Today isn’t really wordless, if it was you would miss all the fun.

I’m sure you notice all the studies being done and, if you are anything like me, wondered about their obviousness (healthy calories cost more, who knew?), let alone the stupidity of some studies and their results.

Today I’m going to share what has to be the stupidest I’ve seen in years.

Unfortunately, I can’t embed the pictures, but the study offers “proof” that the width of a CEO’s face can predict the company’s financial performance.

Rather than adding my own comments on the subject, take a moment to read Idiocy Alert! Research says fat-faced CEOs perform better by Wally Bock. Why try to improve perfection?

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons

Your comments-priceless

Don’t miss a post! Subscribe via RSS or EMAIL

It’s Labor Day and most of you are out laboring over your BBQ, on your boat, at the pool or on another of the myriad Labor Day opportunities to goof off. But just in case you are looking for more virtuous reading than that mystery, thriller or romance, this month’s Leadership Development Carnival, presented as a leadership shopping spree, has much to offer.

Aisle One: Pens and Pencils

Mark Bennett, from the Oracle team, starts us off with Uncertainty, Fear, and Our Response posted at TalentedApps, saying, “How leaders respond to uncertainty shows whether they think they even have a choice and how their choices can seriously affect the future.”
If you have an Ipad or access to one, check out the new Ipad version of this blog. Very cool! But no fair – after are, they’re Oracle. (-:

Anne Perschel and Marion Chapsal presents Leaders Stand When It’s Easier to Sit posted at Germane Insights. Great post on leaders taking a stand. I had the pleasure of having lunch with Anne this month – she’s as awesome in person as she is with her blog. I’m looking forward to some new research Anne and Marion are about to publish on woman and power.

Tanveer Naseer presents 4 Lessons On Team-Building I Learned From My Garden | posted at TanveerNaseer.com. Great lessons! I’m actually going to try them on my garden first – it’s looking like it needs a little TLC and inspiration.

Lynn Dessert presents How to handle anger in the workplace posted at Elephants at Work. Lynn is another blogger I had the pleasure meeting when I lived in Rochester, NY, and will be hosting her first Leadership Development Carnival next month. Some good tips on how to keep your cool at work.

Mary Jo Asmus presents There is an “I” in Conflict posted at Mary Jo Asmus. While you at at Mary Jo’s blog, check out the results of the August Leadership Development Challange. Not than anyone is keeping score.

Wally Bock presents Theory X in Sheep’s Clothing posted at Three Star Leadership, saying “Artificial fun at work programs are the latest manifestation of DouglasMcGregor’s famous theory. The bad one.” Thanks, Wally, you were right, this one did indeed warm my heart.

Aisle Two: Paper Supplies:

Tanmay Vora presents Change: From Vision to Execution posted at QAspire. “Leaders establish a lofty vision for a large scale change initiative and then strategize to align the team. Sometimes, the team gets over-excited by this grand vision and get stuck. They cannot define a strategy or a plan of action that takes them closer to that grand vision.” Agree!

Bret L. Simmons presents Five Beliefs Employees Hold About Leaders That Cause Silence posted at Bret L. Simmons. Interesting research from Dr. Bret on why employees don’t speak up – required reading assignment for leaders.

Anna Farmery presents The Confused Employee posted at The Engaging Brand. Are you confusing your team? Find out.

Gwyn Teatro presents Six Ways To Make Collaboration Work posted at You’re Not the Boss of Me. Check out the cute Pixar film at the end.

Kevin Eikenberry presents Five Leadership Milestones to Set and Reach posted at Leadership and Learning with Kevin Eikenberry, saying, “This post outlines five leadership milestones to set, reach, and celebrate. Where are you on your leadership journey? Where would you like to be?” Good questions, Kevin – Thanks!

Aisle Three: Backpacks:

Guy Harris presents One Way to Head Off a Conflict: Manage Expectations posted at Guy Harris: The Recovering Engineer, saying, “As leaders, we can decrease the emotional reaction people may have in uncomfortable situations by giving them information and clarifying expectations.” Love the name of this blog.

