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5 Top Leadership Articles for the Week of December 12, 2016

It’s been another week of hearing from readers how they are sharing Winning Well: A Manager’s Guide to Getting Results Without Losing Your Soul  with the leaders, managers, and people in their life who want to be rockstars at work and blend the bottom line with the human spirit. If you need an autographed copy for a gift, please let me know!

Each week I read a number of leadership articles from various online resources and share them across social media. Here are the five articles readers found most valuable last week. I have added my comment about each article and would like to hear what you think, too.

Don’t Let Your Filters Become Blinders by Steve McKee

Years ago, my company ran into some rough waters, which turned into a near-death experience for us. Over that several-month period, I remember becoming sensitive to what I believed were slights from people on staff who had begun doubting me. That wasn’t healthy for me or the firm.

We somehow managed to survive, and in retrospect I came to see that the perceived slights were unintended and that the real problem was that I had begun doubting myself. I had created a filter through which I processed everything I saw and heard.

My Comment: I believe one of the most vital characteristics you can cultivate is a healthy sense of perspective. Confirmation bias – that all-too-human inclination to find what we’re already looking for – can easily blind you to opportunities as well as problems. Confirmation bias can make you can miss out on a great employee or pay the price for a poor one. McKee calls you to be aware of your built-in filters and the healthy role they can play, as well as when they become problematic. As a leader, I encourage you to work hard to find, maintain, and reclaim perspective. Connect with other leaders outside your business, hire a coach, and spend time with people who matter to you. Do everything you can to maintain a healthy, objective perspective and you’ll make better decisions.

Honestly, It’s Fine! (Is being passive-aggressive bad?) by Rebecca Roache

We don’t like confrontation. We prefer to keep hold of our resentment until we have to get it out somehow, and then we quietly do things like drop people from birthday party lists and vote to withdraw our country from beneficial political organisations.

This sort of behaviour has a name: passive aggression. It’s not just the British who are passive aggressive; to varying degrees, everyone is, sometimes. Scott Wetzler, a New York psychiatrist whose research focuses on passive aggression, calls it ‘sugar-coated hostility’.

My Comment: When I conduct workshops with leaders to help them practice drama-free accountability, the question of passive aggressive employees inevitably comes up. This article is an in-depth, fun, and thought-provoking look at that passive aggressive behavior. It’s also a good reminder that while passive aggressive reactions might seem better than outright hostility, neither of them is a healthy response to frustration or disappointment. Far better to master the art of owning your emotions and having the necessary discussions held from a place of confident humility – particularly if you want to win well.

How to Include Remote Employees in Your Company Culture by Dr. Rick Goodman

It used to be that people who worked together were more or less always under the same roof, sharing office space for a good chunk of their days. Today, that’s less true. Thanks to advances in online communication and collaboration, it’s easier than ever for employers to hire remote workers, allowing them to get their tasks done from the comfort of their own home or apartment.

This can be mutually beneficial. Not only is working from home a great perk, and an effective way to attract top talents, but the right kind of employee can be far more productive and focused when working from home. Meanwhile, having a remote team can reduce overhead expenses. There is one downside, though, and it’s simply this: Having remote employees makes it much more difficult to build a coherent company culture.

My Comment: In many ways, creating a meaningful organizational culture and sense of team with people who don’t work in the same space is one of the fundamental workplace challenges. I do it myself (Karin and I wrote all of Winning Well living 1700 miles apart). Creating team, connection, and a healthy culture is possible, but it takes intentional effort. Dr. Goodman shares a few critical suggestions to get you started.

Does Your Leadership Bring Out the Best In Those You Lead? By Tanveer Naseer

Over the past few weeks, there’s been a noticeable uptick in leadership and management articles focusing on the topic of how leaders can ensure that they are providing a ‘safe’ environment for all of their employees. There’s little doubt that the rising interest in this topic is in response to the outcome of the recent presidential election in the United States.

While it’s unfortunate that we even have to consider or discuss such issues in today’s organizations, it does serve as a potent reminder of an even larger issue that affects all employees, and not just those who belong to a particular minority group. And that is, what kind of organizational climate are you helping or enabling to take root within your organization?

My Comment: This is an insightful article by Naseer. He highlights a trap I’ve observed many leaders step into: they ask whether or not they’re doing something bad eg: “Am I creating a toxic workplace?” When they answer ‘no’, they are satisfied. The problem is that avoiding toxicity doesn’t mean your building a healthy, productive, engaged team. Similarly, if you were to say “I’m not stifling creativity” that is a far cry from promoting a culture where new ideas flourish and improve everyone’s productivity and service. Providing a safe, hostility-free workplace isn’t enough – that alone won’t create success. Winning well requires you to focus on simultaneously achieving results and building relationships in all you do.

5 Ways to Tame a Bad Boss by Karin Hurt

“Greg” called to share his news, “You know that situation with my boss is going a lot better! I decided to go on the offense and just keep him over-informed. He loves it. Now he stays off my back and I can do my work.”

Bingo. Another “bad boss” tamed.

My Comment: This was the most popular post this week. (And small wonder…we’re all imperfect people so anyone with a human for a boss probably has a ‘bad boss’ at some point.) My co-author shares five ways you can improve the situation with all but the most horrible supervisors. There’s a tip here for everyone!

David works with leaders to get results without losing their soul (or mind) in the process. Have David keynote your next event or deliver corporate training: Email today or call 303.898.7018!

The post 5 Top Leadership Articles for the Week of December 12, 2016 appeared first on Leadership Speaker David Dye.

Book David today for your event, workshop, or training: david@trailblazeinc.com or 1.800.972.582

An Age of Miracles | David Dye’s Engage! | December 2016

An Age of Miracles

It’s hard to imagine – how did this happen?

This morning I had a wonderful meal. Shredded beef short rib, seasoned perfectly, served under an egg and covered by an excellent green chili. Music played overhead – a soulful, bluesy piece by B.B. King. While I savored the meal, I read a novel that I’d downloaded to my phone, paused to arrange a Christmas purchase with my mom, talked with my daughter Averie in Guatemala, and my sweetheart Karin in Maryland – all via text.

