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Need Leadership Inspiration? Borrow from Your Favorite Teachers

Think back to your school days. Who were your favorite teachers? Most likely, they were not the teachers who taught straight out of the book, reading word-for-word. I’m willing to guess your favorite teachers were passionate about what they taught, excited to share their knowledge with you, truly cared about you and your success, and encouraged you to explore new ways of approaching and solving problems. They might not have even held the title of teacher — perhaps they were a coach, a family member, or a friend — but were a teacher nonetheless. Regardless of their title, position, or relationship to you, you looked to them as a role model and leader.

Great leaders, in addition to their other positive, distinguishing characteristics, are not only continual learners, but they are also great teachers. They make the time to invest in teaching their people and provide the support and resources their team members need to keep on growing. They care deeply about their people and want them to achieve their personal best.

What do great teachers and great leaders have in common? Just about everything! They both:

Continue reading “Leadership Lessons from Great Teachers” »

Business is getting better. All the economic indicators are telling us that the economy is improving. From the lows of 2008, the stock market continues to rise, restoring the health of employees’ savings and retirement plans. And, just over the last few months, we have been hearing that the real estate market may have completed its bottom and is now embarking on a slow rebound.

What does all this good economics mean?

Two major factors are going to converge on organizations about the same time and it is going to hurt. First, employees will once again have options about where they are going to work. With the economy improving, companies will once again be hiring in larger numbers, and the best employees working for you are going to have the most options. Will they run? If this doesn’t sound painful enough, as the economy, stock market, retirement plans, and housing market all improve, the Baby-Boomers who have been putting off retirement, can finally say, “I’m outta here!”

So what is your organization doing to develop future leaders? If it is like many organizations, your company has a strategic plan of hope that you can get by one more year before the real pain sets in and you have to do something significant. Hope has never been a good strategic plan.

The following six tips will help you and your organization prepare future leaders so that you can effectively deal with, and minimize, the impact of the huge brain drain that everyone is predicting will happen:

Continue reading “Minimizing Brain Drain” »

Just when you think you’ve seen it all, someone comes along and reminds you that you haven’t.

I recently heard a woman mumble in front of a TSA agent, “What should I expect from someone who makes $10.00 an hour?” As I watched the TSA agent take all her bags to secondary inspection, I felt like saying to the woman, “When you open your mouth and say something really stupid, secondary inspection is exactly what you should expect.”

Unless of course you are a leader. Leaders who speak to others in that way face a different set of challenges.

A good portion of our practice is coaching executives and managers to be successful leaders. To be successful as a leader, you need to be able to build relationships where people are highly motivated to follow your passion, vision and direction. Some people are masters at saying the right thing to build relationships, teamwork, and motivate people to accomplish great things. On the other side of the fence, we have all seen leaders whose ways of communicating drive people away. Almost immediately, the recipient of the communication loses their motivation and increases their instant dislike for the person sending the message.

Continue reading “What the &*@% Were You Thinking?” »

When CEOs or human resource professionals share their specific concerns about a leader who is experiencing challenges, their next question is always, “Do you think that coaching this individual will be effective?” Most consultants and coaches will reply “absolutely” and tell you about all of their successful projects.

Unfortunately, our response sometimes disappoints our clients. We are painfully honest when we say, “Overall, our coaching projects are 50 percent successful.” About half the time, we work with executives/managers who are excited about having a coach and want to learn how to be an even more effective leader. They are motivated about learning and putting their new skills into action. As we work with these motivated leaders, it is not uncommon to hear the leader’s boss, peers or direct reports say, “Wow, Joan has really changed.” Some of the leaders we have coached have even risen to the most senior positions in their organizations, attributing their success directly to their coaching experience.

The other half of the time, we work with a leader who is so busy doing the technical aspects of their job that the coaching is perceived as an inconvenience. The only question this leader longs to ask us, but never does is, “Tell me exactly what I have to do to complete this coaching assignment and get you out of my life.” The challenge with these executives/managers is reflected in the old cliché: If you keep on doing what you have always done, you keep getting what you have always got. Some of these leaders we’ve worked with have eventually been asked to leave the organization.

