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Narcissism Kills Morale

July 19th, 2010

“To be humble to superiors is duty, to equals courtesy, to inferiors nobleness.”
- Benjamin Franklin

Rock Concert or Business Conference?

The scene resembled a large rock concert. There was a massive stage, huge projection screens, a booming sound system, laser lights and special effects that would make Broadway jealous. To say there was a great deal of excitement and anticipation for the presenter would be a major understatement. His name was announced, the music boomed and onto stage strode the classic image of a powerful, confident executive. Navy suit with pin stripes, tall, slender, salt-and-peppered hair, power tie and polished shoes. The audience’s applause roared. He walked to the podium, the music faded, applause stopped and the stadium settled to perfect silence in anticipation… » Read more: Narcissism Kills Morale

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Posted in Career, Featured, Servant Leadership

Tags: Conference Empathy humility Motivation narcissism Supporting Your Team Tips

Leadership as a Product Purhcased by Followers

June 29th, 2010

If your leadership were a business, would your employees be paying customers? The war for talent means your best employees ‘choice of employers is broadening. They have leadership options from which to buy and definitely conduct product comparisons. Whether it is the degree of late nights you ask of them, the extent of which “stuff” is allowed to roll down hill or amount of training received, your employees pay a price for your leadership product. Other leaders, either within your organization or elsewhere, offer different options at different price points. Therefore, leaders should ask themselves, “why do my employees pay for my leadership, why should they continue paying for it and how do I find more of the right customers for my leadership?” Based on this perspective of leadership as a product purchased by followers, below are three good practices I’ve seen for improving your leadership product.

1. Evaluate Competitor Products: Within your company and beyond, what are the most admired leaders offering as a part of their “product”? Look at the managers within your organization with the best 360 feedback scores. Also, look at some of the greatest leaders outside your company – those highlighted from Fortune’s Best Companies to Work For or similar studies. The leadership products offered from these competitors are ones you should consider adopting features from for your own leadership product offering.

2. Conduct a Market Study: When was the last time you conducted a survey of your team’s reflection on the quality of your leadership product? 360 Feedback is great, but consider going beyond the standard HR processes and policies. One of the greatest tools I’ve seen is an anonymous Q&A session. In this process, employees on the team submit their questions to a human resources representative. The HR representative filters the questions, rephrases them into their own words to ensure anonymity, then asks the leader these questions live, in an open dialog with the team. Why not conduct your own, similar, marketing study?

3. Invest in Research & Development: Over time, the best products evolve through investments in R&D. Your leadership product should be no different. To maintain the interest and support of your team, you should continuously improve your leadership skills. Invest time with mentors and perhaps even a professional coach. Devote time to personal development and reading the latest leadership books and industry periodicals. If you fail to evolve your leadership product over time, your competitors will become more attractive while your product remains stagnant.

Your leadership is a product purchased by your followers. The team invests time, effort and creativity into your organization, at least in part due to your leadership. Therefore, as you serve the organization, it’s employees, customers, investors and other stake holders, you owe it to them to develop your leadership product. Failure to continuously develop this product could be more costly than failures in your organization’s end product and services.

Questions: What other ways do you invest in your leadership Product? How does your leadership develop their product?

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Posted in Career, Servant Leadership

Tags: Career Servant Leadership Supporting Your Team

Leadership Conference Benefits

May 3rd, 2010

Benefits to Attending Leadership Conferences

I’m about to attend the Chick-Fil-A Leadercast, presented by John C. Maxwell and Giant Impact. The event is only one day, but the great lineup of speakers and topics has me anxiously awaiting it. As I reflected on this, a thought occurred to me: most of these great speakers have published plenty of material and lessons, so why do I find it important to attend leadership conferences at all? I came up with the following short list. Perhaps it will help you convince your boss the next time this event, or a similar opportunity comes around.

1. Education: The obvious. As a leader in the organization, you must continuously develop your leadership skills. Conferences are among the best ways to do this.

2. Networking: Whether you’re an extrovert or not, be sure to reach out to co-participants. Those in attendance are like-minded, particularly if the conference focuses on a particular theme, like Greenleaf’s Servant Leadership conference and you may find them excellent references for bouncing new ideas.

3. Focus: You could spend weeks, even months reading books in small snippets, but you can’t always focus consistently and key topics are often lost in translation. In contrast, by attending all day events and longer conferences, you are able to absorb the information continuously. From my experience, this results in greater retention of the information.

4. Setting an Example: As a leader in your organization, you need to set the example by honing your skills and leadership capabilities. As your team and peers see you make the commitment to be out of the office for these experiences, you lead by example and set expectations for them to follow.

So the next time you contemplate whether you can afford the time away from the office, consider these benefits and more, then commit yourself to, as the Chick-Fil-A Leadercast says, “Be The One”. If you seek suggestions for leadership events, definitely check out the Chick-Fil-A Leadercast and Greenleaf’s Annual conference.

Question: Why do you attend leadership development events?

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Posted in Career

Tags: Conference Leadership

Pause to Reflect on What’s Important

April 12th, 2010

My wife and I both had to be in the office early. We’d gotten our 20 month old son ready for daycare, but were running late and feeling the pressure. Tension was thick, fuses were short and it was a poor way to start the day.

