“Influencing others is a matter of disposition not position.”
John C. Maxwell, The 360 Degree Leader
How you show up is more important than where. A fully engaged person will be far more effective than a dud a few levels higher in the organization.
Do you know how you show up?
You better figure it out.
Your co-workers know.
Categories: Leadership · Personal Leadership
The Global Human Capital Study, 2008 conducted by IBM noted that the primary workforce-related issues facing organizations are:
Lack of adaptability is the bottom line in regards to all these workforce issues.
If the workforce was more adaptable it would be able to rapidly change its skill set to reflect current trends as well as align itself with the organization.
Additionally, adaptability would enable leaders and future leaders to change the way they do things and increase their capacities for leadership.
But, adaptability is difficult and rare, as the numbers show. It is actually a talent that enables you to live in the moment and operate in a environment with a high degree of ambiguity.
Unless individuals with this talent are identified by organizations and nurtured, it does not appear that these issues will be mitigated soon.
Can leaders and employees alike develop this talent?
Yes, to a point, and with a lot of work. Adaptability requires an even-keel mindset where the unpredictability and setbacks of the day won’t result in frustration and emotional turmoil.
Unless your one of the lucky ones who come by this naturally, ultimately, it’s change or die. The numbers show that this won’t go away soon.
Leaders are the one who have it, or can develop it quick. Companies will pay a premium for those who can stay just ahead of the power curve.
It’s worth investing in yourself now to realize a long term payoff over your career.
Categories: Leadership · Leadership Development · Personal Leadership
Tagged: Apaptability, Leadership, Leadership Development
“Research showed that leaders who focus on self-management and relations produced 390% more.”
(from Primal Leadership - Goleman)
Categories: Leadership Development · Personal Leadership
How do you show up to others? Do you know? How would you like to show up? Grid International provides a self-assessment to evaluate the leadership style that you value the most. It is not necessarily the actual behaviors you utilize with other people.
The test results are useful for establishing your own understanding of where you want to be as far as ideal behaviors, and are not meant to be an assessment of your actual style.
VALUES TEST RESULTS
My leadership values results reportedly reflect my preferences which express themselves as a dominant and backup style. The dominant style is the approach I value as the most effective way to work with others, and the backup style is the one I prefer when the dominant approach temporarily will not work.
Categories: Personal Leadership
Tagged: Leadership, Leadership-assessments, Personal Leadership
[Part I of this series rejects the quick fix attitude of performance improvement]
Over one hundred years ago, William James, the pioneering philosopher and psychologist, wrote this on development:
Human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives.
After the inner work is done by an individual, the outer changes will follow. These lasting changes will result in a more productive, meaningful, and enjoyable life. You will radiate skill, competence, and reliability, if you have done the required work.
Bottom line: It’s all inner work!
All learning, skill building, experience, is inner work. The sooner that people realize that everything they do is developing their inner selves, the sooner they can make the big step up. Once you start focusing on your inner self, there is no longer a separation between what you do and who you are.
Most people have it backwards. They think who they are, is what they do. When you focus on who you are (inwardly), you are that no matter what you do (outwardly). So the better you operate inwardly, the better you will operate outwardly.
This is why great leaders can operate at such high levels. They have the inner ability to be there which supports their outer performances. At a certain point, just going through the motions doesn’t cut it anymore. It’s not fake it, ‘til you make it. You have BE it.
Once you make the commitment to concentrating on and developing your inner self, you can then begin the true journey of leadership and executive development. Everything else, is just window dressing.
Questions to ask yourself:
How am I not addressing my inner dimensions?
What are the areas of my inner life that I need to work on?
What am I avoiding to work on because it is too painful or uncomfortable?
What can I begin to change inside myself that will allow me to operate at a higher level?
Categories: Leadership Development · Personal Leadership
Tagged: Development, Inner work, Leadership
Question: How do great leaders rise to the highest positions?
Answer: They are able to better operate at levels higher than the rest of their contemporaries.
How did they get that way? Some had a bit of talent to aid them, but all of them worked for it. Brian Tracy contends, “Your outer world of results will always correspond to your inner world of preparation.”
