Be a winner in 2012.

Unlocking The Leader in You in 2012

With the onset of an Olympic Year in 2012, I have spent the ‘quiet’ days over Christmas contemplating how I can best serve you throughout 2012. From comments, feedback and discussions with many aspiring leaders who visit Leadership Expert™, it is clear that you all want me to ensure I retain the ethics of researching, testing and reporting on leadership tips, techniques and tools that actually work in the workplace, business environment, schools and across communities as a whole.

I am committed to offering you independent, meaningful and useful information for you to be able to understand and apply whichever environment you work in and whatever position you hold. Within our leadership community we have top CEO’s, entrepreneurs, senior managers, middle management, junior managers, team leaders and many ambitious people who are seeking their first management position.

I am committed to serving you all. In many cases your companies have stopped investing in leadership and management training and development. Its my goal to access that training and legitimately provide you with the content for you to be able to build into your own personal development plan.

Over the course of 2012, I am therefore planning to research and distill programmes in:

• Self-awareness – looking at models such as the Johari window
• Self-management techniques – how top performing people profess to the application of certain ‘habits’ that make them successful
• Planning – strategic thinking and how to plan and increase your chances of success as a leader
• The art of communication. Influencing techniques, particularly the one I stumbled across recently which makes people say yes, when otherwise they would have said no!
• Leadership traits, leadership styles and leadership skills to make you into an authentic and accomplished leader in 2012.
• How the best leaders are also highly effective coaches and how they make use of coaches themselves.
• How to use certain programmes and techniques to motivate and inspire your teams.
• Skills to enable you to create and build winning teams.
• Problem solving techniques – enabling you to think laterally and literally and be one step ahead of the game.

Within all these topics will be a plethora of material you can use to help you have the winning edge and for 2012 to be your best year ever.

Its my mission in 2012 for you to reach your hopes, dreams and aspirations. To help me do this I also propose to seek your views by way of a questionnaire early in the new year, so I can be sure I am fully meeting your needs. So, if you dont already, then feel free to subscribe – I promise I won’t be bombarding you with ‘useless’ marketing information.

If there are any areas you specifically want us to focus on in 2012, please feel free to comment below. Wishing you an amazing 2012.

Simon Teague, Leadership-Expert

 

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Leadership Tip Of The Day

Leadership practitioner Dr. William Cummings brings tips to Eyewitness News USA every Monday and Wednesday.  This Wednesday, he shared a personal experience to illustrate why it’s not only okay to be a “yes man”; it’s an essential ingredient of good leadership.

Here are Dr. C.’s comments:

“When I was fifteen years old, I delivered groceries on my bicycle for Whipple Grocery Store in Chicago.  One morning, when I walked up the steps to my first customer of the day, she asked me to go back to the store and get her some milk.  I said, ‘No, I can’t do that; I’ve got five more deliveries.’

“When I finished the day’s deliveries and returned to the store, the owner fired me.  He said: ‘You never say no to a customer; you always say yes, and then you figure out how you’re going to do it.’  That’s what leaders do.

“If I want to be a leader, I need to develop a yes attitude.  E-mails, phone calls, one-on-ones, staff meetings: every communication needs to be full of yeses.  Saying yes means saying yes to my life as it exists today; saying yes to people who surround me; saying yes to all the challenges and surprises that come my way each day.

“I have to say no to drugs, no to evil, and no to taking revenge.  But in a very real sense, those no’s are really yes to my value system.

“Every leader I have ever known was a yes person. You can be a leader too, if you want to.”

Leadership Training

Welcome to Leadership Expert’s page on Leadership Training.

What is leadership training about? Is leadership training effective? If my company isn’t presently investing in any leadership training for me – what can I do about it? These will be the questions I will be investigating, evaluating and more importantly – solving for you.

Whether you are a top performing CEO or someone who is considering (or being considered) for their first junior management or supervisory role; providing you with the right tools to do the job effectively is essential. After all, you wouldn’t want someone who knows nothing, or very little about plumbing to come and install a new bathroom, complete with energy efficient boiler, power shower, expensive tiles etc into your home would you? Unfortunately, however, this is exactly what most organisations do. They take a good employee and then throw them into the deep end of management under the auspices of ‘career development’.

