I got some very interesting reactions to my list of “10 Things Every Leader Should Know.” It was a simple little list, yet, for many of you, it seems that the list really resonated. A few people posted comments on the blog site, a few posted comments to me on Facebook, a few emailed me, and I even got a couple of phone calls.
Why did this simple list create such a reaction?
I think there are a couple of reasons for that. First, in spite of its simplicity, the list acknowledged that the leader has to do more than one thing to be effective. It seems that many of you believe that your leaders, at whatever level of the organization, believe they must only do one thing well to be a successful leader.
Obviously that is just not true.
Others focused on specific items on the list as being something really lacking in their leader. One person put it this way.
“I agree, Dave. Leadership is simple. So why do so many leaders get it wrong?”
I will write about some of the responses I got in future blogs, but this week I wanted to focus on several comments I received about the way attitude plays into leadership.
Attitude is an issue with leaders. Several people commented that I hinted at the importance of the leader's attitude, but they wished I had been more direct. “Don’t leaders realize that the employees adapt the attitude of the leader? When the leader has a bad attitude, so do the employees.”
This is true. When the leader has an attitude of hope and presents hope to the employees, they follow with hope in their heart.
When the leader's attitude about customers is concerned and caring and they demonstrate that through policies and procedures, the employees work hard to take care of the customers.
But when the leader's attitude is negative, the employees also adopt that same attitude. If the leader is depressed about the prospects for the future, the employees are as well. If the leader is worried about the revenue stream, the employees sense this and become worried as well. And when the leader is just in a crappy mood for an extended period, that mood becomes the mood around the entire office.
This is not a suggestion for leaders to apply a fake smile and pretend to be happy when they are not. After all, employees can always sense a fake. But rather, this is an acknowledgement that what you do, how you act , and even how you feel have a much bigger impact on those around you when you are a leader.
All leaders have an attitude. If you are not projecting the right attitude, you are most certainly projecting the wrong one.
Until next time......
Dave
ECI Learning Systems, LLC
http://www.ecilearning.com/
Monday, June 29, 2009
Monday, June 22, 2009
10 Things Every Leader Should Know
Whether you are a new or an experienced leader, there are some key things that every leader should know and understand to ensure their success. While some people are natural born leaders, others learn through trial and error. But whether you are a natural leader or someone who has learned leadership the hard way, there are a few things every leader should know. Below are 10 items that you should apply every day to ensure your success as a leader.
1. Vision - Your team is looking to you for hope. As a leader it is your responsibility to tell the truth, but to also provide a clear vision and hope for the future.
2. Communication - It’s not enough to have a clear vision for the future if no one knows what that vision is. Communicate that vision continually to all levels of your organization.
3. Action - People will follow what they see more quickly than what they hear. Don’t just communicate your vision but live it through your actions.
4. People - The best way to show how smart you are is to hire people that are even smarter than you are. Your success will be defined by those around you. Surround yourself with the smartest people you can find at all levels of your organization.
5. Listen - All around you there are wonderful ideas floating around. But you can’t hear them if you are too busy talking. You hired those smart people, now listen to them.
6. Motivation - You can’t motivate anyone because motivation comes from within. But you can provide an environment that encourages people and allows them to stretch to their limits and beyond.
7. Talent - Everyone has talent; something they can do better than almost anyone else. Identifying people’s talents and utilizing those talents in an organization means that you can get the best from every employee.
8. Trust – Great teams are built on the foundation of great leadership. Great leadership is built on the foundation of great trust. Start building trust on day one and never let up.
9. Development – In good times and bad you want to be able to do more with less. That means spending the time and the money to develop the talent on your team. It’s this development that will help your team survive and thrive when you need them most.
10. Energy - Workplace energy means that your team is fully engaged at all levels of the organization. Workplace energy happens when the company’s culture, the management's style and the employees' expectations overlap and create a synergy that propels the entire organization forward.
Until next time......
Dave
ECI Learning Systems, LLC
http://www.ecilearning.com/
1. Vision - Your team is looking to you for hope. As a leader it is your responsibility to tell the truth, but to also provide a clear vision and hope for the future.
2. Communication - It’s not enough to have a clear vision for the future if no one knows what that vision is. Communicate that vision continually to all levels of your organization.
3. Action - People will follow what they see more quickly than what they hear. Don’t just communicate your vision but live it through your actions.
