3 Leadership Skills That Trump All Others | Inc. 5000 The first job I accepted after college was with a large home builder in Phoenix. In my first year, the company had been taken private, carved up, and the pieces sold off. During this span of time, I worked for three different companies all while sitting at the same desk. I stopped buying business cards for a while. When the dust finally settled, I had managed to tag on with a small group of people who made up the Phoenix office for a California home builder entering the Arizona market. None of us had the experience to become the division president or CEO, so the "higher-ups" brought in someone from the outside. They brought in an accountant. Given this was a construction company, I was a little confused why we would hire someone who didn't understand the intricacies of construction. A female CPA named Kathy, running a construction company. I had serious reservations about how her background and management style could lead such a complex business. 1. 2. Kathy was great at encouragement. 3.
3 Biggest Excuses of Wanna-Be Leaders This is a familiar dynamic: After facilitating a coaching or training session, or after speaking at a conference, two groups of people form around the speaker in concentric circles. The first, inner group are leaders who want to know more. The second, outer group, hanging back a little meekly are the wanna-be leaders. The conversations I have with both groups are always fascinating. You'd think that people who want to be leaders (but aren't yet), would each be in that position for highly individual and therefore unpredictable reasons. 1. Here's the thing: Leaders aren't created upon arrival in a position. If you're truly intent on being a leader, then that's precisely what you need to do: Lead. Find ways to do what you do, better. 2. Look, to get started as a leader, the only person you need permission from is you. Yes, after you've begun to lead, you will need other people's permission, in the form of them accepting your leadership. 3.
5 TED Talks Every CEO Should Watch On a mission to better humankind, TED challenges the world’s most remarkable people to come on stage and give the talk of their lives in less than twenty minutes. Inspiring, funny, motivational and educational, these messages are well worth the watch for anyone hoping to improve in their personal or professional lives. Whether you want to become a more insightful manager or more creative strategist, here are five TED talks that contain timeless advice. Simon Sinek: How great leaders inspire action When Simon Sinek found he no longer enjoyed his stable advertising career, he struggled to rediscover his excitement about life and work. The realizations that followed spurred him to coach others through the same process to become more effective leaders. “If you hire people just because they can do a job, they’ll work for your money. Dan Pink: The puzzle of motivation Best-selling author Daniel Pink makes a case for rethinking how we run businesses. Elizabeth Gilbert: Your elusive creative genius
Become a Great Negotiator: 5 Steps Although everyone claims to want a "win-win" deal, the sad truth is that most businesspeople are competitive and subconsciously want to "win" by making the other person "lose." Even when you enter negotiations with the best of intentions, it's fair to assume that, at some level, your counterpart wants to see you "lose" at least something. There's also probably a part of you that probably feels the same way about them. The trick to moving out of this mentality is to "increase the size of the pie," according to Dr. To accomplish this, you treat the negotiation as a way to expand the deal to include items that both parties want but may not have identified or realized when they first entered the negotiation. 1. When Dr. In most business situations, people who are working together--rather than competing--tend to sit next to each other, sharing what they know in order to reach a higher level understanding. 2. 3. 4. 5.
What Breed Is Your CEO? Randy Komisar on Leadership and Management In the life of a company, every dog has its day. So says Randy Komisar, a veteran Silicon Valley venture capitalist and entrepreneur who has spent the last 25 years launching technology startups. Komisar is a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers where he specializes in working with technology entrepreneurs. Kermit Pattison: What are the classic pitfalls you see entrepreneurs making over and over again? Randy Komisar: Mistaking the difference between leadership and management. In your mind, what's the difference between management and leadership? Management is more operationally focused. In early stage projects, the CEO oftentimes is effectively a project manager. They start to think, "Oh, I've got to be a leader, I've got to start reading books and learning theory?" Exactly--I need a vision statement, I need to define my culture in five bullet points. Now what I usually say is, "We're going to come up with a culture statement a year after we formed." The husky is the next one.
3 Steps to Becoming a High-Value Employee | The Snelling Blog Your future rests on your shoulders..not someone else’s. Yes, there are times when massive downsizing or even closures occurs ( ala Hostess Brands or American Airlines), and you may be handed a pink slip, but generally, others are not going to hand you a job/promotion/raise out of the blue. In most cases, when downsizing occurs, senior management makes the decision on who stays and who goes based upon some value judgment of a particular person’s worth. To make things more difficult, each manager has a different definition and set of expectations for “value”. So with all this confusion, how can you ensure not only your job stability but your future career growth? FedEx – the oil crisis of 1973. Value is everywhere. For example: 1) Go beyond the bullet-points in your job description. 2) Show support and give credit where credit is due. 3) Tolerate company idiosyncrasies and embrace your workplace. Remember, your value is not determined by you. By Christiane Soto, Snelling.com
Thought Leaders Now Being Replaced By Feeling Leaders No matter what business you're in, the engine of innovation is really about being moved. That's what movements are made of -- the heartfelt, intrinsically motivated effort to get off of dead center and accomplish something meaningful. This is the crossroads all of us are standing at these days -- the intersection between this and that. What the newspaper industry is going through. And the music industry. My heroes, these days, are the people who don't just stand at the crossroads, but dance -- inspired individuals who find great delight in the paradoxes, get juiced by the challenges, and realize that "innovation" is not a program, initiative, or model, but a way of life. That's the main reason why I enjoyed the World Innovation Forum so much. Because that was precisely the mindset of the presenters -- and the people who attended -- no matter what industry, pedigree, or astrological sign. So, for all of you conference kick ass wannabees out there, take note. 1. 2. So play full out. 3. 4.
10 Things To Do Every Workday Welcome to Forbes What is leadership, anyway? Such a simple question, and yet it continues to vex popular consultants and lay people alike. I’ve now written several books on leadership for employee engagement, and yet it occurred to me that I never actually paused to define leadership. Let’s start with what leadership is not… Leadership has nothing to do with seniority or one’s position in the hierarchy of a company. Leadership has nothing to do with titles. Leadership has nothing to do with personal attributes. Leadership isn’t management. So, again, what is Leadership? Let’s see how some of the most respected business thinkers of our time define leadership, and let’s consider what’s wrong with their definitions. Peter Drucker: “The only definition of a leader is someone who has followers.” Really? Warren Bennis: “Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.” Every spring you have a vision for a garden, and with lots of work carrots and tomatoes become a reality.
Culture Code: Building A Company YOU Love Best Practices: Can Trust Be Taught? By Neal Goodman, Ph.D., President, Global Dynamics, Inc. Afundamental impediment in human interactions is the lack of trust. According to Stephen M.R. Covey explained that trust is the primary factor in selecting Forbes’ “100 Best Companies to Work For.” Training programs that promote trust need to distinguish between trust based on competency (I believe you can do your job) and trust based on character/integrity (I believe you will do what you say). Trainers also must address the factors that affect the propensity to trust. A proactive training program that addresses trust and builds in a sustainability platform will result in higher levels of engagement and performance. Unfortunately, trainers often are called in to repair damaged relationships where trust is no longer operational. Case Study In this case, trust was undermined by several important cultural differences.