Tag Archives: Leadership Coaching

Leadership

Throw Away All Your Leadership Books

I hate to say it, but most business leadership books are absolute trash. Typically, they’re oriented toward Fortune 500 companies and written by people who don’t have a clue about how to lead one of the regular, everyday businesses that make up 99% of the business sphere. In this article, I’m going to tell you about the real secret of successful leadership — what you should be doing if you want to be a leader in your field.

Nowadays, it’s the “in” thing to be a leader, and sure, there are certainly things you can identify with those who claim leadership. But you have to wonder: why are people always talking about how to be a leader? Why aren’t they just out there leading by example, showing us instead of telling us?

Some people seem to think that everybody is capable of being a leader, is a leader, or should be a leader. Well, here’s a news flash: if everybody’s a leader, then no one is. To be a leader, you need followers; and in any case, you can’t have everybody occupying the same space in society. There’s nothing wrong with being a leader, but you actually have to be out front to claim the title. You’re never going to get anywhere if all you want to do is achieve income equality or a level playing field, which won’t happen anyway. Utopian ideals don’t mix well with business reality. If you want to distribute income and leadership equally, get out of business, because your competitors will eat you alive.

There must be and will be a leader in every environment and situation. Even when people start out entirely even, someone will eventually take the lead. It’s a natural law that some people will do better than others. Some will create wealth with the money they have, and leverage it into greater wealth. So what makes that person a leader? Well, a true leader is good at persuading people to do what they want them to do. They have something to say that makes people rally around them and give them their support, in the form of labor, social prestige, or money. This is true of secular, religious, and business leaders alike. Sometimes the leaders are benevolent; sometimes they’re dictators.

If nothing else, business leaders have to convince people that their products or services are good deals for them. They can successfully pitch their product to an audience and get those people to respond.

The point is that when you think about leadership, don’t think about some nondescript thing that people can’t really quantify, and don’t entertain any politically correct ideas about what qualifies someone to be a leader. You’re a true leader only if you’ve learned to persuade people to follow you or to do what you want them to do. Jesus Christ was a true leader. Ronald Reagan was a true leader. So were Mao and even Hitler, though we don’t like to bring him up in polite conversation. Some of these people were born with natural charisma; others developed it.

It’s your duty as a marketer to use your creativity, inventiveness, and skills like public speaking and writing copy to enhance your leadership skills, whether or not you’re a natural leader. This results in increased sales and profit, because you can persuade people to buy what you’re offering. Learn to be a good persuader, and you’ll find yourself more successful than you’d be if you followed any of those leadership books. They’re a dime a dozen. Forget them. There’s no question that great salespeople, great marketers and good copywriters are great leaders, because we persuade people to take action and buy our products. In fact, most leadership is about selling — even politics.

Back when Andrew Jackson was a general — before he became president — he had a great saying: “I lead, you follow, and everybody else gets the hell out of the way.” You have to take the reins, because no one will just give them to you. But let’s be real here; most people are letting the business reins flop around loose. Dive on them and take charge of your market, especially when no one else will. Become the very definition of leadership for your market, and keep pushing that leadership in everyone’s faces.

John Maxwell once defined leadership as influence, and I firmly believe that your ability to influence other people is what makes you a real leader. Lots of people think they’re leaders, when no one is actually really following them. A specific position doesn’t automatically translate into leadership. Leadership isn’t a title, whether the title is CEO or President of the United States. Yes, people who serve under you may do what you say when you order them to, but if you’re not a true leader they won’t follow you when you turn your back, and they may find ways to sabotage you. If you’re a true leader, then you’re influencing people, providing real value in their lives You’re singing the song they want to hear, and they want to follow your lead.

Years ago I read another quote that went, “Good leaders are good followers.” When I first read it, I thought it was nonsense. How could a good leader be a good follower? But in the years since, I’ve given that quote a lot of thought, and I’ve seen the wisdom in it. A good leader understands his followers very, very well. There’s a push and pull there. Good leaders know how to admit when they’re wrong; they go to their followers and work with them, listening to what they have to say. And it’s doubly true today, as business leadership trends toward more of a one-to-one working relationship with the rank-and-file, where leadership supplies the vision and the rest of the team provides the strategy and execution. A good leader empowers his people.

The reason I know that most leadership books are crap is that I bought too many back in the 1990s; leadership was a very popular subject then. In most of those books, it’s difficult to pin down what the author is even getting at, because everything is so homogenized. Toss those books away — or at least put them on the shelves to collect dust — and remember that true leadership is based on your ability to influence and persuade other people. This is a learnable skill that you can develop over time.

