Using Hierarchy And Status To Your Advantage 
Human groups are functional, in part, because of hierarchy. Dysfunctionality comes about if either hierarchical power is abused or if there is a lack of hierarchical power. Hierarchy, status and power are natural and intuitive. So don't fight it; work with it.
Leadership And Creating The Space
Today's organisations require leaders who create space rather than taking it up. You must create five spaces, each representing a new task of leadership.
Building Resilience
Just as exercise helps you build physical strength and resilience, so can exercising your leadership muscle to build resilience for yourself and your organisation.
Building Loyalty
An organisational culture bereft of loyalty is doomed. What can a leader do to earn the loyalty of their people?
Learning From The Front Line
While it's tempting to issue directives and communicate corporate messages "from the top", remember to learn from those who are closest to your customers.
Managing A Mature Team
With the growth in people staying at work longer (some by choice, others forced by circumstances) a new skill set is required by managers to ensure they are making the most of what can be their most valuable asset - the older worker.
How To Reduce Employee Conflicts
Are some members of your team at odds with each other? Don't turn a blind eye - conflicts rarely improve when left alone.
Goal Getting
Here are six questions you need to ask yourself, before your goal can be set in motion, that will ensure success.
How To Go From Peer To Manager In 5 Easy Steps
You've always thought about being in charge. You always wanted to be in the position to make necessary changes and do things smarter. Now, you just got promoted to manager and have the opportunity you always wanted. Now what?
Six Steps To Becoming A Good Manager
Typically, no one is trained to be a manager. We have to learn how to manage people on the fly after being promoted into the position. Here are six steps to follow to make sure that you become a leader that others will remember.
The A - Z Guide For The Future Entrepreneurial Superstar
Want to be an entrepreneur? So do a lot of people! And a lot of people go to their grave saying "I wish I'd..." and "If only I'd...". If you're determined not to be one of them, run through the A - Z and see if you're on track.
Corporate Retrenchment Or Renewal?
The bottom lines may be the same, at least at first. But there is a profound difference in the long-term profitability and competitiveness of companies that renew and regenerate rather than retrench.
How To Manage In A Downturn
Without previous experience in economically gloomy times, many executives and front-line managers may be slow to recognise and react to business conditions. Once it has been acknowledged that it is necessary to do something about it, the question is raised in how to go about it. Following are some tactical and operational guidelines for managing successfully in a downturn.
5 Attributes Of Growth Leaders
Growth leaders are distinctive not only in their actions, but also in their attributes. These specific attributes are more like personality traits than true management skills, and they ultimately build trust.
5 Steps To Conflict And Confrontation Resolution
Do you shy away from situations where you are faced with potential conflict? Does the "Fight or Flight" syndrome kick-in and you choose to flee? Learn 5 steps to dealing with it!
How Close Is Too Close? Personal Information And Leadership
Keeping a distance between your work life and your home life is a good thing.
Improve Your Leadership EQ
We must learn how to harness the incredible power of emotions to meet our business challenges. Never has the need for this been so great.
12 Strategies For Bold Leadership
Here are 12 strategies that will get you, as a leader, to take the quantum leap.
Three Lessons In Successful Leadership
It only took me 30 years, hundreds of books, thousands of hours in the company trenches, millions of dollars and zillions of air miles to figure these three lessons out. You can be a lot smarter.
Six Quick Tips To Build Charisma
Successful people, who want to have the power of persuasion, turn their circle of activity and interest outward. They expand their centres to be as conscious of the world around them as they are of themselves. They develop what we call, charisma.
How To Shape Perceptions To Get Full And Willing Co-operation
Use these three tools to shape the perceptions of others to get their full and willing co-operation.
Effective Delegating
Whether they are purposely using this tool or it has become an ingrained subconscious habit, successful people effectively DELEGATE! Learn to teach, delegate and trust the process. It is well worth the investment!
The Luck Of The Entrepreneur
What sometimes appears to be luck is actually the result of well laid plans and strategies that are finally coming to fruition.
Are You An Ethical Leader?
Ethical actions are much more important than many leaders imagine.
For Great Leadership, Develop Great Personal Leadership Skills
If you want to be an effective leader, then you must exercise great personal leadership skills first.
How To Lead Through Thick And Thin To Achieve Your Goals
The highest level of leadership adaptability depends on a few leadership strategies, techniques and principles. Follow the strategies outlined below and you will achieve success.
Building Management Depth
Chief Executives have a primary responsibility to maintain and build management depth. This is about creating a sustainable pool of rising leaders, ready to replace existing leaders to lead key strategic initiatives for their organisation.
Develop Successful Habits Of The Mind
Successful people use intelligent behaviours or habits of the mind. These behaviours* are best described as ‘knowing what you do when the answers are not immediately apparent'. Here are four behaviours worth developing to become successful.
