From: Gergen, C. & Vanourek, G. (2008). Life Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

As much as we ascribe to the hero’s journey, we are more fragile and vulnerable than we care to admit. We need others to fortify our resolve, provide perspective, and back us with emotional support. The deepest sources of strength among the life entrepreneurs we interviewed were their life partners, families, friends, mentors, and business partners. These close relationships give us roots and wings – roots to ground us and wings to help us fly.

The important people in our lives encourage us to be a person of character and integrity. They hold our feet to the fire when we drift or waver, help us back on our feet when we stumble, and encourage us to leap when we are ready to soar. They provide us with the all-important emotional foundation that we need to step forward in the world with confidence, willing and able to take risks because our root system in strong (Gergen & Vanourek, 2008, p. 112-113).

Life Entrepreneurs is available on loan from the Ohio State University Leadership Center. To borrow this resource or any other resource, please go to the resource search page.

Click here to learn how the Ohio State University Leadership Center is strengthening tomorrow’s leaders today.

The OSU Leadership Center is home to a wealth of resources to help you and the people you work with improve your leadership and interpersonal skills. Please check the materials in our Lending Library (available to you for a small annual fee), Leadership Publications (absolutely free), and links to other leadership-related information.

To illustrate one of the easiest leadership mistakes to make, here’s a painful story from my youth. Like most 9 year-old boys in the US I played Little League baseball. I hadn’t yet found the little athlete inside of me at that point. I wasn’t very good but I loved the game. Every day involved throwing, batting and fielding practice.

One day a friend came over to play. Nothing abnormal about that until he told me that my dad had asked him to help me with my baseball skills. I know my dad cared. He wanted to keep this “help” a secret to spare my feelings but that didn’t work out. Eventually I got pretty good at baseball but the game never held the same attraction after that day. If he had talked directly with me instead and we worked out a plan together, it would have been different.

Boo-hoo, just a vulnerable kid right? Well, aren’t we all just big kids?

As a leader, when you don’t think the task is getting done the way you want it to and then DO something, what are the ramifications?

• What happens when you send an email to reinforce your desire for something to get done and include numerous people even though you’ve assigned the task to one of your team members?
• What happens when you bring in a consultant to “help” someone?
• How about asking someone to “look into” a project?

Is your action motivational or does it show your lack of trust?

Think carefully before taking action. It’s important to let people do the job they’ve been assigned, their way. Yes, set milestones and work with the person to take corrective action if necessary. Be careful though that you aren’t unwittingly undermining your valuable resource.

The downside of jumping into a task you’ve already assigned to someone can be avoided by simply talking before taking action. Yes, I wrote a book on initiative, but action for the sake of action is just silly. Perhaps your team member is struggling and needs your assistance. Perhaps they would welcome some outside resources? Or maybe they just need to understand your priorities better.

When the two of you work on it together, in private, a solution can be identified that maintains their passion and your position as a leader.

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Photo Credit: Zach Klein

Leadership vs. Management
Strategies for Developing Effective Teams

From: William A. Howatt
Kentville, Nova Scotia: Howatt HR Consulting Inc. (2008)

1. Not being aware of the value of staff development.
2. Wanting to be liked more than respected.
3. Not implementing an effective vertical and horizontal communications system.
4. Not being aware of the impact of negative comments.
5. Not asking team members for their opinion on a regular basis.
6. Not following the same rulebook as the team.
7. Not promoting self-accountability.
8. Not focusing on skills and talents of the team.
9. Not being available.
10. Not being visible on a regular basis.
11. Not passing on information.
12. Not building clear agreement and commitment on a yearly basis (Howatt, 2008, p.13).

Leadership vs. Management is available on loan from the Ohio State University Leadership Center. To borrow this resource or any other resource, please go to the resource search page.

Click here to learn how the Ohio State University Leadership Center is strengthening tomorrow’s leaders today.

The OSU Leadership Center is home to a wealth of resources to help you and the people you work with improve your leadership and interpersonal skills. Please check the materials in our Lending Library (available to you for a small annual fee), Leadership Publications (absolutely free), and links to other leadership-related information.

