Leadership Traits

Leadership traits are the characteristics that leaders possess that enable them to lead effectively. I’m going to run down 20 of the traits I believe are most important, it’ll be interesting to see how many you feel you already have, and which ones you’re still working on. Leave a comment below to let me know.

The Top Leadership Traits

20. Patience – A good leader needs to show their employees that they’re willing to give them as much time as necessary to see them perform. A manager who roughly attaches arbitary deadlines onto tasks and aggressively chases employees up will only antognise and stress their workforce. Good leadership management is about waiting as well as acting.

19. Continuous Development – Smart people have always sought out useful leadership books and learning material that will help them along the path to happiness and leadership. Most these days tend to be rather disappointing, but one brilliant idea that has recently captured my attention is The Ultimate Leadership Guide which contains all the core teachings of 30 top leadership books,  which is simply an essential ‘crash course’ in the principles you need to know to further your career and even find happiness in other areas of your life!

18. Graft – A brilliant leadership trait is the trait of grafting. There’s a simple rule that most good leaders follow – always do the nastiest job yourself. While being able to delegate dire tasks to others is one of the perks of management, t is important that employees never actually question your dedication to work hard. By simply doing the famously nasty job yourself each year, your staff will never have a doubt over whether it’s fair you have the ability to delegate menial work.

17. Fairness/Equity - Fairness is one of the key criteria by which employees measure their superiors. Quite simply, if you don’t behave in an equitable manner at all times, you will lead no more than a rabble of reluctant workers, and will never gain their respect. Fairness is one of Herzberg’s ‘hygeine’ factors from his popular leadership theory. This means that if you are fair, employees will not be inherently motivated, but merely content. If however you act unfairly and break the rules, employees will be demotivated. Very little upside if you possess this trait but large potential negative effects on motivation if you lack it. Its a tough world, but the message is clear.

16. Modesty - An important note to remember is that in every team you lead, some will be envious of your job or position. These people are also often the most active, amibitious and productive members of the group, so it’s extremely important that you keep them onside. By being modest and humble, you minimise the potential for jealousy within the team, and inspire warmth and affection instead.

15. Appreciates Quality - Simple put, a good leader recognises that quality is the most important gauge of the work done. Always. A culture that cares little for quality will demotivate employees and reduce job satisfaction. Staff must be able to feel good about their work and their skills.

14. Sense of Humour - A practical reality for most leaders is that you’ll spend an awful lot of time in meetings or speaking in public. A good sense of humour helps to put across the message you want to convey more effectively and help smooth over awkward or tense moments in board meetings etc.

13. Wide Outlook – A good leadership trait is to be able to take a step back and take a look at the big picture. This is really one the main purpose of a leader, but so many managers instead choose to get bogged down in small decisions that should really be taken care of by someone else. While everyone is cleaning the deck and preparing the sails, somebody has to be looking where the ship is going.

12. Adaptability and Flexibility - A clear fact in life is that many things you enjoy will change, and many things you despise will quickly improve. As a leader, you must be able to cope with negative change, and also be able to quickly grab opportunities as soon as they appear. Less hesitation, and more asking the question “Ok, so how can I make the best of this situation”.

11. Human Understanding – A leader that can understand their employees and really be able to emphasis with the workforce or team as a whole will ultimately be a far more effective leader. Only by being able to put yourself in the shoes of your employees will you be able to make decisions that will enthuse and motivate your staff.

10. Clarity - Job roles and positions within companies can sometimes be at best – a complete mess. Business leadership is about separately and clearly identifying those roles and responsibilities and ensure that everyone knows what they’re supposed to be doing.

9. Charisma – The skill of oratory has been perfectly demonstrated recently by Barrack Obama’s surge in popularity en route to the white house, and his continued popularity now that he has gained office. The ability to speak confidently and with meaning is a rare one, and carries much merit for those few who posess it. Increased influence and persuasion is just one of the positive benefits of being a leader with charisma.

8. Ability to Delegate – As I mentioned earlier, delegation is one of the perks of being promoted to a leadership position. Why is it then that so many leaders fail to delegate enough? Why do they continue to ‘meddle’ in small, trivial matters, and refuse to give subordinates the real responsibility and confidence to be able to make their own decisions? The answer is because it’s alot harder than you’d think to be able to properly delegate control to someone else. Especially the control over a job you’ve been doing yourself for many years. By undermining your subordinate’s ability to make decisions independently, you’re being a poor leader. That’s why the ability to delegate is one of my top 20 traits.

7. Calmness – Calmness is a leadership trait that again we could do with learning from President Obama. One of the most common pieces of praise I hear from President Obama is how he has stayed so calm under pressure. With the recession, middle east conflict and recent fiascos such as Swine Flu, Piracy and torture memos – it has sincerely impressed many that this man has been able to keep his composure and present a solid front. Any leader that can achieve this will instantly earn respect.

