Leadership Question #1: Who Has Impacted Your Leadership the Most?

Awhile back, Michael Smith, Associate pastor of ClearView Baptist Church in Franklin, Tennessee, interviewed me as part of a research project he was doing on leadership. I thought his questions were so powerful that I posted them on my blog under the title, “20 Questions to Ask Other Leaders.”

Photo courtesy of ©iStockphoto.com/DeanProductions

Several people commented that they would like to hear my answers to Michael’s questions. I am finally getting around to that and have decided to answer one question per post until I get through his list.

The first question Michael asked me was this one:

Can you name a person who has had a tremendous impact on you as a leader? Maybe someone who has been a mentor to you? Why and how did this person impact your life?”

I wrote on this topic previously as part of “The Noticer Project: The Five People Who Have Had the Greatest Influence on Me.” But if I had to select one person, I would pick Robert Wolgemuth, my one-time boss, former business partner, and close friend.

Robert and I worked side-by-side for seventeen years. I saw him in the best of times and the worst of times. I doubt there is anyone who knows him better with the exception of his wife, Bobbie.

Here are three reasons why he had such an impact on me:

1. His commitment to integrity. As I wrote previously, when Robert first hired me, he promised me a raise in 90 days if I did a good job. When it came time to make good on the promise, our parent company had frozen raises for all employees. So what did Robert do? He paid me the raise out of his own pocket. This had a profound impact on me. I learned from him that integrity is about making your actions line up with your words.
2. His commitment to responsiveness. Robert was the first person I ever met who practiced near-instant responsiveness. It made him stand out in stark contrast to so many others who take forever to get back to me or simply failed to deliver what they had promised. He taught me that people want to do business with people who are responsive. This simple character trait can provide a huge competitive advantage, particularly in a world where people are often overwhelmed and slow to respond.
3. His commitment to gratitude. Robert is one of the most grateful people I know. Now a successful author and businessman, he is never too busy to stop and thank people. This is incredibly motivating to those who serve him. Not surprisingly, it makes people voluntarily want to follow him and do business with him. Again, it makes him stand out among so many who demonstrate an attitude of entitlement.

There are ten more things I could list, but these three are etched into my leadership psyche. I am forever grateful for the living model of leadership that Robert provided early in my career.

Question: What about you. Who has had the biggest impact on you as a leader?

http://michaelhyatt.com/leadership-question-1-who-has-impacted-your-leadership-the-most.html

20 Questions to Ask Other Leaders

As a leader, how do you become a better leader? If you’re like me, you probably read a lot of books, listen to podcasts, and attend a few conferences. But one of the best ways to grow is to ask other leaders questions.

Photo courtesy of ©iStockphoto.com/JLGutierrez

A few weeks ago, Michael Smith called and asked if he could interview me. Michael is on the staff of ClearView Baptist Church in Franklin, Tennessee. We follow each other on Twitter, but we have only met one time previously. He said that he wanted to interview me on the topic of leadership. I happily agreed.

Michael began our meeting by sharing with me that he is on a sabbatical. One of his goals is to grow as a leader and one of his sabbatical projects is to interview leaders in various professions. I was honored that he choose me as someone worth interviewing.

What really impressed me was how thoroughly prepared he was. Michael askedgreat, thoughtful questions. In fact, the questions were so good that I asked him for permission to post them here. I have printed this list out and put it in my Moleskine notebook. The next time I am with a leader I respect, I can pop out this list and start interviewing.

1. Can you name a person who has had a tremendous impact on you as a leader? Maybe some one who has been a mentor to you? Why and how did this person impact your life?
2. What are the most important decisions you make as a leader of your organization?
3. As an organization gets larger there can be a tendency for the “institution” to dampen the “inspiration.” How do you keep this from happening?
4. How do you encourage creative thinking within your organization?
5. Where do the great ideas come from in your organization?
6. Which is most important to your organization—mission, core values or vision?
7. How do you or other leaders in your organization communicate the “core values”?
8. How do you encourage others in your organization to communicate the “core values”?
9. Do you set aside specific times to cast vision to your employees and other leaders?
10. How do you ensure your organization and its activities are aligned with your “core values”?
11. How do you help a new employee understand the culture of your organization?
12. When faced with two equally-qualified candidates, how do you determine whom to hire?
13. What is one characteristic that you believe every leader should possess?
14. What is the biggest challenge facing leaders today?
15. What is one mistake you witness leaders making more frequently than others?
16. What is the one behavior or trait that you have seen derail more leaders’ careers?
17. Can you explain the impact, if any, that social networking and Web 2.0 has made on your organization or you personally?
18. What are a few resources you would recommend to someone looking to gain insight into becoming a better leader?
19. What advice would you give someone going into a leadership position for the first time?
20. What are you doing to ensure you continue to grow and develop as a leader?

