Learn How to Trust Your Judgment
Leadership requires judgment. A leader judges what’s right or wrong, what’s ethical or not. She judges when to flex between the hard edge of leadership (steel) and the soft edge (velvet). A leader judges how a subordinate is performing, whether to give someone a second chance, whether a candidate has character and will fit with the organization’s culture. And a leader judges how high to set goals. “…with good judgment, little else matters; without good judgment, nothing else matters.” –Noel Tichy and Warren Bennis, leadership authors Leaders judge. How do we know when to trust our own judgment? Some might
The Scourge of Short-Termism
“The future whispers while the present shouts.” –Al Gore, former U.S. Vice President One of the great scourges of our age is “short-termism.” A staggering 78 percent of the managers surveyed in a large-scale study of CFOs and CEOs admit to sacrificing long-term value to achieve smoother earnings. In July 2011, former Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) chair Sheila Bair wrote: “The common thread running through all the causes of our economic tumult is a pervasive and persistent insistence on favoring the short term over the long term, impulse over patience.” Our earlier blog, “Suicide By Quarter—Leading for the Short-Term,” indicated the
Culture as a Competitive Advantage
“Culture isn’t just one aspect of the game—it is the game.” –Lou Gerstner, former CEO of IBM How can your organization gain a sustainable competitive advantage? Technological breakthrough? Killer patents? Brilliant strategy? Protected regulatory position? We suggest another, perhaps even more powerful, way: Create a high-performance culture of character. Create a culture intent on building an excellent, ethical, and enduring organization, much like the mythical Knights of King Arthur’s Round Table enjoyed. Technologies become obsolete; patents expire; regulations will change. A High-Performance Culture of Character We think of organizational culture as “how we do things here”—how people behave. Culture
Twelve Tips to Grow as a Leader
Leaders aren’t born. They grow. Yes, some people are born with characteristics that make leadership easier. Some people are more outgoing, or intellectually gifted, or quick thinking. Some are excellent communicators, or have natural self-belief. But opportunities to learn and grow dramatically outweigh all of those factors combined. Leadership is learned and developed through a combination of practice, feedback, experience, observation, intuition, judgment, reflection, and input from others, including coaching, mentoring, books, courses, and programs. Training and courses can be valuable in helping leaders grow, particularly programs that involve practical leadership challenges and experiences tied to powerful frameworks and concepts.
The Wonders of “Pay It Forward”
“For it is in giving that we receive.” –St. Francis of Assisi There are three kinds of people: takers, “transactors,” and givers. Each of us needs to decide where our focus will be. Takers Takers are focused on serving their own needs and pleasures. They may be courteous about it and pleasant to be around; or they may be blunt about extracting whatever they want. But takers are exploiters. Transactors The mindset of the transactor is, “I’ll give you something if you give me something back.” It is a quid pro quo world to them, and there is
Leading with Heart and Head
(guest post by Cristina Gair) “A good heart and a good head are always a formidable combination.” –Nelson Mandela — In Remembrance, 1918-2013 Students of leadership should immerse themselves in the study of leaders who embody the values and actions they want to see in the world. In college, I started studying Nelson Mandela as an inspiring leader and teacher, and I have been enamored ever since. Mandela was about love, justice, equality, education, and care for others, your community, and the global community. My heart hurts as my head remembers his lessons for leadership and life. Mandela understood the
Your Leadership Mindset
What is your leadership mindset? What are your self-conceptions and beliefs that drive your behavior as a leader? In many cases, these are unknown because they operate beneath the level of our conscious awareness. Yet they are crucially important because they affect the way we approach people, situations, opportunities, and risks. In short, our mindset is an essential factor in the quality of our leadership, yet we often operate in the dark about how and why. Enter Carol Dweck and her path-breaking research on mindsets. Dweck is a professor at Stanford University who studies motivation, personality, and development. According to Dweck,
Is Your Organization Falling Short on Values?
