7 Things You Should Expect From Your Leaders In 2014

Glenn Llopisby Glenn Llopis

Employees expect a lot from their leaders and when they don’t get what they expect they begin to lose trust and respect for their leader.   As the workplace continues to transition from a knowledge to a wisdom-based environment, the requirements for great leadership are changing.  For example, leaders must have greater emotional intelligence so they can connect more intuitively with their employees.   They must become better listeners, opportunity enablers and exceptional coaches.  Because employees are in search for high-trust relationships, leaders must be more instinctually connected with their employees and this requires them to be more self-aware about how their overall behavior and the example they set impacts the performance of others. Continue reading

Would You Play Golf on a Weekday Afternoon?

80-karen-firestoneby Karen Firestone

Last summer, I was invited by a few friends to meet at 4 o’clock on a weekday to play a few holes of golf on a sunny afternoon.   As I got out of my car, a guy I know waved and said, “Hey, great to see you, but don’t you still work?”  (Yes.) Over on the driving range, another man I’ve known for years, came by and said, “So, you’ve finally decided to retire?”   (No.)

Since this was the first time in memory that I had left the office early (and it wasn’t even that early) for a fun activity, I wasn’t used to these questions. I realized, of course, that both men were professionals, as were most people on the golf course that weekday afternoon, and no one was asking them if they still were employed.  So why did they ask me? Continue reading

Is Leadership Born or Built?

By James G. Clawson

In his book, “Executive Instinct,” Nigel Nicholson of the London Business School suggests that there may be a leadership gene — that some people are just driven to be in charge. But the University of Michigan’s Noel Tichy — in his book “The Leadership Engine” — declares that leadership style and abilities emerge from experience.

Yet another opinion comes from the former chief executive of a $40 billion business who claims that leadership is irrelevant — it’s all about designing the right employer contracts. Continue reading

What to Do When You Fear Your Leadership Is Failing

By Les McKeown

You’re a good leader, and you don’t take the possibility of failure lightly. You realistically assess the possibility of failure in advance of any new initiative. You’ve set clear milestones that will help alert you when something is going off track. You’re accountable for evaluating the relevant data accordingly, and you don’t blanch at objectively assessing the situation.

Now, (gulp), something has indeed gone wrong. Your new product launch has flopped, perhaps, or the fire marshal has just handed you a list of code violations that means the hospice won’t open on time, or your team of anti-logging activists hasn’t received the visas they need to go on-site in Venezuela. Continue reading

10 Reasons to Focus Your Workforce on Value of Teamwork

By Laura Stack

There’s no ‘I’ in team, but there is in win.” — Michael Jordan, retired American basketball star.

Those of us who gravitate toward leadership in business organizations — or create our own businesses as entrepreneurs — tend to be the independent sort. It seems ironic, then, that we achieve our highest levels of productivity only when we come together as teams.

The fact remains that human beings are social creatures. We couldn’t have been otherwise and risen to become this planet’s dominant species. Continue reading