Jesse Lyn Stoner presents Five Easy Ways To Tell If An Organization Is Really Values-Driven posted at Jesse lyn Stoner Blog, saying, “Lots of organizations claim they are values-driven. Not all use values to guide decisions and behaviors on a daily basis company-wide. Here are 5 easy ways to tell is an organization is really values-driven.” I like easy ways – thanks, Jesse. Lot’s of good comments on this one too.

Mike Henry Sr. presents 10 Management Lessons from Harry Potter posted at Lead Change Group Blog, saying, “Post by Leigh Steere of Managing People Better about the lessons she learned from the Harry Potter series.” Mike runs one of the best leadership LinkedIn groups out there and never fails to submit a great post to the Carnival.

Miki presents Entrepreneur: Solving People Problems posted at MAPping Company Success, saying, “Although this post is focused on entrepreneurs, it applies to anyone who believes that welding a group of individuals into a powerful team requires them to only be leaders and not managers.” Read all about tool, fools and lost souls.

Guy Farmer presents Leadership Is Not Touchy-Feely posted at Unconventional Training. “What will you do to make your workplace more touchy-feely?”

Aisle Four: Electronics:

Art Petty presents Leadership Caffeine: Fun at the Cousin’s Reunion with Luck, Hope and Hard Work posted at Management Excellence. More great stuff from Art, perhaps inspired by his own recent family reunion?

Eric Pennington presents The Idea and Reality of Self-Employment posted at Epic Living – Leadership Development Career Management Training Executive Life Coaching Author. Eric gives you an intimate look at his own experience with entrepreneurism and its impact.

Jane Perdue presents 10 Rules for Saying ‘I’ posted at Get Your Leadership BIG On!. Great rules to live by – thanks, Jane!

Sharlyn Lauby presents Get Buy-In When Creating Change posted at hr bartender, saying, “It might seem like a big waste of time but getting buy-in is an essential part of the change process.” Great answer to a reader’s question  – couldn’t agree more!

David Burkus presents Is GSK taking the Sales out of Sales Rep? posted at LeaderLab, saying, “Is GSK taking the sales out of Sales Representative?”"

Aisle Five: Snacks:

Michael Cardus presents Evidence; Unicorns; Bullshit: 3 Areas Of Team Building and Leadership Effectiveness posted at Create-Learning Team Building & Leadership Blog, saying, “Within the team building and managerial leadership world there is so much information and Jargon Monoxide that everyone feels overwhelmed. The challenge is determining what works within organizations is complex. Beliefs, false ideas, reinforced negative theories of work, personal fallacies about competence, improper systems in place for promotions, onboarding and hiring.”

Nick McCormick presents Managers, Who Would You Re-hire? posted at Joe and Wanda – on Management, saying, “Kevin Oakes is our guest for this Management Tips podcast. Kevin is CEO of i4cp. He also just published a book called, The Executive Guide to Integrated Talent Management. Kevin advises managers to do an audit of their direct reports to see if they’d be eligible for re-hire. Listen in to find out more.”

Alicia Arnold presents Meetings…How many people does it take to solve a problem? posted at Daily Creativity.

Heather Stagl presents Behind the Mask of Resistance posted at Enclaria LLC.

Jim Taggart presents Are Your Paws Sticky? Leadership Lessons from a Lab posted at ChangingWinds, saying, “Think about work situations where management broke the trust. What took months – years – to build was destroyed in a matter of minutes. It may have been a reorg, downsizing, merger, change of policy. Whatever. It doesn’t matter the reason. The point is that employees – PEOPLE – were hurt, or there was perceived hurt.” OK, any posts about labs are automatically included.

Aisle Six: Textbooks:

Linda Fisher Thornton presents Ethical Grey Areas: Our Choices Define Us posted at Leading in Context LLC.

Jonathan Milligan presents 4 Tips on How to Improve Communication Tools posted at Simple Life Habits, saying, “One of the biggest challenges for an influential leader is communication. here are 4 ways to improve your communication skills.”

Robyn McLeod presents Eating peas and other lessons in change posted at The Thoughtful Leaders Blog.

S. Chris Edmonds presents Power, Profit, or Purpose: What Drives Your Company? posted at Driving Results Through Culture, saying, “I pose somewhat provocative questions about whether your company is power driven, profit driven, or purpose driven.”

