Constantin Stanislavski said, “There are no small parts, only small actors.” It’s a way of saying that you get out of a role what you put into it. That “bit part” could end up being profoundly influential, so it’s important to give your best, whatever is required of you, big or small. Many top leaders believe in a similar concept, that there aren’t “bad” teams, but that bad teams are the creation of bad leaders.
If a team consistently underperforms, leadership may be to blame.
Much… Read the full article >
No matter how elevated your position in the corporate hierarchy, you can’t make the day longer than 24 hours. But there are plenty of leaders who try to tamper with Father Time (and perhaps, Mother Nature) by creating more work hours by giving up sleep. Rarely does leadership training address the importance of the well-rested leader, but studies of sleep deprivation have, for decades, linked inadequate sleep with poor performance, and even with effects similar to those of alcohol consumption.
Being sleep deprived is similar to being… Read the full article >
For a person to successfully take on a management or leadership role, certain skills and accomplishments must be evident. But to move on to a C-level executive position, “ordinary” leadership qualities – valuable as they are – are no longer sufficient.
The highest leadership levels require more than ordinary leadership skills.
Being, for example, head of the engineering department requires a different set of skills and experiences than does being the Chief Technology Officer. To make it to the executive suite, a person must go above and beyond demonstrating leadership. How… Read the full article >
Usually, companies hire or promote people into leadership roles because they think they are smart. They have demonstrated through previous jobs that they know how to deploy their smarts to solve business problems, and then they are given a leadership job. This is not true at Google, Apple, or Facebook. They appoint leaders who are in fact the dumbest people on the team.
This is not a political strategy so that they can let others make decisions and then… Read the full article >
In a program we ran with top executives of a multi-billion dollar company, the CEO asked us – “Why don’t we have this much fun at work?” So we asked back “What are you doing at work that is destroying teamwork?” This is what he and his team said:
1.Create unreasonable time constraints. Be sure to overwhelm team members with impossible deadlines so the reality of their already heavy, burdensome workloads doesn’t allow them to be creative and passionate on anything… Read the full article >
Donald Trump, in his interview with Megyn Kelly last night, opened a window to a critical leadership trait. This trait is so central to any leader’s success that if you don’t have it, you will never make it in the business world. It is a trait Mark Zuckerberg and Indra Nooyi have. It is a trait Jack Welch wrote a whole book on. It is key to what enabled Ghandi and Martin Luther King, Jr. to succeed. And even unfortunately Mao, Hitler, and Stalin had it. Yet interestingly this trait is rarely, dare I say never, a topic of… Read the full article >
Executives are under considerably more pressure than executives of 10 or 20 years ago. Markets change with remarkable rapidity, as do technologies. There is increased regulatory pressure and a workforce that in many ways is different from that of yesterday. At the same time, CEO tenures are a couple of years shorter than they were 20 years ago. In other words, CEOs are expected to produce results and do so quickly.
Pressure on CEOs to perform from day one is higher than it’s ever been.
On top of this, trust… Read the full article >
Most leaders, despite the myths they tell themselves, are not great. In fact leadership research shows that CEO’s are more optimistic than the average person. This often applies to their self assessment. They cannot see their limitations or how they are undermining their team. Additionally, people around them wont give them honest feedback on their leadership skills for fear of retribution. They can live in an inflated bubble, believing their own spin. There is only one way for a leader to know the truth of their leadership greatness: look at what your team is doing.
My brother-in-law, a corporate… Read the full article >
Research continues to show that the people who rise to the top, who inspire the most people, and who tend to take charge are the tallest. But since you can’t grow taller, what does this mean for the average (heighted) leader?
One would think in the year 2015 we are past Leadership Trait theory. It originated in late 1800’s, and it says traits such as height, age, social economic background, inborn personality, etc.—which can’t be changed (rather than behavior which is learnable)—will determine leadership success. It is related to the idea and practice that you are born into leadership… Read the full article >
It’s a stereotype that men would rather be lost than stop and get directions, but it turns out asking for help carries a psychological penalty for guys. A study from researchers at Duke University, the University of San Diego, and the University of Pittsburgh found that male leaders who ask for help are perceived as being less competent. When female leaders solicit help, however, the negative image didn’t apply.
“What drives this perception is that help-seeking is atypical for men but not for women,” says Dave Lebel, assistant professor of business administration at the University of Pittsburgh’s Katz… Read the full article >
