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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” »

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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” »

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” »

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

Vacation. There, I said it. Many US workers treat this term as a bad word that must be avoided. What most people don’t realize is that long hours at work and mountains of unused vacation time are not synonymous with results. In fact, it is safe to say that the exact opposite is true.

On a recent trip abroad, I met a couple who truly knew the value of vacations. The husband worked a demanding job that came with a high amount of stress and a reputation for causing heart attacks. He managed a team of employees in an organization where working 60 hours a week was the norm and the main priority in life was the next promotion. When his wife was diagnosed with bone cancer in her mid forties, he took time off to care for her, and, once her cancer went into remission, they made it their goal in life to see the world. Ever year they take time off to travel and, so far, have been to over twenty different countries. While he’s gone, he still has to check into work every now and then, but taking time off has put his problems at work into perspective, lowered his work-related stress incredibly and shown his team that there is life outside of work. To get the benefits of vacation, we don’t all have to be world travelers, we just need to take time off to relax, do things we’ve been wanting to do and maybe even take in some different scenery.

As a leader, you most likely see the value in your employees taking vacations, but do you allow yourself the same privilege? If not, why is that? Are you worried that your team will encounter problems while you’re gone? Or, are you really worried that work will go on as usual while you’re away? Sometimes, that is the hardest one to admit. By taking time off, you show your employees that you trust them.

Here are other reasons that show us why vacations are paramount, especially for leaders:

Continue reading “Take Time Off Work – Your Success Depends on It” »

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

For nearly thirty years, executives, managers and employees alike have marveled at Steve Jobs’ ability to innovate. After all, Jobs did not only foresee the future of technology (and music, and animation), he created it. It’s clear that Jobs was one of the most visionary leaders of our times. But, what most people don’t realize is that if it were not for his dedication to communication, the way we interact with technology today would be vastly different. His excitement when introducing new products mesmerized customers. His commitment to specifically communicating what he envisioned motivated employees at all levels and made revolutionary products and services possible.

With poor marketing and ineffective organizational communication, his visions would have remained just that: visions.

Looking at the way that Jobs’ visions were turned into reality serves as a reminder of the importance of communication. The picture he had in his mind for the future was brought to life by his ability to trickle communication of his vision down to all levels within his organizations. It is difficult, if not impossible, for employees to arrive at their destination if you, their boss, are not crystal clear in providing them with the directions and road map detailing their journey.

Steve Jobs’ clear communication of his vision is also consistent with what we have found in our employee opinion survey results.

Continue reading “How to Communicate Your Vision Like Steve Jobs and the Best-of-the-Best” »

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

Managing multiple priorities, taming the email beast, and achieving work-life balance are all contemporary buzz terms for learning how to stay on top of our demanding jobs and schedules. Whatever you call the approach, the aim is always to help us improve our efficiency, achieve our goals, and feel good about ourselves and the outcome. In this Quest, we are going to tackle just one aspect of time management… how to stay on top of your email.

According to Pingdom, (an Internet company that monitors and troubleshoots websites and servers), in 2010 approximately 107 trillion email messages were sent globally, with an average of 294 billion messages being sent daily. It is hard to envision what 294 billion even looks like, but we know for sure, based on what we hear from leaders in our seminars, that email overload is both rampant and toxic today.

Leaders are telling us that they routinely receive hundreds of emails each day, and feel buried under a continuous stream of important and not so important messages. Last week, one frustrated manager confided in us and said, “I’ve got messages in my inbox that are more than a year old and, I still haven’t taken action.”

Continue reading “Take Control of Your Email Inbox” »

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

Today’s successful organizations are led by talented leaders who have high expectations for their organization, their employees and most importantly, for themselves. In many cases, long before they received their title, these leaders were demonstrating their leadership capacity by leading themselves. What do we mean when we talk about leading yourself? When you are a successful self-leader, you typically achieve the following:

A Compelling, Positive Vision:

There are three types of vision:

• A positive vision: Today is good and tomorrow will be even better.
• A status quo vision: I hope tomorrow is as good as today.
• A negative vision: If you think today is bad, just wait until tomorrow when…

Before you lead others, you need to have a compelling, positive mental vision of where you are going. What are your goals with your organization, your team and yourself? The only leadership vision that energizes a team is a positive vision that paints a picture of the intended destination and focuses individual effort on team outcomes.