6. Ability to Listen – The fantastic leaders thorough history were also good listeners. Drawing upon the expertise and ideas of all those around you will improve your decision making. It follows that leaders who listen well simply make better decisions.

5. Confidence – Confidence flows through a team just like cheerfulness or a hardworking attitude. If the leader shows hesistation, self-doubt, or a lack of amibition, it will infect the rest of the team. Enthusiastically following an unconfident will really test employees attitude, and this is something you don’t want to be doing. You want to make it as easy as possible for people to enthusiastically follow your lead.

4. Consistency – This is a similar point to fairness. If you fail to be consistent with your attitude, decisions or behaviour, you will be causing unrest in your team.

3. Approachability & Friendliness – While many managers dream of being a superior and ‘feared’ leader, the most effective type of leader is an approachable one. A leader who an any employee can feel like they could have a conversation with will be able to hear about what the quiet dissenters have to say, or what the ‘real’ results of their latest intiative was.

2. Passion and Motivation – It goes without saying that a leadership trait that will be admired is your passion for what you do. Whatever your role, people will respect the fact that you take pride in your work, you enjoy it, and that you will therefore try your hardest to succeed. Passion and motivation will always trump formal leadership training or leadership coaching.

1. Trustworthiness - Ethics and trust has to come right at the top of the most important leadership traits for one simple reason. Nobody will obey, follow, or be inspired by someone they distrust. A good reputation, likeability and respect will be absolutely impossible if you’re labelled as a liar. Regardless of their own mal-practises, people will never be able to associate with an untrustworthy character.

A Handy Guide to ‘Management Bull’

Some Terrible Real-Life Examples:

Your Experiences:

Improve Team Morale With These 5 Easy Methods

Team morale is a massively important element of motivation and is also a key driver of productivity. If you can manage the morale of your team effectively, you can help them produce results in a way that will be as fulfilling for them as it is for you. Different team members with different personalities in different roles will respond to some morale-boosting tips better than others, so please don’t use this guide as a checklist. Be selective, and tailor your strategy to which you think your subordinate or team members would love.

1. Keep employees informed to tackle ‘them and us’ attitude

The retail industry (among many others) suffer from a ‘them and us’ culture, where employees increasingly see management as standing against them. This culture explains the high absenteeism, shocking employee turnover and extreme demoralisation that some retail giants (See: Walmart) suffer from. A communication defficiency between the organisational layers is the main cause of this problem. Elect to be up-front with employees, discussing problems and storms on the horizon as they’re discovered, and not after decisions have been made.

2. Explain the value and benefit to the business they’re creating

A workers morale is derived from the value they believe they’re creating. In this way, a director of a multinational corporation will have a serious morale surplus! However, a cashier at a fast food chain may not feel as well-endowed. Naturally, these grass-root positions in organisations still create plenty of value for the company though, and it pays to remind their occupants of this fact. A manager could, for example  let a cashier see how many sales they’ve put through the till that week. It will likely be an impressive figure reaching into four digits for a full-time employee, and may let them impress themselves!

3. Deliver proper training

When your employees are being trained, are they simply thrown in front of a TV and told to sit through a dull and dated video? Or do they get to be coached one-on-one by a consultant, and put through a personalised and well-tailored training programme? A thorough and professional training scheme will fill employees with a sense of empowerment and self-respect. The thought that a company is investing time and expenses into developing their skills will remarkably improve their morale. For existing employees, consider a 2-day training excursion to refresh competencies and update their knowledge with recent market/company changes.

Training schemes are often out of the control of operational manager, and are ‘slotted into’ the induction programme by senior HR managers. However, if you’re in a small company, you may have sizeable influence over the structure of these training programmes. When it comes to budgets and spending, hotel & travel costs will quickly become astronomical if you choose a distant venue. My advice is to hire a local venue that will take employees out of their workplace, but will not require overnight accomodation. This is the key to receive value for money on training programmes, and will allow you to spend more on top quality talent to train your staff!

4. Consider worker’s outside lives by being flexible

Employees flex their lifestyles to fit their jobs with mixed success. Some people, especially young, single professionals manage to get by fine. However those with many responsibilities, including looking after family simply loose a grip on a sensible balance between fun & meaningful activities, and their career. Employ these ‘common sense’ policies into effect today, to create a positive change:

• Allow reasonable personal calls to be made during working hours.
• Use your discretion in allowing employees to leave earlier or arrive later than normal, with the understanding that the hours will be made up later.
• Put money torwards a medical treatment for a parent’s sick child.

5. Treats and team building exercises

I’d describe treats and team building days as ‘expensive and reliable’. Whether you see them as reliable or not, will depend on what you expect to get from them. If you expect a white-water-rafting day to cohesively give your organisation a firm sense of direction, then you probably need to take your head out of the glossy brochure. If however, you would like to encourage positive behaviour you’ve seen recently, and allow a disjointed, new team a little room to gel as a productive unit, then you could be making a wise investment.

