LeadershipNow 140: February 2013 Compilation

Here are a selection of tweets from February 2013 that you might have missed:

• From @GECoachingGroup: Do organisations limit leadership development to 'hi-potentials'?
• Are You a Leader When No One is Watching? by @toddbnielsen
• Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer's work-from-home memo is childish by Emma Gilbey Keller at The Guardian
• Yahoo Marissa Mayer | Management Misstep by @jamesstrock
• From @JohnBaldoni: Does free food make for a happier workplace? @Forbes
• Are you willing to mentor the Litter Czar? from @tonymorganlive
• Beyond Thank You: 5 Keys to Attracting & Keeping Great People by @cnieuwhof
• 7 Lessons From The Beatles' Biggest Failure from @inc
• From @tomasacker: Make more mistakes
• 5 Ways to Tell If You're Getting Great Advice by @SteveTobak
• Closing the Nation’s Skills Gap: Making Higher Education Achievable - PDF report
• Read Change: Am I Ready? by @LollyDaskal
• For Good, Against Evil by @wallybock
• From @LaphamsQuart: CHART: The 14 men who were president before George Washington.
• Pope Benedict: Leadership Lesson for People in Power by @JohnBaldoni
• How many leaders have you seen hang on to their jobs when they were clearly past their “sell by” date? @ScottEblin
• Three Red Flags that Signal Your Leadership Interactions are Floundering by @MarySchaefer
• Do you do what you love? Here are 10 lessons we've learned in 10 years of helping people successful do what they love
• Catch Them In the Act by @susanmazza
• "I think Steve Jobs' approach usually does not work" from @Inc
• @GoodEthics: Great piece on personal ethics in the workplace: "The IRS Just Sent Me $160,000. Can I Keep It?"
• From HBR.org Flattering the Boss Can Set Him Up for a Fall
• Personal Leadership: It's All About the People, Stupid! by @toddbnielsen
• Communication: Four occasions when it's best to keep quiet from LeadingCompany
• Who Pays for Your Customer Service Fail? by @jamesstrock
• From @wallybock: Poof! You're a boss.
• Mike Henry Sr: 7 Uncommon Ways To Be A Positive Influence On You and Your Team
• Change: The Sixth Sense by @lollydaskal
• @JohnBaldoni: If You Don't Speak Up for Yourself, Who Else Will? - Forbes
• Mike Henry Sr: An Argument for Conflict
• From @stratandbiz: How Leaders Mistake Execution for Strategy (and Why That Damages Both)

See more on Twitter.

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 10:29 AM
Permalink | Comments (0) | LeadershipNow 140

5 Key Practices to Earn Trust

TO TRUST or not to trust is a decision we all make every day. As leaders, we can influence people’s decision to trust not only us, but others in the organization and even the organization itself.

Robert Hurley has identified ten specific trust factors in The Decision to Trust. The first three factors are trustor-related: the level of risk tolerance, the trustor’s level of psychological adjustment, and the power position of the trustor.

The other seven factors are situational: They are security, similarity, alignment of interests, the level of perceived benevolent concern, capability, predictability and integrity, and communication. The first three are more about the trustee’s character as perceived by the trustor – while the other seven are more about the trustor’s perception of the situation.

With these ten factors in mind, you can more easily diagnose why trust may be (or likely to be) high or low in your organization. You can also see what you are contributing to the situation—positively or negatively. Here are five key practices to earn trust:

1. Align your interests with those whose trust you want. High trust leaders try to move their enterprise together by encapsulating stakeholders’ interests not pitting stakeholders against one another. If you want to build trust, start by clarifying and aligning stakeholder interests and prove that you will promote those interests in a fair manner. This may seem to go without saying, but “one of the reasons that trust has broken down in business and society in general is that there are many situations where the complexity of misaligned interests is not acknowledged, must less dealt with.” In these situations, “the best you can do is be clear about interests, decide whose interests will be primary or secondary, and be transparent about what trade-offs you are making and why.”

