Expand Your Mind: October Leadership Development Carnival
by Miki Saxon
Robert Tanner and his blog Management is a Journey are both pretty cool dudes and he did a superlative job narrating the October Leadership Development Carnival using a back to school theme. I thought it would make expanding reading on a Saturday and hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
BACK TO SCHOOL
As a leader, is it important for your team to respect you or like you? The good news is that it is not an either/or decision. As Wally Bock of Three Star Leadership explains both Liking and Respect will happen if you concentrate on helping your team and team members succeed.
Shakespeare once said, “Some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them.” What type of leader are you? This is the subject Neal Burgis, Ph.D. of Practical Solutions explores in his article, Characteristics of a Natural Leader.
If only those working with you could see how great your idea is! What’s the matter with them anyway? Many business leaders have felt this way a few times in their career. In his article, Why Can’t Those People See that this is a Great Idea, Kyle Dover of Anyone Can Lead provides tips to significantly increase the chance of getting other people to adopt your proposals.
What does it take to manage an organization’s culture? As S. Chris Edmonds of Driving Results Through Culture explains in his article, Feel How to Keep Culture on Track, it’s more art than science. It’s similar to effective auto racing. “It’s not about pure speed. It’s about feeling the car ‘in the moment,’ every moment.”
As a business leader, Do you Measure your Emotional Capital? This is critical as Anna Farmery of the Engaging Brand explains with her signature quote: ”People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did BUT people will never forget how you made them feel.”
What’s the insider secret for building a strong organization? It turns out that the “secret” is known information. Strong Organizational Foundations are Rooted in Timeless Truths as Chery Gegelman of Simply Understanding explains in her slideshow of leadership quotes.
Deadlines — competing, missed, impossible to meet, have to be met — they are a regular occurrence for leaders! What’s the solution for busy professionals? In his article, Meeting deadlines! Here is how to do it!, Bernd Geropp of More Leadership provides 10 tips for getting deadlines under control.
Sometimes all it takes is a reminder to put everything in its proper perspective. This holds true for leadership and organizational problems as well. In his article, How You See Problems Helps You Solve Problems, Tim Milburn of Developing Lifelong Learners explains how problems provide an opportunity for leadership.
There’s a Rodney Dangerfield problem for some in the workplace. It seems they cannot get any respect! As Miki Saxon of MAPping Company Success explains getting respect is not that difficult. You just need to put your Ducks in a Row: When It Comes to Respect You Get What You Give.
What does it take to achieve a high level of organizational performance? As Jim Taggart of Changing Winds explains in his article, Are You a Passionate Leader, it takes passion to propel an organization forward. “Having a burning passion is a requisite to instilling a sense of mission among one’s followers.”
Servant leaders focus on developing the talent of those they lead. It’s easier to work with those star performers, but how can leaders develop their poor performers? In her article, A Performance Development Tool for Servant Leaders, Mary Ila Ward of Horizon Point Consulting provides a guide for starting the conversation with poor performers.
What’s the value of a referral? For leaders, a good referral can mean finding high performing talent to help the organization achieve its objectives. In her infographic article, It’s All About Who They Know, Meg Wheaton of Gagen MacDonald explains how leaders can use social media and other tools to find new talent and build a culture of collaboration and inclusion.
Now that we have been properly schooled on the practice of leadership, our next group of contributors will provide their insights on the art of leading transition. Something all leaders must do themselves and help others to do as well!
TRANSITION
“Every year a stream of nameless, faceless executives withdraw from their offices and gather somewhere offsite as part of a long-standing corporate ritual called strategic planning.” How effective is this process in practice? David Burkus of LDRLB tackles these issues head-on in his article, Strategy is About Choice.
“For organizations to thrive in today’s hyper-competitive marketplace, leaders have to learn how to build a culture of trust and openness.” In his article, Four Strategies to Increase Organizational Trust and Transparency, Randy Conley of Leading with Trust shares tips for building a culture that will unleash creativity and innovation in organizations.
As Joel Garfinkle of Career Advancement Blog explains, for most people, changing careers is a process, not an overnight, snap decision. This process does not get easier with time. In his article — My Job Isn’t Satisfying: Changing Careers at 30, 40, or Even 50 — Joel provides tips to successfully make this transition.
When you care strongly about developing effective leaders, it’s frustrating to find out that support for leadership development and training is on life support in your organization! In A Strategic Story About Strategic Storytelling, Karin Hurt of Let’s Grow Leaders shares the approaches she used to revive a stalled leadership development project.
You’ve made the jump to management! You’re no longer just an individual contributor responsible for your own work only. You now are responsible for the work of your entire team. Now it’s starting to hit you! What exactly are you supposed to do with these people? Dan McCarthy of Great Leadership has some help for you in his article 25 Tips for New Managers.
Results-Only Work Environment (ROWE) is a management philosophy where leaders evaluate employees on results — not on their presence in the office. Is this new philosophy, where employees can independently manage their own time as long as the work gets done, viable for companies? Jennifer Miller of the People Equation provides insights in her article, 7 Considerations for Launching ROWE at Your Company.
“If you think you’re leading and no one is following, you’re really just taking a walk.” Jesse Lyn Stoner of Seapoint Center gives real world proof to this saying in her article, The Process is as Important as the Product: 7 Tips to Manage Both. She explains why creating a “critical mass” of employee support is critical to implementing any change.
“To lead for innovation, leaders need to become comfortable not having the right answers, and instead think about possibilities.” Linda Fisher Thornton of Leading in Context provides these and other insights in her article, Failure is Part of Innovation.
While transition is never easy, some aspects of leadership can be scary especially when leadership is exercised ineffectively. Our last contributors for this month discuss barriers to effective leadership.
SCARY SEASON
A wise grandmother often shared the following with her family: “What you believe about people is how you’ll treat them.” Robyn McLeod of Thoughtful Leaders builds on her grandmother’s wisdom in her article Are your Beliefs Getting in the Way of Better Leadership? “As a leader, being aware of our beliefs and being flexible and open enough to shift our beliefs when necessary is a skill that pays off in many ways.”
Mention the word poison and you will get people’s attention! Poison brings harm and destruction. While the natural world has its sources, so too does the business world. Leaders can and do inflict poison on their work teams. The result — whether accidental or intentional — is the same: damaged and destroyed working relationships! In a post from my blog, Management is a Journey, I share Seven Ways to Poison Your Relationship with Your Employees.
Flickr image credit: pedroelcarvalho and Great Leadership
October 13th, 2012 at 4:19 am
what a great collection. thanks so much for including me in this.
October 13th, 2012 at 6:28 am
Such great stuff here! Love your site. Thanks for having me!