How To Build A Mastermind Group
The selection of the right people is critical to the success of your Mastermind group. Choose to be in a group with people who can stretch you and teach you what you don't know. Here are some criteria to consider.
Seven Secrets Of Inspiring Leaders
Master the language of motivation to inspire your customers, clients and colleagues. There are several techniques that can help you develop the astonishing skills of persuasion. Here are the seven keys to inspiring your listeners.
10 Management Lessons
A business amounts to little without the people behind it. The two most important things I look for when hiring are initiative and work ethic. I cannot overestimate the importance to the eventual success of your business of bringing on good people. But once you have hired these good people, how do you manage them?
How To Lead And Manage A Mixed Generation Workplace
By understanding your employees - their various influencing factors, their preferences and passions - and adopting a strategy of consultative and discursive management, you will gain the respect of your employees, start developing a more creative and dynamic team environment and improve your staff retention.
Achieving Results - Integrating Hard And Soft Issues
The "hard" and the "soft" issues in business are equally important. They are interdependent. Our challenge is to make judgments considering both.
Situational Leadership Model
Most managers want a simple model that captures the essence of leadership so they can use it, see the results and keep moving.
What Makes A Good Leader?
Leadership development is a critical issue to all businesses today. Find your best leaders and nurture their potential.
Compelling People Skills
People who have 'compelling personas' around them have four important characteristics. Leaders must develop these characteristics to be a person of influence, a person who improves the atmosphere in the organisation and helps people get along with each other.
Winning With People
Most people can trace their successes and failures to the relationships in their lives. As a leader, you can't be a loner. Your success is tied to inspiring a shared vision.
Avoid Fatal Business Errors From Untested Conclusions
We can often draw wrong conclusions from what is going on around us. Wrong conclusions can lead to fatal errors for organisations, by causing them to take actions that make their problems worse. Here's how to avoid the trap.
How To Negotiate With Integrity
For some, the worlds of negotiation and integrity may seem poles apart. How can you ensure you get what you want whilst retaining your integrity?
Thought Leadership
Being a leader is about looking into the future, planning, imagining what things could be like, etc. So the expression 'thought leadership' is being used.
How To Recognise 5 Career Traps Even Great Leaders Stumble Into
There are five traps that keep leaders from using their talents. I'm not talking about lackey's here - these are very talented leaders - but they're still vulnerable to these traps.
Riding The Rollercoaster Of Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurs are like rollercoaster junkies; the ones that build a successful business like to experience the thrill over and over again by always tackling new ventures.
Making Management Models Work
Many times I have witnessed first hand businesses with great business models and great strategies, and yet they are heading for oblivion. Why is this so?
The Leadership Economy
Leadership revolves around the timeless principles of supply and demand. Your influence as a leader will be proportionate to the "leadership capital" you bring to an organisation. Cultivate your leadership capital wisely, and you'll be flooded with opportunities to invest it in a leadership economy hungry for healthy leaders.
5 Facts About Setting And Achieving Goals
In my experience, people who are engaged at work are people who have goals. Setting and achieving worthwhile goals seems to be a common theme amongst successful people from all walks of life. But how many of us know how to do it effectively?
Getting A 'Head' For Success!
What do all successful business people, entrepreneurs and sales people have - that those who aren't successful, don't?
The 11 Simple Secrets To Building An Entrepreneurial Culture In A Bureaucratic World
Being an entrepreneur is simply living a business life as it should be led.
Ensuring Consistently Superior Leadership: What Works And What Doesn't
How can an organisation ensure consistently strong leadership?
Practicing Leadership - The One And Only Path To Becoming A Leader
People have paid me a lot of money over the years to answer the following question for them: How do I become a great Leader? I will often answer them with the following questions:
How To Improve Your Negotiation Skills
And get the best possible deal by playing poker...
(Non) Accidental Leadership
Promoting the highest skilled employee into a management position is common business practice. Unfortunately, many of these leaders take on their new roles with little or no formal preparation, and often do not have any operational understanding of what becoming a manager entails.
Leveraging Leadership Effectiveness
In real terms, leadership today is about creating the circumstances where people can express the best they have to offer, in service of the purpose of the organisation. Leaders who understand how to empower people to go for greatness, and create the conditions for us to flourish are always in demand.
How To Build Effective Teams
Fact: You need a great team in order to succeed. Fiction: You need to have that great team in place from the start. Building teams takes time.
How To Achieve Your Goals - Instead Of Just Setting Them
Have you ever set a goal and failed to achieve it? Research shows that you will most likely forget about your goal within three weeks of setting it - unless you learn what's blocking you from achieving it.
Your Brand Of Leadership
What is your leadership brand? What leadership brand does your organisation need from its leaders to add value to the company brand?