2. Demonstrate Benevolent Concern. We tend to trust people who we believe will care about our welfare—they demonstrate a benevolent character. People, who appear concerned only with themselves, engender distrust. If you want to earn trust, demonstrate to others that you will do the right thing for them even if it puts you at risk. “Demonstrate a respect for others and understand others’ needs in a way that helps them find win-win solutions.”

3. Develop and demonstrate Capability in the Matter at Hand. We are only trustworthy if we can deliver on our commitments. Good intentions, benevolence, and even ethical conduct, do not warrant trust if the other person is incompetent. High trust leaders make sure that there is a reasonable probability and capability to deliver before they make promises.

4. Create a track record of Predictability and Integrity. High trust leaders tend to practice values based leadership, which creates consistency and coherence in their behavior. Trust comes from always striving to honor ones word.

5. Communicate, communicate, communicate and do it clearly and openly. Because is largely about relationships, communication is critical. Communication is also the vehicle through which the other four elements of trustworthiness are delivered. Aligning interests, demonstrating benevolence, accurately communicating ones capability and practicing what you preach all require effective communication skills. Spirals of distrust often begin with miscommunication, leading to perceived betrayal causing further impoverishment of communication and ending in a state of chronic distrust. Open and transparent communication can induce others to open up and reciprocate with feelings of confident reliance.

Of Related Interest:
  People are Job 1

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 10:10 AM
Permalink | Comments (0) | Ethics , Management , Trust

Into the Storm: Lessons in Teamwork from the Treacherous Sydney to Hobart Ocean Race

The iconic Sydney to Hobart Race, a 723-mile deepwater challenge—often called the "Everest" of offshore ocean racing—is considered one of the toughest in the world. Unpredictable weather and seas make each race demanding, but in 1998, an unexpected "weather bomb" hit the fleet, creating 80-foot waves and 100-mile-per-hour winds.

Many bigger, better-equipped boats tried to maneuver around the storm, but the crew of the AFR Midnight Rambler chose to head directly into its path. After battling mountainous waves and hurricane-force winds in the Bass Strait, the tiny 35-foot boat arrived safely in Hobart, 3 days and 16 hours later—winning the coveted Tattersall’s Cup.

THERE are two central themes in Into the Storm. The first is the importance of exceptional teamwork in overcoming challenges at The Edge. The second is the value of distributed leadership—a team culture that allows every person to provide direction when he or she has expertise that will help the team succeed.

The story of the AFR Midnight Rambler exemplifies the power of exceptional teamwork and distributed leadership. But where does this leave a formal team leader—the skipper of a boat, the CEO of a corporation, the commanding officer of a military unit, or the President of the United States, for that matter? Is there a unique role that he or she needs to play? I believe there are some critical things—some unique responsibilities—that fall to the skipper.

The leader needs to keep the team aligned.

The varied performance of boats in the Sydney to Hobart Race underscores the importance of having a coherent, unified team. Some boats, like the Midnight Rambler, demonstrated extraordinary cohesiveness even under the most terrifying, life-threatening conditions. At the other end of the alignment continuum, some crews were fragmented, with key team members at odds with each other—in a leadership vacuum.

Adrienne Cahalan, one of the world's best navigators, has had a chance to observe the role of the leader in more than twenty-five years as a professional competitive sailor. She has been named Australian Yachtswoman of the Year twice—and has been nominated four times for World Yachtswoman of the Year.

Cahalan characterized the leader's role this way:

"Skippers need to keep the team focused. They need to keep an eye out to see if someone is wavering, or a faction developing. They need to have the skill to manage all the personalities, to bring them together, and to get them working toward their common goal. Not everybody's perfect, so a good leader is able to deal with imperfections. And they need to be able to do it all under pressure."

Managing personalities and bringing people together can be challenging in any situation. But the pressure of a storm—or a tough business obstacle—calls for exceptional leadership.

The leader needs to demonstrate passion.

