The Mission Is Clear, Or Is It?
September 3, 2010 by Simon Oates (Admin)
Filed under Leadership
I was watching the news the other evening and they were running a story featuring the new supreme commander of the NATO forces in Afghanistan. In the course of his challenge to the troops he said, “We are in this to win, that is our clear objective.” In other words, our mission is clear, we are here to win.
However it has been my experience that when it comes to mission, things are often not so clear. What one organization calls mission another calls vision and still another uses terms like purpose and objectives. Is it any wonder then, that our carefully crafted mission and vision statements have little impact on those who are charged with the responsibility of carrying it out?
What the general calls “objective” is really the Mission of the NATO forces. One might word it this way, “The mission of the NATO forces in Afghanistan is to win the war against the Taliban”, or “we are in this to win”.
If one accepts this as the mission, the next logical question is what will victory look like? Or, how will we know when we have achieved victory?
At one time the simple answer would have been when the enemy surrenders and has signed a peace treaty. Unfortunately, today things are much more complicated. Both the nature of the enemy and the context of the war make such a neat conclusion impossible. Consequently we have to take the time to clearly articulate what that victory will look like for both the combatants and those whose land we are defending. We have to, as it were, paint a clear picture of the preferred future. In this case what life in Afghanistan will be like when the Taliban are defeated.
We must provide a vision of what the world will look like when we have accomplished the mission. Failure to do so results in confusion because those engaged in carrying out the mission are left to define victory for themselves.
What is true for the troops is equally true for the employees of an organization. They too need to not only understand the mission, they need a clear understanding of what that preferred future will look like as they go about accomplishing that mission. Without this clear picture, they like the soldiers, are left to define it for themselves. The fallout that comes with this kind of confused vision affects an organization at all levels. Line employees often fail to see what part they play in the bigger picture resulting in indifference and carelessness. Midlevel managers find themselves at odds with each other because their lack of clarity around organizational vision has them moving in opposing directions. Executive teams become combatants instead of team players as each interprets what success will look like for their piece of the organization. In the end confusion reigns and the bottom line suffers.
So what is the answer?
Start by recognizing that “Mission” and “Vision” really do matter. These are not nice catch phrases to put on your company’s annual report, rather they really do have the potential to affect the bottom line. I recently met with a client who was trying to explain to me what his company did. When I asked him to show me a copy of his mission and vision statement, he gave me 3 different pieces of literature, none of which clearly stated what they did. Little wonder they were having trouble adjusting to the market shift taking place in their industry.
Decide what it is you do and then state it in a simple sentence. Jim Collins in his best selling book, “ Good to Great”, discovered that the companies who consistently finished in the top earnings understood the one thing they did well and made sure they continued to do that one thing. He called this the “Hedge Hog principle.
Once you have your mission clearly stated you have the foundation for your vision. This is where you get to describe what victory looks like, or that preferred future. It doesn’t have to be a single sentence nor a slogan. Instead consider a series of statements that embrace what you see the company or organization looking like as it fulfills its mission. I would even go so far as to suggest to clients that they use the phrase, “I envision our company doing such and such,” when I’m helping write their vision statement. In the end, you might have five or six of these statements, that should be accomplishable.
Now you have the basis for a strategic plan as you ask the question, “What specific things do we need to do to make this picture of the preferred future a reality?” A plan that will insure you are accomplishing your mission.
If you sense your company or organization is floundering in this sea of directional confusion here are some questions you should be asking:
* What does your organization/company exist to do? In other words what is your mission? (Collins in “Good to Great”, called this the Hedge Hog Principle)
* Can I state my mission in a single sentence?
* Could I reduce this mission too two or three words, something you could fit on a tee shirt?
* What will the future look like as I go about doing this mission?
* Is my description of what accomplishing this mission would look like a clear and compelling picture of the future?
About The Author
As founder and President of Life Change Consulting, Dave and his organization work with leaders and their organizations to help build Maximum Impact Management teams.
Dave has also served as the Executive Director for the Centre for Leadership at Tyndale University in Toronto Canada. He is the author of “Vision that Works”. Dave is based in the Toronto area.