Image credit: Great Leadership

Your comments-priceless

Don’t miss a post! Subscribe via RSS or EMAIL

A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here

Influence isn’t about your online ranking or the strength of your brand, although they contribute.

Influence is about effect.

The effect your words or actions have on those exposed to them.

Yesterday I linked to an article in which Penelope Trunk said that it’s a bad idea for founders to be of different genders and because of her influence dozens of founders are probably rethinking their startup plans.

There is a common arrogance among influencers to generalize their opinion and present it as a fact applicable to all and the more successful the influencer the greater the arrogance.

But from day one every founder has influence, before success and beyond the expected, so even a casual word can cause trouble.

A founder CEO I know, whose original education years before was engineering, had a habit of occasionally strolling through engineering to see what was going on. One day he commented that he wouldn’t do a design the way the team was doing it. It was a casual, throw-away comment, one he had forgotten five minutes later, but it devastated the design team. The CEO had no clue to the havoc he wrought and it took the vp of engineering, who was co-founder, hours to settle them down. He then told the CEO not to talk to the team and banned him from the department.

What those on the receiving end of influencers need to realize is that no matter how brilliant or experienced someone is they are still voicing an opinion. And as valuable as the opinion may be, it should never be swallowed whole, because opinions are subjective.

They are the product of that individual’s MAP, which itself is a product of upbringing and experience. Even someone else having exactly the same background and experience would not have identical MAP because each person processes differently and has different inherent characteristics.

Influence comes with responsibilities—how well do you handle yours?

Option Sanity™ reflects your influence.

Come visit Option Sanity for an easy-to-understand, simple-to-implement stock process.  It’s so easy a CEO can do it.

Warning.

Do not attempt to use Option Sanity™ without a strong commitment to business planning, financial controls, honesty, ethics, and “doing the right thing.” Use only as directed.
Users of Option Sanity may experience sudden increases in team cohesion and worker satisfaction. In cases where team productivity, retention and company success is greater than typical, expect media interest and invitations as keynote speaker.

Image credit: kevinspencer

Your comments-priceless

Don’t miss a post! Subscribe via RSS or EMAIL

We glorify top managers, print their pictures in newspapers and magazines, praise their decisiveness and vision, give them awards and treat them like superstars. All they’re guilty of – the poor bastards – is believing the BS we write about them.” –Freek Vermeulen, Associate Professor of Strategy  and Entrepreneurship at the London Business School and author of “Business Exposed: The naked truth about what really goes on in the world of business”

Good press starts at a tender age, even before walking or talking, and continues, getting louder all the time.

Eventually, for some, it drowns out any bad press or critical comments, so they hear only the positive glowing phrases used to describe them—and they believe.

As the good press gets louder and belief becomes stronger anything resembling balance is jettisoned and what emerges is a tyrannical ego seated on a throne of hubris.

You often find that throne at the desk of a positional leader and the ego occupying it wreaking havoc in the name of leadership—and the higher the position the more extensive the havoc.

We are all living the cost of the hubris that occupies so many corner offices in the world’s financial community, not to mention the halls of politics, but hubris has been wreaking havoc for centuries.

Long before hubris destroyed our economy and forever changed our world, its results were obvious in the failed acquisitions so prevalent over the last few decades.

Yesterday, I quoted Gordon Segal, founder of Crate and Barrel, whose comment is perfectly applicable to any age or position, “No matter how successful you are, stay humble, stay nervous, and don’t believe your own press.”

Our world would be better if more leaders, from parents to teens to CEOs to politicians, stopped believing their own press.

Flickr image credit: Mike Cattell

Your comments-priceless

Don’t miss a post! Subscribe via RSS or EMAIL

Ahhh, it’s that time of the month (no, not that time) again. The first Monday brings you all kinds of leadership, management and all-around useful information and advice from some of the most common-sensical people on the planet. What’s not to love?

And thanks to Jason Seiden for being such a gracious host this month.

How can I not love Laura Schroeder’s post? The 7 Habits of Highly Effective 5-Year-Olds is pitch perfect. Thanks, Working Girl, for a delightfully simply reminder of just how complicated we tend to make simple issues. (Elle would agree.)