The leader's passion is a magnetic force that pulls other people in. Describing the impact of Ed's enthusiasm, one crewmember observed:

"What makes Ed an exceptional leader is his desire to win. He is committed to driving the boat as fast as it can go. And he can take risks because of his comfort and trust in the team."

No one who has ever sailed with Ed Psaltis has any doubt about his absolute, total commitment to winning. He is so passionate that his excitement sometimes needs to be offset -- by humor, or by the composure of others. But there is no mistaking the electric spark that comes from a leader who is excited to win. That enthusiasm is contagious, and it is a contagion that leads to victory.

The leader needs to instill optimism and confidence that the team will succeed.

Ed Psaltis and navigator Bob Thomas have a close relationship. They have complementary personalities, with Bob's cool demeanor balancing Ed's passion. Both Ed and Bob joined forces during the storm, and their combined leadership provided a reassuring presence for the crew. Crew member "Mix" Bencsik recalls:

"Their leadership played a large part in making sure that no one gave up. Ed and Bob constantly instilled optimism and confidence that we could handle the conditions, and that the crew had the ability to win."

While there was no question about Ed's formal role as skipper, Ed and Bob together reinforced a sense of unified leadership. And because of their close personal relationship, they were able to send a joint message of reassurance and optimism.

The leader needs to set an example.

Ed realizes that people are watching him, and he makes a conscious effort to set an example. Coming off his watch as helmsman, Ed will take a forward position on the rail. In this exposed position, he is subjected to the first onslaught of water and spray. It is cold and uncomfortable, but it is clear that Ed is not afraid to do his share.

Ed will also take his turn in "the bad bunk." It seems that every boat comes equipped with a berth that—for one reason or another—is undesirable. Nobody wants the bad bunk, but Ed makes sure that he takes his turn. He is sending a message.

Leaders need to set an example on a daily basis, but there are some moments that are different. There are times when leaders need to inspire others through fortitude, courage, and skill. One such moment came for Ed Psaltis in the 1998 Sydney to Hobart Race.

Mix Bencsik reflected:

"I've been through a lot of storms with Ed. Sitting on the side of the boat—wave spotting while he was helming -- was something that made me feel really proud. I thought, Here's a person who has my life completely in his hands. He was performing extraordinary feats of strength and seamanship, holding a 35-foot boat on the right course in those conditions."

"Ed was giving more than 110 percent. The well-being of the boat and crew were in his hands, and he didn't falter. It was an outstanding feat of seamanship. Even to this day, it's quite emotional to talk about. That was his finest moment."

Not every leader has the ability to steer a boat through a storm like Ed Psaltis. But there comes a time when every leader needs to be willing to step up and give "more than 110 percent." For every leader, there can be a finest moment.

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Into the Storm: Lessons in Teamwork from the Treacherous Sydney to Hobart Ocean Race is by by Dennis N.T. Perkins with Jillian B. Murphy. Dennis N.T. Perkins is CEO of The Syncretics Group, a consulting firm dedicated to helping leaders and teams thrive under conditions of adversity, uncertainty and change. Follow Dennis on Twitter @DNTP Jillian B. Murphy is the director of client services at Syncretics. She works in the areas of leadership, executive coaching, and team effectiveness. Follow her on Twitter @jbmurf For more information please visit syncreticsgroup.com.

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 10:44 PM
Permalink | Comments (0) | Leading Forum , Teamwork

Washington’s Lessons: Control Your Weaknesses

DEVELOPING our strengths, which represent our capacities, is where we should lead from. But as Washington understood, we must deal with and manage our weaknesses or they may undo any gains we derive from our strengths.

Washington’s success, in part, came from knowing his weaknesses and controlling them. Washington had a bad temper. His awareness of it allowed him to choose to end it quickly and repair any damage it had done. He did not act on his emotions, but waited until his mind was clear.

Richard Brookhiser wrote, “There was a norm for a leader’s behavior, a range within which he should act, and when Washington felt he had been tugged away from it, he would tug himself back.

