Leadership Articles

Leadership by definition is about a Leader taking a group of Followers to a defined destination. Without followers, or the destination, the ‘Leader’ is just a person going for a walk! The first step in Leadership is to get the followers to WANT to follow the Leader – to be the type of Leader a Team will respect and want to follow. This article gives useful Leadership skills and tips to help to win Team Members’ trust and respect. Effective Leadership is essential at a

Labor management and good leadership skills go hand in hand! There is no question that any company that employs people it will become one of their most volatile expense line items they have. Why? Because people are unpredictable! Everything from dips in productivity to changes in state and federal employment laws can drive costs up and/or rarely down. One employee law suit even for something unfounded can cost a company thousands of dollars. The company that understands this fact also understands how important good leadership skills are to controlling those costs.

Goal setting has been an established component in attempting to enhance one’s personal and professional life, as well as a catalyst for human motivation. It has also provided guidance for organizational strategy and individual achievement. Unfortunately, the process of goal setting has become unnecessarily complex and over analyzed for individuals and organizations to utilize on a daily basis.

For years women have been told that to succeed in the workplace, they need to “act more like men.” These days, however, that mindset is beginning to change and women are now being viewed as possessing special traits that enable them to be effective leaders. What are those traits? And, are gender stereotypes still posing challenges for women?

Have you seen a toddler cry for food and what happens when the mother turns a deaf ear to his plea for food? The child tries to drop a thing on the floor to draw attention. Soon the mother or another family member rushes to the child who is then comforted and given something to satiate his ...Have you seen a toddler cry for food and what happens when the mother turns a deaf ear to his plea for food? The child tries to drop a thing on the floor to draw attention. Soon the mother or another family member rushes to the child who is then comforted and given something to satiate his hunger.

Posted by Dr. Edward Knab Globalization has caused the world to shrink and most of us in one way or another do business with individuals across the globe. Developing a global perspective is an important aspect of building a global network which can be extremely helpful to your personal and career goals.

A survey developed by Robert Half International and independently conducted with 100 Canadian senior executives between September 15 and October 15, 2008 stated that 35% of the senior executives had employee retention as their greatest staffing concern. Max Messmer, chairman and CEO of Robert Half International, states "Companies that lose top performers may not only experience declines in productivity but also incur significant costs in replacing these professionals." Furthe

On December 21, 1937, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Disney’s first full-length animated musical feature, premiered at the Carthay Theater in Los Angeles. No doubt one of my favorite Disney creations. As you know, the story’s villainess, Queen Adorée would greet her magic mirror each ...

Copyright 2004 Don’t let the stress of election day cancel yourvote. The elections on Nov. 2, 2004, give you achance to help decide who will be the nextpresident of the USA as well as many state andlocal officials. Many people fail to vote because they are notprepared ahead of time, and the ...

You must give birth to your images. They are the future waiting to be born. Fear not the strangeness that you feel. The future must enter you long before itrnhappens. Just wait for the birth, for the hour of new clarity. (Ranier Maria Rilke) The real work of leaders—the single most important thing a leader does—is create and hold a dream, a vision of what the world, or some part of it, will be in the future.

Got Milk? Feed Your Inner Mouse I often fancifully imagine a snake, mouse, and monkey inside myself. My last message focused on meeting our core for safety and was titled "I love Lucy." This Message focuses on our core need for satisfaction - broadly defined - with the hopefully not too goofy title "Got Milk? Feed Your Inner Mouse." Feed the mouse. As the nervous system evolved, your brain developed in three stages: * Reptile - Brainstem, focused on avoiding harmrn(I love Lucy - pet your inner snake) * Mammal - Limbic system, focused on approaching rewardsr

“I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living. It’s a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope, which is what I do, and that enables you to laugh at life’s realities.” – Dr. Seuss (1904-1991) U.S. cartoonist and writer Recently I ...

