Balancing management and leadership has been a focus of our work stretching back through many of my books and our keynotes and workshops and leadership team retreats. Zenger Folkman’s research on the “differentiating competencies” that separate the bottom 10% from the top 10% shows that emotional intelligence is a major factor in leadership effectiveness. Good […]
Read post »A long list of studies shows that 50 – 70% of leadership, culture, and organization change and development efforts fail. For example, a Harvard Business Review article by Michael Beer and Nitin Nohria on “Cracking the Code of Change” concludes, “the brutal fact is that about 70% of all change initiatives fail.” These efforts typically […]
Read post »One of the most read articles on our web site is “Bad Boss: Learn How to Manage Your Manager“. Upward leadership is a crucial and often underdeveloped skill. Many people give far too much power and control to their boss. If they’ve won the “boss lottery” and report to a great leader, work life is […]
Read post »Are you concerned about building leadership skills in your organization’s supervisors, managers, or executives? Would you like to help leaders… Increase employee engagement by up to 8 times? Double/triple their motivation to implement a personal development plan? Build coaching and leadership skills around natural strengths? Make performance appraisals an inspiring event people look forward to? […]
Read post »Many organizations have increased their efforts to strengthen the coaching skills of their supervisors, managers, and executives. That’s because of mounting evidence showing that coaching effectiveness dramatically improves employee engagement, levels of customer satisfaction, productivity, safety, and profitability while reducing turnover, absenteeism, and costs. Coaching skills have an especially vital impact on “volunteerism.” This is […]
Read post »One of the highlights of the Leadership Summit was a keynote presentation by Jack Zenger and Joe Folkman on a critical topic that’s vital to the future of many organizations. In much of the Western World we’re on the edge of a dangerous talent precipice. For many it’s becoming a crisis. In America 60% of […]
Read post »As I outlined in “Exceptional Leaders Aren’t Well Rounded” and “Outstanding Major League Baseball Players Aren’t Well Rounded” extraordinary leaders aren’t defined by the absence of weaknesses but the presence of a few profound strengths. In The Extraordinary Leader workshop we help participants uncover the power of leadership perception from their own experiences with a […]
Read post »Would you like to move beyond building individual leaders to building a culture of exceptional leadership and coaching in your organization? Are you concerned about succession planning, deepening leadership bench strength, cultivating teamwork, recruiting top talent, increasing retention and engagement, improving customer service, safety and wellness, and increasing sales and profits? These critical issues are […]
Read post »Ghosts, goblins, and zombies are scary. But working for a bully boss can be terrifying — like living with a creature from the black lagoon. If we allow ourselves to be a victim of a horrible boss we could even end up in an early grave. Most bad bosses aren’t evil. They’re often good people […]
Read post »My last blog discussed the key findings and advice outlined in the Harvard Business Review article, “Making Yourself Indispensable” (click here to read that blog post). At the time that article appeared in HBR, executive coach and bestselling author, Marshall Goldsmith, interviewed Jack Zenger in his Huffington Post blog. Read the interview at “The Indispensable […]
Read post »Jack Zenger’s latest Forbes column brings to mind the ancient woodcutter’s fable. A strong young pioneer is energetically chopping down trees with his broad axe to clear farming land. His productivity amazes and surpasses everyone else. As his axe dulls from heavy use his production drops while his frustration rises. A veteran community member working […]
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 »Last week’s blog on You Are Here: Multiple Feedback Points Locates our Leadership Skills described the work we’re currently doing introducing hundreds of leaders at one company to the groundbreaking new approach of strengths-based leadership development. As we continue to use only self-assessments to discuss leadership strengths we’re seeing an overwhelming interest in getting much […]
Read post »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 […]
Read post »Last week I delivered a 50 minute webinar on The Strengths-Based Leadership Revolution hosted by the Canadian Society for Training and Development. We wrapped it up with 10 minutes of thoughtful participant questions and discussion. This archived webinar is now freely available here. Given the breadth and depth of our Strengths-Based Leadership Development System a […]
Read post »This spring I blogged about the firestorm of debate Jack Zenger and Joe Folkman ignited with their March Harvard Business Review blog post, “Are Women Better Leaders than Men?” Their research was based on a recent survey of 7,280 leaders. The study reinforced some long held beliefs and uncovered a few surprises in the gender […]
Read post »I used to love the sharp, fresh smell of ink and paper as I opened a new book and heard the creak of the spine cracking. Old, musty, and worn school readers gave off a sweet, warm odor that promised hours of entertainment and adventure. Books don’t seem to smell that way anymore. That’s probably […]
Read post »We’re continuing to get feedback, questions, and comments about culture development following my 60 minute webcast on November 4. If you missed the whirlwind “city bus tour,” you can view the archived presentation (my animated slides synchronized with the audio track) at Leading a Peak Performance Culture. One viewer sent me a good question after […]
Read post »Culture change continues to be a hot topic because it’s vital to successfully implementing change and improvement efforts. It’s one of the key factors in the 50 – 70% failure rate for programs to increase safety performance, service and quality levels, Lean/Six Sigma, productivity, innovation, leadership skills. As I prepare for a series of webcasts, […]
Read post »I recently came across this bit of wisdom from an unknown author, “Remember, people will judge you by your actions, not your intentions. You may have a heart of gold — but so does a hard-boiled egg.” Way too many managers confuse intentions, plans, and declarations with actions. Managers must LOL — lead out loud […]
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