One of Tracy’s favorite lines of poetry is from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:
“Those heights by great men reached and kept were not obtained by sudden flight, but they, while their companions slept were toiling upward in the night“
The desire for quick fixes abounds in today’s world. Everyone wants the most “bang” for the least amount of work. Carmine Coyote refers to this as “The perils of seeking success “on the cheap.”
Yes, one can have a marginal amount of short-term success with quick fixes. But it is not sustainable long term. You are fooling yourself to think that the burden is not shifted somewhere else. Long-term accomplishment is achieved through WORK and EFFORT.
The development of leadership capacities requires that one work on the inner aspects necessary to operate at higher and higher levels.
“What happens around us or what happens between us is never as important as what happens within us.” Diane Dreher
Our performance, results, profits, level of expertise, are all a reflection of the level of development inside ourselves. We have improved our inner abilities to the point where we can now realize increased outcomes.
[Part II will address the relationship between inner work and outer performances...]
Categories: Leadership Development · Personal Leadership
Tagged: Development, Inner work, Leadership
PersonalDNA has a personality test which they claim reveals Your True Self.
I’m an Animated Leader
Here’s an abbreviated version of my report:
Overall, I think the description of me is accurate, but I’m not sure if their description of a leader is right on the money. They describe more of a ‘Forerunner,’ not someone who moves others to action.
Check out PersonalDNA and see what you are.
Categories: Leadership · Personal Leadership
Tagged: Leadership, Personality-tests
The greater awareness you have about yourself, the more effective you will be in all that you do in business, your personal life, whatever.
Some of the things which are very useful to know about one’s self are:
There are numerous tests and questionnaires that you can find in books and on the web to help you clarify your answers.
Write these answers down and examine them at length. Do you like what you see? Is this the way you want to be in you life?
Next write down your ideal life (business and personal). Where are you? What are you doing? How are you being as a person?
Compare the lists. What changes do you need to make in your life to achieve your ideal life.
What are some small changes you can make right now to start moving towards your goal?
Some resources where you can start making your life changes:
What ever you decide upon. Get started! Small changes over time lead to large improvements.
Categories: Personal Leadership
Tagged: Personal Leadership, Self-awareness
“Poor leadership results not from conscious malice, but from inadequate leadership knowledge, values, and behaviors. People in leadership positions do not know themselves well enough [to lead effectively].”
(from The Leader Within: Learning Enough About Yourself to Lead Others. )
Categories: Leadership · Leadership Development · Personal Leadership
Tagged: Leadership, Leadership Development, Personal Leadership
Too often in our lives, are senses are bombarded by the fast-paced demands of the world. We become overstimulated and our conscious mind gets overloaded by the activity. Consequently, we close ourselves, shut down a bit, filter our experience, in order to cope with the onslaught. We limit our awareness just to get by. Our performance is negatively affected since we are not operating at full capacity.
In my last post I wrote about how developing awareness can help with problem solving and change work in your life and business. Not only does awareness benefit you in these situations, it benefits you in all aspects of your life.
Limiting awareness and information limits our ability to respond appropriately. We don’t have the resources available to make good decisions. Additionally, the speed required to make these decisions is oftentimes to fast for us to keep up. Our conscious actions then become unconsciousness reactions.
But this trend is reversible. We can practice working on our awareness and develop the skill of Presence. Presence is the ability to take in all of life’s stimuli, assimilate them, and interact with them appropriately. It is something that one can learn to do, and over time become better and better at it.
Through meditation and self introspection I’ve been able to develop a deeper understanding about myself and my “world.” The more I worked, the more aware I became about what I was doing and what was going on around me, and the more positive changes occurred in my life.
Riso and Hudson in The Wisdom of the Enneagram, write:
“If we are present to our experience, the impressions of our activities will be fresh and alive, and we will always learn something new from them. But if we are not present, every moment will be like every other, and nothing of the preciousness of life will touch us… But when we learn to be present to the blockages [in our lives, our natural way of being] start[s] to emerge spontaneously and become[s] available to us as [it is] needed…”
In an effort to get back in touch with ourselves people have pursued a variety of
practices such as meditation, prayer, chanting, exercise, going on retreat.
Diane Dreher in The Tao of Personal Leadership writes how through “Centering,” people have found “renewal” as a result of their practice. “Through our centering practice, we break through all those layers of dust, debris, and self-doubt that diminish us. Renewed and refreshed, we realize once more all that is possible.”
