Leadership

Leadership Starts From Within

The global recession, directly or indirectly, will impact leadership – yours, your market, your competition, your region and, yes, your nation. Why?

Because leadership is ubiquitous. It is all around us. It is of primary importance. Yet, it is seemingly underserved, undervalued and under resourced. Need some proof?

According to the Development Dimensions International ‘s Global Leadership Forecast 2008/09 (1) from research of 1493 HR professionals and 12,208 business leaders across 76 countries:

  • 75% of business leaders identified that improving or leveraging of leadership talent was their #1 priority.
  • Only 41% of business leaders are satisfied with the help they get to develop leadership capabilities.
  • One of the core needs within organizations is to create a sustainable supply of quality leaders.
  • The primary skill shortfall amongst organizations is in leadership skills and interpersonal skills.

 

Leadership is a leaking bucket. All organizations, large and small, from the family to local sport team to government to the boardroom of a leading global company, will at some time need to replace leaders. This arises from necessity and/or from natural attrition. From the information above, there is clearly a pervasive problem or, in a more positive tone, there is an opportunity – an opportunity to address this chronic shortcoming. How?

Start with yourself. Leadership starts from within.

Insights

Definition

To begin to explore this important distinction let’s start by looking at the definition of leadership. According to the Oxford Dictionary leadership is the action of leading a group of people or an organization, or the ability to do this.

And…

To lead is to cause (a person or animal) to go with one by holding them by the hand, a halter, a rope, etc. while moving forward.

Leadership therefore requires influence, direction and action. However, for leadership to manifest so that others follow, it stands to reason that the leader, whoever or whatever that may be, must first influence themselves, give self-direction and act on that direction.

Chronic Question

There exists a perennial question about leadership – “Are leaders born or made?” or to rephrase it “Nature versus nurture”.

Why does it need to be one or the other? Do you see many babies leading Fortune 500s or governments or the local sports team? Regardless of your opinion or perceptions one thing is for sure. Leadership is something into which you grow. Importantly, we are all born to lead ourselves at least!

In nature there must be reasonably synchronous growth regardless of the “ecosystem”. Teenagers may experience growing pains when their bones are growing at a faster rate than their muscles. Our DNA is programmed so that eventually growth levels out and all systems are aligned and developed to their full design specification.

An individual promoted to a new role in an organization can experience a skill, attitude and/or ability gap compared to the new demands. To address the gap or deficit, the same individual must seek within first and begin the process of change there.

Admittedly, in organizations it is possible to experience growing pains too – sales and demand exceed the ability to supply and/or service the customer. Leadership must, therefore, develop within the organization to address the imbalance and ensure that harmony is restored.

What Does Google Have To Say?

As Google is the #1 search engine, it gives an impartial and objective perspective on leadership.

Just by typing in “leadership” yields 118 million results – sites, references etc. According to Google AdWords searches on the word “leadership” receives >4 million hits globally per month. Both of these facts suggest that leadership is a topic of significant interest and that there is a huge diversity of data, opinions, perceptions, models, styles, concepts and experts. The monthly searches also suggest there is a perpetual quest for answers, solutions and information on leadership.

Interestingly, when the global search is narrowed there are only:

  • 4400 hits per month for “successful leadership”
  • 33,100 hits per months for “effective leadership” and
  • 18,100 hits per month for “self-leadership”.

It is interesting that, in the face of all the need out there for leadership, the refined search on successful and effective leadership globally produces comparatively so few hits. Why is that? Is there a global delusion that we just need to know more about leadership or just understand it better rather than define what it takes to make a good leader or even a great one or to establish a legacy of outstanding leadership?

Continue reading →

FAQ, Jobs & Careers, MyOrbit Blogs, Sales & Marketing, Start-ups

How to Search For Jobs and Prepare for Job Interviews

While the global economy might have technically come out / avoided a recession, America and Europe are still facing high levels of unemployment. The situation is better in Asia due to economic growth, where jobs are available but the competition for the good jobs is intense. This article is aimed to help anyone involved in a job search.

Before looking for your dream job, learn how to market your skills, experience, and talent. This will help you assess the possibility of landing your dream job. First, skills and interests should be evaluated personally. Write a list of your capabilities; then list your limitations or skills not available at present. Jobs that are too demanding, like night shifts, might not work, or jobs that you may be overly qualified for (it happens); and third, planning the time as soon as there is an inner instinct that tells you that you are ready and qualified. Once this has been done, go to companies and prospective employers early in the morning for this will give them a good impression and for the applicant, a time to complete the process the application if lucky. Remember, the early bird catches the worm. Continue reading →

FAQ, Healthcare

The Immune System And Body Support

The body’s immune system is a complex and precise function that recognizes any foreign invasion by any substance, bacteria or virus that will cause disease or harm the host in any way. When a foreign substance invades the body, an inflammatory condition results in the tissues affected.