Continue reading “To Lead Others, Start with Yourself” »

12 Leadership Traits That Are Guaranteed to Sabotage Your Team and Lower Morale | Quest for Leadership Excellence Newsletter (sign up)

We have spent the last 20 years identifying the traits that make leaders successful. This has led us to strongly believe that there is a significant difference between leaders and managers. Managers always have a title and a formal position on the organizational chart. Leaders may or may not have a title but they always have a relationship with people who make a conscious decision to follow them.

Over the past several weeks, we have conducted executive coaching for leaders who were in jeopardy of losing their jobs. Our prediction is that they will lose their jobs… it is just a matter of time. Based on our work with leaders, here are 12 leadership actions we have found that undermine a leader’s ability to build relationships where people are highly motivated to help the leader accomplish goals:

Continue reading “How to Sabotage Your Team” »

This blog entry has been adapted from the June 2011 issue of The Quest for Leadership Excellence newsletter (sign up here)

It’s a basic fact of employment… you can choose your friends, but not your co-workers. If you’ve worked for any length of time, you’ve probably come to realize these two simple premises about workplace relationships:

• Some people are a whole lot easier to get along with than others
• Sometimes you have to work with people that you just can’t stand

Those that drive you crazy might be a micromanaging boss; a controlling co-worker; a gossipy team member; someone who works at a snail’s pace; an arrogant, self-serving, incompetent peer; or an intimidating communicator with an advanced degree in sarcasm. Whatever the deviant behavior is, you’re stuck with trying to make the relationship work and achieve a positive outcome.

We recently worked as executive coaches with two senior level managers who had a history of not getting along. By the time we were asked to facilitate a process to get their teamwork back on track, the relationship between the two could be described as dysfunctional, at best. Neither manager was talking to the other. The relationship had soured to the point that not only were the managers not talking to each other, their employees had ceased talking to their counterparts in the opposite department. Both managers could articulate a litany of character flaws in their counterpart and had ample documentation to prove the wrongs.

Continue reading “9 Ways to Handle Challenging Co-workers” »

This blog entry has been adapted from the May 2011 issue of The Quest for Leadership Excellence newsletter (sign up here)

“I don’t like change.”
How many times have each of us heard that statement? In reality, this statement is only partly true. It’s not so much the change that unnerves people, as it is the fear of the unknown. What will happen? What could go wrong? Some of us might remember as a kid hiding under the covers, thinking that there was a monster lurking under our bed. We remained terrified until a parent turned on the lights, checked things out, and reassured us that everything was going to be okay. The same sort of irrational fear often impacts the workplace. As the leader, you are the one who needs to show your employees that the change is nothing to fear. In fact, it could even be the best thing that ever happened to your team or for your organization. It’s also important to realize that as an individual, you may not always agree with every change your team is asked to carry out. However, as a leader you must get on board in order for your team to get buy in and accept the change.

Tasked with implementing a change that you might not be in agreement with is one of the most difficult challenges that leaders face. Perhaps a merger or acquisition occurred. Maybe you have begun working with a new boss. Almost always in these situations, leaders are required to implement significant changes to better align their team’s contribution to the organization.

Continue reading “Triumph Over an Unwanted Change” »

The majority of our clients have felt an improvement in their business and profitability over the last twenty-four months. What we have not seen from our clients is hiring significant numbers of new employees to take on this increased workload. In fact, many organizations are experiencing three important things. First, they do not have the confidence that this strong economy is going to continue. Second, the workforce in place is doing a fantastic job with handling the increased workload. And third, these first two findings are rewarding organization’s staffing decisions with strong profits.

If there is not a lot of hope around the corner that a bunch of new employees are going to be starting tomorrow to handle this increase in workload, then all of us need to ensure that we have a plan in place to successfully manage and balance both our personal and professional lives. You are in charge here. Whether you are a business owner, CEO, senior executive, manager or front line employee, the principles of maintaining a successful work-life balance are the same.