Pro-active, innovative and forward thinking organisations do have whole suites of tried and tested, highly effective management induction and learning programmes. Over the course of the next few months I will be researching and interviewing some of these organisations HR Directors and Staff Development managers to see exactly what they do and how they do it. If you currently work somewhere you feel is amazing at leadership training and support I would love to hear from you.

Many of you are telling me that, sadly, you were either thrown in at the deep end, or that you feel your training has been inadequate. The fact is that most of the greatest leaders I have ever come across embarked on a relentless drive for their own self-development, regardless of what their companies offered. It is in this respect that I also plan to investigate the most cost effective and life changing learning programmes that are available to you.

I am currently researching leadership training courses in the following subjects:

• Transformational leadership
• Situational leadership
• Global leadership
• Leadership verses management
• The accomplished executive
• Leadership training for new managers

I will be investigating up to 10 different leadership training companies to see what they provide and how effective their training has been. The list is not exhaustive so let me know what king of leadership training you currently need and I will guide you accordingly. Just so you know, most good leadership courses cost up to £3,000.

One leadership course I would definitely recommend you should take a look at is called Best Year Yet®. What is so good about this programme is that it is goal orientated and behavioral. It is also value based and blended with on-line tracking, audio programmes, webinars, and for those who want it, one-to-one coaching.  It is also one of the cheapest and yet most effective (life changing) programmes I have ever come across. To take a closer look – see my full review.

One of the most effective ways to learn to become a leader is through coaching. Coaching can add so much more value compared to attending a course, because it is more personal, in-depth and can unlock peoples hidden potential in amazing ways.

There is currently an explosion in leadership coaching, because people want to be able to find their own path to success, independently to what their company offers them, or at least, with the ability to discuss real issues with someone from outside the company. This can have major benefits for both the individual and the organisation. External coaches are being accepted in greater numbers into organisations and as part of peoples continuing professional development planning.

For details of the three different types of coaching programme available directly through Leadership-expert™ – click here.

From visiting organisations, I’ve found that the happiest employees and managers regularly invest in themselves and their personal leadership training. People have often sought out useful leadership books and learning material that will help them along the path to happiness and success in leadership. These days, many e-courses tend to be rather disappointing, and although we can all learn from material which is available on-line, finding the right learning programme for you can be a real challenge.

So, if you are looking for access to straight-forward, useful leadership training materials, top tips and tools to help you to become a more effective leader in your organisation, join our community and I will let you know every week when I have been able to update the website with some incredibly useful, cutting-edge leadership thinking and techniques – all for free.

Bespoke Leadership Training:

If you have specific leadership and management training needs and don’t want to spend hours trawling the internet, employ Leadership-Expert™ to find the right solution for you.

If you are looking for very specific leadership training which doesn’t fall into any of the above categories, email me at simon@simonteague.com and I will compile an initial assessment of your development needs and learning style, undertake the appropriate research and recommend the most relevant leadership training solution to meet your and your organisations needs. The cost of this service is minimal compared to the overall training outlay and could save you £thousands if you attend a programme that is ultimately not right for you.

How to Make Your Commute Fly By

I’ve recently moved house so have been investigating the new ways available to get to work.  My preferred method remains my trusty bicycle, but thankfully for days when this isn’t an option there are alternatives, although being London the car generally isn’t one of them.  The daily commute is often a pretty horrid experience however, especially in the summer months.  It always amazes me how people manage to get so smelly first thing in the morning, but suffice to say the summer heat only exacerbates the situation, especially when you are armpit height like me.

I’ve used my time commuting around London to come up with a few strategies to make the experience a little bit more enjoyable.