After breakfast I popped into a drugstore where I got an immunization to prevent influenza. I replenished my travel kit with a toothbrush and razor, before taking a beautiful, blustery walk in one of my favorite Denver parks. Then I drove to the airport and boarded a plane that, as I write this, is carrying me to Minnesota and North Dakota where I will share my expertise with people who need it and get to a visit a friend of many years.

I often say we live in an age of miracles.

Every one of my experiences today was once the exclusive experience of royalty or would have been viewed as devilish wizardry. A meal assembled from spices gathered around the world? World-class music played by one of the best? Near instant communication with loved ones? A quick shot to prevent an illness that killed millions? Two hours travel to make a trip that would have taken a week or two, weather permitting?

It’s not just that all these things exist. It’s the people that make them happen.

How many people were involved in creating this single day? The number must be in the tens, if not hundreds of thousands.

The people who grew the food I ate. Who cooked it. Who built the restaurant. Who engineered and built the electrical and natural gas systems that powered the restaurant. Who worked with King and recorded and distributed the music. Who researched immunizations. Who made the one I received. Who brought it to that drugstore? Who build the roads, the airplanes, the airport. Who assembled my phone. Who built and maintain the network that transmits my texts. Who drew the oil from the ground that became the toothbrush and razor. Who manufactured them. Who built and run the system that allows me to insert a bank card and transfer value from my account to theirs. Who…who…who…

The web of people responsible for…one…single…day is nearly unfathomable.

Even more amazing…nearly every one of those people responsible for my day had a choice. They didn’t have to do what they did. They could have chosen to do something else or nothing at all. No one had to invent the thousands of inventions that made today what it is. They chose to.

It’s astounding, isn’t it? Your life is the product of millions of decisions made by millions of people you will never meet.

What will your team choose to do? To be? To create?

Your future is our future. We will build it together, imperfectly, in fits and starts, threatened always by our fears, insecurities, and the question of whether we can truly grasp our universal condition. We’re all in the same boat – a boat called Earth.

That’s why I do what I do. And – it’s what you signed up for when you chose to lead.

Today, my wish for you from 30,000 feet: Enjoy the miracle that is (y)our existence.

Be the leader you want your boss to be,

David Dye

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Book David today for your event, workshop, or training: david@trailblazeinc.com or 1.800.972.582

5 Top Leadership Articles for the Week of December 5, 2016

 

In the past few days I’ve had several people tell me they’re giving Winning Well to a colleague, family member, or leader in their life. I love it – giving leaders the gift of a peaceful and productive next year!

Each week I read a number of leadership articles from various online resources and share them across social media. Here are the five articles readers found most valuable last week. I have added my comment about each article and would like to hear what you think, too.

The 3 Great Boss Secrets to Recognizing Employees by S. Chris Edmonds at SmartBrief

How many of you get enough praise on the job? I ask this question at nearly every keynote I deliver. The results are astounding. Less than 10% of audience members raise their hands!

My informal social research mirrors that of Tiny HR’s 2014 Employee Engagement and Organizational Culture Report, which found that only 21% of employees feel strongly valued at work.

My Comment: You get more of what you celebrate and encourage – less of what you criticize and ignore. In the video accompanying this article Edmonds shares three things servant leaders consistently do to recognize their employees. If you’re having trouble recognizing people, pay attention to what you’re looking for – do you look for people succeeding and doing well? Or are you only on the lookout for problems. You’ll tend to find what you look for.

The Key Steps to Creating an Ethical Workplace Culture by Emily Russen

We would all like to think that our employees know the difference between right and wrong in the workplace. But do your employees know where to turn in a crisis?

The truth is, even employees with the best moral compasses can find themselves in an ethical gray area. How does this happen? The culture that your organization creates can cause employees to cross an ethical line. Does the company pressure salespeople to close deals no matter what? Are your best employees in fear of losing their jobs over a minor slip up? There are enough opportunities for people to cross ethical lines — don’t let your company culture be one of them.

My Comment: Ethical lapses rarely happen suddenly or in a vacuum. More often, a series of small compromises blur the lines. “Just this once” happens over and over again until it’s the norm, not the exception. Russen gives you three ways to maintain an ethical culture in the organization and teams you lead.

Seven Organizational Culture Killers by Don MacPherson

Organizational culture is an amorphous, powerful thing. Creating a strong culture can take years. Dysfunctional cultures are often the culprits behind highly visible events such as a data breach, a CEO meltdown, or even a rude remark by a customer service representative caught on video and posted to social media.

My Comment: This is a straightforward and to-the-point list of characteristics that will ruin the positive culture you need in order to achieve lasting results. Arrogance…lack of clarity…values that only live in posters…and more.

Finding Your True Motivation? Start by Being Bored! 3 Ways to Get Started by Susan Fowler at Blanchard Leader Chat

When was the last time you had discretionary time on your hands, wondering what to do with a gift of time where nothing was planned or expected of you? If it wasn’t yesterday, then read on.

A summer morning stands out with vivid clarity in my mind. I was eight years old. My younger sister, Dee Dee, and I were up before our parents. We were excited to put on our new summer shorts and begin our day. But we were up so early, all our neighborhood friends were still sleeping. And we were bored.

That’s when something magical happened…

My Comment: Discretionary or ‘down time’ is not just an indulgence for children. It’s a necessary part of brain health and creativity. I almost never have break-through ideas while sitting at my computer. The real thinking and creativity happen while I’m running, hiking, or allowing myself to sit and think. Your way of taking downtime and allowing yourself space to discover what is meaningful may look different than mine, but find ways to do it – and watch your life and work improve.

4 Ways Coaching-Managers Lower Stress and Succeed With Tough Conversations by Dan Rockwell

#1 Have them quickly. Delay makes matters worse. Say what you see as soon as possible. If you’re concerned that you could be off base, say so. “I might be off base here, but here’s what I see…”

My Comment: When I’m promoting someone into a leadership position, I start with a foundation of a integrity and competence at their job. From there, the first skill I look for is the ability to hold tough conversations well. I believe this skill is that important to your leadership success. If you struggle to engage in tough or personal conversations with your people, Rockwell’s suggestions will significantly help.

David works with leaders to get results without losing their soul (or mind) in the process. Have David keynote your next event or deliver corporate training: Email today or call 303.898.7018!

The post 5 Top Leadership Articles for the Week of December 5, 2016 appeared first on Leadership Speaker David Dye.

