‘He/she who hesitates is lost’…..really?

We have all heard of the fight or flight response. Two options, not much information, stress mounting, time critical decision. Yes or no? Go backward or forward? Left or right? Buy or sell? Fight or flight? What is often forgotten when people talk about fight or flight is the third response – not making a decision (perhaps because in nature, where Walter Cannon first described the response, those animals that hesitate don’t survive).

Team Leadership Lessons Taught By My Dog – Lesson 12

Breaks in discipline / performance can’t wait until later to fix.

Discipline has become a dirty word. The word itself brings up connotations of punishment and detention (at least in my mind anyway!). A new dog in the house has forced us to look at discipline in its truest form, that it, correcting behaviour that is not at the right standard. The same behaviour change process applied with Jake is also used by successful leaders managing successful teams.

Which Elevator Floor of Leadership Do You Work at Best?

If you have been in a leadership or management role for any length of time, I am sure you would have heard some of these statements or know the analogies:

  • Leaders do the right things, and managers do things right.
  • A good leader will lead by example, and let their actions do the talking.
  • A leader should have a helicopter view and be able to see their organisation as a whole, and not get stuck in the weeds.

Election 2013 – A Leadership Opportunity or more of the same?

2013 looks like it is going to be a very interesting year in regards to leadership and leadership development, no more so than in Australian politics. With the national election now set for September 14, people will have a full 8 months to assess what both political parties plan to bring for the next 4 years.

It is fair to say that the political environment for the last 18 months in Australia hasn’t provided a great deal to be proud of; name calling, abusive language and poor behaviour in parliament haven’t exactly provided the ‘lead by example’ approach that most people expect from their politicians.

Team Leadership Lessons Taught by my Dog – Lesson 11

Look after your team and they will look after you.

While the concept of looking out for your team is not new, many people seem to forget that the process is ‘give and take’ rather than just ‘take’. A common mistake amongst new team leaders / supervisors is to assume that they can ‘take’ from their new team without giving anything in return.

How Great CEOs Meet the 5 Expectations of Their Team

‘Where there is great power, there is great responsibility’, Winston Churchill, 1906

Leading any group of individuals takes time, effort and courage. When assuming responsibility for a business or a team, there is both privilege and an expectation of service to that business or team. A CEO, or any leader taking ultimate responsibility for a business and the people within it, has 5 expectations to fulfil and maintain. Failure to attend to any or all of these expectations creates both short and long term issues for both the business, and more importantly, the people in it.

Can leadership truly be taught?

I was posed an age old question on LinkedIn recently through one of the leadership groups I am part of:

Can leadership truly be taught? Is it an innate skill that we are born withor can it be learned?

I have been asked this question hundreds of times, and my answer has changed almost each time I have been asked (with my thoughts often dominated by the more recent group of leadership participants). Now, I am not much of a gardener (more brown thumb than green!), but the metaphor of a growing tree seems to fit my current thoughts on leadership more than any other, having worked with adolescent and adult leaders for the past 4 years.

Is Negativity Impacting you?

The topic of this blog post was borne from the vast differences in culture that I experienced working with two different clients in the recent past (names and references to the specific businesses are not necessary).

Have you ever walked into a room and felt that the ‘vibe’ or culture just wasn’t right? When first walking in to work with a client, you get a feel for the interactions between people, the discussions that take place in the corridors, the set up of the office spaces and the general demeanour of people as they interact with you. From first impression, something about Business A just felt ‘off’.

Do You Have The Weapons You Need For Success?

HawkeyeI 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?

Leadership with a ‘little l’

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.

Have we made the definition of good leadership so unattainable that mere mortals can’t achieve it?

Team Leadership Lessons Taught by My Dog – Lesson 10

Understand the unique behaviour and skill set you bring to the team 

Having Jake in our home has forced everyone to consider what role we have in the family. Jake looks to each of us to provide different things for him; what he expects from me is different to what he expects from my two children. Each of us has roles that Jake expects us to fulfil, just as we expect him to behave and act in a certain way. Each member of our family has a unique set of skills and characteristics that are appreciated and recognised by other members of the family. In fact, we wouldn’t be the family that we are without those skills and behaviours.

Build a Tower, Build a Team

IMG 0270This fantastic video from ted.com is by Tom Wujek, and discusses the differences in approach to solving the ‘Marshmallow Challenge’. At Kameleons, we have used this activity in a variety of settings; in our MetaMorph team development program for Schools right through to our Diploma of Management Groups (Team Effectiveness and Manage Projects modules). The effectiveness of this activity is its simplicity and the consistency of results and behaviours. As Tom mentions in his video, the actions of management groups differs greatly from the behaviour of young School students. Having conducted this activity more than 100 times, we can varify that many of Tom’s observations match our Australian experience.