Many people in leadership positions struggle with understanding what makes a great leader. While billions of dollars are spent annually on leadership development, quality leadership is still in short supply. For example, the move towards total quality has inspired many organizations to take a long, hard look at building their leadership capacity. Quality management systems such as Baldrige, ISO 9000, European Foundation for Quality and the Canadian National Quality Institute

Most attempts to define leadership refer to one or more characteristics of a leader or to an action that a leader takes, such as providing a vision, getting things done through people, or challenging the status quo. Problematically, these are mere descriptions, not definitions. The individualistic actions a leader chooses to take and the idiosyncratic traits a leader exhibits do not reflect the essence of leadership.

I live in a part of the U.S. that received a once-a-decade snowfall last week. At least 12,000 flights were cancelled. Millions of people were home from work, rearranging untold numbers of meetings and assignments. Such rapid change is commonplace in our world today. Snow is forecast. Other changes are not. How you deal with it determines your positive success at work. Here are five secret steps the positively successful take in response to such rapid change: Relaxr

In order to grow your business, you're going to have to trust that your staff members are capable of getting the job's done that you assign to them. That means you're going to have to do something that may be uncomfortable for some of you and easy for others.

This book review was provided by Joe Farcht , the Official Guide to Leadership Skills. Leadership Skills are the tools and traits acquired to facilitate guiding or a directing a group, most commonly toward a shared goal. nnJoe Farcht has identified Leadership by Rudolph W. Giuliani and Ken Kurson as a valuable resource for people interested in leadership skills and it is avaialble through Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble .nn Barnes & Noble Review nIn the aftermath of the devas

Most business owners will admit that one of the more costly portions of managing a business is training new employees. Turnover causes disruptions in the workflow, increased workloads for those who stay on the job and uses huge blocks of time screening and hiring replacements. When people leave an organization, it is a costly enterprise to replace them.

By: Renée Cormier The road to developing extraordinary customer experiences shouldn’t be riddled with pot holes, but it often is. Managers want to know how to get their people to care enough to go the extra mile while customers are fed a line of excuses that would choke a bull. “We’re so busy.” “The truck didn’t come in.” “We only do what we are told.” “That’s our policy.” Here’s the thing about customers: they don’t care why you can’t do something, or why you failed to deliver. They only care that their expectations were not met.

We celebrate all sorts of things in our lives; birthdays, anniversaries, championships … achievements of all sorts. We celebrate all of these things individually or with our family and friends and they bring us great joy and satisfaction. We all like know “how” to celebrate, but many of us ...

"Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek." Barack Obaman Are You Thriving or Striving Right Now?n n Everywhere we turn each day, there's more negative news about the financial markets, ...

It’s challenging enough for most of us to do more with less at work as we’re all forced to do in this economy. But when Eeyore Vampires—negative people—invade, the dark shadows take over. I refer to negative people as “Eeyore Vampires” because just like Winnie the Pooh’s friend, Eeyore, negative people respond to most everything with “It’ll never work.” They are “Vampires” because these negative people morph at sunset into creatures who fly around your thoughts and suck time, energy, and attention away from enjoying your family and friends.

College basketball’s annual trek up the Final Four mountain has started. While the school names change from year to year, the qualities of championship caliber teams are consistent. What are they? And how can you learn from them to win championships at work? Here are 3 Key Strategies to Positively Win as a Team as you Work Positive: Play Offense and Defenser Championship teams know how to score a lot of points and how to keep the other team from scoring as many. Lots of teams excel at one or the other. Championship teams do both well.

The new normal, if there is such a thing, is all about the workforce, the client and the consumer – they want to know you have their best interests at heart. They are bombarded daily with an information tsunami via electronic communications but the one thing they lack: personal connections. It can be argued that they are always connected but the reality is they are constantly in contact but never connected. And, even their contacts are seldom long term. So for them the new n

Lately it seems that almost every day I hear from a human resource professional who is struggling to talk with someone in their organization about their image. Personal image can be a very private, personal, and difficult thing to talk about, after all. Who among us wants to find out that our interpretation of the dress code was wrong or that our image is not a positive reflection of the one the boss envisions?

It's been my experience and the experience of thousands of doctors around the world who understand that a high quality staff can affect the ultimate outcome of their patients response to treatment. I have found that many times the patients will share their experiences with the staff when they feel uncomfortable sharing them with the doctor. One of the most common questions I get from physicians is; How do we find quality staff members, who will care about our patients?