From Amy Wilson: Why Business Leaders Should Conduct Talent Reviews. Amy has a unique ability to see around corners and figure out what’s coming in the talent development space. Here, she tackles the resource allocation that accompanies big change. At Wilson Insight.

“I hate doing these yearly performance evaluations.”
“What is it you hate so much?”
“They are nowhere near accurate and often times I feel forced to use recent information to determine employee performance.”
“What would be better?”
This: Michael “I know a thing or two about performance reviews” Cardus’s Yearly Performance Reviews SUCK! Managers Can Change That. posted at Team Building & Leadership Blog: Create-Learning.

Innovation is a challenge because it is largely a right brain activity. But once this is understood, innovation can become a personal leadership skill as well as a corporate one. Dana Theus talks playtime, the boredom that precedes the brilliance, and the risk of looking foolish in Why Is Leading Innovation So Hard?, posted at Reclaiming Leadership.

Read Wally Bock’s The 97% Solution right now. The Army says that there are “toxic leaders” in its ranks, and that’s a problem. But 97 percent of officers and sergeants have experienced an exceptional leader, and that may be part of the solution. Wally’s use of statistics demonstrates how to find the good.

Art Petty suggests Respectfully Speaking, Let’s Cure Respect Deficit Disorder at Management Excellence.

Utpal Vaishnav presents a very common corporate challenge in a clear and compelling (and non-alliterative) way. The title is a bit over the top, but the article itself is dead on. This is one to hand out to your employees. In Corporate, Non-communication Equates to Crime… posted at Utpal Writes.

Confused about which change model to pick for your organization? This post from Dan McCarthy’s Great Leadership will point you in the right direction. Dan McCarthy presents Which Change Model Should You Pick? at Great Leadership.

How do you talk to a CEO? Mark Stelzner nails it with his hard-won advice to anyone who may find him- or herself in that position. Take a moment to read How To Talk To A CEO, posted at Inflexion Point.

Sometimes, it’s good to have someone remind you that it’s not all complex conversations and deep thinking that drives success. Sometimes, it’s  the basics like getting out of bed early enough to get a jump on the day. Not a morning person? Follow Jon Milligan’s tips on how waking yourself up in his post How to Wake Yourself Up at Simple Life Habits.

The demand for innovation requires creative genius. But where and how do we find it? Genius is closer than you think. In fact, the path to your genius starts right here in this post by Anne Perschel: Knock Knock ? Who?s There? Genius posted at Germane Insights.

Jim Logan has seen his share of business plans. In this post, he lays out the questions few entrepreneurs prepare for but that every entrepreneur needs to have a good answer for. According to the case he makes in The magic sales plan that can’t be explained, “if you can’t convince me you can be successful now, your chances of being successful later are slim to none.” At Saleskick.

If I had an award for Most Profersonal™ Post, this would be it. Hats off to Michael Lee Stallard for Starbucks’ CEO’s Broken Heart, which demonstrates the power that comes from doing business with a heaping serving of humanity. Posted at Michael Lee Stallard.

Ben Brabyn offers an important lesson in how to bring a group together in How to boost team performance without increasing costs posted at Brabyn.com.

Here’s one surprising tip for leaders to help them maximize their message. Steve Roesler presents Be A Presentation Pro: Do This at All Things Workplace.

Not sure how social media can help (or hurt) your business? Click over to the Bret L. Simmons – Positive Organizational Behavior blog and read his post, The Most Important Social Business Metrics. You’ll be glad you did.

I love Joe and Wanda on Management. In this post, Nick McCormick shares Russell Bishop’s perspective on decision making (from his new book, “Work-arounds that Work”), and Joe and Wanda respond. It’s a well-framed discussion of framing: Managers and Decision-Making.

In this straightforward and compelling post, Eric Pennington explains why your life is to be managed and cared for before it’s taken away: Getting Your Life Back. Gotta love a blog called Epic Living!

Organizations should market the great things they are doing to educate the public on internal best practices. Kathy C presents 7 ways to do this in Leverage What You Do Right in Your Marketing Plan! at The Thriving Small Business.

