Wednesday, 31 December 2014
5 Reasons Why Leaders Must Sometimes Take A Back Seat
This is a guest post by Matt Driscoll, who is the management and Leadership L&D Consultant at Thales.
3 Basic Styles of Leadership
Leadership training is one of the most important and challenging aspects of learning and development, and there are three basic styles of leadership that one can develop: Managerial, Visionary, and Strategic.
Managerial
Managerial leaders focus all their attention on short-term goals and daily needs. They are reactive, champions of cost-benefit analysis, and often guilty of micromanaging staff.
Visionary
Visionary leaders, on the other hand, focus their attention on the future. They create a compelling vision of their company’s future and motivate workers to strive toward that goal. However, because they are consumed with plans for the future, visionary leaders neglect the day-to-day operational necessities and current financial realities of their companies.
Strategic
The most effective leadership style is strategic. Strategic leaders develop compelling visions for the future of their companies and motivate workers to strive toward the common goals they define, while diligently maintaining the short-term financial stability of their business.
Apart from being attuned to both short and long-term needs, strategic leaders set themselves apart by focusing their attention on human capital within their organizations. In order to move the company forward, leaders must constantly develop the capabilities and competencies of their teams. Great leaders make those around them better, but they can only do so by coaching, mentoring, trusting, and ultimately giving their teams space to learn and grow through direct experience.
These are five crucial reasons why the most effective leaders often take a back seat:
1. To Develop New Leaders
Successful companies cultivate leadership at every level of the business, so rather than creating a workplace dominated by a single powerful figure, companies must encourage new leaders to rise from within the ranks. Executives must learn to recognize when employees are capable and motivated to fill leadership roles, allowing them to take charge in order to help them develop.
2. To Learn
No matter how successful a team leader may be, he or she cannot be right all the time. The best leaders know their weaknesses and seek guidance whenever they are out of their depth. Whether that means following the lead of someone else within the business or seeking professional development resources elsewhere, good leaders recognize the need for constant learning.
3. To Better Allocate Resources
A single person cannot run a business; it takes a team. Effective leaders, therefore, delegate tasks and trust the guidance of those they give responsibilities to – thus enabling the company to perform tasks properly at a faster rate.
4. To Teach
One can only become a leader by leading. Developing talent within a company often requires handing the reigns to up-and-coming staff members. Micromanagement stifles growth, and there are many lessons that budding leaders can only learn through direct experience.
5. To Build Quality Culture
The best companies are those in which everyone feels like a leader. These are the businesses where staff are passionate about what they do, motivated to go the extra mile, and eager to fuel innovations that drive the business forward. A quality culture is one where each employee feels involved in the decision-making process and confident that his or her contributions are furthering the company’s mission.
True leaders are coaches, mentors, and inspirations to those who follow them. By investing in the people around them and setting aside their egos, executives can accomplish far more than they ever could alone.
Read more; http://ht.ly/DYqGo
Tuesday, 30 December 2014
Monday, 29 December 2014
Five Questions for Leaders Who Would Rather Be Effective Than Right
During the opening session of a new leadership development program last week, I asked the participants to share the biggest leadership lesson they’ve learned in their careers so far. There were a lot of interesting answers. One participant shared one that really stuck with me because I think it’s so true. The lesson was it’s not enough to have the right idea, you have to influence other people to believe that it’s the right idea.
The essence of the lesson that leader shared is captured in a behavior that we’ve been measuring in our Next Level Leadership® 360 Degree Assessment for the past eight years:
Chooses effectiveness as a more important outcome than “being right.”
You might have all the facts and logic on your side. The answer may be painfully obvious to you. That voice inside your head may be screaming, “What part of this do these people not understand?” You may be asking yourself, “Do I really have to keep explaining this?”
No, actually, you don’t.
If you’re more interested in being effective than in being right, quit explaining and start listening. Here are some questions you can ask to listen and learn that will help you and everyone you work with be more effective:
- What does success look like to you?
- What’s important to you?
- What else?
- What do you need from me?
- What do you think we should do?
Sunday, 28 December 2014
Herbie Hancock: Get Out Of The Way When Your People Are Learning
If you want your people to grow and develop sometimes the best thing to do is to back off.
