Archive for the ‘Leadership Thinking’ Category
Wednesday, July 21st, 2010
One of my greatest mentors and teachers in leadership is John C Maxwell. For some years now I’ve been in the habit of revisiting books that had a profound impact on my thinking. It’s a powerful process, I find new insights and understandings I hadn’t experienced before, not because there’s been any change in the content of the book of course, but because of the changes in me since I first read the book. My awareness has shifted, resulting in my ability to see things in the book I wasn’t able to see previously.
Recently, I returned to John’s ‘Developing the Leader Within You’, and one of it’s messages hit me like a train. It was a message relating to vision, perception, thinking and potential.
Casting vision ignites potential. Too many people fail to create a compelling vision for what they aspire to in their lives, and what can’t be seen with the mind can’t be created in life. What you see is what you can be, and what you see is what you get.
I’ve worked with many business leaders who cast vision for their business and never for themselves. This is a major error. Without a personal vision of success, an individual is nothing more than a wondering generality in life.
Having a career is one thing, shaping one on your own terms is another. Lacking vision, a person is a like a ship adrift at sea without destination, it’s the tide that governs the path. Despite the biblical warning of ‘where there is no vision the people perish’ many people are still choosing to live life this way.
Then there’s perception. The way a person chooses to see things has a massive impact on their success in life. Konrad Adenauer once said ‘we all live under the same sky, but we don’t all have the same horizon’.
Henry Ford was told repetitively by his most senior engineers that his idea to create an eight-cylinder automotive engine was ‘impossible’. Over a two year period he continually sent them away to ‘make it so’, only for them to return with the same message. He refused to accept their beliefs, and eventually they overcame the obstacles and ‘made it so’. Ford and his engineers lived under the same sky yet had very different horizons.
What you see is what you get. What are your horizons? Where’s your thinking? This brings us to responsibility and accountability. Personal ownership is not a pill that is easily swallowed for some.
In Bobb Biehl’s book ‘Increasing Your Leadership Confidence’ he discusses the key differentiator between the mental strategies of a ‘loser’ and ‘winner’. The latter focuses on winning big, not just on how to win. Whilst a loser doesn’t intend to lose, their thinking is focused on ‘just getting by’, and that’s the fundamental difference between the two.
This is the message that hit me between the eyes. The most potent influence on the quality of our thinking is our environment. When surrounded by the ‘doom and gloom’ merchants spinning their negative toxicity day in day out, it’s easy to fall into the ‘just getting by’ attitude. It’s a message that has me questioning where my thinking is.
When we change the way we look at things the things we look at change. Check in with yourself today. Where is your thinking?
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Tuesday, January 5th, 2010
What is it about the festive period and New Year that finally awakens people to consider what they aspire to be in their lives? The dawning of another digit on the calendar seems to draw a reflective perspective in people who, to the detriment of their long-term success, spend most of the year like hamsters on a wheel, very busy in the doing on someone else’s agenda and alarmingly redundant in thinking about their own.
This short-lived reflective period is unquestionably fed by cultural tradition, New Years Resolution, a societal imprint that bizarrely maintains its popularity despite the overwhelming evidence of its failure.
There is a significant difference between a wish and an intention. Human intention changes everything, it inspires the movement of the creative process by changing the thought processes that induces the critical emotional involvement in the outcome, which in turn births the modified behavior that ultimately manifests the change in results.
That isn’t the process that most follow. The New Year resolution is, for most people, doomed to failure because it constitutes nothing more than an idle wish. The error isn’t in the resolution itself, it’s in the process adopted by the creator. Of course the person has every intention at a conscious level to achieve the change, however, that’s as far as it goes, and without emotional involvement the changes in behaviour that are necessary to achieve the outcome are never going to happen.
Knowing and doing are poles apart, and few people have the awareness in which to bridge the gap. That is why such a small percentage of people who truly intend for the change in their lives are willing to make the necessary and essential investment in working with a coach or participating in a self-leadership learning technology like the Science of Success (www.thescienceofsuccessprorgam.com). They understand that they are the common denominator in every result they get in life, and therefore to improve results they invest in themselves. It’s the foundation of true leadership.