Here are ten proven tips to help you successfully manage a healthy and happy personal and professional life.

Continue reading “10 Ways to Improve Your Work-Life Balance” »

This blog entry has been adapted from the March 2011 issue of The Quest for Workplace Excellence (sign up here)

This is the day for which you’ve been preparing for weeks. Your boss has asked you to give a project update to your entire department on a very successful program you’ve initiated. You’re excited because it’s your opportunity to showcase both yourself and your program. You know your stuff. You’re practiced, well-prepared and eager to share your exciting results with the team members. You’ve just completed your captivating opening when suddenly a jokester throws out some inappropriate humor, completely throwing off your train of thought. At that point, you find yourself thinking . . . why is this happening to me?

We have successfully delivered thousands of programs on multiple topics to diverse audiences for the past twenty years. We have experienced loud mouths, experts, jokesters, non-participants, side-conversationalists and people with what we call, “severe hardening of the attitude.” In our time, we have experienced just about any type of audience member who, for whatever their reason, feels a need to draw attention to themselves or otherwise sidetrack a great presentation.

Here are a few tips we’ve learned along the way to help corral the occasional deviant audience member who seems bent on capturing your show and taking the crowd with them. Fortunately, this doesn’t happen often but, when it does, these tips will help you maintain your composure and successfully deliver the program you have so carefully developed and practiced.

Continue reading “Presenting to a Difficult Audience” »

This blog entry has been adapted from the February 2011 issue of The Quest for Workplace Excellence (sign up here)

Bad bosses. Chances are good that at least once in each of our careers we are challenged with working for a bad boss. These bosses are bad for our careers, our health and our work-life balance. Unfortunately, bad bosses are just part of the real world and we have to find a way to make it work.

The question is: how?

Several times each year, we are hired to be an Executive Coach to leaders who identify their boss as the main cause of their problems at work. More specifically, if their boss was a better leader who did what they felt needed to be done, they themselves would be a better manager or leader.

Specific examples we have heard are that their boss:

Is a micro-manager
Is not trustworthy or doesn’t keep promises
Gave a poor rating on the employee’s performance review
Gave no raise, or not enough of a raise
Does not stand behind decisions made by employees
Is moody
Is a “know it all” and does not listen
Has questionable ethics
Is disrespectful

What if you work with a boss that does one of these bad behaviors? Worse, what if you work with a boss who does all these behaviors…a real jerk?

Continue reading “6 Things Not to Do When Your Boss is a Jerk” »

This blog entry has been adapted from the January issue of The Quest for Workplace Excellence (sign up here)

How do you define an “oh no” nanosecond? This is the regret-filled split second after you hit the send button on an email or text that would have been better off remaining in your drafts folder.

Each year, we have the privilege of coaching managers who have sent an email that, to put it bluntly, should have never been sent. These emails have caused friction, escalated conflicts, and undermined teamwork in the organization. Even worse, the sender has hurt his or her ability to lead successfully and others in the organization may no longer be motivated to follow this individual. The following tips will help you to avoid sender’s remorse by becoming an even more effective communicator and leader.
Continue reading “The “Oh No” Nanosecond” »

This blog entry has been adapted from the November issue of The Quest for Workplace Excellence (sign up here)

In his Dharma Consulting blog, a gifted consultant, author and friend, Eric Klein, coined the question, “Do you have allergies to feedback?” Over the last few weeks, I have watched two executives who were technically well-qualified to do their jobs, have to resign or be fired from their jobs because of one simple reason – they were allergic to tough feedback.

In both of the situations listed above, the executives were given feedback that they were adamantly opposed to accepting, and even more importantly, unwilling to accept responsibility to change their behaviors that generated the feedback. Much like an allergy, their mind created defenses and/or excuses that protected them from dealing with foreign information that did not align with how they see themselves. Similar to the way in which an allergy can kill someone without the proper prescription or medication, managers can derail their careers without the ability to positively accept and appropriately act on tough feedback.

