engagement

Leave a comment Posted on Character, decision making, Leadership, Ownership, Passion, Professionalism, Success

Building Your Company’s Culture in the Moment

Scenario: You witness a situation at work and it is clearly evident that this will lead to a culture-killer for your company.  What do you do?

Most people do one of 3 things:

1. DO NOTHING.  Look the other way.  Ignore what you’re seeing, hearing, and feeling.

2. JOIN IN.  This is the mob mentality.  “A riot is an ugly thing…I think it’s high time we have one!” (Young Frankenstein). This only fuels the fires of negativity.

3. PROMOTE, PRACTICE, and PROTECT the culture.

in the moment

Easy. It’s just as easy to not act as it is to act.  Just like losing weight or exercising or reading or being intentional in a relationship….it’s easy to do something and it’s not easy to do something

 

Fear.  We fear taking a stand.  We fear retribution from our peers (“who does he think he is?!”)

Deflection. “It’s not my job.  I’m not a manager, VP, CEO…”

Since when is protecting our culture the sole responsibility of a supervisor?

hey

 

Self-worth.  “Who am I to say something/take a stand?”

Too many times, we don’t take a stand because of what we say to ourselves.

  • “I’m just a line worker/entry-level accountant/etc.  I have no authority.”
  • “People will make fun or treat me differently.  I don’t want to risk that.”
  • “I’ve only been with the company for 6 months.  I don’t know enough to speak up.”
  • “I’m an idiot.  I should shut up.”

Please realize that there are people who applied for your position and did not get it.    YOU are in!  YOU made it.  YOU are worthy!  Your company believes in YOU.

But in order for your company’s culture to grow and be cultivated, each team member has to make the right decision at those critical moments.

  • And every time you and I stand up to PROMOTE, PRACTICE, AND PROTECT our culture, we build momentum.
  • And when momentum builds, it becomes the norm.
  • We raise our standards.
  • We don’t settle.
  • We refuse to live to the lowest common denominator.
  • The culture becomes alive.
  • WE become the culture.

 

protect your culture

Leave a comment Posted on Coaching, Communication, Development, Leadership, Mentoring, Ownership, Passion

5 Transitions Great Leaders Make That Average Leaders Don’t by Mike Myatt

20130617-215217.jpg

The secret to leadership is there aren’t any real secrets. The best leaders have simply gone to school on improving their tradecraft. While the capabilities possessed by the best leaders might seem otherworldly to many, they are merely the outcome of hard work, experience, perspective, and yes, a bit of luck. The best leaders have just learned to make certain transitions that less effective leaders curiously remain blind to.

Some leaders hit their stride early in their career, others find their path later in life, and regrettably, far too many leaders never seem to get their footing. Great leaders discover pivot points and transitions that create a certain rhythm and balance, while average leaders tend to be somewhat tone deaf and awkward. We all recognize great leadership when we see it, but many fail to see what it is that actually makes the leader great. Following are 5 key transitions great leaders make that average leaders do not.

Find Purpose– Purpose is the one thing all great leaders have in common. Great leaders have a clearly defined purpose, while average leaders just show up to work. Purpose fuels passion and work ethic. It is these characteristics that afford great leaders a competitive advantage over those who don’t understand the dynamics of this linkage.

The best leaders recognize a common purpose, shared values, and aligned vision are the hallmarks of any great organization. These three elements set the foundation for a sustainable culture. Leaders who fail to bring people together around these three constructs sentence their company first to the chaos of mediocrity, and ultimately to the pain of obsolescence. Great leaders create culture by design, while average leaders allow culture to evolve by default.

A lesson lost on many is profit doesn’t drive purpose, but purpose certainly drives profit – great leaders understand this; average leaders do not. Leaders who are driven by profit will find they may be successful for a season, but they’ll eventually come to realize a pure profit agenda is not sustainable over the long haul. Great leaders make the transition from profit to purpose and are handsomely rewarded for doing so. A unified purpose can endure all things.

People First– Leaders are nothing without people. Put another way, people will make or break you as a leader. You’ll either treat them well, earn their trust, respect and loyalty, or you won’t. You’ll either see people as capital to be leveraged or humans to be developed and fulfilled. You’ll either view yourself as superior to your employees, or as one whose job it is to serve them, learn from them, and leave them be better off for being led by you.

The best leaders don’t put people in a box – they free them from boxes. Ultimately, a leaders job isn’t to create followers, but to strive for ubiquitous leadership. Average leaders spend time scaling processes, systems, and models – great leaders focus on scaling leadership.

Develop Awareness– Great leaders are self aware, organizationally aware, culturally aware, contextually aware, and emotionally aware. They value listening, engaging, observing, and learning over pontificating. They value sensitivity over insensitivity and humility over hubris. Leaders who come across as if they know everything haven’t fooled anyone – except themselves.

Great leaders avoid the traps, gaps, and blind spots average leaders so easily step into. Leaders who choose to live in the bubble of their own thinking rather than understanding the benefits of seeking others input and counsel make things harder on everyone. The willingness to allow your positions and opinions to be challenged is a sign of strength not weakness. I’ve often said the most powerful and overlooked aspect of learning is unlearning. Leaders never willing to change their mind ensure only one outcome – a lack of growth and development.

