Leadership Articles

You’re increasing your sales. Your team is more productive. You get out of the office earlier to do what you love with those you love… …and yet there’s something missing. You struggle to keep all the business plates spinning simultaneously. It’s exhausting to be you some days. Your family and friends ask, “Are you okay?” The missing something is Gratitude. Here are 3 Ways to Positively Grow Your Business with Gratitude: Gratitude Focuses on the Positiver You see what you look for. Is your default zoom set on what’s wrong with your business? That’s a source of exhaustion.

I wonder what someone would have called you if you had suggested, say 30 or even 20 years ago, that people would get their news and ideas from a handheld TV used as a telephone. What would you have said to the person 30 years ago who suggested that you would “meet” people all over the globe using a computer? Be honest. We’re talking about 1981, the year the PC first shipped.

Have Too Much On Your Plate? So, are you busy like most people these days? I often feel like the circus performer who spins plates on those long poles. It’s all fun and games until you add one more plate and all of them come crashing down! Do you even know everything you have on your plate? ...

The most common sentence I receive in coaching today is, “We’ve gone through a lot of changes and more are coming.” Ironically, each client believes their situation is unique. It’s all of us. Some of us are excited by it. Others are terrified. Most are just trying to keep up. So how do you increase sales with greater team productivity and get out of the office earlier while experiencing a fire hose volume of change? Invite your customers to show you how. Here are 3 Strategies to Positively Profit from Change: Focus on Changer

Can you achieve results without authority? The simple answer is yes. The challenge is how to do it. Each of us have a limited amount of authority. And the positional authority that comes with our title enables us to have some influence, but far less than what is required to get the work done. In order to get things done on time and with the highest quality expected so you can meet the demands and expectations of our customers and those with whom we work, we need to rely on ot

It was the summer of 1995 and I was in the middle of my 10th season leading a professional baseball franchise, when I was forced to face my shortcomings as an organizational leader. After a very destructive altercation between key members of our organization’s leadership team, I had to address the fact that I was steeped in a leadership style built on “avoiding and tolerating”, challenging employee performance and behavior issues.

Even if you put all the sense of benevolence and innate goodness of character that you possess and put them into action, to ‘help’ someone, who you think is in distress or living in a dysfunctional world, it is likely that you and your gesture would be turned down. Any one who has tried to help ...Even if you put all the sense of benevolence and innate goodness of character that you possess and put them into action, to ‘help’ someone, who you think is in distress or living in a dysfunctional world, it is likely that you and your gesture would be turned down.

I’m betting you’ve had the same experience I have in most organizational brainstorming sessions. You are in a room with beige (or otherwise boring) walls and a conference table. Sometime during the meeting, there is a problem or challenge identified. Someone standing near a flipchart or ...

When you find yourself in an environment which supports and nurtures your physical, emotional and spiritual well-being, you know without doubt, you're in a fantastic place Are you a leader in your own life? Do you eagerly embrace the challenges or are you reluctant to accept responsibility? Do you approach your duties with dedication, compassion and commitment? We are all Leaders whether or not we know it. It means we quietly go about assisting others to be the best they can.r

Are organizational boxes keeping you imprisoned in the “we’ve always done it this way” mode? Are you finding it impossible to rapidly adapt to change within existing bureaucratic confines? The workforce that begins in confining boxes stays confined and cannot work to its highest potential. Workers cannot become fully engaged, maximize productivity or work at peak performance because they are always bumping into barriers that prevent forward movement. Nor can they cope with c

Being in leadership gives you a unique viewpoint, a “bird’s eye view” of what’s happening in your organization and with your team. It’s this view point that gives you the objectivity and the wisdom to lead your team to places beyond their current position, and that’s a good thing. However, being in this position almost always causes you to lose another valuable perspective: the worm’s eye view. The worm’s eye view is being able to see things from the perspective of those who

I hope you’ve been watching the Olympics these last few days. If not, it’s worth the time to watch the best athletes in the world perform. Each event is packed with great lessons on personal leadership as well as a view of what people can accomplish who are at the top of their game. ...