Book David today for your event, workshop, or training: david@trailblazeinc.com or 1.800.972.582

5 Top Leadership Articles for the Week of November 28, 2016

Join us for a day of Winning Well and leave with a 2017 leadership action plan to make next year the best ever!

Each week I read a number of leadership articles from various online resources and share them across social media. Here are the five articles readers found most valuable last week. I have added my comment about each article and would like to hear what you think, too.

How to Build a Culture of Thanks In Today’s Workplace by Valerie Bolden-Barrett

Nineteenth century psychologist William James is quoted as saying: “The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated.” If he was right, then that might explain the widespread use and popularity of social media and why social recognition matters….

A Harvard Business Review survey of 1,000 employees weighed in on the actions they liked least in managers. The number one action that 63% of the employees liked least was not recognizing employees’ achievements. Not giving clear directions (57%) and not taking time to meet with employees (52%) were the second and third highest offenses in HBR’s Interact/Harrison Poll.

My Comment: I believe gratitude comes from the deep realization that no one has to do anything for you. And yet…they do. Your parents did (imperfectly, but they did.) Your employees do (imperfectly, but they do.) That’s what I mean when I say that everyone is a volunteer – everyone has a choice about what they will do and the energy they will expend. When you fully embrace this reality, you can’t help but to feel gratitude – and that will transform your leadership.

How Any Leader Can Kickstart and Land a Powerful Conversation by Dan Rockwell

You look for an escape when blabbing leaders arrive. But a leader skilled at powerful conversations is a thing of beauty. 10 questions to kickstart powerful conversations:

My Comment: This is a great list of questions to use as you spend time with your team and talk about their development, how you can lead effectively, and what’s going to make a real difference for them and their productivity. Both the opening and closing questions are fantastic.

Why Understanding Others is a Key Leadership Skill by Steffan Surdek

there’s great value in recognizing different perspectives in conversations because these enable us to hear and react to things very differently. One of my close friends often says: “Change how a situation occurs to you, change how you will respond to the situation.”

My Comment: Surdek’s observations about the power of grasping different perspectives are spot on. You’ll be so much more influential when you understand the view other people have of a particular situation and how to bridge the gaps in understanding. I often think this is a defining characteristic of a leader: your ability to see what others cannot and to help them become aware of what they did not perceive before. That is an incredibly powerful skill – and one that takes work to cultivate.

3 Ways to Keep Loyal Employees From Becoming Disengaged by Inah Mallare

Almost every company claims to prioritize Employee Engagement, that is usually just a catchphrase. The truth is, employers know that not everyone will be engaged, and they are counting on their resignation.

The truth hurts, however, that is how most companies roll. According to Investopedia, many companies do not understand why it is very important to keep employees engaged and motivated. Surely many of you have encountered being told “You’re lucky you have a job, so just do what you’re told” or “Then quit, I’m sure many people are desperate to find a job like yours.”

My Comment: One of the saddest experiences I have is to watch highly productive, loyal employees become disengaged, even bitter, as their insecure or oblivious managers suck the life out of them (sometimes intentionally!) Mallare’s suggestions shouldn’t be too surprising, but the vital element in #3: show them they matter, always bears repeating.

Your Employees Don’t Get Your Strategy by David Grossman

You’ve probably heard the story about two bricklayers. You ask one bricklayer what he’s doing and he says, “I’m building a wall.” You ask another and he says, “I’m building a castle.”

To drive performance, leaders need more employees who understand not just that they’re building a wall, but that they’re building a castle.

Research shows that helping employees understand strategy matters, yet we’re far away from both the wall and the castle. The stats show the reasons are many and varied, including that leaders struggle with how to do it.

My Comment: In Winning Well we spend a lot of time discussing the importance of clear expectations. Remember that expectations aren’t just about what we’re going to do – they’re also about why we’re doing it. The majority of the thousands of leaders I’ve worked with struggle with this connection. Can everyone in your organization describe what success looks like for your organization? One of the most important things you’ll ever do for your people is to give them clarity about what they’re doing and why they’re doing it.

David works with leaders to get results without losing their soul (or mind) in the process. Have David keynote your next event or deliver corporate training: Email today or call 303.898.7018!

The post 5 Top Leadership Articles for the Week of November 28, 2016 appeared first on Leadership Speaker David Dye.

Book David today for your event, workshop, or training: david@trailblazeinc.com or 1.800.972.582

5 Top Leadership Articles for the Week of November 21, 2016

Happy Thanksgiving to my readers in the United States. I appreciate you and the work you do to lead well! Karin and I also want to thank you for the tremendous support you’ve shown for Winning Well. It’s been a tremendous year and is just the start of more leadership for lasting breakthrough results without losing your soul!

Each week I read a number of leadership articles from various online resources and share them across social media. Here are the five articles readers found most valuable last week. I have added my comment about each article and would like to hear what you think, too.

Not My Decision – Constructive Responses to Workplace Decisions You Wouldn’t Have Made by Julie Winkle Giulioni

Last week, many Americans had a profound experience of what employees encounter routinely on the job: responding to a decision they don’t support but must still live with. In organizations worldwide, strategies are set, markets are selected, tactics are identified…and not everyone agrees with the direction.

When confronted with these situations, it’s easy for employees to feel powerless and out of control. Yet no matter the issue or the organizational level (of those deciding or those following in the wake of the decision), what remains well within each individual’s control is how he or she responds.

My Comment: This is such an important leadership skill: how to react, rally, and energize your team when a decision goes differently than you wanted. Giulioni shares vital foundational perspectives to help you stay focused and connected when things don’t go the way you wanted. This is also a fantastic read for people who aren’t in leadership roles – we’re all here at one time or another.

A Manager’s Guide to Preventing and Dealing with Workplace Conflict by Dan McCarthy

Most people can handle just about any amount and type of work that comes their way. It’s not the work that puts them over the edge – its conflict with coworkers!

Conflict in the workplace – or anywhere – is inevitable. Conflict is part of being human. Some people are more comfortable with it than others, and some people tend to be “conflict carriers”.

Ultimately, it’s part of a manager’s job to deal with workplace conflict head-on. Ignoring it will only make matters worse, and will eventually impact team productivity, results, employee satisfaction, and the manager’s reputation.

