15 Phrases You Need to Say to Yourself More Often. Want to sound like a leader? Start by saying your name right | Laura Sicola | TEDxPenn. 3 Ways to Make Feedback Part of Your Company's Success. It's 2 p.m. on a Tuesday. You're halfway through a meeting when you realize you've been spacing out, and are completely lost. You desperately need clarification, but can't bring yourself to pause the conversation and admit you didn't understand.
The meeting ends, and everyone, including you, has their assignments. You now have three days to get it (whatever "it" is) done. This kind of scenario happens every day in organizations around the globe. Individuals aren't delivering their best work because they're afraid of how they will be perceived if they admit what they don't know. Employees waste precious time and energy managing their reputations rather than capitalizing on opportunities for professional growth that would benefit not only them, but the organization as a whole. Wanting to look good is more than a simple human desire. The culture at these companies is one of pressure to look good at the expense of personal growth, and the entire organization suffers as a result. Radical? 12 Easy Phrases to Massively Improve Your Leadership. 5 Ways That Leadership Is Like Acting.
If you are a leader, you are a performer. You may not be conscious of it, but you are, and people are watching you. Your followers (remember the definition of a leader is that someone is following) trigger off you, your mood, your actions and every word you say. This means that you need to be a performer and an actor to carry your followers with you consistently and you need to do it in a way that is authentic and trustworthy--an interesting balancing act! Here are five ways in which you need to be a star actor as the leader: You need to be positive. No matter how you feel inside, to lead you need to see the positive and find a way through the maze. If you are in a leadership position, remember that people are always watching you.
Four Ways To Be A Better Listener Today. 13 Questions Mindful Leaders Ask Daily. 10 Habits of Remarkably Polite People. Occasionally, we meet a person who stands out in the best possible way. He might be remarkably charismatic. She might think remarkable thoughts. And remarkably giving people--they are impossible to ignore. If you develop those traits, you won't just be likable; those traits will make people want to work with you and do business with you. That's also why we love being around genuinely polite people. And we love doing business with them.
Here's how remarkably polite people do it: 1. You're at a party. And he stands there, waiting for you to come to him in some weird power move. Remarkably polite people, no matter how great their perceived status, step forward, smile, tilt their head slightly downward (a sign of respect in every culture), and act as if they are the one honored by the introduction, not you. (When I met Mark Cuban, that is exactly what he did.
In short, polite people never big-time you; instead, they always make you feel big time. 2. You're at an event. 3. Why? 4. 5. Awkward? 6. How to Be a Better Listener. When you mention the qualities you look for in great salespeople, it’s nearly a given that the gift of gab is near the top of the list. Everyone loves a salesperson who can carry a conversation. But in speaking with Brenda Bence, author of Would You Want to Work for You? , I was reminded the ability to listen may be more important. Bence shared an interesting statistic, which is that English speakers can say 125 to 150 words in a given minute and listen to 400 to 550 words in the same amount of time. I. Learn the benefits of listening.
L. Meet in an environment that is conducive to listening. I. Don't come into the conversation with a preconceived notion of what you'll discuss. S. Like landscape, this is all about staying in the moment. T. Now that you’re in the right place, it's time to get hyper-focused. E. Try to understand the other person’s mindset and to relate to him as he speaks, reassuring him that you empathize what he is saying. N.
3 Ways to Kill Your Leadership Cred. Credibility is everything when you're leading a startup team--how else are you going to get employees to put in crazy hours at a venture that might not even succeed? Knowing what you're doing and being well-versed in your area of expertise will get you off to a good start in building respect from your team. But you also need to avoid these common mistakes that will kill your credibility--fast: 1. Act like you know everything. In my former working life as an IT manager, I remember compensating for my lack of knowledge in certain areas--usually, I'd use pride or even coercion as the stop-gap. If I wasn't 100 percent sure about some new-fangled network storage technology, I'd still pretend to be knowledgeable to make sure people still respected me.
In the end, I was not helping my case. There's nothing quite like a leader who can admit to being human, and a flawed one at that. 2. We all know this rule, and yet it is one of the hardest to avoid. 3. Executives Aren't Necessarily Leaders (No Matter What They Tell You) Last week, AOL CEO Tim Armstrong was forced to issue an apology for singling out two employees as specific examples while explaining changes in the company's health care policy (he also reversed the change in the policy). This wasn't the first time Armstrong has had to plead mea culpa. In mid-2013, he was caught on tape publicly firing an employee for videotaping a meeting, and subsequently apologized. It's notable that all of this--the dumb firing over a petty matter and the cavalier use of distressing personal circumstances to justify a policy change--garnered a ton of publicity at a time when AOL has a ton of real, pressing issues to deal with (including the disposal of the Patch subsidiary, a particular bee in Armstrong's bonnet).
What's going on here? Well, a lot of things, obviously, but at one level it's a particularly acute example of something that does all of us a giant disservice. The simple fact is, not everyone in a position of leadership is a leader. 1. 2. 3.
Innovating at Scale: Building Trust. Developing as a Leader. Every Leader Needs a Challenger in Chief - Noreena Hertz. By Noreena Hertz | 9:00 AM September 11, 2013 We are drawn to those who echo what it is we already believe. We get a dopamine rush when we are presented with confirming data similar to what we get when we eat chocolate or fall in love. On Facebook we defriend those with different political views to our own.
On Twitter we follow people just like us. Yet a vast body of research now points to the import of contemplating diverse, dissenting views. Not just in terms of making us more rounded individuals but in terms of making us smarter decision-makers. Dissent, it turns out, has a significant value. When group members are actively encouraged to openly express divergent opinions they not only share more information, they consider it more systematically and in a more balanced and less biased way. Yet how many leaders actively seek out and encourage views alien and at odds to their own? All too few. Is this the feeling the “clubby” environment in your boardroom is inadvertently engendering?
It Took Me 20 Years to Fail Fast.
How to Lead When You're Not in Charge - Gary Hamel and Polly LaBarre. By Gary Hamel and Polly LaBarre | 2:00 PM May 24, 2013 For all of the books (thousands) written on leadership, individuals (millions) who have participated in leadership seminars and dollars (billions) invested in leadership development, too many leadership experts still fail to distinguish between the practice of leadership and the exercise of bureaucratic power.
In order to engage in a conversation about leadership, you have to assume you have no power — that you aren’t “in charge” of anything and that you can’t sanction those who are unwilling to do your bidding. If, given this starting point, you can mobilize others and accomplish amazing things, then you’re a leader. If you can’t, well then, you’re a bureaucrat. To gain a true leadership advantage, organizations must be filled with individuals who understand how to maximize their own ratio of “accomplishment over authority.” What, then, are the attributes of individuals who can inspire others and multiply their impact?