7 Things Great Leaders Do

In this chat, I talk about 7 things all great leaders do.

1. Great leaders improve how you are showing up

• Understanding how your nature affects the team
• Detecting if you am contributing to a problem
• Considering how you can improve
• Shaping a culture of learning and growing teach by example and use feedback as a tool for continuous improvement

2. Great leaders give meaning to the team

• Establishing the mission and vision of the team
• Setting rules, principles and values for the work the team is doing
• Planning short -term goals, both as a group and individually
• Establishing the roles and responsibilities of team members

 3. Great leaders build a high performance teams

• Encouraging a deep and mutual understanding among team members
• Creating an environment of trust and interdependence
• With trust, we don't fear conflict.
• We have healthy conflict where everyone speaks up and is heard
• With healthy conflict, we have commitment - even if the decision did not go our way
• With commitment we can have accountability
• With accountability, we pay attention to and deliver results
• All of this promotes teamwork

 4. Great leaders know how to motivate individual team members

• Detecting and understanding the needs and motivations of each person
• Comprehending and using motivational factors
• Using resources and tools to increase the motivation of the team and its members
• Using communication as a motivational tool
• Recognizing and rewarding results

5. Great leaders develop their people continuously

• Some of the most common areas of development are the fundamentals
• Improving communication skills of team members. Interpersonal communication
• Solving problems and making decisions
• Solving conflicts quickly and efficiently
• Improving the efficiency and effectiveness of daily work
• Time management

6. Great leaders see their job as improving the effectiveness of the team

• Delegate effectively. Allowing time for mistakes.
• Use Coaching as an effective tool to empower and develop their people
• Giving and receiving positive and negative feedback in a frequent and timely manner.

7. All of this is centered around great meaningful communication.  Communication that is concise, coherent, and relevant.

And they repeat this cycle endlessly.

#leaders #leadership #leadershipdevelopment 

Communicating Across Cultures

The world today is Globalized. We can often find ourselves in situations where we need to communicate effectively with people from different cultures. This is not just a necessity at work. It is highly likely that your neighbors or the people you socialize with come from different cultures.

In this episode, I chat with my good friend Gustavo Guillemin about Communicating Across Cultures. Gustavo is a published author, a Professor, and had delivered TEDTalks.

Gustavo and I share stories about times when we both made notable mistakes while communicating with people of different cultures.

Gustavo also shares the Hofstede's cultural dimensions theory. This is a framework for cross-cultural communication, developed by Geert Hofstede. It shows the effects of a society's culture on the values of its members, and how these values relate to behaviors, using a structure derived from factor analysis.

If you work or communicate with people from different cultures, you'll find this chat very informative.

#hoefstedemodel #hoefstede #hoefstedeframework

Characteristics of Great Leaders

This chat is somewhat an extension to my previous chat on the differences between a "Manager or a Leader".  

In this chat, I delve deeper into the characteristics that define great leaders.

• The five levels of leadership as defined by Jim Collins in his book, Good to Great
• Why leaders are important
• The importance of teaching and having a teachable point of view
• Having great ideas provide the framework for actions at all levels
• How values define the behaviors you want in an organization and how they provide the grounding for the right actions
• Having high-energy and creating energy in others
• Having the courage to see reality and acting on it
• Being able to create and communicate a compelling vision of the future in a manner that engages people emotionally and rationally
• The power of Humility based leadership

Are you a Manager or a Leader?

In my career I often see folks getting promoted to “Manager” and that is typically because they were a great operator.  They were the best technician, or the best barista or the best sales person, but in the end their team was unhappy, or overall they didn’t achieve what they were supposed to so this person ultimately failed as a leader.

The biggest reason for this is that being a Manager and being a Leader are two totally different skill sets and the individual contributor who was promoted to Manager, was never trained as a leader.

In this chat, I’ll explore the different behaviors of a Manager vs a Leader.

Before we run through a side-by-side comparison, let’s talk for a second about who can be a leader.  As I talked about before, many people see Managers are Leaders.  I’ll submit that you can have leaders at any level in the organization.  This will make more sense as we run through the side-by-side comparison.  Also, as we run through this list, think about other leaders to see how these attributes align.  Leaders such as the President of the United States, or the informal leader of your own social group.  Thinking about how leaders behave in a different context will help you better grasp the ideas.

Purpose:  Managers provide stability and predictability; Leaders drive change

Focus:  Managers manage the work, Leaders lead people by inspiring and motivating

Vision:  Managers look at short-term / today; Leaders look at long-term / Horizon

Direction:  Managers follow existing direction / maintain status quo; Leaders provide new direction and change the norm

Values:  Managers value results; Leaders value achievement

People:  Managers view people as subordinates; Leaders view people as followers 

Control:  Managers exert formal influence; Leaders exhibit personal charm

Appeals to:  Managers appeal to the head; Leaders appeal to the heart

Culture:  Managers endorse the culture; Leaders shape the culture

Approach:  Managers plan details around constraints; Leaders sets and leads direction

Decision Making:  Managers make decisions; Leaders facilitate decision making

Rules:  Managers makes the rules; Leaders break the rules

Action:  Managers tend to be more reactive; Leaders tend to be more proactive

Risk:  Managers minimize risk; Leaders take risk

Concerned:  Managers are concerned about doing the thing right; Leaders are concerned about doing the right thing