6. Suggestion schemes (for large companies with many employees per manager/shop)

The notion that suggestion boxes are somewhat impersonal is a catastrophic understatement. Suggestion boxes are completely impersonal, and don’t directly help the relationship between management and employees. The cloak of anonymity can encourage people to be reckless, hurtful and careless with what they say.

Question: Why did these old-fashioned boxes make it on my list?

Answer: Because they actually work.

Indeed, despite what I’ve said; suggestion boxes do their job rather well. They’re not there to let employees vent anger, or for managers to gleefully ignore. They’re there to take a poll of employee sentiment, feelings, and pick up some of their ideas. I want you to think about the revolutionary (pun intended) element of the 360 feedback exercise. The key element is that you also get feedback from those beneath you, and a suggestion box is a simple way to do this that has been around a long time before such buzz words were ever printed. You need to be disciplined to encourage the use of a suggestion box. You must not let positive comments fill your ego, nor let the angry or hateful words trash your whole strategy. Gather plenty of responses about the exact topic in question, (be sure to ask for constructive ideas alongside any comments) and sit down in a professional fashion and see what you can incorporate into the working environment.

Expert™ Tip: Don’t look up for support

The green flag from a board of directors to go crazy with employee entertainment and training budgets is an recurring fantasy, but don’t hope for it. Don’t resent those ‘fat cats’ for not even supporting a practical, cheap and (in your opinion) worthwhile training project. Instead, become a manager that others will respect. In the face of an old fashioned and top-heavy corporate culture, make your own success in building morale.

You don’t need permission from your boss to tell Jessica how well hard you know she worked last saturday. You don’t need a dual-sign off on a anniversary card to give to an intern graduate you recruited precisely 1 year ago. Morale comes from the heart, and no board member, no chairman and certainly no accountant can stop you in leading your team to new highs of morale.

To Your Success in Achieving Higher Morale!

Simon Oates ~ Leadership Expert

‘The Fast Subject’ – Leadership & Management Essay

‘The Fast Subject’ is a concept that many managers struggle to really get their head round. Chosen as one of the best in class, I’m proud to publish this fine example of a leadership essay from one of the top universities in the UK.

How the concept ‘fast subject’ (Thrift, 2000) embodies the idealised cultural image of success for management in the 21st century.

Thrift’s (2000) paper portrays a very distinct idea of the modern Western world; both as a whole and the world of work. It is key to remember that management feeds from the wider cultural environment – the world; it is not standing alone by itself. We need to know what is going on in the world to see what is going on in management, for example, assessment centres could be seen as the ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ of the world of work. Thrift also describes the ‘fast subject’, i.e. the manager that is capable of functioning effectively in this world; the author uses language such as “knowledge”, “creativity”, “innovation” and “younger” in relation to the fast subject and “faster”, “uncertain”, “performance” to describe the habitat of this modern subject. When discussing the fast subject, it is important not to overlook the environment in which the subject lives/works; it had been argued that managers are “the products of (increasingly engineered) circumstance” (Thrift, 2000 p. 677).

The ideal of the ‘fast subject’ embodies success in modern Western culture, according to Thrift’s (2000 p.678) paper, “the fast subject is a ‘style’ that many managers often want to attain”; advertisements for graduate careers and jobs have specific ideals so people aspire to meet the criteria. These job adverts are made by people like us for us; fast subject to fast subject. The advertisements speak to us, these people that companies are looking for are management’s idea of success, so this is what we strive for, this is the reason we go to university and get part time jobs and internships – it’s the ideal of work (and life) in the future.

The Times Top 100 Graduate Employers guide is the perfect collection of evidence of the idealised cultural image of success for management in the 21st century; the companies and jobs are portrayed using the language of the fast subject, they give the idea of mobility, youth, being trendy and modern. The three following examples have been taken from this guide.

The first example, taken from The Times guide is Lidl’s (p. 30) Graduate Management Programme advertisement. This advertisement uses all the language and buzz words of the ‘fast subject’ and 21st century culture, such as “star qualities”, “lead and inspire” and “world-class”. Thrift (2000 p. 680) makes the point that management events are “making the ‘invisible visible’” i.e. trying to measure and teach these intangible “star qualities” such as leadership and creativity. This gives the idea that these personality traits that make up a successful person can be taken on by a company, measured and nurtured, and will enable continued or increased success. This is attractive to the ‘fast subject’ because of the intangibility; other people in the world do not possess these qualities, only the elite ideal that management has created has the potential to have these traits inside of them. The fact they cannot be defined, taught of learned as well as simple things such as how to work a piece of machinery makes them special and anything that sets you above others in our culture is something we have been brought up to strive towards.

