Happiness is good for business and leadership behavior is what sets organizational mood. And nowhere is that more important than with front-line employees, who are possibly your organization’s biggest competitive advantage.
Many people get promoted to leadership roles because they are good at what they do but soon find themselves out of their depth. But an accidental leader need not be an accident waiting to happen if they can be equipped with some of the skills of ‘real’ leadership.
Virtual teams may be shaking up organizational dynamics, but the fundamentals of how to lead a team are the same whether its members are all based in the same building as you or scattered across four continents.
It’s more than just dodgy ignition switches, GM’s leadership has produced a real lemon. When we start to examine the culture that has led to this sorry state of affairs, it’s clear that the rot starts at the top. But all is not lost - at least, not yet.
On this holiday weekend in the midst of fireworks and fun, how about taking a moment to reflect on how you're doing as a leader, manager or supervisor. Are you a sparkling firecracker or a fizzling dud?
Most of what we hear about leadership is about leading people who work for us or with us. But what do you do when the people most in need of coaching and guidance outrank you? How do you do that in a way that ensures you will still have a job?
As I recently found out, relying on a free tourist map to get around an unfamiliar city is a sure-fire way to get lost. The same is true of leadership. Navigating intensely complicated human interactions is much more complicated than following a few easy steps to success.
Horses are prey animals. Humans are predators. Our wiring is completely different. But horses can teach us an enormous amount about ourselves. And if we can build a rapport with such a different species, it becomes much easier to handle our human relationships.
19th century French composer Hector Berlioz had a profound influence on the development of the modern orchestra. But apart from music, his life provides us with some valuable lessons on leadership, too.
With the modern work environment emphasizing feminine relationship-building skills to the exclusion of masculine competitive instincts, the idea that women make better leaders than men is gaining ground. But perhaps the reality lies somewhere in the middle.
There are innumerable examples of awful management: the media is full of them. But rather than dismiss them, how about learning from them so that we can start to re-pot the seeds of human potential into more fertile ground.
If you want to be seen as a leader, you need to portray the right image to other people. And these days, it seems that 'image' is all about been seen to have the right gadgets.
The demands of leading a team who don't share a common location or time zone are an order of magnitude more difficult than if they are in the same building. That calls for additional leadership skills on top of those normally needed.
Much of what we think is reality is actually closer to fictional reality. In other words, we make stuff up. How we think about our world is mostly our own perception. And so disagreement is just a mental choice to not agree. And that has big implications for how we make decisions.
Great leaders spend years honing their skills. There's no pre-ordained template that they can tap into for wisdom. There's no magic potion or quick fix. And even your smartphone won't help you with this one.
Before we start to pick holes in others, we need to look at ourselves first. That's why managers whose attitude is, 'this is who I am, deal with it' are so toxic, and why the higher up the ladder they climb, the worse the fall-out can be.
Outstanding leaders lead by example. They naturally express a sense that 'we're all in it together' because they make deliberate efforts to communicate the sense that everyone shares the same goals and aspirations and that these ambitions can be achieved as one.
For senior executives, it's inspiration, not perspiration, that matters. More precisely, the ability to motivate and lead others is the most important skill that boards are looking for when they make senior appointments, far more so than their ability to be a 'top performer'.
I recently stumbled across a piece I wrote on leadership a decade ago. It reminded me that while the fundamentals of leadership have changed little, keeping to our leadership ideals can still pose some real challenges.
Vision, confidence and pride in one's own accomplishments are all desirable leadership traits. But they're also signs of a narcissist. Which is why a new study has tried to come up with a definitive answer to the question: do narcissists make good leaders?
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