A short post on love in organisations? Check! Jon Ingham presents Leading in the Love Shack at Management 2.0 developing social capital.

Giving feedback as a leader can be challenging, especially to the employee who is highly sensitive to criticism. Lynn Dessert tells how to do it right in Can leaders deliver feedback without someone taking it personally? at Elephants at Work.

Have a laugh and learn something about the uneasy relationship between HR and managers. Wayne Turmel presents The Cranky Middle Manager Show #290 Why Does HR Hate Us The Evil HR Lady posted at TPN :: The Cranky Middle Manager Show. It’s funny because it’s true.

Mike Haberman delivers a fastball down the middle on the Omega Solutions Blog with The Key to a Successful Team: Lessons for HR. Mike says, “I got these lessons from John Schuerholz, the former GM and now president of the Atlanta Braves.”

For all you TEDTalk geeks, Adi Gaskell presents a good one in Is your chief exec suffering from the God Complex? | Chartered Management Institute, posted at The Management Blog | Chartered Management Institute.

Guy Farmer delivers a 2×4 upside the head of the management status quo in Leaders’ Obsessive Focus on What Employees Do Wrong, at Unconventional Training.

Charles Chua C K presents 10 P’s To Be Successful posted at All About Living with Life.

Jane Perdue offers a quick mid-year checklist for leaders: The 7 C’s – A Mid-Year Leadership Checkup at Get Your Leadership BIG On!.

Any one can develop skills to become a good leader – and here Malik Mirza presents tips from Jim Rohn, one of Malik’s favorite inspirational and motivational speakers. Jim Rohn’s advice on leadership is posted at WisdomfromBooks.com.

Many leaders seem to be having difficulty finding employees who care. Miki Saxon finds a solution to the problem by flipping the issue on its head in Ducks In a Row: Who Cares? at MAPping Company Success.

Patrick Bradshaw presents The Name of the Integrated Talent Management Game posted at TrendWatchers.

S. Chris Edmonds covers The Five Disciplines of Servant Leadership at Driving Results Through Culture—a simple post that left me thinking hard about how to recalibrate my time each week.

John Chappelear wrote: When you focus on making your people great, the result is a great organization.
Jailan Marie presents There are no great companies, just great people, who happen to work there. Live at Innovative Solutions For Positive Change.

Hey, tough guy: get your a** in gear and embrace those “touchy-feely” management techniques that science keeps showing works. Robert Tanner tackles the big issue head on in Not More Of That “Touchy-Feely” Stuff! posted at Management is a Journey.

Anecdotally, we all know that micromanagers are a headache to work with. But what are the actual business problems that they can create? Here we look at two reasons why they can be so damaging to companies. From Andy Klein and the Fortune Group Blog: The perils of Management OCD – an undesirable management malady.

Ah, leadership & ethics. Linda Fisher Thornton presents Ethical Leadership Context at Leading in Context. Regardless of where you ultimately shake out on the issue, this is always a good topic to revisit.

Jim Taggart sideswipes the time-honored tradition of the strategic off-site with his suggestion that leaders “co-create” organizational vision with employees. The VISION Thing at ChangingWinds is quick, light reading that squares perfectly with the headiest research on effective leadership.

Juliet Jones presents 10 Successful CEOs Who Failed at Politics, which is a helpful ego check for those delusional to think that success in one area automatically qualifies them for success elsewhere.

Finally, there’s 4 Ways to Become a More Emotionally Mature Leader. This one’s mine. And here’s a clue: it is impossible to say the words “I’m taking the high road” from the high road.

Image credit: Great Leadership

Your comments-priceless

Don’t miss a post! Subscribe via RSS or EMAIL

Yammer started in 2008 and now has 100,000 companies and organizations, including over 80 percent of the Fortune 500, as customers.

But that isn’t why I’m writing about it.

I read an interview with David Sacks, Yammer’s founder, chairman and C.E.O. Of course, the interview started asking all the standard ‘leadership’ questions, but Sacks responses were all about culture. (Fantastic information, I hope you take time to read it.)

“You’ve really got to create a company culture that people want to work at. And so you try to give them a voice, give them a sense that they influence the direction of the company, and try to avoid unnecessary process and hierarchy — things that might frustrate employees. … I think you’ve got to create a culture in which dissent is valued.”

