Content about Leadership

March 16, 2012
Corporate Training: Are Managers Born or Made?

Managers with a growth mindset are more committed to their employees’ development, and to their own, according to Carol S. Dweck, author of “Mindset: The New Psychology of Success.” They give a great deal more developmental coaching, they notice improvement in employees’ performance, and they welcome critiques from their employees, she writes. “Most exciting, the growth mindset can be taught to managers.”

By Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D.

Millions of dollars and thousands of hours are spent each year trying to teach leaders and managers how to coach their employees and give them effective feedback. Yet much of this training is ineffective, and many leaders and mangers remain poor coaches. Is that because this can’t be trained? No, that’s not the reason. Research sheds light on why corporate training often fails.

March 12, 2012
Engaged Leadership’s Role in Organizational Safety and Success

Where there is a culture of leadership engagement—where leaders are seen as plugged in and responsive to their employees; where employees feel their leaders are concerned with their everyday activities, personal well-being, and overall security—those are the places where you see engaged employees on every level.

By Bill Whitmore, Chairman, President, and CEO, AlliedBarton Security Services

There’s a direct connection between engaged leadership, workplace security, and organizational success, regardless of your product or service. Psychologist Abraham Maslow identified safety and security as among the most basic human needs on the road to self-actualization—achieving one’s full potential. It, therefore, follows that if your employees don’t feel safe and secure, they’re not going to do the best job for you.

February 28, 2012
Tips to Re-engage Your Team

Almost everyone in the workplace has been “doing more with less” for a long time. Yet productivity has risen 2.3 percent annually during these tough times as fewer employees accomplish miracles by working more hours and taking on bigger workloads. Is it possible to get higher productivity without burning people out?

By Carl Eidson, Ph.D., Vice President, Business Development, Wilson Learning

February 20, 2012
How-To: Motivate, Engage, and Involve Your Team

It is no easy task to motivate, engage, and involve your team, and it certainly doesn’t happen overnight. Even today’s most prominent business tycoons admit the most difficult part of their job is managing and leading their people. But there are a few strategies you can employ to improve the engagement of your team and, in turn, your bottom line.

By Brad Karsh

It is no easy task to motivate, engage, and involve your team, and it certainly doesn’t happen overnight. Even today’s most prominent business tycoons admit the most difficult part of their job is managing and leading their people. Take the late Steve Jobs, for instance. Jobs obviously made extraordinary contributions at Apple, but he spoke openly about his struggles in his role as CEO. Jobs learned from mistakes, and his analogy for what builds strong businesses was spot on:

February 20, 2012
Soapbox: ROE: Demonstration of Training Value

Return on expectations (ROE) is a foolproof way to show the value of training in the terms desired by key stakeholders. ROE demonstrates the degree to which training initiatives satisfy the expectations of key business stakeholders.

Return on expectations (ROE) is a foolproof way to show the value of training in the terms desired by key stakeholders. ROE demonstrates the degree to which training initiatives satisfy the expectations of key business stakeholders. Assumptions that may assist training professionals include:

  • Key stakeholders are high-level managers or executives.
  • Stakeholder expectations primarily include the accomplishment of the organization’s highest-level goals and mission.

Figure 1: The Kirkpatrick Model

February 20, 2012
The Main Drivers of Employee Engagement

There are two types of employee engagement—emotional commitment and rational commitment —with emotional commitment being four times more powerful than rational commitment in driving employee effort. Employees stay with their organizations when they believe it is in their self-interest (rational commitment). But they exert discretionary effort when they believe in the value of their job, their team, and their organization (emotional commitment).

By Dr. Mee-Yan Cheung-Judge, Founder of Quality & Equality Ltd., and Linda Holbeche, former Research and Policy Director, CIPD

January 26, 2012
Horrible Bosses: Hollywood Fact or Fiction?

Bad bosses have always made great fodder for the workplace and blogosphere—not to mention film and TV. But is there really an epidemic of horrible bosses in corporate America? More than 70 percent of respondents to an anonymous online survey claimed to have a good working relationship with their boss. Respondents also overwhelmingly identified a few key traits that set good managers apart from bad.

By Halley Bock, CEO, Fierce, Inc.,

January 26, 2012
Leadership Training that Makes a Difference

The gift of great leadership can seem magical. The underlying theory is not. The key is to focus on mindful leadership development. To be intentional about process, content, and outcomes—to take leaders on a deeply personal journey that starts with a courageous look inside to reflect on their humanity and a fresh look outside to connect with other leaders to solve thorny and complex organizational problems.

By Rosaria Hawkins, PhD, and Filomena Warihay, Ph.D.