“Dr. Joey,” she asked. “Why is it to be gone on vacation for one week, I have to do two extra weeks of work? One before I leave, and the other when I get back?” Have you ever wondered that? Sure seems that way, doesn’t it? Here are 3 Strategies to Avoid Vacation Anxiety: Describe Statusr Have a meeting with yourself and describe the status of each of the projects receiving your primary attention currently. How far along are you? Where are you on the project timeline? Will any status reports require filing while you’re gone? What must you accomplish before you leave?

Today is a tough one but a good one, because if you can master this step then there will be nothing holding you back from becoming a great sports leader you know you can be! What I am talking about is the ability to overcome criticism. As sports leaders we are the ones in the spotlight, we are the ones that cop the flack when something goes wrong, and we are the ones that need to hold it all together and pick up the pieces when all else fails. I want to give you 5 strategies that will help you conquer that criticism and move on, stronger, better and wiser for having experienced it…

Joni showed up at her boss Bob`s office more frustrated than he`d ever seen her. Joni was a relatively new supervisor and had been developing well - but on this day, she seemed, well, different. When Bob asked what was wrong her frustration came out immediately. "What do you do when people don`t want to change," she asked hopefully but almost rhetorically. Bob smiled and asked her to explain. "You know the new system we are implementing?" she said. "Well, after this long chan

Only six per cent of Americans love their jobs. Stress-induced depression is on the rise and predicted to be the leading occupational disease responsible for more work days lost than any other single factor. And poor communication in the workplace is a leading cause of job dissatisfaction. If everyone would like to work in a thriving, enlivening and nurturing environment, why is it that almost no one loves being at work? Why is it that most of us simply acquiesce when confron

When your life is meaningful, fulfilling and purposeful you carry in your heart the passion to create something extraordinary for others and for yourself Wouldn’t the world be a great place if we all discovered happiness! What if we had the opportunity to find our purpose in life? Imagine for a moment how awesome the world would be: How fabulous we would feel: We’d be empowered, enriched and fulfilled.r

U.S. citizens cast their vote for the next President, Vice-President, and a host of congressional leaders this week. Attention focuses on this once-every-four-years activity with a virtual obsession. Yet, there is a more important vote you as a business professional cast and more often than every four years. While government leaders are important, your leadership in business has a significant, daily impact on you and the people around you.

Lately I’ve been hearing heard a common theme amongst many of the senior leaders I coach and that is: they are tired, frustrated, overwhelmed and overworked. Maybe it’s the time of year but many of these leaders feel they have little control over how they spend and manage their time since they are regularly responding to “urgent requests” from their executive leadership team. And, more often than not, these requests are not something they can delegate to their direct reports. As you may be able to understand, they are in fire-fighting mode more often than they want (or need) to be.

One of the most important thing that you can do to increase your Authenticity Ratio and ensure your success is to ACKNOWLEDGE the people you interact with on a day to day basis. It's a principle that is so rarely used that some might even regard acknowledgement as a "secret". You might be thinking "really? How is acknowledging other people going to help to make me successful?"

Daily someone sends something to us that promises to get our message out there and insure we are heard above the competition for our customers’ attention. It reminds me of trying to quiet my two-year-old daughter’s department store tantrums by yelling. The only attentio I received was louder cries and suspicious glares of child abuse. Are you abusing your customers by yelling your company’s features at them? Instead positively listen to your customers. Yes, it’s counterintuitive, but it grows your bottom line and that’s what you want, right?

A man was hired to paint the stripes down the middle of Main Street. The boss issued him a can of paint and a paintbrush and checked up on him after an hour and he noticed he was making reasonable progress. When the boss visited him at lunchtime, he saw that progress had slowed dramatically. ...

You can call it intuition, quantum physics, faith, or just a honed and polished ability to listen to your gut as you navigate the fiercely competitive world of business. But whatever name you give it or however you prefer to explain, the fact is that sometimes there are definite signs that we are either veering off track or heading in the right direction.