You might start by asking yourself these questions. Better yet, ask them and then blog about them. This will give you some basis of comparison as you begin to learn from the leaders around you.

Question: What do you like to ask other leaders when you get the chance?

http://michaelhyatt.com/20-questions-to-ask-other-leaders.html

The 10 questions below, along with an effective assessment program, will help you more effectivelyidentify high potential managers:

10 Important Questions to Help Identify High Potential Leaders

Posted by Dario Priolo on Fri, Oct 14, 2011

According to research from the Corporate Executive Board, 40% of internal job moves made by people identified by their companies as "high potentials" end in failure. Many organizations make the mistake of looking simply at ability when assessing an employee for a management job. Think of the hot-shot sales rep or the genius software engineer. It is incredible how often high producing individuals get promoted into management jobs that require a totally different mindset to be successful.
The reason these people fail often comes down to three critical factors: leadership behaviors, aspiration and engagement. Aspiration entails whether the candidate really wants the position and is willing to make the sacrifices it may require. Engagement involves the employee's commitment to the company and its mission. In focusing on whether an employee potentially can do a job, many organizations neglect the question, “Does he want to do this?"
Defining the characteristics can be a tricky proposition, particularly with young employees. The characteristics people develop through training, experience and progress in their activity are not necessarily apparent from who they are when they start. Moreover, many managers have beliefs about leadership that look like something out of a movie -- loud, aggressive, in-your-face types of guys.
Organizations should develop leadership competency models based on a set of traits and behaviors associated with success in the company and then measure employees on how well they do relative to those traits. Organizations need to be sure they are assessing employees not just for the present but for the future, looking at not only what has made people successful, but also what is likely to be important and what shortages they have.
John Bradford, Profiles Senior Vice President of Training and Consulting Services, explains how assessments support the employee lifecycle.

The 10 questions below, along with an effective assessment program, will help you more effectivelyidentify high potential managers:

1. Does this person have a proven track record for accomplishing impressive results – not just meeting expectations?
2. Does this person take charge and make things happen? Or sit back and let things happen before producing?
3. Does this person inspire confidence in his or her decision making?
4. Can this person lead through persuasion and influence? Can he or she serve as an effective sounding board to others who are struggling with complex issues?
5. Do others trust this person to lead projects and teams, even though he or she doesn’t have a leadership title?
6. Does this person have an understanding of how to separate “what” from “how”? An awareness that establishing the destination before deciding on the mode of transportation is essential?
7. Can this person keep a global perspective? Are priorities apparent, or does she or he become mired in the details and tactics?
8. Do obstacles stop this person? Or do they represent challenges, not threats?
9. What success has this person had with multitasking?
10. How do unexpected changes affect this person’s performance?

http://info.profilesinternational.com/profiles-employee-assessment-blog/bid/74838/10-Important-Questions-to-Help-Identify-High-Potential-Leaders

Achieving Success by Expecting Success

Achieving Success by Expecting Success by Zig Ziglar

When you plan and prepare carefully, you can legitimately expect to have success in your efforts. When you recognize and develop the winning qualities that you were born with, the winner you were born to be emerges. When you plan and prepare to make a sale, for example, you can legitimately expect to make a sale. Although not all your expectations are going to come to pass, you give yourself an infinitely better chance of succeeding by taking the proper steps. Regardless of your goal—losing weight, making more sales, furthering your education, earning a promotion, saving money for a new home or an exotic vacation—you can expect to achieve your goal if you plan and prepare for it.

Also understand that the path from where you are to where you want to be is not always smooth and straight. The reason for the twists and bumps is simple, and it has nothing to do with you. It has more to do with the fact that not everyone is as interested in your success as you are. Some people may accidentally hinder your efforts; others who are in competition with you and have little or no integrity may try to sabotage your efforts.

Keep in mind, though, that when you hit those roadblocks your character, commitment, and attitude are the determining factors in your success.... Carefully review your plan of action, seek wise counsel, and be particularly careful to feed your mind good information. An optimistic, positive mind is far more likely to come up with creative solutions than a mind that dwells on setbacks and difficulties.

Bottom line: Expect success and you can achieve it!