Recently, we heard about a law firm whose partners, after operating for a while, decided to draft a list of the firm’s values. As part of that process, the partners discussed their own personal values: their core beliefs and principles, and what they valued most. (See our Personal Values Exercise.) During that exercise, it soon became clear that “family” was at or near the top of the list for every single partner. Unfortunately, as with many other law firms, their enterprise involved long hours, lots of travel, stress, pressure, weekend work, emergency calls, being constantly on-call, and all the usual
Is Your Organization Out of Alignment? Two Checklists
Are you working more but enjoying it less? Stressed out? Overloaded? Does it feel like things are slipping out of control? These conditions are becoming “the new normal” for leaders today; they also indicate that your organization is out of alignment: People are working at cross-purposes Turf wars break out between departments Everyone is criticizing or blaming everyone else People seem resigned to the chaos Many check out mentally How can you tell if your organization is out of alignment? Here are two checklists with the key indicators. Answer Yes or No to the questions on the checklist that best
10 Steps to a High-Performance Culture
“I came to see, in my time at IBM, that culture isn’t just one aspect of the game, it is the game.” –Lou Gerstner, former Chairman and CEO, IBM How can leaders build a high-performance culture? Culture is powerful. Culture has a huge influence on what people do on a day-to-day basis, especially when the boss isn’t around. Avoiding all the fancy definitions, we think of culture simply as “how we do things around here.” Do we slack off when the boss is gone? Do we “just ship it” to make the numbers, even if the quality is suspect? Do we
“Take This Job and Shove It”? Not So Fast
Sometimes you have to walk out. Some of you are stuck in a toxic firm or with a terrible boss. But before you say, “Take this job and shove it” (to quote the old song), let’s run through a pre-flight checklist before flying the coop. 1. Live Lean If you don’t have your dream job in your dream company, you should have six to twelve months of cash in the bank to cover your living expenses. (Your retirement funds should be off limits.) If you don’t have that cash available, you have to “live lean” until you do. If
The Three Most Important Things Leaders Can Say to Their Teams
Disengaged employees are a growing problem for many organizations today. People lack commitment, can be cynical mutterers, and even saboteurs of company initiatives. How can you as a team or organizational leader motivate better performance, even breakthroughs? The answer has many components, from creating a high-performance culture of character with clear goals and empowered followers to many other leadership approaches. We believe there are some things you should say (if you sincerely believe them) to your team members that will go a long way to increasing their confidence and performance. Here are the three most important things you can say:
The Three Most Important Questions About Your Leadership
Here are three critical questions to ask yourself before you undertake the responsibility of leading other people: 1. What’s the difference between “the leader” and “leadership”? “The leader” is the historical leadership model that has led us astray so often. It focuses on the skills, attributes, and qualities of the “the leader.” It tells us what each of us must do to become a leader: be more decisive, have a vision, know the answers, demonstrate charisma, and more. There’s much value here, but it causes trouble when it locks in the assumption there can only be one leader. Of
Unleashing Other Leaders
Leaders today need to, not only develop loyal and committed followers, but also unleash other leaders who can lead various critical tasks. Leadership in this scenario is not about the great skills and talents of “the leader,” but the collective strengths and blended talents of the leaders and the followers, who variously lead at times and follow others at times in a dynamic dance. Leadership is a group performance, not a solo act. If you don’t unleash other leaders, you will underachieve, be overwhelmed, and overworked. You will be trapped in “busyness,” with more work on your desk and more
We’re All Entrepreneurs Now
guest Blog by Mike Critelli During my 25-year tenure as a senior business leader, I have seen a remarkable change in the requirements for successful business leadership. Leaders today must adopt more entrepreneurial behaviors and imbed them in their organizations, however large or mature those organizations might be. The image of an entrepreneur as a young man eating pizza, living and working in a run-down industrial space is far too limiting. In my view, every leader is an entrepreneur, even when he or she runs a large, mature company. Entrepreneurial leaders will throw out the rulebook on which they and
