1. Act Like a Human
Organizations run by a closed group of executives hovering above in the "C - suite" are falling. Leading Without A Title, where everyone is a key player is the new way to win in business. This fresh method of leading means that leaders not only master the essential skills but also understand how to act human. You can't treat human beings like capital - you will lose your greatest talent.
Acting human engages people - human engagement facilitates others towards their brilliance. A refreshing burst of humanity at the office outlasts and outshines the paycheck, the office with the view, or driving the company car. As the lights go out on the stage of old-school leadership, acting human is your game-changing solution.
2. Be One of the Few Who Perfect the Endangered Craft
It's an amazing time to be alive. Revolutionary technological innovation to enhance our lives, freedom of choice to create the life you love, and the daily opportunity to choose from an endless list of beautiful rewards. Yet an insatiable hunger still lingers inside each one of us - the hunger to be heard. I'm talking about the transformative experience that happens when someone truly listens and totally gets where you are at. I'm talking about listening at the level you feel like the listener is hanging onto each one of your words like they are the most important words in the world.
The new leadership is all about relationships with people. And you can't relate without listening. It's impossible. Yet engaged listening is a craft rarely mastered by leaders. You can have the most competent leader in the world, but if he doesn't listen his leadership potential will go unrealized.
Feeding the hunger to be heard brings out the best in people. People will trust you, respect you and shatter their limitations for you when you give them the gift of listening.
3. Be Scarce
We tend to value that which is scarce. We put a premium on objects and experiences we believe will run out: a Limited edition Gucci Ronson sneaker, a two week showing of Michael Jackson's This Is It. Reserve wine. We are impacted and motivated most by that which we don't come across everyday or that which comes in a limited supply. If you are seeking to create long term loyalty in your business relationships, ask yourself what is noticeably scarce? Is it generosity? Authenticity? Encouragement? Spot the scarcity and rock it.
4. Be the Most Positive Person in the Room
Today there is perpetual buzz about the state of the economy, the shock of once-admired organizations collapsing before our eyes and the alarming daily rate of bankruptcy. Yes this is current reality however, focusing relentlessly on negativity is subscribing to failure.
Powerful leaders neutralize the infectious cycle of negativity; they deploy hope where it's seemingly forsaken. Enlisting yourself as the most positive person in the room breaks the binds of negativity. Change the music and people will either stop dancing or start dancing a new step. Either way, it will set a precedence - "negativity is what everybody else is doing - we are the organization that refuses its limitations." Utilize the power of positivity to step up and make today better than yesterday.
5. Go Bigger than Your Paycheck
Just when we thought Apple couldn't wow us anymore they showcased innovation with the iPad, the tablet computer. Amazing. You might not love the design but you have to love how Apple delivers surprise above and beyond. Have the audacity to go bigger than your role. If a colleague is struggling to meet a deadline or lagging in productivity, don't be the first to point out the deficiency, be the first to roll up your sleeves and do whatever it takes to help out. Knock the status quo "it's not my job" to its knees and do more than you are paid for.
6. Be the Perfect Investment
When it comes to your relationships, be a dream investment: low cost with exceptional high return. Prove to be a no gossip, no games, no regrets, no maintenance investment of other people's time and focus. Manage yourself with others at the highest level possible - a.k.a with grace.
7. Get Naked in Your Conversations
Make your conversations count. Speak with candor. Brave the real issue. Say only that which is helpful: don't use your words to criticize or divide. Anybody can do that. Be radically honest, define reality. Trust is born out of the truth. Sloganeering and masking the truth breeds mistrust and disrespect. Go to the difficult truths and people will go the mile with you.
8. Get Famous for Reliability
Next time a teammate or department is unexpectedly riding the wild rapids, be the person out in the water risking the rapids with them. Become known for acts of reliability.
Every single person needs to take ownership of the organization's results. Everyone needs to take responsibility for what does or does not get accomplished in a day. Anyone can reach success if they consistently do the right things. Reliability, no matter what, is the right thing. Reliability translates into ownership and taking ownership is a way to present yourself as a leader.
9. Turn Everyone Into a Cover Story
Commit to noticing everyone. The young new associate in the elevator on Monday morning, the CFO's assistant, the receptionist, the customers, the interns... Remember everyone's contributions, what's important to her, what he does well, and what makes everyone smile. Everyone is worthy of being the next cover story and leaders show it.
In leadership,
Source : Robin Sharma News Letter
Regards,
Archsoft Technologies
http://www.archsofttechnologies.com
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Four Tips for Effective Leadership
Four Tips for Effective Leadership
by Agatha Gilmore
As companies continue to try to chart a course for 2010, there's no question that sound leadership will be one of the key ingredients for success.
"As economies change and accelerate, it becomes more and more important to be more effective in our leadership," said Kris Girrell, a senior partner with Camden Consulting Group.
However, leading in this new business environment requires a specific set of skills that may or may not be immediately apparent to today's executives. It's up to chief learning officers to provide effective leadership coaching. Girrell said there are four key behaviors that should be encouraged.