This quality caused even those who had been on the receiving end of his temper to remember him well. They did so because as Brookhiser put it, “he had earned their admiration over the long haul by keeping his eye on the task at hand, resisting the distraction of losing his temper” and “because he had spared them much of his anger, and leavened it, when he had not, with impartiality and consideration.”

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 05:59 PM
Permalink | Comments (0) | Washington's Lessons

Washington’s Lessons: 30 Surprising Facts About George Washington

IN Washington: A Life, Ron Chernow calls Washington “the most famously elusive figure in American history.” Chernow offers these facts about George Washington.

• Washington was the only major founder who lacked a college education. John Adams went to Harvard, James Madison to Princeton, and Alexander Hamilton to Columbia, making Washington self-conscious about what he called his "defective education."
• Washington never had wooden teeth. He wore dentures that were made of either walrus or elephant ivory and were fitted with real human teeth. Over time, as the ivory got cracked and stained, it resembled the grain of wood. Washington may have purchased some of his teeth from his own slaves.
• Washington had a strangely cool and distant relationship with his mother. During the Revolutionary War and her son's presidency, she never uttered a word of praise about him and she may even have been a Tory. No evidence exists that she ever visited George and Martha Washington at Mount Vernon. Late in the Revolutionary War, Mary Washington petitioned the Virginia legislature for financial relief, pleading poverty—and, by implication, neglect by her son. Washington, who had been extremely generous to his mother, was justly indignant.
• Even as a young man, Washington seemed to possess a magical immunity to bullets. In one early encounter in the French and Indian War, he absorbed four bullets in his coat and hat and had two horses shot from under him yet emerged unscathed. This led one Indian chief to predict that some higher power was guiding him to great events in the future.
• By age 30 Washington had survived smallpox, malaria, dysentery, and other diseases. Although he came from a family of short-lived men, he had an iron constitution and weathered many illnesses that would have killed a less robust man. He lived to the age of 67.
• While the Washingtons were childless—it has always been thought that George Washington was sterile—they presided over a household teeming with children. Martha had two children from her previous marriage and she and George later brought up two grandchildren as well, not to mention countless nieces and nephews.
• That Washington was childless proved a great boon to his career. Because he had no heirs, Americans didn't worry that he might be tempted to establish a hereditary monarchy. And many religious Americans believed that God had deliberately deprived Washington of children so that he might serve as Father of His Country.
• Though he tried hard to be fair and took excellent medical care of his slaves, Washington could be a severe master. His diaries reveal that during one of the worst cold snaps on record in Virginia—when Washington himself found it too cold to ride outside—he had his field slaves out draining swamps and performing other arduous tasks.
• For all her anxiety about being constantly in a battle zone, Martha Washington spent a full half of the Revolutionary War with her husband—a major act of courage that has largely gone unnoticed.
• Washington was obsessed with his personal appearance, which extended to his personal guard during the war. Despite wartime austerity and a constant shortage of soldiers, he demanded that all members of his personal guard be between 5'8" and 5'10"; a year later, he narrowed the range to 5'9" to 5'10."
• While Washington lost more battles than he won, he still ranks as a great general. His greatness lay less in his battlefield brilliance—he committed some major strategic blunders—than in his ability to hold his ragged army intact for more than eight years, keeping the flame of revolution alive.
• Washington ran his own spy network during the war and was often the only one privy to the full scope of secret operations against the British. He anticipated many techniques of modern espionage, including the use of misinformation and double agents.
• Washington tended his place in history with extreme care. Even amid wartime stringency, he got Congress to appropriate special funds for a full-time team of secretaries who spent two years copying his wartime papers into beautiful ledgers.
• For thirty years, Washington maintained an extraordinary relationship with his slave and personal manservant William Lee, who accompanied him throughout the Revolutionary War and later worked in the presidential mansion. Lee was freed upon Washington's death and given a special lifetime annuity.
• The battle of Yorktown proved the climactic battle of the revolution and the capstone of Washington's military career, but he initially opposed this Franco-American operation against the British—a fact he later found hard to admit.