Herbie Hancock, the legendary jazz keyboardist, tells two stories about trumpet virtuoso and bandleader Miles Davis that illustrate this point. Hancock was an up and coming player and got an invitation to audition with Davis and his band. Davis was already a legend but Hancock was still cutting his chops.
Told to report to Miles’ house, Hancock met the band and Miles played with the group for a few minutes then as Hancock told an audience on Sirius XM Radio, he threw down his trumpet on the couch and went upstairs. The band kept playing. Miles did the same thing a day later. And after a few days he invited Hancock to cut a record with his band. Hancock says that he learned twenty five years later that Miles’s disappearing act was purposeful. He went upstairs to listen to the group via his intercom. He knew that young musicians could be intimidated by his presence so he removed that distraction.
Another lesson Hancock shared with his audience (in conjunction with his new memoir Possibilities) about Miles was his gift of teaching. Miles would seldom give musicians a complete answer when they questioned him about something musical. His strategy was to let the musicians learn by themselves or with the band. Hancock now a veteran performer and teacher himself says that when you learn something on your own you remember it better. The lesson becomes lasting.
What managers can learn from these stories is that young performers, or those new to a team, need to be given a certain amount of leeway to show what they can do. This of course is after you have recruited and trained them. Some may be more independent than others but all benefit when the boss steps away.
Furthermore if the boss is always hanging around, looking over their shoulder, he or she may undermine the employee’s confidence. Or because the boss is present may set himself up as the hands-on tutor ready, willing and able to answer all questions. Support is good; “hovering” is limiting.
Saturday, 27 December 2014
The Trickle-Down Effect of Deceptive Leadership
IMAGE: Getty Images
We see it every day--leaders who mislead their people. The deceit can come from a variety of motivations. Some good, some not so good. For instance, sometimes a leader exaggerates a work situation because they want to motivate their team. Sometimes a leader leaves out the bad news in an attempt to maintain morale. But, sometimes, they deceive out of greed or a misplaced aversion to conflict.
Regardless of the impetus, bad things happen when a leader misleads their staff. These bad things manifest itself through staff behavior in a variety of ways, including:
They Start to "Spin": Staff members model the behavior of their leader. When they see that you "spin" the facts by leaving certain details out or misrepresenting the particulars of a situation, they recognize that they can use the same techniques to manage you.
They Shift Focus to the Inside: The more that your team recognizes inconsistencies between what you say and what they experience, the more they begin to doubt everything that you say. When this happens, they will shift their focus away from the work (i.e., delivering great service and products to your customers) and towards the internal political environment. They feel compelled to focus on the inside for fear that, if they don't pay attention, they could get burned by their leader.
They Don't Do Their Best: Because the focus has shifted from the outside to the inside, the quality of work diminishes. They can't do their best if they're confused, in doubt or otherwise always looking over their shoulder.
They Play Games: At a certain point, deceitful practices can become so rampant within a group that misrepresentation becomes the norm. Once this occurs, gamesmanship develops into a standard practice and all control is lost.
They Don't Share: Once the games begin, it becomes every man for himself. Your team loses cohesion and each member becomes selfish, glory hounds out to prove that they're performance deserves a bigger piece of the pie than their contemporaries. Any sense of "being in it together" is gone for good.
They Lose Faith in Management: Ultimately, you've lost the team because you've lost their trust. But, interestingly, that's not all that happened through your misleading behavior. Personnel will transfer their mistrust to the rest of the management team within the organization. All bets are off for the business, once this occurs.
To close, don't mislead your people. It creates a culture of deception and promotes misconduct that can take years to undo. Instead, deal in facts, state the truth and develop your people so that they have the skills and intestinal fortitude to accept and handle the realities of any situation that your organization may confront.
Read more; http://ht.ly/Ero4w
Friday, 26 December 2014
5 Great Questions The Best Leaders Ask Themselves
Apparently, few people ask leaders questions about leadership.
