The training firm Development Dimensions International (DDI) has just released their Global Leadership Forecast 2011. It’s billed as “the biggest study of its kind, involving over 2,600 organizations in 74 countries. Nearly 1,900 HR professionals and 12,500 leaders participated.” This is the sixth biannual forecast they’ve completed since 1999. The forecast conclusions are very useful […]
Read post »Last November I began delivering a series of half-day leadership development workshops (part of their ongoing "management forums" series) for City of Guelph supervisors and managers. This is a rare treat to work with a group of learning leaders just 30 minutes from my home in Kitchener, Ontario. Given our close proximity we pulled out […]
Read post »What is leadership? How can I tell if I am a good, bad, or mediocre leader? How can I develop my own leadership? How can we measure and build leadership effectiveness in our organizations? I’ve discovered the ancient secrets and answers to these questions and have created a magic pixie dust that you can sprinkle […]
Read post »Excerpts from Still Surprised: A Memoir of a Life in Leadership: “…stories are a powerful tool for engaging others. All of us present ourselves to the world through the stories we invent about ourselves, consciously or not.” “The leader of a group must never get overly involved with its sickest member… the temptation is always […]
Read post »During my e-mail exchanges with Jeff Liker we agreed on the critical role leadership and culture play in boosting or blocking major organizational change and improvement efforts (“Lasting Organizational Change Balances Doing and Being”) Jeff is Professor of Industrial and Operations Engineering at the University of Michigan and the author of numerous books on how […]
Read post »The messenger must be the message. The most effective communication is face-to-face. But the most believable communication is behavior. We would all much rather see than hear a sermon. Many well intentioned managers lead change or improvement efforts that are all about changing everyone else while they carry on pretty much as before. They’re preaching […]
Read post »Fear does have a place in our lives. The motivational power of fear can even be crucial to our survival. If we’re physically attacked, fear can jolt us with the adrenalin and motivation we need for fight or flight. Fear is like fire. It can be a life-giving energy source or it can badly burn […]
Read post »A reader responded to a blog question about executive teams I raised in a January post ("Have you fallen and can’t get up?") with a story of how she has personally fallen, and is having trouble getting up. She leads a group of experts in a professional organization who are extremely disdainful of her and […]
Read post »A few weeks ago one of my Tweets linked to a BusinessWeek article “How Incentives Can Undermine Your Influence.” The article focuses on Danny Meyer “the most influential restauranteur in New York City…today every one of his 10 restaurant brands have appeared every year in Zagat’s top 40 for New York City.” The article’s author, […]
Read post »Strong leaders build leadership skills at all levels (“leadership is an action, not a position”) and share ownership by bringing out the best in people on their team and throughout their organization. Unfortunately, these leaders are rare. More common – and often unaware – are stressed out managers who take on too much while reducing […]
Read post »“One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon – instead of enjoying the roses that are blooming outside our windows today.” – Dale Carnegie, American writer (author of the mega-seller […]
Read post »Spring is arriving in the Northern Hemisphere with renewal, rebirth, and new growth. Thankfully, we’re also seeing strong signs of economic growth after the most severe “economic winter” in many decades. Forward thinking organizations are now looking toward renewing or rebuilding leadership skills. That generally starts with learning and development initiatives for supervisors, managers, and […]
Read post »Chris recently sent me this e-mail putting his finger on a vital coaching and developing skill: “In your March newsletter, you reference your leadership wheel and I enjoyed reading the results of your findings as put into that model. I am currently working with a person who is in a leadership role and while he […]
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