Specialties:
Team building, trust building, vision casting, mission statement design, corporate governance, strategic thinking and motivational speaking. For more go to http://www.lifechangeconsulting.ca
MeetTheBoss.tv Exposed (Review)
August 19, 2010 by Simon Oates (Admin)
Filed under Leadership, featured
MeetTheBoss.tv Website
While the likes of Youtube and Vimeo have been struggling to attract professional content onto their networks, other websites have been busy creating their own, in an attempt to attract senior managers and executives to be users of their content instead. One such example is MeetTheBoss.tv, which in the last year has grown to an impressive 200,000 registered users. In this article, we will give our opinion on this upstart and recommend whether or not it is worth checking out.
Price/Subscription Costs
A quick look on their website should give a hint at the price tag associated with access to this content. I found a polished and attractive design, Web 2.0 colour scheme and oodles of premium videos. I also couldn’t watch more than teasers of videos without registering. This all suggested that this website could be charging upwards of $20 per month for full access to its content. However I was traitored by my first impression, as I have been in talks with the owners of MeetTheBoss.tv, and they have provided me with a signup link that will allow my site visitors to create a full-access & permanent account for FREE!
http://www.meettheboss.tv/Register/?promotioncode=LEEX01
Slightly taken aback at this promotion, I analysed the site more thoroughly. There are clearly visable advertisements in the right sidebar, however I don’t find these detract from the user experience, and they appear to be useful to the average manager. Perhaps MeetTheBoss.tv could survive without membership fees.
Content
This is where I believe MeetTheBoss.tv has it’s greatest strength. The shear quality and consistency of the videos, to be quite frank, blew me away. Most content is shot and viewable in High Definition, and the sound is sharper than any web video content I see on other websites.
The calibre of the speakers and interviewees on the videos is self-evident. As I glance across the homepage, several high profile executives catch my eye, including Patrick Doyle (CEO of Domino’s Pizza), Scott Thompson (President of PayPal) and Steve Odland (CEO of Office Depot) to name but a few. The thought of being able to gain HR insights from the head of people at a giant corporation such as McDonalds is one that excites me.
Usability
There are a few features of the website that show me that the designers at MeetTheBoss.tv really had busy executives in mind. One such feature is the ‘skip-to’ chapter feature. MeetTheBoss.tv videos are often between 10-20 minutes long, and like many YouTube videos, sometimes only a specific segment really interests us. In MeetTheBoss.tv videos, handy chapter captions hover below the streaming video, allowing you to skip to the key information at any time. This allows you to extract only the vital information without hassle.
Conclusion
I think that by this point, the conclusion is clear. MeetTheBoss.tv is a well-designed website, offering high quality and empowering video content for absolutely no fees! These facts alone have secured it’s place as my favourite leadership video source on the internet so far. Remember, you can create your own full-access account in 30 seconds using the link/promotional code that I have received from the site administrators:
http://www.meettheboss.tv/Register/?promotioncode=LEEX01
Feel free to share this link with friends, collegues, students or whoever you think may find this resource useful! It will provide any visitor a free-for-lifetime full-access account. Why not check it out?
Fierce Competition At Corporate Games
August 10, 2010 by Simon Oates (Admin)
Filed under Leadership, Teamwork
The dreamy City of Ventura, long associated with sun, sand and… corporate team building?
Each year, the City of Ventura, California USA plays host to the ‘Ventura Corporate Games’. From their website: “Corporate Games provides a valuable opportunity for companies and employees to work together to build team unity and morale, which has become very important with the challenges facing many businesses and employees in the last couple of years.”
It’s certainly an interesting spin on the office day out, and many companies, including sales outsourcing business Cydcor Inc have been seeing a fair measure of success in the games. While the sports arena is not often associated with the team building activities currently available in the UK, Cydcor‘s recent big win in Basketball in Ventura has certainly sent a clear signal to their employees.
The Ventura Corporate Games are open to businesses with betwen 51-150 employees, which ensures that a significant % of the workforce will be actively participating in the games. What strikes me instantly is ‘Why hasn’t this been done before?’. Firstly, we all appreciate that team sports are perhaps the most team-orientated activities in existence, and also that many companies already have football, basketball and rounders teams anyway. These games are a great fusion of work and adventure.
