Good Managers Focus on Employees' Strengths, Not Weaknesses. Marcus Buckingham knows enough about good management to know he’s not a good manager.
Before launching a career as a management consultant and author of such books as First, Break All The Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently and The One Thing You Need to Know…About Great Managing, Great Leading and Sustained Individual Success, Buckingham served as head of The Gallup Organization’s strengths management practice. He was a manager, and he didn’t much care for it. “I wasn’t terrible, but I had no appetite for it,” said Buckingham, who spoke about management and leadership at the Wharton Leadership Conference on June 9.
The conference was sponsored by Wharton’s Center for Leadership and Change Management and Center for Human Resources. According to Buckingham, the best managers share one talent — the ability to find, and then capitalize upon, their employees’ unique traits. Checkers vs. How to tell a good manager from a bad manager? Optimism and Ego. 4 things a manager should never say. People listen to leaders. It's one of the qualities that helps define them as leaders -- and their followers as followers. But because of this, leaders need to mind what they are saying, and avoid knee-jerk responses. "A leader's brain must always work things out ahead of his mouth speaking them," says Patrick Alain , author of The Leader Phrase Book: 3000+ Phrases That Put You In Command . To help wannabe leaders cement their status, Alain has compiled a shortlist of four phrases that a good leader will never, ever say.
Avoid these lines and people will be more likely to follow your lead. 'That's impossible' This flip statement will hurt your credibility in two ways, says Alain. A better choice, according to Alain? '[John Doe] is a jerk' Randomly gossiping about or putting down others will kill confidence in you as a respectable leader. If you need to discuss a problem employee with another colleague, discuss it with the appropriate person -- privately and in a constructive way.
3 habits of highly effective leaders. Gary Mogg claims lounging at work in a broken chair led to his injury iStockPhoto Are you a leader?
Whether you're an executive or an entry-level employee, leadership is a truly essential skill that can propel you and your career to bigger, better things. That holds true for both leaders of large teams and self-employed people who are guiding a team of one. I recently spoke to leadership consultant Jennifer Garvey Berger, whose new book, Changing on the Job: Developing Leaders For a Complex World, is already garnering praise from industry executives and academic experts at Microsoft, Fidelity, Harvard University and Boston College. Here are some of her insights on what good leaders do -- and what separates them from the pack. How NOT to fire someone: 5 common mistakes What are three habits a competent leader practices regularly? The first habit is asking different questions. Do even the best leaders make mistakes? Yes. What else separates great leaders from everyone else?