Continue reading “Are You Allergic to Tough Feedback?” »

This blog entry has been adapted from the October issue of The Quest for Workplace Excellence (sign up here)

On a scale from 1-10, how would you rate your productivity as a leader? Many of us, if not all, wouldn’t rate ourselves as high on the productivity scale as we would like to be. Sometimes leaders feel like they are constantly busy but are somehow still unable to accomplish their goals. Have you ever started your workday with a list of things to do and at the end of the workday STILL had the same number of things to do?

If you are nodding your head in agreement as you read this, take a look at our recent blog post which will walk you through conducting a time audit. Once you have completed at least one time audit, you will be able to take a more objective look at how you spend your time. Chances are good that you will have several tasks on your list that can be delegated to your employees, freeing up more of your time to work on higher level assignments that will help you and your team achieve the organization’s goals.

Continue reading “Stop ‘Doing’ and Start Delegating” »

This blog entry has been adapted from the September issue of The Quest for Workplace Excellence (sign up here)

Last month, Steven Slater, a disgruntled JetBlue flight attendant, became a cult hero to thousands of workers who could relate to feeling overworked and underappreciated. There have been t-shirts made honoring him, facebook pages have popped up, songs have been written and performed, and people have even raised money for his bail. His story sounds like something straight out of the 1999 movie, Office Space. You can even imagine the rap song, “It Feels Good to be a Gangster,” playing over Steven Slater’s August 9th outburst. And it probably did feel good; until he realized that he had no job lined up.

Other than bringing frustrated employee’s fantasies straight out of the movies and into real life, Slater’s situation brings up a secondary, but serious, issue that is bubbling below the surface: employee retention. We can guarantee that Steven Slater will not have many serious job offers in the airline industry after his 15 minutes of fame are over – if he isn’t sent to jail – and his time is just about up.

Thinking ahead to when the job market returns, as leaders should be doing, what will happen to the employers of these fed up huddled masses who fantasize about the day when they can responsibly quit their jobs and work where they feel they would be more appreciated?

Employee engagement is key.

Continue reading “6 Tips to Help Prevent Employees from Making Costly Emergency Exits” »

This blog entry has been adapted from the August issue of The Quest for Workplace Excellence (sign up here)

“We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.”

- Maya Angelou, civil rights activist, U.S. autobiographer and poet

Over the past two years, a great percentage of the questions that our clients have been asking us are about change. “How do I introduce this specific change into my organization/department?” “Why do my employees resist change?” “How do I get everyone on board and successfully implement these changes?” “Should we make change slowly or move quickly?” Change is a difficult, but necessary, challenge for every organization. Imagine if your organization had stayed the same for the past ten years. Yikes! That is a scary thought since customers and industries are constantly changing. Change is not the obstacle, the real obstacle is the attitudes that fight the change.

Continue reading “Navigating Organizational Change” »

This blog entry has been adapted from the July issue of The Quest for Workplace Excellence (sign up here)

“He who knows others is learned; He who knows himself is wise.”

- Lao-tzu, Tao te Ching

If you ask an artist what the most difficult subject to paint is, while retaining true likeness, you are likely to get the answer, “Myself.” This is because the most distorted lens we use is the one we view ourselves through. When artists paint themselves, they are likely to look at their features with varying degrees of self-deception. Sometimes the view is more favorable, sometimes it is less favorable.

Artists’ misperceptions or preconceived ideas of themselves can become the ingredients of a masterpiece. Leaders’ misperceptions of themselves can become the ingredients of a nightmare. While this challenge is all too familiar to artists, it is even more imperative that leaders understand their true likeness, and more importantly, how they come across.

Continue reading “Leadership and Self Perceptions: Who Do They Think You Are?” »

This blog entry has been adapted from The Quest for Workplace Excellence newsletter(sign up here)

As a leader, you have the ultimate responsibility for your behavior. You are the role model for your team. You are the only person who decides if you will act ethically. When it comes to honesty, respect, fairness, and especially safety, there is no off season.

Being ethical (or unethical) is reflected in everything we do. As a leader, our choices affect not only ourselves, but those working around us as well. It’s easy to make excuses for ourselves and be blinded by our own biases, but our customers, employees and peers are trusting that we are honest and fair individuals. There is no better time than now to re-examine habits and make sure that they are in alignment with this vision.

Continue reading “Leadership Ethics: Do you Walk your Talk?” »