Continue reading “The 50 Percent Factor: Why Executive Coaching Doesn’t Always Work” »

How would you describe the working environment or culture at your company? Better yet, how would your front line employees describe your company if given the chance to do so anonymously? If your organization is like most, someone in senior leadership is touting that employees are your number one asset. The challenge is getting the employees to believe it.

Today, your organization’s culture is even more critical to its success than before. In the past, if you had poor leaders or a bad culture, the worst that could happen is that your best employees would leave and tell their family or a few friends about their poor employment experience. Today, we live in a new world where any prospective employee who is thinking about going to work at your company, can get a small glimpse of your culture. Sites like Glassdoor.com or TheFit.com provide anonymous comments from employees about your company, its leaders, and your CEO.

Continue reading “Culture is King” »

I’ve never met anyone who, on their deathbed, said that they wished they had spent more time at work. Yet work is where we do spend the majority of our time, and work is where we experience a significant amount of our stress.

Plodding our way through the fallout from the most significant recession any of us has ever experienced, has not been easy or straightforward. Layoffs, fear of layoffs, businesses failing, the housing crisis, ever-changing regulations and a multitude of other unknowns have all increased our fears and stress levels.

The verdict is still out on if we are nearing the end of this recession. Most of us, though, in hindsight, would have to admit that we did weather the storm and have survived, despite experiencing significant unknowns and stressors.

Like it or not, work-related stress seems to be a reoccurring theme in these difficult times. To help keep your sanity, we suggest the following:

Continue reading “7 Tips for Handling Stress at Work or Home” »

The purpose of every business is to solve a problem, fill a need, and make money. Now, here is a scary, but important, question: will the solution your business is providing still be relevant tomorrow? (Or the next day, or the next year) Most likely, you aren’t certain. You can’t be. This is why the best leaders are bold, brave and flexible. Bold because they and their followers have a unique vision that they believe in. Brave because, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, roughly 50 percent of new companies fail within the first five years. And flexible because rigid leaders are averse to change: a death sentence for any organization.

So, what can we learn from the leaders and organizations in the less than 25 percent that have lasted at least 15 years?

Continue reading “8 Tips for Organizational Longevity” »

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Research has conclusively shown that engaged employees are more productive and satisfied. John Maxwell, America’s noted authority on leadership, said, “An organization cannot rise above its level of leadership.” This means that leaders’ attitudes set the tone for those who follow them. Therefore, if you find that many of your employees are not motivated, it’s time to do some self-reflection. Employees will not thrive under negative leadership. Now, we don’t know anyone who would refer to themselves as negative, but people who would be considered negative often call themselves realists. These self-proclaimed realists seldom have many motivated people following them.

On the flip side, employees don’t want a Pollyanna who ignores reality and believes that despite all the evidence, everything will turn out just fine.

Whether you describe yourself as a realist or an optimist, leaders today need to be positive, self-confident, have high-expectations, take initiative, be resilient and accountable. Most employees want to work for a leader who truly believes that tomorrow is going to be even better than it was today, and is taking the necessary actions to turn those beliefs into a reality.

The following are nine keys that will help you become a more positive leader; a leader who makes even the realists excited about tomorrow.

Continue reading “The Secret to Inspiring Others? Optimism” »

Helpful tip: if you have a long to-do list today, remember that you can always bookmark this page and come back to it.

We are three weeks into 2012, and the year is off to a solid start. For many of us, we’ve made (and most likely already broken), some great resolutions for the New Year, like: “When the pace slows down, I’m finally going to take a vacation.” “When I can make time, I’m definitely going to spend more time with the family this year.” And for most of us, “If only I could save some time, I could devote more time to myself and get back into shape.”

Yep. It’s that time of year: a time for positive visions, goals and hope. While we are optimists, and hate to burst your bubble, we must tell you the truth related to time: It is impossible to make time, save time, or find time. Each of us are gifted with the exact same number of minutes to use each day: 1440, to be exact. The only way to reach our goals is to use the time we are allotted differently, or to not waste the time we have been given.

So, if we can’t give you time, we can at least expose some of the biggest time wasters in hopes that you can identify where your time is going and how you might want to use your allotted minutes differently. The time wasters that follow are in no particular order, as how we waste our time is unique and personal.