Teamwork May Be Dead, But Long Live "Teams That Work"
The traditional way we have developed teams may not be suitable in the future - but that does not mean that we have seen the end of teams. It just means that the emphasis has moved and the dynamics are different. Has your leadership style adapted enough to make the most of this brave new world?
The Third Basic Principle Of Slow Leadership: The Right Direction
The primary task of any leader is to set the group's direction and see that it's maintained. Like the captain of a ship, it's their responsibility to set the course.
The A - F Of Achieving Anything And Everything
We all have dreams and goals of what we want to be and do in our lives. But how many of us really achieve them? And how many of us even attempt them?
The First Basic Principle Of Slow Leadership: Choosing The Right Tempo
There is a correct speed for every activity. Some you need to do quickly, many are much more effective if handled at a slower speed.
The Second Basic Principle Of Slow Leadership: The Right Attention
Your attention is precious. You have only a finite amount of it, so how you use it is important.
The Courage To Succeed
It takes courage to succeed when you are at the top of the decision making tree, in any business or organisation. With every decision you make you lay yourself on the line.
Are You An Emotionally Intelligent Leader?
Every organisation needs a leader. It begs the question, what qualities make for a good leader?
Courageous Conversations
Effective leadership requires the skills for having courageous conversations. Being able to speak courageously develops trust and fairness, two critical ingredients for engagement. Leaders who commit to this in themselves and their teams have a clear advantage.
5 Irrefutable, Non-Negotiable Laws Of Leadership You Must Know Now
Leaders, new and old, sometimes lose sight of the most fundamental tenets of leadership. Here's a reminder...
Claiming Leadership
Claim your own leadership - and light the way for others to claim theirs.
Get Smart - Watch Your P's And Q's
Following are 3 P's and 2 Q's that are useful guidelines for managers.
Feedback That Engages All Ages
Giving feedback to employees, both positive and negative, is vital to creating an engaged workforce. So how can you deliver feedback to suit the varying needs of the generations?
Resolving Conflicts
Every difference of opinion, every disagreement, is a conflict - either with a big or small 'c' depending on the magnitude of the difference. As a manager, the way you handle conflicts is a decisive factor in whether they will result in win-win or win-lose outcomes and whether they will result in beneficial learning.
How To Profit From Understanding
A couple of topics that have been 'hot' for quite a while, are the talent shortage (and what recruiters refer to as a ‘candidate-short market') and staff retention. So, what do you do about this? The two topics are interrelated in that, in a candidate-short market, it is even more critical to retain talent.
Running Meetings ... Instead Of Meetings Running You
Fortunately, we all realise that meetings are time-consuming vacuums of business life. Unfortunately, most people seem prepared to put up with it being so.
Leadership Shaping Experiences
Your leadership core is nurtured and grown out of shaping experiences you encounter and often pursue throughout your life. I've identified ten archetypal shaping experiences that mold people into leaders, developing their leadership traits and providing the knowledge and skills crucial to operating in a highly effective manner.
Keeping Time On Your Side
Getting the most out of your working day.
Five Tips For Your Preferred Future
When you create a clearly defined Preferred Future and focus on it constantly, you will discover that every day you are choosing the most important puzzle pieces in your life that will best help you to build your Preferred Future.
Do Small Businesses Need To Worry About Leadership?
Small businesses can survive when led by owners with an unshakeable will to succeed. But to grow a business, the director must develop leadership in both themselves and others to continually focus on the objectives of the business through well developed planning and implementation.
Choosing The Right PA
Recently the term personal assistant (PA) has been used to describe the role of a secretary. However, true executive PAs will often be doing much more than office management and administration.
Retaining Youth
You've hired them. Now how can you keep them around?
The A - Z Of Generation Y
The A - Z of what you need to know to manage Generation Y.
10 Tips For Entrepreneurial Success
Budding entrepreneurs have to first realise that they cannot achieve their dreams by themselves.
Ethical Dilemma
Some decisions require care to find a balance between 'right' and 'fair'.
Are You An Entrepreneur?
Vision, grit, focus: do you have what it takes to bring something new to the market?
Using Short-Term Executives To Handle Problems Cost Effectively
A growing pool of experienced ‘interim executives' is available to help businesses overcome temporary problems, supplement senior management, or help to push a new project through to completion.
Ten Tips To Master Time Management
In this article I want to provide you with some simple tips to improve your time management, efficiency and productivity.
Beware The Busy Person
Surprisingly, research by Bruch and Ghoshal published in the Harvard Business Review, found that only 10% of managers could be moving a company forward. The rest may look busy - but they're probably just spinning their wheels.
The 52 Essential Attributes Of Truly Successful CEOs
For those aspiring to be CEOs, this list may seem somewhat daunting. But, to coin a phrase, these are not ‘rocket science' - they are skills which are readily definable and learnable. In fact, with 52 in the list, why not focus on just one per week and see the amazing difference after only a year?