5 ways to make your commute more fun

1. Make it productive time – With my job I tend to read (a lot), but with technology being what it is, finding the quiet time and place to really immerse yourself is tough.  Riding the bus or train to work fits the bill.  If reading isn’t your thing, listen to some educational things on your MP3 player.  There are loads of good free ones available on iTunes, with this offering from Stanford a favorite of mine – http://ecorner.stanford.edu/.
2. Be sociable – London commutes are legendary in the isolation with which each commuter tends to travel.  Eye contact is rarely made and it’s amazingly common to travel with the same faces every morning for months/years without ever saying a word to them.  Reclaim your humanity by making eye contact with your fellow travelers, and don’t be afraid to strike up a conversation.  After all, it’s much better to talk to your neighbour than someone on your phone (major annoyance to fellow travelers)
3. Get some exercise – Cycling in London isn’t for the feint-hearted but with Boris Bikes scattered about the place it has never been easier, and I can certainly recommend it.  You get some relatively fresh air, the exercise gets your blood pumping and you save a bit of money.  A super way of getting your day off to the right start.
4. Don’t go hungry – There’s little worse than being stuck on a hot train so make sure you have some water and something to nibble on.  My personal favorite is a small pot of mixed nuts as they offer a healthy source of energy that’s easy to pick at.
5. Let your mind wander – Life is increasingly hectic, and those moments of contemplation increasingly valuable.  Inspiration often strikes when we least expect it, so use your commute to let your mind wander.  Make sure you have some means of recording your thoughts should a Eureka moment occur.  A notebook or something digital does the trick for me.

How do you make your commute enjoyable?

Adi Gaskell is the editor of The Management Blog for the Chartered Management Institute, a professional body for managers and leaders in the UK

How Can You Be A Social Media Leader?

Have you ever wanted to know how you could become the next social media leader on Twitter? If you want to become an online brand or entrepreneur then social media is extremely important. So how can you try to become an authority in the world of social media? Here are four great tips:

Passion

Whatever industry your part of, it’s essential that you show passion. If you don’t enjoy writing or sharing information about your favoured topic then why would your followers or readers enjoy following you? Be positive, passionate and enthusiastic and you should reap the benefits.

Engagement is Key

You have to be responsive to the community who follow you, do this by welcoming questions and answering other peoples. Also, do something to help one of your followers that a normal user wouldn’t do, show that level of commitment and engagement that is critical to success.

Originality is extremely important

When looking at Twitter or other social media platforms, people want to read new and original articles, it’s this type of content that will get you noticed. Anybody can re-tweet an article that they like, but it’s the unique articles that you have produced that will gain you followers.

For example, if you are a personal finance blogger then you may like to re-tweet articles about savings, but if you write your own savings content and you express your own views then people will be more likely to read and respond to voice their own opinions.

Use a metric: Klout or the Times Social List

If you want to check how well you are performing on the social media scale, there are many metrics you can use. The two most popular metrics are Klout and the Times Social List.

Klout

Klout is said to be the measurement of your overall online influence and it takes into account 35 variables through Facebook and Twitter to measure your:

“Reach” – True Reach is the size of your engaged audience

“Amplification Probability” – The likelihood that your content will be acted upon. How often do your messages generate re-tweets or spark a conversation?

“Network Influence” – This measures the actual engagement of your audience, by measuring actions such as re-tweets, messages, follows, comments, likes etc. Every time someone performs one of these actions the authority of your content rises.

Times Social List

The Sunday Times Social List is a great way to measure your social power and you can choose one or more social networks to calculate your social worth, either, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Foursquare. You will then be ranked based on their social algorithm.

The algorithm works in a similar way to the Klout score, as it tracks the way a user interacts with their “wider network”. This means that there is an increased value placed on re-tweets, “likes”, and responses.

So are you a social leader? Or do you aspire to be one?

How Good is Your Handshake?

The handshake of a leader has almost mythical status.  Just last year there were reports of job seekers losing out on positions due to a weak handshake.  To firm, to limp.  The perfect handshake is something executives the world over are striving for, with some companies even providing handshake training to help budding leaders make that great first impression.

New research looks into what verifiable personality traits can be derived from ones handshake.  Frank Bernieria and Kristen Petty screened the personality of some 300 students before selecting 10 with contrasting personality profiles.

These 10 people were then asked to introduce themselves to around 100 people, with either a handshake or a less formal greeting.  The 100 people were then each asked to rank them in order of whether they were extraverted, neurotic, open, conscientious and agreeable.

