The great bosses give their folks a say in HOW they accomplish a task. It’s the job of leadership to set the vision and strategic direction. Managers break it down into the key goals and high level milestones that will get the company there. Then the great bosses step back and support their people as they design and implement the tactics to get there. This serves the firm on many fronts. First of all, no matter how creative you are, one person doesn’t ...
From a leadership perspective, the only good thing about group think is that it creates apparent harmony in the workplace since the group all agrees on whatever it is they’re thinking. But study after study has shown that diversity of thought leads to better decisions and healthier firms. When I was VP of marketing, if my team was falling into that trap, I’d challenge them to come up with at least 5 reasons why what they were proposing was a bad idea. This ...
Highly influential people generally have the following characteristics: Character – they lead by example Expertise – they know their stuff and are great at what they do Connector – they value relationships and are great networkers who love serving as a resource and referring others Collaborator – they know how to negotiate and compromise to get things done Stakeholder agility – they know who their key allies, customers and adversaries are and work those relationships accordingly Communicator – they adjust their style to ...
Leadership is setting the vision and direction, while motivating and fully utilizing all resources at your disposal to make that vision a reality. The most important leadership skill to have is the ability to flex in whatever way is required by the situation you find yourself in. This has been termed “Leadership Agility”. It’s more than just flexibility. It’s proactive, goal-oriented flexibility with a purpose. And it’s more important than ever due to two key factors: Rapidly increasing pace of change – not ...
I’m not sure we can ever really take 100% responsibility for keeping our team engaged and motivated. They need to help too. We’ve all been in situations where we are treating all our folks the same way, and some are upbeat and energized and others are just plain miserable. We can’t force anyone to feel a certain way. But, we CAN focus on ourselves! To stay motivated, there are 2 important things we MUST do: 1. Find the “Why” behind our careers/company. If ...