If you liked this article and are serious about making more money, please consider letting T.J. Rohleder (a.k.a. “America’s Blue Jeans Millionaire”) personally help you. Check out his podcasts and coaching programs by going to http://www.tjrohleder.com.

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/T.J._Rohleder/1735800

 

Leadership

How to Create Employee Leverage by Maximizing Their Leadership Potential

When you think of a leader, what image or person comes to mind? Is it the President of the United States (POTUS), your pastor, military member, corporate executive, principal, football coach, teacher, or could it be the little elderly lady who has spent years mentoring girls from broken homes? How you answer this question depends upon your definition of leadership and the characteristics that you believe leaders should possess.

After examining much of the literature, I elected to define leadership as “The ability to influence the behavior of others to the extent that they are willing to engage in activities that promote accomplishment of the organization’s mutual goals and objectives.” The key word is influence. Having the ability to influence, motivate, or change another’s behavior to achieve a common goal is the ultimate objective.

As leadership development continues to evolve, senior leaders must be able to maximize their employee’s productivity by unleashing their leadership potential. Senior leaders must be able to influence the leadership development behavior of their team. There has to be a reassessment of how future/emerging leaders are groomed and developed. In order to accomplish this objective, I propose that senior leaders consider the following:

1. What would happen if the question surrounding one’s leadership lineage became obsolete?

2. What positive outcomes would occur if organizations would change their perspective on the pedigree and demographics of the employee and begin focusing on the leadership potential within that employee?

For years, leadership theorists postulated that leaders possessed certain traits. They depicted key behaviors, or responded to situations in a way that characterized leadership. Some advocates even suggested that if you were born into a certain family, then you automatically possessed a certain degree of leadership potential. However, as time progressed paradigm shifts began to occur in the thinking and logic of many theorists.

As a former Senior Executive Service (SES) member with the Department of Defense, and a retired Air Force Colonel, I have served in numerous leadership positions. With a combined 30+ years of information technology, leadership and management experience, I believe-no I am convinced that there are many people with latent/undeveloped leadership potential. They possess an inherent degree of undiscovered leadership talent. Unfortunately, sometimes, their leadership potential lies dormant and simply requires an external source to “coach” them through their leadership journey.

I have worked in many organizations where some employees were literally regulated to performing certain tasks because they were not deemed “leadership material.” Yet, on numerous occasions, history has proven this strategy flawed. When given the opportunity, many of these individuals excelled in leadership roles. Therefore, organizations destined to win must continue to invest in leadership developmental programs that augment and enhance an employee’s professional growth. I often encourage senior leaders to practice seeing beyond the present. Is this individual a hidden leadership gem just waiting to be discovered? What are you doing to enable that individual to grow and develop as a leader?

In summary, I believe that the art of genuine leadership is developing the next generation of leaders. Therefore, as senior leaders, we must look beyond pedigree and expand our development of future leaders across the board. We must continue to motivate our team members to elevate their potential. Additionally, we must encourage our employees to collaborate and partner with the leadership potential that resonates inside of them, so that they can reach the leadership destination that is before them.

For more information on this topic, please check out the book, “The CORE Leadership Development Model” and visit my website at [http://www.m2gleadershipbiz.com].

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Mary_M_Gillam,_Ph.D/1488863

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Leadership

Why Leadership-Development Programs Fail To Deliver Results?

With over 20,000 books and millions of articles about the critical elements of leadership and its overall impact, the issue of leadership really must be important to organisations.

Most organizations have lavish budgets and allot lots of time and effort on improving employee and manager capabilities and also nurturing new leaders. In the USA itself, companies spend almost $14 billion annually on various leadership programs and many colleges and universities now offer degree courses on leadership.

Moreover, in a study of 500 executives asked to rank their priorities, leadership development was listed by most of them. This shows how important the topic of ‘leadership’ is to most companies. However, many leadership development programs initiated to train employees on leadership skills and qualities fail due to lack of focus.

After getting in touch with hundreds of chief executives about their struggle and observing their more successful initiatives, a report by McKinsey has identified four of the most common leadership development mistakes. We discuss these along with some tips to overcome them in the article below.

Mistake Number 1: Overlooking The Real Need

A critical component of leadership development is reality and on ground situation. It is important to understand that a business leader in one situation does not perform the same way in another.

Most training initiatives are set on the assumption that one size fits all and the same style of leadership skills are required to be groomed into all leaders, irrespective of the organizational culture or strategy.

When designing a leadership program, it is important for the designers to understand the nature of the program. What exactly is the program for and who exactly would benefit from it?

It is very important to focus on the context and equip leaders with a small number of competencies or skills rather than trying to teach them everything. This is sure to achieve a much better outcome.