Abraham Lincoln wrote: "Extemporaneous speaking should be practiced and cultivated; it is the lawyer's avenue to the public. However able and faithful he may be in other respects, people are slow to bring him business, if he cannot make a speech."rn rnWhen Lincoln spoke of extemporaneous speaking, he did not mean making totally unprepared speeches—"winging it" we might call it today. Few speakers can trust the moment or raw talent for a good speech. Very, very few. rn rnYea

Public Enemy No. 1 for leadership and management is distracted focus. It leads to lack of clarity and reduces personal and workforce engagement, productivity and performance. Change the focus dynamic in your life and you will improve your personal performance, engage your team and improve long term success. Unclear goals and distracted focus slow your productivity and limit profitability. You can eliminate distracted focus and harness it to maximize productivity by first ackn

SPEAK DIRECTLY K S Venkataraman It is a very common occurrence in life to see some people talking not directly. It is a trick employed by mischief-mongers to provoke somebody else in the group or present in the vicinity.

On what does a strong sense of self-worth-confidence-depend? Money? Good looks? High intelligence? Nice clothes? An important job? An expensive car? Love? Helping other people? What if I were to tell you, you can be confident without any of that? Do not believe me? Well, in fact, it is true. Just as you can smile for no particular reason (simply raise the corner of your mouth) and laugh for no particular reason (try it) you also can be confident without any particular reason. You do not need permission from anybody to be confident. Many people think confidence has to be based on achievements.

The Art of Being Outrageously Successful! Prologue: My personal definition: you love your life, love what you do, love who you do it with, you are able to contribute and make a difference in the lives of others, you are financially secure, you get what you want most if not all of the time, and you have the freedom to do whatever you want to do, whenever you want to do it, with whomever you want to do it with. The Journey begins: Back in the late 80s, I met a man who was the s

When you fail, when you make a mistake, keep your head—unless you can think of a lot of situations that were actually improved by panic. And, own up to your mistake—to yourself and to any others involved. Anyone who doesn't realize that's the best course of action hasn't been paying much ...

Being a leader comes with a laundry list of associated traits. Everything from a sense of loyalty to a risktaking spirit to a family man attitude has been listed as a necessary requirement of leadership. But leadershp isn’t just about the characteristics you do have. It’s also the mistakes you don’t make, the assumptions you fail to challenge and the opportunities you don’t miss. If you’re looking to improve your managerial and leadership skills, you can spend days being told

Leaders have an unquenchable thirst for knowledge; they have to know; they have to learn; they have to get as much information as possible. Leaders seek to learn from the experiences of other people to include those captured in the form of biographies, autobiographies, organizational histories, and life stories. Leaders want to know how other leaders have fared in their leadership journey; how they thought; what they did; what they learned…they want to constructively use other leaders’ life experience as a model to live by…a model to learn from.

Most business executives talk about the importance of collaborating with others. When it comes to execution, however, their behavior often violates this espoused belief. Why? Because "getting things done" becomes a higher priority than "getting people on board." Fearing being perceived as indecisive, some execs make lots of decisions themselves that others in their organizations are better qualified to make. They put people in jobs but fail to set and convey specific, measura

It's far easier to make someone else a believe when you're a believe yourself. Let’s say you have a health problem and you go to a doctor. You want him to listen, evaluate and investigate. When he makes his recommendation, you want to hear as much confidence as possible. "Andrew, you've ...

Talk to ten people and nine of them will tell you they believe in goal setting. These nine people will tell you that goals are important, that they can help you be happier and healthier, and that they are the best and fastest way to achieve more in life. I would agree with those nine ...

Lets face it, most meetings being held right now, and the thousands more scheduled for tomorrow, will be boring as hell and a poor use of time. Why? Because they’re not effectively lead. Your average meeting leader and participant alike thinks it’s easy to hold a stupid meeting. They’re absolutely right. It's easy to hold a "stupid" meeting. Unfortunately, that's the way most of them turn out. And it's because few of us see the importance of "meeting process." We are masters of production, but we tend to neglect "how" we get things done. This has got to change.