Since launching the Your Leadership Story Podcast with my business partner, David Atchison, we have had a great time interviewing exceptional leaders. Without exception, these leaders have said, “No one has ever asked me that before” to at least some of our questions. That’s unfortunate because these leaders had great answers. All they needed was someone to ask the questions. In a perfect world I can imagine, more people would ask leaders great leadership questions. Doing so would help those asking the questions while helping the leaders reflect on their experiences. Since I cannot control how many people ask leadership questions, I’m opting for an alternative route. If you’re a leader and want to become even more effective, take the initiative and ask yourself some great leadership questions. To get you started, here are some questions David and I have enjoyed asking on Your Leadership Story.
Question 1: Philosophy of Leadership
We probe this area in a variety of ways but we focus on getting to the core of a leader’s perspective.
“If you had to capture your philosophy of leadership in a sentence or two, what would you say?”
We’ve found that every leader can give a long answer about leadership but find it much harder to give a short answer.
If we asked you that question, what would you say?
Question 2: Transition Lessons
Through trial and error, David and I have discovered that some of the most important insights leaders share come from key transitions in their careers. Here’s an example of how we probe these areas.
“We noticed on Linkedin that you made a big shift when you went from Position A to Position B. Tell us more about how you decided to make that move and what you learned from it?”
If we asked you that kind of question, what would you say?
Question 3: Best Boss; Worst Boss
Our friend, Steve Hays, of the Human Capital Group gave us this question and we love to ask it.
“Without naming names, we would like for you to think about the worst boss you ever had and tell us three words you associate with that person. Now, we would like for you to do the same thing with the best boss you’ve ever had using three words.”
As a top-tier executive recruiter, Steve Hays discovered that knowing these six terms — three about a person’s worst boss and three about someone’s best boss provide great insights. “People work hard not to be like their worst boss,” Steve Hays explained, “while trying to be more like their best boss.”
We agree. When we ask people this question, light bulbs come on. What would you say if we asked you this question?
Question 4: Percentage of Leadership Insight
We ask this question in different ways depending on the background and experiences of the leaders we’re interviewing, but here’s an example.
“We would like for you to think about 100% of what you know about leadership at this point in your career and then see if you can divide that 100% into the main sources for what you know. For example, what percentage came from your formal education? What about from the first phase of your professional career? What about from the most recent phase of your career?”
Tough question, right? Absolutely. But the answers can be profound, especially as leaders reflect on how they actually learned to lead the way they do.
What would you say if we asked you that question?
Question 5: The Rough Patches
The leaders we interview have impressive resumes. We enjoy hearing more about the exciting things they have done. However, we work hard to dig into the times when things didn’t go as well. Here’s an example of what we ask.
“Reading through your resume is like taking a fast elevator up a skyscraper. It looks like you’ve gone no where but up. Were there any rough patches along the way? Can you tell us about one that stands out in your mind and how that experience shaped your leadership story?”
Every leader has a “rough patch” and talks about it when asked. In fact, it is often during those “rough patches” that leaders gain their most important insights and develop their deepest convictions.
What would you share with us if we asked you this question?
The Importance of Answering Great Questions After doing so many of our leadership interviews, we’ve been surprised at one recurring response from the men and women with whom we talk. After we complete the interview, they say in different ways, “Thanks for giving me the chance to think about these questions.” That’s the problem — they had answers; they simply needed someone to ask the questions, not just for people listening but for themselves, so that they as leaders could reflect on their own experiences. I hope someone asks you great leadership questions today. Answering those questions will make you a better leader. But if you go through the day and no one asks, take the initiative and ask yourself. The best leaders do. Shouldn’t you?
- See more at: http://leadingwithquestions.com/latest-news/5-great-questions-the-best-leaders-ask-themselves-2/#sthash.N1cUUD48.dpuf
Thursday, 25 December 2014
The Best Leaders Are Critical Thinkers
What makes some leaders stand out from the rest?
It has to do with their ability to think decisively.
The best leaders evaluate their options, weigh in on the alternatives, connect the dots, and look for potential in order to make informed decisions.
Here are some of the things great critical thinkers make a habit of:
Leading with questions.
Open-ended questions, in particular, help you get to the heart of the matter. Start with Why?, How?, What?, and Where?
Embracing different points of view. As a leader, you need to be able to take advantage of the diversity in your team (and board, if you have one) to help you see things from different perspectives. The best leaders see and make use of the insights that everyone has to offer. They honor different opinions and ideas, because they know those differences lead to better decisions.