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9 Things a Leader Must Do: How to Go to the Next Level--And Take Others With You

9 Things a Leader Must Do: How to Go to the Next Level--And Take Others With You
By Dr. Henry Cloud (one of the speakers at Global Leadership SUmmit)

Dr. Cloud's "9 Things" boil down to:

1) doing what you love, even if it requires taking risks or "a leap of faith"
2) removing everything negative from your life
3) evaluating ALL your current decisions with the long-term future in mind
4) always asking "What can I do to make this situation better?"
5) achieving large goals one small step at a time
6) gaining clarity about everything you hate, and then eliminating it with extreme prejudice or continually striving to be the exact opposite of it
7) not "keeping score" - ALWAYS give your best
8) being comfortable with who you are - you can't learn when you think or act like you know everything
9) not making fear-based decisions - make "the right" decision, own it, and deal with the consequences no matter how uncomfortable it might be

Most of this seems like common sense but, in practice, it's often easier said than done. Reading this book helps remind one of some of the things we might forget while "in the weeds" in addition to giving a sometimes necessary boost in courage to take appropriate action.


http://www.amazon.com/Things-Leader-Must-Do-Level/dp/1591454840/ref=pd_sim_sbs_b_3/192-1942351-5942905

10 Things Great Managers Do By Steve Tobak

10 Things Great Managers Do
By Steve Tobak | August 18, 2011

There’s all sorts of rhetoric about what good bosses should and shouldn’t do these days. I guess that’s a good thing. Unfortunately, most of it’s pretty basic, generic fluff that sort of blends together after a while.

Even worse, a lot of it’s, well, utopian. It panders to what employees want to hear instead of giving truly practical and insightful advice on what makes a manager effective in the real world where business is everything and everything’s on the line.

This list is different. It’s different because, to derive it, I went back in time to the best characteristics of the best CEOs (primarily) I’ve worked for and with over the past 30 years. It’s based entirely on my own experience with executives who made a real difference at extraordinary companies.

Some were big, some were small, but all were successful in their respective markets, primarily because of the attributes of these CEOs. Each anecdote taught me a critical lesson that advanced my career and helped me to be a better leader. Hope you get as much out of reading it as I did living it.

10 Things Great Managers Do
Maintain your cool and sense of humor, especially during a crisis. When our biggest customer - and I mean big - thought I leaked a front-page story to the press, I offered to resign to save the relationship. My boss, a great CEO, gave me a serious look, like he was thinking about it, and said, “You’re not getting off that easy.” Then he broke into a big smile.
Tell subordinates when they’re shooting themselves in the foot. Sometimes I can be pretty intimidating and I’ve had CEOs who shied away from giving it to me straight when my emotions got the better of me. Not this one guy. We’d be in a heated meeting and he’d quietly take me aside and read me the riot act. He was so genuine about it that it always opened my eyes and helped me to achieve perspective.
Be the boss, but behave like a peer. I’ve worked with loads of CEOs who let their egos get the better of them. They act like they’re better than everyone else, are distant and emotionally detached, or flaunt their knowledge and power. That kind of behavior diminishes leaders, makes them seem small, and keeps them from really connecting with people. They’re not always the most successful, but the most admired CEOs I know are genuinely humble.
Let your guard down and really be yourself outside of work. You know, teambuilding is so overrated. All you really need to do outside of work to build a cohesive team is break some bread, have some drinks, relax, let your guard down, and be a regular human being. When you get to be really confident, you can be that way all the time. That’s the mark of a great leader.
Stand behind and make big bets on people you believe in. One CEO would constantly challenge you and your thinking to the point of being abusive. But once he trusted and believed in you, he put his full weight behind you 100 percent to help you succeed. He’d stand up for you even when he wasn’t sure what the heck you were up to. And he’d give you new functional responsibilities - something up-and-coming execs need to grow. Okay, he wasn’t perfect, but who is?
Complement your subordinate’s weaknesses. I often say it’s every employee’s job to complement her boss’s weaknesses. The only reason that’s even doable is because we’ve all only got one boss. But I actually had a CEO who did that with each and every one of his staff. For example, I’m more of a big picture strategy guy and he would really hold my feet to the fire by tracking my commitments. It felt like micromanaging at first, but I eventually realized it helped me to be a more effective and strengthened the entire management team.
Compliment your employee’s strengths. It takes a strong, confident leader to go out on a limb and tell an employee what they’re great at. Why? I don’t know, but I suspect it’s hard for alpha males that primarily inhabit executive offices. Anyway, it’s important because we can’t always see ourselves objectively. Twenty years ago a CEO identified how effectively I cut through a boatload of BS to reach unique solutions to tough problems. Today, that’s what I do for a living.
Teach the toughest, most painful lessons you’ve ever learned. As a young manager at Texas Instruments, I once asked my boss’s boss for advice about a promotion I didn’t get. He told me a candid story about the hardest lesson he’d ever learned, the reason he was stuck in his job. He made himself indispensible and didn’t groom his replacement. It was painful for him to share, but it opened my eyes and made a huge difference in my career.
Do the right thing. Just about everyone says it, but I’ve only known one CEO who both preached and practiced it to the point where it became a big part of the company culture. You’d walk the halls and hear people say it all the time. He meant two things by it. When he said it to you, it meant he trusted you to do just that. He also meant it regardless of status quo or consequences. He had extraordinary faith in that phrase. Now I do too.
Do what has to be done, no matter what. It’s a rare executive who jumps on a plane at a moment’s notice to close a deal or gives an impromptu presentation when a potential investor shows up unexpectedly. It’s even more rare when he does it without asking questions or hemming and hawing about it. He just does what has to be done. That kind of drive and focus on the business is relatively common with entrepreneurs in high-tech startups. And it’s the mark of a great manager who will find success, that’s for sure.


