Recently on LinkedIn I posed three questions that resulted in some very interesting conversations. Here they are: An executive is only a leader if people choose to follow. How can you tell whether people are following or just doing their job? Everyone says leadership is important, but why does it make a difference? If an [...]
Executive Effectiveness: Becoming Highly Productive
February 29, 2012 By 3 Comments
For an executive to be highly effective, they need to become highly productive. In addition, how they attain high productivity is as important as the productivity itself. High productivity is essential for executives because it serves three important purposes. The first, most obvious, is that it enables us to get our work done. No small [...]
Executive Blind Spots
November 16, 2011 By 4 Comments
We all have patterns, habits, and beliefs that limit us. The challenge is that we generally can’t see how those thought-patterns and beliefs hold us back and what we can’t see tends to sabotage our efforts. Blind spots can severely impact an executive’s strategic vision, their course of action, and their rate of success. They [...]
The Art of Asking Questions
May 4, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Mastering the Art of Asking Questions is essential if you want to succeed. It’s not simply a matter of getting in the habit of utilizing questions in your interactions with people. It’s really about learning how to ask the right questions at the right time. Whether you’re having sales conversations, coaching conversations, or working to [...]
First Class is Always Full
January 14, 2011 By 2 Comments
You hear about it wherever you go these days – how poor the economy is. People talk about how no one is spending any money. About how no one is buying anything. About how people aren’t making decisions. About how everyone has cut back. And yet… The first class section of a flight is always [...]
Developing People ~ A Key to Eliciting Excellence
November 12, 2010 By Leave a Comment
There is tremendous opportunity and satisfaction as a leader in developing others. By effectively developing the people around us, we elicit excellence in a number of impactful and far-reaching ways. Developing others is an important function of effective leadership. The first benefit, obviously, is to the person being developed. When we help someone expand their [...]
Expecting Excellence – A Key to Effective Leadership
October 11, 2010 By Leave a Comment
The idea of expecting excellence isn’t new, nor is the premise that every leader should expect excellence from his or her team. But just like everything a leader says and does, it’s not so much a matter of “what” he or she does as much as it is about “how” they do what they do. [...]
Leaders Can’t Be Trained
September 27, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Despite the hundreds of books, programs and websites devoted to leadership, the truth is that leaders can’t be trained. Leaders need to be developed. Hopefully this doesn’t seem like a simple matter of semantics, because it isn’t. Let me illustrate this distinction. Leadership is more about WHO you are than about what you do or [...]
Instilling Pride ~ A Key to Eliciting Excellence
August 14, 2010 By 3 Comments
Eliciting excellence in others is the essence of leadership, and one of the most effective means of eliciting excellence is to instill a sense of pride in those around us. Instilling pride has a myriad of benefits – quality of work and workmanship improves, creativity and innovation increases, collaboration is facilitated more easily, and people [...]
The Zen of Leadership
July 5, 2010 By Leave a Comment
There are many aspects to leadership that parallel the philosophies, concepts, and perspectives of Zen Buddhism. I don’t profess to have a great depth of knowledge regarding Zen Buddhism, but from the insights I do have, I can see the application with respect to effective leadership. The parallel exists within the concept of leading without [...]
