Sometimes the work that I get to do can be the most satisfying job imaginable. Just this week I had an employee at one of the businesses I’m working with share with me that she is not only a better leader at work, but she feels like she is a better leader at home as well. She mentioned that one of her kids told her that she never yells at them any more. She even got a little emotional as she thanked me for helping her become a better mom too. The truth is, she did all the work I was simply a catalyst. She raised a very important point though, about leadership. It’s nearly impossible to improve your leadership abilities in one area of your life and not have that carry over to others. There have been many cases where people have thanked me for the very same thing that this woman did. And while it’s incredibly humbling, it’s no longer surprising. People are people and if you get better at leading others, it will always include those closest to you. As I work with leaders, managers and teams it becomes increasing clear to me that when people learn to coach, handle conflict, create accountability and build a successful culture at work, they learn to take those skills, and that new perspective, home as well. What they…
Some of the best leaders I have met during the course of my work are brilliant people, most aren’t. Some of them possess an almost supernatural ability to connect or inspire, most don’t. What often set them apart from the leaders who could have been great and weren’t, was their choice of habits. Great leaders have great habits. There’s a quote by Calvin Coolidge that says ,“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; un-rewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.” That sounds fair enough at first glance but the hard question for most of us mortals to answer is how do we create that kind of persistence on a daily basis? The answer, for many of the best leaders, is with their habits. They simply don’t rely on their ability to make the best choices in the moment as they go through their day. They put a system in place that doesn’t leave something that important to chance. There are lots of famous examples. Stephen King , one of the most prolific and successful writers ever, writes ten pages every day. It…
I read an article recently in the Wall Street Journal titled Five Signs You’re a Bad Boss, which listed some of the signals that your people really just aren’t that into you as a leader. The article started me thinking about all of the subtle signs that managers could pay attention to, but don’t, for indications that they need to improve. I thought the Wall Street Journal had a pretty good list but I wanted to add some of my own observations from working with hundreds of managers, some of which were at what I would call the very beginning of their leadership journey. Here are three more signs that you are a bad boss. You get mostly good news. Your people have learned all about your reactions and how you handle bad news. Either the word on the street is that you can handle it and will usually help address the issue in a constructive way, or you can’t and you often shoot the messenger. If you’re a shoot the messenger kind of manager the news you get will be sugar coated at best and a lie at worst. You can’t make good management decisions if they are based on lies. I once worked with a manager who spent hours telling me about how his people trusted him and looked to him for guidance when they ran into problems. I learned…
There’s a group of leaders that I’m working with for one of my clients and recently one of them pulled me aside and said “I want to thank you for changing who I am.” While hearing a statement like that is one of the most satisfying things I can experience in my line of work, it’s completely untrue. I didn’t change anything about how the leader acted, all I changed was the person’s perspective. They did the rest. Our actions are driven by our thoughts and anytime you can help someone shift their thinking, you can help them choose different actions. Too often, we as leaders or managers focus exclusively on the actions we would like someone to change, and too rarely do we consider the thoughts that are driving those actions. Leaders do many things for others that have the most impact on helping them see things in a different light, but I believe that there are three that most often have the desired impact. Create new possibilities People behave a certain way because, ultimately, they believe they should behave that way. It’s rare that any of us show up for work thinking, “I’m going do the wrong thing all day today.” For the most part, we are doing what we believe to be right, and so are those around us. When…
Life really isn’t about time as much as it is about moments. If you think back on your day or your week or your last 20 years what you remember are individual moments that, for one reason or another, were more important to you. One of the skills that many of the best leaders I have worked with have developed is the ability to find or create those moments for others. They know that not every moment is one where we will allow ourselves to be taught. So they either wait for the teachable ones, or they create them. There are certain times in our life that we are open to new ideas and new ways of thinking. The best leaders understand how to make the most of these moments to literally change the future for us. They look for those infrequent opportunities when they don’t have to fight through all of our baggage to help us understand something in a different way. They know that there are two kinds of moments where we are more susceptible to being led. Right after impact Impact can mean many things for us but the essence is that something dramatic just happened in our lives and the time around that moment will likely stick with us forever. It could be something as severe as the death of a loved one. It might be a success…