• Self-conscious about his dental problems, Washington maintained an air of extreme secrecy when corresponding with his dentist and never used such incriminating words as 'teeth' or 'dentures.' By the time he became president, Washington had only a single tooth left—a lonely lower left bicuspid that held his dentures in place.
• Washington always displayed extremely ambivalence about his fame. Very often, when he was traveling, he would rise early to sneak out of a town or enter it before he could be escorted by local dignitaries. He felt beleaguered by the social demands of his own renown.
• At Mount Vernon, Washington functioned as his own architect—and an extremely original one at that. All of the major features that we associate with the house—the wide piazza and colonnade overlooking the Potomac, the steeple and the weathervane with the dove of peace—were personally designed by Washington himself.
• A master showman with a brilliant sense of political stagecraft, Washington would disembark from his coach when he was about to enter a town then mount a white parade horse for maximum effect. It is not coincidental that there are so many fine equestrian statues of him.
• Land-rich and cash-poor, Washington had to borrow money to attend his own inauguration in New York City in 1789. He then had to borrow money again when he moved back to Virginia after two terms as president. His public life took a terrible toll on his finances.
• Martha Washington was never happy as First Lady—a term not yet in use—and wrote with regret after just six months of the experience: "I think I am more like a state prisoner than anything else… And as I cannot do as I like, I am obstinate and stay home a great deal."
• When the temporary capital moved to Philadelphia in 1790, Washington brought six or seven slaves to the new presidential mansion. Under a Pennsylvania abolitionist law, slaves who stayed continuously in the state for six months were automatically free. To prevent this, Washington, secretly coached by his Attorney General, rotated his slaves in and out of the state without telling them the real reason for his actions.
• Washington nearly died twice during his first term in office, the first time from a tumor on his thigh that may have been from anthrax or an infection, the second time from pneumonia. Many associates blamed his sedentary life as president for the sudden decline in his formerly robust health and he began to exercise daily.
• Tired of the demands of public life, Washington never expected to serve even one term as president, much less two. He originally planned to serve for only a year or two, establish the legitimacy of the new government, then resign as president. Because of one crisis after another, however, he felt a hostage to the office and ended up serving two full terms. For all his success as president, Washington frequently felt trapped in the office.
• Exempt from attacks at the start of his presidency, Washington was viciously attacked in the press by his second term. His opponents accused him of everything from being an inept general to wanting to establish a monarchy. At one point, he said that not a single day had gone by that he hadn't regretted staying on as president.
• Washington has the distinction of being the only president ever to lead an army in battle as commander-in-chief. During the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794, he personally journeyed to western Pennsylvania to take command of a large army raised to put down the protest against the excise tax on distilled spirits.
• Two of the favorite slaves of George and Martha Washington—Martha's personal servant, Ona Judge and their chef Hercules—escaped to freedom at the end of Washington's presidency. Washington employed the resources of the federal government to try to entrap Ona Judge in Portsmouth, New Hampshire and return her forcibly to Virginia. His efforts failed.
• Washington stands out as the only founder who freed his slaves, at least the 124 who were under his personal control. (He couldn't free the so-called 'dower slaves' who came with his marriage to Martha.) In his will, he stipulated that the action was to take effect only after Martha died so that she could still enjoy the income from those slaves.
• After her husband died, Martha grew terrified at the prospect that the 124 slaves scheduled to be freed after her death might try to speed up the timetable by killing her. Unnerved by the situation, she decided to free those slaves ahead of schedule only a year after her husband died.
• Like her husband, Martha Washington ended up with a deep dislike of Thomas Jefferson, whom she called "one of the most detestable of mankind." When Jefferson visited her at Mount Vernon before he became president, Martha said that it was the second worst day of her life—the first being the day her husband died.

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Of Related Interest:
  Lincoln's Lessons

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 10:10 AM
Permalink | Comments (0) | Washington's Lessons

Washington’s Lessons: It’s Never Too Early to Choose to Lead

GREAT LEADERSHIP doesn’t just happen. Great leaders are revealed in extraordinary circumstances, but they are made long before. A person’s quality of leadership radiates from their character. Consequently, it’s never too early to begin your leadership development.