Do you think you are a leader? I do—I think we are all leaders in different ways. Some of us just don’t know it yet. Some have known it all our lives, and have taken on the “burden” of leadership naturally. What comes to mind for you when you think of a leader? A lot of people might think of the Abraham Lincoln’s of the world. He was certainly a great leader; one of the greatest in my opinion. There have been a lot of great leaders throughout the ages that have led

Much is written today about workforce engagement, productivity, and performance yet few lay out a basic strategy for aligning the workforce with a company's expectations and long-term goals. According to Erik Breggren, Vice President of global research and customer results, SuccessFactors, "Our research shows that companies that invest in the ability to execute, aligning goals to strategy while creating a performance-based culture, experience higher shareholder returns. Conn

One way professionals convey a powerful presence is through proper business introduction etiquette. We make introductions before important business meetings, at networking events, and at social business affairs. But unfortunately few professionals use introduction opportunities to leverage their perception as a connector of people and a savvy business person who stays on top of etiquette and protocol. Learn the art of proper business introductions to stand out as an individual who knows how to navigate any social situation as a gracious professional.

Enjoy Home Cooks With Hamilton Beach 33967 6-quart slow cooker: The Hamilton Beach 33967 6-quart slow cooker is perfect when you want to enjoy home cooked food despite having little time to cook. It is really easy to use as you just need to add the ingredients to is stoneware pot, place the pot into the base and select one of the 3 cooking options from the LED digital control panel. The 3 available cooking modes are program, manual or probe. Specified Time To Cook Food With Hamilton Beach 339676:

Some people really struggle with the task of defining their purpose and finding their vocational path. Not everyone has a sense of calling for one specific profession or has the clear sense of what they were born to do. Many times, these are people with multiple talents and interests who have the ability to be successful in several different areas. It is possible to get hung up on the idea that there is one specific career path or one specific purpose you need to express thro

Forget "fight or flight" as the only duo of responses in the face of stress. For women, there's a third response: "befriend". A landmark UCLA study turned five decades of stress research on its head with the revelation that a cascade of brain chemicals gives women a larger behavioral repertoire ...

Your success is controlled by your thoughts. Do you have control over your thoughts? Sadly, the vast majority of people don't. The quality of the questions you ask yourself and the quality of your answers will dictate the degree of success and fulfillment in your life. When something goes ...

Most executives’ hiring skills are sorely lacking. A couple of years ago, I consulted with a medium-sized company’s Board of Directors to sharpen their recruiting and selection of senior executives from the outside, after a couple of bad hiring decisions had nearly buried the company. As a first step, I completed a post-mortem of a couple of catastrophic hiring decisions with the chairman and executive committee. Both revealing and disturbing, these experiences are also i

In my workshops on productivity and leadership, “Change the People or Change the People” is one of the most popular tips I share. It helps the attendees understand more clearly the roles and responsibilities of managers, supervisors, and executives, and the roles and responsibilities of the employees. Over the next few months I will provide a short series of articles discussing similar tips that I have developed, based on some very consistent issues, problems or challenges th

The latest rage in self development circles today is a CD and Book called “The Secret”. People have even been on Oprah and Larry King promoting the concept of the powers in the universe. The basis of success according to The Secret is a law in the universe called – “The Law of ...

Written by: Dr. Bob Rausch As someone who has experienced a panic attack before can attest to, it can be very alarming, especially if you are in a leadership position of running a small business. Small business can bring many stressors, so it’s important to keep your cool and keep your emotions in check before you let yourself get to the level of having anxiety attack. The first reason for anxiety in a leader: the Need to Prove. Everyday we want to prove to others that we ca

"Fine art is that in which the hand, the head, and the heart go together." — John Ruskin, 19th century English critic, artist and social reformer Too often, we see the world in narrow binary, either/or terms. Odd or even, closed or open, introverted or extroverted, individual or group, profitable or unprofitable, rational or irrational, right or wrong, real or imagined, hard or soft, emotional or dispassionate, and vertical or horizontal are common examples of how we try to

If you subscribe to many newsletters, magazines or newspapers, you’ve been inundated with articles on New Year’s Resolutions over the past few weeks. Tired of reading various recommendations on how to make and keep my resolutions, I thought it might be informative to see if the history of this ...