A prime example would be when a patient has tissue transplanted from another person, living or dead into to their body. Their immune system will reject the implanted tissue, and in order to prevent this, they will have to be on specific medications for the rest of their life to try to prevent this rejection.

 

Another example would be when a person has been getting colds on a more frequent basis than is usual. Their immune system has not been able to fend off the invading rhinoviruses that cause these colds. There can also be more serious consequences due to impaired immune systems.

These could be very serious in nature, and there can be attacks on any of the major organs of the body. The immune system can also turn on the individuals’ body when it fails to recognize a particular tissue and feels that it is an invader. Conditions that occur when this scenario is played out are called “Auto-Immune Deficiencies”, or “Auto Immune Disorders”.

 

The immune system is differentiated from other systems, such as the digestive, cardiovascular, skeletal, lymphatic, and nervous systems. The immune system is comprised of and can be found within the cells of our body. These are mainly the white blood cells (WBC), the warriors that attack invaders when the body is compromised and can cause bodily harm. There are also unique white cells such as Eosinophils, Lymphocytes, Basophils, etc. that are warriors in their own right. There also are the T-Cells that help maintain the immunity system. When they are lowered, the bodies’ ability to fight disease is lowered. These then comprise the immune system. It is when these cells are depleted or impaired in any way, that the body’s immunity is lowered and the individual can develop an autoimmune disorder that can result in increased infections or tumor formations. As an example, every individual has cancer cells within their body. Yet they do not have cancer. It is when there is a breakdown of the immune system, these cancer cells start to proliferate, and that is when they can develop full-blown cancer.

 

Other factors have a profound affect on the immune system. Environmental, the air we breathe and everything around us can have a bearing on the strength of our immune systems. We are literally surrounded by toxins in our everyday living, from our carpets, drapes, bedding, clothes we wear, even when they come from the cleaners, and the cleaning products used in the home. Personally everyone uses some form of cosmetic, shampoo, after-shave, deodorant, etc. These all contain chemicals that can have some toxins associated with their use. Cooking can be another area whereby we can be exposed to toxins. As an example, meat that is charred can be toxic to the body. There are other areas as well; such as food stored in plastic containers, food cooked in aluminum utensils, the metal fillings in our teeth, can all contribute toxins within our body. Although these toxins are minute in nature as they are released, in time they can have an impact on our immune systems, causing a weakening, and in some cases a complete breakdown.

 

Because of the immune system, the body has within itself the ability to resist diseases and other disorders. This ability is called “innate ability”. This innate ability is found within the specialized cells discussed above and in the individual’s genetic makeup as well. When this innate ability is in a weakened state, the body is apt to succumb to invaders that will overpower these cells, and the body goes from “ease to disease”. Therefore to stay healthy, it is imperative to maintain your immune system at its’ peak operating level.

 

It goes without saying that having a strong immune system depends on the state of your health, both physically and emotionally. Therefore, it up to each and everyone one of us to maintain or improve the state of our immune systems. How to improve and maintain the immune system, is discussed below in the health hints.

 

Health Hints***

 

The emotional aspects of ones’ physical being plays a tremendous role in maintaining a strong immune system. Scientists have found that if a patient focuses on believing that they will get well and fully believe in this, this can raise the T-Cell count and this will help in their recovery. Meditation and deep breathing can prove to be a powerful tool in this aspect. One must set aside a time of day to have a quite time. Just 20 minutes to a half hour in a darkened room, free from all noises and interferences, where you can just focus on the problem area of the body. Using “visualization” can be an important tool in boosting the immune system and speed the healing process. As an example, if there is a tumor, focus your mind on the tumor, and visualize that the tumor is shrinking. Use this method on any type of problem, a painful muscle or any type of disorder.

Diet is a prominent aspect of maintaining a strong immune system. Antioxidants are a necessary part of the diet that can help stimulate the immune system. These are vitamin C, E, A, plus the minerals zinc and selenium. CoQ10 can also be included. Eating enough fruits, vegetables, whole grains, poultry and fish will supply a great amount of these nutrients. Unfortunately most people do not eat enough of these foods on a daily basis, so it is necessary to supplement the diet. Taking a multivitamin, plus zinc 50 mg, selenium 100mcg, folic acid 400 mcg, vitamin C 500, and vitamin E 400 i.u. will add the additional amounts to the multivitamin formula necessary to augment the amounts for the body to absorb. Additional augmentation should include Omega-3 fatty acids by supplementing with Salmon Oil or Fish Oil 1000 mg. (DHA are essential fats needed to protect against nerve damage and to support overall health and wellness).