Leading with agility. As the old saying goes, the only constant is change—and the variables are always shifting and adjusting.
Leading through change requires an open mind that can see opportunity in every situation. Keeping an open mind. In the complex world of business, a leader with an open mind will find potential by sizing up all the answers, holding on to differences of opinion, and taking in all the variables to see clearly. The leader who thinks critically and manages ambiguity will be the one who leads where others cannot.
Lead From Within: Be the leader who knows that nothing is as it seems. There is always uncertainty; there is always ambiguity. Be clever enough to size things up, connect the dots, see the potential, and act decisively when no one else can. -
Wednesday, 24 December 2014
Behind the Curtain of Leadership
Vision has a central place in leadership. Before we are willing to follow a leader, we want to know where we are going. What will things look like when we get there? The "vision thing," as George H.W. Bush called it, matters for us as citizens, and it matters for those who serve as part of a leader's senior staff.
It is little wonder, then, that people who study and practice leadership have been preoccupied with the notion of vision. Whether leaders achieve the ends to which they aspire has a real effect on our lives and well-being. We want to make our schools better, our businesses more prosperous, our neighborhoods safer and our government more efficient.
For those who work closely with a leader, vision drives their behavior in both a practical sense and in a much deeper way. A leader's vision not only structures what they do in their day-to-day lives but also gives them the sense that what they are doing is meaningful. In fact, good leaders rely on their advisors and confidantes to make sure they keep their eye on the big picture and don't become distracted by things that do not matter in the larger scheme of things.
Factors such as partisanship, which should not matter but often do, can also stand in the way of success. So leaders need advisers who can serve as their "eyes," anticipating roadblocks and negotiating rocky political terrain. Because leaders can hardly see everything and everyone around them, those who work closely with leaders must sometimes play a protective role by openly expressing their loyalty and by "watching the back" of the leader.
But there is another type of vision that is just as critical to good leadership and to what it means to be a good adviser. The best advisers can be trusted to make sure leaders do not lose sight of the means they are using to achieve their ends. Although there are often many ways to get the job done, only some of these ways will be in keeping with the vision the leader is trying to achieve. We expect our leaders to live their values, providing us with a model of their vision. Couple this expectation with the legitimate demand that they comply with rules that apply more generally to others, regardless of how compliance promotes or impedes goal achievement.
Read more; http://ht.ly/EzCbS
Tuesday, 23 December 2014
Creativity: Capturing your ideas
“I need to start recording things.”
Michael Wade comes to that conclusion at the end of his post, “Something about The Meaning of Life.” He describes a situation that’s common to anyone who’s had a good idea. If you don’t capture it right away it disappears.
Capture those ideas
There are lots of ways to capture ideas. People use pocket notebooks and index cards and recording devices to get the job done. If you don’t capture them, they disappear and then they can’t do you any good.
Recording ideas should be one way you capture them
Writing ideas down works most of the time. But if you’re driving, like Michael, or working out or doing housework, recording is the best choice. You can keep doing what you’re doing while you record.
Recording works in high creativity moments
We’re most likely to get ideas when we’re relaxed and doing something that doesn’t require our full attention. Driving is a good example. Recording works best then.
Sometimes we get an idea when we’re in the middle of working on a project. A recorder lets you capture the idea without breaking stride.
There are lots of ways to record
Small digital voice recorders are great for idea capture. I currently use an Olympus 702-PC that fits nicely in my pocket. My last Olympus digital voice recorder lasted about seven years. It would have lasted longer if I hadn’t run over it with my car. Don’t ask.
There are other ways to record, too. You can make audio notes on most smartphones. You can capture an idea by leaving yourself a voicemail message.
You can also capture ideas on index cards or in a small notebook. That works well when you’re in a situation where talking to your recorder would disturb others, like church or a concert.
Capture all your ideas
When you get an idea, grab it. Don’t try to decide if it’s any good. Don’t try to make it better. All that can come later. Capture it. Right now.
Capture is useless without review
Capture is the first step. You need to review the ideas you’ve captured or capturing them is just an administrative exercise.