People Are Our Most Important Resource... So Why Don't They Believe Me?
Are those in charge so completely out of touch with what their employees are thinking and feeling? Does the hubris often associated with being at the top blind them to reality? Regrettably, the evidence suggests that the answer is an emphatic ‘yes'.
Leading A Young Team
Leading a young team is different to leading an older team, or even a mixed age team. Not only are younger generations looking for different qualities in their leaders, they also require a different set of skills from leaders.
Emotion Plus Logic
What happens when emotion joins logic in the transference of a vision? People unite around the goal and start working to achieve it, because they believe in what they're doing and they understand why they're doing it.
Seven Steps To Turn Learning Into Earning
Of all the vital skills that you must have in order to perform your work excellently, which is your weakest? Have you ever considered that it's the weakest of all your vital skills that sets your level of progress?
Think - For Better Results
The more thinking and clarity you have about the outcome you want, the more likely you are to achieve it. Yes, it does take longer up front - however, you then save yourself a whole lot of back-peddling and ‘patching-up' time in the future. You also provide a better focus and therefore a higher level of engagement for your team (people want to know where things are going) and, as my experience shows, the results are significantly better.
Six Warning Signs Of Leadership Failure
In the recent past, we've witnessed the public downfall of leaders from almost every area of endeavor - business, politics, religion, and sports. One day they're on top of the heap, the next, the heap's on top of them.
Six Strategies For Self-Motivation
If the leader motivates others, who motivates the leader? The answer is, the leader motivates themself.
On Walking The Talk
If you want your staff to instinctively do things without being told, you need to let them see that you yourself instinctively do these things.
Losing Perspective: The No. 1 Mistake Senior Executives Make
Here are some important tips for maintaining your perspective about your power, your impact on your employees, the way you are seen by others, and the influence you wield.
Picking Potential Leaders - Part One
The law of the inner circle: Those who are closest to me will determine the level of my success.
Picking Potential Leaders - Part Two
In the article 'Picking Potential Leaders - Part One', I outlined four of the eleven questions I ask myself when selecting leaders to serve beside me. This article details the remaining seven questions.
Successfully Lead Your Team - Get Bad At What You Do
Leader, manager, foreman, boss.... These titles (and others) describe people who are responsible for getting a job done by directing others. The key point to remember is more than one worker must be involved in the effort for the project to be completed correctly. Therefore, the leader must be able to successfully guide each participating individual through his or her part in the process.
Influencing Others In Remarkable Ways
Best selling author John Maxwell says "leadership is about influence, nothing more, nothing less". I certainly believe that an outcome of real leadership is that people are influenced in remarkable ways. For me there are 5 keys to achieving such outcomes.
Developing Leadership Throughout The Organisation
Much of the discussion about leadership tends to imply or assume an individualistic perspective of the leader: someone is a team leader, someone else is a director or vice president, someone is leading a project. But there's an increasing - and healthy - awareness of the need and value in developing leadership that is dispersed throughout an organisation.
Leading Learning
"Leaders are responsible for learning." That's the challenge put out by Peter Senge, who popularised the notion of the learning organisation. So how can we most effectively help people - including ourselves - learn about leadership?
A Laundry List For The Entrepreneur
In this article there are 22 points that are a must read for any entrepreneur wanting to succeed.
Be A Thought Leader!
Small companies have to work hard to get visibility, especially when the market is crowded with competitors all vying for the same business. So, how does a company become better known with limited resources? By becoming an industry thought leader.
Swallowing Your Pride Seldom Leads To Indigestion
Have you ever thought, "Life would be great if it weren't for certain people"? And do you know someone at work, that if they disappeared during lunch, your life would be better? Probably so. You may even live with such a person.
Improving Your - And Your Staff's - Performance
The worksheets provided in this article have shown to be the best way to change what you do and to get improved results from others.
Winning Through Adversity: Why Improvisation And Thought Leadership Are Essential To Success
Is there a way to use adversity itself to build a solid base for achievement, regardless of upturns or downturns? Is it possible to minimise risk without limiting achievement by sticking with the mediocre majority? It is indeed. This article will show you how it works.
Thought Leadership - More Than A Buzzword
Thought leadership is one of the most discussed topics in enlightened leader circles.
The CEO Syndrome
One of the greatest threats facing leaders today is making decisions based on information that is incomplete, partially hidden or compromised in some way.
Balancing Leadership And Management
Sadly leadership has become a buzz word and despite all the fuss about it, very few people get it. Of equal concern is the spin-off; many people have forgotten about management. Real leadership needs real management if it is to be of real benefit.
