How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. Lead So Others Will Follow: 6 Tips. In the early years of a business, it's easy to neglect -- or even forget entirely -- the importance of being a leader.
A friend of mine who started a consulting business fell into just this trap. He had a clear idea of he wanted to do, and worked hard to make it happen, but it never really got off the ground. He and his partner weren't aligned. He hired people who didn't understand what was expected, and then didn't deliver properly. My friend put almost all his energy into logistics and dealing with clients. 8 Opportunities to Lead in 2013. Leadership is comprised of a series of moments, and it can be difficult to sort out individual moments over time.
A continual leadership challenge is to be aware of which moments matter and what to do about them. As the year comes to a close, take a minute to reflect upon some of the key moments of your leadership in 2012. If, in hindsight, you could have made better decisions, how will you remind yourself to make different choices in the coming year? Here are a few positive moments of leadership to work toward in the coming year. The moment you don’t let someone off the hook Organizations are full of dropped commitments. The moment you deliberately deflect attention from yourself. Advice From a Prominent Start-Up CEO: Try to Fail. What's one of the most important stepping stones to start-up success? Failure, says one prominent start-up CEO. In a presentation to b-school students, Kim Kovacs, Founder and CEO of software company OptionEase, shocked the students by telling them that she hopes they fail.
In an 8-minute video excerpt from her talk at UC Santa Barbara, Kovacs describes why "failure is my favorite word at my company now. " She even, she says, doesn't hesitate to hire people who have been fired from other companies. The strategy seems to be working. 4 Ways to Be a Leader Who Matters. The greatest need we face in business today is leadership that makes real, positive change in the long term. Because of the financial market's short-term focus on results, the media's need to fill columns with stories linked to current events, and a culture that fetes celebrity, we reward the new, the counter-intuitive and the loud. And yet the most important challenges we face are none of these things. Our greatest challenge is to to build companies that grow and are profitable in the long term, which provide valuable and rewarding employment, and which contribute to a just and fair society. Achieving this requires leaders who are prepared to do more than simply rush to the next opportunity and extract the maximum short-term gain.
Leaders who think, act and value the long-term. I've also watched as many have achieved true greatness--those who have become leaders who changed industries, cities, lives. The Visionary's Dilemma. "Let me tell you about my vision.
It's all about the convergence of technology. We're developing applications that combine any portable device with a desktop computer. Now the nightwatchman can become a world famous recording artist. What we're doing is better than YouTube and better than anyone else out there. The Power of Praise. Someone you know deserves recognition: an employee, a vendor, a customer, a connection, a company.
Someone has done something awesome for you. They labored. 5 Leadership Fads to Ignore. Every so often some academic, researcher, leadership guru, former somebody, or current wannabe writes a book that catches on and becomes the latest and greatest business or self-help fad. They’re mostly old concepts repackaged with catchy new names, trite ideas that go viral and develop cult-like followings, or one person’s way of doing things that all the pod people think they should copy so they can be just like him. I can count on one hand the number of management or business concepts that I thought were groundbreaking or really resonated with me over the past 30 years. The One Minute Manager, Gary Hamel’s Core Competency, the Tao of Leadership, and perhaps a few others. I’m sure they’ll come to me later.
You can probably tell that I have little patience for trendy fads. How to Craft the Perfect Presentation. The first step in landing a big deal with a new client or customer is getting them interested in what you have to offer. That usually entails an initial presentation that will whet their appetite for more information. Interest generation is one of the most important types of executive presentations you can make. Get it wrong, and there probably won't be another opportunity to make any other presentations. Recently, I connected with Nicholas Oulton, an expert in the field of interest-generating presentations. A Leader’s Christmas List. What do you want for Christmas?
5 Reasons Leadership Falls Flat. You can read a dozen books on leadership and attend just as many leadership seminars, but your employees won't follow your lead if you make any of these five common errors: 1. Trying to lead before establishing credibility. Motivating Employees: 4 Words With Big Impact. Four simple words, used correctly and with the right intent, can make a powerful impact on your business, your life, and other people.
Great Leaders Know When To Stand Still. Guide to Effective Delegating (For Control Freaks) I started my first business in a 100-square-foot office my brother-in-law and I finished in the basement of my home.
Over the years the business grew from just me to a few more people and then a lot more people. We moved into our first rented space. Later, we moved into a larger leased space. Finally, we built our own office complex as the company grew beyond where I had ever envisioned it would go. There were many critical steps along the way that allowed this to occur. 6 Signs You're Not Fit to Lead. Many leaders remain in power unless a clear mistake derails their tenure.
Yet, many leaders also struggle with remaining fully committed to the challenges of leadership. They owe it to themselves, and to their organizations, to honestly determine when their particular role as leader has run its course and to take action. Zig Ziglar: 10 Quotes That Can Change Your Life. A Great Leader's Year-end Checklist. Salespeople live and die by the annual review.
Auditors have built an entire industry around it. How to Criticize Employees: 6 Rules. Even if you're an experienced executive, it's likely you often find it very difficult to tell other people where they need to improve.
Praising a good performance is easy; everyone likes to receive a compliment. But what do you do when a kick in the butt seems more appropriate than a pat on the back? Here's how to do this effectively: 1. Treat criticism as a form of feedback. 15 Phrases That Build Bridges Between People. How Great Leaders Make Their Own Luck - Video. Leadership Practices to Stop Today. 10 Things Bosses Wish They Could Tell Employees. The Return of Writing. Lead So Others Will Follow: 6 Tips. 5 Essential Leadership Lessons From Tim Cook. Tim Cook--unlike his predecessor, Steve Jobs--famously doesn't crave the spotlight.
So his most recent interview with Businessweek, which appears as a the magazine's cover story, offered a rare glimpse into Cook's life as CEO of Apple. What Great Leaders Have That Good Leaders Don't. “My loyalty to Country and Team is beyond reproach.” Why Fighting For Our Ideas Makes Them Better. After studying newlyweds for just a short period of time, psychology researcher Dr. John Gottman can predict whether the couple will be together in five years with over 90 percent accuracy. 6 Poker Lessons For The Executive Table. When poker pro Phil Gordon was skyping with my Strategic Decision Making class, a student asked him what his favorite hand to play was. Like You Mean It. Questions are the expressive, probing language for growing others; listening is the receptive, facilitating language for growing others.
Extreme Leadership Lessons From Astronaut, Antarctic Doctor Scott Parazynski. Dr. How To Move Past The "Everything's Been Done" Trap And Find Your Next Great Idea. Have you ever felt the sheer terror of a stark white document? Have you raged at your inability to simply tap your keyboard and put down just one semi-original thought?
The 20 most-watched TED Talks as of August 2012. New Shoppable YouTube Videos Are The Walkmans Of Advertising.