1. Live comfortably in the gray area.
"One of the key critical skills of senior leaders is the ability to deal with uncertainty," Girrell said. "When you talk about top management, they're really looking out into the fog. It's all ambiguous, and it's literally almost making it up day by day, trying to figure out what changes in the economy and changes in the wind and changes in the pleasures of the customer base are going to be.
"I think the second part of the answer is that we've gotten very technologically good in business, in our society; kids have more horsepower at their fingertips than most people ever imagined 15, 20, 30 years ago," he continued. "We have all this technology that can take care of the details of things and get the information, but what's not embedded in the technology is the ability to think, to have critical thought and analyze and extrapolate from the data. It becomes even more important because the acceleration that's provided by all the technical tools really requires a lot more skill on the top end from our executives on how to use [it]."
2. Be counterintuitive.
"What's logical to the executive, or what's logical to any of us, as the next thing to do comes from how we already do stuff. So it's more of the same," Girrell explained. "Doing more of the same only gets you more of the same results. A good coach really thinks and asks questions that push you beyond your known level into the unknown, and that's kind of an iffy territory. That's where coaching starts. They're outside of the box of thinking."
3. Learn by doing - and trust others to do so, too.
"What an executive often [experiences] is, 'I don't have anybody I can delegate this to; nobody really has the skill set that is required.' Well, in actuality, so many upper-level skills can only be developed by being in the position that requires that upper-level skill," Girrell said. "We forget that what develops us is hardship. If you look back on the real formative events of your life, the things that made you [great], it wasn't sitting on the beach sipping a mai tai. It was being in the cauldron. It was really being under fire and having to deal with some high-pressure situations. You've got to be comfortable with uncomfortable - and pushing a person to that level of discomfort."
4. Exercise soft skills.
"Much of what we do is in the realm not of skills, [but] in the realm of personality or spirituality or ethics. The only way to develop ethics is in these terrible dilemmas where you have to make a ruling, and there isn't a right or a wrong to the answer. The really hard skills don't have a right and wrong way to do them."
Ultimately, honing these four skills will help executives develop into effective, passionate leaders. After all, as Girrell put it, "We're going through a particularly turbulent time, and it's just vitally important that we have some leaders with integrity and effectiveness at the helm."
[About the Author: Agatha Gilmore is a senior editor for Chief Learning Officer magazine.]
Regards,
Archsoft Technologies
http://www.archsofttechnologies.com
by Agatha Gilmore
As companies continue to try to chart a course for 2010, there's no question that sound leadership will be one of the key ingredients for success.
"As economies change and accelerate, it becomes more and more important to be more effective in our leadership," said Kris Girrell, a senior partner with Camden Consulting Group.
However, leading in this new business environment requires a specific set of skills that may or may not be immediately apparent to today's executives. It's up to chief learning officers to provide effective leadership coaching. Girrell said there are four key behaviors that should be encouraged.
1. Live comfortably in the gray area.
"One of the key critical skills of senior leaders is the ability to deal with uncertainty," Girrell said. "When you talk about top management, they're really looking out into the fog. It's all ambiguous, and it's literally almost making it up day by day, trying to figure out what changes in the economy and changes in the wind and changes in the pleasures of the customer base are going to be.
"I think the second part of the answer is that we've gotten very technologically good in business, in our society; kids have more horsepower at their fingertips than most people ever imagined 15, 20, 30 years ago," he continued. "We have all this technology that can take care of the details of things and get the information, but what's not embedded in the technology is the ability to think, to have critical thought and analyze and extrapolate from the data. It becomes even more important because the acceleration that's provided by all the technical tools really requires a lot more skill on the top end from our executives on how to use [it]."
2. Be counterintuitive.
"What's logical to the executive, or what's logical to any of us, as the next thing to do comes from how we already do stuff. So it's more of the same," Girrell explained. "Doing more of the same only gets you more of the same results. A good coach really thinks and asks questions that push you beyond your known level into the unknown, and that's kind of an iffy territory. That's where coaching starts. They're outside of the box of thinking."
3. Learn by doing - and trust others to do so, too.
"What an executive often [experiences] is, 'I don't have anybody I can delegate this to; nobody really has the skill set that is required.' Well, in actuality, so many upper-level skills can only be developed by being in the position that requires that upper-level skill," Girrell said. "We forget that what develops us is hardship. If you look back on the real formative events of your life, the things that made you [great], it wasn't sitting on the beach sipping a mai tai. It was being in the cauldron. It was really being under fire and having to deal with some high-pressure situations. You've got to be comfortable with uncomfortable - and pushing a person to that level of discomfort."
4. Exercise soft skills.
"Much of what we do is in the realm not of skills, [but] in the realm of personality or spirituality or ethics. The only way to develop ethics is in these terrible dilemmas where you have to make a ruling, and there isn't a right or a wrong to the answer. The really hard skills don't have a right and wrong way to do them."
Ultimately, honing these four skills will help executives develop into effective, passionate leaders. After all, as Girrell put it, "We're going through a particularly turbulent time, and it's just vitally important that we have some leaders with integrity and effectiveness at the helm."
[About the Author: Agatha Gilmore is a senior editor for Chief Learning Officer magazine.]
Regards,
Archsoft Technologies
http://www.archsofttechnologies.com
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