Category: Leadership

Show respect for your team in ways that they appreciate.

At the end of a hard day at work, it always good to get home. Not only because I get the chance to relax, but also because Jake (our dog) has a way of making your very presence feel special. As soon as you get home, he is there waiting, wagging his tail, hoping to greet you in the most excited way possible. He has the ability to make an average day feel pretty good (even if it gets excessive at times!). Jake shows his enthusiasm in a simple yet effective way, and it demonstrates to the rest of the family that they are appreciated.

Jake’s appreciation leads me to ask: ‘How do you show your respect and appreciation for your team?’

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.

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.

Are meetings taking up far too much of your work life? Feeling frustrated by poorly planned meetings or Chairpeople not controlling the participants? Feel like the meetings you attend are directionless or out of control? Are you often wondering why you were invited to the meeting at all?

I was reminded of the concept of resilience when working with the great Managers at GE last Thursday. Resilience is a value that is being promoted (along with others) and it struck a chord with me, as it seems to be a weak point with so many Management groups (let me say now though, the resilience of the GE group I worked with was pretty good).

When I think of resilience, I am thinking of the ability to recover from setbacks; to be able to get back up when you have been knocked down; to try for something again after being rejected or not succeeding. It is why I have linked this Video – a great sequence from Rocky 5.

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.

The wonderful thing I love about working in the leadership development space is that inspiration for great leadership can abound everywhere. While traveling for my last international training engagement, I stopped at the airport newsagent to pick up something to read. I usually head for the management books (a little sad I know), but one magazine on sporting rifles caught my attention.

Remember that each team has different rules to live by.

Working with a large variety of teams under development has reminded me of one small but crucial detail when working with teams – they are all different.

This was highlighted with Jake on the weekend at the beach. While we were happy to let Jake frolic on the dog beach, other dog owners were not. While just is scolded when he tries to jump up on people, other dogs were not. While there are some common sense rules to follow when owning dogs, the nuances are what makes each of us different.

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.

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.

The leadership hierarchy needs to be understood by all of the team.

 Nothing confuses a dog more than a lack of understanding of who is the leader. Having recently worked with a dog trainer to help us with Jake, I was told that most families confuse their dogs (and the dogs understanding of their place in the family hierarchy) through a lack of understanding of some very simple actions. Who provides the dog its food, who gets attention first and who leads when going for a walk might seem like small things to us, but they communicate an awful lot to a dog regarding their place in the team.

 

A different style of post today. I thought I would include one of my favourite inspirational video clips on Youtube. I use this video as a basis for discussion on team coaching, development, goal setting and personal leadership style.

I think I love this video so much because of a question the coach asks an individual player on his team – ‘Are you going to give me your best?’

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? 

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.

You can tell your people why they need to do something, you must tell them when and what – but there is no need to tell them how – more often than not they can work it out for themselves.

In a recent editorial in BRW (Mar 1-7), Kate Mills highlighted her 5 lessons that company leaders should be taking from the recent power struggle between Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd. Kate stresses that the leadership crisis isn’t just in politics but in leadership in the corporate world as well.

In this respect I couldn’t agree more. Employees and middle Managers in all industries are looking for authentic leaders that can think beyond the bottom line and provide them with real goals, real understanding of what they are doing and real meaning to make their job worthwhile.