As Cydcor will have no doubt realised – you wont have a successful sports team without friction, and in the same way, most massively successful business projects encounter inter-personal issues at some point along the way. So perhaps a sporting environment allows individuals to come to peace with others in an environment where conflicting opinions are demonstrated much more openly and naturally. In this respect, I could see many previously dysfunctional work teams come back from Ventura with a far more harmonious vibe.
Let us just hope that the rising obesity figures in both the US and the UK don’t put a stop to the spread of these ingenious events.
Lessons From Leadership – Obama to Mandela
July 27, 2010 by Simon Oates (Admin)
Filed under Leadership
EOY Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year – bNET
June 21, 2010 by Simon Oates (Admin)
Filed under Leadership
I invite you to watch this fantastic video about the prestigious award for business leaders called ‘Entrepreneur of the Year’, run by Ernst & Young for over 20 years.
Peace-Based Leadership
June 11, 2010 by Simon Oates (Admin)
Filed under Leadership
When one reads the title to this article; immediately the thought of politics will be aroused. What will come on the minds of many who are politically inclined was Presidents Ronald Reagan’s political philosophy of peace through strength, (strength being leadership). President Reagan quite frankly was a political genius as he thoroughly understood the surrounding political dimensions of his environment and what it took to reach peace through leadership. He understood the factors of communications that imbedded the concepts of persuasion and his skills of conveying his perceptiveness about the issues before, during and after his time as he was a man of great foresight. What many critics of his time did not realize was his true drive for Peace. And, so therefore, President’s Reagan was extremely aware that in order to bring peace to the world and America his leadership style had to be conducive to meeting the ultimate goal of peace. It required boldness, courage, tenacity and intellect. He had to reach deep in his heart to find all the necessary skills of leadership such as: delegation, economic prudence, and be a world peace maker. If one closely reviews the decade of the 80’s they will quickly see a time of progress as never before. It was the technological boom, the cold war to an end without a major conflict a revitalized economy that solidified our comfort level for at least twenty years past his time.
Can You Encourage Peace?
So now one may ask what does this have to do with me; I am not a President. Well I can tell from experience as a former Assistant Dean to a Medical School, a California constitutional Gubernatorial appointee of a major State department, educational administrator and entrepreneur; I can’t tell you how many times I’ve needed to seriously utilize my leadership skills as an executive to reach for peaceful outcomes to seek the results we were seeking. Before, one can reach peace one must demonstrate the skills and the art of being a leader. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said: “In this movement we are all leaders” Dr. King was all about leadership based on peace. The movement of non-violence and peace have been premier vehicles and tools used in leadership development to seek peace.
It is rare to be in an executive position whereby one will not need to exercise leadership skills if peace is what the executive is reaching for. Executives, managers, and businesses need to interact daily in organizational behavioral matters that require a sensitive yet bold decision making. Peace is typically at the very heart of the desired result. Because without peace there are no productive progressive outcomes and so therefore there is no leadership. Typically with leadership and peace come progressive performances.
Guest Post By Author Dr. Richard C. Baiz, D.B.A.
Leadership Skills List
May 8, 2010 by Simon Oates (Admin)
Filed under Leadership
A leader will tend to follow one or two leadership styles, which will guide their behaviour and decision making. However, this style will be formed from tens or even hundreds of leadership skills, which many leaders may share, even if they appear to have completely opposite leadership styles.
Leadership Skills List
1. Charisma
Leadership Public Speaking is a great element of charisma, however being able to speak to large crowds is not just what the definition of charisma is about. Charisma is about speaking with purpose, passion and being able to keep the attention, or even build excitement in the person you are talking to.
2. Delegation
Effective delegation is a fantastic leadership skill that only a fraction of business leaders action in all areas of their organisations. Entreprenurs are famously poor at actually delegating important tasks to their inferiors. After spending so long, and exerting so much effort in building up the company from small beginnings, they often find it difficult to truely place their ‘baby’ in the hands of another person. This of course simply makes this particular leadership skill a welcome sight when actioned in any company.