So what is your intention for 2010? By December 31st 2010, what would you like to look back on with a sense of achievement? And what are the implications to you of not seriously considering these questions or investing in the primary source of your success?
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Wednesday, November 18th, 2009
About a month ago a good friend called me up with a proposition. The charm offensive began in earnest, “Christian, with all the transformation you’ve brought into your life, you’re the one guy I know who’d be up for a new challenge”. With my ego suitably stroked, I replied, “of course, what do you have in mind?” (Ignoring the knots in my stomach as I said it).
Two weeks later I found myself in Snowdonia, North Wales, climbing the UK’s most dangerous peak. So, there I am, a man who’s climbing experience hadn’t advanced further than taking the stairs in a typical corporate office, navigating my way up the treacherous rise of Crib Goch, a notorious approach to Snowdon, standing just under 1000 meters in height and infamous for it’s fatalities.
The approach was a mass of wet, slippery, vertical rock and the peak is half a mile of long thin, jagged rock, with sheer drops of 900+ meters on either side. One slip, as unfortunately many have found, and it’s over.
For my virgin climb, I was in at the deep end.
I have never felt fear like it. As we got ever closer to the peak, ever cell in my body screamed at me to go back. It isn’t possible because the ascendency to the peak of Crib is so vertical that once you’ve scaled it there isn’t any going back, not for a novice like me, and anyway, going back is not a choice I’ve ever made in my life, so whether it was courage or plain stupidity, I had to go on.
It’s in the experiences of our lives that we truly evolve, and there were many profound lessons on this 8-hour jaunt. The most profound of all was how we allow our current perception, which is always based upon the boundaries of our existing comfort zone, to feed the fear within us that we then allow to prevent us from becoming more that we currently are.
It struck me, as I clung to the rock with the wind howling through my hair, how many of us live our lives imprisoned by our false perception of the feeling of fear.
Of course, there are times when fear is there to protect us, and it’s motives are not entirely unreasonable when scaling dangerous heights, however, the same emotion applies whenever we attempt to do something different in our lives. It’s our perception of fear that defeats us. We perceive it’s telling us we can’t or shouldn’t do something, when in fact, in the vast majority of experiences in life, it’s simply telling us that we’re about to grow, about to do something we haven’t done before.
It’s with increased awareness and understanding that we can distinguish between the fear that is preventing us taking measures that risks our lives, and those which alert us to our growth. It’s the latter that we misinterpret, and that’s why Zig Ziglar described fear as False Evidence Appearing Real.
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Thursday, September 10th, 2009
In these times of economic turbulence it’s astounding to witness those occupying senior leadership positions following the tried (and flawed) methods of their 20th century counterparts. What has become a default decision in times of recession to divert or cut people development budgets is nothing more than a reaction as opposed to a well-thought out response. It’s more lazy management than leadership.
A re-action is exactly what the word describes, an action that has been undertaken before. There isn’t much qualitative thought required for a reaction, and as always, the universal principle of cause and effect will deliver the implications in results. In the very different dynamics of the modern economy, those implications are likely to be much more severe than in the past.
Back in the industrial age, when manual work was prevalent and talent was predominantly assessed by physical attributes, the employee required for more brawn than brains tended not to need much development in order to achieve what the business required to prosper. In the service-base economy of the 21st century, where differentiation in product and proposition is sustainable for a matter of days at the most, it’s the mind, the creative faculties of human potential and how well they are utlized that decrees the fine line between commercial success and failure. Thought is the new currency.
The strategy that kills the goose that lays the golden egg is the strategy of lazy corporate incompetents. It doesn’t take a genius to know that when you effectively liquidate an organizations primary asset, it’s people, for the purpose of an immediate relief on the balance sheet, the medium to long term implication on performance is likely to be disasterous.