Sacks’ responses forced (my interpretation) the interviewer to focus on Yammer’s culture as opposed to Sacks and his ‘leadership’.

I find these interviewers interesting. They seem always to focus on the person, looking for the accepted responses and attitudes towards ‘leadership’ and comments that have ‘I’ in multiple places.

When the responses don’t fit that profile the interviewers seem a bit incredulous—or maybe it’s just my and my own prejudice on the leadership thing.

Watch this interview with Tony Hsieh (sorry, the Washington Post doesn’t provide embed code), but keep your eyes on the interviewer as you listen to the questions and responses, especially at 4:09, when Hsieh says, “I think of myself less as of a leader and maybe more of a protector.”

Check out the interviewer’s facial expressions and then tell me if it’s my imagination or does he register surprise tinged with disbelief.

Flickr image credit: ZedBee | Zoë Power

Your comments-priceless

Don’t miss a post! Subscribe via RSS or EMAIL

There is a sizable difference between accepting positional leadership when a company is at the bottom and there is no place to go but up and taking over when its at its height—even more so when what was the growth engine and source of extraordinary profits disappears from the economic landscape.

It is one thing to maximize what you have, wringing out every last possible dollar, and investing in innovation for sustainable growth in the future.

It is one thing to create a culture where public shame and the likelihood of termination for missing your numbers rules and changing that to a culture that encourages appropriate risk-taking and never kills the messenger when the risk doesn’t pan out; a culture that understands not every innovation will be a home run, but encourages and applauds the effort anyway.

These are the differences between Jack Welch

But Welch had taken over when the company was in the bottom of an economic cycle. He took over GE in a recession, not the height of a bubble. Immelt got the job right after the end of the high-flying 1990s, an era which crowned CEOs with mythical, God-like crowns, and Welch was bestowed the biggest of them all.

and Jeff Immelt.

Immelt had known before the meltdown the company needed to ween off the leveraged risk from finance that was begun under Welch. … He admitted mistakes, as any good leader must do, and GE more quietly if not humbly went about its business in making the company a 21st century sustainable and reliable profit engine.

The differences are worth noting.

Flickr image credit: laurita13

Your comments-priceless

Don’t miss a post! Subscribe via RSS or EMAIL

How ’bout that; the Fourth had the courtesy to fall on the first Monday of July, so along with your beer, buddies and BBQ you can enjoy the 2011 July Leadership Development Carnival.

My best wishes for a safe and happy holiday!

Flickr image credit: Daniel Morris, mastermaq and delgaudm

Your comments-priceless

Don’t miss a post! Subscribe via RSS or EMAIL

Jennifer Miller, author of The People Equation, is host for the June edition of the Leadership Development Carnival. She tagged it Commencement Edition in honor of the potential represented by the Class of 2011. My quick sampling of the different categories tells me it offers a well-rounded meal no matter what you are looking for.

First up, it’s regular Leadership Development Carnival host Dan McCarthy, with 10 Ways to Get More Candid Feedback (and 5 ways if you really can’t handle the truth) from his blog Great Leadership.

Management

Sharlyn Lauby from HR Bartender serves up solid advice on a way to enhance your company’s performance review process in Should Employees Do Self-Appraisals?

I’m not sure what the trophy would look like for this award, but Jane Perdue at Get Your Leadership Big On has a great list of what a manager would need to do to earn top honors in 10 Ways to Win Bad Boss of the Year.

Over at Learning Curves, Lakshman Rajagopalan asks the tough (but necessary) questions of prospective managers in Why do you want to become a Manager?

Robert Tanner finds that he’s gleaned wisdom, emotional intelligence, and leadership lessons from Colin Powell in Revisiting Colin Powell’s 13 Rules of Leadership . As Robert says in the post, “The truth never goes out of style!” Read it on his blog Management is a Journey.

Miki Saxon from Mapping Company Success takes on the issue of Positional Deafness, remarking, “I’ve never understood why managers expect workers who were consistently ignored and shut down to suddenly start contributing because they receive a promotion.”

