Tips for Transformative Leadership – Behave Your Way to Change

Why is change so hard? Perhaps a huge contributor to the difficulty with change is the fact that we all tend to see needed change as a mountain. It can be overwhelming and quite disconcerting to say the least. But some people do change. How on earth do they do that? The research is pretty clear and not a big mystery. Except for the magically, instantaneously transformed, every other person achieves real change — a Read more…

Tips for Transformative Leadership – Empathetic Listening Skills

One of the hottest topics in business today is employee engagement. However, actually increasing employee engagement is another thing altogether.  There has been extensive research on this topic.  At the core of all that research lie two critical pieces of information. The first factor is seated in how the employee feels about the job. The second factor is how the employee feels about him or herself doing that job. A leader not only has the Read more…

Article 28: Identifying Assets: Material Based Assets

PREFACE: Every organization requires some materials for operation.  Whether it is just a few pens, pencils, and paper or million dollar machines, there is stuff to every business. That is true whether you are in business by yourself, a teacher, a preacher, a small business owner, a not-for-profit, a service club, or a manufacturer employing thousands of people. Stuff is needed to make your operation work. A common mistake that many leaders make is not Read more…

Article 27: Identifying Assets: People Based Assets

PREFACE: One of the most difficult tasks for many leaders is clearly identifying the people assets of an organization.  Too many leaders pay too little attention to this requirement for leadership.  Jim Collins admonished us to make sure we have the right people on the bus but the only way we can do that is to know three critical things about your organization.  First you must know the real reason the organization exists.  This is Read more…

Article 26: Delegating

PREFACE: One reality every leader must come to grips with is the fact that you cannot be everywhere and you cannot do everything.  There is just too much to be done.  The art of delegating is often a difficult one to master for many leaders because at the core of effective delegation lies the need to trust.  If you delegate authority to get certain things done you must relinquish the reins in that matter.  If Read more…

Article 25: Team Building

PREFACE: We cannot underemphasize the importance of team building for a leader.  But we also realize that some leaders do not have the temperament or the patience for some of the team building activities that are often done during leadership training activities.  Rest assured, we are not going to advocate for trust falls, high ropes courses, or touchy-felly sharing sessions.  However, having a team that can handle whatever comes down the pike is essential if Read more…

Article 24: Persistence

INTRODUCTION: Persistence is a double edged sword.  If you lack persistence you will give up on projects when a little more stick-to-itiveness could produce a good outcome.  If you are excessively persistent you will hang onto projects when everyone else knows they will be dead on arrival.  Success requires a balance in your persistence skills, something I refer to as appropriate persistence. Persistence is actually composed of several sub-skills. First among these is being purposeful.  Read more…

Article 23: The Many Skills Needed by Leaders Part 8

PREFACE: The art of influencing others has actually been studied enough at this point in time that we can begin to talk about it as a science. Historically, people who have mastered the skills of influence have done so by observing what works and through a significant reliance on their own gut instincts. Today, researchers have taken the time to dig into what is involved in the process of influencing others and we have the Read more…

Article 22: The Many Skills Needed by Leaders Part 7

PREFERCE: As a baby you learned to use the feedback all around you to begin to master your environment. As you grew and developed an interesting thing happened. You began to ignore the constant stream of feedback coming at you from every possible angle. We humans do this so that we can focus and better understand those things which we want to attend to and we can ignore those things we decide are unimportant. As Read more…

Article 21: The Many Skills Needed by Leaders Part 6

INTRODUCTION: This is an area that many leaders find a bit difficult. Many leaders are big picture people and often have a little difficulty focusing in on the details. To organize anything requires that we be able to see the details. So what’s a leader to do? I see 5 critical pieces to organizing for success. First, whether you feel it is important or not at this very moment in time, begin right now acting Read more…