Shun Complexity– Complexity is a leader’s enemy not their friend. Great leaders live to eliminate or simplify the complex, while average leaders allow themselves and those they lead to be consumed by it. Complexity stifles innovation, slows development, gates progress, and adversely impacts culture.Complexity is expensive, inefficient, and ineffective.

I’m not minimizing the fact we live in a complex world, and I’m not suggesting that profit cannot be found in complexity. But great leaders understand opportunity and profits are extracted from complexity through simplification, not by adding to the complexity. While many think it was Einstein who said, “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication,” the statement was actually borrowed from Leonardo de Vinci – both gentlemen were correct.

Get Personal– If I only had a nickel for every time I’ve heard someone say, “It’s not personal; it’s just business.” Great leaders understand nothing is more personal than leadership, and they engage accordingly. The best leaders understand a failure to engage is in fact a failure to lead. Average leaders remain aloof and distant – great leaders look to know and care for their people.

Average leaders are viewed as business executives, the best leaders are viewed as great human beings.The best leaders understand it’s not a weakness to get personal, to display empathy, kindness, and compassion – it’s the ultimate strength. Peak performance is never built on the backs of others, but by helping others become successful. Treat your people as if your life depends on it – it does.

The reality is anyone can lead, but very few lead well. Will you just show up for work and check the box, or will you lead well? Thoughts?

Follow me on Twitter @mikemyatt

http://www.forbes.com/sites/mikemyatt/2013/06/17/5-transitions-great-leaders-make-that-average-leaders-dont/

Leave a comment Posted on Communication, Leadership, Ownership, Passion

Leaders – Get Real by Margie Warrell

20130521-061857.jpg

Leadership is far less about what you are doing, than about who you are being. If you think about the people who have influenced you most over the course of your career and life, it’s likely that what impacted you most was not what they did, but about who they were being while doing it.

Genuine. Honest. Courageous. Resilient. Real.

Indeed, engaging authentically with the people around you is the first task of genuine leadership.

In today’s culture, where so much emphasis is placed on the superficial, people crave authenticity. Employees today are hungry for real what-you-see-is-what-you-get leadership. The most inspiring and influential leaders therefore don’t lead because of what they do (though they do plenty), but because of who they are. Too often leaders and those who aspire to be, forget that.

When you’re able to connect authentically with those you seek to lead, you become more approachable, more trusted and more influential. Below is summary of the five ways leaders can unlock the power of authenticity which I wrote about in my latest book Stop Playing Safe. When you commit to embracing and practicing each of them, you will grow into a leader others will connect to more easily, follow more readily and be willing to put themselves on the line for again and again. In the end, there is not greater test of leadership than to inspire greater authenticity and courage in those you lead.

1. Share Authentically— Unlock The Power of Vulnerability

Sharing ourselves authentically often goes against our instincts for self-preservation. It explains why, when we anticipate finding ourselves in a vulnerable predicament, our automatic reaction is to protect ourselves: pull out of the launch, cancel the meeting, step back from the relationship, or retreat from centre stage. Yet it’s through becoming vulnerable that we can connect most deeply.

While researching Stop Playing Safe, James Strong, former CEO of Qantas shared with me, “You have to be willing to put yourself at risk in the way you communicate and interact with employees.” We trust people who don’t need to prove their superiority, success or significance in any way—who can connect from a place of being ‘human’ a bit better than the rest of us.

When people can relate to you as a fellow human being—rather than as someone with the power to cut your budget or outsource your job—you can build engagement and lift performance beyond anything ‘unreal’ leaders ever can. As Harvard Researcher Shawn Achor wrote in The Happiness Advantage, ‘The more genuinely expressive someone is, the more their mindset and feelings spread.’

2. Express Authentically— Unlock The Power of Individuality

Margaret Thatcher once said, ‘You cannot lead from the crowd.’ While sometimes leadership entails confronting powerful forces of opposition, as Thatcher did with single-minded determination, more often it requires standing firm against the powerful inner forces that drive us to conform and vanilla down that which makes us different.

When all we do is try to fit in, we negate the difference our difference makes. As I wrote in Stop Playing Safe, ‘Owning what makes you different enables you to differentiate yourself and build a unique brand in your work and in the career ‘marketplace.’ It’s important to be mindful about how others perceive you, but when you allow what you think that they might think determine who you will be, you sell out to conformity and deprive those around you of the unique contribution you have to make.

3. Listen Authentically— Unlock The Power of Presence

Listening is the most powerful yet poorly practiced of all leadership skills. Authentic listening is done with the intention to see the world through another’s eyes, not to have them see it through yours. Listening authentically not only enables you to break down the barriers that cause people to withhold trust, but it fosters collaboration.

Unlocking the profound power of presence takes not more than putting your agenda aside and allowing yourself to be fully present to the person you are being with – opening yourself to see what they see and feel what they feel. If you haven’t tried it for a while, do yourself a favor and do so today. The impact you can make both on yourself and the person you are being present to can be profound.

Read the rest here: http://www.forbes.com/sites/margiewarrell/2013/05/20/why-leaders-must-get-real/