There is a duality of feelings when a co-worker is laid off. The sudden feeling of relief, accompanied by instant fear of being next, along with the emotions of survivors guilt, are all present, washing over them simultaneously. And what happens next can be even worse. They suddenly find themselves thrown into the fire, expected to pick up the slack, replace their fallen comrades, fill their roles at peak performance and maintain a positive attitude. Truly frightening, with

What is that one thing business owners should always look for? The answer: trying to grow and improve themselves more and more. A business owner who knows how to run his company also knows how to motivate and make his employees feel appreciated. He also knows how to handle his business partners and ultimately how to satisfy his customers. The process of becoming an efficient business owner is not an easy one. It takes a lot of effort and determination, skills, and knowledge,

Loyalty is defined as commitment or allegiance to a person, a group, or a cause. Sounds clear enough but loyalty often gets skewed in the workplace. Here are some examples where loyalty is distorted: * A manager thinks an employee is being disloyal because he or she questioned what the manager was doing. * A manager hears an opinion that he doesn't like from an employee and thinks he or she is being disloyal for speaking the truth. * A manager thinks an employee is being disl

"There are three ingredients in the good life: learning, earning and yearning." - Christopher Morley (1890-1957 - American jou alist, novelist, essayist & poet) I would arrange Morley's ingredients for the good life in this fashion: yearning, learning and earning. Yearning is the catalyst to ...

When people ask me about my business, I tell them I’m in the learning business – that we help organizations, teams and individuals reach their potential through learning. This is a fine statement and it does describe the breadth of what we do, but it often leads to the follow-up question like . ...

As America’s unemployment rate stays stuck at the 9% level, one of my highest priorities is working toward policies that get Americans back to work. This country has a long history which proves that Government stimulus programs may create jobs for the short term but that high paying jobs that last over the long term are generated by startups, as well as small, medium and large businesses as they expand and grow their businesses.

Facial Speak I've been watching the Jodie Arias Death Penalty trial for the past three weeks. For those of you who aren't familiar with this case, here is a little information about her. Jodi Arias, 32, is accused of first degree murder in the death of her former boyfriend, Travis Alexander. Prosecutors say that in the summer of 2008, after the couple had broken up, Arias stabbed Alexander 27 times, slit his throat and shot him in the head as he showered in his Mesa, Ariz., home.

As an entrepreneur and business owner I see examples of innovation everywhere, I think it is part of the entrepreneurial DNA! We have to solve problems every day but luckily most of them are not life and death situations. The world had an amazing lesson in innovation last month with the 33 Chilean miners who survived for 69 days buried a half a mile into the earth. Now that a few weeks have passed and we have been able to reflect on their ordeal, we can all take away key nugg

Leadership was on display as the audience hung on every word uttered two weeks ago in Ft. Lauderdale, FL by Bob Danzig, former nationwide head of the Hearst Newspaper Group and vice president of the Hearst Corporation. For 20 years this industry giant was the epitome of what leadership should be in the 21st century. He used engagement techniques and conversational communication skills long before they ever had a name. Danzig’s leadership philosophy was summed up in eight simp

Imagine driving through a quiet countryside toward town. You round a curve in a narrow country road and come upon a traffic jam ahead. Cars in front of you are backed up around the next curve. Cars coming toward you are evenly spaced out and accelerating up to speed, as if they have stopped for ...

Decision making is an essential business and leadership skill, and whether you’re a CEO hammering out strategy with your vice presidents or a soccer coach whose team is choosing new uniforms, it’s your influence ‘behind the scenes’ that ultimately determines how successful the final decision will be. Or so says Harvard Business School's Michael A. Roberto in his book "Why Great Leaders Don't Take Yes for an Answer".

Last week, my big desktop PC crashed, my laptop got the "blue screen: of death". The refrigerator croaked, and the toaster oven went the heaven. My I-phone decided to stop receiving e-mail and the dashboard in my car kept erroneously sending warning messages. It wasn't even a full moon! As marvelous as all our technology is, chronic malfunctions and crashes and the constant demand to keep up might account for the fact that at least one in four of us will admit to physically assaulting a device.