It is clear that quite a significant amount of thought goes into graduate recruitment, as management want to get the best people into their company and at the moment, the ‘fast subject’ is that person, and they respond to specific known language and images. Graduates are the future of management and at the minute the people coming out of universities are educated to be the way management wants them to be, i.e. Thrift’s subject. They have the most current and up-to-date knowledge and education on what management wants and are either taught the skills or are taught how to perform as though they possess them. It is probably that Lidl know that culturally, young and modern members of generation Y will not have them as their first choice employer, it will be somewhere trendy like Apple therefore they have to offer the chance to develop the skills that management as a whole wants, i.e. ‘fast subject’ skills.

The word “star” suggests that Lidl are looking for someone special, in modern day society we are obsessed with stars and celebrities; this advertisement says that you can be the “star” of the business world and gain all the associated benefits such as money to fund the lifestyle of this creature, but also the social benefits such as respect and interest from others.

Cadbury’s (p. 91) graduate jobs advertisement in the guide shows a reminder of the popular gorilla television advert for the firm’s products. This image links to our culture, what is cool and modern, again showing the link between the world of management and society overall. It is also recent, showing that it is aimed at young professionals who can do it all; they can gain a good degree whilst also being aware of what is going on socially around them. Along with using the expected language, the text includes the word “brand” which attracts prospective employees because they want to work for this company so when they tell people where they work, the people will know where it is and be interested.

At the bottom of this advertisement, it says “we love what we do. We think you will too”; this is typical of the view that the ‘fast subject’ holds of work, it is no longer simply a job, it is something you want to do when you get up in the morning. The job will not necessarily be as good as it sounds, but the words and pictures used appeal to the ‘fast subject’. Even those graduates with no interest in the world of management would find this appealing as the language used spills out into the rest of our culture as the language of a successful subject.

In modern society, there is increasing focus on the self; the improvement of the self, with models such as Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and reaching self-actualisation. We want to succeed at work, but to also have time to have a social life and spend the money we earn – this is one measure of success; we want to have time to have everything. Cadbury promises a graduate scheme that is “individual” and “personalised” therefore that must mean the ‘fast subject’ can not only thrive at work but they can also go out into the world and show it how successful they are, with their cars, homes and technologies. The text itself actually says “you’ll succeed”, which implies Cadbury (like the rest of the world) knows the measure of success and that it is applicable to all ‘fast subjects’.

The final point to make is that there is a disclaimer at the top of the page, stating “no gorillas were harmed in the making of this advert” which is an obvious point, so why make it? This goes back to the cool and trendy culture that we live in where we appreciate humour and making things that little bit less serious. This says, Cadbury is cool and who would not want to work there, if everyone wants to work there then those that do are successful; the successful ones are the ones that speak the language – the ‘fast subject’.

The final example has few, but still significant, words. Sky (p. 209) wants graduates to “discover your ideal habitat” which is a word frequently used when it comes to the ‘fast subject’. This new, mysterious creature needs a habitat in which to work, so Sky is saying they can offer this; it is not an office, it is not a workplace – the language draws the audience in; it is why the ‘fast subject’ finds it appealing. As management initiated the creation of this so-called ‘fast subject’ and the necessary traits and attributes it should only be right that management provides the perfect place for this new being to prosper.

The page gives no description of what Sky are looking for; it is implicit with the word “habitat”, this signals that they are looking for something different and unique, else they would have simply used the world workplace as essentially, that is what this so-called “habitat” is. Sky are looking for management’s creation of a successful human type that is so intelligent and culturally aware that they will know Sky wants them, so there is no need to explicitly state what is required. It gives the impression that Sky is superior, as it does not have to list what it wants from its applicants therefore the people that apply will know the appropriate language to use if they are a ‘fast subject’ so these are the people to consider as they will be suited to the “habitat”.

The phrase “make great leaps” obviously goes with the picture of the frog but to the ‘fast subject’ says Sky will allow you to become even more successful in your work life by quickly progressing, possibly onto promotions; showing that you are successful. As a culture we value language like this as it is a little bit different, not as mundane and ordinary as saying ‘you could get better and get promoted’.

The image itself gives the impression of being High Definition as it is very colourful and detailed; something a ‘fast subject’ comes to expect as they are successful in life therefore can afford such luxuries as HD televisions. The colours catch peoples’ attention, which is necessary to catch the interest of the ‘fast subject’ as they have so much potential inside of them, they want to be wanted as they could work in any of these fast paced environments. Regardless of where we begin in life, we all want to be successful and happy; no one grows up aspiring to live in poverty while watching how the ‘other half’ of society lives their lives. Sky understands what the ‘fast subject’ wants from life and work and therefore offers it in a way that would appeal to them, as management has created them this way.