For our purposes, the Law of Reciprocity states: If you do something nice for someone, human nature dictates that the recipient will feel compelled to do something nice for you in return. It is in essence: "you reap what you sow". This is an irrefutable law and one that you should teach your salespeople. The question of will someone actually act upon it at a given time depends on who asks. At the precise moment that you do something nice for someone, the other person feels co

"Without passion man is a mere latent force and possibility, like the flint which awaits the shock of the iron before it can fire forth its spark." — Henry Amiel Strong leaders are very good at aligning individual interests, strengths, and goals with the work that needs to be done. To paraphrase Joseph Campbell's famous dictum, they help people follow their bliss. Peter Drucker once observed, "Whenever anything is being accomplished, it is being done, I have learned, by a m

Welcome home! These two small words carry potent possibilities for creating a connection that evokes loyalty and teamwork. Yet, one seldom thinks of "welcome home" in the context of work. In fact, it is only through recent incidents that I have become acutely aware of the power this gesture holds. Scene ONE: a world away in the remote regions of the western Himalayas. Our team had been warned of the dangers in crossing the white water rivers fed by glacier melt.

Effective leadership is the result of acting according to reliable practices as well as intuition. Managers as leaders use sound management and leadership principles to guide and direct their actions and activities. They know where they want to go and what specifically needs to be done in order to get there, and that each particular step needs to be carefully considered as to the consequences associated with specific actions and decisions.

Preparing a business plan is more about ensuring your idea is solid than trying to obtain financial support! If you place the emphasis on only obtaining the financing you will most likely be setting yourself up for failure! Any half intelligent individual would not start out on a trip across the country without first understanding how much it would cost and the best route to take in order to reach your final destination. A business plan is no different. If prepared correctly it should clearly let you know if you are going to reach your objective or not!

Scott Pioli is the General Manager of the Kansas City Chiefs, an NFL team that has been miserable for the last several years but in 2011, is going to the playoffs. From an article about him in Sports Illustrated : “Pioli has longed to capture something from his childhood, something difficult to explain. It is something he tries to explain now. He begins to talk about how, in building a team, you want – no, more than want, you need – to find people who will do the right

Wii Hardware Bundle Consists: The video game that revolutionized the way we look at gaming now has an expanded version of the console, the Wii Hardware Bundle will give you more than just the previous version. This bundle will include, of course, the Wii console. This will be the brain of the game and the most important part of the collection. Then, the Remote plus will also be available. These handheld remotes together with the motion plus accessory will allow for movements that will be easily tracked for a life-like reproduction on the screen.

You want to increase sales with greater productivity so you leave the office earlier to do what you love with those you love, right? The “Receive” core practice of a Work Positive lifestyle in which you do just that involves the ethical dynamic of your business. You understand you Receive a great deal from your community of customers. This understanding prompts you to serve others.

Stress and problems are just a natural part of life. How you react and interpret stressful situations can have a great impact on you and your life. Here are five ways to handle life’s curve balls. 1. Don’t get “sucked” in. Whose crisis is this? Is this self imposed, are you taking on too much or does this really require immediate attention? Can this be postponed or delegated out to someone more qualified for your ease? For example you may want to order gifts on line, have the dinner party catered, hire a cleaning person or landscape for those falling leaves. 2.

- "Oh yes. Our employees are our most valuable asset." - "Given the way things are these days, we work very hard to retain our employees."n- "We've provided coaching and mentoring training to all of our management staff!" Well good for you. But why is it that your staff seems nervous and ...

Make no mistake ---- It’s extremely difficult to maintain business success if you don’t maintain personal family success. You don’t have to be trapped by success. Success is a good thing but part of being successful is creating balance in your life. There are steps you can take to create the kind of balance that will not only improve your personal life expectations but they will enhance your business platform for success. The Very First Thing Sit down with your family and have an open honest discussion. Ask for their input, their observations and their opinions.

I want to warn readers that this article can, and hopefully will be, hazardous to the health of managers. It was written with the intention to both offend and challenge those who treat people as human cattle. I was inspired to write this article after speaking with two friends, one a mid-level ...