Yes, people notice what you say and do and just as importantly what you don’t say or do. The best relationships develop to a point where a short cut language develops and a glance or a nod can suffice. Do you have that type of relationship with everyone on your team? Don’t forget that a close relationship between friends or family is different from a close relationship between boss and employee. There are additional complexities in the relationship that simply requires more attention.

We touched on this idea of an increased need for communication in our post It goes with saying. Some tips:

• Pay attention to your moods and how they will be interpreted.

• If something’s bothering you about a situation or a person, deal with it right away. If you decide to deal with it later also park your emotions until later as well. Your simmering will be noticed.

• Review your interactions for the day. If you realize something could have been misinterpreted send a note or make a quick call.

Do you really want your team worrying about what you said half the week and over the weekend instead of working?

Click here to begin your 14 day Trial of Emerging Leadership Circle

Photo Credit: Rennett Stowe

From: Eikenberry, K. (2007). Remarkable leadership: unleashing your leadership potential one skill at a time. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Before any big game, coaches typically give their team a pep talk.

Coaches know from experience that sharing enthusiasm and delivering positive messages prior to the start of a game will help the team perform better. Maybe the other team is bigger, stronger, and faster. The coach may share those facts during practice but would never include them as the focus of the final words to a team. Will a pep talk alone create a win? Probably not, but everything else being equal, it will help.

Think about it this way. The more the expected pep talk provides hope – an opportunity to look at the world from the perspective of success and achievement. Some call this optimism or enthusiasm or a positive mental attitude. Whatever you call it, science increasingly shows it to be a powerful force. Science or not, our experience tells us this attitude is contagious (Eikenberry, 2007, p. 151).

Remarkable Leadership is available on loan from the Ohio State University Leadership Center. To borrow this resource or any other resource, please go to the resource search page.

Click here to learn how the Ohio State University Leadership Center is strengthening tomorrow’s leaders today.

The OSU Leadership Center is home to a wealth of resources to help you and the people you work with improve your leadership and interpersonal skills. Please check the materials in our Lending Library (available to you for a small annual fee), Leadership Publications (absolutely free), and links to other leadership-related information.

I’ve been around some organizations where objectives weren’t really that important. Objectives are only created because Human Resources requires it and we manage the way we manage. Business as usual. Does your organization fit into that bucket?

I don’t like to do something just because “it’s the way we’ve always done it even though it serves no purpose” and I know you don’t either.

The process of setting objectives throughout the organizati0n can be an extremely powerful leadership tool and while actually meeting objectives a great deal of culture setting can occur.

We have introduced an entire process in a video lesson within Emerging Leadership Circle called Setting Objectives so you can look for details there. There is one specific point however to make about setting objectives that we find often gets missed.

If we in fact really use objectives as a leadership tool designed to get us to the growth targets called for by the strategy then we have to be thinking like a change leader.

Whether we are setting objectives for growth or even for targeted shrinkage we are basically saying that this year must be different than last year. So, we are, in effect, saying that behavior of individual people must be different than last year.

What are the chances of that behavior changing if these changes aren’t explicitly included in each person’s objectives, in the objectives of their managers, and coached at every opportunity?

In other words what are the chances that at the end of this year you will actually meet your strategic targets?

Learn more in Setting Objectives and keep us posted on how your areas of responsibility produce as a result.

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Photo Credit: HikingArtist.com

See links to lessons here.

Watching each of these lessons will add 1.25 credit hours to your ELC Certification.

You’ll need to be a member to view these lessons. No problem – use the 14-day trial.

We start off with a CEO Interview with Tim Eby, General Manager of St. Louis Public Radio. Tim describes his process for taking over an operation in a new city.

ELC Advisor Belinda Gore brings us What is your Personal Leadership Style? This is the introductory session in a series on the Enneagram model.

I have  a new lesson that is timely right now – Setting Objectives.

Please enjoy the new content. Let us know what you think of these new lessons using the lesson follow-up tools.

From: Kotter, J. (2008). A sense of urgency. Boston: Harvard Business Press.