The 10 Worst Things To Do In A Meeting
Meetings have been hailed as the No. 1 time-waster and - unless food is served to offset the boredom - the most tortuous part of the work day.
A Guide To Unforced Errors
Predictable errors are preventable errors. And a few simple techniques, like those below, can help you steer clear of the most common wrong turns.
The Power Of Choice
Any leader who fails to control their thoughts, and take responsibility for their attitude, runs a risk.
Leaders Cannot Lead Without Organisational Intelligence
Wouldn't if be great if the COOs and CEOs of all organisations were confident that their work in leading talent management efforts was, in fact, adding lots of value?!
Learning To Manage
Implicit in most jobs with the title "manager", and people reporting to them, is the responsibility of managing their people. However, for many, this is often seen as an extra chore that gets in the way of doing their functional job such as selling, accounting, marketing or manufacturing.
The Top 7 Ways Leaders Create Accountability
One of the best ways I've found to help people win, is to establish an accountability-based culture focused on producing results, not activities. Here is a seven-tip formula you can use to create accountability and achieve extraordinary results in any organisation.
Holding Up The Mirror
You know what it's like when someone accuses you of something that is not true or of an intent that was not your intent at all. As leaders we are faced with this frequently. Just look at politicians, they face it all the time.
Leading With The Heart
Servant leaders put other people's needs, aspirations and interests above their own.
Character Is Destiny
One element lies at the heart of leadership: character. Who you are impacts on how you lead.
Dealing With Uncertainty
So many things are changing, and at such a rapid pace, that it's not surprising managers today feel pressured and can sometimes doubt their own ability to perform. They grapple day to day with the paradoxes and uncertainties of doing business and making decisions in an environment that is tougher, with odds that are greater, and more pressure to ‘get it right'.
The Art Of Delegation
When you try to "do it all" there is a tendency to think this means "do it all...by yourself!".
Defining The Generations
It is self evident that we must understand and meet the needs of each new cohort of customers, as well as effectively engage with each new era of employees.
Naturally Managing The Human Animal
An understanding of basic human instinct can assist business leaders to lead organisations that fit our hardwiring as a species. The outcome is a functioning organisation that just seems to operate “naturally”.
The Ultimate Guide To The Generations - Builders
In the article 'The Ultimate Guide To The Generations', we took an overview look at the generational mix in today's workplaces. In this article, we explore the Builders generation.
The Ultimate Guide To The Generations - Generation X
In the article 'The Ultimate Guide To The Generations', we took an overview look at the generational mix in today's workplaces. In this article, we explore Generation X.
The Ultimate Guide To The Generations - Baby Boomers
In the article 'The Ultimate Guide To The Generations', we took an overview look at the generational mix in today's workplaces. In this article, we explore the Baby Boomers generation.
The Ultimate Guide To The Generations - Generation Y
In the article 'The Ultimate Guide To The Generations', we took an overview look at the generational mix in today's workplaces. In this article, we explore Generation Y.
It’s All About Attitude!
Understanding attitude and it’s affect on your success at work... and in life.
The Ultimate Guide To The Generations
All the important things you need to know to identify who’s who in the generation mix.
Leadership Strategies To Address Today’s Most Common Team Building Problems
Many CEOs are good business strategists; yet when it comes to integrating team approaches in the organisation, there’s no real strategy.
Experts Don't Need Business Cards
When you're looking to attract new business - whether it's from new prospects or from existing clients - how do you stand out from the crowd?
Can You Resist Anything But Temptation?
It used to be that we all had the ability to be resilient. Life almost forced us to be. People were made resilient by World Wars, economic hardship and isolation. Today, we live in a society where resilience is not highly valued nor tested as often.
When Win-Win Becomes Lose-Lose
Getting what you want in a negotiation is never easy. With a little preparation, you can at least avoid the dreaded scenario where everyone walks away dissatisfied.
Women-Power On The Rise
Despite growing numbers in the workforce, women still continue to face prejudice, disadvantage, bias and discrimination. However, it is just possible that things could change dramatically in the foreseeable future. Some recent statistics, are suggesting that change is coming.
Developing Leaders For Workplaces Where Cultures Meet
Workplace leadership in the 21st century is not simple.
Reducing Contact Handling Times
This article provides some tips on where to start when you have staff members who appear to consistently take longer to deal with customers, in comparison to other staff who handle contacts of a similar nature.
How To Make "The Ask" - Effectively Recruiting Your Team
Many times in your life you will make requests of others: to join a group, committee or team, to perform a task or to assist with a project. How do you make "the ask"? Often the key to getting a "Yes" involves how you make your request.
Turning Customer Service Inside Out!
How poor internal customer service negatively impacts external customers, and how you can turn it around.
Tenacity Will Lead To Success
Often when we have a goal, we try just once or twice and then give up.
People Who Run Good Meetings: They Really Do Exist!