George Washington filled many roles in his lifetime: a surveyor, frontier explorer, businessman, land speculator, soldier, farmer and statesman. A couple of examples from Washington’s childhood help to explain his successes later in life.

By age sixteen, Washington had copied out by hand, 110 Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation. They are based on a set of rules composed by French Jesuits in 1595. The first rule sets the tone of the others that follow: “Every Action done in Company, ought to be with Some Sign of Respect, to those that are Present.” There isn’t a leader that wouldn’t benefit from a daily reminder of this approach. Time and time again, these rules from his childhood played out in the conduct of his public life and defined his reputation. These rules and his concern for them integrated him as a leader and bonded him with those he led.

George Washington’s father died when he was eleven leaving him to be raised by his older brother Lawrence. By age fifteen his formal schooling was over and he had achieved the equivalent of only a grade school education. But his education never stopped. Washington was an avid reader, soaking up the works of historians and thinkers. He was especially drawn to the essays of the Roman philosopher Seneca and Joseph Addison’s play Cato with its lesson in selfless leadership. He studied the ideas of his contemporaries in writings and conversation. He also spent a good deal of time writing which helped to solidify his thoughts. Learning is more than discovery. It helps us to make sense of things. It’s more than collecting information—it is applying it in a constructive way to some area of our life.

It is the mindset of a leader to work on themselves harder than they work on others. A leader’s first responsibility is governing themselves. Historian Gordon Wood has written, “Washington became a great man and was acclaimed as a classical hero because of the way he conducted himself during times of temptation. It was his moral character that set him off from other men.”

Leadership is embodied in the way you look at the world and respond to it. It’s never too early to choose to lead.

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 12:01 AM
Permalink | Comments (0) | Leaders , Washington's Lessons

Rebooting Work: How to Make Work— Work for You

Rebooting Work by Silicon Valley legend Maynard Webb and Carlye Adler is a sensible look at the changing nature of the workplace and how you can use emerging technologies to take charge of your career. To become a CEO of your own destiny.

Less than half of Americans (47 percent) are satisfied with their work. Companies are changing too. They can no longer provide the safety nets that were expected in the last century. Employees must become more self-reliant. That of course means a workplace that rewards people for their performance rather than their time in. An organization that supports entitlement over results, writes Webb, “can limit growth and opportunity.”

Giving someone a leg-up is one thing, entitlement has a permanence to it that both hinders employees and harms companies and neither performs up to their maximum potential.

Webb believes that technology presents us with an opportunity. It has the power to enable people to do something about their dissatisfaction with work and move on to careers that can provide both fulfillment and financial security. “Understanding and embracing today’s technological trends is the fastest way to travel to the career of your dreams.”

Webb presents us with four ways of looking at work. We may move from frame to frame but we tend to operate in one. They are Company Man or Woman, CEO of Your Own Destiny, Disenchanted Employee, and Aspiring Entrepreneur. Where we should all be headed, states Webb, is to the mindset of the CEO of Your Own Destiny. We are living in the age of the entrepreneur.

Prior to the Civil War, most Americans worked in agriculture or as small merchants or tradesmen. Success was the result of self-direction, self-motivation, and self determination. In a way, everyone was self-made.

The Industrial Revolution brought opportunities to work outside the home, reversing the entrepreneurial spirit and giving rise to the paternalistic company, but now the Age of Entrepreneurship is bringing it back.

Today personal and professional development is on the employee. It “requires you to be relevant every day and to be voted on to the team you want to play with.” But with this freedom come accountability. In an entrepreneurial age it is more important than ever that you think like a leader—no matter where or at what level you work.

As research indicates, many people find themselves in the Disenchanted Employee frame: you are waiting to be discovered or recognized, you don’t understand why others don’t see how good you really are, your career isn’t going as expected, and you believe your circumstances are someone else’s fault.