http://www.bnet.com/blog/ceo/10-things-great-managers-do/8189?tag=content;drawer-container

Great Advice From Smart Leaders By Steve Tobak

Great Advice From Smart Leaders
By Steve Tobak | September 19, 2011

That other day I read The 32 Dumbest Things Real-Life Managers Said by fellow blogger Geoffrey James. James says most of these entertaining lines came from his friend. I can’t help but feel sorry for the guy - he must be a magnet for dumb managers. Needless to say, it was great fodder for readers.

The next day, in response to comments on one of my posts, a reader wrote this in an email, “We Americans live in an era of magic and abundance (by comparison to our forebears), but we complain and critique seemingly without end. There is something sadly ironic in that.” True enough, I thought.

That got me thinking about some of the insightful and thought-provoking things top executives have said to me over the past 30 years. Each one of these “real-life” anecdotes was an impactful lesson that helped shape my career. After all, where do you think our future leaders learn this stuff? In the real world, of course.

Great Advice From Smart Leaders
“Do the right thing.” - A brilliant CEO, c. ‘01. To this day, probably the simplest and most impactful thing a leader can say to instill faith and accountability in his management team while promoting solid decision-making and ethical judgment.
“Before you blab to the press, consider the downside risk.” From a top Microsoft executive after I got myself into hot water with his boss, a Mr. Gates. C. ‘97.
“If nobody knows what you’re doing, you’ll never get anywhere.” Angry over a lousy review, my boss’s boss shared what would become a driving force in my career. One word: visibility. It’s huge, both inside your company and outside, as well. C. ‘83.
“One of the characteristics I hold in highest regard is ‘flexibility’.” A frustrated CEO, after months of trying to deal with his unusually aggressive and insistent young executive (me), c. ‘92. Months later, he fired … I mean laid me off. Quite a lesson.
“Don’t make any mistakes you have to live with.” My boss, c. ‘87, was referring to his ex-wife who took him to the cleaners and, since they had kids, was a lifelong nemesis, but it became a cautionary life lesson for him and for me, as well. The message: Take big, potentially far-reaching decisions very seriously.
“Always seek to raise your competitor’s risk.” Refers specifically to competitive positioning, negotiations, and legal battles versus bigger rivals. The strategy has proved remarkably insightful and successful in several high-risk, high-stakes situations. From a General Counsel, c. ‘99.
“Most mistakes are the result of bad assumptions.” When you find yourself in deep you-know-what, a little introspection will inevitably uncover that you made some assumptions that weren’t correct or set up the problem incorrectly. The message: understand the problem before jumping to the solution. A high-tech CEO, c. ‘03.
“If you stand by the river long enough, you’ll see the body of your enemy float by.” Some of us instinctively run from problems, but sometimes, you can and should strive to outlast a rival, dysfunctional boss, whatever. Also taught me the value of stickwithitness and perseverance, from a top executive at a Japanese electronics giant, c. ‘88.
“We need people like ____.” A relatively off-the-cuff response by a manager to my frustration over someone I though was an annoying and bureaucratic PITA, c. ‘81. The point is it takes all kinds of people for an organization to function, even if you - a young, up-and-comer - don’t see the value at the time. He was right. Some of those people I didn’t respect went on to successful careers as senior executives.
“The only true success is happiness.” Okay, I’ve said it before, but it’s so important it bears repeating. From the president of a UK sales rep company, c. ‘93. This was a life changer for a young executive pushing himself too hard - me, of course.

Many thanks to reader David F. Smith, Mr. James, and his friend Larry, for the idea.