So do handshakes reveal our personalities?

To begin with it’s worth pointing out that generally speaking our ability to perceive someone’s personality in such a short space of time is pretty rubbish, with the honourable exception being when someone is extraverted.

That said, when men got to shake hands with other men, their ability to gauge the personality of each other was considerably improved.  Bernieri and Petty believe that a good handshake is a skill in the same way that riding a bicycle or learning a musical instrument is, and therefore that a good handshake requires a conscientious personality.  They believed that conscientious men were better at handshaking, and this was reflected in the results of the study.

Also of interest was the finding that this is mainly a male issue.  The handshake isn’t as important for women and therefore the link between handshake and personality was not found when women shook hands with each other.  The researchers did however suggest that amongst business women the link may exist as they shake hands more frequently than most.

So whilst the handshake is not a cast iron glance into ones soul, it is nevertheless an opportunity to portray yourself in a positive light to the recipient, and therefore should not be one that is overlooked.

About the Author:

Adi Gaskell is the editor of The Management Blog for the Chartered Management Institute, a professional body for managers and leaders in the UK

 

Leadership Style Mistakes Made By New Leaders

The subject of effective leadership styles is often debated by the press, academia and scores of management as well as leadership blogs & books. Most of these articles or essay focus on the following:

(1) Leadership styles adopted by successful businessmen and women in the past.

(2) Leadership styles required for the future in a business environment of accelerating organisational change.

(3) A slightly new leadership style based on the author’s experiences.

I believe that all these angles on leadership styles have their place in your ‘library’ of leadership knowledge. But if you’re a new or aspiring leader, you may not have developed many of talent exhibited by these ‘already honed’ leadership celebrities.

I’m talking about skills such as Charisma, Time Management, Initiative, Courage and other important leadership characteristics. These improve over time with focus and commitment toward personal development. In other words, you don’t jump out of a box as a pre-made leader!

The truth is that leadership is often thrust upon us for the first time when we do not expect it. Be it through sports, local communities, or trusting bosses giving us a hand up.

Therefore for your first leadership experiences, you won’t have many of the memories and lessons learnt from previous events and situations, and such, you may feel vulnerable and nervous.

Common Behavioural Mistakes

Let us take a look at the different options for leadership styles you could choose to take when taking the reigns for the first time. Naturally, the issue of Autocratic versus Democratic versus Bureaucratic versus Laissez Faire will rage on. However this topic has been sufficiently covered online already, so rather than run through what these styles are, I will only detail the behavioural elements that apply to new leaders:

A New Autocratic Leader

Autocratic leaders make executive decisions and pass orders down to their subordinates to be executed. The issue with being autocratic as a junior leader is concerned with your credibility.

An autocratic leader typically has detailed, technical experience in the business area, and as such, can be trusted by their followers to make effective decisions. Following these decisions is therefore a simple matter of course.

A classic risk for new autocratic leaders is to fail to gain such credibility in the eyes of followers. Without credibility, a leader will not see loyal, passionate action taken beneath them. How is one to fix this situation?

Some attempt to make up for this shortfall by making cosmetic changes to their behaviour. Examples include making decisions quickly to assert decisiveness, and even talking louder to appear more confident in their ability. Naturally one thing can lead to another, and the new starter can quickly find themselves constantly playing catchup with regards to their knowledge:

“I must look up that term used by the banker as soon as possible, I don’t quite know what I’ve agreed to, but I couldn’t risk coming across as ‘thin’ on my finance knowledge.”

It’s clear that an autocratic leader has three possible scenarios. One is that they successfully ‘fake it until they make it’, and sufficiently bluff their way through the first couple of years without making any tell-tale blunders. The second is that their cosmetic changes wear thin, and the leader faces an even greater credibility crisis than when they began. The third is that they’re frank about shortcomings in their experience, and use their experts to catch up as quickly as possible. Only one of these options is good for the business, but I’ll leave you to decide which route you want to take!