4. People - The best way to show how smart you are is to hire people that are even smarter than you are. Your success will be defined by those around you. Surround yourself with the smartest people you can find at all levels of your organization.
5. Listen - All around you there are wonderful ideas floating around. But you can’t hear them if you are too busy talking. You hired those smart people, now listen to them.
6. Motivation - You can’t motivate anyone because motivation comes from within. But you can provide an environment that encourages people and allows them to stretch to their limits and beyond.
7. Talent - Everyone has talent; something they can do better than almost anyone else. Identifying people’s talents and utilizing those talents in an organization means that you can get the best from every employee.
8. Trust – Great teams are built on the foundation of great leadership. Great leadership is built on the foundation of great trust. Start building trust on day one and never let up.
9. Development – In good times and bad you want to be able to do more with less. That means spending the time and the money to develop the talent on your team. It’s this development that will help your team survive and thrive when you need them most.
10. Energy - Workplace energy means that your team is fully engaged at all levels of the organization. Workplace energy happens when the company’s culture, the management's style and the employees' expectations overlap and create a synergy that propels the entire organization forward.
Until next time......
Dave
ECI Learning Systems, LLC
http://www.ecilearning.com/
Monday, June 15, 2009
Following the Leader
I had an interesting discussion with a client last week. She had just started a new job in a new company and while she was excited by the opportunity, she was surprised by some of the messages coming from the CEO. She knew that the CEO was a hard charger when she took the job. In fact, she took the job because he was a hard charger. But hearing his message did not motivate her. In fact, it had just the opposite affect.
In the first few days on her new job, this client has been engaged in several meetings with the CEO. And while she expected him to be demanding of her and his executive team in general, she found his attitude to be highly negative, his message gloomy, and his overall demeanor downright depressing. In meeting with her counterparts she found that the other executives had adopted this very same view of the world, leading her to be further depressed. So instead of being energized in the first few weeks of her new job, she found that the leadership of her new company to be sapping the energy right out of her.
When times are tough and businesses are struggling with revenue streams, focusing their efforts on expense control, and generally hunkering down waiting for the bad times to blow over, it’s easy to forget that where leaders lead, followers follow. When the leader leads on a positive, but realistic path people follow optimistically. When the message from the leader is doom and gloom, that message is absorbed by the rest of the organization.
Have you ever worked for a leader whose entire attitude and demeanor was negative? Did you find that leadership inspiring, or did it make going to work even more of a chore?
We don’t want our leaders to be “Pollyanna’s” but if leaders are to inspire us to achieve their vision, then their leadership should be equally inspirational.
I’d love to hear your thoughts and stories on this subject.
Until next time....
Dave
ECI Learning Systems, LLC
http://www.ecilearning.com/
In the first few days on her new job, this client has been engaged in several meetings with the CEO. And while she expected him to be demanding of her and his executive team in general, she found his attitude to be highly negative, his message gloomy, and his overall demeanor downright depressing. In meeting with her counterparts she found that the other executives had adopted this very same view of the world, leading her to be further depressed. So instead of being energized in the first few weeks of her new job, she found that the leadership of her new company to be sapping the energy right out of her.
When times are tough and businesses are struggling with revenue streams, focusing their efforts on expense control, and generally hunkering down waiting for the bad times to blow over, it’s easy to forget that where leaders lead, followers follow. When the leader leads on a positive, but realistic path people follow optimistically. When the message from the leader is doom and gloom, that message is absorbed by the rest of the organization.
Have you ever worked for a leader whose entire attitude and demeanor was negative? Did you find that leadership inspiring, or did it make going to work even more of a chore?
We don’t want our leaders to be “Pollyanna’s” but if leaders are to inspire us to achieve their vision, then their leadership should be equally inspirational.
I’d love to hear your thoughts and stories on this subject.
Until next time....
Dave
ECI Learning Systems, LLC
http://www.ecilearning.com/
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Great Leaders Develop Good People - Even in Bad Times
Whenever the economy turns bad, and that seems to happen on a regular basis, many companies start looking for ways to cut their costs. One of the very first things that some companies cut are any costs associated with human development. Coaching, training classes, and even brown-bag lunches are viewed as a “soft cost” that have no direct impact on the bottom line.
But nothing could be further from the truth.