Continue reading “Biggest Time Wasters at Work” »

Every day we are each faced with problems to solve: the large problems can be intimidating and the small problems can be mind-numbing. Either way, there is no avoiding problems. You are in your leadership position, title or not, because you have the reputation for spotting and solving important problems while rallying others, and yourself, to action. However, every now and then a problem sneaks past even the best leaders and causes a stir. Where do you begin and how can you help deter the issue from becoming an even bigger problem?

The best outcomes usually come from problems that are dealt with early on. Problems can be identified in the early stages if you make it a habit to frequently ask peers and team members how things are going and what challenges, if any, they are facing. Encourage others to provide information on problems as soon as they arise. Be open to their input and suggested solutions, and thank people for bringing issues to your attention and allowing you the opportunity to address and resolve their concerns. Be sure to follow-through, or people will become reluctant to provide information as they may assume nothing will change.

Problem solving requires a high level of information about the issues and the needs of employees. This requires open communication. In order to become an effective problem solver, remember that this skill requires all parties to share control over the emerging solution. By using the following problem-solving model, you will generate a number of alternative solutions and increase the probability that the final solution will be the best one.

Continue reading “9 Steps to Effective Problem Solving” »

Change Brings Discomfort – Even to Leaders

I have a challenge for you today. Take your watch off the wrist on which you normally wear it, place it on the other arm and leave it there for the rest of the day. How does this feel? Count how many times during the day you look at the arm where you normally wear your watch, only to find that it is no longer there. Even this most simple of changes is uncomfortable to fully incorporate into your life. Since you’re reading this, you probably realize how difficult change can be on a scale much larger than wrist watches.

Change is not possible without discomfort, and because of this, great leaders keep their people uncomfortable. The most successful leaders also keep themselves uncomfortable. It is the job of the leader to improve the condition of their organization or the causes for which they are working. Improving something means creating change. Whether it is improving a process, implementing a new idea, lowering costs, improving quality or taking customer service to a level that challenges just about everyone in the organization, change is uncomfortable.

Before leaders can be successful at improving organizations, they must first take a look at themselves and identify ways in which they must change. The following 6 tips will help you become more comfortable with the discomfort caused by realizing that in order to lead change, you must first be able to change yourself.

Continue reading “Keep Yourself Uncomfortable” »

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A quick search for introvert on Thesaurus.com retrieves synonyms such as brooder, egoist, loner, self-observer, solitary and wallflower, while the synonyms for extrovert include character, gregarious person, life of the party, show-off and showboat. Neither of these references paint a completely positive or accurate picture of either preference but perpetuate the overall misconceptions floating around about introverts and extroverts.

This explains the question I have been asked on several occasions: “Can introverts make great leaders?”

My response? “Yes!” Introverts and extroverts can both make great leaders, but for introverts, leading others requires more effort towards adapting their natural style.

In a recent poll of executives who are our clients, approximately 40 percent described themselves as introverts. Are you an introvert? If you can answer “yes” to the majority of the statements listed below, there is a good chance you are an introvert:

Continue reading “The Case for Introverted Leaders” »

Sometimes, despite your best effort, things just don’t go as planned. You experience challenges, setbacks and outright failures. You look back at your life and begin to count the few failures, losing sight of your many successes. What you forget is that so many success stories have resulted from failure to accept failure as an end result. If everyone gave up at their first failure, no one would learn how to ride a bike, read or tie their shoes. Accomplished people realize that failure is just a part of the path to success. Here are few examples of famous individuals who had a taste of failure before succeeding:

Continue reading “The Beauty of Failure” »

From the December 2011 Quest for Leadership Excellence Newsletter (sign up)

Are you a leader or are you the boss, supervisor, manager, director, general manager, vice president or president of a group of people?

What’s the difference?

Supervisors, managers, directors, vice presidents and CEOs all have a title and a place on the organizational chart that gives them permission to tell a group of people what needs to be done. A leader may or may not have a title, but they always have a relationship where people make a conscious decision to follow them.

