Are you looking for quick, easy — and high quality — online material from top experts in leadership development, personal growth, or sales and service excellence without searching all over the Internet? Would you like a “one stop site” to access surveys and benchmark data, learning modules, and custom content for your organization? I’ve enjoyed […]
Read post »We had over 400 sites join last week’s webinar on building extraordinary leaders and coaches. During this 60 minute webcast I outlined a high level and highly condensed overview of 5 keys to strengths-based leadership development and 6 steps to building a coaching culture with exceptional leaders. In this fast-paced webcast I rapidly covered: • Key […]
Read post »Boss A cares about your issues and concerns, leads by example, gives honest and helpful feedback, coaches and develops you, and builds teamwork and trust. Boss B has high standards of excellence, pushes and stretches you and your team beyond what you thought was possible, relentlessly focuses on top priorities and goals, and drives hard […]
Read post »I’ve delivered hundreds of leadership workshops over the past few decades. Until our partnership with Zenger Folkman, these sessions were based on “timeless leadership principles” that encouraged participants to build their improvement plans around the weaker areas to round out and expand their leadership skills. That meant focusing on weaknesses. Last week I delivered another […]
Read post »My last blog looked at using multi-rater feedback to pinpoint our leadership location. This is proving to be twice as accurate as self-assessment in identifying leadership strengths that we can magnify toward exceptional leadership. Not only does feedback help leaders build strengths — or identify fatal flaws that could derail their career — asking for […]
Read post »With last week’s death of the “Iron Lady,” former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, many world leaders and commentators looked back on her forceful and charismatic personality. Charismatic leadership is a popular media stereotype of strong leadership. As much as I’ve enjoyed reading Fortune magazine for the past few decades, they keep adding to this […]
Read post »“I don’t care about being liked, I just want to be respected,” is a statement repeated by many less than extraordinary leaders. Trapped in either/or thinking, these narrowly-focused leaders often push hard for results while leaving a trail of damaged relationships and enervated people scattered behind them. Facebook COO, Sheryl Sandberg, is perpetuating a related […]
Read post »Given the overwhelming research on the power of optimism can leaders and teams be too positive? Intuitively we know that’s true. An overly positive view often leads to whitewashing issues as if pretending they don’t exist will make them go away. Over the top optimists often avoid those courageous conversations that address the difficult Moose […]
Read post »On March 4, HR.com is hosting my complimentary webinar on Double Learner Motivation with Revolutionary Strengths-Based Leadership. In this fast-paced session I’ll discuss why a huge part of the leadership development gap is caused by traditional needs assessments and gap analysis. This weakness-based approach is ineffective and undermines participant motivation for change. I’ll show pre […]
Read post »In our Extraordinary Coach development system we define coaching as interactions that help the individual being coached to expand awareness, discover superior solutions, and make and implement better decisions. This is a broad leadership skill set that is most often used in career and performance coaching. Extraordinary coaches can exist in an ordinary or even […]
Read post »click to enlarge In his introduction to The Extraordinary Coach: How the Best Leaders Help Others Grow, bestselling leadership author and executive coach, Marshall Goldsmith, points out, “a leader who is an adept coach can greatly enhance the organization’s success; one who dabbles and doesn’t take the process seriously can cause harm.” Marshall’s insight […]
Read post »There’s been a big surge in coaching over the past decade. Part of this is driven by the pressing need for increasing bench strength and succession planning. It’s also very clear that leaders with strong coaching skills have dramatically higher levels of employee engagement, productivity, safety, and customer service. Scott Schweyer, Ed Haltrecht, and I are delighted to […]
Read post »click to enlarge Many organizations recognize that highly engaged employees create dramatically higher levels of customer satisfaction. Highly engaged employees are less likely to quit and leave — or to quit and stay. A workplace with engaged employees is 2 – 3 times safer, more productive, creative, and producing much higher quality. Lots of organizations […]
Read post »Last week I met with an HR VP to discuss lifting organizational performance through leadership and culture development. The company was doing well and growing through a few strategic acquisitions. Levels of customer satisfaction, service/quality, safety, productivity, and profits were good but not great. He and the senior team were looking for ways to boost […]
Read post »Most progressive organizations today are using leadership competency models to outline the key skills and behaviors they want to see in their supervisors, managers, and executives. Leadership competency models can provide a structured framework for defining and developing those behaviors that have the biggest impact on an organization’s performance. Used effectively, they become a roadmap […]
Read post »Derek is the head of a large division. He’s technically brilliant, a great strategic thinker, with strong analytical skills, and tremendous drive for delivering results. Derek’s impressive track record garners respect. He’s fairly personable and most people like him. These are the reasons he’s had a series of promotions and is one of the youngest […]
Read post »“In all our research to predict the satisfied, engaged, and committed employee versus the dissatisfied, disengaged, and uncommitted employee, one variable emerged as the best predictor of the differences. That one variable is, “Who is your immediate supervisor?” ” … leadership strengths as those qualities that are highly valued in most cultures, that are valued […]
Read post »How to Be Exceptional couldn’t come at a better time. We’re standing at a very critical crossroad. Our organizations desperately want and need much stronger leadership at all levels. But a torrent of studies show most leadership development approaches aren’t working. We need a better way. We’re also at the intersection of powerful and revolutionary […]
Read post »It’s both jarring and exciting to learn that I’ve been wrong. Most of my last few decades in the leadership development field I’ve fallen headlong into the trap ensnaring a vast majority of us in this business; focusing on closing organizational or managerial gaps or weaknesses. We’ve used needs analysis or facilitated a gap analysis […]
Read post »I’ve just read an advance copy of Zenger Folkman’s new book, How to Be Exceptional: Drive Leadership Success by Magnifying Your Strengths. It’s an outstanding — it really is exceptional — leadership book co-authored by four of Zenger Folkman’s top executives. In upcoming blogs I’ll review and draw from How to Be Exceptional. Next week […]
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