For centuries we have had the expression in English, “Great leaders win over the hearts and minds of others.” The expression is not, “Great leaders win over the minds of others.” More interesting yet, the expression is not that great leaders win the minds and hearts of others. Heart comes first.

History is filled with examples that support this conclusion. Martin Luther King Jr. did not reduce anger among blacks and contentment or anxiety among whites by announcing on the Washington Mall, “I have a strategic plan.” King’s speech pounded away at people’s gut-level feelings with poetic rhetoric and passionate words about justice and morality. He hit hearts in a way that converted anger and anxiety into a commitment to move, do the right thing, and now (Kotter, p. 45-46).

A Sense of Urgency is available on loan from the Ohio State University Leadership Center. To borrow this resource or any other resource, please go to the resource search page.

Click here to learn how the Ohio State University Leadership Center is strengthening tomorrow’s leaders today.

The OSU Leadership Center is home to a wealth of resources to help you and the people you work with improve your leadership and interpersonal skills. Please check the materials in our Lending Library (available to you for a small annual fee), Leadership Publications (absolutely free), and links to other leadership-related information.

How often do you feel your best value contribution is a devil’s advocate analysis?

The ideation process and it’s participants are very fragile depending on where they are in the process. Cold water thrown on an idea at the wrong moment can be devastating.  The wrong moments are usually very early in the process when the idea is new and fresh and unexplored, and late in the process when some effort has been associated with the idea. The idea on the table isn’t as important as the impact on psyches of the participants relative to their involvement in future ideas.

I recently had a long conversation about being a devil’s advocate with idea expert, Don The Idea Guy. We discussed how easy it is to jump to the critique stage when hearing about an idea and how de-motivating this can be. Don consciously had to unplug the critique mode when interacting with his clients, and strategically decide when to provide this feedback. The consideration is for the enthusiasm of the idea team, how they will interact with future ideas, and how best to fuel the work necessary to research and implement an idea that allows for optimum idea success and future learning.

Again, it’s not about a specific idea. There will be a lot of them. Rather, the focus is on the individual coming up with an idea. How are you setting up a healthy environment for idea generation and implementation?

Read more about this in Personal Brilliance.

Zig Ziglar says, “The way you see people is the way you treat them.”

A big part of an individual’s success has to do with their self-confidence and sense of place within the environment. Is your input to this individual primarily skewed toward criticism because that is when you have the opportunity to interact? How can you balance this out in your exposure to the team as a leader?

If you view people as innovative, brilliant, and new ideas are critical to success but your only connection is through a negative devil’s advocate exchange, you may be sending the opposite message than you intend.

Read more about the concept of Constructive Discontent:

Constructive Discontent
Brass Tacks
How invention starts
Positive Attitudes for Creativity

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Photo Credit: Katutaide

From: Rifenbary, J. (2007). No excuse! incorporating core values, accountability, and balance into our life and career. Possibility Press.

“When you get what you want in your struggle for self, and the world makes you King for a Day; just go to a mirror and look at yourself, and see what THAT man has to say. For it isn’t your father or mother, or wife, whose judgment upon you must pass; the fellow whose verdict counts most in your life, is the one staring back from the glass. Some people may think you’re a straight shootin’ chum, and call you a wonderful guy; but the man in the glass says you’re only a bum, if you can’t look him straight in the eye. He’s the fellow to please; never mind all the rest, for he’s with you clear up to the end. And you’ve passed your most dangerous, difficult test, if the man in the glass is your friend. You may fool the whole world down the pathway of life, and get pats on the back as you pass; but your final reward will be heartache and tears, if you’ve cheated the man in the glass.” – Dale Wimbrow, Sr. (Riffenbary, 2007, p. 28).

No Excuse! is available on loan from the Ohio State University Leadership Center. To borrow this resource or any other resource, please go to the resource search page.

Click here to learn how the Ohio State University Leadership Center is strengthening tomorrow’s leaders today.

The OSU Leadership Center is home to a wealth of resources to help you and the people you work with improve your leadership and interpersonal skills. Please check the materials in our Lending Library (available to you for a small annual fee), Leadership Publications (absolutely free), and links to other leadership-related information.