Take a few minutes to think about the best leaders that you’ve ever worked for. What terms best describe them? Chances are the word “consistent” didn’t show up in the top five. Perhaps it should. Consistency may just be the very unsexy and uninspiring element to your leadership style that will help you grow your credibility and allow you to create and sustain a working atmosphere that allows your team members to prosper.
I’ve written on the topic of Strategy Fueled Leadership several times, and fresh off of a great podcast interview with Gary Harpst, author of Six Disciplines Execution Revolution (stay tuned for my posting) and my recent interview with Jocelyn Davis for Strategic Speed, I am on my soapbox again. It is critical to link leadership with strategy and vice-versa and the failure to do this is one of the root causes of strategy and execution failure in organizations.
I caught up with Eric Wallor recently, and during our inspiring discussion (I was the one inspired!), I was struck by the parallels between the life and lot of the distance runner and that of the leader. I asked Eric to jot down his thoughts on what it takes to successfully prepare for and compete as a distance runner, and his words below offer priceless and timeless guidance for leaders in training everywhere. After all, as a leader, you’re always in training and the race is most definitely a marathon, not a sprint.
It's nearly first and ten for the 2010 NFL season, and Dan McCarthy, the venerable proprietor of the Great Leadership blog is doing his part to get the party started with his September Leadership Development Carnival.
I love this quote from Peter Drucker: “We spend a lot of time teaching our leaders what to do. We don’t spend enough time teaching them what to stop.” Here’s my small contribution on what to “stop doing” immediately. Please add your suggestions to the list.
Overheard: “If I don’t stay on top of my people, nothing gets done.” If lousy leadership were a crime, the owner of the quote above might just merit a short stretch of quality alone-time to reflect on the implications of his statement. There are so many things truly wrong with the style of leadership that the statement connotes, that I’m not certain where to start. Here are 11 reminders that your job as a leader is to give people the room and tools to succeed.
’s easy to get caught up in departmental or team squabbles inside of organizations. My advice: stay clear, stay out of it and learn to think and act for yourself.
Jeffrey Pfeffer’s article, Power Play, in the July-August Harvard Business Review (fee) is interesting and relevant for everyone working inside organizations as well as for those individuals actively engaged in the development of leadership literature and course-work. Pfeffer tackles the important topic of power. How to gain it, how to wield it, and in his opinion, why those that actively cultivate power are more effective at driving change and implementing a new strategy. He also suggests that the leadership literature is soft-selling or ignoring this very real and important part of organizational life.
Chances are, we've all read about and heard from mid-career managers complaining about the younger generation entering the workforce. The “don’t want to pay their dues,” and “you can’t pry them away from their PDAs,” and “poor work ethic” laments are in my opinion, lame copouts by managers stuck in their own inflexible ways. There’s good and bad in every generation, it’s just that this one feels different, because it is.
There are few situations more challenging to teams than dealing with a tough, emotionally-charged issue and decision-choice while facing significant time pressure and seemingly contradictory data. If that type of situation sounds uncommon or unrealistic, consider that many firms and management teams make critical priority calls and strategic choices under just such circumstances. The decision to launch Challenger was a prime example, with all three factors playing a huge role in this tragic call. Countless corporate strategic misfires owe their outcome to this triple-threat of data, time and emotion. While many situations don’t involve life-safety issues, this triple-threat is something that every manager should be critically sensitive to in their group and strategic decision-making.