3. Decisiveness
Whether they are making the decision themselves, or seeking a democratic opinion from their collegues – leaders must arrive at a decision swiftly, once presented with the facts, rather than either taking a vague stance on an issue, or taking too long to come to a firm decision once all the infomation has been gathered. This will require the leader to have an analytical mind, and confidence in ones judgement.
4. Patience.
Often, even good decisions, good management and good stratebgy and implementation can still take some time to bear fruits. This means that leaders need to exert the skill of patience in holding back on requesting constant updates or demanding for things to be done fast, which often just creates a barrier that at best stops people from actually getting on with their work, and at worst causes resentment and can cripple projects.
5. Strong Moral Character
While many famous leaders in the past could have, ‘questionable’ moral character, in the modern world – people demand their leaders to be transparent, lead by good example, and show strength in morals and values. People are no longer satisified by a fair wage, as they also want to feel that they work for a ‘good’ company.
Leadership Public Speaking
May 5, 2010 by Simon Oates (Admin)
Filed under Leadership
Leadership public speaking is seen as one of the great traits of the modern leader. While the great leaders of the past are known for their leadership public speaking ability, current leaders such as Barrack Obama in the USA, and Nick Clegg in the UK have shown that oratory is still as powerful as it ever has been.
When you open your mouth to speak, do others truely listen?
In recognising that public speaking can be an effective leadership skill, an aspiring leader will realise that they’re in luck – public speaking is a skill that can be steadily improved in response to a good public speaking course. Speaking skills can be technically learnt either from a book, or from a coach, but they will only be used to upgrade your ability when put into varied and frequent practise.
Taking Every Opportunity – Where To Practise Leadership Public Speaking
I find it is always best to practise public speaking in a ‘safe’ environment. A safe environment is one in which a mistake during speaking won’t run risk of damaging your career prospects. Practically all adventurous speaking opportunities outside of your workplace are perfect for this personal development. Here are some speaking ideas:
- In church
- In a school-room or college lecture hall
- To a club, group or society
- At a conference,
- Giving a presentation (such as on behalf of a charity)
- Even at family occassions.
Most people agree, that as long as you are speaking to more than 5 people, in a non-casual setting, this will bring all the challenges of public speaking, although with greater crowds or a more important audience will come a greater test.
Building Your Oratory Skills
I can provide a brief overview of tips you may wish to take on board to improve your leadership public speaking and presentation skills beyond what they currently are; all leaders could build further upon at least one of these areas.
1. Deliver an interesting tone of voice. Allow your voice to eb and flow as you would speak normally. Let your tone drift up at the end of questions, or remain mono tone over short, sharp point.
2. Use pauses effectively. Leadership public speaking is often as much about silence as it is about speaking, as leaving dramatic and characteristic pauses at the right moments really highlights a speakers skill. A short pause allows the listener to ponder a little more about what you’ve just said, and demonstrates that you are comfortable with the audience, and supremely confident in what you are saying.
3. Maintain eye contact with the audience. You may sometimes need to refer to your presentation for key statistics or cues, however the rest of the time, your eyes should be on the audience, and moving round the room.
4. Don’t forget to smile! People are listening, but they’re also watching your body language and they’re probably watching your face all the time, so make sure that what they see is a happy, enthuasiastic and bright individual. Smiling while talking does not come naturally, especially when one feels under the stress and pressure that public speaking can bring, however with practise you will realise that the more you smile – the better you will feel.
5. From Commentor Mitch: Be aware of your body motions. Many speakers make the mistake of unknowlingly moving in repetitive motions or in somewhat unnatural ways while presenting and speaking. Be aware of what your body is doing and keep any movement of arms and hands to be in line with the overall presentation. It is expected and can be quite comfortable to make generalized moves and to indicate specific important points with body empahsis. Practice in a mirror or video tape yourself giving a practice presentation to see if you develop any “movement habits” that need to be avoided during your presentation. Also, we aware of what signals you may send during the presentation to indicate your own views of the information presented. Crossing your arms may come across as disinterested in the topic you are speaking on. Also be aware of any unusual twitches that can develop in your face during presentations that can become distracting to your audience.