Most people hate going to meetings. They get tired of wasting time, off-the-topic discussions, and generally not accomplishing much.
Successful Organisational Leadership
Effective execution through strategic alignment.
The Company: Living Entity Or Machine?
How you treat it determines its performance.
When Your Employees Hate Your Guts!
Don’t you just love the employees that think you’re the best manager they’ve ever had? But what about those that can’t stand the sight of you?
Leadership Vs Management - The Debate Continutes!
The debate continues as to the difference between leadership and management. This article focuses on why that debate is so important.
Leading Knowledge Workers: Avoid These 5 Deadly Leadership Sins
According to the latest studies, the average employee is delivering only 50% of what they are capable of offering to your organisation.
The Story Of The Moving Goalposts
We often hear people being frustrated because they believe that they have worked hard only to discover that the ‘goalposts have been moved'.
Real Leaders Love Chaos
It’s become a cliché to say we’re under pressure. I guarantee that 99% of you who are reading this now, found it a challenge to find the time to do so.
A Focus On Leadership
The development of effective leaders is a key issue for corporate executives and a top priority for strategic human resource development practitioners.
Developing Leaders Now
Finding leaders with the right business and enterprise skills is essential to the prosperity and long-term progress of the economy at large.
The Sky Is The Limit
Why it is that employees in some organisations are highly motivated, whereas employees elsewhere are discouraged and downtrodden? The answer to this question is no doubt complex, but in many instances it may lie in the role of leadership. There is no doubt that a manager has the ability to shape a workplace environment.
The Rare Qualities Of Leadership
There’s a difference between a great leader and a notorious leader. Lao-Tse, the great Chinese philosopher, said ‘the greatest leader of all is when the people say they did it themselves’.
Are You A “New Age” Manager?
Would you describe yourself as a “new age” manager? No, I don’t mean someone who meditates and eats organic food. I’m talking about the type of manager who keeps themselves up to date, who knows what the trends are and maybe even starts a few of them.
Values And Negotiations
What are the values in your business? I guess you'd say you haven't really thought about it. However, everything you say or do show the real values you have to your staff and your customers.
Developing An Emotionally Intelligent Leadership Culture
Emotional Intelligence (EI) is an attractive concept because it encapsulates the most powerful of human abilities that IQ misses – the ability to understand how our emotions impact on ourselves and on others.
Action-Oriented Sales Leadership
Executive sales leaders are chartered with delivering sustainable results. Getting results is, in turn, about effectively removing barriers to success. And removing barriers to success includes keeping a sales team "laser-focused" on solving problems that help clients achieve their business goals. While this all sounds reasonable - why is it so difficult to execute?
Creating Fantastic Managers
Would you agree that the performance of your organisation is only as good as the combined performance of each employee? And, that the responsibility for exceptional staff performance lies predominantly in the hands of your managers? So, that would mean if you can significantly improve the performance of your managers then you could reasonably expect a significant improvement in the performance of your staff. Exactly!
On Reflection
Reflection isn’t a linear thing. Reflection is a state of mind, a level of consciousness. It’s an organic process. It’s like creativity. People hold an intention for an outcome, the ideas start to germinate and then the ideas pop up.
The Smart New Way CEOs Get Results In Business
While not everyone is cut out to be a leader, not everyone can or wants to be a follower all the time, too. Yet it is often the mix of both that is the smartest, most effective and efficient way to build and sustain business, teams and productivity. So if you are someone who is willing to share your fifteen minutes of fame and let others get the credit occasionally while making your life easier, keep reading.
Put On Your Leaders Hat And Watch Their Attitude Change
Why management attitudes matter.
The Difference That Makes The Difference In CEOs Decision-Making
What separates a great CEO from the norm? Their willingness to access and rely on their intuition in decision-making.
Build Integrity Into Self-Directing Teams
Putting self-direction into practice is challenging because it requires serious adjustments in the roles of managers.
Top And Bottom Lines
Traditionally the dominant paradigm in management is control because "he that is good with the hammer tends to think that everything is a nail." Executives start thinking that they have to control budgets, schedules, things and people. And so the prevailing style of leadership is benevolent authoritarianism, where the people at the top think they know best and do all the thinking and prescribe methods for getting desired bottom line results.
Good Managers Focus On Employees' Strengths, Not Weaknesses
Marcus Buckingham knows enough about good management to know he's not a good manager.
Facing Your Leadership Dilemmas
Gone are the days where your title ensured you started from a base of respect. Leaders today are under scrutiny being assessed moment by moment as to whether they deserve respect.
Good Boss ~ Bad Boss™
Think of the employers and businesses that you know; some of them are Good Bosses – some of them Bad Bosses. Good Bosses walk the talk and are good employers – Bad Bosses simply aren’t backing up their claims with their actions and behaviours. The Good Boss companies have discovered the links between being a Good Boss and reducing staff turnover and building profits.
