As a Westerner living in Asia I often witness a mismatch between leadership and “follow-ship” styles. Asian cultures tend to value collectivism over individuality. They also have high regard for age and seniority whilst appreciating humility. At the same time, Asian managers tend to be more directive than empowering. Not surprisingly, their employees become habituated to doing only what they are told to do and are reluctant to speak up for fear of being scolded. I have coached many Western managers who are using an empowering leadership style only to be dumbfounded when their subordinates did not take initiative and required confirmation of every little step. Continue Reading »
Mark Liew, Trainer and Coach at Self Leadership International, will be conducting a Coaching and Mentoring for Talent Management program in Singapore on May 17, 2012.
When you have developed your people where they are motivated to increase the value of the team and organization by taking on additional delegated tasks, then they are ready for the next level of development. In retaining and developing your top performers, a manager must recognize when coaching and mentoring are the right tools for the next steps with their right people. Continue Reading »
A friend of mine is an Asia Pacific Managing Director for a global firm. We were chatting over lunch and I was sharing the need for a longer term approach to developing leaders; “I agree”, he said, “but my company would never sign up for something like that.” When I inquired as to why not, he explained that any commitment to learning and development would be viewed by quarter, because, with the uncertain future in 2012 they would want to be able to cut back on any non-essential expenditure!
This conversation highlights the dangerous lack of preparedness that many leadership teams are in. If 2012 is going to be uncertain or tough, then shouldn’t we get ready for it? Shouldn’t we put the best leadership team in place and make sure they have the competencies required? Or is this a non-essential expense?
Consider that, post the Global Financial Crisis, many leadership teams were decimated by cut backs and organizations are talking about growth when they don’t have the bench strength of talent to achieve it. It is frightening that less than 10% of executives have a plan to develop their strengths and the more senior they get; the less likely they are to receive constructive performance and strategic feedback. Continue Reading »
A leader who wishes to bypass resistance, prepare hearts and minds and facilitate lasting changes for his or her organisation must understand and be able to use the power of story and metaphor. In a previous post I shared about the construction of metaphors and wanted to expand on this with specific relevance to leadership in today’s challenging environment.
What stories are you telling your people? Do you know what stories are you telling yourself? Continue Reading »
As a leadership consultant and executive coach I am often asked by my clients to help them understand and navigate organisational politics.
Most people I speak to have a negative perspective of politics, they associate it with backstabbing and pushing your own agenda at a cost to others. I have a different perspective; my experience is that business politics is about human nature and to ignore it is to ignore reality. In a perfect world the best workers would be promoted on merit alone and the best ideas would be adopted regardless of personal interest – but we do not live in Utopia we live in the real world. If you want to survive and prosper in the real world you need to combine good work with smart politics.
The term ‘Machiavellian’ is often used to negatively label those who have mastered the Art of Politics in Businesss but this may be paying a disservice to Nicolo Machievelli ( 1469 -1527) who wrote a handbook for politics and human nature called “The Prince”. I read The Prince as a young man but I recommend that my coaching clients read “The New Machievelli” by Alistair McAlpine. Continue Reading »
Modern organisations strive to develop their leaders to gain a competitive advantage; and smart companies are changing from the traditional management style of command-and-control to a model of self-leadership and shared-leadership. This is particularly important with knowledge workers in virtual teams or in flatter, matrix organisations.
Self-leaders have a drive for autonomy, are more creative and persist, even in the face of adversity. Shared-leadership allows team members to influence peers, superiors and sub-ordinates with the objective to lead one another to innovation and the achievement of high performance objectives.
In this video, inspirational speaker, Andrew Bryant shares a contingent model for developing leaders with self-leadership.
Do you want to be a motivational or inspiration speaker or trainer? Then there is one thing you must avoid – Death by Power Point.
You know the symptoms; you are sitting in a slightly darkened room and the speaker drones on in a montone whilst showing you slide after slide, dot point after dot point, spreadsheets you can’t read and before you know it your eyelids feel heavy and your consciousness floats away.
Power Point is a powerful tool that is often misused and yet with a little preparation can bring your presentation to life and free you to inform and inspire your audience.
I trust you enjoyed the short YouTube video above. For more information about presentation skill training and coaching, visit www.selfleadership.com.sg
As a leadership consultant and executive coach living in Singapore and working across Asia, I am often asked; “is there is a difference between Western and Asian Leaders?”
The answer is “yes” and “no”. Leaders worldwide need to ask the same questions:
Where are we going?
What is our strategy? (how do we get there?)
How do we execute?
Is our team ready? (learning and development)
Do we have enough bench strength for growth and sustainability (succession planning)
In addition leaders must be able to engender trust and effectively communicate their messages. Continue Reading »
This weekend I watched a magician enthral an audience with his art. As he performed his sleight of hand and misdirection I wondered at the thousands of hours he must have invested to achieve mastery.
Mastery involves focus, concentration, passion, intention, commitment, and discipline. We can’t achieve mastery in everything in fact most people are unlikely to achieve mastery in anything as they dabble in this and hack about at that. Continue Reading »
As a Westerner living in Asia I often witness a mismatch between leadership and “follow-ship” styles. Asian cultures tend to value collectivism over individuality. They also have high regard for age and seniority whilst appreciating humility. At the same time, Asian managers tend to be more directive than empowering. Not surprisingly, their employees become habituated to doing only what they are told to do and are reluctant to speak up for fear of being scolded. I have coached many Western managers who are using an empowering leadership style only to be dumbfounded when their subordinates did not take initiative and required confirmation of every little step. Continue Reading »
