Apr 07

These 7 Leadership Styles Allow Great Executives To Tackle Any Situation

Great executives know how to adapt their style to the people and the situation. Here are 7 approaches that will expand your leadership toolkit.

By Bruce Eckfeldt
Founder and CEO, E&A, Gazelles business coach
CREDIT: Getty Images

When you’re a hammer, everything looks like a nail. The same is true for leadership. If you’re great at driving your team by calling the shots, then you’ll seek out situations–and even create ones–where making tough calls quickly is critical. However, like any highly developed skill, overusing one kind of leadership mode quickly becomes a liability.

The fact is that business throws us all sorts of challenges, and we need different approaches. As your business and your team grows, you’ll need to develop a more robust and multifaceted set of leadership skills. Here are seven modalities that successful leaders use in the different situations where they are most effective.

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Apr 07

Many Strategies Fail Because They’re Not Actually Strategies

Freek Vermeulen
(https://hbr.org/2017/11/many-strategies-fail-because-theyre-not-actually-strategies)

Many strategy execution processes fail because the firm does not have something worth executing.

The strategy consultants come in, do their work, and document the new strategy in a PowerPoint presentation and a weighty report. Town hall meetings are organized, employees are told to change their behavior, balanced scorecards are reformulated, and budgets are set aside to support initiatives that fit the new strategy. And then nothing happens.

One major reason for the lack of action is that “new strategies” are often not strategies at all. A real strategy involves a clear set of choices that define what the firm is going to do and what it’s not going to do. Many strategies fail to get implemented, despite the ample efforts of hard-working people, because they do not represent a set of clear choices.

Many so-called strategies are in fact goals. “We want to be the number one or number two in all the markets in which we operate” is one of those. It does not tell you what you are going to do; all it does is tell you what you hope the outcome will be. But you’ll still need a strategy to achieve it.

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Apr 07

7 Signs That Your Boss May Be on the Fast Track to Failing You

These common management behaviors are surefire ways to bring down a whole team.

By Marcel Schwantes
Principal and founder, Leadership From the Core
CREDIT: Getty Images

The path of leadership is a journey not for the faint of heart. It requires the prerequisite of continuous personal development before you can claim the honorable title of “leader.”

Yet most bosses that don’t deserve the title never put in the work…and fail miserably. They are bosses that play for the name on the front of the jersey, not the back.

It’s the person in charge who sees employees as “cogs” rather than worthy colleagues to be treated like business partners in producing results. The utter lack of appreciation, recognition, and direction takes a huge toll, and as the saying goes, your best people end up leaving their managers, not their jobs.

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Apr 07

Suze Orman Says This Is the Age You Should Retire—Not a Month or Year Before

(http://time.com/money/4989314/suze-orman-new-retirement-rule/)

One of the most popular segments on my CNBC show was “How Am I Doing?” Viewers would call in and tell me everything about their finances and wait for me to judge whether their retirement planmade the grade. Typically the central question was if they could retire in their early 60s.

Let’s just say I gave out a lot more D’s and F’s than A’s.

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Apr 07

9 Surprising Signs You’re an Exceptional Boss (That Most People Never Consider)

Some traits seem to go unnoticed, but where great leadership is concerned, they can make all the difference.

By Jeff Haden
Contributing editor, Inc.

 

CREDIT: Getty Images

Many people are good bosses. Some people are great bosses.

A handful go even further: They’re phenomenal, not only because of what you see them do but also because of what you don’t see them do.

If you’re a truly phenomenal boss, what your employees see is far from everything they get.

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Apr 07

Mentally Strong Kids Have Parents Who Refuse to Do These 13 Things

Give up the bad habits that rob kids of mental strength.

By Amy Morin
Author, “13 Things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do”

Raising a mentally strong kid doesn’t mean he won’t cry when he’s sad or that he won’t fail sometimes. Mental strength doesn’t make you immune to hardship and it’s not about suppressing your emotions.

In fact, it’s quite the opposite. Mental strength is what helps kids bounce back from setbacks and it gives them the strength to keep going, even when they’re plagued with self-doubt. A strong mental muscle is the key to helping kids reach their greatest potential in life.

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Apr 07

5 Proven Ways to Be More Influential at Work

Never underestimate the influence you have on others.

By Lolly Daskal
President and CEO, Lead From Within
CREDIT: Getty Images
Most people, at some point in their professional life, feel that they’re not really getting anywhere but just kicking the can down the road.

Sometimes that’s nature’s way of saying you need to be working in a differentorganization or even a different field. But often it simply means you need to ramp up your influence.

Becoming more influential at work, or in any environment, is largely a matter of managing relationships. That means taking a careful look at all your workplace relationships–top to bottom, side to side.

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Apr 07

What to Do When Everyone’s Overworked–And There’s a Lot More Work

It’s great to be busy, but not if your team burns out.

By Mandy Gilbert
Founder and chief executive, Creative Niche
CREDIT: Getty Images

The pressure’s on. You’ve just signed five new clients. You’ve received the largest order in the company’s history. You’re launching a brand new product line. Whatever it may be, everyone in the office is working around the clock. And it’s clear the team morale is starting to suffer.

Early mornings and late nights are taking a toll on your staff. But with deadlines looming and shipments that have to be made, the work load can’t take a back seat.

We’ve all been there. It’s clear that you need help, but there’s no way you can hire and train someone to alleviate the work in time. Even if you’re able to find someone quickly, training that person will just add another task on your team’s to-do list.

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Apr 07

Why Wise People Take Social Security at 62

It will help you leverage the most powerful resource at your disposal.

Brian Stoffel
(TMFCheesehead)
As a college student, future-filmaker Roco Belic took time off of school to travel the world. He focused on locales which could further his studies of Russian, Swahili, and Arabic-speaking peoples.What he found led him to a startling conclusion, later chronicled in his documentary Happy. In short, our hypervigilant focus on having enough financial security — though that finish line is ever-changing — prevents us from the only real factors that lead to life satisfaction: health and meaningful relationships.

Two indigenous Brazilian women smiling.

IMAGE SOURCE: GETTY IMAGES.

These two don’t just materialize overnight — they take effort, courage and — most importantly for this article — time. Paradoxically, we in the developed world, Belic found, have less and less freedom of time than some in less-developed nations.

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Apr 07

Words of Wisdom From Others

From another person but thought I would share. Thanks RW Ernie Hudson Jr.

I heard a story about a former Under Secretary of Defense who gave a speech at a large conference. He took his place on the stage and began talking, sharing his prepared remarks with the audience. He paused to take a sip of coffee from the Styrofoam cup he’d brought on stage with him. He took another sip, looked down at the cup and smiled.

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