Moreover, leadership programs generally involve a one-time effort or a few training sessions. But learning about leadership requires revision, and the focus should be on regular experiential learning rather than cognitive learning.

Mistake Number 2: Implementing What Has Been Learned

When it comes to designing the development curriculum, many organizations face a balancing issue. On one side, there is value in off-site programs like university or college settings that offer students time to step back and flee from the pressing demands of a day job.

On the other side, even after basic training sessions, adults generally retain only 10 per cent of what they really hear in the classroom as compared to nearly two-thirds when they are learning by doing.

Moreover, many leaders find it difficult to extrapolate their off-site experience into real work scenarios. Hence, the importance of finding a balance between the two cannot be ignored.

The ability to train participants while also giving them real world experience to apply their newly learnt skills is a valuable combination in today’s business markets. Furthermore, it is important to integrate leadership development components into the project itself.

Mistake Number 3: Underestimating Mind Sets

To become an effective leader, it is important to change behaviour. While many companies do understand that this means changing underlying mind-sets, they are often reluctant to address the cause of why leaders act the way they do, as doing so can be uncomfortable for participants, mentors and trainers.

Moreover, even if there is no discomfort, the chances of them changing their behaviour are low. Moreover, leadership programs should also focus on increasing self-awareness and understanding of how their behaviour affects others, rather than just building competencies and skills.

Mistake Number 4: Not Having Concrete Metrics to Measure Effectiveness

It is often seen that companies pay lots of importance to development of leadership skills but do not ultimately quantify the value of their investment. When businesses fail to keep a track of leadership performance over time, they increase the chances of the initiatives not being taken seriously.

In most cases, evaluations to the leadership development program are given by participant feedback. However, if the scenario is moved to a business-performance program, the assessment or feedback is generally in the form of success or failure, which is probably more valuable.

So, if you are looking for robotic leaders – train them. Alternatively, if you are looking for innovative dealers – develop them over time with real-time experience and empowerment.

Jappreet Sethi

I am a HR & Business Strategy professional with experience of leading HR & People Consulting practice of multinational professional services firms, including a Fortune 500 company in India. I was also Heading CSR at a Forbes Platinum 400 company and a member of its Global Diversity Council.

I am a consultant for start-up ventures in South Asia and have been rated twice as one of the Top 100 employee engagement experts in the world by a New York Times bestselling author.

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Jappreet_S/1328581

 

Leadership

Leaders – You Can No Longer Afford To Ignore Wellness Leadership! (Why Would You Anyway?)

Wellness leadership’s time has come. Read on to learn how and why wellness leadership must be incorporated into your leadership practices starting today.

Which leadership model do you practice? Is it authentic leadership, servant leadership, transformational leadership or another? No matter which model it is, I would argue you also need to practice wellness leadership.

In today’s value added economy, the statement “Our employees are our most valuable asset” is no longer just a trite statement. It is reality. Thanks to the global 24/7 economy, ever-increasing complexity and the increasing pace of change, employers need the “whole” employee showing up for work each and every day.

If you are a senior leader of an organization that provides employees with health benefits, you are well aware of the costs to your organization associated with employee health and wellness. While these costs are the most visible, they are neither the only costs, nor even the largest cost to your organization.

Employee health and wellness impact your organization in many other ways, including:

• Absenteeism

• Presenteeism

• Engagement

• Performance and productivity

• Motivation

• Morale

It is for all these reasons combined that I would argue that as a leader, you can no longer ignore employee health, wellness and wellbeing. Today, wellness leadership must be included in your leadership repertoire.

The leadership literature is broad, comprehensive and complex. Much has been written about leadership theories, leader qualities, leader competencies and so forth.

From this literature, I take the essence of leadership to be:

• Creating a strategic vision

• Choosing the right strategies

• Successfully executing the strategies

• Influencing, inspiring and motivating others

• Developing others

So what is wellness leadership and how do these seven key functions of leadership apply within a wellness leadership framework?

Wellness leadership is about:

• Creating a framework for the organization for all employee health and wellness efforts

• Using the key functions of leadership to create workplace conditions that make it easy for employees to practice living healthy lifestyles

• Supporting employees in their quest for health, happiness, wellness and wellbeing

• Identifying and removing the barriers to health and wellness success

Wellness leaders include employee health and wellness as part of their organization’s vision. They readily and frequently share this vision with everyone within the organization, as well as other stakeholders. It is important that employee health and wellness be seen as positive and affirming. Wellness program strategies will always have the best chance of success when they are closely aligned with the organization’s overall strategic goals and initiatives.

