My last blog (Breaking the Manager-Employee Dependence Spin Cycle) discussed how Dave, a recent participant in The Extraordinary Coach workshop, realized he’d locked himself into an ever increasing cycle of taking on more and more of his employees problems. He was getting busier and busier while his employees were getting ever more frustrated waiting for [...]
During last week’s first public workshop (these sessions are usually run in-house) of The Extraordinary Coach in Calgary, the lights came on for a manager from a technology company. Like many managers — and especially those in very technical organizations – Dave viewed coaching as directing, advising, and training his direct reports. Since he was [...]
In recent keynote presentations and workshops with HR and leadership development professionals, more and more participants have been embracing the approach of building on strengths. When presented with the powerful evidence and logic of strengths-based leadership development, most people are convinced. But it’s tough to let go of deeply ingrained practices and “conventional wisdom.” One [...]
How would you describe the organizational culture of your dreams? What are its essential elements? How would people treat each other? What core values would shine brightly every day? If you could eavesdrop on members of your team describing their workplace at a family gathering or social event, what would you hope they’d say? We [...]
Leadership likability has many meanings. And the implications go much deeper than whether a leader has lots of “Like” button clicks. Zenger Folkman’s research shows that leaders who score high on the Likability Index are also rated as being highly effective leaders by their direct reports, peers, manager, and others. These ratings correlate to sharply [...]
“Constructive criticism” becomes destructive criticism when it’s poorly delivered by a leader with a very low negativity/positivity ratio. My March blog on The Best Positivity/Negativity Ratio for Peak Performance discussed research on balancing positive to negative statements for optimum personal, team, and organization performance. CNN recently featured an article on how leaders can most effectively [...]
The founder of MacDonald’s hamburger chain, Ray Kroc, was well known for his motto, “when you’re green you’re growing, when you’re ripe you rot.” May is a great time for us in the Northern Hemisphere to reflect on whether we’re greening ourselves with new growth or stagnating and decaying. Once again this spring I’ll be [...]
Soundview Executive Book Summaries has released a summary of Zenger Folkman’s new book, How to Be Exceptional: Drive Leadership Success by Magnifying Your Strengths. The summary covers: • How to pinpoint your best leadership traits and choose the right development target for yourself. • How to use feedback and action learning on the job to [...]
Whether training your dog, rats in a lab, or a killer whale at Sea World, treats, praise, and pats on the head are very effective. It’s a classic master-pet manipulation. Way too many recognition programs are built on this same paternalistic premise. “Be a really good little employee and we’ll give you lots of ‘atta [...]
An interview in this month’s Harvard Business Review looked at yet more research showing the folly of expert forecasting. “‘Experts’ Who Beat the Odds Are Probably Just Lucky” discusses a study by Warwick Business School’s Jerker Denrell who worked with Christina Fang of the Stern School of Business. They analyzed years of experts’ quarterly forecasts [...]
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