The ‘fast subject’ links to the performance society we live in, these images, amongst others show us what the ideal model of success is and even if we do not fit this model, we can create a part of ourselves; a performance that does meet this given criteria. For example, we believe working for Lidl will make us successful, Lidl wants us to be “self-confident individuals” so that is what we are to them. This is the reason that we have come to the stage in society that we have; management knows what it wants and puts that out to the world, there are very few people out there that actually fulfil all the conditions so people pretend to be that; they perform. Eventually, with this happening so much, many more people aspire to this ideal which seems to be so good, however it is probably so impressive as it is all an act – it is like striving for perfection, even though we know we will never reach it.

These examples were chosen from the same book and are of the same media, so it is possible to compare them. They are all different, but possibly equally effective at attracting a ‘fast subject’ and potentially allowing them to reach a successful level in life. As a whole, the advertisement produced by Lidl is quite simple but it is straight to the point; it is ‘fast’ and the language is very important. Language however, is more important in the Cadbury advertisement, as there is more of if; therefore there are more of the buzz words and promises, however it would take longer to read than the other two. Finally, Sky are obviously aware of the language that society views as the language of successful management and use it. The image is clean and simple in the Lidl piece, whereas Cadbury’s is busy and the one from Sky is quite striking.

It does not matter what the design of the advertisement is like; the point is how or why they take off and are deemed as the image of success within western twenty first century society, culture and management. One thing that all these illustrations have in common is that they are all about “you” (the subject) not “us” (the business); they want to help you develop and become successful and in modern culture that is what we want, we think constantly about the self and could possibly overlook what we are expected to do for them. But this does not matter; success is about working for that well known company, taking on responsibilities and being where you feel you should be.

The idea of the ‘fast subject’ is merely a concept put forward by Thrift to explain what has happened within business and management this century. Brooks on the other hand, questions and mocks the myths of management with a sarcastic tone; it could be argued his viewpoint of the creature within the world of management is of the complete opposite of Thrift’s.

Brooks (2004) gives his opinion on what Thrift would call the ‘fast subject’ using very similar vocabulary, but a very different tone. “They are obsessed, they are passionate, they are driven, and they are totally nuts” (p. 216) and that “what matters is energy, discipline and focus” (p. 218). Brooks then goes on to tell a story about a modern businessman’s attachment to his mobile telephone (pp. 234-5) which is much less glamorous than the picture Thrift paints.

In a previous book, Bobos in Paradise (2000 p.104) Brooks describes “Latte Towns” which is where the ‘fast subject’ (or as Brooks describes them, “new upscale culture”) would live. The descriptions, such as “magnificent natural settings” makes the place sound very appealing and is where we as a culture would want to live if we could afford to do so, i.e. if we were a ‘fast subject’ and therefore successful. Although this is said with a negative tone, it is Brooks’ description of the ideals in the twenty first century world.

Overall, the idea of success within management has made its way out into the wider cultural context of the 21st century; what management views as a successful person is now what we in society believe to be a successful person. The vocabulary and images such as the high flier with the modern gadgets and the cool career in a well known popular branded business are no longer simply within the world of management.

Management has, over time, created the image of the ideal person to work in the increasingly fast paced business environment; they created this being so they know what it wants. Profits are the most important thing to most companies therefore if they can find a group of individuals who are motivated, dedicated etc. they have gained knowledge and the potential to increase profits. Management puts out this ideal, which Thrift calls the ‘fast subject’, to the world so the world begins to see this ideal and believe that is what successful looks like. In modern society, right now, the ‘fast subject’ is what we aim to be; it is the embodiment of success in the world of management. It has to be considered though, when we will move on and when the era of the ‘fast subject’ will end and whether it will end well. Thrift (2000 p.675) does not ignore the fact that ‘fast subjects’ “may well turn out to be fragile subjects, held together only at a cost”; all that is left is for the rest of the world to realise. Management created this subject; it is entirely possible that management will destroy it or the image too.

Word count: 2,616
Bibliography
Brooks, D. (2000) Bobos in Paradise , New York: Touchstone
Brooks, D. (2004) On Paradise Drive, New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks
The Times Top 100 Graduate Employers 2009-2010 (2009) High Fliers Publications
Thrift, N. (2000) ‘Performing Cultures in the New Economy’ in DuGay P. and Pryke M. Cultural Economy, London: Sage

Customer Relationship Management

What is customer relationship management, and why is it important to UK Leaders?

Customer Relationship Management, or “CRM“, is the way a business goes about creating, maintaining or even sometimes repairing the relationship it has with its customers.

The customers are the vital life-blood of any modern organisation. Customer-centric product development is a decades-old concept, but lately several new aspects of companies have become potentially large growth area when the customer-focused principles and tools of CRM are applied to them.

One of the key pillars of CRM is collecting useful data about your customers in a way that does not damage the customer relationship itself. This is what I will discuss today.

How can I collect information about my customers?

Collecting information can be done in many different ways, with some being far more thorough, and others can happen without the customer even realising!

