Leadership is the practice of influence. Inspiring people to follow your lead requires a commitment to personal engagement – an investment of precious time to be prioritized versus other stakeholder demands for your attention. Where does personal engagement fit into your priorities? People choose to follow you because they believe in you and where you are leading them. When they stop trusting you, your ability to continue as leader is over. This is why engaging …
Your people are your most sustainable competitive advantage. When they robustly and consistently demonstrate your company’s core Principles, they create experiences for your customers that cultivate enduring relationships. In addition, research confirms the direct linkage between high company performance and high employee engagement. Engagement infuses your company’s actions with vitality, strengthens your competitive advantage, and focuses energy to grow your business. It requires a consistent investment of your time and a regular infusion of new ideas to fuel your people’s …
Perhaps they lack the required experience, confidence or competence. Perhaps their goals are unclear. But often, it’s the behavior of the employee’s leader that is the primary cause for constraining an employee’s performance. When a leader acts differently than the employee expected – neither being nor doing what they believe is appropriate – then the employee is likely to get discouraged and fail to meet his or her potential. Leaders don’t do this on purpose, …
Leaders increasingly recognize that the competency of their people and the consistency with which they demonstrate their company’s values when serving customers can be the company’s most sustainable competitive advantage. Nurturing the engagement of these dedicated employees compels leaders to evaluate and strengthen their emotional intelligence (EI). A leader with high emotional intelligence demonstrates these attributes: Active listening that enables the hearing of unspoken words by paying attention to tone of voice, inflection, pauses, and …
Most leaders know what is expected of them to get the job done – evaluating, planning, organizing, executing & managing. They also realize that leadership is primarily about influence, not power. Leaders rely on others to accomplish the necessary work, so why do your people choose to follow you? Most leaders recognize the need to earn their team’s respect. Just because you have been anointed as leader doesn’t ensure that people will choose to follow …
In a recent posting, Seth Godin offered an illustrator’s analogy about visualizing goals. “If you can’t see it (in your mind, not with your eyes), then you can’t draw it.” (Drawing an owl – 1/7/14) Leadership is about communicating purpose, vision and direction. But it is also about helping your people engage so they can contribute to the big picture. As Seth mentions, there are thousands of concepts about how to lead people, how to …
Business leaders have never experienced a more fast-paced and complex leadership environment. Many are struggling to adapt quickly enough and are frustrated by their constraints. Focusing on sales, profit and strategy is not enough. How you lead your business in overcoming today’s challenges is vital. Relying on your experience and intellect alone will not produce the results you seek. To grow, your company is relying on your leadership. Cultivating high-value innovation, building trust relationships with …
Bill can’t understand why his people are discouraged and frustrated. After a couple of slow years, the company is busy again so there’s plenty of work. No fairness or compensation issues have been raised. He is keeping everyone aware of their progress and communicating his expectation that goals must be achieved to accelerate their progress. So why do many in the company seem so negative? Peter Drucker and other gurus have been credited with saying: …
When Frank and I first met, he expressed concern that his company’s growth strategy was not achieving its goals because his organization was not acting in a coordinated manner to produce results. Once Frank refined his approach to this challenge, organizational behavior changed and strategy execution improved. Follow the link below to learn how Frank removed the behavior excuse. Leadership and management are not synonymous. Leadership is a mandatory ingredient of transformational change; management is …