This kind of thinking is not just unproductive, it feeds on itself and keeps you just where you don’t want to be. One of the most important things you can do is to get a mentor; someone to help you see the reality of your situation and offer constructive advice to get you moving again. Webb also offers these ideas:

1. Make sure you do something every day to show others you deserve to be a part of their team.
2. Have a great attitude. You might be brilliant, but if you are hard to manage, it’s easy to find someone else.
3. Work for a higher purpose. Your job has more impact than just making money.
4. Pick your battles. Fight only about things that are really important and that will move the needle.
5. Don’t be afraid of change.
6. Be brutally honest with yourself. Know your strengths and weaknesses. It does you no good to kid yourself here.
7. Don’t confuse action with traction. Focus on outcomes, not face time.
8. Focus on expanding your sphere of influence; it will give you the opportunity to have an impact over more areas.
9. Take time to sit back and reflect on where you are and where you want to be. Make time for a “compass check.”
10. Be brave and be bold. Most things worth doing are hard.

Technology is pushing flexibility in the workplace. Technology doesn’t replace the need for human contact but it can make work more efficient and face time more rewarding. It provides the opportunity to create how you do your work in new ways if you are willing to perform. Outcomes become more important than ever. If you give more you will receive more.

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Of Related Interest:
  Dear Founder

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 01:55 PM
Permalink | Comments (0) | General Business , Human Resources , Marketing , Personal Development

Where Winners Live

Where Winners Live by Dave Porter and Linda Galindo is a book oriented towards sales professionals, but the issue it deals with is important (vital) to us all—personal responsibility.

Winners live in a mindset of 100 percent accountability. Accountability, say the authors is taking responsibility for the “success and failure of everything you do—for your choices, behaviors, and actions—before you know how it will turn out” (even if you’re working with someone else).

If you’re not living the personal responsibility mindset where winners live then you might be displaying what the authors call loser characteristics:

The Victim: If you live in a world where circumstances beyond your control dictate your success, you have no power.

The Finger-Pointer “owns” only the good. If it is good, I did it; if it is bad, you did it.

The Robbery Victim always blames someone else for undermining him, for getting something he deserved instead, or for scoring a win at her expense.

The Coulda-Woulda tries to take credit for what she didn’t earn by saying she easily could have, if only … (take your pick of excuses).

The Guess Man knows that there is no accountability without clarity. The more vague he is with his instructions, the easier it will be to blame someone else when the job doesn’t go well.

Where do you live?

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 10:06 PM
Permalink | Comments (0) | Personal Development

People are Job 1

AS A LEADER if you are not devoting your time to people issues, you’re missing the big picture. Amy Lyman, author of The Trustworthy Leader, was once asked what could you do if you only had five minutes a day to devote to people issues? It is a stunning question on its face but reveals something deeper.

Lyman explained that “leading is a full-time job. If you want to be a successful leader, you need to devote all of your time to people issues….Five minutes a day—or even five minutes an hour—is the wrong approach.” The problem is we tend to separate our “work” from the “people” issues; respond to people issues when asked to, but focus our intellectual talents on the mechanics of the specific tasks in front of us.

Lyman makes the point that people are integral to our ability in every single area in our organizations and if we do not include consideration of people in every aspect of our work, then we are doing ourselves and our organizations a great disservice. Yet it is not uncommon to find leaders who see people as the problem—the distraction—that takes them away from their work. Our work is people.

Trustworthy leaders…understand the complexity of bringing together a group of human beings to pursue extraordinary accomplishments. They are masters at guiding, directing, encouraging, and challenging people to contribute their best, in part because they ask the same of themselves. Trustworthy leaders know that their relationships with others throughout the organization are key to their success—however, success is measured.

Lyman identifies six elements that both influence how a leader acts and reflect how that person thinks about being a leader:

Feels Honored—Sense of honor and gratitude for being asked to lead and acknowledging the responsibility that comes with it.

Inclusive—Promotes the inclusion of every person into the larger community of the organization.

Ability to Value and Engage Followers—Pay attention to followers and learn from them, support their contributions and connect with them beyond their work roles.