A New Democratic Leader

Democratic or participative leadership involves seeking and respecting feedback received from ‘below’. A common mistake of new democratic leaders is to interpret the leadership style too literally. A new democratic leader is at risk of appearing ‘weak’ involving those beneath them too much in the decision making process. While the title suggests it, a democratic leader does not simply use a vote from a sample of their workforce every time they wish to make a decision.

As a subordinate, when a manager comes to you and asks “What do you think I should do in this situation?”, this could have two effects. If this is the first time the occasion has happened, you will undoubtedly feel valued and empowered to get involved in ‘higher’ decisions. However if this was the 10th time this month a new leader had called to ask your advise – you may start wondering whether it should be you who collects the manager’s pay cheque! Keep in mind that empowerment and employee involvement has it’s limits.

A New Bureaucratic Leader

Bureaucratic leaders ‘lead through a system’. They setup processes and procedures in place that typically centralise decision making, maintain accountability and quality of work. Bureaucratic systems are good for negating risks to the business and also ensuring consistency across a large organisation. Employees that rise through the bureaucrat hierarchy will almost certainly experience the many pitfalls of such a system, be it slow processing times, wasteful activities and an inability to deal with extraordinary situations. A common mistake of newly empowered bureaucratic leaders is to then ‘revolutionise’ the way things work in an attempt to solve all their personal gripes.

While it has many enemies, the bureaucratic system has a neat purpose and achieves many of its objectives, even with all the infuriating problems and waste. If it is employed in local government, central government or extremely large organisations – a bureaucratic system has evolved for a reason. It’s now large, it’s complex. and guess what – many previous leaders have been in the exact same position you have. Has it been solved to date? No.

The fact is that bureacratic systems are a necessary framework for several types of important processes. If you turn the whole system upside down, and shake out all your niggles, then after several years of firefighting and implementation, you will likely find that your new system is almost as complex as the last, and cost £’000s, if not £’000’000s to implement. The habit of attempting to revolutionise bureacratic systems comes more from a desire to change things, than a rational evaluation of the business case for such a change. I would suggest that you weigh up all your options first, including incremental changes to existing systems, before sprinting towards the drawing board.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this article. It of course contains only a small selection of the types of mistakes new leaders can make, but hey! Mistakes are of course, all part of the process. But do try and make sure you take most of your lessons from others’ mistakes!

If you would like a free downloadable copy of my report on ‘The Eight Biggest Mistakes Leaders Make, Costing Them a Fortune in Lost Time, Income and Opportunity‘ – just click here and you will see it in the left hand site of The Ultimate Guide website.

 

 

 

5 Iron-Clad Ways to Identify & Develop Your Successor

Interestingly, one of the best times to receive leadership advice is when you near the end of your reign. This article deals with the complexities of choosing and grooming potential candidates for leadership succession.

1. Removing Emotion from the Process

For many, after a long-spanning career in a particular position, one can look back on the role as one we have become emotionally attached to. We may know the job, and indeed the office like the back of our hand. When the time comes when we move on from such a job, the process of choosing and grooming a successor is one filled with emotion.

2. Evaluating the Skills Needed (Properly)

The further you travel back through history, the more aristocratic and corrupt succession processes seemed to be, with power being handed down within networks of families and close friends. In the present day, a meritocracy has largely replaced this old fashioned way of doing things. Choosing a successor based on their merits, or skills, is a modern, reasoned and effective way of selecting the next leader. Using skills as the key criteria ensures that the leader who follows you is capable of meeting your expectations and continue the good work you have begun.

Depending on your involvement in personal development in your organisation, you may be very familiar or unfamiliar with the specific strengths you have that allow you to perform the job you do, well. You may also be aware of the weaknesses that perhaps hold you back in terms of productivity or success. Often managers make the mistake of assuming that these strengths are the necessary criteria for a competent successor, but they’d be very wrong in thinking so.

Any job role can be done in a variety of ways, and although your particular style has been successful during your tenure, that isn’t to say that a completely different approach wouldn’t be even better! Therefore you need to take extra care when evaluating which skills a good candidate actually requires. For example, the loud and assertive chief of a marketing team may conclude after an effective few years that their successor must also be extrovert with the desire to make themselves heard as strongly as they currently do. In reality, the actual skills required would not include ‘loud’ and ‘strong minded’ at all, but simply ‘effective at communicating ideas’. Being effective at communicating ideas is a broad skill that could be aquired and used by even the most soft-spoken of individuals. This example, I hope, will instill the attitude that you are not looking for someone who is like you, but instead someone who could also respond to the demands of your job successfully, albeit in a different way.