 

In addition to a well balanced diet and the supplements, you should include “Probiotics”. Probiotics are the good bacteria found in our digestive tracts and stimulate our immune systems. Probiotics are found in Yogurt. For those that can’t eat yogurt because of lactose-intolerance, it can be supplemented and found in any health-food store. One food in particular that should be mentioned is Shitake and Maitake Mushrooms. These have been a staple for thousands of years for the tribes in the South American Jungles and in the Orient.

These mushrooms are excellent boosters for the immune system. There are supplements that contain the extracts of these mushrooms. Keeping the body well hydrated is equally important. Every individual should drink enough water and other fluids to equal half their body weight in ounces.

As an example if your weight is 120 pounds, that would be 60 divided by 16 equals 3 ¾ 16 ounce bottles of water, taking into account the other fluids ingested during the day, so that the number of bottles can be reduced accordingly.

An excellent antioxidant and immune booster are green and black tea. In order to realize it’s full potential, it is best to brew your own, as tea bags do not offer the same immune boosting quality. cardiac conditioner and rejuvenation support.

 

PLEASE NOTE: Before starting any new diets, use of new supplements, or exercise programs, you should discuss it with your healthcare provider to see if this is right for you.

 

Exercise must be a part of the over-all plan. Exercise plays an extremely important part in maintaining a healthy lifestyle and not only maintains a healthy immune system, but will help boost it to optimum levels..

Boosting your immune system will also require many lifestyle changes. Many of these changes should include the following:

 

Wash hands often, especially before eating, after going to the bathroom, handling doorknobs, after shaking hands, and almost anything you come in contact with. And keep your hands away from your eyes, mouth and nose to prevent invading organisms from entering the body.

If you are a smoker, you must stop.

If you are overweight you need to lose the excess weight and maintain a healthy weight.

Cook meat and poultry thoroughly to kill any dangerous bacteria.

Consume alcohol in moderation. Alcohol has a tendency to cause a breakdown in the liver cells and can lower the efficacy of the immune system. Two drinks for men and one for women, preferably red wine, are the preferred amount.

Eat fewer sugars. Sugar reduces the ability of the white blood cells to kill germs by 40 percent for up to 5 hours after ingestion.

Get enough rest so that the body will be less stressed and can renew any damage to tissues that could have been caused during the day. This means getting at least 7 to 8 hours of a restful sleep.

Exercise for at least 30 minutes everyday of the week. Start an exercise program if you haven’t already done so. Before you do, discuss it with your healthcare provider, to see if you are physically able to start an exercise program. You also need to be active and just keep moving and not become a couch potato.

The program outlined above will boost your immune system to optimum levels and help maintain it at its’ highest levels. By boosting your immune system, you will be able to prevent colds, infections, and live a more healthy and vigorours lifestyle.

 

Dr. Emanuel M. Cane, D.C.

 

[http://www.doctorsexercise.com]

 

doc1@gate.net

 

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Dr._Emanuel_M._Cane,_DC/858142

 

 

 

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/5951579

 

 

 

Sales Coaching

Sales Coaching, Dirty Secrets Or Misunderstanding What Coaching Is About?

I was interested in reading the Harvard Business Review post, The Dirty Secret Of Effective Sales Coaching. It’s an interesting article with many good point and you should read it.

However, I think the authors present a very narrow view of the manager’s job and the goals of effective coaching. Many of the conclusions are pretty obvious, eliciting almost a “Duhhh” response. If you think about it, “coaching the middle” has a huge return. It should be obvious, there are more people in the middle, so every percent of performance improvement you get from this population has a great impact (when taken from a macro view).

However, my problem with the article is that it implies management’s focus on coaching is primarily on producing shorter term results. They say the performance improvement from the middle may be the difference between hitting or missing this year’s goals. I’ve no argument with that point-if the job of management was to optimize performance for just this year.

This is too narrow a view of management’s job and the real importance of coaching. Manager’s are responsible for developing the highest levels of performance in the organization both this year and for future years. This means we must take a broader view of coaching and performance management.

Coaching the middle can improve performance in the current year, and sustaining this through continued coaching should drive continued performance improvement over the years.

What about coaching the top performers? The authors would claim the return on this effort is relatively small and suggest reducing time on these top performers. But that misses the point. What if we want to move those top performers into bigger contributions? What if we want to have them take much more responsibility, step into new roles-maybe moving from a territory manager, to a major account manager, to a global account manager, to a strategic alliance manager? What if we wanted to develop some of them to step into stronger leadership and management roles?

I don’t think I’m alone in this view-some of the leading companies in the world take the development of their current and future leaders very seriously-providing rich coaching and developmental opportunities-less focused on the performance of those top performers today, but more focused on preparing them to perform in future roles.