Leadership training is no small investment. The Leadership Development Fact Book reports an average annual expenditure of $500,000 per company on leadership development activities. The annual per participant cost of leadership training runs between $2,000 and $ 7,500 per person. For large corporations, that amounts to millions of dollars.

January 20, 2012
Performance Management: The New Rules

When people think about performance management (PM), what usually comes to mind is the formal HR system for conducting appraisals. More than 50 years of research have been devoted to designing the perfect formal PM system. Unfortunately, these attempts have failed to produce a PM system that managers and employees consistently view as working well and that yields the positive outcomes expected from PM. So here are three new rules of PM to help get back on track.

By Elaine D. Pulakos, President, and Rose Mueller-Hanson, Manager, Leadership and Organizational Consulting Group, PDRI, an SHL Company

January 20, 2012
Podcast: Insights on Manager Led Development of Employees

In this podcast, Corporate Leadership Council Director Kimberly Shells shares more Council research findings and discusses how manager-led development can help managers drive employee performance and development.

Only 45 percent of managers are effective at developing their direct reports. Research shows, however, that managers who ARE effective can improve staff performance by 25 percent and significantly increase retention/commitment. So, what makes the difference? Quite simply, manager-led development. Managers who deliberately help employees maximize the learning potential of every project while connecting them with proper training and other development opportunities offer the winning development combination.

January 19, 2012
3 Leadership Lessons for 2012

Occupy Wall Street—a movement that consciously chose not to have “someone in charge”—taught us more than the fact that people are angry about the increasing disparities between the rich and the poor. The global protests are a fascinating case study in leadership at a time when the world needed it more than ever, whether in politics, social entrepreneurism, or business.

By John Elsey, President and CEO, Forum Corporation

Occupy Wall Street—a movement that consciously chose not to have “someone in charge”—taught us more than the fact that people are angry about the increasing disparities between the rich and the poor. As the CEO of a leadership development company, I found the global protests to be a fascinating case study in leadership at a time when the world needed it more than ever, whether in politics, social entrepreneurism, or business.

January 18, 2012
Leadership Development Tool Kit

In “The Trainer’s Handbook of Leadership Development,” Karen Lawson, Ph.D., CSP, presents a practical, easy-to-use leadership development tool kit easily adaptable for both group and individual application. The book also provides resources and methods for addressing “difficult-to-teach” leadership traits such as empathy, agility, authenticity, resilience, and trustworthiness.

January 16, 2012
Field Leader Training at SMUD

Sacramento Municipal Utility District’s Field Leader Training program was designed to develop leadership behaviors among Field foremen, who were not used to coaching staff. The driver for this customized program was the need to increase accountability, communication, feedback, and safety throughout the Field workforce.

By Margery Weinstein

Sacramento Municipal Utility District’s Field Leader Training program was designed to develop leadership behaviors among Field foremen, who were not used to coaching staff. The driver for this customized program was the need to increase accountability, communication, feedback, and safety throughout the Field workforce. The initial effort consisted of three modules, each building on the last. Participants were expected to attend all three modules of training.

The objectives for this program were:

January 13, 2012
The Agony and the Ecstasy—Building Innovation Capability

Many firms fail at innovation because they lack the right management capability in the areas of discovery skills, execution skills, and leadership behaviors. The good news is that while innovation is a difficult capability to develop, it can be done.

By Peter Mulford, Executive Vice President, BTS

Does your organization have the managerial know-how to innovate? If so, do your managers know the behaviors they must change in order to cultivate a culture of innovation?

For most companies, in our experience, the answer is no. And the problem is neither a lack of resources nor of creativity itself, but of management capability—specifically, the capability to convert new ideas into value creation. The good news is that building innovation capability is not easy, but it can be done. Here’s how.

January 9, 2012
The Alphabet of Good Coaches: Part 1

There are many different types of coaches out there, each claiming to be the best at what they do and promising to make you successful. What sets a good coach apart from an ineffective one? Educational background and experience are not enough. When looking for a coach, here are characteristics every good one must possess to be effective.

By Bruce D. Stasch, Marketing Manager, Work Effects

There are many different types of coaches out there, each claiming to be the best at what they do and promising to make you successful. What sets a good coach apart from an ineffective one? Educational background and experience are not enough. When looking for a coach, here are the first 12 of 26 characteristics every good one must possess to be effective (the remaining 14 characteristics will be revealed in Part 2 of this article posting January 16):

January 6, 2012
The Power of Local Leaders

Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer, authors of “The Progress Principle,” have been studying what they call inner work life—the confluence of emotions, perceptions, and motivations that occur continually throughout the workday. When inner work life is positive, people feel happy, have positive perceptions of their work and those they work with, and are highly motivated by the work itself. In their quest to find the forces that rule inner work life, the authors discovered that lower-level, local leaders —such as team leaders—can be surprisingly powerful.

By Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer

January 4, 2012
The Year Ahead in Leadership and Training

Sluggish economic recovery, the debt crisis in Europe, and ongoing political uncertainty are creating challenges for many businesses, particularly when it comes to human capital management. As companies continue to face these challenges in 2012, effective collaboration and communication will become mission critical in maintaining a business’ health, and human resource directors and CLOs will have to adopt new practices and new perspectives to meet them.

By Halley Bock, CEO, Fierce, Inc.

December 23, 2011
Why Companies Need a Strategic HR Partner

More leaders need to use Human Resources as a strategic plant, says Rajeev Pershawaria, author of “Too Many Bosses, Too Few Leaders.” The first step is to choose the right HR leader, someone who can help, as well as challenge. Instead of choosing a comfortable confidante, leaders should look for someone who understands both business and human capital trends, and is able to contribute intelligently to C-suite discussions about business strategy.

By Rajeev Peshawaria

December 15, 2011
Ethical Lessons from the Penn State Case

Penn State’s story of bad decisions and bad behavior sparked a national debate about personal moral conduct and the school’s perceived institutional failure to do the right thing. Since none of us are immune from acting unethically, what can we do to ensure our workplaces are not caught in our own failures of judgment, of action, and of inaction?

By Darnell Lattal, Ph.D., CEO and President, Aubrey Daniels International (ADI)

Penn State’s story of bad decisions and bad behavior sparked a national debate about personal moral conduct and the school’s perceived institutional failure to do the right thing. There were tremendous failures of judgment, of action, and of inaction. Since none of us are immune from acting unethically, what can we do to ensure our workplaces are not caught in our own failures of judgment, of action, and of inaction?

December 1, 2011
Bust Out of Recession Mode—How to Rally the Troops

Leaders must be able to help their employees see the possibility and promise of what is to come, while making peace with the past. A company can’t succeed unless its employees are invested in its success, and they need to get into the right mindset. Here’s what leaders need to do to rally their troops and get them excited about the future.

By Mike Noble, Managing Partner, Camden Consulting Group

Leaders must be able to help their employees see the possibility and promise of what is to come, while making peace with the past. A company can’t succeed unless its employees are invested in its success, and they need to get into the right mindset. An organization’s leadership team must have the ability to motivate and inspire. Here’s what leaders need to do to rally their troops and get them excited about the future:

November 30, 2011
Effective Leadership Coaching Starts with the Right Culture

Coaching for leadership is about creating an environment that, through its leadership, can achieve a high level of performance. It is not about job training, skills development, or getting a new certification. It is about helping a leader be a better motivator, mentor, and change leader.

By Michael Stewart, Managing Partner, Work Effects

One area of human resources that has grown considerably in recent years is leadership coaching. Coaching leaders isn’t about teaching a leader to do the things they already know how to do but just a bit better. It is about putting the ball in the hands of their teammates and guiding them to victory.

November 28, 2011
True North Groups: A Powerful Path to Personal and Leadership Development

Being part of an ongoing group of six people—True North Groups—who know you intimately is the best way to develop your emotional intelligence (EQ), according to Bill George and Doug Baker, authors of “True North Groups: A Powerful Path to Personal and Leadership Development.” True North Groups enable us to integrate the drives for bonding and comprehension into our development as human beings and leaders.

By Bill George and Doug Baker

As a result of myriad leadership and economic failures in the past, both personal growth and leadership development are undergoing a significant rethinking. Macroeconomic theories prevalent for the last 30 years convinced many opinion leaders that people are motivated by monetary gains alone and act only in their economic self-interest.

November 23, 2011
Training Today: Maximizing Organizational Productivity

In today’s competitive marketplace, few organizations believe they are capitalizing upon the full potential of their human resource capital. To maximize employee performance, it is critical to have leaders who can assist employees in moving quickly through the development levels to peak performance.

November 22, 2011
Creating a Holistic Talent Management Team

Before creating a holistic talent management team, organizations have to be more honest about what kind of environment is wanted and what exists (inclusive, collaborative, separate, self-preservation). What type of leadership style is wanted and what exists? Is all leadership held to the same standards with regard to producing the optimal work environment?

By Richard Lynell

What does a holistic talent management team look like?

Well, that answer varies, depending on your organization and its leadership, culture, and environment. But regardless of this, I believe a talent management team should be an independent function of the organization, similar to an internal audit team.

November 22, 2011
Rock-Steady Leadership

As a result of this recent economic uncertainty, a new emphasis in leadership development is required. A leader needs to develop the stability of a rock to serve as the team’s foundation in turbulent times, but at the same time must be able to rock and roll, or, in other words, motivate and inspire people to do and be their best.

By Connie Charles, Founder and CEO, Strategic Solutions International Inc.