitude. Leadership happens when we make the decision that what is happens around us is our responsibility. One of the hallmarks of effective leadership is the willingness to accept responsibility, to become the change we want to see in the world. Truly empowered leadership occurs when an individual comes to the realisation they they are the problem! That they are responsible for the problems in their life, the frustrations they feel, for their responses to circumstances and for how they feel.
Leaders adopt an empowered response toward life, they do not allow life to just happen to them. They have decided to own their life and their future, by acting everyday to create the future they want. The have accepted their responsibility to act to make the difference.
- Do you have a vision for your life?
- Are you acting to create the future you want?
- Do you act as an owner of life’s circumstances and your future or more like a victim?
- Have you decided to begin the journey of learning how to act on your vision and create the future that you want?
Technorati Tags: Vision, Victim, Owner, Responsibility, Management, Business, Leadership, Leading
Sep
3
After decades of research and thousands of interviews with great leaders, Gallup research discovered seven factors crucial to leadership success which were identified as follows.
- Visioning: “Successful leaders are able to look out, across, and beyond the organization. They have a talent for seeing and creating the future. They use highly visual language that paints pictures of the future for those they lead.”
- Maximizing Values: “By highlighting what is important about work, great leaders make clear what is important to them in life. They clarify how their own values — particularly a concern for people — relate to their work. They also communicate a sense of personal integrity and a commitment to act based on their values… As a result, employees know where they stand with these leaders."
- Challenging Experience: "Confronting challenges produces beneficial effects for leaders. It accelerates their learning curve, stretches their capacity for high performance, and broadens their horizons about what is possible for an organization to achieve."
- Mentoring: "These mentoring relationships are not the product of formal company-wide mentoring programs — not that these aren’t helpful. Instead, these informal, yet successful, mentoring relationships enable each individual leader’s needs and differences to be taken into account…. Inspired by their positive experiences with mentors, the leaders we studied have become intentional mentors themselves. They selectively pick one, two, or three highly talented individuals and invest greatly in their growth and development over a significant period of time. They see the success of these ‘mentees’ as a reflection of their own success. These leaders practice a form of succession planning that cultivates the next generation of leaders."
- Building a Constituency: "One leader said, ‘My work forces me to have a relationship with certain people. I just think about those I don’t yet work with and figure out who might be useful to know. I nearly always find that relationships built this way bring dividends.’ These leaders understand networks and the importance of networking.”
- Making Sense of Experience: "They also learn from their mistakes and their successes, and — as they seek out a range of experts across their wide constituency — they ask questions and listen…. What’s more, these leaders are able to deal with the complexity of business life and help those around them make sense of it. They do this by keeping things simple and making information accessible. This way, these leaders help individuals understand what’s going on so that they are better able to achieve success. As one leader put it, ‘There’s so much happening that affects our work. I make sure, at each meeting, that we understand all the important factors and ensure that the next steps are clearly laid out.’”
- Knowing Self: "They don’t try to be all things to all people. Their personalities and behaviors are indistinguishable between work and home. They are genuine. It is this absence of pretense that helps them connect to others so well."
This is a great leadership framework. How do you measure up against these seven demands?
Technorati Tags: Leadership, Research, Business, Management, Vision, Values, Experience, Mentor, Framework
Sep
2
Leader: You = Your Calendar!
Filed Under Personal Leadership | 1 Comment
Photo by eliazar
Leaders are closely watched by their constituents and how leaders spend their time is a clear indication of what’s really important. If you say that customers and innovation is important to you, ask yourself how much time you’re spending time with customers and on driving innovation. People look at how leaders spend their time, as a means to judge if leaders measure up to their talk. Followers ask themselves, “Does my leader spend time on what they’re telling me is important?”. “Do you spend their time on what they say is important?”
“You = Your calendar*
*Calendars never lieAll we have is our time. The way we spend our time is our priorities, is our ‘strategy.’ Your calendar knows what you really care about. Do you?” - Tom Peters presentation on Leadership
Review your calendar entries for the past few weeks and ask yourself:
- Is there a clear relationship between your priorities, your values and how you spend your time?
- Are you spending time on what you believe is important?
- How much time are you spending on what you claim is important?
Technorati Tags: Time Management, Leadership, Management, Focus, Values, Trust, Getting Things Done, Lifehack, GTD, Business
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