It frees us to respond to life’s challenges without the usual baggage that negatively affects our perceptions and behaviors. We see new solutions and new possibilities.
Life proceeds as a result of our actions and behaviors in response to situations. How we respond to these situations determines our success or failure. When we are totally present to situations in life, we see clearly and react wisely.
Performance at a higher level
Developing greater capacity of Presence greatly improves our performance and ability to operate at a higher level. Take a look at the leaders today in business and politics. They have the ability to handle the system complexity at that level. They can take in the information, process it effectively, and act accordingly.
Leaders did not jump into their current level right away. They build themselves up developing their skills along the way.
Even if you do not operate at such high levels, you can work on operating more effectively at the one your at. If you expand your capacity to take in more, you can consciously respond to life’s situations rather than react.
Developing Presence
Presence is a skill and it is able to be learned. It just requires us to do the work. Practice.
First developing a centering practice is necessary to get in touch with what is going on inside us. We need to begin to make sense of all the clutter and noise contained in our minds. A practice to quiet the mind of meditation or prayer, would go a long way understanding ourselves better.
Once we understand how our inside world works, we can observe how the outside world affects our inside experience.
1. Begin by observing how outside events and experiences affect your inner world of thoughts and emotions. Don’t make any opinion about it, just observe. Notice how some things cause you to contract, close down, and avoid certain experiences. Notice where you feel free, open, and powerful.
2. Then, develop your capacity to remain Present and open in all situations. If you notice yourself closing down and avoiding something, open again. Continue to stay in touch with your powerful resources and continue to act. Keep at this. It won’t feel good or easy. It is a habit that we have developed to avoid pain.
BUT, it is worth it. By developing our capacity to remain Present we are able to operate with all of our resources in systems of increasing complexity without shutting down. This improves our performance, our satisfaction, and enjoyment in life.
Categories: Personal Leadership
Tagged: Complexity, Personal Leadership, Presence
The 9,9 style is located on the top right corner of the Grid figure and integrates a high concern for people with a high concern for results. The difference between 9,9 and the other six Grid styles is that the 9,9 person sees no contradiction in demonstrating a high concern for both people and results. He or she feels no need to restrain, control, or diminish the concerns for people or results in relationships. The consequence is a freedom to test the limits of success with enthusiasm and confidence.The 9,9 attitude leads to more effective work relationships based on “what’s right” rather than “who’s right.”The full integration of concern for people and results is in contrast to the levels of control evident in each other style. The 9,1 person feels that a high concern for results disables the expression of a high concern for people. The 1,9 person feels the reverse-that a high concern for people is more important than results.The 5,5 feels that a high concern for either is too risky, and prefers to remain at a middle level to maintain the status quo. The 1,1 sees any high concern as unrealistic and too demanding.The paternalist expresses a high concern for results and for people, but is unable to relinquish control and allow others to make their own contribution. The opportunist sees a contradiction in working with others in the first place and so uses people and organizations to further selfish goals.The 9,9 style is firmly entrenched in logical reasoning and common sense business thinking: If you have a problem, get it out into the open and work through it. This person is truly objective, and is not afraid to tackle tough issues openly and honestly. This approach brings strength and focus to team resources and potential results, but can also lead to dramatic resistance in a culture unfamiliar with the concept.Although effective, the 9,9 style can come across as forceful and blunt in a team or company where the culture dictates playing politics, smoothing over conflict, or always deferring to one or more people in authority regardless of how sound or unsound their actions might be. Over time, however, 9,9 actions demonstrated in a team overcome any fears that prevent people from embracing the style.
The 1,9 style is found in the upper left corner of the Grid figure. This person demonstrates a low concern for results with a high concern for others. The high concern for people brings a valuable quality to teams for building relationships. This individual maintains a heightened awareness of personal feelings, goals, and ambitions of others, and always considers how proposed actions will affect them. He or she is approachable, fun, friendly, and always ready to listen with sympathy and encouragement. The interdependent low concern for results, however, works against the high concern for others in the workplace by shifting the focus away from work achievement. This makes the relationships, although warm and friendly, too shallow and superficial for synergy to occur because full candor is lacking. This leads to individuals and teams that are ultimately unprepared for the kind of challenges that arise in the pursuit of improved productivity and change.