Here are some ways to manage workplace conflict, so that little problems don’t fester into BIG problems…

My Comment: This is one of those subjects that can drive you nuts. I hear this question frequently: “Why can’t they just work together and get their work done?”

The short answer is: because they don’t now how and/or they aren’t expected to in a meaningful way. McCarthy shares four principles to help you get started. I would add a vital fifth suggestion. If you want people to be able to resolve conflicts and collaborate, you’ve got to teach them how (or else hire people who have already demonstrated this ability in a wide range of circumstances. Most people simply never learn good tools for healthy discussions, conflict, and accountability. If you want them to have it, you have to provide it. Leaders frequently bring us in to their organization to help their managers and teams learn and practice these skills.

What Brain Science Says About How to Manage Your Time to Be More Successful by LaRae Quy

When I was deeply involved in an investigation, I could no longer efficiently manage my time. My workouts and journal writing would be among the first victims of my busy schedule. Time for maintaining friendships was the next to go, and finally, no time for reading, either.

I spent years thinking this was a normal reaction if I wanted to do everything in my power to stop criminals. I accepted the fact that a demanding job required trade-offs in the rest of my life.

Randi Zuckerberg called it the entrepreneur’s dilemma: “Maintaining friendships. Building a great company. Spending time w/family. Staying fit. Getting sleep. Pick 3.” To be successful, you must make sacrifices. Big ones.

My Comment: I empathize with this article in so many ways – as a former C-Suite leader, President of my own business, and nonprofit Board leader for many years, managing time is an essential skill to be effective, stay sane, and healthy. Quy shares suggestions that come from observations about how your brain works. From my personal experience, I know they work.

The 5 Employee Engagement Warning Signs by Kevin Sheridan

How confident are you that your employees are staying engaged? Here are five of the most common signs that employee engagement is waning…

My Comment: Productivity problems, absenteeism, poor quality, disconnected workers, increased accidents – if any of these sound familiar…you might have low employee engagement.

25 Leadership Lessons from Millionaire Business Owners by John Rampton at Entrepreneur

Despite your expertise, skills and education, nothing can prepare you for becoming a business leader. There’s a lot of trial and error and on-the-job-training that you’ll experience as you grow your business.

I’ve been a business owner for almost 10 years now. Over the years I’ve made my fair share of mistakes including several that cost me actually running the business in the way I wanted. Lucky for me, I don’t have to make those same mistakes again.

To help you run your business a lot smoother, here are 25 leadership lessons from millionaire business owners so that you don’t have to make the same mistakes we have.

My Comment: Whether you’re a business owner or a front line leader in a bigger organization, the 25 tips in this article are great suggestions to help you build energized, motivated teams that get more done.

Bonus Article: Why Do So Many Leaders Suck? By David Dye

This week the most popular article by a wide margin was my look at why we have so many sub-par leaders in the work place when we know there are better ways to lead. I share ten reasons why leaders get themselves in trouble – not so you can figure out what’s wrong with a leader in your life, but so you can ensure you don’t fall victim to these same traps.

Be the leader you want your boss to be!

-David

David works with leaders to get results without losing their soul (or mind) in the process. Have David keynote your next event or deliver corporate training: Email today or call 303.898.7018!

The post 5 Top Leadership Articles for the Week of November 21, 2016 appeared first on Leadership Speaker David Dye.

Book David today for your event, workshop, or training: david@trailblazeinc.com or 1.800.972.582

Why Do So Many Leaders Suck? | David Dye’s Engage! | November 2016

Imagine that you’ve just completed your team meeting to wrap up the first quarter of 2017. You did it. You hit your goals. The team is energized. You look at your team and you see smiles, pride, even laughter. Then, as you’re packing up, the most skeptical team member, the one who started the year with their arms crossed, walks up to you, shakes your hand, smiles, and says, “Wow, I didn’t think we could do it. But we did—and we even had fun along the way. I get it now. Thank you.”

If you’ve ever dreamed of being a leader who gets results, that people respect, and who people want to follow, then this first ever Winning Well Impact live event is perfect for you. Taught by industry experts who wrote the book, you will learn how to learn the secrets of creating energized, productive teams who achieve breakthrough results.

Click here to learn more and register!

Why Do So Many Leaders Suck?

It happens every time.

I’d just wrapped up a keynote speech with nearly a thousand frontline leaders, middle level managers, and executives. Their energy to practice Winning Well leadership with their teams was palpable. The line to talk formed quickly and the most frequent question was one I’ve heard nearly every time I speak:

“David, everything your saying makes sense and I want to do it with my team. But if it works, why are there so many lousy leaders out there?”

It’s an important question to answer. Karin and I believe in Winning Well. We have lived it. I have transformed multiple organizations through the principles and practices we share. So has Karin. We know it works.

And yet…

Scott Adams continues to be able to write Dilbert – a comic strip founded on the shared misery of poor business leadership.
The ranks of executives are filled with narcissists
Employee engagement continues to hover barely over 30%

Bad leadership is a fact – but if there’s a better way, why don’t we see more of it?

Why Leaders Suck (and What to Do About It)

I’ve personally trained, mentored, and coached thousands of business managers. In my experience, these are the most common reasons leaders struggle:

1) Lack of confidence

When leaders take our Winning Well assessment, the most common outcome we see are leaders who want to get along and be liked. When you try to lead from a desire to be liked, you’ll end up compromising your values, aren’t sure how to speak the truth effectively, and don’t set an audacious, energizing vision for fear of being laughed at, ignored, or overwhelming your people.

In contrast, when you have the confidence to lead, you create clarity and security for your people, you energize them with a future that’s exciting and makes them better because it’s bigger than they are. That’s attractive and something people want (and need).

2) Lack of humility

One of my early leadership mentors was fond of saying, “Never believe your own press release.” I love this maxim – the most effective leaders connect with people authentically because they are connected to themselves.

Humility doesn’t mean you’re a door mat. Quite the opposite: humility requires the courage to invite challenges to your thinking, to admit when you’re wrong, and to recognize the dignity, strength, and worth of every person.

3) Inattention to results

Your team exists to achieve results. Otherwise, what’s the point? Those results might be design and build a product or to deliver a service. You might be a private boutique business, a small nonprofit, or a large government department. Regardless, there are results you need to achieve.