From the Fortune Group Blog and Andy Klein comes this thought: are some managers too wrapped up in being “needed” to properly develop their people? Andy says, “The best managers don’t make people dependent on them; they create an entity that will function in their absence”. See his thoughts on Effective Managers Must overcome the Emotional Need to be Needed.

Enda Larkin gives us a list of 7 typical managerial mistakes in What are the Most Common Mistakes that Managers Make? on his blog HTC Consult.

Adi Gaskell uncovers research that doesn’t paint managers in a very good light, so he offers a balancing perspective with In Defense of Management at The Management Blog | Chartered Management Institute.

Team Development

Mary Jo Asmus of Aspire –CS highlights the process of a leader skilled in developing his team.  See the guidelines he used to launch a very creative, hands-on team development project in Six Tips to Help Your Team Learn.

At John Spence’s Achieving Business Excellence blog, John outlines the HPT competency models he uses when working with teams. See more via How to Build a High Performance Team (HPT).

Dave Doran, who is an executive coach and writes at The S4P Blog , offers How to Develop a Pre-Coaching Ritual. This post is geared towards external coaches, but could easily be used for leaders coaching an employee in a one-to-one setting.

Rosaria Hawkins draws an interesting connection between being “lost” and developing leaders.  In her post Lost: The Key to True Learning, she says: “It’s been said that true learning occurs when we are lost—in a liminal place, where nothing works, where old methods, strategies and knowledge just don’t cut it. How can we, as leaders, tap into this potent developmental space?” See more at The Mindful Leadership Blog.

Michael Cardus explores the 4^th phase of building high performance teams, inquiring, Accountability to the Team; When does that happen? on his blog Create Learning Team-Building Blog.

Using an analogy of tending plant life, Will Lukang identifies five things leaders must do to “grow” future leaders in Planting the Seeds for Leaders of Tomorrow at Will’s Blog .

“The use of the word team has greatly diluted what teamwork is really about. And along the way, the cult of teamwork has created skepticism, mistrust–and even guilt–among employees.” Because of this, Jim Taggart wants to rock the teamwork boat in his post Rethinking Teams: Getting Over the Guilt Complex. See more at the ChangingWinds blog.

Over at Management Excellence, Art Petty gives us plenty to contemplate about the challenges of developing a high-performing team in It’s Time to Start Teaching Your Team to Succeed.

Organizational Culture

In his travels Mark Stelzner meets some interesting people. Fortunately for us, he gleans wisdom from these unlikely sources and shares it in 4 Reasons Change is So Damn Hard at Inflexion Advisors.

Linda Fisher Thornton asks, “How are curiosity and imagination related to ethics and business leadership?” Read Curiosity and Imagination Necessary Ingredients in Ethical Business on her blog Leading in Context to see her answers.

John Kotter contributes to a Forbes.com blog called Change Leadership and submitted the post Throw Out Your Strategy? Not So Fast. It’s about how leaders can preserve a strategy they’ve worked hard to develop while they take a step back and focus on getting people in their organization to feel a renewed sense of urgency about the strategy.

Weaving social media use into an existing company’s culture is still presenting a challenge for many, even if they have a policy in place. According to Mark Bennett of Talented Apps, it’s because Social Media Policy: Only Just the Start. “The more you can determine a specific business performance measure that you can connect to the purported benefits of social media, the better” offers Mark.

Bob Lieberman likens executives resistant to a change initiative to encountering an elephant on the road– “if it wants to block the road, you’re sunk”. And this, he asserts, spells trouble for a change effort that’s not supported at the top of the organization. His post The Elephant In The Road appears on his blog Cultivating Creativity – Developing Leaders for the Creative Economy .

Read how Chery Gegelman of Giana Consulting was inspired to write the post Discover THE Solution after hearing presentations from executives from Coca-Cola and Chick-fil-A. Chery’s post highlights the value of strategic partnerships.

Leadership

You’re Not the Boss of Me is the name of Gwyn Teatro’s blog and in Going First Gwyn discusses what it means to be a leader and (bonus!) offers up some of her favorite leadership blogs.