Leadership: The Importance Of Being Memorable
Great leaders have stories, legends, myths about them. As a leader you need to be aware of your actions and the implications of symbolic acts.
The Heart Of Leadership
Where does the true power of your leadership lie? What is that core driver for getting the best results in the organisation?
The Heart Of Leadership Communication
Understanding the heart of leadership communication – and being able to effectively manage ‘emotion-driven' communication – is a key to leadership success today. It could also save millions of dollars of hidden costs.
True Leadership
There are many aspects to being a great leader. We believe that despite this, every leadership characteristic can be defined under only two main categories. These categories are either skills or behavioural.
The Awesome Power Of Self Assurance
“I hate managing people” was my client’s opening comment, before we had greeted one another in our usual friendly manner. “Great. Time to stop trying.” was my reply. My client gave me an out of character blank look. “People cannot be managed.” I said. Another blank look.
The Great Questions Real Leaders Often Ask
Leadership in my view is the art of inspiring people to bring everything they are to everything they do. Leadership falters without management however. Management is the science of making it easy for people to bring everything they are to everything they do.
The Role Of Emotional Intelligence (EI)
What is Emotional Intelligence? There has been much debate in recent years as to whether or not emotional intelligence is an appropriate tool to measure leadership potential.
Leading A Business, The Impact Of The Managing Director
If a business is lucky it will have an MD who understands that his/her behaviour influences the decisions and performance of their senior staff.
Leadership: Innate Or Taught?
The debate on whether leadership is innate or taught seems never-ending. The source of the debate is simple to identify: organizations want to identify leaders.
Competencies For Leadership: How Are They Defined?
"Leadership can be thought of as a capacity to define oneself to others in a way that clarifies and expands a vision of the future." - Edwin H. Friedman
When Management Isn’t Enough!
Management is easy. The power of the position says you direct and others do. It’s a tried and trusted formula which, like so many of its kind, at best works short term. The long term implications are frightening. If you want to be an effective Manager, become a better leader!
In Search Of Future Leaders
Filling the leadership pipeline and planning for succession ranks high on CEO priority lists. If done correctly, the grooming of leaders throughout an organisation is absolutely critical for competitive advantage, core competency and corporate distinctiveness.
Leadership
In June 2004 Jack Welch, ex CEO of General Electric was in Australia delivering his talks, ‘Jack Welch On Leadership’. The story of GE’s transformation under the leadership of Jack Welch is legendary. It might be timely therefore to review a few points from the past about Jack Welch’s Leadership and see how they apply today.
Are Leaders Born or Made?
I was recently in a forum of business leaders who were discussing the question of whether leaders were born or made. The unanimous decision was that while some people have a natural ability for leadership, leaders are indeed made, not born. Leadership is generally thought of as the ability to lead others. The fact is that leadership starts within the leader and therefore self-leadership is in reality the key to successful leadership of others.
The Five Biggest CEO Career Mistakes
Very few people actively plan their careers and indeed I am a strong proponent of not managing them explicitly...if you are good the market mechanisms are such that you will be rewarded with roles of increasing scale and complexity if that is what you desire. Yet often we see CEOs making large career mistakes. It seems to me that these mistakes are the result of a divergence between fact and fiction, between what CEOs believe they can do and the facts at hand. They start to believe their own rhetoric. And it will be the first sign of hubris on the horizon. So here are my five biggest career management mistakes.
The Transformation Of Traditional Middle Management
Since the recession days of the late 1980’s and early 1990’s many organisations have undergone radical business process re-engineering and re-structuring. Although these processes can be quite frightening and threatening to most people within an organisation, the truth is that every business needs to be continually going through a self examination process in order to meet changing trends and needs. ‘New-look' organisations have been become down-sized, more customer focused, team managed with flatter, de-layered organisation structures. In response to the need to cut costs, some organisations have effectively scrapped the role of middle manager.
20 Foundations For Real Leadership
I have often reflected on my time as a corporate manager and executive during the 70’s and 80’s. My summary would be this was a period when we over managed and under led. Today I believe there is a tendency by many to under manage and over lead.
The Conscious CEO - The New Face Of Leadership
What makes a Chief Executive Officer (CEO) stand out as a true leader, one who has charisma, who is decisive yet takes into account all points of view, who is able to ask questions or find solutions that have eluded everyone else, who forges incredibly strong and long lasting strategic visions and systems?
Why So Many Senior Managers Become Junior Leaders
‘Junior Leaders’ abound in business and they have a profoundly negative effect on people, markets and results. They are not idiots of course, and nor are they cold blooded types, rather they are seriously misguided in their approach to management tasks.
Can Your Business Run Without You?