However, it’s very common for managers and leaders to lose sight of the real reason their team exists. They get caught up in the day-to-day business that plagues us and soon lose sight of what matters most. In my work, I’ve found that you cannot repeat your purpose often enough. Every day, twice a day if needed. Both for you and for your team. Keep results front and center.

4) Inattention to relationships

Leaders make two common mistakes with regard to relationships: either they fail to connect with their people as human beings (treating them like machines rather than people) or they spend time trying to make people happy and be liked, rather than respected.

Effective leaders treat people with dignity, they connect to individuals as human beings, they collaborate, and invest in their most important asset, helping team members to grow and thrive.

5) Lack of accountability

Early in my career, one of my frontline colleagues had a saying, “Everyone’s accountable to someone.” I’ve amended his mantra to be: “Everyone’s accountable to someone – or should be.”

Leaders who don’t have to make account of their resources, their behavior, and their decisions are prone to the corruptions that often come with power. In contrast, when you create transparent accountability where your team can hold you accountable, your supervisor or Board knows what you’re up to and why, you keep yourself safe from many of this pitfalls.

6) Lack of courage

Many leaders live in fear – fear of failure, fear of disappointing their team, or fear of their own boss or board. You just can’t lead that way. Fear paralyzes and prevents you from making good decisions and giving your people the confidence they need to rally and focus.

If this describes you, try asking yourself, “What would a person with courage do in this situation?” Then try doing that. Find your courage by adopting it.

7) Lack of skill

I hope you would never put a front-line employee to work with no training and expect them to succeed.

And yet, this happens with managers all the time. I’ve seen studies suggesting that just over half of managers are put in their jobs without any specific management or leadership training.

That is unforgivable. We would never entrust a cash register or heavy equipment to an untrained employee and yet it happens all the time with your most important asset – your people.

If you feel inadequately trained to lead and manage your team, you’re not alone. A recent Forbes article suggests that 98% of managers believe managers in their company need more training in order to be effective.

The takeaway – if you’re a leader, make sure you master the skills to lead and manage effectively. (Wondering where to start? Can I humbly suggest Winning Well?)

And if you’re promoting people into positions of leadership and management, for goodness sake: Train Them! Get them the skills they need to succeed. Don’t have a budget? You can afford a book – study one chapter at a time. No excuses – take responsibly and make sure your people are capable and competent to work with your most valuable resource.

8) Lack of awareness

These are leaders who don’t know what’s really happening – in the organization, in themselves, or on their team. This lack of awareness is crippling. I’ve watched leaders buckle under the weight of the truth about themselves and their own effectiveness when confronted with a strong 360 degree evaluation.

In contrast, the strongest leaders have their finger on the pulse of the organization, their team, and their own effectiveness. They don’t shy away from the truth. They have the courage to confront the truth as it is, not as they wish it would be.

9)  Lack of Focus

In our always-on, hyper connected world it is easy to get overwhelmed and paralyzed, feeling as though everything is a priority. Leaders who live here are reactive, running from crisis to crisis, unable to make meaningful forward progress toward what matters most.

Effective leaders know there will never be enough time to do everything they could (or even want to) do. Every day they identify their MIT (Most Important Thing) and ensure they do what matters most before allowing the distractions of the day to derail them.

10) Self-Centered

Leaders who take the job primarily for pride, power, or purse always struggle. Those reasons are about you. They have nothing to do with your team or your team’s purpose.

Effective leaders prioritize their people and their purpose in all their decisions. There’s nothing wrong with feelings of pride or a bigger paycheck, but if you want to inspire and energize your people, those can’t be the main reasons you lead.

Your Turn

Imagine a time when your children or your grand children can read a Dilbert cartoon and not understand why it’s funny. When they read it and are confused: “That’s weird. Why would anyone act like that?” When healthy leadership that comes from confidence and humility is the norm. Where results and relationships hold equal weight in every discussion and decision.

There’s only one way we get there…

You.

Yes you – when you commit to Winning Well yourself. When you hold yourself accountable, get the feedback you need, and when you pay attention to (and reward) both the results your people get and how they get them.

When you commit to that journey and then bring other leaders with you – that’s how we create the future we want.

Thousands of leaders have committed to Winning Well already, will you?

Be the leader you want your boss to be,

David Dye

The post Why Do So Many Leaders Suck? | David Dye’s Engage! | November 2016 appeared first on Leadership Speaker David Dye.

Book David today for your event, workshop, or training: david@trailblazeinc.com or 1.800.972.582

5 Top Leadership Articles for the Week of November 14, 2016

Imagine that you’ve just completed your team meeting to wrap up the first quarter of 2017. You did it. You hit your goals. The team is energized. You look at your team and you see smiles, pride, even laughter. Then, as you’re packing up, the most skeptical team member, the one who started the year with their arms crossed, walks up to you, shakes your hand, smiles, and says, “Wow, I didn’t think we could do it. But we did—and we even had fun along the way. I get it now. Thank you.”

If you’ve ever dreamed of being a leader who gets results, that people respect, and who people want to follow, then this first ever Winning Well Impact live event is perfect for you. Taught by industry experts who wrote the book, you will learn how to learn the secrets of creating energized, productive teams who achieve breakthrough results.

Click here to learn more and register!

Each week I read a number of leadership articles from various online resources and share them across social media. Here are the five articles readers found most valuable last week. I have added my comment about each article and would like to hear what you think, too.

How to Design a Company Culture That Fulfills Both Business and Employee Goals by Andrew Fayad

If you google “workplace culture,” you’ll find hundreds of articles and resources on why it’s important, how to build a better culture, and tons of examples of companies that are “doing it right.” But when you pull back the curtain on employee happiness, the truth remains that 16% of millennials are considered “actively disengaged” and likely to do some damage at work as a result, according to Gallup. As leaders, we should ask ourselves, “What can I do to help cultivate employee happiness in my business?”

My Comment: Your organization has a culture – the question is whether or not its an intentional culture that aligns with the work you do and the results you want to achieve. Fayad shares how he and his leadership team built a positive leadership culture. Two of his tips that I would particularly highlight: first, hire for fit. You can’t teach values and personality. People bring those things with them. Make sure you’re getting people who will contribute to the culture you want to build. Second, ‘on-the-ground’ leadership. Simply put, you’ve got to be connected to your people , the reality of their daily work life, and have meaningful, regular face to face contact.

