Lead ThySelf

Business communication styles can come in several harmful flavors. I love the following story that illustrates how your style of communication could lead to big problems in business and personally if you aren’t careful. What’s your leadership communication style? One night an angry man and wife were preparing for bed. Neither of them had spoken to each other most of the day. It was normal for the couple to boil in a war of silence for several days. However, this time the man was concerned because he needed to be woken up at 5:00 AM the next morning so that he could catch an important flight. He was a heavy sleeper and relied on his wife to wake him up, otherwise there was a good chance he would sleep right through the alarm! Letting his pride get the best of him he cleverly decided he would write her a note while she was in the bathroom instead of asking her verbally. He wrote on the piece of paper: “Please wake me up at 5:00 AM, I have a critical flight to catch.” He...

One of my favorite leadership by example stories is that of Mahatma Gandhi. How closely does what you say as a leader align with what you do? Read on… Here is another great story to share with other leaders. May we all be better leaders as we lead by example this coming year. In the 1930’s there was a young boy who had become addicted to and obsessed with eating sugar. His mother decided to get help and took the long and hot journey with her son walking many miles and hours under the scorching sun.  She finally reached Gandhi and asked him to tell her son to stop eating sugar, it wasn’t good for his health. Gandhi replied, “I cannot tell him that. But you may bring him back in a few weeks and then I will talk to him.” The mother was confused and upset and took the boy home. Two weeks later she came back. This time Gandhi looked directly at the boy and said “Boy, you should stop eating sugar. It is not good for your health.” The ...

The need for culture transformation can be driven by one or more factors: organizational growth, toxic organizational culture, poor top-level leadership, industry or technology changes, negativity, poor management, or even a lack of succession planning for an aging workforce. To change and transform culture, we must transform the individuals who make up the culture. Any time we are trying to create positive change, we find ourselves challenged to influence others to accept, buy in, and get on board with the transformation. In an uncertain world, one thing is certain: Leading positive transformation is challenging. And, regardless of the cause, the effect is disastrous if the response isn’t sufficient to meet the challenge. Transformation is a change in form, appearance, or character. Transformational leadership is being able to influence others to change their character, and therefore behavior. This can create positive change and culture transformation and also lead to organiz...

Managers, aspiring managers, and top-level leaders are all concerned with developing the competencies they need to become more effective leaders. More than 100 years of leadership research has outlined the successful skills and abilities that are associated with leadership effectiveness. Here are my top 10, derived from our own research and the broader research literature followed by the rest. 1. Social Intelligence (SI).  This is not only one of the best predictors of effective leadership, but it is poorly understood and under-researched. Social intelligence is quite broad, but can best be seen in terms of understanding of social situations and dynamics, and ability to operate effectively in a variety of social situations. Our research suggests that social intelligence, which we define as a constellation of social performance, sensitivity to social situations, and role-playing skill are critically important for effective leadership. How to develop ...