Tuesday, April 22, 2008

The Fifth Sin

The fifth deadly sin in “The 7 Deadly Sins of Leadership” that you received when you opted into our newsletter was “Throw your people under the bus”. This seems to be a natural response for some people when something goes wrong. People don’t want to deal with the possible consequences the mistake will bring, so they are quick to make sure that everyone knows that they are not at fault.

Nobody likes to be blamed for something that went wrong. But with many mistakes it doesn’t even matter who was at fault, what matters is that the situation is fixed and that steps are taken to ensure that it does not occur again. Placing blame will only delay fixing the mistake.

As we advised you in “The 7 Deadly Sins of Leadership,” the next time something goes wrong take personal accountability for it. Instead of placing blame take a moment to consider the problem and be the first to come up with the solution. Show that you’re up for any challenge and that you are a leader who will take accountability, take action and make good things things happen!

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Leadership Development Program For One

Yesterday we published the April issue of our monthly newsletter. In the article titled, “Moving Beyond the Leadership Cult of Personality,” we advise executives to develop a model of leadership for their organization and measure all leaders against it.

What we imply in the article is that this should be done for every leader. This is the best way we know to transform an entire organization.

But, what if you are an individual leader trying to get better and do not have the CEO-level authority to initiate an organization-wide leadership development effort? Can you use our advice to create a “leadership development program for one?”

Absolutely, yes! Define you personal list of leadership principles. Ask people close to you in your organization to give you feedback on how you are doing in leading according to those principles.

You may not transform your whole organization, but you will transform yourself!

If you do not already receive our free monthly newsletter, please go to SuccessfulLeadershipSkills.com and sign up!

To your continued success,

Rob Linn and Rich Ottaviano

Sunday, April 13, 2008

Ignoring Proven Leadership Techniques

Last week we received an email from a reader of our book, “6 Secrets of Successful Leadership” and we thought she brought up a point worth noting to the rest or our reader community. She wrote:

“When I reached Chapter 5 of your book, Facilitate the Success of Others, I thought this would describe me exactly. In this area I’ve always felt that I am an excellent leader. I do my best to make sure that those who report to me get praised, have plenty of opportunity to grow and use their skills to the fullest. Then I got to the part in the chapter about keeping your ego in check with your fellow leaders and helping them to succeed as well. That brought me to a grinding halt. This is not how my organization is structured. I work in a place where everyone is fighting for recognition and superiority. When I first came to work here it took some adjusting because I know that is not how leadership is proven to work. I tend to look at the whole organization as one big team, but my colleagues felt very differently about it. So I changed. I became just like them in order to play the game that I thought was required. Since reading your book I have made several small changes to follow the rules about leadership that I know have been proven to work rather than the standards that have been set here by the people that have created this environment. I’ve been available to those outside my department and have approached collaboration opportunities with a whole new attitude. My boss visited my office this morning to let me know that my efforts have not gone unnoticed. Thank you.”

Obviously we were extremely happy to receive this email from one if the readers of our book, but not at all surprised by the circumstances in this person’s organization. What we thought was most interesting about this email was that she described going against the leadership skills that she knows have been proven to work to fit in with the others she works with.

This story reinforces our belief that while you should have an ambitious nature and a strong drive to succeed to be a great leader, you should not do it at the expense of the proven approaches to leadership.

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Leadership and Selflessness

Wow! A growing number of you are sharing some very interesting and insightful perspectives with your comments to several of our recent posts. This is fantastic; as one of our hopes was that we can all continue to learn from each other.

If you have not had the chance yet, check out the comments and enter the discussion!

Our perspective today involves the management training aspect of leadership and selflessness. We were working earlier today with a group of leaders going through a merger. One of them raised the concern of whether or not they would still have a job after the merger was complete. A very human question. However, leadership calls us to a higher level of thinking.

As a leader we are called to think beyond ourselves, beyond our departments, beyond the people that we lead. We must always think and act on what is best for the success of the entire enterprise we are a part of.

The worst leaders fight for their personal gain. The more evolved leader fights for their people or department. More evolved yet again the leader fights for the success of the enterprise.

But, there is an even more enlightened level of leadership that only the very best reach. These leaders are so selfless that they do not first think of the success of their enterprise. Instead, they are always thinking about what is best for their customers.

In all of your management training to develop excellent team leadership keep your customer at the forefront of your mind. They will always lead you in the right direction.

Friday, April 4, 2008

Management Training and the Leadership Guru

One of our newsletter readers shared a challenge with us yesterday. He said that his number one leadership challenge is properly implementing what he learns from leadership “gurus.”

We thought this was such an important management training issue that we wrote an article about it.

Please click on the link below to read what we think about this. Then please come back to the blog and comment on what you think!

www.successfulleadershipskills.com/LeadershipGuru.html


To your continued success,

Rob Linn and Rich Ottaviano

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Were You Born to Leadership?

People believe a lot of things about leadership that are just plain wrong. New leaders tell us all the time that they were surprised about how different leadership is compared to what they expected.

Here is a belief about leadership that comes up a lot in conversation; “Leaders are born, not made.” We have had many spirited debates about this point of view.

We want to hear what you think about this issue. Click on the Comments button at the end of this post and tell us what you think!

Do you think that some people are born to be great leaders, that they are just “naturals”?

Or do you think that great leadership can be developed through management training?

What have been your personal experiences on this subject?

Let’s figure this one out together!

To your continued success,

Rob Linn and Rich Ottaviano