My biggest mistakes as a leader occurred as a result of spending way too much time attempting to change two people. I was young, new to the formal leadership scene and convinced that with my help and guidance, these two talented individuals would certainly shed their dysfunctional and toxic behaviors.
Wow, was I wrong!
The best leaders in my opinion are guided by a strong sense of duty and responsibility. The individuals that succeed in motivating, inspiring and even changing the lives and careers of others operate with an underlying philosophical foundation that they draw upon to remain focused and steadfast in pursuing their daily activities.
Everyone else sort of wanders through the leadership woods, reacting more on instinct than acting as if they are being guided by a stronger sense of purpose and duty.
One of the challenge that many leaders face in their seemingly endless string of days of teaching, leading, motivating, supporting, challenging and guiding their colleagues is how to refresh and recharge. It’s an important topic and one that is under-represented (in my opinion) in the leadership literature, including my own.
It’s difficult to be “on” all of the time, and for leaders, the stress fractures show through usually in the form of snapping or growling at someone. While never good form, the momentary break from behavior is indicative of the need to take a few deep breaths or to even look towards tomorrow as a chance to start over and get things right.
Sometimes what’s needed is a good Power-Washing for the leader’s attitude and soul.
It takes a certain amount of curiosity and yes, even courage for forty-something corporate types to even admit that there might just be something to a social networking tool like Twitter. Many of my contemporaries scoff and mock the tool and anyone participating.
As leaders, we often lose our intellectual curiosity and courage as we move through our careers. We’ve seen it all before and we’re well aware in our own minds that when you take risks and do something a bit edgy, most of the time, bad things happen. We’ve seen fads come and go, and to many of us, this is just one more fad.
To those involved, it is part of the fundamental rewriting of the rules…
The best learning opportunities in the workplace occur when individuals or teams come face to face with a vexing problem. These situations provide outstanding growth opportunities and a great chance to generate and implement innovative and creative solutions. Of course, the manager has to play by the rules.
Unfortunately, there are still a few managers and leaders out there that insist on spoiling these ripe learning opportunities by requiring you to follow a specific approach or steps in solving a problem.
Followers of this blog know that we celebrated a milestone in our home this past week as our youngest son graduated from high school. It’s an exciting and frightening experience for the child as he reaches the end of a long road with good friends and looks forward to a new and uncharted path through college.
What he doesn’t perhaps know is that is only the first of many likely experiences of becoming part of something and then moving on and leaving good colleagues behind.
Much of what passes for leadership conversation in the workplace is filled with unnecessary and meaningless jargon that gets in the way of the true message. It’s time to de-clutter our conversations and choose words that are meaningful and actionable to our team members.
Like bad coffee, I’m not particularly fond of leading by consensus or even seeking consensus as a decision-making tool. I’ve long viewed managing by consensus as a “Tyranny of Mediocrity” approach to leading and making decisions. In seeking consensus, compromises are made that eliminate the more radical, revolutionary innovations and settle on solutions that make as many parties as possible happy.
This week’s focus is on scouting talent, and like most of my posts, I’m encouraging you to break some established rules. The best leaders that I know are also the best talent scouts. They are acute observers of people and extraordinarily quick to identify individuals with potential. They are also great developers of talent, but that’s a separate topic for another day.
In my experience in working around and talking with individuals that have outstanding track records in finding and developing new talent, there are three core attributes that they look for…
The passion that a leader brings to his or her work is the secret sauce in a winning recipe for creating an effective working environment and developing a high performance team.
Good leaders understand their role, work hard on developing credibility, listen and ask questions and provide coaching and mentoring. Great leaders do all of that and they infuse everyone around them with a sense of excitement for the adventure.