Benjamin Franklin once said that the very definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. At least that accusation can’t be thrown at those modern senior leaders who, in sheep-like fashion, divert people development budgets elsewhere to make their balance sheets look prettier. In todays fast-paced economy with its workplace of predominantly Generation Y talent, the implications of not developing people will most certainly differ in severity from those of previous periods of recession.
There’s only one thing worse than in investing in people and seeing them leave, that’s not investing in them and seeing them stay. Archaic leadership habits die hard, performance, however, is much more obliging.
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Thursday, August 27th, 2009
Letting people go has to be one of the most difficult responsibilities of leadership. It’s often forgotten by those affected by redundancy that it isn’t about personalities. No one responsible for performance through people gets up in the morning excited at the prospect of people losing their jobs. It’s the role that is surplus to requirements, not the person.
Challenging times demand the best from leaders. Many corporations fail to recognize the fragility of morale and performance as a consequence of headcount reduction exercises. What has become known as “survivor syndrome” has significant potential to drag any unsuspecting business back in the mire it has attempted to clear itself of in the first place.
This is where leaders earn their crust. “Survivor syndrome” can be catastrophic to performance. It’s natural for those escaping this round of redundancies to be nervous about what comes next. They’ve witnessed colleagues leave, some unwillingly, and working friendships and relationships of reasonable longevity have been severed.
Employees who remain in situ after the process often suffer mixed emotions, grateful to have survived, yet struggling to feel as loyal and committed to an organization that they now perceive to be heartless. The commercial realities matter little to the employee who has fallen out of love with the company they once felt so proud to be associated with. It’s little wonder survivors often become dysfunctional in their performance.
A leader’s responsibility is to help survivors understand the commercial reasons for the process, and subtly reignite their commitment and passion. It’s where the true leader demonstrates the essential arts of empathy and coaching, seeking first to understand before being understood, and, by listening deeply, help each individual reconnect to their desire for success.
So the question to ask is: how much time are you spending with your people? And, most importantly of all, what are you doing with that time? Are you genuinely coaching for performance, or are you telling them what needs to be done? Are you leading or managing? Think deeply about your approach to those you lead, never more than now has it been so important to get it right.
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Monday, June 8th, 2009
It’s interesting and rather refreshing to see the final stages of ‘The Apprentice’ dominated by women. The last 20 years has seen a gradual increase in more women appointed to leadership roles, yet gender equilibrium in corporate life, particularly at senior level, is still some way off despite the politically-correct rhetoric of the modern workplace.
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I’ve no feminist agenda to pursue in depicting women as great leaders, many are not, however I do believe corporations are missing a significant opportunity in overlooking women for leadership roles.
Many women are naturally blessed with attributes that are desperately lacking in male dominated business leadership, specifically emotional and spiritual intelligence, essential components of successful leadership in the 21st century economy.
Women are highly tuned for leadership, it is how self-aware the individual is that decrees how much the skill is transferred into knowledge. In The Apprentice, Kate Walsh has demonstrated her strong emotional intelligence (EQ), as has her fellow finalist Yasmina Siadatan. The two defeated semi-finalists, James McQuillan and Debra Barr, both demonstrated different areas for development, particularly in self-awareness.
McQuillan possesses many EQ attributes, yet lacked assertiveness, and Barr was clearly lacking empathy and awareness around her ability to alienate others. What was encouraging was how Barr’s awareness dramatically increased from the feedback she received in the process. Should she continue to develop her self-awareness, she is destined to become a powerful leadership presence in the business world.
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For many women, possessing the essential character traits of the most important leadership role on the planet, motherhood, provides a rich resource of success that largely remains untapped in the workplace. Raising children successfully demands many leadership skills such as a honed intuitive factor, empathy, and a well-oiled decision making ability. What price those attributes in leading business through these turbulent times?
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Of course, both genders are capable of learning and improving leadership capability, unlike IQ, emotional and spiritual intelligence (SQ) can be developed, the point is, the very skills that are naturally inherent in many woman are largely ignored in many corporations, much to the detriment of performance.