How to Clear Your Head and Boost Your Productivity by Dr. Rick Goodman

When you run a business or lead a team, you’ve always got a thousand things on your mind. There is always much to juggle—issues that need to be addressed, obstacles to overcome, goals to achieve, people to connect with, appointments to keep… the list goes on and on.

It’s enough to create some serious mental congestion in your head. See, all of those balls you’re keeping in the air can effectively cause a traffic jam in your mind. You may sit down to do your work but find that it’s hard to let a creative thought through; you’re too focused on all the day-to-day stuff that you’re supposed to keep track of.

My Comment: As a business owner I can certainly vouch for the feeling of ‘mental congestion’ and overwhelm that will prevent you from being successful at leading your team and achieving lasting results. Dr. Goodman offers straightforward suggestions that will help. Among them: don’t begin your day with email. In Winning Well we suggest identifying your MIT (Most Important Thing) and doing that first if at all possible. Distractions are inevitable; focus is a choice.

Elections End, But Your Life’s Work Does Not by James daSilva at SmartBrief

You may have noticed, SmartBrief on Leadership takes a slightly different approach than the Trumpian style. We’re a bit quieter, and we spend most of our energy emphasizing that leadership, communication and self-development is a never-ending journey, requiring persistent work and reflection. If we’re doing our jobs correctly, we’re a companion guide to you throughout your daily work.

The presidential election’s outcome doesn’t change that mission or its importance — and it wouldn’t have affected what we do had Clinton won (or Evan McMullin in the craziest timeline). Here’s why:

My Comment: As the US election entered its final days, you may have wondered what the race for President had to say about your leadership or the leadership you see in your organizations. I’ve had many conversations with people concerned that one candidate or the other’s approach contradicted and undermined the healthy, positive leadership principles that I share and that are the key to lasting results. daSilva does an excellent job drawing the distinction between elections and day-to-day business leadership while encouraging us to stay focused on what matters for you, your team, and your purpose.

Why Employee Experience Trumps Company Culture by Sarah White

There’s been a lot of talk about engagement in the workplace — whether or not employees are happy and satisfied, and what that means for their work performance. In a two-year study of the American Workplace, Gallup found that as much as 70 percent of the U.S. workforce is not engaged at work. This isn’t a recent trend, either. The report indicates that over the past 15 years, engagement has consistently held under 33 percent.

Engagement is often tied to company culture — the idea being that providing the right perks and environment for your workers will boost engagement. But the stats suggest that the past few years of focusing on company culture hasn’t done much to boost engagement. That’s why Aye Moah, chief of product at Boomerang, a company focused on productivity software, suggests backing off company culture and focusing on the “employee experience.”

My Comment: This article was the most contentious – several readers noted that experience derives directly from culture so it isn’t that helpful to say the outcome is more important than its cause. That said, there are good point to be made here: it’s not about the perks, it’s about connection.

The Fraud Who Isn’t by Carlin Flora

Fifteen years ago, when Kate* started graduate school at an Ivy League university, her ID card didn’t always successfully swipe to let her into the buildings, and she decided that something more than a technical glitch was to blame. “I had this jokey narrative that the school was trying to tell me I didn’t belong,” she recalls. “Everyone was talking about Noam Chomsky. I didn’t even know who he was! When my mom came to visit, I cried and told her I wasn’t smart enough to be there.”

Kate in fact graduated with high grades and now works at Google. Yet the gnawing notion that she’s not good enough and that she’s bound to be exposed as the impostor she really is—or rather that she thinks she is—has haunted her every step of the way. Paradoxically, she tends to aim high, putting herself in situations that exacerbate that very feeling. “Every time I embark on a new challenge, I think, ‘Why do I keep doing this to myself?’” she says. Her sense of being unworthy of her own accomplishments pushes her to work harder and to excel. But, she says, “it also makes me insecure and annoying.”

My Comment: In Winning Well we emphasize the role that confidence plays in leading for lasting results. However, many of the most effective leaders I’ve ever met have wrestled with feeling like they weren’t up to the task, that they were a fraud, and that people would realize it at any moment. Flora takes an in depth look at what causes these feelings of being an imposter and how you can overcome them to practice the confidence it takes to lead well. If it’s been a while, you might revisit my article: What To Do When You Feel Like a Fraud

David works with leaders to get results without losing their soul (or mind) in the process. Have David keynote your next event or deliver corporate training: Email today or call 303.898.7018!

The post 5 Top Leadership Articles for the Week of November 14, 2016 appeared first on Leadership Speaker David Dye.

Book David today for your event, workshop, or training: david@trailblazeinc.com or 1.800.972.582

5 Top Leadership Articles for the Week of November 7, 2016

Imagine that you’ve just completed your team meeting to wrap up the first quarter of 2017. You did it. You hit your goals. The team is energized. You look at your team and you see smiles, pride, even laughter. Then, as you’re packing up, the most skeptical team member, the one who started the year with their arms crossed, walks up to you, shakes your hand, smiles, and says, “Wow, I didn’t think we could do it. But we did—and we even had fun along the way. I get it now. Thank you.”

If you’ve ever dreamed of being a leader who gets results, that people respect, and who people want to follow, then this first ever Winning Well Impact live event is perfect for you. Taught by industry experts who wrote the book, you will learn how to learn the secrets of creating energized, productive teams who achieve breakthrough results.

Click here to learn more and register!

Each week I read a number of leadership articles from various online resources and share them across social media. Here are the five articles readers found most valuable last week. I have added my comment about each article and would like to hear what you think, too.

3 Important Lessons Leaders Can Learn from Success by Tanveer Naseer

If there’s one attribute organizations and leaders everywhere share in common, it’s the pursuit to achieve success in their collective efforts. Granted, there is quite a large variance in terms of how each organization chooses to define what success would look like for them. But there’s little question that – at the end of the day – all of us are driven by the need to know that we’ll one day achieve success through our contributions and efforts.

Of course, there’s another aspect to success that many of us share in common and that is what do we do once we achieve that success? And by this, I’m not referring to how we choose to acknowledge or celebrate this accomplishment. Rather, I’m referring to that moment when the dust settles and we look with pride at what we’ve attained and find ourselves stuck with that lingering question – so, what do we do now?

