Corporate Culture

When Do You Stop Leading?

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Leadership principles and effort (0)

I recently caught a glimpse of a message in one of my professional newsfeeds that posed the question “When do you stop being a leader?”

It is hard to consider it when you are the leader, so my default process has always been to remember my thoughts and feelings when I can observe as a follower.  The influences other leaders, perhaps old bosses, had on you are as valuable as your own leadership experience… I include the negative examples as well as the positive.

If you ever said to yourself “What were they thinking when they said/did/wrote that?”, you hopefully learned from “their” mistakes.

Every inappropriate comment or joke, snide remark, or act of entitlement will be judged by others even if there is never a comment.

So, when does it end?

Basically, never.

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Power – How to be a Cult Leader in 5 Easy Steps!

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Persian Cat (4)Although it may seem irresponsible to teach people how to abuse power, I see it all the time.  So, either they are learning on their own or they are following what might be considered “natural behavior”.

Brains are lazy.  That is the natural state.

Making the intellectual effort to leap beyond the simple explanation and accepting a belief is difficult and unnatural.  Courtesy of Bob Carroll, let’s call it the “unnatural virtue”.  It is our natural behavior to attend first to our own needs and to rely on the explanation that is easiest to believe, not necessarily what is true.

In leadership the easiest way to lead is to use power like a weapon.  It may be effective at first, but in the long run things will go bad one way or another.

So… what are the steps to cult leadership and how can we prevent the damage? Continue reading →

Managing the Power Game

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Power game chess (0)We cannot avoid the influences and effect of power in daily life.  It is a dynamic, complicated byproduct of social interaction and constantly changes even in a single relationship between two people.

How often has the phrase “where do you want to eat?” come up and how often was that decision based on your desire to eat a favorite food versus your lack of interest in making a simple decision?

“I dunno, where do you want to eat?…”

Knowing that power games translate into office politics, leaders need to be able manage the powers to the benefit of the group.  A business cannot be “Lord of the Flies”.  It didn’t go well in the book, it won’t go well in the office. Continue reading →

Leadership – Unifying the Theory

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Leadership Reflection (2)In class, leadership seems all so simple.  It is in black and white.  There are diagrams.  One chapter seems to lead logically to another.  Like any new practical skill, the theory is not the same as practice.  Is leadership a science or is it an art?

Excluding the “mystic” part, I have come to realize that it is a bit of both science and art.

I have been studying leadership since I was 18.  It was MS 101, an introduction to military science.  My first professional career military preparation class as an Army cadet.

As I mentioned in an earlier article, one of the difficulties is the use of the word “leadership”.  It is commonly used, but the context changes as it is used as a noun, verb, adverb, or adjective.  The definition has to be inferred through context.  That makes every article you read confusing and, at times, a seeming contradiction to other articles.

My own experience from the numerous classes, beginning with the first class, is that the instructor will emphasize every aspect of leadership on an equal basis.  From an academic point of view it was because you had to be tested.  The equivalency of everything made prioritizing action based on theory confusing.  The history and theories are interesting, but hard to apply on a daily basis.

Over the years and other classes, I was always surprised to see that there was rarely an overlap from one leadership course to another.  It was confusing because how was it possible for leadership traits and leadership principles to morph from year to year, source to source.  The instructors taught from within their narrowed vision of experience or shared the latest article on “The 10 Secrets of Leadership” which also changed from author to author.

How do you know what to apply?  Can you predict leadership success or failure?

Continue reading →

Reading Recommendation “The One Minute Manager”

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If you are just on the path to leadership and you have no idea what you should do, “The One Minute Manager” is a great start to untangle the big string ball that is leading people.

I have probably bought close to 100 copies over the years since I first read the book (you’re welcome Messrs. Blanchard and Johnson).  They have been gifts to friends, students, and mentees with whom I have shared any meaningful conversation on leadership.

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The Absence of Leadership

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Absent leader (1)There is no guarantee that leadership will make a company successful,  but I can almost guarantee a company will fail without it.

I had a surprising conversation with an HR director in a European branch office of a US company about leadership and its role in the company.

This person was a very experience executive, I’d estimate 10-15 years of work experience and responsible for HR policy and recruiting.  After the usual background exchange I asked about the biggest leadership challenges the company faced.  Were there issues of recruitment or development or mentoring?

The HR director looked at me and said that there were no problems, we don’t use leadership in this company.

Continue reading →

On Being a Good Leader (Recognize Performance, additional thoughts)

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I discussed performance recognition in earlier posts and have a few additional comments.

Genuine, honest praise pays dividends in morale, performance, and retention.

Reinforce the recognition.

Take the opportunity to recognize achievement at each lower level.

I mentioned several ways of recognizing performance: individual recognition, peer recognition, formal group recognition, industry awards, industry travel and conferences. Continue reading →

On Being a Good Leader (Recogize Performance) Part 2 of 2

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DSC07285b

(Continued from “Recognize Performance, Part 1 of 2“.)

It is a real challenge to be a good boss.

There are a number of actions you can take that can make you the “best boss” someone ever had.

One of the most important, and perhaps one of the simplest, means of connecting with subordinates is the simple process of performance recognition.  In a previous post, I outlined reasons why a recognition program is important.

So the question now is: how do you set up recognition program and what are the mechanisms? Continue reading →

On Being a Good Leader (Recognize Performance) Part 1 of 2

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DSC07285bIt is a real challenge to be a good boss.

There are a number of actions you can take that can make you the “best boss” someone ever had.

I believe one of the most important aspects of leadership is expressing emotion to subordinates.  It is through emotion that meaningful reinforcement (both positive and negative) is conveyed.

The key emotion is trust.

One of the most important, and perhaps one of the simplest, means of connecting with subordinates is the simple process of performance recognition.  The foundation of recognition is that underlying authenticity of the recognition.  Continue reading →