With employee productivity so crucial to business growth, it should be encouraging to companies to learn that employee happiness is so closely connected to their performance, because employee happiness is not a myth; it can and does exist.
Yes, how you lead is important. Why you lead, though, is far more interesting and more powerful. When you combine the how and the why, you have a dynamic interaction that helps emerge your leadership presence.
We are captivated by a leader’s presence when she:
CEOs by nature are time-starved species. Critical to their success and the success of their organization is how they carve up the hours on the clock. Those who invest their time advancing their company’s business model or seeking a better one are adding value to their organizations.
Years ago, when I was just at the beginning of my speaking career, before I really launched my leadership practice, my keynotes and other talks were on customer service as a competitive differentiator in business. Many of my audiences at that time were small business owners, so I made sure I left them with concrete advice to take back to their staff that they could institute the very next day.
Those of us in HR and Leadership roles have seen too many walls go up between the different generations. There’s mistrust and unease all around. The Millennials consider the Boomers a bunch of old fogeys. The Xers feel caught between. Boomers can be condescending and closed-minded. And who suffers most because of this generational dysfunction? The organization!
We are all permeated by the wise words of the great strategist Michael Porter: “The essence of strategy is choosing what NOT to do.” This simple but powerful phrase highlights the essential importance of focus as a condition for business success, Porter making a distinction between three generic strategies to drive sustainable competitive advantage: cost leadership, differentiation and market segmentation.
21st century leaders need to tap into the actions that unleash the human spirit in our organizations. These are merely 12 ways. Certainly in a list like this simplifications must be made. I hope, however, each action speaks boldly on its own.
Social media results come from three things in equal measure: good karma, daily practice, and a ton of experimentation to see what works (or as I like to call it, “kicking the tires”).
I wrote an earlier version of this article when I had recently reached a really cool, completely arbitrary milestone of 100 thousand followers on Twitter. Now that I’m nearing 350,000 do you know what I’ve found?
The question about how others experience your leadership should not be rhetorical. How you show up as a leader holds many of the answers to how others experience your leadership
Those working in business, steeped in the depths of economics and the logic born by Adam Smith, like to think that we look at the world through more enlightened eyes. We see invisible chains of cause and effect all around us, built on supply and demand.
But there are hidden hands suggested by other fields of study, like the theory of evolution.
The desire to do something unforgettable, exceptional and remarkable is the fire that burns in the head and hearts of leaders who strive to create a better future; a living, learning, evolving workplace where potential thrives and products and services create value for all constituents and the communities they serve.
In order for companies to develop a culture of innovation, the people involved in innovation (from the practitioners to the executives to the broader employee base) must be able to communicate effectively about innovation — and they aren’t.
We recently conducted a survey of our global panel of innovation practitioners about the challenges associated with communicating about innovation in their companies. One topic we explored was the prevalence of companywide definitions for innovation-related terms.
Every business, without exception, has always been established to provide a good or service to a customer. Which means we’ve been serving customers for at least four centuries and likely far longer. So why is obtaining and considering the voice of the customer—a business’s raison d’etre—monumentally difficult for so many?
Organizations that make it a practice to recognize employees have a greater chance of naturally integrating recognition into the culture. Whereas those who start a recognition program often create an obligatory, check-the-box program that too often fails to deliver “relational and personal” recognition, according to Saunderson, that resonates and is received as meaningful by employees.
If you are an insulated leader, you are missing the big picture. As a result, you are making decisions based upon poor—sometimes misleading—information. In today’s climate, you cannot afford to misinterpret the variables that make up your opportunity for a winning equation. As such, you need to remain aware of the insulation effect, or R-value, of your team by watching for these clues:
Let me introduce you to 34 of the most brilliant, fascinating people I’ve ever met – my guests to date on The Human Side TV. Below is a list with links to each show we’ve recorded to date, in reverse-chronological order.
Every company wants talent. But not every company is bestowed with the leadership that unleashes talent’s power. Talent without leadership is as good as spitting into a gale-force wind.
All around us are thought leaders who know that being “human first” must be a core characteristic. That focusing on building a positive, enabling work environment makes us far more productive. That engaging with employees and customers – as fellow humans worthy of respect – pays huge dividends. And that leading from a motivating, empathetic position is good for both our people and our profits.
It is those thought leaders we honor now.