Monday, 22 December 2014
Put 'Moxie' Into Your Leadership
Once upon a time when we admired someone for their grit and determination we said they had moxie. It’s an old-fashioned word popularized in movies of the Thirties and Forties about those who battled the odds. It’s a word that has always stuck with me, and for that reason I decided to focus my newest book on what it means to have guts, gumption and perseverance – moxie!
Leaders operate in challenging circumstances. They need to advocate for their ideas as well as for the people in the teams they lead. It takes an individual with the courage of convictions to push forward, sometimes against big obstacles, in order to achieve success.
Leaders must also persevere. There is no shame in being knocked down; it is what happens next that defines your character as well as how others perceive you. Roll over in defeat and no one will want to follow your lead. Get back up again and continue the struggle and people will pay attention to you.
At the same time, savvy leaders learn from experience. They may have been flattened for good reason. Their ideas may not have been well developed, or their perceptions of themselves was overblown. Too much ego and not enough awareness!
MOXIE spelled out
And so in exploring the concept of moxie I realized that if I turned it into an acronym it would illuminate what I believe how leaders should behave. Specifically, leaders must demonstrate five key attributes:
Mindfulness – being self-aware as well as situationally aware
Opportunity – seeing possibilities where others see obstacles
X-factor – demonstrating character in all they do
Innovation – applying creativity to risk and reward
Engagement – working with others to achieve mutually beneficial goals.
Put these attributes together and you have an approach to leadershipthat will provide a way forward for leaders. In my experience in working with executives at every level, those who have succeeded demonstrate attributes of moxie in various ways.
First they are mindful they know themselves and they are willing to listen to others. They seldom accept the status quo. When it comes to opportunities they investigate. They also look at problems as opportunities. That is, if we can solve the problem we can solve bigger issues. They are individuals of character; they possess the right stuff of leadership. They innovate by pushing themselves, and especially their colleagues, to think about thinking differently and doing differently.
Most important perhaps they realize that as individuals they can achieve very little. They must mobilize others to action. Not with their words but through their actions. That starts by creating conditions for people to succeed.
Those with moxie are those who do not accept defeat easily. Rather they view it as a learning experience. For that reason they are people of determination. They also have grit, a willingness to buckle down when times are tough. And they are resilient types. And so while moxie might be word more popular in previous generations, it is as timely today as ever.
Sunday, 21 December 2014
Learning Something New? Remember These 3 Simple Things
I did it.
I bought the sewing machine, a dress form, a table—everything. I’m going to teach myself how to sew.
The only problem? I have no idea where to start.
I’m the person that buys the new thing and immediately dives into the most difficult possible project. This is usually followed by immense frustration and sometime after that—quitting.
Well, not this time. This time I’m going to do it right. In order to do that, I wanted to understand a bit more about what I can do to promote the best possible learning experience. Hopefully what I found out can be of use to you as you begin to tackle something new in your life.
Tip 1: Know how you learn
You know how in cartoons the really smart characters always had obscenely big heads to house their incredibly intelligent brains? Okay, so we know that’s not how real intelligence works, but certain areas of your brain do expand while you are in the process of learning something new.
Some neuroscientists believe this occurs when your brain is trying to solve a problem it doesn’t know the answer to. Your brain (or more specifically your cortex) doesn’t necessarily know which area of the brain is best equipped to solve the problem or learn a new skill. So it recruits a good portion of the cortex, like a search committee, to hunt for the answer. When this happens, your cortex expands.
To make the most out of your time spent learning, space it out.
Popular convention, or perhaps all those nights spent cramming for tests in college, might have you believe that those short bursts of study time are the best. Research shows that spacing out your studying over a period of time is actually the best way to enhance your memory of the material.
In fact, if you want to remember something for 5 years, your best choice is to space out your periods of study around 6-12 months. That seems completely counterintuitive but doing this helps the brain build a sturdy foundation for knowledge.
When your brain has finally solved a problem, the cortex will once again contract. The skills that we acquired during that learning period remain. And because the brain work this way, it means making mistakes is vital to the learning process.
Tip 2: Get comfortable making mistakes
You may as well get used to making mistakes right now because when we learn something new, we can’t help but make them. Our ability to make and learn from our mistakes is essential to acquiring a new skill and even to our very evolution and survival.