If you look at any successful organization, you can see the answer they share in common: the focus tends to be on how to replicate both the conditions and measures they took that allowed them to achieve this successful outcome.

My Comment: If there’s one place my clients and audiences frequently overlook when they’re looking for how to succeed, it’s their own success. It’s a common leadership blind spot. You can take success for granted rather than examining your success and what it has to teach you. Especially pay attention to things that went better than you thought they would – often there is very meaningful learning waiting for you there.

Firing Someone Is a Human Decision by Joe Badaracco

An unfortunate part of a manager’s job is having to let underperforming employees go. Knowing when and how to take that step with the best interests of all parties in mind—the company, the employee, and your own—is a difficult task. Professor Joe Badaracco discusses the best ways to make hard decisions and deliver bad news, pulling from his case “Two Tough Calls” and his new book, Managing in the Gray.

My Comment: In Winning Well we share our belief that termination for cause can (even should) be an act of compassion and an investment in another human being. It is often emotionally challenging because of our need to belong, be thought well of, and desire to be kind. However, allowing someone to continue underperforming or creating a negative workplace is neither kind, nor caring – not for them, not for the team, and ultimately, not for you either.

Is Your Team Too Busy To Make Good Decisions? by Jack Quarles

You’re busy; I’m busy; we’re all busy. That’s life in the big city — and the small town — and it’s not likely to change. But the way we perceive and handle busyness has a profound impact on our lives and success….The common claim “We’re too swamped to deal with that now” and how it costs time, money and opportunity. Paradoxically, this dodge often makes us busier.

My Comment: If you often find yourself overwhelmed with decisions, paralyzed by a quagmire of unresolved choices, or bogged down by fear of getting it wrong, Quarles article offers direct, no-punches-pulled advice to help you decide more quickly and move on. Making a decision is an exercise in optimizing your information and action. In this political season, I’m reminded of voters who remain undecided one day before the US Presidential election. No more information is going to help (or you should have sought it out by now). It’s time to make a choice and move forward.

Who Leads Next? What Every Employer Needs to Know to Develop Your Gen-Y Leaders by Michael Teoh, Karin Hurt, and David Dye

Your organization’s future depends on capable, motivated leadership. Even so, most middle level managers and executive leaders spend very little time cultivating their younger talent for leadership responsibilities.

My Comment: This video is the second in a series of webinars that Michael, Karin, and I are delivering regarding how to invest in and get the most productive millennial team members. The focus here is developing your younger employees into leaders. We give you specific techniques you can use to energize, maintain enthusiasm, and channel impatience into leadership skills.

Stop the Leadership Negligence by David Dye

This article was the most popular piece I shared this week. In it, I address one of the biggest problems we have with management and business leadership. We would never give a chainsaw to an employee without training them how to use it skillfully and safely. And yet – we do give leaders and managers the most valuable asset there is – often without any training at all.

David works with leaders to get results without losing their soul (or mind) in the process. Have David keynote your next event or deliver corporate training: Email today or call 303.898.7018!

The post 5 Top Leadership Articles for the Week of November 7, 2016 appeared first on Leadership Speaker David Dye.

Book David today for your event, workshop, or training: david@trailblazeinc.com or 1.800.972.582

Stop the Leadership Negligence

Thank you to all who have supported our Winning Well movement— blending the bottom line with the human spirit by using Winning Well to improve your team’s performance, writing an Amazon review, or spreading the word with those who could benefit from our tools.  We’re honored to share that Winning Well has been recognized by CEO-Reads as one of the top 5 books on management and workplace culture.

“While speed, innovation, big data, and disruption are the business buzzwords of the day, the best books of 2016 argue for a more considered and considerate, human-centered, inclusive, and deliberately constructive approach to business. Change is in the air and technology is on the rise, but business is still a human pursuit, and should be humane. In a media climate dominated by Twitterstorms and sound bites, it is important to dive deeper into the issues and inform ourselves more fully before taking action. These books help do that.” -Editorial Director Dylan Schleicher

Unforgivable?

This drives me nuts.

Imagine handing someone a chainsaw and asking them to use it – without showing them how to operate it safely. Or hiring a student fresh from classes to operate your cash register – and never teaching them how to use it.

Get the idea? The consequences would be grave and you’d soon be out of a job.

I hope you would never put a front-line employee to work with no training and expect them to succeed.

And yet, this happens with managers all the time. I’ve seen studies suggesting that just over half of managers are put in their jobs without any specific management or leadership training.

That is pure negligence.

We would never entrust a cash register or heavy equipment to an untrained employee and yet it happens all the time with your most important asset – your people. That’s gross negligence. And we wonder why employee engagement is so low?

If you feel inadequately trained to lead and manage your team, you’re not alone. A recent Forbes article suggests that 98% of managers believe managers in their company need more training in order to be effective.

The takeaway? If you’re a leader, make sure you master the skills to lead and manage effectively. (Wondering where to start? This is exactly why Karin and I wrote Winning Well – to give you and your leaders the practical skills you need to get transformational results.)

And if you’re promoting people into positions of leadership and management, for goodness sake: Train Them!

No Excuses

Give them the skills they need to succeed. Don’t have a budget? You can afford a book or two – study one chapter at a time together.

Don’t have time? I don’t buy it. You have time to make sure the person knows how to operate the chainsaw or cash register. If it’s important to you, you’ll make the time. (And understand, you may not see the blood the way you would with a chainsaw accident, but your people are bleeding when you put them in the hands of an untrained manager.)

No excuses – take responsibly and make sure your leaders are capable and competent to work with your most valuable resource: your people.

Anything else is just plain dumb.

Be the leader you want your boss to be,

David

David works with leaders to get transformational results without losing their soul (or mind) in the process. Have David keynote your next event or corporate training: Email today or call 303.898.7018!

The post Stop the Leadership Negligence appeared first on Leadership Speaker David Dye.

Book David today for your event, workshop, or training: david@trailblazeinc.com or 1.800.972.582

5 Top Leadership Articles for the Week of October 31, 2016

 

 

Your organization’s future depends on capable, motivated leadership. Even so, most middle level managers and executive leaders spend very little time cultivating their younger talent for leadership responsibilities. We hear these complaints all the time: “My millennial’s want to lead, but don’t want to do the work.” Or “There’s no loyalty – I can’t get anyone to stay long enough to train them.” Or “They’ve been here six weeks and get impatient when they’re promoted to management.”