Employees look to their leaders as being role models. By serving as a role model for health and wellness, leaders can be inspirational, influential, and enhance employee motivation. Leaders, who visibly demonstrate commitment for wellness, send a strong message to their organization that contributes significantly to wellness program success and sustainability. In fact, researchers have found that leadership commitment is one of the keys to wellness program success.

Leaders play a strategic role in their organization’s culture. Wellness leadership is about aligning wellness norms and goals with the organization’s culture. It is absolutely critical for the wellness program to be aligned with the organization’s culture.

During the course of any year, a majority of employees have been known to attempt, on their own, to make healthy lifestyle changes. Unfortunately, most attempts do not result in long-term behavior change. In my mind, this creates a great opportunity for leaders to incorporate into individual employee development plans any desires an employee might have to make healthy lifestyle related changes. Wellness leaders support healthy lifestyle changes as much as they support any work related performance or behavior change the employee wishes to make.

Do not ignore wellness leadership any longer. Incorporate it into your leadership practices beginning today.

Start Today

Wellness leadership is all about supporting employee health and vitality. I am here to help you develop your knowledge and skills in the leadership of employee health. I invite you to allow me the opportunity to introduce you to the available leadership tools and resources. I specialize in mentoring worksite program coordinators and creating Done With You employee health and well-being programs. You can contact me at williammcpeck@gmail.com.

Brought to you by Bill McPeck, Your Worksite Wellness Mentor. Dedicated to helping employers create successful, sustainable worksite wellness and well-being programs, especially in small employer settings.

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/William_McPeck/1737577

 

Leadership

Lessons Learned: Do You Have a Leadership Deficit?

Washington is great at generating deficits, most notably the budget deficit and the trade deficit. Both are bad, but I want to talk about the “leadership deficit.” John Kotter first coined the term in 1990s. Here’s my take on it.

For an individual, a leadership deficit occurs when negative behaviors (those that detract from effective leadership) exceed positive behaviors (those that promote, or display, effective leadership).

For instance, you can have the eloquence of Barack Obama–a very positive behavior- but if the rest of your performance is terrible, you’ve got a leadership deficit.

We can also apply this to the organization. Identify all the positive leadership behaviors we see in an organization, and compare them to all the negative leadership behaviors. Or simply compare the number of leaders with leadership deficits to the number with leadership surpluses.

The Story: A client inadvertently developed a way to do this. After a long afternoon strategy session with the two top people in this organization, we were discussing management and leadership in the organization. Just an informal discussion over beer and sandwiches.

The top guy said, “You know, when you look at the managers we have, most of them are pretty bad.” His deputy disagreed, “No, we’ve got some bad managers, but most are pretty good.”

The top guy said, “Oh yeah? What about John Smith?” The deputy said, “Yes, he’s pretty bad. But we’ve also got Marge Jones and she’s great… ” They proceeded in this fashion, and I started keeping score.

Of the forty managers, 23 of them were pretty bad. They had a leadership deficit-more bad leaders than good.

The funny thing is, they’d never really had this kind of open, detailed discussion with the bad leaders during performance reviews.

And, they discovered that their leadership deficit involved some deficit spending: They weren’t dealing effectively with the negative behaviors, so they were actually rewarding those bad leaders with pay increases and favorable ratings.

Only when they revamped their performance review system did they get rid of this leadership deficit (and some of the bad leaders), and turned their leadership deficit into a leadership surplus.

The Lessons Learned

Lesson 1: You must periodically do an “audit” of your personal leadership to determine whether you have a surplus or deficit.

 

  1. Simply identify the leadership attributes you think you need to be successful.
  2. Compare those to the leadership attributes you currently have,

 

Lesson 2: You must also do the same with your organization. Use one of the 2 methods above.

 

  1. Compare leadership behaviors needed vs. those actually displayed; or
  2. Assess which managers in your organization are “good” managers vs. “not so good.”

 

Lesson 3: You need to know how much these deficits cost the organization.

Lesson 4: You must develop and implement a plan to improve leadership. Without a plan, it just doesn’t get better.

Lesson 5: Measure results, and adjust your plan accordingly.

What are you doing to make sure you’re running a leadership surplus, individually and within your organization?

For information on public speaking/presentation skills, check out my next free webinar. The Killer Presentation Skills Webinar will definitely improve your abilities, with immediate improvement through 10 action items.

For details, go to http://www.terrywall.com/webinars-landing-page-ez/

Terry Wall–Accelerating Organizational Excellence through: Leadership Development, Facilitation & Strategic Direction, Team Building, Executive Coaching, Assessments & Surveys

For an Insider’s Report on 7 steps to turbo-charging yourself, your team, your organization, click here: http://www.terrywall.com

Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Terry_Wall/2021225