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Monday, June 1st, 2009
It’s become endemic in corporations desperately trying to navigate their way through the mine-infested waters of these difficult economic times. It’s the default MO of senior leaders who find themselves ill-equipped for the inexorable change that is now upon them. It’s called “short-termism”. The focus is on survival, not growth, and so efficiency takes precedent over effectiveness, execution over creativity, numbers over people, cost management over development.
Tough times demand real leadership, the kind that has the vision to see beyond the event horizon and shape the business for creative growth in the new economy. The effects of poor leadership can be hidden in the prosperous years, it isn’t so easy in tougher climates. As the world emerges from the information to the creative economy, the drive for efficiency, at the detriment of effectiveness, is commercial suicide. Whilst a short-term focus may be a typical and understandable reaction, it doesn’t make for an intelligent response to the unique demands of our times.
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Monday, May 18th, 2009
My experience in a lot of large corporations has shown that if there is a one common impediment of success it is the habit of doing
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I’m talking about doing for doings sake ruthless people movie . Employees in corporations are generally phenomenally busy, senior leaders included. Whether the majority of that activity is actually effective is another thing. Managers (not leaders) actively encourage this kind of frenzied behavior in followers, much to the detriment of performance.
Leaders act only having thought death defying acts download free , they respond rather than react free star wars episode v the empire strikes back movie download , and evoke qualitative thinking in others. Leaders actively encourage ‘imagineering’ as Walt Disney used to call it, coaching followers to build compelling visions of future personal and business success, releasing the creativity that lies dormant within everyone. In the creative economy, where differentiation in product or service is short-lived, ‘imagineering’ is the new currency.
How much time do you dedicate to imagineering? Are circumstances shaping you, or you them? How are you inspiring those you lead to imagineer? What wealth of creativity and potential are you leaving untapped, dead to the top and bottom line?
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Monday, April 20th, 2009
How are you investing in your future success? How much of your time and money do you invest in your own personal development?
If you are like the vast majority of people, you probably aren’t. When you consider the common denominator of performance in every aspect of life is you, and you want better results, it doesn’t really stand to reason does it?
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So many people choose to stop learning when they leave school. Not so the emerging leaders. They are learners, continually seeking a greater understanding of who they are, what they want and how they can improve on their potential. They are open to new ideas, aware that existing thinking and behaviour will not cut the mustard tomorrow.
In an economy of inexorable and quickening change, leaders cannot afford to stop developing. The key ingredient that is missing for so many leaders is self-development, self-learning, understanding the self and the values that shape personal leadership.
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Orison Swett Marden articulated it well when he wrote ‘growth everywhere neutralises decay, renewing the mind, constantly reaching out for the new and progressive, the retrograding, disintegrating, aging, deteriorating processes can not be operative’.
When a leader fails to grow and develop emotional intelligence, it violates primal responsibility, as he or she cannot develop others effectively.
Huxley said ‘there’s only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that’s your own self’. The leader who chooses not to will find the creative economy tough to navigate.
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Tuesday, April 7th, 2009
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Leadership is a people business, you can love people and not lead but you can’t lead effectively unless you love people. Powerful leaders authentically want the best for their followers.
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Leadership is influence, and it’s a common misconception that influence is achieved by providing the answers, giving direction or offering solutions. Powerful influence is only accomplished by understanding the other persons unique view of the world.
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Leaders must seek first to understand before being understood. It’s not just about asking questions, it’s about asking skillful, explorative questions from an authentic position of curiosity, of being genuinely interested in the whole person. It’s an entirely different deliverable.
Unlocking potential in followers is a leaders primal responsibility, and it’s an art not a science. Sadly, many people in leadership positions do not understand how to powerfully influence followers, to the detriment of results.
Genuine curiosity, skillful listening, and intelligent, explorative questions are essential ingredients for successful leadership. Curiosity may kill the cat, but it makes the leader.
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