A couple of yeas ago I was rushing to meet a new client, a CEO who required some coaching; as I was running short of time I chose to miss lunch and go straight to the appointment.
I was greeted at the company by the company’s communications manager who was to show me to the boardroom to meet the CEO. She politely asked me if she could get me anything, perhaps thinking I might need a tea or coffee. My response was, Continue Reading »
When I speak about leadership at a conference or workshop, I often talk about my children, Tasha (3 1/2) and Nathan (22 months). This is for a couple of reasons, firstly and selfishly because I am a proud father, secondly because it builds rapport with the audience and thirdly and most importantly because they are good examples of leadership and influence principles. In this blog post I wanted to share 3 such leadership principles.
Every parent knows that children are great mimics, they watch you like a hawk and duplicate your behaviour. This can be amusing, as when Tasha first started painting her nails after watching my wife or Nathan picking up my tennis racket and saying, “like daddy.” The dark side of this modeling is when children mimic the aggressive behaviour of adults, which was demonstrated by Dr. Albert Bandura with the Bobo Doll experiment and is evidenced in war torn areas of the world where children carry weapons.
Adults to0 model behaviour which is why the leaders of any team or organisation must “walk the talk”, they must be the model for the behaviours they wish to see duplicated. Talk is cheap – action is real.
Both Tasha and Nathan like to clap themselves when they do something right and they both beam when Zurina and I give them praise. As a leadership consultant I know how important it is that I continue to praise even moderately good performance as research by Dr Ethna Reid shows that teachers who get the best results, validate regularly. Successful teachers also alternate between teaching and questioning (testing) for comprehension.
In leadership and management in a hectic paced world it is all too easy to criticise poor performance and to tell rather than ask. In our leadership for managers program, we emphasise and rehearse the arts of validation and asking good questions.
Children love stories and interpret our cultural moral code from those stories. Tasha knows who are the good princesses (coutesy of Disney) and who is the evil queen, Nathan is learning from Thomas the Tank Engine that when you break the rules you go off the rails, he even exclaims very loudly “oh no!” when this happens.
Effective leaders also tell stories that let their followers know what the vision and culture of the organisation is. These stories get retold and strongly influence the behaviour of the team or workforce. When I was teaching coaching skills at Singapore Airlines I noticed how they regularly used stories of exemplary customer service to validate and reinforce the behaviour of going the extra mile service (GEMS).
Perhaps you have other Leadership Principles you have learned from children – feel free to share.
Every executive knows that they must have a vision and mission statement but in times of crisis these important documents can be forgotten.
It is a bit like if you were in a boat and have set your course, but the boat springs a leak and you spend your whole time bailing water and have no time to steer.
William Bridges created a model of change and transition that is highly relevant in today’s financial readjustment. Continue Reading »
Listen to a Podcast on the the Power of Influence.
Have you ever wondered why some people get what they want and others don’t?
Can I make a suggestion?
Remember a time when you really wanted something; something you couldn’t have right away but something you would have to wait for, you pictured it in your head, you imagined what it would feel like to possess it and you could feel the pull.
Is their a difference between leadership and management? Can managers lead and can leaders manage?
These are perennial questions in the field of leadership development and the answers vary depending on who you talk to.
The concept of a leadership pipeline is that as we start supervising/managing we will be more transactional (performance management) and as we move up through the organisation we will become more transformational (visionary/inspiring). Continue Reading »
Confidence is a key success factor for modern managers and leaders and yet many lack confidence in the following areas:
I have been an executive coach in Australia and Singapore for some years and I have seen some significant changes in the acceptance and application of executive coaching.
Harvard Business Review (HBR Jan 09) has just published a review of the field of executive coaching and makes some significant points on how to effectively use executive coaching as a self-leadership or business tool. Continue Reading »
Are you Gen Y or do you manage Gen Y?
These are two important questions that you can help me answer.
1. Do we need to manage Gen Y any differently than previous generations (Gen X, Baby Boomers, Traditionals)?
2. Does Gen Y need to learn to manage upwards to update their bosses? Continue Reading »
Do you ever wonder why people behave the way they do? Are you curious about whether someone is a right fit for a job or a team?
All will become clear when you understand the psychological background of personality.
The word personality comes from the Latin persona, which refers to the masks once worn by actors to give clues as to the emotions driving their behaviour. Today the term personality refers to the sets of predictable behaviours by which we profile a person. These sets of behaviours are known as types or traits and profiling tools are known as psychometric tests. Continue Reading »
Interruptions are one of the most powerful time wasters.
The simple reason is because for each activity that we engage our brain in, we need a period of warm-up (just like in any sport), and then only can we start performing at the peak of our potential.
The problem is that if we get interrupted in the process, we need to go back to the warm-up phase again. And the more we get interrupted, the less chance there is that we ever reach the peak of our brain potential. Therefore we end up wasting precious time. Continue Reading »