What about coaching the bottom performers? Clearly we want them to perform, we can’t afford to have them dragging down the organization. Here coaching may take a different perspective-the key coaching issue might be how we develop them and move them into roles where they can really contribute and perform. Aren’t we as managers supposed to move our people from jobs in which they are C performers into roles where the can be A performers (or at least B’s). Sometimes those are roles in our organizations and companies, sometimes it means moving them out of the company.

Coaching is about performance management and improvement. It is about getting each person to play to their full potential, in roles that maximize their contribution to the organization-now and in the future.

If this were a static world, if our people stayed in the same role forever, if the requirements for performance never changed, then I could buy the recommendations of the authors more easily. Fortunately, that’s not the way the world works.

I think it’s management’s responsibility to coach everyone in the organization. We need to get those in the middle to perform better, we need to grow those at the top to take greater responsibility and grow their contributions, we need to do something with our low performers, not just let them linger.

I do agree with the authors, coaching is not democratic. It’s naive to assume this. Not everyone needs the same “cookie cutter” approach coaching. We coach each person with different goals and objectives. With some we are looking to improve performance in their current roles, with others we are preparing them for future roles. In some we are preparing them to move into other roles or out of the company. We invest different amounts of time in coaching each person. Some need more time, some need less. What we coach and how we coach will vary by individual. Coaching will have different time dimensions for each person, perhaps in the middle we are looking for improvements for this year, but we also need to be worried about next year and the future.

So coaching is not a “democracy.”

So who do we coach? I firmly believe it’s our responsibility to coach everyone.

How do we coach? We are irresponsible if we focus only on one dimension-for example achieving this year’s goals. We have to coach for the objectives and goals we establish for each person?

When do we coach? All the time.

What do you think? Am I being naive?

Dave Brock is President and CEO of Partners In EXCELLENCE, a global management, leadership, sales, and marketing consulting company. Partners In EXCELLENCE helps clients achieve the highest levels of performance by focusing on the customer.

Read more at Dave’s blog: Making A Difference– http://partnersinexcellenceblog.com, or visit Partners In EXCELLENCE website: http://www.excellenc.com.

Dave can be reached directly at dabrock@excellenc.com.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/5920773

Sales Coaching

All At Once: Coaching Sales Team

We tend to think of sales coaching as being a tool used only for individual development. When we assemble the sales team, it is usually to have a meeting so that we can transfer information in one direction (from us to them), conduct training (us to them, again), or to collect reports (them to us).

There are occasions when assembling the sales force for coaching is extremely effective.

The After Action Review
In many sales organizations it is difficult-if not, impossible-to provide adequate training to cover every possible situation in which the salesperson may find their prospect or every available solution; sometimes, building and selling the right solution is a creative endeavor with lots of possible right answers, but where the optimal solution is difficult to discover.

You simply can’t train every scenario. Even though you cannot train for every possible scenario, through team coaching, you can help your sales force learn to think about these scenarios and to identify the best path forward.

Team coaching gives you the opportunity to assemble the sales force, using a real opportunity as a case study. The facts can be laid out for the entire team, and the salesperson that owns the opportunity can explain what they saw, what they heard, what they believed they understood, and what actions they believe were dictated by the facts.

As the sales manager, you can engage the team in asking questions to identify a greater range of possible choices that the salesperson might have taken. You can also ask questions that lead to more choices, and you can add some context to help show the sales force how some other choices might play out.

You can also conduct team coaching while the opportunity is still live, sharing the experience of making the choice of actions across the entire team, and thereby sharing the experience and the learning.

Informing Future Behaviors and Actions
The choice to coach the team instead of individuals allows you as the sales manager or sales leader to share the learning and development across the whole group. It provides the whole team the experience, and the lessons, that would have been confined to an individual.

The United States Military is extraordinary at conducting After Action Reviews, leading reviews after every single engagement, forcing their soldiers to think about what happened, why it happened, and most importantly, how they should act in future engagements. The goals of team coaching are the same.

The goal of all coaching is to apply the lessons learned to future activities. This is why we believe that coaching is the highest leverage activity that a sales manager can take: it informs the sales force’s future behaviors and actions.

Questions
When does it make sense to coach teams instead of individuals?
How do share lessons across the sales force efficiently and effectively?
How can you codify these lessons in a way that they can be continually shared and used a resource for future salespeople?
What is the best way to affect the future behavior of the sales force?

Dave Brock is President and CEO of Partners In EXCELLENCE, a global management, leadership, sales, and marketing consulting company. Partners In EXCELLENCE helps clients achieve the highest levels of performance by focusing on the customer.

Read more at Dave’s blog: Making A Difference– http://partnersinexcellenceblog.com, or visit Partners In EXCELLENCE website: http://www.excellenc.com

Dave can be reached directly at dabrock@excellenc.com

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/David_Brock/473112

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/5922424