3. Choosing the Needle

When it comes to identifying the perfect candidate, managers usually have one of two approaches: They’ve either picked out their replacement years in advance and breeze through this stage, or they have a fierce and difficult decision to make between several promising options. For seem reason this choice rarely falls neatly in the middle – where a suitable candidate stands out from the rest after a few of days of thought.

Beyond a formal interview, I wouldn’t recommend you involve the candidates further in response to the tough decision you’re facing. The more you let them invest themselves in the idea of taking hold of the reigns, the more conflict and frustration will result when you announce the 1 winner and several losers. If you’re having trouble selecting the successful candidate, then seek to listen to the views of other managers to help inform your knowledge and perhaps fill in the gaps that exist through infrequent prior contact with some candidates versus close contact with others.

The framework I have developed for making this tough decision is as follows:

1. Which candidates possess most of the required skills?

2. Which candidate has the most advanced critical required skill?

3. Which candidate attracts the most motivated followers?

4. Which candidate has a strong vision of the future of this company?

5. Which candidate has shown loyalty and personal sacrifice to the company?

If you found the same name appearing far more than others, it’s likely you’ve found your successor already.

4. Grooming your Mentee

In many cases where you have identified potential successors, you may still see improvement areas that you’d like to see worked on well before a hand over can occur. You will want to ensure that they develop these skills as part of their annual plan/continuing professional development if possible, but don’t be afraid of assuming a mentor role in one on one workshops that are built around developing those skills. With a counsellor/counsellee relationship, you can share some of your insights, which they will probably been keen to lap up when put in the context of a future promotion!

5. Avoid This Pitfall

The biggest mistake you can make in succession planning is to leave it too late. To take the Ohama Oracle Warren Buffet as a good example, in this case he has been planning his own succession for over a decade. In the case of Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Corp, a smooth succession will safeguard the $ billions of shareholder interest in the company. However, your succession doesn’t need to move markets for it to be important enough to plan early. Beginning to think about mentees as you give fixed notice to your employer is simply not sufficient, as you should always be evaluating employees from a potential leadership perspective on a continual basis. Steve Arnseson at examiner.com communicates this idea clearly as he repeats part of a briefing he receiving upon assuming a new post: “your role as the leader of this team is to train your replacement”.

Do Our Schools Prepare Children to be Future Leaders?

As ZenHabits.net pointed out in blog post 3 weeks ago entitled ’21 skills that you child doesn’t learn at School’, the education system is not designed to teach a child absolutely everything they need to succeed in the real world. However, children often fail to learn leadership skills from (increasingly lenient and laissez faire) parents, so do we have a gap in responsibilities here?

Historically, private schools such as Westminster School and Eton in the UK have a vastly disproportionate amount of prime ministers in their alumni, with Westminster having educated 3, and Eton having educated 19! From these statistics, it is clear that schools do have an affect on a student’s leadership potential (ability to lead)and their career aspirations (opportunity to do so).

One school who firmly believes in teaching children a broader range of skills is Ross Global Academy. Ross Global Academy is a ‘Chartered Public School’ based in New York. Chartered Public School status means that the school is free to attend, however the school has looser governance from the state, which allows for variance in the curriculum, which Ross Global Academy have used to create a ‘different’ ethos at the school.

From their site:
“By immersing young minds in a curriculum rich in cultural history, current world events, intercultural dialogue, and fluency in new technologies, the school prepares our students for global challenges by producing synthetic thinkers who can combine separate elements of knowledge to form a coherent perspective of the whole.”

From this statement, it is clear that they are preparing children for a leaders mindset. They are arming students with the ability to look at a problem after taking a step back, and being able to analyse, which is useful in any business strategy.

Let’s here your opinion on the subject. Are schools with this agenda on the right track? Do the schools near you prepare children for the world of leaders and followers?

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