Some owners are fearful of making themselves dispensable in their business. They want to be in control and don’t want to pass control to others, even their offspring. Many others would like to take more of a hands-off role and be dispensable, but don’t know how to achieve it. Should the business be able to run without you? The answer is a very definite, "yes".
Successful Delegation Techniques And Rules
Business leaders and managers must always be prepared to delegate certain tasks. An individual cannot be expected to have the time or necessary skills to cover every required task.
10 Best Practices Of The Most Effective Leaders
Whether researching from articles written by the most esteemed leadership academics or from those who have actually practiced being a leader, there is basic agreement on the best practices of the most effective leaders.
Tell The Truth, The Whole Truth And Just The Truth
Is giving your staff the whole picture really the best way forward?
Turning A Vision Into Reality
True leaders are visionaries. Leaders provide direction and bring about change. Leaders not only directly affect financial markets and the fortunes of other stakeholders but also the careers of their people.
Are You A Natural Born Leader?
Running a business today requires radically different leadership skills than you would have used as an employer five to ten years ago. The rapidly changing marketplace, increased global competition, and leaner organisational structures require radically different skills and attitudes.
Managing Projects Effectively
First up it is important to understand the difference between project management and other management principles.
Consultants Are Out; Resultants Are In
A new generation of business outsourcing.
Contracting Out
Contracting out specific functions is NOT the best decision for your business if you are making it simply as a cost-cutting measure.
Not Another Meeting!
Before you automatically call another meeting - stop! Ask yourself if a decision could be reached or information be relayed just as well via a phone call, email, memo or fax. Or even face-to-face with a quick round robin of associates in their offices? Read on for some valuable tips.
A Good Manager Has The Skills To Bring Out Staff Potential
Supervisory or management staff can bring out the creative and productive potential of support staff if they have specific skills.
15 Percent Of Today's CEOs Are Younger Than 50
During the 1980's only 5 percent of CEO's were under 50. In ten years the face of Australia’s corporate leaders will be very different from what it is today thanks to the retiring “baby boomers”.
Stop Procrastinating - Just Do It!
Taking Stock: Are you on your way to achieving the goals you set for yourself in six months ago? Have you made a start? Or are you still thinking about it or caught the very popular “I’m too busy” epidemic?
Are You Being Out Negotiated?
The story is a familiar one. They've been negotiating with the other party for a while and everything has been going smoothly. Then all of a sudden, this person has threatened to walk away, because they want a better deal. What should they do? Do I have a "Silver Bullet" cure to solve this problem?
Emotional Leadership - Tapping Into The Mother Lode Of Emotional Energy
Have you ever been told to keep your work life separate from your personal life as if you could? If you are excited at home, are you supposed to sit in the car park until you return to neutral before starting work? If you are upset at work, how is it possible to change your emotional state on the way home to become someone else as you enter the door?
Common Mistakes Of Negotiating - Part 5
...and how to avoid them. Looking at negotiating mistake 17.
Common Mistakes Of Negotiating - Part 4
...and how to avoid them. Looking at negotiating mistakes 14 to 16.
Common Mistakes Of Negotiating - Part 2
...and how to avoid them. Let's look at negotiating mistakes 6 to 9.
Common Mistakes Of Negotiating - Part 3
...and how to avoid them. Looking at negotiating mistakes 10 to 13.
Common Mistakes Of Negotiating
...and how to avoid them.
The Art Of Management
The crux of effective management is getting the desired things done by acting, quasi-acting, and non-acting.
Who's In Charge Around Here, Anyway?
How many times have you heard it?...
“We need good leaders!”
“It’s about time we had some decent leaders around here!”
“What this business/team/organisation needs is some good old-fashioned leadership!”
Wimps Make Lousy Leaders!
I believe we have too many wimps (in business, politics, and sport) who hold leadership positions in Australia. They are wimps because they don’t have the courage to say what they really believe!
Are You Solving Your Employees Problems And Creating Long Term Problems For Yourself?
Many managers spend a great deal of time and energy solving their employee's problems or challenges. The role of a manager is to manage, not do it for the employee.
How To Deal With A Stonewaller
One of the most frustrating situations we can encounter during a negotiation, is when we come up against a person who stonewalls our every attempt to reach an agreement.
Five Secrets Of Highly Successful Managers
...beating burnout!
How To Have Productive Meetings
One of the greatest time wasters of all are unnecessary or poorly run meetings...unlock 9 ways to have super productive meetings.
Leadership - Influence and Negotiation
How effective Leaders influence, communicate and negotiate - how do YOU rate?
The Power Of Parallel Thinking
to significantly improve your meetings.
16 Differences Between Leadership And Management
Did you know many people become confused over the roles and attributes between leadership and management? The following table attempts to define the differences to minimise any confusion.