When did you realize you are a leader and not just a boss? For me, it happened in 1985. Between 1981 and 1990, I co-owned Photomation West, a commercial printing company. We had 17 employees and specialized in printing high quality brochures and fliers. I was 27-years-old and because I had no technical expertise in printing, everyone on the operational side of the business had very little respect for me. To be blunt, no one listened to me and seldom did people do what I asked them to do…even though I was the owner. If I wanted something done, I had to go ask my business partner – Paul Cartwright, who, to this day, remains one of my great friends – to go tell the people in operations what I needed them to do. You might be asking, “What value did Peter bring to the business?” I was an expert in sales, marketing, developing and bringing new clients into our company.

Continue reading “How I Went from Being a Boss to a Leader” »

“He’s so driven and absolutely clueless as to how he comes across.”

“She is overly sensitive and takes everything so personally.”

“He might be able to solve the problem, but by the time he comes up with a solution, we’ll be out of business.”

In our consulting business, we routinely hear comments like those above, typically followed by: “He (or she) just doesn’t fit here. This person is not a good match for our culture.”

Often, when probing further, it becomes apparent that the team member being described is a square peg in a round whole when it comes to this organization. He or she just doesn’t think or act the same way as the majority of the rest of the team, which makes him or her stand out as being different.

Often this person is perceived to be a roadblock in terms of effectively contributing to the success of the team and organization. In other words, this person’s way of thinking, or approach to work, is radically different than that of the majority of the other team members.

Although the different approach may be challenging for some team members, it is important to remember that in building a highly effective team, different is good.

Continue reading “Managing a Team of Different Personalities” »

In the past, management kept secrets from employees and decisions were made behind closed conference room doors. We are living in an entirely different world today where transparent leadership is not just an option, but is critical to the success of the company.

To be transparent as a leader has many different meanings, but the one that works best for us is that transparency is consistently behaving in a way that is predictable. This means no surprises. I believe that most leaders set out to be transparent, but it can be hard to measure if you truly are a transparent leader.

Here’s a checklist we’ve put together to help you assess if you’re on the right track:

__ Are you candid, honest and do you genuinely express your thoughts and opinions?
__ Does the message you are delivering remain the same, regardless of the audience?
__ Do you tell the truth?
__ When you can’t divulge information, do you let people know why you can’t disclose the information at that time?
__ Do you consistently keep commitments?
__ Do you handle your own defeats well, owning them and not blaming others?
__ Do you ask good questions, listen to the answers and remain open to new ideas?
__ Do you value the feedback of others?
__ Do you frequently ask others working with you, “How am I doing?” or, “What could I do to better support you?”

Today, transparent leadership is no longer just an option for organizations. If your employees don’t already know the truth about your organization, it is only a matter of time before they will. No matter how hard leaders try to hide the truth or cover up unpleasant or awkward situations, the truth will always surface. Reality is reaching employees faster than ever before. Given this reality, the best approach is to be transparent; act ethically and talk openly at all times.

Transparent leaders are:

• Approachable and treat employees at every level within the organization with humility, interest and respect
• Good communicators, keeping their employees informed with the right information at the right time. When they cannot answer employees questions, they let them know why they can’t respond at this time
• Accessible. Employees know how to reach them for support
• Consistent and predictable. They demonstrate integrity by “talking the talk” and “walking the walk” on a daily basis
• Good at sharing the “big picture” with employees, helping them connect the dots between their job and the overall success of the organization
• Reliable. Employees trust them to do what they say they will do
• Open to feedback about their own performance and open to employees’ ideas and opinions

Transparent leaders are able to lead great companies and achieve great results because, over time, they have built solid relationships based on their integrity and character. They are reliable, predictable and committed to serving and supporting their team. As such, they are trusted and easy to follow, allowing them to achieve their goals, if not change the world.

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You may also like:

• How to Communicate When Under Stress
• Keeping Employee Morale Up
• Triumph Over an Unwanted Change

Peter Barron Stark Companies is a nationally recognized management consulting firm that specializes in employee opinion surveys, executive coaching, and leadership and employee training. Send Peter Barron Stark Companies an email at info@peterstark.com for more information about how we can help you create an organization where your employees love to come to work and your customers love to do business.