It takes more than 1 person to fulfil on a dream, a vision or a business strategy. If you ask any great leader how they achieved their goals and set about achieving thir vision, they will name a mentor, a coach, a trusted advisor, friend, relative or team to helped them along the way and guided them to achieving that goal.
Importantly, a team, coach or mentor provides leaders with both a sounding board for ideas and a critical eye and ear to keep them on the right path.
Have you heard the phrase ‘Knowledge is Power’? Personally, I think it is rubbish. There is something about it that just does not ring true for me. Perhaps it is the little used Physics degree talking quietly to me – power is about energy. Knowledge is a form of ‘potential energy’ – it has the power to do something if it is used correctly – or used at all.
Why the discussion about knowledge and power?
A question we are asked at Kameleons – Developing Leaders is ‘Why have a leadership coach?’ and ‘What can a coach bring to me and my business?’.
I often answer the question by asking ‘Name me a high performing sports star, athlete, singer, dancer or artist that doesn’t (or didn’t) have a coach?’
To answer the question properly, we sat down as a group and discussed what our clients had told us in regards to the benefit coaching brings and the impact that it has on a business.
Leadership is a very popular topic at the moment. Politicians don’t show enough of it (or the right type), CEO’s are vocal about it and football teams have so much of it they have leadership groups and sub-groups (and can still perform poorly on and off the field). Everyone has an opinion on what is good leadership, and (according to the media) it seems that all of the identifiable leaders in Australia seem to lack it in some substantial way.
Have we made the definition of good leadership so unattainable that mere mortals can’t achieve it?
We are pretty excited about this!
For the last 10 years, we have been using psychometric profiles as a start point of both our Leadership Programs (mainly the Accelerator and Velocity workshops) as well as our Executive Leadership Coaching. It has provided a useful start point from which to make content decisions upon, as well as provide key indicators for leaders looking for where they need to focus their development effort.
I was one of the first people to see The Avengers – I love Marvel comics that have been turned into movies. One of my favourite characters is Hawkeye, an expert bowman who has a specific arrow for seemingly every situation that arises. Need to unlock a security keypad? He has an arrow for that. Take down a large-scale alien spacecraft? He has one for that as well.
What type of Hawkeye qualities do you and your team possess? Do you have an arrow (skill set) for every situation you have to encounter?
More often than not, business leaders wait too long to identify, nurture and develop leaders in their business. By the time most businesses consider leadership development training, poor communication, values and behaviours have become so ingrained it can be hard to undo. These mistakes can hamstring both the individuals development and the businesses future. I believe there are 5 lessons managers could learn from leadership development in the military.
The most effective way to manage change is to create it.
Mention customer service in a conversation and I guarantee you will hear comments such as these:
‘Store ## needs better customer service!’
‘The people that work at Store ## are so rude / ignorant / self-absorbed, they had no idea how to provide customer service.’
‘The customer service of at store / restaurant / business ## is terrible!’
In a recent edition of Leading Company, David James asked the question ‘Do Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits stack up’.
My response, given the vast number of businesses and managers I have worked with is: absolutely!
For those that don’t know, Stephen Covey’s book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People has sold more than 25 million copies with its teachings quoted by Managers and corporate trainers (including myself) often.
They say it is better to ‘park’ an emotional blog until you can re-read what you have done and look at it with fresh eyes in the morning. Well, I have done that, and I am still angry and annoyed.
When it comes to training staff, many businesses approach the process similar to older, amateur sportsmen, when in fact they should emulate the sports training of their youth. Let me explain.
My physiotherapist told me several weeks ago ‘This is an old man’s injury’ after tearing my calf muscle after a game of basketball. After questioning my training (and having to get over the fact that I am now old), we discovered that my once a week game, accompanied with no training and hardly any warm-up, was downright dangerous to my health. This is a situation i would never have contemplated as a teenager, with judo and tennis coaches ensuring I practised with their ‘no train, no game’ credo in mind.
I know, I didn’t expect to see those words used in the same sentence either! But (Chris) Ashton Kutcher delivered both a surprising and inspiring leadership speech at the Teen Choice Awards that would be the envy of business leaders and leadership experts the world over. Why? Because it was simple, heartfelt, honest and effective. Not only that, it takes an extraordinary effort to cut through the noise of 10,000 screaming fans and deliver a speech for more than 3 minutes without getting a wind-up from producers.
Why do we think this speech was so special and projects Ashton as a role model? Have a look at the video and the review below.
I am one of those people that heads to the Management Book section of the airport bookstore, hoping to find something new and interesting for a flight. On a recent trip to Malaysia, I was engrossed in this book that I missed forgot about the other entertainment options such as movies and music.
Jack Covert and Todd Satterstein provided for me what I am trying to provide for you – a short cut to the great management books for people who don’t have time to read them all. I think I appreciated this book more because it always nice to have confirmation from an independent source regarding the titles that you think make a difference.
Leadership in the current climate can seem incredibly complex. Constant change, an uncertain economy and information overload add complexity to what can seem like a daunting task – leading people. Effective Leadership was written by John Adair in 1983, yet the core principles were discussed in Training for Leadership in 1968.
Leadership is a very popular topic at the moment. Politicians don’t show enough of it (or the right type), mining CEO’s are vocal about it and football teams have so much of it they have leadership groups and sub-groups. Everyone has an opinion on what is good leadership, and (according to the media) it seems that all of the identifiable leaders in Australia seem to lack it in some substantial way.
Managers could use their training budgets far more effectively if they thought about problems in their business the same way as they thought about their own health.
In a time when money is tight and training budgets are precious, part of the problem is that Managers often self-diagnose a problem in their business and go straight to the remedy, without often considering what all the symptoms are.
If you were ill, you might live with the illness for a while and try and plough through it, thinking that it will go away over time. But if the illness is a little more serious, only then do you go to the Doctor. It might seem obvious, but the Doctor doesn’t just hear what you have to say and then prescribe medication. To do their job properly, they ask questions, run some basic tests and confirm their thoughts with relevant data. If the illness is more serious, they may refer you to a specialist for further tests.
The same applies to business.