As I rushed outside in the still dark morning, a shuffling of leaves by the door made me pause. I stopped to let my eyes adjust and found myself practically within arms reach of two beautiful deer. One was bracing to sprint, but the other seemed calm and curious. Impressed by the pleasant surprise, I took in the moment. Then, backing away slowly, I loaded the car. In the small magic of that moment, my new friends reminded me to focus on what was important. Had I been “on time” I would have missed that special experience. I then realized I needed to make the time to serve my family by helping them start their day right. I also needed to serve my colleagues by ensuring my mind was focused on the right topics and preparation for our meeting on my drive in. » Read more: Pause to Reflect on What’s Important

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Posted in Career, Management

Tags: Career Energy Productivity Servant Leadership Tips

Ask The Right Questions

April 2nd, 2010

Ask the Right Questions at the Right Time

Great leaders ask the right questions at the right time. While great leaders are better at this than others, there is no magic to asking the right questions. By focusing on serving the organization, one can position themselves to identify the right questions at the right time. Below are some tactics that may help you serve the organization and ask the right questions:

1. Active Listening
It all begins with listening first. The meeting multitasker often misses key concepts and asks the dumb question. The person that actively listens, repeating back what they hear to ensure comprehension, is best positioned to ask the right questions. » Read more: Ask The Right Questions

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Posted in Career, Featured

Tags: Career Leadership Questions Servant Leadership Tips

Foregiveness For Balance

March 8th, 2010

We Forgive Because, Together, We Work

It was my last night in Italy on what was was a particularly draining, transatlantic business trip. The average day included 12+ hours of working sessions, followed by 2 or 3 hour email marathons. The trip was immensely successful, but I was drained – physically and emotionally. I plopped down in a leather chair in front of the fireplace. It was nice to finally appreciate the comfort our Italian villa bed & breakfast intended.

Soon after I sat down, two fellow business travelers struck up a conversation with me. The British pair were account representatives for another manufacturing firm and were wrapping up “aggressive negotiations” with one of their partners. As the dialog progressed, I was struck by how well these two balanced each other.

The more senior gentleman was more reserved and filled the role of the conservative, voice of reason and patience in negotiations. The younger gentleman was much more tenacious and referred to as occasionally ”unrelenting”. Throughout the conversation, there were comments from the superior such as, “that’s why I didn’t bring you along on that negotiation – you would have destroyed them!” Yet the younger gentleman did not mind, responding “of course! I understood and agree with you – I would not have been a good fit in that trip.”

» Read more: Foregiveness For Balance

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Posted in Career

Tags: Career Forgiveness Partnership Success Team Building Understanding

Leaders Who Cry Wolf

February 22nd, 2010

Leaders Who Cry Wolf May Leave Their Flock to be Eaten

As the story goes a child shepherd, seeking attention, cries false alarms of “Wolf! Wolf!” on several occasions. Over time, the townspeople and neighbors learn to ignore his cries and soon, stop responding at all. As a result, when a wolf really does come and the boy shouts for help again, he’s left to fend for himself. The wolf eats the flock and, in some versions, even eats the boy. This tale offers wisdom to us in a business context as well.

Have you ever seen someone jump from fire drill to fire drill because their boss believed every issue was a crisis? Often, this stems from the culture of the organization and the overreaction is simply passed down the chain of command. Regardless of their source, constant fire drills may:

1. Burnout employees

2. Reduce creativity and innovation

3. Emphasize expedience over quality

» Read more: Leaders Who Cry Wolf

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Posted in Career, Featured, Management

Tags: Burn Out Career Management Servant Leadership Supporting Your Team Understanding

Leadership Lessons From My Accident

February 2nd, 2010

Going Into A Snowbank Can Teach You A Lesson

Crashing Into a Ditch Teaches A (Leadership) Lesson

At 7:15 AM, I was already well on my way down the hour-long commute. On that morning I drove “the wife’s car”, because my regular vehicle was in the shop. It was a classic Midwest winter day, with plenty of lake effect snow, but the region was prepared for the conditions. As such, the roads were fairly clear. Still, occasional sections looked suspiciously like ice. As a result, I drove under the speed limit, but still passed a few people who “probably shouldn’t be on the road anyway”.

It was during one of those passes that I felt the back end start to slide out. After several counter-steering attempts, the fishtailing continued and I realized there was no escaping it. » Read more: Leadership Lessons From My Accident

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Posted in Career, Management

Tags: Career Change Management Leadership Management Technology

New Year’s Resolutions for Leaders

December 28th, 2009

What are your Leadership New Year's Resolutions?

Thinking about your New Year’s resolutions? Here’s a quick list of ideas for leaders. The list includes a few of the standards, but aims to inspire some new ideas for each of us:

Physical Fitness - Whether it’s weight loss, increased exercise or dropping a bad habit, this standard is important for leaders to maintain stress levels. You may also find increased productivity.
Listen More – Find yourself speaking more than you listen? Did your latest 360 feedback suggest the team may not feel their input is valued enough? Commit to listening a greater percentage of the time.
Succession Planning - Too many leaders let real succession planning wait too long, if they do it at all. Why not start the new year right with specific steps to ensure strong succession planning throughout the organization? » Read more: New Year’s Resolutions for Leaders

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Posted in Career, Servant Leadership

Tags: Inspiration Leadership New Year Resolution Self-improvement Tips

5 Tips for Work Life Alignment, Not Balance

August 15th, 2009

Do you go home every work night feeling drained, with no energy left for your family, friends and other personal activities? While this is normal on occasion, it should not be the norm. Too many people believe the solution is work/life balance. Yet have you ever met someone that has found the perfect balance where work never comes up at home and home life never comes up at work? In contrast, many people have found the perfect work/life alignment. Work/life alignment occurs when one is equally comfortable at work and outside the office, handling both personal and professional activities in either environment. It’s amazing how much more energy and enjoyment one finds when they stop trying to balance their work and personal life and focus instead on aligning the two.