Sometimes real world examples of leadership help us define it better. For that reason I often use stories to illustrate effective leadership when I work with leaders and managers on how to more effectively lead their teams to accomplish more. Recently in the news, I came across two stories that clearly illustrate different perspectives on how a leader should operate. The first story was that of Kansas City Royals pitcher Gil Meche. In this day and age it can be tough to find sports figures who make decisions that can be used as examples of leadership but Gil did just that. He decided to retire from baseball due to an injury rather than stay on the team and collect the $12 Million salary that was due to him according to his contract, whether he played or not. Meche could have pitched from the bullpen or simply stayed on the bench and earned the money that was remaining on his contract but he chose to retire and save the team the money because he felt that he couldn’t contribute enough to the team to be worth that kind of salary. According to Meche "This isn't about being a hero -- that's not even close to what it's about. It's just me getting back to a point in my life where I'm comfortable. Making that amount of money…
A lot of organizations I’ve worked with over the years have been concerned with finding and bringing in new leaders to help the company grow and prosper. Unfortunately, some are hesitant to address why the current and previous leaders have failed in the first place. Recruiting great leaders is certainly something that can help a business succeed. But bringing them in and having them leave or flame out only sets things back further. Instead of focusing on finding new leaders to help your business grow, invest in becoming the kind of place that great leaders flock to and want to be part of. Don’t just recruit, attract. If you want bright, energetic, innovative leaders to come work with your business then your business has to be known for being smart and nimble. Often companies are looking for leaders who can take them in a different direction but new leaders don’t want to work in places that operate on a totally different philosophy from their own. Leaders know that they can have more of an impact and make more of a difference in a company that thinks like they do, rather than a business where even small changes seem impossible because they are rowing in a different direction. I’ve seen slow, bureaucratic, risk averse…
Will your business be different this year than it was last year, different this quarter than it was last quarter? So much of what people talk about in business these days is the pace of change but many times the problem in business is actually driving change that lasts and change that matters instead of just being forced to adapt to external factors or below par performance. If you want to know if your business is ready to be better in the future than it was in the past, ask yourself these questions. Are my people capable of more? As a leader one of the biggest jobs you have is ensuring that as time goes on your people are capable of accomplishing more. You only have a few levers to pull as it relates to improving what your business can accomplish. The most effective investment you can make is in the talent that makes up your business. Even if you are able to invest in new technology or new infrastructure, your people still have to make it work and execute well. Nothing is more critical for the growth of your business than the growth of your people. Is my culture any different? Culture makes most of the decisions in your company. Your people will conform to it whether it’s the one you want, or just the one that…
It’s the time of year when most of us decide to do some things differently. There’s something powerful about a new year as we assess our lives, our business and even our relationships with others. The prospect of a new year lends itself to a fresh start and a sense that we will behave differently now because the calendar changed a digit or two. The reality is that many of the intentions we have to behave differently in the New Year will not result in sustainable change. To really change what we do, we have to change how we think. Let’s take the ever popular lose weight and get in shape resolution. Anyone who’s been to a gym in the first few weeks of a new year can tell by the unusually large crowd that a wave of good intention has swept through the masses. By February or March, the newcomers are often nowhere to be found. For the most part, what we work to change are the activities. What we tell ourselves is that we should be in better shape; we should get to the gym. Talk to someone who works out consistently and what you often find is that they want to be in the gym and working out is something they enjoy rather than endure. To sustain new behaviors we have to actually adopt the mindset of those who are already consistent…
It seems like there are very few weeks that go by without a client making a comment to me about how hard leadership is. At some point during my work with them, there comes a moment when they understand how to make the transition from the current state to the next level of leadership and while the path becomes clear, the climb seems to be steep. There are opposing forces that make true leadership very difficult. You have to give up what you want right now, to get what you really want for the future. Anything that has an element of sacrifice in it is hard. Why can’t I have what I want now and also have what I want later? I don’t think I’m smart enough to understand why that paradox exists for so many things. What I do know is that leadership is one of those things. Here are some of the opposing forces that play a huge role in making leadership difficult: Obedience and Engagement It’s almost impossible have people on my team that do exactly what I tell them and still have people that are fully engaged and bring their own thoughts, ideas and passion to the discussion. Those are two very different mindsets and they can’t live together inside the same person for very long. Often, leaders seem…