6. Also from Mitch: Breathe. Pure and simple, some presenters get very caught up in their speeches and can run out of breath mid-sentence. This can result in ill timed pauses mid-thought and can have the audience paying more attention to your breathing rhythm than to your topic. Keep breathing natural and relaxed so that your audience stays the same.
If you keep these leadership public speaking tips in mind while practising, I can promise that your presentation and oratory skills will improve dramatically. While learning however, it is best to focus on improving one aspect of speaking at a time, and gradually these tips will become natural habits, and public speaking will no longer cause the same dread it once did!
How To Gain The Most Comprehensive Knowledge On Public Speaking
As mentioned in the latest Leadership Expert e-Magazine, we have discovered a brilliant resource on public speaking for approximately £25. It’s delivered in digital format, which means you could be absorbing knowledge from it in just 3 minutes if you decide that you want to take a proactive step in building your presentation skills, public speaking skills or overall charisma. The resource is called Public Speaking Extraordinaire, and costs the price of a restaurant meal, for an in-depth course delivered by video, audio and text! We heavily recommend that you try it for yourself.
Please leave comments below if you would like to add more tips and tricks to this list, and I will work them into the article and credit them to you!
Simon Oates ~ Leadership Expert
Leadership Styles Questionnaire
April 26, 2010 by Simon Oates (Admin)
Filed under Leadership
Leadership Style Questionnaires and leadership style quizzes can help you discover what type of leader you ARE. This is a crucial step before you set about achieving the potential of the type of leader you could be. We have created our very own leadership style questionnaire, incorporating the 5 Key leadership styles. If you can’t even name 5 different leadership styles – this questionnaire will certainly help you update your knowledge!
Leadership Expert’s Leadership Styles Questionnaire
Download It For Free Here: Leadership Styles Questionnaire (Word 2003)
Leadership Expert’s questionnaire is in Word Document format (2003 format to allow widespread use). Feel free to fill in the leadership styles questionaire within the electronic document, or to alternatively print out copies to be completed by hand. This document can be shared publicly, so long as no modifications are made to the document itself. “Modifications” includes removing the credit to the author.
Please enjoy the leadership styles questionnaire, and remember that this will only be as useful as you allow it, through giving honest answers to the questions within.
Please leave a comment sharing which result you received, and whether you agree with the evaluation or not! It will help us create an even more accurate questionnaire!
Leadership Advice
April 25, 2010 by Simon Oates (Admin)
Filed under Leadership
Welcome to Leadership Expert – One of the UK’s busiest Leadership Advice Portals. We’ve received over 150,000 visitors since we launched in April 2009, and we’ve grown so tremendously quickly thanks to our users recommending our articles to others, and to search engines rewarding our excellent content & resources with high rankings.
Leadership Advice at Leadership Expert.
Our leadership advice comes in many flavours and varieties to suit the varying knowledge needs of aspiring leaders on an international scale. To help you find leadership advice tailored to the topic you require – we’ve split our knowledgebase into these 5 main categories.
Category: Leadership
Leadership Advice in its simplest form: articles focused on developing your leadership potential and explaining advanced leadership and management concepts and theories in detail.
Visit the leadership category to view all leadership advice filed under ‘leadership’.
Category: Motivation
Motivation is an important area of human behaviour at the heart of everything we do. It was once said that “Motivation will almost always beat mere talent.” This is why we devote a good chunk of our articles to this complex subject.
Visit the motivation category to view all leadership advice filed under ‘motivation’.
Category: Teamwork
Teamwork is becoming a natural and effective form of working in a variety of industries. If you’re still not working in, or managing teams – you will be soon. Prepare for the next level in productivity by improving your ability to perform well in teams.
Visit the teamwork category to view all leadership advice filed under ‘teamwork’.
Category: Productivity
The secret to achieving astonishing levels of productivity is that a variety of techniques need to be used to reach your potential. With this in mind, we attempt to share all the genuine productivity techniques and tools we discover in this dedicated section.
Visit the productivity category to view all leadership advice filed under ‘productivity’.
Catergory: Debate
Because Leadership is a subject defined by ideas, gestures and feelings, rather than science – we debate many contentious leadership issues with our visitors and put the most interesting articles for discussion in this catergory.
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