1. Creating customer accounts.

Online services and business2business organisations will already force new customers to ‘create an account’ to make their initial purchase. Doing so will allow you to easily collect some basic profile data on your customer and track all their purchases. This information can be used to create a demographic view of your current customers. If you currently allow customers to anonymously purchase from you, without giving up any information about themselves whatsoever, you are at a competitive disadvantage, and I would recommend you to try and implement an account-orientated point of sale model in the near future.

2. Generating email lists.

Many small and large businesses such as restaurants have recently realised that using email marketing is affordable, easy and impressively successful in attracting repeat customers to their businesses. Simple ‘Free drink if you join our mailing list’ offers are quickly taken up by customers, and this can lead to a positive and lengthy relationship with the customer through making good use of email marketing tools. Enticing offers such as money off coupons makes can be sent to these subscribers for an extremely low cost, and will be read with far more enthusiasm than expensive leaflets through the door. A combination of interesting and genuinely tempting deals in  the emails will lead to a surprising good retention rate. The success of money-saving emails such as that produced by MoneySavingExpert.com shows that customers won’t generally perceive it as spam if it offers them good value. Once a sizable email list has been built up – it can of course be part of a coordinated customer relationship management strategy.

3. Keeping it simple – Writing it down!

Several businesses, including fast food chains, actually have their employees key in to their till; the nationality and estimated age of each customer they serve. Just these two simple bits of anonymous data are perfect for analysing WHO is actually buying your product. Are your prices putting off young students? Does your brand draw in customers from a diverse range of ethnic backgrounds? You will be able to find out the answer to these types of questions with only a few snippets of information.

Once the data has been collected – proper analysis can begin, which I may cover in a future blog post. Stay tuned!

The Great Importance Of Teamwork In Organisations

Welcome to the first article in a teamwork series at Leadership-Expert.co.uk. Within this series, we aim to bring you up-to-date theory on the fundementals and advanced techniques relating to teamwork in the modern organisation.

1. Why Is Teamwork Important?

We do not operate independently in the workplace. We need to socialize and work as a combined entity in the workplace. We require inputs and feedbacks from co-workers. We depend on each other’s expertise to complete tasks. We form teams to get assignments going. Teamwork is essential and everywhere. Teamwork allows us to synergise. That is to create output far greater than the sum of all. There is a common saying about synergy, 1 + 1 = 3 (instead of the mathematical 2). Teamwork is beneficial for everyone as it compliments each other’s weaknesses or leverage on each other’s strengths. You may argue that you can do it on your own. But wait, if you can focus on doing something else that you are more familiar and capable of, and allow another person take charge of what you are doing that is of a common objective, don’t you think you can achieve your objective at a faster pace?

Teamwork compliments our individual weakness. All good leaders know the limits of our abilities and we want to expand our abilities. The simple solution: we tap on other’s expertise. Tap meaning leveraging if were to put it in a more decent tone. And leveraging each other’s expertise is teamwork. Given a task that you find you are unable to deliver, you gather co-workers to complement your weakness with their strengths. But before you can even gather the right co-workers, you must know who complements you. And this knowledge is within your awareness of teamwork. With a person that complements your weakness with his strength, you achieve productivity by creating a well-balanced team.

Teamwork requires respect and compromise of the team members. Let’s admit it, neither you and I are perfect. Nobody is. And because we are imperfect, we depend on each other. To have teamwork, the team members must be willing to accept the differences. Differences like working style, habits and mental model. For example, your team member may be meticulous in handling a report and takes a long time to proof read it before the managers review. On the other hand, you may feel that the report is sufficient and ready for sending on right now. This is a misalignment of working styles. You want it to be delivered swiftly to management while they want to be thorough and ensure that no errors are made. These types of differences cannot be totally reconciled and a compromise must be made. You simply need to respect their working habits. Looking at the big picture; the time pressure you bring into the equation will aid in swift task completion, and will speed up their work, but having your collegues diligence in the mix also means that the report produced will be of higher quality. By having contrasting approaches, as a team you have created work with superior speed and quality than either of you would have produced on your own.  In this way, diverse team members will always leave their own positive mark on an element of the group work.

There are two types of teamwork: power-packed team and balanced team. The power-packed team may consist of team members that possess abilities of the same skill set. It can be described like doubled loaded cannon with enhanced rapid fire. Scientists and engineers are good examples of power-packed teams. The disadvantage of this team is that they are a grouping of the same type of people which may suffer from groupthink, and will not reduce the risk of fundemental mistakes being produced by the team. The balanced team as the name suggest is a combination of team members that complement each other. The benefit of balanced teams is that they can leverage  one another’s abilities.

Teamwork is everywhere and essential in productivity. An individual may achieve a distance, but with a team effort, the individual can achieve even further distance. Teamwork is about leveraging on each other’s best. Before you can leverage another person, you need to respect and compromise the differences that you and he may have. With understanding of your team members, we are certain that you can deliver higher productivity than what you can expect of yourself.

Article by guest author Lostincubes.

