How Managers Become Leaders Artwork: Adam Ekberg, Country Road, 2005, ink-jet print Harald (not his real name) is a high-potential leader with 15 years of experience at a leading European chemical company. He started as an assistant product manager in the plastics unit and was quickly transferred to Hong Kong to help set up the unit’s new Asian business center. As sales there soared, he soon won a promotion to sales manager. Three years later he returned to Europe as the marketing and sales director for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, overseeing a group of 80 professionals. All of Harald’s hard work culminated in his appointment as the head of the company’s plastic resins unit, a business with more than 3,000 employees worldwide. Like Harald, many rising stars trip when they shift from leading a function to leading an enterprise and for the first time taking responsibility for a P&L and oversight of executives across corporate functions. Specialist to Generalist What is “enough”?
Millennials Come of Age as America's Most Stressed Generation The Focused Leader Idea in Brief The Problem A primary task of leadership is to direct attention. To do so, leaders must learn to focus their own attention. The Argument People commonly think of “being focused” as filtering out distractions while concentrating on one thing. The Solution Every leader needs to cultivate a triad of awareness—an inward focus, a focus on others, and an outward focus. A primary task of leadership is to direct attention.To do so, leaders must learn to focus their own attention. Grouping these modes of attention into three broad buckets—focusing on yourself, focusing on others, and focusing on the wider world—sheds new light on the practice of many essential leadership skills. Every leader needs to cultivate this triad of awareness, in abundance and in the proper balance, because a failure to focus inward leaves you rudderless, a failure to focus on others renders you clueless, and a failure to focus outward may leave you blindsided. Focusing on Yourself Self-awareness.
How Great Leaders Communicate Making Yourself Indispensable Idea in Brief Good leaders can become exceptional by developing just a few of their strengths to the highest level—but not by merely doing more of the same. Instead, they need to engage in the business equivalent of cross-training—that is, to enhance complementary skills that will enable them to make fuller use of their strengths. For example, technical skills can become more effective when communication skills improve, making a leader’s expertise more apparent and more accessible. Once a few of their strengths have reached the level of outstanding, leaders become indispensable to their organizations despite the weaknesses they may have. Artwork: Vincent Fournier, Space Project: MDRS #04, Mars Society, 2008, U.S.A. A manager we’ll call Tom was a midlevel sales executive at a Fortune 500 company. As far as Tom could tell, nothing. But how? Learn more about developing your strengths with this slideshow. So it is with leadership competencies. The Interaction Effect
How to Turn Your Weaknesses Into Strengths Develop the Leaders You've Been Overlooking - Jack Zenger , and Joseph Folkman by Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman | 12:00 PM February 13, 2014 Say the word leader and most people immediately think of those with business cards that says “manager,” “director,” or other such lofty title. That is, the people who hold positions of stature within a company’s hierarchy, to whom several individuals report, and whose influence comes in great measure from the positions they hold. But anyone who has worked in organizations knows that there are also people without managerial titles, and who have no direct reports, and yet wield great influence and make critical contributions to the firm. In some organizations (like, say, the National Football League), their importance is obvious, and rewarded. We submit that every organization has such people. We think there’s a huge opportunity to provide this group with much of the same development experiences their managerial colleagues receive. We can see a host of reasons for investing in this group.
7 Ways to Manage Email So It Doesn't Manage You 10 Habits of Remarkably Giving People Think about people you truly respect. Think about people you truly admire. Think about people you love to be around. They may not be rich. They may not be highly accomplished. They may not be household names. Yet you love to be around them--and you would love to be more like them. They give: generously, selflessly, and without expectation of return. Here's what they give: 1. Relatively few of us work hard to find reasons to praise the person who simply meets standards. Remarkably giving people can often see the good in another person before that person sees it in herself, providing a spark that just might help her reach her true potential. 2. While it's relatively easy to ask for help, it's harder to ask for help when the assistance is personal. I once went to a meeting to talk about layoffs; by the time I got back to the plant word had already spread that cuts were coming. He thought and said, "Just tell everyone you tried. Unfortunately I didn't do it often enough. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.
Culture Code: Building A Company YOU Love