The brains medial frontal cortex (located in the frontal lobe) monitors negative feedback, action errors, and decision uncertainty—it’s perfectly suited to process our mistakes. The frontal cortex adapts based on negative feedback or diminished rewards and it does that through…yes, you guessed it, dopamine!
Dopamine is the chemical responsible for things like our pleasure and arousal. When you do something correctly certain dopamine receptors send reward signals to your brain. This opens what is known as the Go pathway. This engages your frontal cortex and facilities further action. This also encourages synapse plasticity (a nice word for learning) and helps to teach the neurons to repeat that same excited activity the next time you encounter that task.
If you make a mistake or receive negative feedback, the NoGo pathway is engaged. When we don’t receive that anticipated dopamine from trying something new or completing a task (et al.) the synaptic plasticity of the NoGo pathway is activated. This basically means you’re training your brain to not make similar mistakes in the future.
“Human beings are works in progress that mistakenly think they’re finished.” —Dan Gilbert
I love that quote by Harvard psychologist and author Daniel Gilbert. If you believe that your work is done, that everything is finite (including your intelligence) what purpose would you have to learn anything new? We are in a constant state of flux and that itself should excite you.
When we make a mistake, we essentially have two ways we can respond:
- Wake up call: we see the negative outcome as a call to action and seek to change it by diverting more of our attentional resources to finding a solution.
- Shut down: sometimes we can see our mistakes or errors as a threat, we choose not to focus on the mistake as a way to protect ourselves. The downside of that? Our attention plummets.
When you choose option one what you are saying is this, “I have the power and the ability to improve—with effort I can overcome these challenges.” This is what is often referred to as the growth mindset. This is what you want!
If you make a mistake don’t freak out, don’t give up. Realize that everyone makes mistakes and that by doing so, you are actually training your brain to make the same ones in the future. Without mistakes, we simply would not be able to learn or grow.
Tip 3: Save the Coffee for Later
Before you pillory me, just hold up for a second. I’m not saying you can’t have your legal liquid cocaine substitute. I love coffee, this is generally how I drink it:
Caffeine excites us, well not really. Caffeine enables the neurotransmitters dopamine and glutamate to do the exciting by mimicking adenosine—which is responsible for slowing down nerve cell activity and making you feel sleepy. Caffeine, however, has no desire to slow you down.
We’ve all read the studies about how caffeine could help us live longer, improve our memory—it is the silver bullet that will fix all our problems. But how useful is it when it comes to helping us learn and recall information?
It’s not going to possess you with magical skills and it won’t unlock hidden fountains of intelligence inside of your brain. Caffeine can help with certain types of learning, and certain kinds of memory recall—but there are caveats. Caffeine appears to help us the most when we are acquiring information passively, it doesn’t help us at all when we are doing intentional learning.
A recent study by Johns Hopkins University suggests that it might be better for us to hold off on coffee until after we are done learning a task. The researchers administered caffeine pills to some of the study participants after they had completed a task that required memorization.
Twenty-four hours later, the individuals who had ingested caffeine were able to recall the photos they had seen more accurately than the individuals who had ingested the placebo. This may occur because caffeine increases the production of the neurotransmitter norepinephrine—which is usually released in stressful situations and helps memories form.
If you really want to maximize your learning time, it may be best to save the coffee for later. In fact, if you really wanted to improve your learning and memory, skip the coffee altogether and take a short nap.
Sleeping shortly after learning something new aids in memory formation by strengthening the synapses that you’ve just spent all that time forming in your brain.
“Now we know that when we learn something new, a neuron will grow new connections on a specific branch. Imagine a tree that grows leaves (spines) on one branch but not another branch. When we learn something new, it’s like we’re sprouting leaves on a specific branch.”—Wen-Biao Gan, PhD
Sleep helps to solidify what we have learned and it helps to clean out old memories from our brain to make room for the new ones. So perhaps when we are learning something our best choice is to sleep more? Now, that’s something I can get behind.
Understanding a bit more about how the brain learns and formulates memories somehow calms me. It helps remind me that we don’t learn everything all at once and that’s okay. In fact, that’s more than okay, that’s a good thing. Take your time, make mistakes, and get some sleep—those are three simple tips that can help us no matter what we were are doing.
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