The new year has arrived—and with it, the inevitable wave of self-improvement plans and resolutions. Along with pledging to lose weight or kick a coffee habit, why not resolve to be a better manager in 2013? From practicing your job to avoiding the ‘reply-all’ button, Journal reporters and management experts offer tips on how to do it thanks to this article from the Wall Street Journal. Continue reading…
The mindset of great leaders
The most common feedback I get about my leadership seminars, whether at the University of Southern California where I teach or at corporations, is, “I thought this was going to be garbage, but I was surprised — it’s really good!” People say that as if they’ve given me a great compliment. But such faint praise is actually a serious criticism of my field, and one every leader needs to take seriously.
Would a surgeon feel about good a patient telling them: “I assumed you didn’t know what you were doing, being a surgeon and all, but you correctly removed my gall bladder, not my left leg!”
Except that the critics are right. Most of what passes for leadership advice is fluff — platitudes, repackaged conventional wisdom and broad principles that lack any rigor.
25 Great Leadership Development Quotes
Where do you look for inspiration ? I enjoy reading quotes on leadership and here are some of the best that were eMailed to me from a colleague who is trying to do her best to become a better manager. Quotes alone, however, are not enough. We have to have the courage to believe and implement what they mean even if it means going against the grain. There are lots of people who are placed in leadership positions but few people who are really leaders. Continue reading…
Are you too passionate for your own good?
Executives and business leaders are notoriously passionate about their work, driven to succeed at all costs. That’s fine, but it has a dark side, a trap that highly-dedicated professionals fall into all too often. Work becomes their life. Not only is that unhealthy, but sooner or later it catches up with them, actually hindering their ability to succeed. Continue reading…
Some truth (on leadership)
Conventional wisdom suggests leadership is found only at the very top of an organization, and that it is reserved for those with charisma and authority alone. This is far from the truth. The reality is leadership is always broadly distributed. It is accessible to anyone who has the passion and purpose to bring about helpful and productive change. Continue reading…
Lead or get the hell out of the way
One of the lessons I learned in Air Force leadership school was “never let those who serve under you doubt the direction you are going especially when you’re not sure which direction to go.
In 2002, Andy Grove, Intel’s legendary CEO (1987–98), was interviewed by Harvard University’s Clay Christensen, who asked Andy how leaders can act and feel confident despite their doubts. He answered, “Investment decisions or personnel decisions and prioritization don’t wait for that picture to be clarified. You have to make them when you have to make them.” That’s why executives need to use what I call the faking- it-until-you-make-it strategy, which he also touched on: “Part of it is self-discipline, and part of it is deception. And the deception becomes reality. It is deception in the sense that you pump yourself up and put a better face on things than you start off feeling. But after a while, if you act confident, you become more confident.
When you “take command” in a new leadership position you have to wise enough to know when to listen and when to talk. This means that occasionally you’re probably going to bite your tongue and want to interrupt people but good leaders know that interrupting too much can lead to a perceived abuse of power.
Good leaders listen and probe and the right time and when they make a decision they have to be able to say the direction we went was the right way to go even if they had doubts.
Studies show that for more than 75 percent of employees say dealing with their immediate boss is the most stressful part of the job. Lousy bosses can kill you—literally. A 2009 Swedish study tracking 3,122 men for ten years found that those with bad bosses suffered 20 to 40 percent more heart attacks than those with good bosses.
The effectiveness of a good boss can be the answered with a simple question. ”Are people following you because you have a title and they are afraid or are they following you because they believe in where you are going ?”
Big part of leadership? Just say thank you
How many senior executives rule through fear instead of leading by example ? A lot more than you probably think especially in an era where so many people live in fear of loosing their jobs. What I have found is that really great leaders teach, listen and know how to say thank you rather than going about their business like they know it all. Believe me there are a lot of managers out there who think they know it all but in reality they know very little. Continue reading…
10 Things Great Managers Do
Maintain your cool and sense of humor, especially during a crisis. When our biggest customer – and I mean big – thought I leaked a front-page story to the press, I offered to resign to save the relationship. My boss, a great CEO, gave me this serious look, like he was thinking about it, and said, “You’re not getting off that easy.” Then he broke out into a big smile.
Manager influence goes up when they are less certain.
[dc]Manager [/dc] influence goes up when they are less certain. This counter-intuitive notion is the key conclusion of new research coming out of the Stanford Business School. It has important implications for senior managers as well as industries that sell expertise such as professional services, advertising agencies and recruiting firms. Continue reading…