The post Spotted: A Leader Without Title narrates a short encounter with a leader who needed no title to lead, causing Tanmay Vora to wonder, “what if well-bred, educated professionals stop looking at their jobs as a ‘transaction’ and start treating it as a ‘service’?” Learn more at QAspire Blog.

The post It Takes Courage and Character to Unify People by Don Shapiro appears on the multi-contributor site Lead Change Group Blog – Leaders Growing Leaders. In it, Don writes about the importance of unity and courage contrasted against division and fear. “The crisis we face today isn’t about techniques, methods and attributes of good leaders. We face a crisis of courage and character.”

Lisa Petrilli of C-Level Strategies shares insights from the recent CEO Connection Boot Camp regarding the most pressing issues on CEOs’ minds today in her post Four Priorities Keeping CEOs Up at Night.

In Leadership Guru Reality Check, Brett Simmons of Bret L. Simmons – Positive Organizational Behavior implores us to be wary of the impressively packaged books touting the next leadership “guru”. To be serious about the practice of leadership, he advocates getting to know the true heavy-hitters in the leadership development discipline.

Jason Price draws upon lessons learned in carpentry to define the two key aspects of leadership in Cutting Boards and Building the Leader Within at his One Money Design blog.

David Burkus of Leader Lab muses about the merit of making the distinction between “leadership” and “management” in Toward a New Kind of Distinction.

Personal Effectiveness

Miriam Gomberg sees a connection between customer service and leadership. She writes “I believe that great leaders do what is right without asking for anything in return and the post The Meaning of Customer Service: Pay it Forward embodies the sentiment well.” Find out about the leadership/customer service connection at Miriam Gomberg.

David Wentworth contributes to the Institute for Corporate Productivity’s TrendWatcher site and offers up ways that leaders can incorporate mobile learning into their daily practices in Mobile Learning Anywhere Anytime

Jason Seiden’s 10 Great Ways to Get Focused… Fast! is a quick hit-list of ways to help you “get yourself grounded, focused, and ready to crush”. See it at My blog is profersonal (yes, that’s the correct spelling)

On Utpal Writes, being open and willing to admit what you do (and don’t) know is the way to being “self cognizant” says Utpal Vaishnav . He urges readers to Know Thyself Better! to develop their leadership skills.

In his post Why Going Back Doesn’t Work Eric Pennington explains why going back is rarely a good plan of action-in work and life. “Revisionism gives us the luxury of telling ourselves lies”, he tells us on his blog Epic Living and gives us 7 reasons why he believes this to be true.

The entry by Bill Matthies is succinct, yet thought-provoking: “Management is often thought of as one telling others what to do but do we give enough thought to what we should do?” Check out his unique blog format at Business Wisdom: Words to Manage By in the post Personal SWOT? in which your comments form the bulk of the post.

Steve Roesler of All Things Workplace wonders Is Everyone Coachable? See his list of 5 traits you must possess to be a viable candidate for coaching.

So there you have it— yet another excellent round-up of leadership essays. Oh, and one more—my entry is Following. It’s the New Leadership, which was inspired by my first in-person attendance at a TEDx event.

Image credit: Great Leadership

Your comments-priceless

Don’t miss a post! Subscribe via RSS or EMAIL

There is much talk these days among what Jim Stroup calls the modern leadership movement (MLM) that leadership is all about influence.

What I’ve never seen is any mention that influence is about control.

Influence moves you in the direction desired by the leader, essentially controlling your choices.

Also faulty is the assumption that the influence ‘leaders’ exert is always for ‘good’; as I keep saying, assumptions are bad.

In this case the assumption is that a ‘leader’ you like/trust/respect won’t lead you in a direction that encourages you to do something you wouldn’t do on your own if you thought of it.

That is a faulty assumption at best and a destructive one at worst.

To paraphrase an old saying that has served me well in my life, consider the source of the influence sans assumptions before allowing it to affect you.

In other words, listen objectively to the words and consider what they mean.

One trick to doing that is to pretend someone you would never allow to influence you said the same thing. How would you react?

If you would pull back and say, ‘no way’, then it should be ‘no way’ even if the source is someone you like/trust/respect.

Fickr image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/zedbee/103147140/

Your comments-priceless

Don’t miss a post! Subscribe via RSS or EMAIL