My guest post at Tanveer Naseer's blog, The Great and Perilous Leadership Journey Ahead, reflects my perspective on the rapidly and radically changing nature of leadership in our emerging environment. Perhaps my subhead says it best: "Welcome to the Leadership Blender."
Like good health, you cannot have too much credibility as a leader. You build credibility as a leader one interaction and one decision at a time over a long period of time. Here are 15 suggestions to help build your leadership credibility.
As we take a momentary time-out in America from our significant challenges as a professionals, citizens and family members and give thanks for what's good and right in our world and lives, those of us that serve as leaders owe a few additional toasts and thoughts for the privilege that we have in working with others. The Leader’s List for Giving Thanks, includes...
’ve made a number of mistakes over the course of my leadership career that make my head spin and my stomach turn just thinking about them. No life or death or business impacting mistakes, but, definitely some people and team impacting issues that created ill will and most definitely didn’t show me off at my leadership best. Learning from those mistakes helped me evolve my thinking on the role of a leader and on my true priorities in supporting my business, my peers and my team members.
I’ll wager a month’s worth of coffee that if you asked everyone that you know to generate a list on what makes an effective leader, the output would be nearly identical. So if this construct of an effective leader is so readily apparent, why is there a nearly endless supply of disgruntled workers capable of describing lousy leader horror stories to anyone that will listen?
The art and science of management is much about coping with risk. There are few certain outcomes in business, and that’s particularly true when we factor in the reality that people are darned complex and don’t always act rationally. More often than not, I see managers and leaders looking at their world through the eyes of “what can go wrong?” and basing their decisions solely on attempting to minimize those identified adverse outcomes. Here are 5 ideas that leaders can use to help experimentation flourish on their teams.
Thanks to the hard work of all-around great guy and great blogger, Dan McCarthy at Great Leadership (that's a lot of great!), you once again have an opportunity to peruse 40 great posts from people passionate about all things leadership and professional development. Dan graciously has assembled content from far and wide to educate, entertain and stimulate ideas. Check out the line-up at the latest edition of the Leadership Development Carnival (Early Bird Edition).
Little things make a big difference when a loved one is ill, and while our filters are tuned to high, doctors and healthcare professionals and hospitals are in the ultimate customer care business, and we as customers are quick to notice great performance as well as the occasional lapses. The many leadership and customer care observations and lessons are still top-of-mind following our recent experience, and I’ve noted a few below. It’s a fair bet that these lessons apply across disciplines and professions as well.
With almost a month to observe a great number of healthcare workers, managers and teams at work, I’m much impressed with the care, compassion and dedication of almost everyone that we encountered during this sometimes frightening and always discomforting journey. And while my focus was on the care of our son, I am wired to look at the management systems and customer care approaches that tell me about the organization, its leaders and its commitment to quality. With a critical eye and some personal investment, I came away from this experience impressed.
Over the past several years beginning with the work for Practical Lessons in Leadership with my co-author, Rich Petro, I’ve made a professional hobby out of exploring the fascinating and very real fear that so many people have for delivering constructive feedback. One of my favorite interviews for the book was with a retired CEO who when I posed the question on whether he had any regrets, without hesitating, responded: “I really regret that I never learned how to have the tough discussions with the people that worked for me.” He quickly added, “To this day, I wonder how much money that I cost my companies.” This most difficult of human interactions in the workplace is also one of the most important. The fear, much like the fear of public speaking is mostly in our minds, and with some deliberate practice, all of us are capable of improving our skills, and as a result, improving our performance, the performance of our teams and of our organizations.