On the surface, wringing out any excess costs seems to make a lot of sense. But great leaders know that wringing out all the costs might also mean wringing out all of the energy, excitement and creativity from a company as well. And, when things are tough, you need your team to crank up the energy and creativity, not bury it under a blanket.
Imagine a scenario where one of your top customers places a big order that is going to require the very best from your team to complete the delivery. Your team, suffering the blahs after having their overtime cut, all of the plants removed from the office, the coffee service removed from the office, and all personal development eliminated, can’t figure out how to deliver this order on time with the correct content.
Of course, Jack could have led his team to get this done, but Jack left 6 weeks ago to join a competitor. Sally was another manager who could probably have pulled it off as well, but she left about 3 months ago and changed careers entirely. Their replacements came from in house and, while they are excellent technically, they lack the skills to lead the team on a project of this size.
You meant to develop more managers with the appropriate team leadership skills, but with times being tight, you cut back on hiring, stopped training both your technicians and your managers and hunkered down to wait out the downturn.
Now that downturn may last much longer than expected. And you may lose your best client for screwing up this order. But that’s ok because you were able to wring out all of those excess costs that don’t really add to the bottom line.
Great leaders understand the difference between unnecessary costs and the costs of keeping your managers and staff excited, motivated, and most importantly, on your team. Great leaders understand that developing people is not an unnecessary cost, but an investment in the business itself. Staff development can have the very same payoff and ROI that an investment in new equipment can have. And an investment in your staff has the added incentive of making your team more valuable over time.
And that can get you through a lot of tough times.
Until next time....
Dave
ECI Learning Systems, LLC
http://www.ecilearning.com/
But nothing could be further from the truth.
On the surface, wringing out any excess costs seems to make a lot of sense. But great leaders know that wringing out all the costs might also mean wringing out all of the energy, excitement and creativity from a company as well. And, when things are tough, you need your team to crank up the energy and creativity, not bury it under a blanket.
Imagine a scenario where one of your top customers places a big order that is going to require the very best from your team to complete the delivery. Your team, suffering the blahs after having their overtime cut, all of the plants removed from the office, the coffee service removed from the office, and all personal development eliminated, can’t figure out how to deliver this order on time with the correct content.
Of course, Jack could have led his team to get this done, but Jack left 6 weeks ago to join a competitor. Sally was another manager who could probably have pulled it off as well, but she left about 3 months ago and changed careers entirely. Their replacements came from in house and, while they are excellent technically, they lack the skills to lead the team on a project of this size.
You meant to develop more managers with the appropriate team leadership skills, but with times being tight, you cut back on hiring, stopped training both your technicians and your managers and hunkered down to wait out the downturn.
Now that downturn may last much longer than expected. And you may lose your best client for screwing up this order. But that’s ok because you were able to wring out all of those excess costs that don’t really add to the bottom line.
Great leaders understand the difference between unnecessary costs and the costs of keeping your managers and staff excited, motivated, and most importantly, on your team. Great leaders understand that developing people is not an unnecessary cost, but an investment in the business itself. Staff development can have the very same payoff and ROI that an investment in new equipment can have. And an investment in your staff has the added incentive of making your team more valuable over time.
And that can get you through a lot of tough times.
Until next time....
Dave
ECI Learning Systems, LLC
http://www.ecilearning.com/
Sunday, May 17, 2009
More Thinking About the Boss
In my last post I took a few minutes to recall a couple of the many really great bosses that I’ve had the pleasure to work with over the years. But when it comes to bosses, we all know there are two sides to the equation. For every good boss we’ve experienced there is at least one, and sometimes several, bad bosses.
Bad bosses come in a variety of flavors, much like ice cream:
• The Incompetent (Vanilla)
• The Screamer (Chocolate)
• The Politician (Strawberry)
But once you get past the basics, the flavors get much more exotic. For instance, I once had a boss who had an interesting strategy he used to show his boss that he was on top of things. Let’s refer to him as “Rocky Road.” Rocky Road would look at his staff, identify the “weak link,” and then begin the process of “coaching” that employee. Strangely, no one who was coach ever improved and each was, in turn, terminated. How did he determine the “weak link?” The only thing we knew for sure was that it had nothing to do with actual performance. But as soon as the target was identified we all knew it. And we could all predict when that person would have their “final coaching session."
