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Tagged with 'Forbes'

Don’t Be Scrooged Out of These Life and Leadership Lessons

One of my holiday traditions is watching various movie versions of Charles Dickens’ much-loved classic, A Christmas Carol. Once our grandkids are old enough, we’ll watch my favorite version, The Muppet Christmas Carol, with them. Depending on their age, we might skip a few of the ghostlier parts. When Les Standiford’s book, The Man Who Invented Christmas (which […]

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From Bah! to Aha! Five Leadership Lessons from Ebenezer Scrooge

One of my cherished holiday traditions is watching various movie versions of Charles Dickens’ much-loved classic, A Christmas Carol. Once our grandkids become old enough (a major highlight of this year was all three of our kids each had a baby), I’ll be able to watch my favorite version, The Muppet Christmas Carol, with them. […]

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Say What? Are the Best Leaders Listeners or Talkers?

Does your team or organization need to improve communications? Would you like to get more e-mails every day? I’ll often ask those two questions in workshops when we’re discussing communications. Most hands go up when asked who would like to improve communications. Often no one raises a hand when asked who would like to increase […]

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Why Most Personal Development Plans Fail – and How to Fix It

A sure path to marital unhappiness — if not divorce — is when a newlywed sets out to change his or her spouse. Yet how many performance management discussions are built on the same premise? Too often managers set about trying to “improve” his or her direct report by fixing weaker areas. How enthused are […]

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Leadership Flows Down Hill

We’re currently working with an organization embarking on an extensive leadership and culture development process. It’s starting in a series of workshops and planning retreats with the CEO and his team of direct reports along with their direct reports. The first part of the process is our strengths-based 360 assessment. The CEO is actively engaged […]

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Critical Choices: Lead, Follow, or Wallow

I was booked to facilitate a development and team planning retreat with a group of vice presidents of a large company. The group had a dinner the evening before our session to provide each other with updates and discuss common issues. The company was going through turbulent and difficult times. Productivity and profitability were down. […]

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How Towering Strengths Overshadow Weaknesses

Last month Brad Smith and I attended Zenger Folkman’s Extraordinary Leadership Summit and Coaching Symposium in Salt Lake City. A highlight of the three day event were Client presentations from, and panel discussions with, General Mills, General Motors, and McKesson Corporation (a Fortune 500 healthcare services and IT company). With implementations ranging from two to […]

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Checking Your Coaching Skills

We have seen a dramatic increase in the use of coaching as a tool for leadership development over the past few years. And for good reason…the list of benefits is impressive: improved productivity high-energy company culture dynamic supervisor/employee relationships creative problem solving greater risk taking heightened innovation, and higher levels of customer service and satisfaction […]

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Thoughts That Make You Go Hmmm on…Expectations Impact Performance

My last blog “How Leaders Cause Their Direct Reports to Sink or Soar” gave examples and research on the power of expectations. The impact of teachers, coaches, parents, or manager’s expectations of the people they were leading on their performance has been well documented. “Leaders Have Great Expectations” reports on the pioneering work of Robert […]

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Courageous Leaders Ask for Feedback

Ignorance may be bliss, but it’s deadly to leadership effectiveness. And it’s often the mark of a blind and weak leader. Feedback-impaired leaders often mistake compliance for commitment. They might, for example, proclaim an open door policy and when no one enters their office to raise problems, believe there aren’t any serious issues to be […]

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Surprising Research Results Show We Should Lead Like Scrooge

After Ebenezer Scrooge has his life-changing Christmas Eve experience, he enthusiastically sets out on a new pathway to personal growth on Christmas Day. When he gets back to work what would you suggest he do to increase Bob Cratchit’s workplace engagement? In his entertaining and insightful Forbes column, “Lead Like Scrooge: The Surprising Research Results“, […]

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Find and Build on Your “20 Seconds of Brilliance”

In one of my recent LinkedIn updates (connect with me at http://ca.linkedin.com/in/jimclemmer) I featured Peter Aceto’s inspiring Globe & Mail article on the gold medal power of positive thinking. I especially loved his example of how Debbie Muir coached the Canadian synchronized swimming team to a gold medal. The team was struggling with their three-minute […]

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Employee Engagement Reflects Leadership Effectiveness

When our three kids were growing up I was — sometimes painfully — reminded of the old parenting adage; “children act like their parents despite all attempts to teach them good manners!” When Chris, Jenn, or Vanessa behaved poorly in public — if I took a deep look in the mirror — I could recognize […]

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Coaching Matters: Five Steps, Webinars, Symposium, and Briefing

Having someone fix our turned up collar or point out we have a piece of spinach in our teeth before a big presentation can be very helpful. The tone and intention of this feedback makes us feel supported and thankful or belittled and resentful. Giving difficult feedback is a critical coaching skill. As reported in […]

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The Cascading Effect of Good and Bad Leaders

Recently Zenger Folkman correlated assessment data from three organizational levels to look at the cascading impact of senior leader effectiveness on their direct reports and in turn on the next level below them. The study found that managers who worked for the worst executives had awful engagement levels in the 24th percentile. However, managers working […]

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The Key to Ensuring Leadership Development Pays-Off

Organizations too often waste time and money providing leadership development programs that don’t work. Very little of their learning and development efforts significantly improve long term team or organizational results. A major reason for this all too common performance improvement shortfall is lack of follow up. Participants are “sheep dipped” in a workshop or 360 […]

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Optimistic Leaders are Four Times More Effective: 8 Steps to Get You There

Eleanor Roosevelt, American diplomat, writer, and U.S. First Lady once said, “In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility.” My book, Growing @ the Speed of Change, was built around the fundamental choices of […]

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Lead Your Boss to Build Support for Your Development

A highly productive component of The Extraordinary Leader development approach is the Importance Ratings section of the feedback report. This is where each set of raters — including the participant being assessed — are asked to identify the four most important competencies (of the 16 Differentiating Competencies) for their role. What’s especially useful is comparing […]

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Don’t be Seduced by the Dark Side

Recently I had a coaching session with an operations vice president to review her personal development plan, following her participation in our Extraordinary Leader workshop. In that session she received feedback from 19 peers, direct reports, and others throughout her organization. Joanne rated herself very low on Builds Relationships and Collaboration and Teamwork competencies. Everyone […]

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Thoughts That Make You Go Hmm on…Synergistic Opposites

Joe Folkman’s latest Forbes column, “Exceptional Leaders: Are they the Friend or the Enemy?“, provides yet more of his research on the incredible multiplying power of leaders who are BOTH likable and demanding. Finding synergy where others see contradictions is proving to be a key element in highly effective leadership. “The opposite of a correct […]

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