Mintzberg – Distinguish Leadership From Management At Your Peril

Henry Mintzberg is stirring the pot again. For those of you who don’t know who Mintzberg is, he’s a professor at the Desautels Faculty of Management at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. Mintzberg co-founded the International Masters Program in Practicing Management as an alternative to an MBA program. He likes to challenge conventional wisdom about management, and he does a great job at getting people to react to his views, though not the way you might want people to react.

Mintzberg earned quite a few critics with his 2004 book, Managers Not MBAs, in which he slammed MBA programs. Mintzberg said “MBA programs train the wrong people in the wrong ways with the wrong consequences. No one can create a manager in a classroom.” Mintzberg even implied that the MBA program at McGill (his employer) was ineffective.

Mintzberg’s latest book, called Managing, is sure to garner lots of attention from his critics. In this book he argues that good middle management is the key to good leadership. Accordingly, rather than distinguishing between leadership and management, Mintzberg says “we should be seeing managers as leaders, and leadership as management practiced well.” Mintzberg studied the work of twenty-nine different managers and suggests that managers are hindered from being effective planners due to the realities of today’s workplace such as heavy workloads and constant interruptions. To overcome these obstacles, he offers a new management paradigm in which managers can become effective leaders by working through information, people, and direct action.

If you want a fresh perspective on how management can accomplish their goals, I highly recommend this book. His writing style makes it easy to read and whether you agree with him or not, there’s no denying that his views are impactful.

Article written by Andrea Davis

What is your view on this matter? Leave your comments below!

Maintaining Employee Morale During The Recession

~ This is a guest post by author Barry Shore, Ph.D from Global Project Strategy.

Companies caught in the grip of this severe recession face many difficult challenges: one of which being how to avoid deteriorating employee morale.

While on the surface one would expect that employees who remain would be grateful that their jobs have been spared, evidence from this and other recessions suggests that they feel overworked, threatened, and vulnerable. In most cases morale really does begin to suffer.

Morale affects performance, and during a recession organizations are threatened with a double-edged sword. At the same time that their business is contracting, employee morale threatens to make matters even worse.

Lower morale can translate into “recession fatigue.” This is a situation where the company experiences a series of problems that include a decline in productivity, deteriorating customer service, increased sick days, falling sales, higher costs, and lower profits.

Indeed, the only way to escape these problems is to stop doing what most companies do. Instead, companies must be proactive in addressing employee morale. Without a proactive strategy “recession fatigue” will take its toll.

How does morale deteriorate?

In most companies morale starts to deteriorate when management becomes aware that the financial crises has become their crisis as well. They instinctively pare down the workforce while at the same time reducing as many other costs as possible.

Unfortunately, these are the very changes that are almost sure to send shock waves through any organization.

But, as is often true during an organizational crisis, communication between management and the workforce suffers. Rather than hearing about the crisis firsthand from management, the informal grapevine takes over, often raising anxiety to new and exaggerated heights. Employees become angry, detached and eventually resigned to the possibility that they my lose their job.

In many cases, the less information that management provides to the workforce … those terminated as well as those left behind … the greater is the shock wave.

Managing Those Who are Left Behind

These downsizing’s are tragic enough for those who lose their jobs, but those who stay also suffer as management expects them to pick up the slack, do more with fewer resources, and work longer hours.

Restructuring the organization and paring down the workforce, should not be the first and last step as the organization hunkers down to survive the recession. The second step, which is equally as important, is to manage the transition for those left behind. Unless properly managed, morale is almost certain to suffer. And unless management is proactive in addressing this issue, the organization will be in a weaker competitive position once markets turn around.

Four Leadership Principles

There are four leadership principles that, if followed, may help managers navigate through the transition in an honest and ethical way. They may help to minimize “recession fatigue” and to establish a healthier organizational environment for those left behind.

1. When tough steps need to be taken, management should openly discuss the challenges they face with employees. It will be uncomfortable, especially for those who are conflict avoidant, but employees will respect the honesty.

2. The frequency of communication with the workforce must increase. Communication reduces anxiety and can stabilize, if not improve, morale. Don’t delegate this responsibility to lower levels. Top management must do it.

3. Maintaining the morale of those who remain must become a top priority. It is important to recognize that they are suffering from a “Post Downsizing Stress Syndrome.”

4. Resist the temptation to take a hard line on those employees who remain. In his book, “Good to Great,” Collins identifies the five characteristics of effective leadership. They include: personal humility, professional will, diligence, and ambition for the company not themselves. Professional will and diligence is not enough to get through this crises. Equally important are personal humility and ethical behavior. They are not only essential in dealing with people who are caught in the middle, but can ensure a more motivated, productive, and committed workforce once the recession is over and jobs become more available.

Depending on the culture of the organization, some of these principles may be very difficult to execute, but ignoring the plight of those who are still employed may be an inappropriate response that could jeopardize the long run prospects of the organization.