I had another boss who I will refer to as “Peppermint Surprise.” This boss was so prone to mood swings that her secretary developed an alert system for the management team. The secretary kept a shark magnet on her filing case. When the shark was in the middle things were “normal”. When the shark was on the left, the boss had a good date the night before and you could bring in any problem or issue you wanted. But if the shark was on the right, you didn’t go near the office. And if you were summoned, you did not respond. This went on for 3 years and Peppermint Surprise never caught on.
Do you have a favorite flavor for your bad boss? We’d love to hear your stories and we’ll have a special gift for the best “worst boss.”
Until next time....
Dave Meyer
ECI Learning Systems, LLC
http://www.ecilearning.com/
Bad bosses come in a variety of flavors, much like ice cream:
• The Incompetent (Vanilla)
• The Screamer (Chocolate)
• The Politician (Strawberry)
But once you get past the basics, the flavors get much more exotic. For instance, I once had a boss who had an interesting strategy he used to show his boss that he was on top of things. Let’s refer to him as “Rocky Road.” Rocky Road would look at his staff, identify the “weak link,” and then begin the process of “coaching” that employee. Strangely, no one who was coach ever improved and each was, in turn, terminated. How did he determine the “weak link?” The only thing we knew for sure was that it had nothing to do with actual performance. But as soon as the target was identified we all knew it. And we could all predict when that person would have their “final coaching session."
I had another boss who I will refer to as “Peppermint Surprise.” This boss was so prone to mood swings that her secretary developed an alert system for the management team. The secretary kept a shark magnet on her filing case. When the shark was in the middle things were “normal”. When the shark was on the left, the boss had a good date the night before and you could bring in any problem or issue you wanted. But if the shark was on the right, you didn’t go near the office. And if you were summoned, you did not respond. This went on for 3 years and Peppermint Surprise never caught on.
Do you have a favorite flavor for your bad boss? We’d love to hear your stories and we’ll have a special gift for the best “worst boss.”
Until next time....
Dave Meyer
ECI Learning Systems, LLC
http://www.ecilearning.com/
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Thinking About the Boss
I was sitting here today just thinking about some of my old bosses. Some of those old bosses were really great. I enjoyed working for them, learned from them, and would work for them again in a second.
Of course, there were other bosses who were not so great. I not only wouldn’t work for them again, I would go to great lengths to avoid seeing them in public.
So I thought I would take the next two entries to talk about good bosses and bad bosses and to get your thoughts and stories about our old bosses as well.
Let’s start with the good bosses.
When I think about my very best bosses, a few names and stories come to mind.
Jim was a great boss. We were working on construction projects where timing was everything. When Jim first took over the organization we had a problem with missing our completion dates. Sometimes we missed by a few weeks. Other times we missed by months. These delays were costing the company millions of dollars.
Jim’s charge to us was simple. “Once we give a date for completion, we will meet that date. Once the date is set, the date don’t change.”
He posted “the date don’t change” on every wall in our building and, with that statement as our overriding goal, we got focused on a single clear goal. And, for the two years Jim was our boss, we didn’t miss a single construction date.
The date didn’t change.
Another boss named Ed impacted me in an entirely different way. He was one of my favorites because of the way he helped me grow. Often Ed would stop by my office after a big meeting and discuss what happened and why it happened. We would review what others in the room had done and what I had done. We also discussed explicitly, but in gentle terms, what I could have done better. Ed mentored me in ways that no other boss ever did. And he made me a better person for it.
So those are a couple of quick stories from me about some of my favorite bosses. Who were some of your favorite bosses, and what did they do that made them special to you?
We’d love to hear your stories.
Until next time.....
Dave Meyer
ECI Learning Systems, LLC
http://www.ecilearning.com/
Of course, there were other bosses who were not so great. I not only wouldn’t work for them again, I would go to great lengths to avoid seeing them in public.
So I thought I would take the next two entries to talk about good bosses and bad bosses and to get your thoughts and stories about our old bosses as well.
Let’s start with the good bosses.
When I think about my very best bosses, a few names and stories come to mind.
Jim was a great boss. We were working on construction projects where timing was everything. When Jim first took over the organization we had a problem with missing our completion dates. Sometimes we missed by a few weeks. Other times we missed by months. These delays were costing the company millions of dollars.