Openly Shares Information—Employee's contributions will be magnified to the degree that they have access to useful information.

Develops Others—Help employees to learn, grow, and discover their talents. It’s part of who they are because they think about others more than themselves.

Ability to Move through Uncertainty to pursue Opportunities—The skillful weighing of risks and rewards attached to the opportunities available is one of the most important actions that leaders can take on.

When employees see their leader act with honor, feel included, choose to follow, have access to information they can use, and are supported in their development, they will support their leader’s efforts to try novel approaches and find the best way forward.

Trustworthy leaders succeed in the marketplace because their trustworthiness provides them with two key competitive advantages: first, they benefit from the cooperation of employees with each other, across departments, and throughout the organization as a whole; and second they engender a deep, strong commitment among employees to the long-term success of the company, its mission, and its vision as expressed by the leader.

Trustworthy Leaders know that being trustworthy is the critical factor that separates their leadership success from that of others.

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 08:56 PM
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Put Your Minutes Where Your Mouth Is

A HUGE difference between the leaders who make things happen and those who do not is how they prioritize their time.

Leaders who make things happen schedule their lives around what needs to get done. Leaders who don’t make things happen do the exact opposite, scheduling what needs to get done around their lives.

The difference is priorities.

If meeting your deadline isn’t more important than going to the football game or getting eight hours of sleep, then you probably don’t have what it takes.

I’m not saying that football is bad. I’m just saying that I simply cannot go. I just can’t get it all done in time and still catch a four-hour game. If you want to lead a team of people who are so invested in your vision that they are willing to sacrifice certain things to help you accomplish it, then the sacrifices must first start with you.

Ask yourself this question: What are most people spending time on that I could probably live without?

You must be intense about finishing on a deadline, and that might mean sacrificing a lot of recreational things.

The key is to know thyself.

You know what you need to get done, and you ought to know how long it will take you to finish it. If you’re serious about making it happen, you must design days around completing what you know needs to be completed in order to make things MOVE.

Here’s another hint: 40 hours a week won’t cut it.

If you’re spending half the “workday” cleaning out your inbox, maybe it's time to start waking up at five. Leadership is not exclusive to eight-hour windows. You have to set the tone. If you possess a 9-5 mentality, so will the people you are leading.

Every leader I’ve met who is really killing it puts in an average of around 80 HOURS PER WEEK!

Leaders have to think like entrepreneurs. It’s funny to me that I’ve never seen an entrepreneur just standing around the water cooler with a cup of coffee. The doers don’t have time for that; they’re too busy grinding away.

The bottom line is that success is built by chunks of time. And a successful leader has that time built in.

If you’re truly serious about making it happen, put your minutes where your mouth is.

Of course, if you are that serious, you probably already do. Keep it up!

What techniques do you have for blocking out distractions and getting things done?

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Robert D. Smith is the author of 20,000 Days and Counting, a crash course in living each day with maximum purpose and intensity. He also writes about entrepreneurship, personal growth. Most people measure their lives in years. But how would our thought processes change if we measured our lives in days? The average American lifespan is 28,649 days. He asks, "What if you were able to accomplish MORE TODAY than most people accomplish all year?" Decisions you make right now can change your life forever. …We do choose how we will live. May you have a glorious ending by beginning today.

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 10:46 PM
Permalink | Comments (0) | Personal Development

First Look: Leadership Books for February 2013

Here's a look at some of the best leadership books to be released in February.

  Leadership Conversations: Challenging High Potential Managers to Become Great Leaders by Alan S. Berson and Richard G. Stieglitz
  Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works by A.G. Lafley and Roger L. Martin
  American Turnaround: Reinventing AT&T and GM and the Way We Do Business in the USA by Edward Whitacre with Leslie Cauley
  Where Winners Live: Sell More, Earn More, Achieve More Through Personal Accountability by Dave Porter and Linda Galindo
  Global Tilt: Leading Your Business Through the Great Economic Power Shift by Ram Charan



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Posted by Michael McKinney at 12:59 AM
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