Define Leadership

I often get emails asking me for a comprehensive leadership definition. Leadership is such a vast subject that encompasses so many areas of our being, and is so subjective – I have decided to offer up several definitions of leadership from various sources on this page.

Martin Chemers ~Social Psychologist

“Leadership is the process of social influence in which one person can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task”.

Martin Chemers is a thought leader in the world of leadership, and has published a book entitled ‘An Integrative Theory Of Leadership‘.

Donald Clark ~ Consultant and trainer

“Leadership is a process by which a person influences others to accomplish an objective and directs the organization in a way that makes it more cohesive and coherent. Leaders carry out this process by applying their leadership attributes, such as beliefs, values, ethics, character, knowledge, and skills. Although your position as a manager or supervisor gives you the authority to accomplish certain tasks and objectives in the organization, this power does not make you a leader, it simply makes you the boss. Leadership differs in that it makes the followers want to achieve high goals, rather than simply bossing people around.”

Don Clark blogs about learning for professionals at The Learning Ciruits Blog

Edi Kurnik ~ Blogger at Define Leadership.

“Leadership is a process of leading people in the right direction in order to achieve goals. Leaders apply leadership attributes such as values, knowledge and skills to implement this process in any organization.”

So there you have it. 3 definitions from 3 different viewpoints. Do you have a different way to define leadership? If so, leave a comment below, and your definition may even be merged into the article for the world to read!

Simon Oates ~ Leadership Expert

The 4 Essentials Of Strategic Thinking

Is your organization spending too much time seemingly rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic? Are the senior decision makers consistently voicing the need to make substantial change in the face of a complex and dynamic environment yet no real change takes place? Is the organization spending a great deal of time planning strategically but the answers to the questions keep coming out the same? Perhaps the problem is not with the answers, but with the questions. Perhaps strategic planning, a management process, is inappropriate for finding the path to change. Instead what is required is a leadership process, such as strategic thinking, that calls into question all the questions being asked.

Looking for the Right Questions

Simply stated, if an organization does not do strategic thinking before it does strategic planning, it is the same as rearranging those deck chairs. Why? Because in the end no one really cares where the deck chairs are positioned on the lounge deck if there is a great big hole in the boat, i.e., the big hole in the boat presents a much more pressing problem.

Strategic planning is about finding the right “answers” to questions. In strategic planning the questions already exist, they have been decided. On the other hand, strategic thinking is an imaginative process designed to assure that key decision makers are asking themselves the right questions. Strategic thinking does not start with a set of questions. It starts with the proverbial clean sheet of paper. Decision makers form no preconceived questions, disregard any ideas of what works and what does not, making no assumptions about the organization. Optimally, the process includes a healthy vertical and horizontal cross section of the organization. Why? Because you never know where the most valuable information might come from.

But more than that, strategic thinking is an effort to develop industry foresight. As Gary Hamel and CK Prahalad write in their book Competing for the Future, industry foresight often starts with what could be, and then works back to what must happen for that future to come about. Questions are the root of all knowledge, and crafting the right questions provides senior decision makers the ability to imagine the future in the context of present and future risks and threats.

An Overview of a Strategic Thinking Process

Threats or Risks-start with that clean sheet of paper. The process begins with assessing the threats or risks, both internal and external, to the organization. Said another way, it is vital for the senior decision makers to know the internal and external forces impacting their future. Emerging trends in technology, new competitors, customer service, and succession planning could all pose different types of risks or threats. The idea is to get everything on the table so that it is in full view of the decision makers.

Strengths-R&D investment, financial structure, timely distribution, active web and Blog presence and developing people may very well be strengths of the organization. Strengths provide leverage that can be used to gain specific industry advantages or buffer weaknesses. For example, the organization may have a robust web and Blog presence on the Internet having cultivated a large loyal fan base. These relationships are a substantial strength that can be used to assess and develop new products and services.

Weaknesses-What is it that the organization is not doing so well, that needs improvement or is having a negative systemic effect on the rest of the organizations operations or administration? Seeking weaknesses is not an exercise in seeking blame. Inappropriate organization structure, human capital retention, lack of leadership development programs may well be some of the issues that emerge as weaknesses.

Gaps-Identifying the gaps between the strengths and weaknesses as they relate to the real and perceived risks require some type of response and become the grist for the strategic planning mill. Now strategic and tactical strategies can be created, resources and assets assigned and prioritized and the day-to-day job of creating the future and closing the gaps is turned from imagination into reality.

Conclusion

In our rapidly changing, complex world filled with more information than one might have imagined just a few years ago, sorting through the facts, the hype and emerging issues and challenges drives the need to continually rework the organization’s collective foresight. To do otherwise, may result in a small leak turning into a big hole leaving the crew and passengers scampering for the lifeboats saying to themselves, “But I thought we were unsinkable!”

Author: www.leadsimm.com

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