Jim’s charge to us was simple. “Once we give a date for completion, we will meet that date. Once the date is set, the date don’t change.”
He posted “the date don’t change” on every wall in our building and, with that statement as our overriding goal, we got focused on a single clear goal. And, for the two years Jim was our boss, we didn’t miss a single construction date.
The date didn’t change.
Another boss named Ed impacted me in an entirely different way. He was one of my favorites because of the way he helped me grow. Often Ed would stop by my office after a big meeting and discuss what happened and why it happened. We would review what others in the room had done and what I had done. We also discussed explicitly, but in gentle terms, what I could have done better. Ed mentored me in ways that no other boss ever did. And he made me a better person for it.
So those are a couple of quick stories from me about some of my favorite bosses. Who were some of your favorite bosses, and what did they do that made them special to you?
We’d love to hear your stories.
Until next time.....
Dave Meyer
ECI Learning Systems, LLC
http://www.ecilearning.com/
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Your Fairy Tale Life
"Every man’s life is a fairy tale, written by God’s hand." - Hans Christian Andersen
I love that quote. It inspires me. It makes me think of all the things that can happen on our journey through life and of all the possibilities that lie before us.
And every fairy tale follows a few key themes:
There is a handsome prince.
There is a fair maiden who will become his princess.
And there are obstacles; often major obstacles that must be overcome before the story can have a happy ending. Sometimes the obstacles are magical in nature, like the poison apple that put Snow White to sleep. Other times the obstacles involve humans, like the wicked stepmother and stepsisters in Cinderella. Or maybe the obstacle is an animal, like the wolf in Little Red Riding Hood.
In any case, the obstacles are often huge and seemingly impossible to overcome. This forces the character to live in constant fear or unhappiness, beneath its crushing weight.
But how do we get to the happy ending?
In every story with a happy ending you’ll find that the main character suddenly faces a choice. It’s never an easy choice, but a difficult choice that holds much risk as well as much reward. It’s only when they take the risk to do something different, and often frightening, that they are finally able to overcome the obstacle and create their own “happily ever after."
And the same is true of our lives. We face obstacles that seem insurmountable from a variety of sources. Some of us let the size of those obstacles scare us, forcing us to live in fear or unhappiness for most of our lives. Some of us never break the yokes of our obstacles and so our story never has a happy ending. To change your life, to find the happy ending that you so richly deserve means doing something different, stepping outside of your comfort zone and taking a risk.
Are you ready to write the next chapter in your own fairy tale? Are you ready to create the happy ending that you so richly deserve? There is no time like the present to create the happy ending to your fairy tale.
Until next time…..
Dave Meyer
ECI Learning Systems, LLC
http://www.ecilearning.com/
I love that quote. It inspires me. It makes me think of all the things that can happen on our journey through life and of all the possibilities that lie before us.
And every fairy tale follows a few key themes:
There is a handsome prince.
There is a fair maiden who will become his princess.
And there are obstacles; often major obstacles that must be overcome before the story can have a happy ending. Sometimes the obstacles are magical in nature, like the poison apple that put Snow White to sleep. Other times the obstacles involve humans, like the wicked stepmother and stepsisters in Cinderella. Or maybe the obstacle is an animal, like the wolf in Little Red Riding Hood.
In any case, the obstacles are often huge and seemingly impossible to overcome. This forces the character to live in constant fear or unhappiness, beneath its crushing weight.
But how do we get to the happy ending?
In every story with a happy ending you’ll find that the main character suddenly faces a choice. It’s never an easy choice, but a difficult choice that holds much risk as well as much reward. It’s only when they take the risk to do something different, and often frightening, that they are finally able to overcome the obstacle and create their own “happily ever after."
And the same is true of our lives. We face obstacles that seem insurmountable from a variety of sources. Some of us let the size of those obstacles scare us, forcing us to live in fear or unhappiness for most of our lives. Some of us never break the yokes of our obstacles and so our story never has a happy ending. To change your life, to find the happy ending that you so richly deserve means doing something different, stepping outside of your comfort zone and taking a risk.
Are you ready to write the next chapter in your own fairy tale? Are you ready to create the happy ending that you so richly deserve? There is no time like the present to create the happy ending to your fairy tale.
Until next time…..
Dave Meyer
ECI Learning Systems, LLC
http://www.ecilearning.com/
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