The good news is that you have fantastic leaders in the ranks of your millennial talent. Your younger leaders can be an incredible source of talent, innovation, and productivity. 

Register Here

Join three internationally recognized leadership experts for a conversation about developing your millennial leaders. You’ll walk away with:

How to build a culture that develops leaders before they have titled responsibility.
Ways to talk with your younger talent to keep them engaged and bought in to the development process.
Key mistakes to avoid – don’t push your leaders out the door!
A process to identify and draw out the best from your emerging leaders.
And specific answers to your questions!

We are excited to combine experience, wisdom and perspectives from across generations – and across the world.

Michael Teoh (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia)  is the Founder of Thriving Talents, a ‘Millennials-focused’ Talent Development company which delivers training and consultancy for Fortune 500 companies across 39 countries, in the areas of Attracting, Managing, Retaining & Motivating Millennials. He has shared the stage with other notable business icons like Sir Richard Branson, Sir Bob Geldof and even presented a workshop in the presence of President Barack Obama. 

Karin Hurt (Baltimore, MD) is a top leadership consultant and CEO of Let’s Grow Leaders. A former Verizon Wireless executive, she was named to Inc. Magazine’s list of great leadership speakers.? 

David Dye (Denver, CO) is a leadership keynote speaker, former nonprofit executive, elected official, award-winning author, and president of Trailblaze, Inc., a leadership training and consulting firm. Karin and David co-authored Winning Well: A Manager’s Guide to Getting Results Without Losing Your Soul.

Register Here

PS: This webinar is completely free – there is no charge and we’ll deliver real content (not an hour long sales pitch…we hate those as much as you do!)

Welcome to this Halloween roundup! Each week I read a number of leadership articles from various online resources and share them across social media. Here are the five articles readers found most valuable last week. I have added my comment about each article and would like to hear what you think, too.

Leadership Effectiveness (or its absence) Starts At the Top by S. Chris Edmonds

What is your leadership team’s “reason for being” today? Whether your organization is a small business, a global multinational, a division of a larger company, or anything in between, your leadership team has a focus, whether it’s formalized or not.

The vast majority of leadership teams I observe see their primary focus as boosting results, helping the organization’s products and services find success in the marketplace.

Results are a good thing, but delivering promised results is only half the leader’s job. The other half? Creating workplace sanity, creativity, and trust, between and among leaders, team members, and customers, every day.

My Comment: Culture is the engine that drives your business results and no one does a better job of getting to the bottom line of culture and helping you practically address your team’s culture than Edmonds. If you’re looking for practical solutions, check out The Culture Engine (as well as the video in this article).

Five Irrefutable Paradoxes of Leadership by Andreas Jones at Forbes

When we picture someone who is a leader, we tend to imagine a certain kind of person. Certainly, the so-called “Type-A” personality is high on the list — someone who might be called a perfectionist or hard-charging. We imagine someone who is supremely confident in their own abilities, makes decisions quickly and works fast; someone who occasionally seems arrogant in their self-confidence and who consistently succeeds in whatever they try to do.

The paradox of leadership is that sometimes actual leaders have to embrace qualities that don’t come naturally to them. In this article, we will explore the five paradoxes of leadership and look at how they can make you a more effective leader.

My Comment: This article includes five observations about what great leaders do that often seem counterintuitive to newer or less effective leaders. In my experience working with thousands of leaders across industries, nearly every leader gets caught in one or two of these paradoxes. This is a great list to read through and look for your own inclinations.

Teachable Moments: Learning to Win Well the Hard Way by Karin Hurt

When I told “John” what I did for a living, he chuckled. “Oh, I learned how to be a good leader the hard way.”

Don’t we all.

It’s often our most klutsy moves that teach us how to Win Well.

Here is “John’s” story…

My Comment: John provides a fantastic look at one of the best resources you’ll ever have to be a fantastic leader: your team. Ask them the questions about what they know. Get their input and solutions. Frame the problem, establish success criteria, and enlist their aid. You’ll be amazed at what they can do!

Grit: Why Talent Needs Drive to Succeed an Interview with Angela Duckwork by Knowledge @ Wharton

Knowledge@Wharton: Could you talk about grit affecting our successes? Where did the idea have its genesis?

Angela Duckworth: I could date it back to being a teacher, teaching math in the New York City public schools and seeing many kids. Just by sitting next to them and talking to them at lunch time, you knew they were smart enough to learn everything that you needed to teach them, but still weren’t succeeding [and] weren’t fulfilling that potential. I could date my interest in grit to that point, but it would be probably more complete if I dated it to childhood. I grew up with a father who was obsessed with achievement and I think I may [have] modeled or inherited an interest in what makes people successful from him.

My Comment: If you haven’t already encountered Duckworth’s work on ‘grit’ – the ability to stick-to-it and get back up, it’s well worth your time. In this article, the interview discusses the differing roles that talent and drive play in your success. In my experience, people with great drive and middling talent outperform people with great talent but middling drive. Duckworth makes the same point – drive, determination, and stick-to-it character make a huge difference in your personal and leadership success. The good news is that these are behaviors that can be learned.

Are You Asking Stupid Questions? by Mary Kelly, PhD

Are your leaders asking stupid questions? If they are, they will likely get stupid answers when they do get answers, and they will believe the answers.

Leaders like the illusion that if they walk around and ask employees questions that generate single syllable answers, they are being a good leader. For many managers, this satisfies what they perceive as doing what they need to do to find out what is really going on in the organization. They are wrong.

Most organizational leaders ask questions that don’t elicit any real information. These are common exchanges. Note that no real information is exchanged…

My Comment: Kelly gives great examples of questions that you might ask that do nothing for you as a leader. They certainly don’t contribute to results and they don’t really do anything to build results either. She follows up with great examples of the kind of questions you can ask that will help your team be more productive and solve real problems. Don’t waste your precious time with questions that don’t accomplish anything.

David works with leaders to get results without losing their soul (or mind) in the process. Have David keynote your next event or deliver corporate training: Email today or call 303.898.7018!

The post 5 Top Leadership Articles for the Week of October 31, 2016 appeared first on Leadership Speaker David Dye.

Book David today for your event, workshop, or training: david@trailblazeinc.com or 1.800.972.582